This week I have been Reading
The 2011 Tour de France race guide.
Watching
An Idiot Abroad
Listening to
The xx
Discovering
(Or rediscovering) Hamlet - Nicki Greenberg's beautiful new version, thanks to the fabulous Snarkattack, who invited me along to see Nicki talk about the creative process behind the book.
Eating
- An enormous serve of bangers'n'mash and a nourishing pint of Kilkenny at the Town Hall one dismal Tuesday evening.
- A "Chachi" - chianina meatball sandwich - another brioche donut and some amazing chocolate tart at Beatrix, which Essjay has reviewed.
- A lazy Sunday lunch at The Crimean. The Polish hunter's stew (bigos) was just the thing to revive me after a chilly bike ride.
- Generous piles of fried food with oodles of chillies and sichuan peppercorns at Sichuan House
- Succulent suckling pig at Liberteene.
- An array of bright, zesty flavours at Chin Chin, where the only problem was having to choose only some of the items from what looks to be a menu that is all hits, no filler.
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By Injera, on February 21st, 2011% It was my weekend tweeting about C’s experimental tofu making that did it. Clearly concerned that my diet was about to deliver me out of our shared comfort zone of dedicated carnivorousness, my dear friend G greeted me at De Clieu with a kiss and this:
 I suspect there will be nary a soy bean in sight Naturally, I couldn’t wait to page through it and I’m afraid I made a rather distracted breakfast companion for my generous friend, and our visiting Taswegian, Mr Gucci. Even the immediate porcine delight of the spring onion roti with pork neck, fried egg and HP sauce was no match for the joy of flicking through “over 100 authentic recipes with vivid color illustrations” (sic).
Lest you think the (sic) refers to the American spelling of colour, I submit the following as an example of Round the World Cooking Library‘s version of authenticity:
 Although perhaps packaged hot roll mix IS an authentic German ingredient... The introduction to the meat section was enough to overcome my disappointment that the magic word “schweinshaxe” was nowhere to be found in the index.
There is a droll German proverb that “the most delicious vegetable in the world is meat” … and another that “in times of disaster sausages are eaten even without bread”.
This section (no, no tofu) contains such delights as:
- schmorbraten mit saurer sahnensauce
- schwäbischer schlachtbraten
- königsberger klopse
- geschmorte schweinerippen
- Bayerische haxen, and (my personal favourite)
- falscher wildschweinbraten, or fake wild boar. The key ingredient? Pork.
In keeping with that droll proverb, meat is not confined to the chapter “meat”. This dish is in the Appetizers and Salads section:
And this is from Casseroles:
 Mmmm, bacon! Vegetarians might find something to make in this book; vegans would be stumped even in the “desserts” and “pastry” sections, although the “beverages” on offer have something for everyone (as long as everyone loves Rhine wine).
I’m not sure that I’ll make anything from this book, but I’ll keep it handy on Mondays for a vicarious meat experience. Oh, and the home-made tofu was fabulous in this Eggplant and Tofu recipe from Gill Stannard. Can’t wait to make that tomato sauce again – I think it might even go mit schwein!
By Injera, on May 7th, 2010% Today’s theme on Simply Baking is cheesecake. Our Nutter knows we’ll all be thinking with our sweet teeth right about now, but he’s changing it up a bit and starting with a savoury cheesecake (which some may prefer to think of as a quiche with cream cheese – I know that would appeal to me more than a savoury cheesecake). I’m hoping that he’s not going to be matching anything to the colour of this particular shirt today, unless he’s going to do a pea puree. Actually (it’s catching!), the shirt might be the result of the pea puree prepared earlier. I get the sense that today’s recipes might take a bit of time, given the speed at which Nutter is talking.
Let’s get baking!
Continue reading Cheesecakes, with a Nutter twist – Simply Baking
By Injera, on April 30th, 2010% And if it’s Simply Baking, then it must be time for my blog stats to jump dramatically, as fans of the Nutter search for the recipes they’ve seen on the show. Knowing how frustrating it is to search for one thing and land in something completely other, today’s post is dedicated to the recipes! (If, however, you are also interested in attempted analysis of recent junk food commercials, or exhaustive descriptions of crappy MTV/VH1 reality shows, please look around.)
Today Nutter promises classic French recipes. I hope my eyes can withstand the onslaught of his shirt, which is French-ish, I guess… possibly chartreuse? Anyway, let’s crack on.
Continue reading If it’s Friday, it must be Simply Baking
By Injera, on December 5th, 2009% Just as soon as Anthony Bourdain’s paean to Melbourne’s food had scratched the travel itch into submission, Lifestyle Food popped Gary Rhodes into my just-home-from-work TV slot with his travels around China. Thanks. From reading Fuschia Dunlop’s Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper, I did know that there was a world of food beyond the eastern cities we visited, but actually seeing them activated acute travel regret.
Gary’s a personable TV presence and, as he did in his “Indian road trip”, he took a student role to local chef mentors as he learned about the dishes specific to each of the regions he visited. His “sous chefs” – I missed the beginning of the first episode, so it took me some time to figure out that they weren’t actually chefs he’d brought from his kitchen, but a couple of lucky applicants – did some colour pieces and investigations into local ingredients.
Anyway, we were particularly interested in seeing the Yangzhou segment and the method the local chef used for his Lion’s Head Meatballs. The home chef then did a mashup of his recipe and the Fuschia Dunlop version and we had them for dinner last weekend. It’s difficult to say whether it was the alterations to the recipe that made it even better than last time because for this effort he also hand-minced the pork. In order to make a final decision on which recipe reigns supreme, we’d have to make the original one again, with hand-minced pork. Perhaps…
In the meantime, I’ve posted the mashup recipe over on our shopping/recipe list blog.
By injera, on October 20th, 2009% Before heading off on our holiday, I did wonder how long it would be before I craved eating something “not Chinese”. I was particularly certain that I’d miss the lovely, simple goats cheese and lettuce rolls from Fatto a Mano in Gertrude Street.
Of course, “Chinese food” covers such a range of cuisines. Sure, I enjoyed my first lunch back at work, but we have been to both Hutong and Dumplings Plus for dumpling fixes, Nam Loong for buns and Noodle Kingdom for soup. Re-reading “Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper” also fired us up for some Yangzhou cuisine, so on Sunday we got cooking.
I’ve mentioned my irritation with Lonely Planet’s city guides before. Why, oh why, couldn’t they include a map of the whole country inside the cover? It wouldn’t have added too much distraction to the “city” focus and would have drawn our attention to the fact that Yangzhou is actually quite close to Shanghai. Perhaps we could have tried their famous rice and the Lion’s Head meatballs there! Alas, we were reduced to trawling the internet for a decent recipe for the latter (Fuschia Dunlop kindly includes a recipe for the former).
Continue reading Time for a recipe
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