Snacking while eGulleting... (Part 2)

[Shelby]

5 hours ago, liuzhou said:

River Li Beer Fish is a well known speciality of China tourist trap, Guilin and particularly the nearby small town of Yangshuo which is a horrible Disney-fied version of some alternate universe's version of China full of spotty backpackers who have been in China 15 minutes, worked it all out but can't live a minute longer without a banana pancake and a very bad pizza.

The river is beautiful; the town is a nightmare. Lonely Planet hell.

The beer fish dish is carp (careful how you spell that), supposedly from the Li River, braised with chilli and spices, soy sauce and the local beer, Liquan, made in Guilin. The more gullible tourists think that the fish is caught at night by local fishermen with trained cormorants who dive for the fish by torchlight then hand them over to their masters. In fact, they are farmed just outside the town in the other direction. The cormorant guys are a dying breed who just perform for the tourists.

Now they have launched what is labelled as Li River Beer Fish (漓江韵啤酒鱼). However, this has no relation to the original. It is beer food in the sense that it is the sort of thing you may gnaw on while sinking back a beer or seven.

 

 

I like the way the sardine-sized fish are lined up from biggest to smallest, like the kids in the Sound of Music.

The ingredients list on the package is useless. It lists "fish", edible oil, salt, and soy sauce. I can see and taste the unmentioned chilli and there are other flavours in there, too.

In the pursuit of scientific based knowledge, I bought a pack and munched them down with a gallon of the aforementioned Liquan beer. They are fine. I would up the chilli content and even the salt level. Or the beer.

 

 

Those 6 cost me ¥12 which is USD $1.79, € 1.62, £27.80 (since the result of that idiotic referendum).

Did I mention that I don't like Yangshuo much?

 

[liuzhou]

Today, the fruit bowl is overflowing and there is more in the fridge. Lychees, oranges, pomegranates, a grapefruit and a bunch of chicken skin fruit. In the fridge, mangoes and red dragon fruit.

 

[HungryChris]

Watermelon sticks. This is the last of it, so the longer ones are in "short" supply.

HC

Edited July 19, 2016 by HungryChris (log)

[Toliver]

Today I was snacking on Clancy's Cheese Curls from my local Aldi store. They're faux fried Cheetos (as opposed to the fluffy ones). They' taste almost like real Cheetos but there's an eventual cumulative greasiness (I say that as if it's a bad thing   ). So close but no cigar.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

I just had some black muscadine grapes. So rare, so good.

[Tere]

Not consumed yet, but my hubby got given some omiyage by some Japanese colleagues returning from a home visit, and I am sure it will feature at some point.

 

It's matcha (powdered green tea) Kit Kat. Knowing the rarity that I want something sweet, they will probably live in the fridge for the next year or so!

 

I find it quite amusing that it's marketed as "otona no amasa" (adult taste sweetness). I have some very nice matcha teabags that are marketed for babies somewhere!

 

Edited August 23, 2016 by Tere (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

When I was in business I always appreciated sweets brought by visiting Japanese customers.  Alas, no more.  And no place to buy them here that I know of.

 

 

[BeeZee]

Jo, it's a bit of a hike for you, but in Edgewater, NJ is Mitsuwa Marketplace, which is chock full of Japanese goods. When I had business anywhere near that area, I'd schedule a side trip to spend an hour wandering the aisles. Wegmans supermarket has a few Japanese items in their "International" aisle.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Alas, for me a hike is literally a hike.

 

[Thanks for the Crepes]

This was a snack from a while back. When, I believe @sartoric started the toasties craze here, I put English muffins on my grocery list. The next time I got to the store (not easy because I no longer have a car) I bought English muffins. I bought the store brand, which is usually just fine, and 1/4 the price of Thomas'. Well by the time I had run through some of the other ingredients I thought were more perishable, and got around to the refrigerated package of muffins, they had molded. They were still three weeks away from the expiration date. 

 

Then, a month or so later, Thomas' were on sale 2 for 1. I'd been reluctant to buy more store brand, because when a factory has a problem like that, it's usually not isolated to just one package. Okay. I can pay $2.50 for less than a pound of bread product but not $5.00.

 

I combined my Marcella inspired roasted tomatoes with the English muffins for toasties or ghetto pizza, and this was divine. It took a while, but when my long coveted toasties actually materialized in my kitchen they were worth the wait.

 

I coated a pie tin with just enough EVOO to coat the bottom. Sliced in ripe, sweet garden tomatoes, sprinkled with garlic powder, kosher salt, fragrant black pepper, and dried oregano, then drizzled with a little more EVOO. Put the tin into a 400 F/204 C oven for ten minutes, flip slices, let roast another ten minutes. By this time, the excess water had evaporated, concentrated the flavor in the tomatoes, and now there was tomato infused oil in which to cook my toasties/ghetto pizza. I had split the muffin carefully with a fork, put slices of fresh mozzarella on top, then the beautiful roasted tomato slices, then some thin slices of white onion and jalapeno pepper. I highly recommend roasting and seasoning the tomatoes before adding them to your toasties. It takes a while to toast the muffins up, melt the cheese under the veggies and cook the raw slices of pepper and onion even in a hot oven. I was too impatient to remember how long, but it was longer than I wanted. 

 

I could not get these out of my mind, and kept trying to make it actually happen. I even contemplated making my own English muffins, but I seem to be yeast bread challenged.

 

When the stars finally aligned, it was a snack well worth waiting over a month for.

[blue_dolphin]

Cocktail toasts:

Egg salad with pickled agave buds (pickle recipe from Acorns & Cattails, agave buds from my front yard), celery toasts (shaved celery dressed with lemon and olive oil over Cambazola cheese from Gabrielle Hamilton in last weeks NYT Magazine. Both on toasted multi grain bread.  

Second time recently that a recipe asked me to cut some sort of neat slices from a triple cream cheese that would be more appropriately smeared on the bread.  Oh, and that celery toast was sent back to the kitchen for the specified grinding of black pepper before being consumed.

[Anna N]

@blue_dolphin

 

That celery toast recipe caught my eye, too!  I saved it and added celery to my last grocery order. Now to make sure I attempt it!

[sartoric]

These are store bought parsnip, sweet potato, carrot and beetroot chips, served with homemade guacamole.

Whew, saved that avocado just in time.

 

[rotuts]

@sartoric  

 

Tj's has a Terra clone , which is similar.   the original Terra and Tj's does not have beetroot  but beet-juice tinted chips.

 

Ive always found that odd.  Terra now has a much larger selection and some blends now have the actual beetroot as a chip/crisp.

 

are your real beetroot ?

 

seems like busy work staining a chip.

 

TJ's clone is nice

[sartoric]

@rotuts, I checked the packet, it's real organic beetroot. The brand is Macro Organic owned by Woolworths (one of our two dominant grocery chains).  We don't have TJ's in the antipodes (yet).

[Anna N]

 

"Needs must when the devil drives".  Homemade potato chips at 10:30 on a Wednesday morning. 

[liuzhou]

 

I'm working on the computer, checking out eG and simultaneously working my way through this pile of fresh tamarind pods. The papery shells hide seeds surrounded by sticky, sweet fruit on strings. The skin, seeds and strings are not pleasantly edible, but the fruit - I love it.

 

Deconstructed tamarind pod.

 

[Anna N]

Can't get calves liver but frequently see "fresh" tamarind in the produce departments of even our lower end supermarkets! Go figure.  

[liuzhou]

12 minutes ago, Anna N said:

Can't get calves liver but frequently see "fresh" tamarind in the produce departments of even our lower end supermarkets! Go figure.  

Same here.

[Anna N]

2 hours ago, liuzhou said:

Same here.

. 

[Thanks for the Crepes]

Have you checked in the freezer cases for calves' liver? It's never sold fresh here, but I accidentally found it after years of searching. Then I realized I didn't care for it in spite of the enormous nutrition benefits. Y'all would not believe how much Vitamins A and B12 this cut has!

 

I cooked it up with bacon and onions just like what we had as kids. I suspect we were getting liver then from cattle that were raised better.

 

I recently made a big batch of popcorn from an expired bag of it, but the kernels were sealed well with the bag in a thick plastic container. I was expecting a lot of unpopped kernels. It was, surprisingly, the best batch I've probably ever made, and it was a store brand. I'm a definite fan of starting with cold oil and kernels in a cold pan. The bag says to start with hot pan and oil, but that just doesn't work as well for me.

 

I use a triple-ply SS big pot with glass lid, and even though it has a small vent hole, I find it critical to fan the lid up and down during the most furious popping to dispatch excess steam and ensure crispy finished product. This snack was inspired by looking at a relatively small $4 bag of already popped corn in a store. I left it there and made some fresh at home for pennies.

 

Just got a very scary call from the rehab facility my husband's in, but it turned out to be good news. Some food remnants were found in his bed, so they knew he'd managed to get a hold of some food against doctors' orders of nothing by mouth. His attendant who called said he hadn't choked or aspirated anything, so Yah! He said he'd eaten a hot dog (of all things and one of his favorites). It was apparently an accidentally delivered meal, as happened on the first day he was admitted when my brother and I were there to prevent him from actually eating it. His support staff is supposed to revisit his swallowing study ASAP and perhaps revise his diet. Everyone wants to eat, so I can't really blame him for going against orders, especially with one of his favorites after 2-1/2 weeks of eating nothing but pap in swallowing studies. I'm just glad and so relieved it turned out well. 

 

 

[kayb]

TFTC, I'm sorry to hear of your husband's health issues. Hope you managed to have a good Thanksgiving in spite of them. Liver would NOT have been an option at my house, unless it was chicken livers made into pate.

 

[JohnT]

19 minutes ago, kayb said:

unless it was chicken livers made into pate.

 

Or Portugese peri-peri chicken livers!

[chromedome]

9 hours ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

Just got a very scary call from the rehab facility my husband's in, but it turned out to be good news. Some food remnants were found in his bed, so they knew he'd managed to get a hold of some food against doctors' orders of nothing by mouth. His attendant who called said he hadn't choked or aspirated anything, so Yah! He said he'd eaten a hot dog (of all things and one of his favorites). It was apparently an accidentally delivered meal, as happened on the first day he was admitted when my brother and I were there to prevent him from actually eating it. His support staff is supposed to revisit his swallowing study ASAP and perhaps revise his diet. Everyone wants to eat, so I can't really blame him for going against orders, especially with one of his favorites after 2-1/2 weeks of eating nothing but pap in swallowing studies. I'm just glad and so relieved it turned out well. 

 

 

Wow, yeah. Dysphagia's no joke to deal with. 

[Toliver]

I'm snacking on original recipe Chex Mix which we always make a couple days after Thanksgiving. My mom (and now me) always makes a Tupperware "vat" (5 qt., 20-cups) of it. Here's a pic of the Tupperware container we use that I found on the interweb:

We refill it a couple of times, too! Good stuff, Maynard!