Kerala

I didn't want to go too off-topic. We were only here for a few hours. Wet and windy pre-Christmas Scandi weather. Very Nordic vibes The lights streaming towards the 2 o'clock position are the funicular tram. The seafront's painted houses stretch back quite a long way with old rickety wood and brick structures. Now mainly shops, bars and hotels, I imagine in the past they would have been involved in various fishing service activities.

We find ourselves in Bergen, Norway. My dinner was turbot with trout caviar, wilted spinach, pine nuts, sun-dried tomatoes and a green sauce, possibly a very mild pesto. The missus had fish and chips, which she rated 9.5 Truly outstanding. The battery was crisp, strongly seasoned, and the fish was very moist and tender. We ate at the fish market on the harbour front: I wish I had several days just to eat my way through this place! Lovely people, too!

Why not go All American? Chicken wings and other Superbowl stuff?

My mother in law made an egg dish with yoghurt, flavoured with toasted ground sesame seeds. Very Nepalese, I remember she always did these at "parties." I usually bake the eggs with the biriyani, but MiL was keen to get involved, and it made for a bit of variety. Nice.

Lamb biriyani From the Dishoom cookbook. I've increased the meat ratio, but flavours stay consistent. Here's a bit of the prep We had a small crowd over for dinner last night. This went down so well!

That's quite a plate. I've never put crisps (as we call them in the UK) on a plate of curry, although I do think chips ( British English) with curry is one of the great serendipities of the 20th century. I'll try the crisps. Plain boiled beans with curry? I'm not sold. "He likes to cook this curry and I like to eat it" sounds like a great arrangement! Happy times!

I've never done that from frozen, @rotuts. Looks way too easy! This is my standard chicken drumsticks prep. Cheffed the tendons, deep cuts on the flesh as they were rather large pieces. Salt, pepper, ras el hanout, EVOO. 20 minutes at 200C.

Sainsburys supermarket posh line. "Taste the difference." I don't know if I've posted this one before. It's expensive for a supermarket brand so I'm a bit begrudging. I have to say, it's very, very good. Different to the Portuguese boutique tins, maybe better. Clean, firm flakes, not fishy, and a fuller taste to the olive oil.

Sardine tins can be beautiful works of design. I don't know la belle-iloise, but that packaging is striking!

@Bhukhhad It's straight forward, but as always there are pitfalls and subtleties. My sister loved it, but correctly identified it as a Christian variant because it had garlic in it. We were lucky enough to find them fresh that day. It's really not that easy, but I guess it depends where in the UK you are.

@haresfurThis sounds like Rangiri cutting technique. I came upon it down some eGullet-inspired rabbit hole. It lets you have uneven but similarly sized pieces. I use it in stews because it just looks nicer than boring old carrot coins. Funnily enough I haven't used it in stir fries, but I will now!

I bought an Anova stick after reading the enthusiasm here. I liked what it could do and bought one each for my two sisters. Then I realized how much plastic I was using. I haven't used sous vide for at least 4 years, mainly because I don't like all that plastic waste.

I've only used minced lamb in shepherds pie.. However the whole preparation you have done is much more complex than I would do. Personally I wouldn't try that with lamb, because I'm trying to make a specific dish, but I think with chicken you might be onto a winner. Looks fairly foolproof so it could be perfect for one of our large family meals over Xmas! I'd call it "chicken and mash pie."

That looks really great, and I'm tempted to make that myself. But, I'll be the one to say it today, that's no shepherds pie!

There are lots of different approaches, it seems, but I used this from Shaan Geo. I halved the quantities involved, so 500g of lemons. It should ideally be ripe yellow limes, but we don't really see them in the UK. The video has English sub-titles. For ease of reference, the quantities he uses are: 1kg limes, cut into 8ths 8 tablespoons (100g) salt 150g garlic cloves, peeled and halved 3/4 of a cup of coconut oil 2 teaspoons of mustard seeds 2 teaspoons of fenugreek seeds 3/4 of a cup of ginger cut to matchsticks 30 medium green chillies or 100g bird's eye chillies 6 tablespoons of sugar 2 tablespoons of vinegar curry leaves 3/4 teaspoon of turmeric I pretty much followed him cut-for-cut, and the whole thing was easy and straight-forward. Everyone was happy with the results: sour, salty, sweet, hot, herby. He says put aside for at least 5days in an air-tight container. I made it about 2 weeks before our Onam get-together.