Duvel

Et tu, brute ?!

Tonight easy-peasy Japanesy ... Flash-fried edamame with soy & butter ... Braised daikon with miso-meat sauce ... Cured herring with ponzu ... Aubergine nanbanzuke ... Yakitori Happy faces all over 🤗

That looks pretty good - its just regular polenta, no binders added ? What temperature do you bake this for how long ?

As predicted, the pork belly from lunch was all mine by dinner. So, a no-fuss pork belly sandwich, moistened with the super-condensed onion-y drippings, mustard and pickles. Yum !

I found a small cured pork belly in the freezer and decided to roast it low & slow ... And, in order to fit it into the tiny glass form, I had to trim it generously and made steam-fried dumplings with the leftovers and cabbage ... At the end, I will have to eat the full pork belly by myself, as my family went exclusively for the dumplings 😉

Reverse seared steak with char-grilled parmesan-crusted zucchini ...

Whiskey, sugar, bitters ...

Tonight our usual three pizza varieties, accompanied by the lovely “Ponyo” of Studio Ghibli ... “Hawaii” with pineapple and smoked lardons ... Mushroom & bolognese sauce - this was very, very good ... 4 Cheeses, coppa & basil

When I do LC, my weekly dinners feature heavily cauliflower crust pizza (& derivatives) ...

For me it is not the chili, it is the Sichuan pepper ... it’s like the Khmer Rouge invading you lower intestines and the intestinal fools surrender and retract 😱

With Sichuan food, that is typically the next day ..

But only from your limited perspective 😜 “Swimming with the fishes” was a phrase originally coined in Mesopotamia (at around the same time that Schweinshaxe was invented) and referred to the annual salmon* migration up the Euphrates ... *Salmon was native to the Fertile Crescent, until the Mongols came and took them to Norway.

In German its „riding a dead horse“. Makes one wonder how the original expression in ancient Mongolian was 😜 ...

I overheard someone mentioning that riding a dead horse is Mongolian in origin, but now a global phenomenon ...

Neolithic, my friend, neolithic ... God knows what they have consumed in my area, when the cradle of civilization was enjoying the dung-spiced gruel ...

Everybody knows that Schweinshaxe, a beloved German staple, can be traced back to neolithic Mesopotamia , where it began as a simple millet gruel spiced with dried scraps of dung. Over the centuries, the dish made its way to the east, where the base was changed to brown rice and dung was replaced by fermented goat butter. The mongols brought the dish as far as the Danube river, where a travelling Bavarian trader bought the recipe, ditched the carbs, replaced the fermented goat butter with bone-in pork hocks and moved from boiling to the more economic roasting by open fire. But the real question for me is whether Schweinshaxe did exist in preneolithic times ? I mean millet certainly was not invented in Mesopotamia, so might Schweinshaxe have a far older history, e.g. originate in Africa !? Any hint would be most welcome !

Please check the definition of Knödel ...

Pizza & Movie night on Sundays ... „Indiana Jones and the last Crusade“, enjoyed with: Salami & Mushrooms „Mapo Dofu“ w/ Sichuan chili oil. Pizza is for us essentially a way to use up the cold cuts in the fridge. I had some mapo dofu from yesterday and gave it a try akin of pizza bolognese. It worked pretty well - only disappointment was that after I thought I was so inventive I checked, and of course David Chang and Rene Redzepi did that during their guest stage at Mission Chinese in SF already. Was good, nonetheless ... And another good, yet already commercialized idea from Spago, Las Vegas: Pizza with herb cream and smoked salmon. Very good (if I may say so) !

Fritters look great, @Franci !

Easy-peasy chineasy ... Smacked cucumber ... Mapo Dofu ... Shuijiao (with aromatic soy & Sichuan chili oil) Shuijiao (kids version, sesame & sweet soy) And a Japanese whiskey highball for the cook 😉

Burger. Brioche bun, aged Gouda, bacon, avocado, caramelized onions. 220 g of beef per burger ... Little one insisted on getting two patties ... so I had to split his one. He was so proud that he ate more than us 😜

Most likely it originated here ...

„Dönerteller“: trying to improve my döner recipe and I am getting closer. I wish I had more power on my stove to crisp the slices - a gas one would be so much nicer ...

Maybe my translation of the cut is off ? It is the lower back of the lamb (“under” the ribs), cut into cross sections through the spine. Edited: Saddle it is ... thanks @BonVivant!

Freshly fried cashews always hit the spot for me ...