Remember that time I had a food blog? Oh yeah here it is, mostly recipes, some subjective wittering on local eats. Whoops but no posts in 2018! Better put at least one up this year. Continue reading
Cook
Lap Cheong 臘腸 Chinese Sausage
You wait ages for one, then two Chinese recipes come along. It’s almost as if I’d forgotten how to blog. In a way this is true. I’m pretty disgusted with the state of the blagging scene in Birmingham at the moment and the thought of being associated with it has made me, well, get my head down and actually do more good things with food this year. So more teaching, more popups, more food development work, more styling and photography. Less of the constant churning of idiot prose for idiot posers.
But then I’ve neglected for those of you who care about cooking good food, in particular Chinese food. So this for you then; a recipe for Chinese sausage. Of all my sausage recipes I’m most proud of this one. It’s the one most tinkered with, the most obscure (my middle name) and the most evocative for me. Continue reading
Tea Smoked Pigeon 茶香燻乳鴿
Walking by the frozen meat at my local Wing Yip, the radar pinged as I scanned over the usual offerings of frozen duck and mystery meat. French squab pigeons were available for the first time. There wasn’t really any hesitation I knew exactly what I wanted to cook. Tea smoked pigeon is one of my favourite dishes, a must eat whenever I go back to Hong Kong. A dish I pine for whenever I think about the food of Asia, which is often, in fact most of my waking hours.
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XO Chicken Rice – XO海南雞飯
恭喜發財
新年快樂
Happy new year of the rooster everyone, may it bring health, wealth and prosperity. To ensure good fortune consume some chicken rice at your new year festivities. But even if you don’t believe in all that, make sure you eat it anyway because it really is the ultimate chicken dish. Continue reading
Cooking in 2016
On the cooking front it’s been a slow start to 2017, the excesses of the feasting season (goutmas) taking its toll. So here’s a quick round-up of some of my favourite cooking in 2016 to get my own creative juices flowing and provide inspiration. Continue reading
Takeda AS Gyutou, 10 Year Review
Pre thinning
Ever read a proper kitchen knife review? They’re usually found on specialist discussion forums, places that regular people with an interest in food rarely visit. Those forums are subsets of knife-as-weapon forums and crossover with gun forums. And in them lie a whole world of crazy. I’m not into all that, I’m only really interested in kitchen knives and have been for a long time. This Takeda knife was bought over 10 years ago. So it’s probably time to review it. I think this timescale is a reasonable user testing period. Continue reading
Tacos, from masa to mouth
Grilled cheese tacos with BBQ wagyu brisket and pico de gallo
Brits get Mexican food wrong all the time. It’s often confounded with Tex-Mex. Anybody proclaiming nachos or burritos as their favourite Mexican food needs to check their chicken fajitas at the door. Tacos is Mexico’s favourite food. So it’s great that the UK is finally catching on and you can find tacos on every other streetfood slingers repertoire. Tacos are infinitely customisable, pork, beef, chicken, cheese, salsa, heck even kimchi. Anything goes! It’s a blank canvas for cooks to express themselves. So why then have I never eaten a good taco in this country? Continue reading
Hotlinks
If you know me then you know I love sausage. To me it is perfect food. Maybe sausages are the oldest food processed by humans. You take all those spare animal bits, smash it up (saves you having to chew it) then stuff it into those other tubey bits to keep it altogether. Not much has changed from prehistoric times. Simple and perfect. Continue reading
Refugee Community Kitchen, Calais
My friend Audrey Gillan suggested we should volunteer at the Refugee Community Kitchen in Calais. Who as part of a larger network in L’Auberge Des Migrants cook up to 2000 hot meals everyday to refugees stuck in the infamous camp in Calais known as “The Jungle”. We’d batted the idea around for months, the heart willing but minds and bodies experiencing the kind of inertia that by each passing day makes resolution more and more difficult. It took an unusual burst of energy, a “now or never” attitude, 3 days of frenetic planning and stuffing my Volvo full of donations that found us driving to the door of the French warehouse on Sunday May 1st. We met some amazing people in the two days helping in the kitchen and cooked a vast amount of food. In the end seeing the happy faces of the refugees eating the meals we cooked was ample reward for our small endeavour. Continue reading
Coconut Rum Jerk
There’s a corner of my mind that is always thinking about eating jerk chicken. Hot from the jerk pan; smokey, spicy, sweet, juicy, crispy, nice and nice. It’s next to the corner of my mind that houses sub-bass soundsystems and good time vibes. Continue reading
The Foodist. 