Food and drink thread

Fourth time using the new rice cooker, and I'm finally getting the hang of achieving properly good results with Basmati. The first two goes were not great.

The supplied manual suggests a too-high water/rice ratio, doesn't mention rinsing the rice, adding salt or oil/butter and completely omits the need for a 10 minute wait after the cooking cycle is finished and the machine's just keeping everything warm. I got all of the good tips from the Good Housekeeping website, by the way.

This time, I also added some dried coriander leaf and saffron to the mix.

Binbag-worthy manual aside, it is a cracking little machine and you can just leave it to do the job. It'll tell you when it's finished. Once I've used up the Basmati, I will be experimenting with jasmine rice.

10 hours ago, Futtocks said:

Fourth time using the new rice cooker, and I'm finally getting the hang of achieving properly good results with Basmati. The first two goes were not great.

The supplied manual suggests a too-high water/rice ratio, doesn't mention rinsing the rice, adding salt or oil/butter and completely omits the need for a 10 minute wait after the cooking cycle is finished and the machine's just keeping everything warm. I got all of the good tips from the Good Housekeeping website, by the way.

This time, I also added some dried coriander leaf and saffron to the mix.

Binbag-worthy manual aside, it is a cracking little machine and you can just leave it to do the job. It'll tell you when it's finished. Once I've used up the Basmati, I will be experimenting with jasmine rice.

I got my rice cooker from a Chinese woman who I lived next door to about ten years ago. Never cooked rice any other way.

All the instructions are in Chinese but I've managed great success out of mashing my hand against the buttons like a caveman, somehow comes out perfect every time.

Out for a meal for the first time in a while because my sister was down in London on business, so I missed the Thursday night SL game. We went to La Petite Ferme, near Farringdon Station.

A short menu (link below) with a mix of old-school classics and the option of an all you can eat Raclette binge/epic cheese nightmare. We chose from the former and it was excellent.

https://www.lapetitefermelondon.com/_files/ugd/c32d59_0cd6da5b8eeb41f89243cbb149077b4e.pdf 

The latest episode of the Empire podcast by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand address the influence of British Imperial territories on British cuisine. Informative and fun.

https://www.bestpodcasts.co.uk/podcast/empire/

My life has been changed forever. Since I was a kid I have always hated the vast majority of seafood. Yesterday however, I decided to try crab for the first time since I was about 12. I loved it. It was truly gorgeous. It is officially one of my favourite foods. 

2 hours ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

My life has been changed forever. Since I was a kid I have always hated the vast majority of seafood. Yesterday however, I decided to try crab for the first time since I was about 12. I loved it. It was truly gorgeous. It is officially one of my favourite foods. 

Apart from Shippams crab paste when I was a lad (which probably contained homeopathic levels of actual crab), one of my first tastes was at a Chinese restaurant in Cambridge, where Dad suggested I'd like crab in black bean sauce. What looked (to my young eyes) like a mountain of crabs were brought to the table, and we proceeded to get very messy indeed, cracking shells and picking morsels of crab meat out. Delicious!

A recent discovery is the addition to a dressed crab sandwich, along with freshly ground pepper, is a few drops of Womersley's lemon, basil, bay & juniper vinegar.

22 hours ago, Futtocks said:

Apart from Shippams crab paste when I was a lad (which probably contained homeopathic levels of actual crab), one of my first tastes was at a Chinese restaurant in Cambridge, where Dad suggested I'd like crab in black bean sauce. What looked (to my young eyes) like a mountain of crabs were brought to the table, and we proceeded to get very messy indeed, cracking shells and picking morsels of crab meat out. Delicious!

A recent discovery is the addition to a dressed crab sandwich, along with freshly ground pepper, is a few drops of Womersley's lemon, basil, bay & juniper vinegar.

I've continued my foray into seafood today and have tried prawns, mussels and squid rings. I loved all of them! I am opening up a whole new world of food which is so exciting. 

So the things I've tried so far, I would rank in the following order:

1. Crab

2. Prawn

3. Mussels

4. Squid rings

Scallops next?

2 hours ago, Futtocks said:

Scallops next?

Yeah, might be! 

On 13/03/2024 at 13:52, Futtocks said:

Scallops next?

I went to the local fishmongers today to get some scallops but found out they are really expensive so ended up with some cockles instead. Unfortunately the ones I got were pickled so didn't really get a good sense of the taste of the cockles themselves so will have to try them again another time. 

3 minutes ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

I went to the local fishmongers today to get some scallops but found out they are really expensive so ended up with some cockles instead. Unfortunately the ones I got were pickled so didn't really get a good sense of the taste of the cockles themselves so will have to try them again another time. 

Yes, scallops can be pricey, especially the big ones with the roe attached.

Today I tried shrimp, as lovely as everything else, basically just massive prawns.

So my rankings of all the seafood I've tried recently:

1. Scallops

2. Crab

3. Prawns

4. Shrimp

5. Mussels

6. Squid rings

7. Cockles (as I said though, I tried pickled ones) 

You can often get clams (sold frozen rather than alive) from Morrison's.

Oysters are best enjoyed by the seaside, fresh off the boat and opened by someone else.

Just cooked something I had delivered from The Blackface Meat Company earlier this week. Not some dreadful Seventies light entertainment troupe that are fondly remembered by the hard of thinking, but an online butcher whose main business is the Blackface breed of sheep.
Anyway, I just roasted and ate a delicious saddle of hare, served with cream cheese mashed potatoes and peas.
The other part of the delivery was a brace of pigeon, which I had a couple of days ago, plus a rack of Blackface mutton, which is for tomorrow or Monday.

On 20/03/2024 at 18:39, Futtocks said:

You can often get clams (sold frozen rather than alive) from Morrison's.

Oysters are best enjoyed by the seaside, fresh off the boat and opened by someone else.

Today I have tried clams. I liked the taste but did find them a little tough texture-wise, and due to the small size, quite fiddly. I don't think they would be my first choice in a seafood restaurant but I wouldn't say no to them should someone offer them to me. They're probably bottom of my list but I still liked them. 

17 minutes ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Today I have tried clams. I liked the taste but did find them a little tough texture-wise, and due to the small size, quite fiddly. I don't think they would be my first choice in a seafood restaurant but I wouldn't say no to them should someone offer them to me. They're probably bottom of my list but I still liked them. 

Razor clams (aka spoots) are easier to deal with, as they are larger, and tasty too.

https://www.onthewater.com/how-to-harvest-and-cook-razor-clams 

Today my journey into seafood has continued with me trying sushi for the first time. I tried some smoked salmon sushi which I thought was very tasty! 

1 hour ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Today my journey into seafood has continued with me trying sushi for the first time. I tried some smoked salmon sushi which I thought was very tasty! 

Making sushi's quite fun, if you have a good variety of things to go with the rice and like the feel of handcrafting something that'll be gone in a mouthful.

Well it was going either here or in the joke thread. Pedants please note that I know that isn't a brisket on the right.

Never. Repeat, never eat three massive bacon and sausage sandwiches just before going to work as a janitor. I am drinking water like its going out of fashion at work and I've had a bottle of lucozade as well, and I'm still as dry as the Gobi Desert. My God. I am so thirsty! 

On 20/03/2024 at 15:44, The Hallucinating Goose said:

So my rankings of all the seafood I've tried recently:

1. Scallops

2. Crab

3. Prawns

4. Shrimp

5. Mussels

6. Squid rings

7. Cockles (as I said though, I tried pickled ones) 

Get on the langoustines, they're like sweet little lobsters and are excellent in this country. 

3 hours ago, DI Keith Fowler said:

Get on the langoustines, they're like sweet little lobsters and are excellent in this country. 

Aye , think I read somewhere that most of our catch is exported to Europe.

Crayfish aka Crawfish are another mini-lobster critter with good flavour. They really should be cheaper, as there's an invasive species ousting the British variety and they are very easy to catch in quantity. But that currently means setting basket traps in rivers that may be polluted by a virtually-unregulated water company or by farm run-off.

I just bought some really good taramasalata, which is light-years tastier than the bright pink stuff you get in most shops. Very nice when spread on hot buttered toast or used as a dip.