Duvel

Looks soooo inviting 🤗

Here, a rabbit of about 1.3kg costs 16€, on offer maybe 11 or 12€. It comes with liver, kidneys & heart, which usually are quickly panfried while I break down the rest of the animal & instantly consumed by the lucky cook. The rest is always braised. I did BBQ rabbit twice, but it inevitably turned out dry and stringy.

Rabbit was on offer, sooo ... Catalan braised rabbit, with onions, garlic, white wine, whiskey (no brandy in my house) and dried ceps & black trumpets (from my last visit to La Boqueria). Served with creamed spinach. My wife went into a frenzy the minute it arrived at the table, so only my sons plate could be documented. I had Rindswurst, that was about to go wrong (and my plate looked very Zen).

Very interesting... I am looking very much forward to your results!

The little one requested Bacon & Peas. It is amazing how good something can taste thats just made from bacon, peas, onions & parmesan ...

With a storm approaching and the house secured, I felt like comfort food again. And although it is not quite cold enough these days I picked Oden: I made satsuma-age and ganmodoki quite some while ago and froze it for these occasions. The daikon was prepared on Thursday ... ... as were the 6.5 min eggs, that were marinating in the oden broth since then. Ganmodoki contained Edamame & carrot. The Leberkäse is not a traditional item, but works surprisingly well, both in texture and flavor. I opened a pack of Shichimi Togarashi I bought on my last trip to Tokyo. The flavor - especially the citrus notes - was outstanding ! Yum !

Trust me that you do not want to move from SF to the Lower Saxonian pampas, regardless of the quality of the local offal stews ...

Despite a heavy storm approching, we headed north to Lower Saxony to visit my parents for the first time after our return from HK (usually they come around). So, tonight we had comfort food at its best: my moms tongue stew, prepared from cured ox tongue, simmered in a madeira-flavored sauce, finished with heavy cream, mushrooms and a certain kind of “frankfurts”. Served with red cabbage and potato ... And an off-dry white Riesling from the Mosel with the peculiar name “Naked Ass” 😉

Looks like a dedicated donut hole maker ...

And then there is this - the perfect mixture of omelette and scrambled eggs (creamy, with little solid specks in it) ... feel free to start at 2:25min 😉

I once stirred a boiling tomato sauce without wearing a shirt. I still have the burn marks it left on my belly ...

A quick, yet surprisingly satisfying nod to Japan: Okonomiyaki, Matjes “sashimi” with yuzu ponzu, Edamame and Miso soup ...

I am sure it was tasty, but it looks a bit like something from the Cambrian explosion.

I finally bought a pizza steel. Well, technically I bought a CNC-cut square piece of mild steel. So’ve spend my morning removing the sharp edges, cleaning and seasoning. And thanks to yesterdays dough prep, I could have my first steel baked pizza tonight. Now I need to rework my dough formula, but the first results are quite encouraging ... San Marzano, Mozzarella di bufala, Parmigiano, drizzled with pureed basil in olive oil after a 3.5 min bake ... San Marzano, fennel salami, Parmigiano and mushrooms. And the reason I felt I needed that piece of heavy metal 😉

Yes, I got your view earlier. But then again - it’s a pretty big country. And from my limited experience I had ostrich meat at HaiDiLao a couple of times and bought dried ostrich meat at Urumuqi. So, at least in same areas (probably close to the farms, so up north) it seems not too rare ... For the farm size I can’t help much: in 1997, average farm size seemed to be ~200 birds. I would assume, in the last 20 years there has been some intensifying in farming efforts, so it might be larger now ... And before I start to browse the trade statistics, better back to the egg topic 😉

Yes, maybe their English is misleading (as is mine, sometimes). China has 20.000 ostrich farms ...

Au contraire ...

Nope. Foraged ostrich eggs ...

It’s more of a dressing for cold chicken breast or any cold leftover roasts. But once you have made it, you start dipping all kinds if things in. And with baguette it is quite addictive (or is that the MSG ?) ...

Take a two or three teaspoons of chili flakes, one teaspoon of cumin, two teaspoons of garlic and put in a heatproof bowl. Add about 100 mL of very hot (like frying temperature) oil to it and let cool down. Add a tablespoon of butter, some salt and MSG (if you like), then stir well to blend ...

You can obtain pizza al taglio also in other countries, but more importantly in Rome, where this style originated. Bonci is a good address ... @Franci, @blue_dolphin, me and others have posted a couple of varieties in the Bread & the Dinner thread (including the race for the best crumb shot somewhere).

It’s a simplified version of a “Carolina mustard sauce” I had. It blended mustard (and a bit of vinegar) with essentially all the ingredients for a “regular” BBQ sauce. Once I tried to take a shortcut and mix just the two sauces, sometimes adding a bit of vinegar depending on the acidity of the mustard. Works quite well, especially on pork or on anything with fried onions ...

Not much to look at, but very tasty nonetheless ... Burger, Raclette cheese, pickles, french fried onions, blended BBQ sauce & mustard, all served on a toasted Brioche bun.

In the background I can hear Michael Jackson “You are not alone ...”

I bought some really tiny mussels ... they were on offer due to their size and I did not really think it through what I could do with them. Finally, I decided to make a version of NE clam chowder - augmented by some dashi and a nice piece of cod. It turned out pretty tasty ... happy me 🤗