studying the habits of snarks and boojums

Also, I baked. Chocolate chip, rum and raisin cookies. They...

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 08:37:59 +0100

Also, I baked. Chocolate chip, rum and raisin cookies. They didn’t turn out quite as they should. Neither did the quality of the photographs, which I still find quite aggravating. Ah well.

blows dust off her Tumblr account Daring Cooks post featuring...

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 08:34:00 +0100

*blows dust off her Tumblr account*

Daring Cooks post featuring stuffed savoy cabbage leaves is now up here. The stuffing was gorgeous. I’m still not convinced about the leaves.

Pierogi for the Daring Cooks August 2010 challenge finally up....

Sat, 14 Aug 2010 06:11:58 +0100

Pierogi for the Daring Cooks August 2010 challenge finally up. Hurrah.

So the food used in those pictures were actually made months...

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:19:00 +0100

So the food used in those pictures were actually made months ago, but anyway. Recipe dump for yam/taro ring (above) and Hakka abacus seeds (below) here!

And since we’re talking recipes, the recipe for the orange duck thing I posted a couple of entries below may also be found here.

They’re all recipes I developed, so the usual might-not-be-of-cookbook-certainty disclaimer applies. However, I think I’ve made them all often enough that I can guarantee that they should work, and I have it on good authority from the people I’ve fed it too that they’re good, so hopefully that’ll be reassurance enough.

Cooked dinner last night for a group of dear, dear friends. One...

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 12:21:00 +0100

Cooked dinner last night for a group of dear, dear friends. One of them, F, was generous enough to open her kitchen for the afternoon/night, and certainly kind enough to be my food-washing/chopping minion of the day.

Clockwise from top left: fried sutchi fillets to be eaten with the mango salsa beside it, stir-fried chye sim with sliced calamari and shimeji mushrooms, sweet stir-fried pork ribs, and what was meant to be the piece de resistance of the meal - a Morrocan-inspired meatball stew with dropped eggs, inspired by / improvised from something I’d watched during one of my many long plane rides.

Salmon and ebiko cabonara pasta for my sister, who said she...

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 12:57:00 +0100

Salmon and ebiko cabonara pasta for my sister, who said she wanted Japanese-style cabonara pasta, which in turn explains the poached egg on top. Sadly, the poached egg leaves much to be desired. I’ve never ever quite got the hang of poaching an egg properly. Woe.

Apparently, this is now my sister’s favourite of my pasta dishes, replacing the cheese-and-tomato ravioli one I sometimes do for her that had previously occupied this spot for a couple of years.

Avocado pasta, adapted from the recipe provided here. Omitted...

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:51:00 +0100

Avocado pasta, adapted from the recipe provided here. Omitted the grated ginger, and in addition to the mashed avocado + soy sauce paste mixed the following into the pasta instead: a couple of teaspoonfuls of ebiko, a generous sprinkle of parmesan, a good crack or three of black pepper, a decent sprinkle of dried chilli flakes, and a nice dash of sesame oil. Finished with the juice of one (small Asian) lime in lieu of lemon juice, tossed in diced avocado and plenty of sesame seeds white and black, and sprinkled some dried shredded nori as was suggested.

The ever-generous and very lovely S was kind enough to let C and...

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 18:33:00 +0100

The ever-generous and very lovely S was kind enough to let C and me invade her new kitchen today to cook lunch. I went taro/yam-mad and prepared two yam-based dishes: Hakka abacaus seeds (left - I’m sorry you can’t quite see the distinctive shape of the seeds/beads!) and a yam ring (right). C did this gorgeous, gorgeous oyster sauce-based mixed mushroom and vegetable stir-fry, which you can just see behind the abacus seeds in the picture above. Lunch was rounded off with an apple pie from F that was absolutely to die for, and earl grey and fig ice cream from the Ice Cream Gallery.

There was also cupcake-decorating later in the day, the cupcakes in question baked that afternoon by S. I expect C will have a more detailed account of this lunch on her website some time in the near future. *looks meaningfully in her general direction*

The abacus seeds, or 算盘子, were stir-fried with minced pork, green bell pepper, shitake mushrooms, beancurd skin, and whitebait.

The filling of the yam ring was a simple cashew chicken stir-fry of chicken, cashews, baby carrots, baby corn, French beans, swiss mushrooms, and oyster mushrooms.

I’m sorry the pictures are rather yech. I’m absolutely awful at making most Chinese dishes look good.

Served for dinner today when I had (still have, actually) a friend over: duck braised in orange...

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 00:54:00 +0100

Served for dinner today when I had (still have, actually) a friend over: duck braised in orange juice infused with aromatics and spices, oven-crisped smashed potatoes, sauteed asparagus tips, and (unpictured) sparkling cider from Edinburgh which (yet again) nearly took out my eye when I popped it.

It’s not a very good picture, I fear, as the lighting was horrid, but I am immensely, immensely proud of the duck. I usually work only with duck legs, since cooking the actual body evenly requires more effort and time. This was one of the rare occasions which saw me forced to use the latter instead (a duck crown = some strange British way of sellng the trimmed top half of a duck), but if the feedback from the people who ate it is to be believed, it came out beautifully (or, to quote the two people who tried it, ‘very good’) - wonderfully moist and tender and juicy, with a mildly crisped skin (browned the duck before the braising, crisped it after in the oven for a bit).

And stir-fried hoisin chicken with couscous for lunch. Been ages...

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 16:31:00 +0100

And stir-fried hoisin chicken with couscous for lunch. Been ages since I last cooked something this Chinese-y tasting. Hurrah for fridge- and larder-clearing.

Ricotta pikelets, using a talented friend’s recipe, but...

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 11:48:00 +0100

Ricotta pikelets, using a talented friend’s recipe, but with proportionately more sugar and with soy milk instead of normal milk. Eaten with lemon and sugar, and with blackberries on the side.

These were incredibly, incredibly light and fluffy. Methinks it’s time I look into incorporating ricotta into my regular pancake recipe.

Squid ink pasta with sea urchin roe - two things I got from...

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 15:15:00 +0100

Squid ink pasta with sea urchin roe - two things I got from Venice last year that I’m only now clearing. No words can describe just how much I <3 sea urchin. No words. <3333

The (canned) sea urchin was stir-fried in olive oil with garlic and onion. To this, cooked pasta and a good splash of white wine were added. Serve with a couple of squeezes of lemon juice, plenty of parmesan, and more chunks of sea urchin.

Please forgive the sloppy presentation. I was in too much of a hurry to eat it.

Chicken tacos with homemade mango salsa (and iceberg lettuce and...

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 20:06:00 +0100

Chicken tacos with homemade mango salsa (and iceberg lettuce and cheddar cheese).

The salsa: mango, green bell pepper, cherry tomatoes, coriander, lime

The chicken was marinated with leftover takoyaki sauce (oh shush!), sesame oil, black pepper, and corn flour for a few hours before being fried with minced garlic and onion.

The shells were these ready-made ones which I’d always thought about trying.

A spanish tortilla omelette of potatoes, onions and eggs, to be...

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 16:22:00 +0100

A spanish tortilla omelette of potatoes, onions and eggs, to be eaten with rice and sweet chilli sauce.

Yes, it’s another half-assed picture. Sorry.

A risotto mainly of porcini and chestnut mushrooms, with some...

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 19:56:00 +0100

A risotto mainly of porcini and chestnut mushrooms, with some cherry tomatoes and a splash of dark soy sauce for colour. Feta cheese and fresh parsley were stirred in towards the end.

Will have to clear my fridge and larder in 10 days, on account of moving out and all. Expect plenty of odd food combinations as a result.

Prepared for a “picnic” dinner with lovely friends...

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 22:13:00 +0100

Prepared for a “picnic” dinner with lovely friends last night: salmon en croute inspired by Greek-ish flavours, couscous with a sauce based on tuna and tomato, a salad (watercress, rocket, batavia, mizuna, cherry tomatoes, onions, soft-boiled eggs, croutons) and a gorgeous raspberry wine bought some days back from Edinburgh.

Miso-marinated chicken with mixed vegetable fritter-cake-things,...

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 16:19:00 +0100

Miso-marinated chicken with mixed vegetable fritter-cake-things, otherwise known as today’s lunch.

This Tumblr appears to be degenerating into a near-daily cooking/eating log of sorts, which has the potential to become hugely embarrassing, methinks.

If you’re wondering, the fritters were made using leftovers of the soup-turned-stew from a couple of posts back.

Today found me formulating my own personal take on hot dog corn...

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 19:03:00 +0100

Today found me formulating my own personal take on hot dog corn muffins made pretty much from scratch. Hurrah.

(I blame this latest bout of madness on the reading of J2 fic.)

The recipe could probably still do with some tweaking, I think. Nevertheless, am muchly pleased with how this batch (but not the picture of it - ack!) turned out.

Had a friend over for lunch today. Served bread rolls and...

Mon, 31 May 2010 20:02:00 +0100

Had a friend over for lunch today. Served bread rolls and seafood pate, both made yesterday, a tomato-ish lentil soup, and a salad of iceberg lettuce and feta. Don’t mind the messy table.

I’m not at liberty to talk about the seafood pate in any detail yet. What I can say, however, is that I’m pretty pleased with how the soup turned out, slapdash affair built on a mirepoix as it was.

First Tumblr post, hurrah. More importantly, baked bread today....

Sun, 30 May 2010 16:54:00 +0100

First Tumblr post, hurrah.

More importantly, baked bread today. Bread rolls, rather, which came out looking like strange muffin creatures. Didn’t screw it up, which was incredibly surprising, but I attribute this to the fact that it was one of those nifty pre-mixed just-add-water types. (Though I used milk instead of water, and different resting times and such from the given instructions.)

I don’t think I’ll ever actually like baking, and I certainly don’t feel any increased fondness towards bread-making. However, it’s rather nice knowing that I’ve finally gotten the hang of kneading dough for bread. Maybe. Hopefully.