| click to see photos of trip to Kangaroo valley | ||
| April 2004 | ||
Click above to see 'Shona eats', eating this Turkish ice-cream |
The way that Shona has
been cooking lately I reckon she could have one of the Iron chefs guts
for garters, let alone me. 'Iron Chef' is a bizarre Japanese cooking contest that
pits
blatantly Japanese chefs of different international style (and thus
chefs hat) against each
other using a set ingredient. The set is gaudy, the dubbed commentry
banal, the outcome predictable, but the cooking is superb (Ainslie,
check it out) and thus as
whole it is rather captivating. So step into the ring Iron Chef
Scotland.....
Actually, she becomes Iron Chef Japan having found Yasuko-san's home cooking, a person possibly even more obsessive than me, well, she has a nicer website! Her food is dedicated to her mother's cooking of Toyama region. Anyway, Shona followed a recipe for fish cooked in bonito flake stock accompanied by a very successful daikon leaf with sweetened soybean. We used red-fish. Since Shona is in New Zealand you can follow the link to the excellent web page. |
|
| Original sin
*Of course there is a recipe in Jane Grigson's Fishbook (!) Bad luck Shona. |
I think I have seen a recipe or at least mention of Oyster omellette somewhere*, but I can praise Shona with a spontaneous concept. Come to think of it, we had ordered a crispy Thai oyster omelette on Shona's birthday but it came with mussels, not a whiff of oysters, so that doesn't count. It was still very good, and I was not in the mood to make a fuss. Back at home and I'm not sure if I put in shallots as JG suggests, but I did mix the oyster juice with the beaten egg, and I did not bother to precook the oysters as I felt they should denature to the extent of mid- omelette runniness- well, that's how I like it. Some chopped parsley or chives might have been good here, nut nothing too overpowering. Sourdough, salad and stout - a fine lunch. | |
| *click here for link to fascinating (?) cryopreservation chat | This may be willeats,
but shonacooks might be more appropriate. We picked up some
salmon caviar at the fish market. They had apparently been frozen but
didn't seem to suffer from it. My theory on this is that like most
preserved flesh, it shrinks having lost water through osmosis/
evaporation. When the cells are frozen they therefore have a little more
room to expand without disrupting the delicate cell membrane. *Could be a
thesis here- note to self!
Back to the point. What is the one thing to eat with caviar? Blini of course. These are one of Shona's specialties, and I must say I have never made the little buggers from A to Z, Shona usually spends hours fermenting away (hum?), and I just fry them.. |
|