Duvel

Nothing more romantic than enjoying a fancy dinner with your love interest wearing a pair of Mickey Mouse ears ...

Yup. One has to prioritice ...

As if you could tell ...

Just saw the second episode on Spain - very informative. I like the format ...

I started last night and liked the format. I do enjoy the "country" themes, highlighting national dishes and (in the elimination round) special produce from the respective region. The discussions around the dishes in the second half of the show are indeed more interesting than the first part, but I have seen only one episode so far, so lets see ... Overall, an interesting new cooking contest show, and one that comes without much drama between the contestants and rants from the judges. I'll keep watching ...

Remove excess fat. Then cook. Sear at the end to render surface fat.

24h worked like a charm for me, albeit at 135F ... this however, was just a slice of said roast, so you need to adjust the cooking time, depending on thickness.

Thanks, @heidih! I have come to the conclusion that the fiber component can be very flexible, as long as you can process it to the desired size and it has a neutral flavor. So, egg + cream cheese + partly cooked and desiccated veggie pulp does make a usable tortilla / flat bread substitute. Next time, when zucchinis are on offer, I'll give it a try ...

It’s not that I am actively trying to avoid gluten, merely a side effect of my low carb approach to dieting and the general avoidance of flour (at the moment). I spend some time trying to find a “neutral” (e.g. not eggy, porky, “green”, coconutty ...) tasting flatbread substitute. What I use now works decently for pizzas, tacos, quesadillas etc ... It does not taste like bread, but makes a good delivery system for any toppings you have. And packs a lot of fiber plus some nutrients. 1 egg 50 g cream cheese (“Philadelphia”) Pinch of salt ~350 g of preprocessed* cauliflower (original, a bit better to process) or cabbage (Duvel’s low cost shortcut) Blend egg and cream, add salt, add everything to preprocessed vegetable and mix thoroughly. At this point you can add dried herbs, or spices. Let stand for 10 min. Spread thinly (5 mm) onto a baking paper. Please look at my other posts for a more visual guide. Slide into a preheated oven at 200 oC and bake for 25 min. Take out, flip and bake for 10 min more. At this point it will have a leathery texture when cooled down (it’s still a bit brittle when warm) and can be used for tacos. Or top with tomato sauce, whatever you like and cheese and put back into the oven. I turn the convention on and give it some 5-10 min more until it looks decent. Please note that it needs to cool down a bit to achieve a good textural quality. The longer you bake the “naked” dough, the more integrity it has, and drier it gets (for pizza this is desirable). *preprocessed vegetable: grate the cauliflower or cabbage (I use the food processor and get thin, 1 cm long shreds). Put into microwave and heat at high for about 7 min. You want that smell and taste are more or less “neutral”. Let cool down slightly, put into a clean tower and press out the formed water - which is a lot. Typical yields are: 650 g of raw cauliflower or 800 g of raw cabbage give ~350 g of preprocessed vegetable to be used in the recipe above.

Fregola sarda with fresh clams, plenty of garlic and - oddly - wakame for the non-dieting part of the family (so ... all but me). Cabbage taco with oven-roasted chicken thigh & the works. Followed by cabbage lahmacun, that were meant for tomorrow ... Both were actually quite tolerable - the pasta however was great ...

Back when we were still living in Germany, we would go once every month to Alsace and spend an evening shopping in Strasbourg. Getting great food was always my treat for the day and cheeses were on top of my wish list. Typically I bought: - St. Marcellin / St. Felicien or a similar soft dauphinois cheese. - Munster, overripe or alternatively a ripe Epoisses - Soft goat cheese in ash - Brie de Meaux - Comte - Bleu de Auvergne or Roquefort, whatever was on offer Gewürztraminer, pain de campagne and some terrine or foie and I was a happy camper for two days ... I have to live now without most of these cheeses, but I will religiously buy one good cheese per week for our Weekend breakfasts. Doesn’t compare to those above, but having a ripe raw milk Brie is still one of the best ways to start the day for me (or end it) ...

What about Roquefort ?

Even more efficient (or maybe not, given that you are in the medical profession) is a visit to the Tokyo parasite museum (https://www.tofugu.com/travel/parasite-museum-tokyo/)

In that case, please visit "Ramen street", in the underground level of Tokyo station. All are good, but I'd go for Tsukemen at Rokurinsha (https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2012/07/06/food/a-ramen-line-up-worth-dipping-into/#.W_edThqpW70)...

Damn. I knew I had forgotten something ... So sorry for not providing timely ideas, but I see that you are getting the best anyway In case you are not are not having an overly full schedule already, there would be three things you might want to consider: 1) "Omoide Yokocho" - a narrow, but very long street full of room-sized Japanese eateries: very local, very intimate. Yakitori, intestines, kushikatsu ... all good drinking food and to be consumed with copious amouns of shochu highballs or beer. If you cant decide, go to "Ucchan 25" (https://s.tabelog.com/tokyo/A1304/A130401/13059673/top_amp/), and have the tongue sashimi, the giblet skewers or the motsunabe. They recently put out a homepage of the association (Shinjuku-omoide.com). 2) "Sekishin Tei" (www.newotani.co.jp/en/tokyo/restaurant/sekishin/) at the New Otani hotel has a fantastic Teppanyaki lunchset (~6000 JPY for the basic one). Wagyu, Ise ebi, hotate ... At night not affordable. The food is great, but the view over the garden is fantastic (www.newotani.co.jp/en/tokyo/garden/). 3) "Ebisu Yokocho" - similar to #1, but actually indoors (https://favy-jp.com/topics/1144). Very good for heavy drinking at night with izakaya-style food. The oden shop is great, and just right for the current temperatures. Make sure you do the salary man thing and buy a "one cup" sake at the Lawsons before heading to the subway ... If any specific question, please let me know (will be faster this time) Have fun ... I still have to wait three weeks for my next (business) trip to Tokyo. Itadakimasu !

After a bit of overindulgence in the last week (or month ? year ?) I have to cut back ... Low carb usually works best for me, so today cabbage-based “pizza” with mushrooms. It can’t fool you, but with a lot of toppings you get that pizza feeling on a neutral-tasting carrier. I accidentally browned it a bit too much, but decided that actually that is not a bad thing ...

That looks so yummy, @robirdstx! Exactly my kind of food ...

Fish sauce as salt substitute yields pretty similar results.

Dinner at a technical workshop in Nanjing ... I was allowed to select the dishes 😋 Some local veggie with sesame dressing Braised eggs and intestines (and ears) Century eggs in vinegar Shrimps with peas Shrimps with barley cooked in orange juice “Stinky” tofu Matsutake mushrooms Black pepper beef Pork in sweet bean sauce with steamed bread BBQ lamb ribs Spicy frog Pan-fried dumplings Fried mushrooms - their speciality Xiao Long Bao Crunchy potatoes Braised daikon Pork head terrine with aged vinegar

In an hour of need I used thinly sliced Mortadella once and found the result very pleasing ...

Salted egg yolk flavoured fried fish skin is THE hot item in Hong Kong right now. Most of them are quite good, also itheir potato cousins. Freeze dried egg yolk powder is not expensive ... There is only one way to find out, @liuzhou ...

Saltwd egg yolk as a flavour is usually yummy ...

Lanzhou Lamian in a industrial canteen in Nanjing. Setting is very 70’s, but the noodles are great ... The cook pulled all the noodles by hand upon order and dished out about 30 portions in 15 minutes. Very impressive. This is the “double meat / one egg” variety, enhanced by a generous spoon of chili oil sediment. The noodles had a great chew. Very satisfying (and cleared my sinuses) ...

Well, given that most guys in Europe can’t tell Shanxi and Shaanxi apart, I’d say close enough. I stick with my story 😋

Just think ! He must have given the Chinese some recipe in return for bringing all their noodle magic to Europe, no ..?