Duvel

Business trip to Japan, visiting a joint venture partner. This is the canteen food served at a large petrochemical site in Ciba prefecture, along with the view from said canteen. In late autumn it looks even nicer ... Nice place to work (and eat).

Thanks - as unusual as interesting. Please let us know how it turns out as a final dish ... As for the noodles' bracken fern origin: a rather long time ago while doing my PhD thesis in organic chemistry I developed a synthetic pathway to certain chemical structures that are very closely related to Ptaquiloside, a glycodside found in bracken fern and related plants. The major interested in those structures was that they are very reactive and react with DNA in living cells (good if you can target specific cells, bad if you alkylate just anything as the ptaquiloside does). My methodology never really produced anything workable, but I read the entire literature on bracken fern toxicology back and forth. And have not eaten it since then ... maybe your noodles might be a worthwhile (re)start. Further reads: http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/ptq/ptqh.htm

Chris, I really enjoy your readings. Please keep it up !

I'd go with pâté brisée as well. And probably a much higher rim as well as far more fat in the custard ... And while I do own a couple of French cookbooks I find the best recipe (at least to my taste) comes from Thomas Kellers "Bouchon"

Black tea (qimen hongcha) ?

Joppie sauce ("Joppiesaus" in Dutch) is a popular mayonnaise-based sauce for mostly French fries, but ultimately everything else deep fried from your local Snack shop. It goes well with Frikandel and its brothers (all kind of shaped and deep fried minced meat products). In Belgium, "Joppie" was flavour of the year for Lays's once. Its a slightly sweet mayonnaise with curry and a pinch of mustard. Some shops have sweated onions added, some just use onion and garlic powder. When I was living in Brussels in my local Friterie people were ordering Joppiesaus on their (deep-fried) hamburgers. I still prefer Bicky, though ...

Its a German brand. Not uncommon to find those in foil packages, but usually Sauerkraut in its home country comes in a can. 425 mL or 850 mL. Probably 90% of my Sauerkraut intake at home was in can form. Does not require refrigeration either and 425 mL is a regular single serving.

I own both books. They are informative and the drawings are beautifully made and fully sufficient to support the recipes (e.g. different ways to score different fishes). In a way they fit the overall design of the book much better than some stylish photos would have.

Whenever I am able to go back to Germany, my first meal is always a "Mettbrötchen": A rye bread roll, lots of butter and "Mett", raw minced fatty pork with raw onions and some spices. Hits the spot everytime and tell my body (specifically my gastro-intestinal system) that I am home ...

"Salt and Vinegar seasoning". If it contains more than salt and vinegar, the rest is artificially added. And yes, Maltodextrin is not found in nature as such, but has to be hydrolised from corn starch by non-enzymatic methods (because otherwise it would not be found on this label). Malic acid could be isolated from fruits, but to be used in this commodity its food-grade synthetic (and cheap). And "natural flavours" means only that they are derived from natural sources, nothing less So - as far as I am concerned - this is the same artificially flavoured stuff as Tikka, or Numb&Spicy and Cucumber flavoured chips. And just for the record (if you have read my previous contributions to this topic): the fact that it is does not change its appeal to me ...

And how does "Salt & Vinegar" not count as artificially flavoured ?

I am intrigued - does Spargel work with passion fruit ?

I am going to give it a try as soon as it his the market here ...

Behave !

Usually the "squirrel fish" preparation that you are referring to has bones, they are just removed during the prep. Smaller fish can be prepared in nanban-zuke/escabeche-style so you soften or dissolve the tiny bones in the acidic marinate. Works wonders for conger ... I have not encountered any fish that had no bones so far. But the markets here are full of interesting species.

Calabash.

Fry on top of thickly sliced garlic, minimum salt and pepper, medium rare. Slice into thick slices, with salt&pepper on the side and a katsuoboshi-based tare with just a hint of mirin.

Plus one for this. Heston Blumenthal used star anise and fish sauce in his rendition of Spag Bol in "Search of Perfection". It really gives more depth to the dish. I frequently use oyster sauce in lieu of the fish sauce, especially in Shepards Pie ...

Arriving severely delayed at home, aircon has stopped for any reason somewhen last week. 27 oC, 90 percent humidity - nothing cold in the fridge. Made a mixture of Jameson (from the duty free) and Haagen Dazs Royal Milk Tea (from the freezer). Not the most glamorous, but it hit the spot. Kind of bergamot flavoured Baileys'. Three of those and I am at peace with the airline again ...

I used to - fun times. For your decision making for a chilling unit: i think that more than the minimum temperature of your coolant your focus should be on the overall cooling capacity per hour - the more stable your coolant temperature, the more and faster you can condense and the higher your yield. When you say alcoholic black pepper reduction: could you share the proportions ? Which type of alcohol you use (percentages, source) ?

I do like to add XO sauce to anything stewed/braised.

I grew up on kale and I love it. All this "modern" treatment of kale of course is terribly wrong (kale smoothie, anyone ?), but given the proper treatment is one of my favorite seasonal veggies. If you find a brown one (harvested after the soil it grows in was frozen solid), the dump it chopped up into a pot full of onions caramelized in goose fat (with attached skin and other little left-overs), add a couple of heavily-smoked sausages and then boil it for a good couple of hours it's one of the best things winter has in store for you. And as you eat so much of it (including said sausages) you need a significant number of "Korn" shots to somehow digest it. Double win ! So please, no badmouthing the poor kale ...

Maggi.

That only works out if you are interested in getting quick access to the residue. If you want to isolate all or most of the distillate you might need a tiny bit more thought ...

At 150 mbar the boiling point of water is around 55 oC. As you are using a rotor vap - essentially a thin-film evaporator - you can get significant amounts of liquid into the gas phase at lower temperatures. You might raise the temp by a couple of degrees, but if your cooling medium is only 10 oC that would lead to higher losses. If your vacuum pump has a liquid separator (it should) you will find that at 10 oC cooling medium (really ?) you may condense about 80 percent, given a proper design of the cooling section. Much lower you can't get: once your cooling medium drops below 0 oC you will get solidification of the aqueous distillate. To achieve higher condensation rates you might increase the pressure (doubling it will give you 10 oC more in boiling point). You want to aim for a 50 oC differential between boiling point and cooling medium to get around 90plus percent condensation. It will improve also the "trapping" of flavours in the distillate.