fredskitchen

smelly stuff

2010-02-03T06:28:00.001-08:00

this is what we call "smally Tofu"
they sell it in the streets of Hong-Kong
it's just about the worst smelling thing that has ever seen the sun.
You can smell it from so far off; a mixture of vomit and decaying fish...

it's preserved tofu
i have no idea of how it's prepared, or how it's cooked, or even how it's kept

all i know is that is is amazingly delicious... A savoury smokey taste, with a delicate of aura of fermentation.

It's served in a paper bag, you add on the sauce you want (in this case a mixture of plum sauce and chili), but it has an amazing taste of it's own.

you just have to around the smell...

breakfast

2010-02-03T01:53:00.001-08:00

it's winter
it's cold
forget your muesli
forget your bacon and eggs
forget your steaming porridge...

THIS IS IT

THE breakfast

congee
rice that's just cooked in a light broth for as long as possible.
Add in whatever, from preserved veg & eggs to shredded pork, to a simple boiled egg, soya sauce...

one bowl

one meal

perfect for winter

the easiest best dish in the world

2009-12-13T22:47:00.001-08:00

this is so fail proof.
you need some chinese dried fish
i know it's smelly, but it's worth it

Rinse the piece of fish
cover the piece with water in a pan and bring to a boil and let the whole lot simmer for 10 minutes.

Your kitchen should be really smelly now!

let it cool

use his broth to cook rice with.
put the head in the rice pan, cover and cook and then eat.

no extras

logs

2009-12-07T13:57:00.000-08:00

yes, it's Christmas soon.
time to get fat again
time to raid shops for presents
time for afternoons chasing the cat in the christmas tree
time to hope for snow
time for rat pack christmas carols
time for mulled wine and cinnamon cakes
time for card making
time to think and imagine crazy orgiastic meals
time for the yearly gastronomic extravagance

time for DESERT !
and here it is :
MY BUCHE DE NOËL !

yes completely fugazi from top to bottom
spent a whole afternoon preparing it (after having spent a whole morning cleaning the kitchen up)
i made a kilo of bloody ganache that for some reason went wrong and tasted more of cream than chocolate
the biscuit didn't cook despite having forgotten it for a whole 15 minutes too many in the oven
the so called syrup was tasteless...
and it all ended up in the bin

don't like buche
never liked buche
will never like buche

if you come for Christmas for lunch or dinner don't count on buche
if you want buche
get you fucking own

I wonder

2009-11-13T06:14:00.001-08:00

Is there even a soupçon of real coffee in a Nespresso capsule ?

Disgrace

2009-10-31T04:01:00.001-07:00

I have a Nespresso machine... that alone is a warning sign to overspending.
I needed capsules.
I visit the Champs Élysées branch.
As usual, and like every Nespresso branch, it is PACKED.
Fuck!
Saturday afternoon
Obviously.
But nevermind, the glass is at least always half full, and i have Time, and so i decide to make use of the customary Nespresso custumer service and sit at the bar and order an Expresso.
"Sir, unlike other Nespresso branches, we charge coffees here."
Silly me answers "no prob."

4 fucking euros

Ok, there's the little chocolate on it's little support, the glass of mineral water...

Fuck off

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

At last

2009-10-30T18:40:00.001-07:00

Had my first oysters last week
It's the season
Hooray !!

Don't ban the ban

2009-09-23T08:22:00.000-07:00

they couldn't ban tuna fishing in the mediteranean
so WE must boycott tuna ...

... for a while at least

Hero

2009-09-16T06:33:00.000-07:00

A true Afgan inspiration...
Lived LIFE to the very fullest.

fast food

2009-04-24T05:15:00.001-07:00

The mighty kebab...
here it lies in front of me, inviting all of my senses to take it's highroad to satisfaction.
This (Turkish version), i must admit is the light version compared to the one that's sold with greasy chips, which i must add is the lighter version of the 'true afgan' English (Greek) version that is not sold with chips, but still comes with it's equivalent in grease...
...brilliant stuff need i add.
So this extra light version of the kebab is really pretty good in terms of a varried dish. You have your proteins, your meats, a little fat, a little sugar, fiber... so i would comfortably recommend this mediteranean fare.
All of that to say that fast food is good food. Perhaps not for one's health, but Damn it can taste as good as it looks bad.
I truely think that many people Reject (yes an R cap an bold for maximum effect) fast food purely because they were told it was bad for them. These psycho segregationists are really missing out on something. I mean fair enough it isn't the healhtiest food you can get your teeth into, but then bœuf bourguignon every day is another challenge alltogether for your digestive system.
These rejectioners are snobs.
I have no other word.
more on the theme soon...

at last

2009-03-22T08:06:00.000-07:00

it was a long time in coming but we finally got our lunch at Paul Bocuse. We were greeted by the man himself. old shaky tired record breaker. we left 7 courses, 3 bottles of wine and about 4 hours later... happy The only example i have ever witnessed so far of Classical Excellence. French cuisine at it's best. It will never get better because these dishes, He has worked over the years so that they become the representation of France of the highest order when it comes to food. He sits there, alone, on the opposite side of Ferran Adria of the gastronomic spectrum. Their common points? the best products available. other common points? the quest for excellence on the table, around the table, and well after the table.

amazing, quite vetiginous how just a few dishes have maintained his supreme position as a world leader. Nothing fancy about the "volaille de Bresse en vessie" with side vegetable a part from it's most incrdible taste and texture. Never has poultry tatsed like that.
Never will it ever taste like that either.

unique

pizza

2009-03-04T06:01:00.000-08:00

wow! first post in many moons !
just can't get into it very much... actually, the main excuse being the shitty quality of the iPgones camera. Anyway, read one of the funniest pieces of journalism in a long time about pizzas.
So easy to make, yet so easy to fuck up. I often find that the easier the recipe, the easier it is to screw up. Example : how many people get a soft boild egg right ? how many people screw up pasta? how many times has your meat been overcooked ?
Read on...

flake / Mars

2009-02-09T07:01:00.001-08:00

Pardon the quality of the picture, but Mac really have to improve the iPhone's camera greatly.
Mars have come up with a pseudo substitute for the Flake bar. The chocolate bar that has NO cocoa in it at all. This pseudo flake is fantastic with an expresso. Amazing ! it brings all the coffe flavour out ! once in a while it's damn worth it.

simple

2008-12-25T14:13:00.000-08:00

first, i must apologise for the quality of the photo.
The camera on the iPhone is no way as good as the one on the Eriksson...
what the hell.
Christmas, or any BIG meal must be kept as simple as possible whilst all at the same time looking for maximum effect.
This, i stole from the "Waitrose" magazine.
200g grated parmasan
150 g flour
150 g butter
throw eveything into a blender until you get a "crumble" pastry add water if need be.
roll your pastry into a sausauge.
Roll it into a beaten egg, then roll it on some spice. Wasabe sesame seeds aren't bad. Pure wasabe might be better. Wrap your spiced sausage in some cellophane and chill for at least half an hour.
You slice the sausage up and cook your biscuits in a hot oven for 1/4 hour.
easy

black diamond

2008-12-03T04:56:00.001-08:00

Why is the black truffle so cherrished ? so special ? so unique ? so glamourised ?
i thought for so long that the fungi above was idealised only because or it's rarity. After all, it's earthy taste was not was hardly recognisable, and so very often undetected.
Was it also just because it was part of the magnificient white truffle's family that made it such a star ?
after all, it wasn't because i didn't try !
i must have sampled the mushroom in so many different ways that it was impossible not to give an objective point of view...
... until now that is...
it's a secret, but well worth sharing because it is one of the most delicate products i've used, and one gets addicted to it very quickly. The margin of error is enormous so there is little chance of failiure...
the simple secret is to use it raw. Be it on on pasta, scrambled eggs, risotto, mashed potato, soup... whatever... ALWAYS grate the mushroom on your dish just before serving, and the heat of the dish will bring all the scents and flavours out.
My favorite is risotto. I will have a chapter on that very soon...

autumn

2008-11-24T14:52:00.000-08:00

autumn is here, well it's more like winter, but it's such a great period to be stuck in the kitchen. One of my favorite kicks is the apple tart. It's so easy, so fast and so damn good. I usually slice the apples with their skin. I actually leave the skin on more and more fruit and veg that i cook. It gives out so much taste. You just have to think about cleaning the fruit or veg thoroughly to get as much of the chemicals off as possible... back to the tart. Roll out some pastry... ready made stuff is really good. Place the slices and sprinkle sugar on top. I like to add a few thin slices of butter on top. Pop your tart in a hot oven adn dcook for about half an hour. Enjoy hot, warm or cold.
Hot with a big dollop of vanilla ice cream, and a glass of calvados. Enjoy.

help

2008-10-17T04:00:00.001-07:00

What do you call this particular type of pumpkin ?
if anybody knows, please tell me !!

of molecular cooking

2008-10-17T03:34:00.000-07:00

Just a few things come to mind following a short portrait of Ferran Adria
Having had the "privilege" of dining at El Bulli a couple of years back, i must admit that it may well have have been the best meal of my life. If it wasn't, then it certainly was the most incredible dining experience.
Adria and his co-deconstructers have certainly achieved one thing : to propulse and establish gastronomy to the same artistic heights as painting, music...
They have certainly "intellectualised" food by decomposing and recomposing the physical aspects of the products, and yet keeping the taste of the product intact as our reference; why should carrot soup be orange and siped from a spoon ? when it could be frothed and just melt in the mouth... why not inhale something before eating something else just to enhance the taste of it ?
The effect is a little similar to cubism i find. Deconstruct to rebuild after.
He brings emotion out of our senses. What's crazier than eating frozen parmasan froth accompanied by red berry muesli ? the savoury coolness and softness of the froth, the crunchiness, aspect mixed with the sweet and sour of the berries... awesome
Having said that, one can't help wondering if such a meal was good or not, as the only reference we have are our taste buds, and most of the (35 in my case) dishes can be eaten almost anywhere. But the deconstruction of the products destabalises the eater to such an extent that he really needs the have the tastes in his gustative memory to appreciate what he is eating.
So one question pops to mind: does one need a gustative education before even thinking of entering such a place ? is this just become a new playgroung for the intellectual elite to distance itself a little more from the "people" ? it this also a new playground for the rich who can affor tanks of liquid nitrogen to cook their gambas at precisely -257 °F ?
It seems weird that molecular cuisine has reached into such scientific detail that one could imagine robots preparing the dishes in the very near future... that would be a great way to mass produce this excellence the the "people" !

MARXISM IS GOOD FOR YOU

2008-10-15T09:20:00.000-07:00

Thierry Marx is one hell of a chef. One of the co-founders of molecular gastronomy, he is to me, one of the few chefs that has really managed to impose the far eastern relationship with food into our european way of thinking. I spent the morning with him during a prensentation of different dishes, and during those 3 hours he showed, explained and defended the whole concept of "molecular cooking".
Despite all the bla blas and hooraahs or booings about deconstructive gastronomy, one MUST remember that these chefs know their food like nobody else. Mr. Marx has travelled the world, especially in the far east to get to "know" his food, and the foundation of his cooking lies in a few simple dogmas, that comme straight out of common sense; respect of the product, freshness of the product, and never (or nearly never) exposing his food to high temperatures. Most of his dishes are cooked a low tempreatures to keep them tender.

Well hidden is his philantropic side that is so predictable when you hear him talk, and yet so discreet as he never imposes this facet. He works intensly on creating different diets in assisting cancer relief programms. He also has many dicovery workshops aimed to help parents and children have a more stable and varied diet.

Why can't all my mornings be as great as this ?

let's talk about spice

2008-10-15T03:59:00.000-07:00

This is my 3 spice powder.
composed of : rock salt, Sitchuan pepper and Star aniseed.
Pan roast every thing for a few seconds, or until you get the fragrances all over the room, then crush them all together.
Easy.
Quick.
And it keeps for along time.
As for the proportions, as usual play by nose and tongue.
You can use it for so many things; rub it on raw duck/pork then either roast or grill or even steam the meats.
Then you can dip the cooked slices into the mix as you're eating. Changes from soya sace or what ever !
enjoy.

speed of life

2008-10-01T05:32:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how life can just zip by so fast. One minute you're a teenager, the next, you've just passed 40 and wonder what the fuck you're doing in the world.
Unfortunately, we live in a time and age where the most time consuming activity we have is WORK. Some of us, if not most, of even bring some of it home. It's so ubiquitious in time and space that finding other things to do necessitates sometimes so much energy that I could easily resign myself to living the rest of my life in a hammock... but with family, in laws, friends and my appetite to feed, the hammock must sadly wait.
So I come to the point of my rant.
WE MUST NOT LET OUR FEEDING BE TAKEN OVER BY WORK !
Our curiosity for new products, new ways of cooking, new associations must be and remain our passion, our drive, and in my case, my therapy...
So being (as usual) having been caught by time, and having six people waiting for diner when i got home, checke the fridge. Lots of Chianti... a buch of fading basil.
So you chop up the basil as finely as possible, mix it with enough garlic to give you a killer breath for 3 days, as much parmasan you can grate between two glasses of wine, and a good 3 soupspoons of your best olive oil per person. Black pepper by the ton and a sprinkle of salt. Make your spag al dente.
[My friend A-M [ak!] always told me that pasta puts you in a good mood. How right she was]
Mix, serve, laugh, enjoy.

red

2008-09-30T01:31:00.001-07:00

I've only encountered these little red peppers in Italy.
They're sweet, crunchy and not spicy once you've taken all the seeds out.
The best way that i found to appreciate them is as a bitesize aperetif.
Rinse them, chop their tops off, deseed them, and quater them. You then make a filling based on cream cheese in which you add virtually any herb or spice... keep to one spice/herb at the time, as mixes tend to kill off the taste of the pepper.
Cream cheese mixes welll with mint / basil / parsley & garlic / lemon / honey & rosemary / cumin & corriander / cumin & orange zest & sultanas...
go for it !

Oh ! they have a sun dried version too that is quite HOT !
but once hydrated and mixed with three times it's quantity in dried tomato, black olives, 2 cloves of garlic, and some olive oil, you can either use it as pasta salsa or just spread it on warm toast.

for kids... big and small

2008-09-29T06:57:00.001-07:00

5 minutes to prepare this little wonder. the problem is that it smells so good when it come out of the oven that everything is devoured before you can take a picture of the finished product...
So you chop up bits of chicken that you marinate for at least an hour. The marinade being composed of 6 units of soya sauce, 2 units of sugar, 1 unit of honey (Acacia if you can because the taste is not as strong as others, yet it holds during the cooking, and a small unit of rice wine (or whisky), a chopped onion, a piece of gratted ginger and 2 squashed cloves of garlic.
Leave everything in the marinade and cook under the grill for as long as it takes.
eat.
enjoy.

At last

2008-09-26T02:19:00.000-07:00

My favorite restaurant in Paris has re-opened.
Momoka, held by my friend Masayo, offers the best japanese food you can get.
Inventive, original, simple, delicate, refined, copious, and NOT expensive.
Above : crayfish tartar with an urchin & soya sauce topping.
Devine.

Pies

2008-09-24T08:52:00.000-07:00

Haven't posted anything in quite some time, but i keep forgeting to take a picture of what's been cooking. Anyway, for some reason , i thoght that it was a good idea to cook a chicken & mushroom pie last night... it was 10.30, and it was a good excuse to open a bottle of Chablis... the night was mine.
So here goes...
i chopped up 6 big mushrooms and fried them in a pan with a big dollop of butter and a hand full of chopped parsley. When the mushrooms have given all their water, add in a couple of chopped cloves of garlic.
> Stir.
It should smell good by now.
Throw in 4 chicken brests that have been cubed.
> Stir.
Pour in a very generous glass of white wine, salt & pepper, and let simmer.
Pendant ce temps, as they say over here, melt about 150 g of butter in a pan.
Add in 6 tablespoons of flour and mix until all the flour has equally absorbed the butter. Reduce the heat and progressively add in some milk whilst stirring all the time. The secret to the béchamel is the continuous stiring and the fact that you add the milk very slowly and in very small quantities.
So, you keep on stiring and adding theads of milk (be patient; a béchamel without lumps is so much nicer than a lumpy one)... don't forget to check on your chicken from time to time...
When you get a nice thick béchamel, you can add it to the chicken once all the liquid has gone.
> Stir
> Taste
> add some thyme perhaps
> let cool
> Switch on the oven to 180°C.
Line your baking tin with a layer of fluff pastry. Pour in the chicken & mushroom mix. Line the top with a second sheet of fluff pastry. Spread the yolk aver the top for the shiny effect and cook for a good 40 mins.
> Eat with whatever wine ther is left.

starters

2008-09-09T02:00:00.001-07:00

... and it's just a starter.
The bruschetta in the middle was one of the most amazing things i have tasted in a long time... Yet again, so simple to do.
Lightly toast a slice of bread. Scrub a clove a of garlic on one side. Cover it with mushrooms that have been preserved in oil, add on a layer of Mozarella di Buffala. Grill. Eat.

marocan soup

2008-09-05T15:07:00.000-07:00

i'm not sure what's happening to the weather, but it's suddenly getting cold. To think that a week ago i was basking in the south of France, sipping some cool white wine under a palm tree... Back in Paris for less than a week and it's autumn... it's supposed to be nice in paris in september... whatever happened to the indian summer ?
this is one for the cold... when it gets colder i'll post a more filling version. This one will do for now. It's perfect to nurse bad hangovers by the way...
chop into small bite size pieces 2 carrots, 2 turnips, 2 courgettes, 2 tomatos & a large onion.
heat some oil and start frying the onion. Add in the tomatos. When they get mushy, add a teaspoon of ginger, one of saffron and one of turmeric. give it all a twirl, then add the carrots and turnips, and let them cook for a few minutes. add an egg cup of water. When the water has evaporated, throw in the courgettes. stir, and cover with either a chicken or vegetable broth. cover. cook slowly for about 30 minutes. srinkle some chopped corriander leaves before serving. serve with harrissa.

tofu [2]

2008-09-05T14:58:00.001-07:00

OK, this one is so easy NOBODY can screw this up. I mean NOBODY.
AND it's damn good (it's the only way i ever got kids to eat tofu) and damn healthy...
Get some firm Tofu. Dice it up.
Heat some oil. when it's hot, throw in the bean curd and stir fry for a few minutes. When it starts to colour, add in a crushed clove of garlic. Keep the whole thing moving, and pour in some soya sauce... about an egg cup full will do. Fry for an extra couple of minutes and throw in some chopped corriander leaves.
Serve.
Enjoy.

OH ! and if anybody manages to fluff this up, send me a picture & posting address and i'll send you a Mars bar in return !

simplicity

2008-09-04T05:58:00.001-07:00

I know that i've been bragging a lot about italian foood and italy in general, but over the past few months, there is one motto i try to keep to which is : THE SIMPLER, THE BETTER.
Life can get so damn complicated sometimes - for all the unnecessary reasons - that is is really worth while wasting time in finding easy solution the hard way and picking up at the same time a whole batch of stomach ulcers ?
So, yes, i say FUCK it all.
Italians are lucky beacause their products are so good, so they don't need tons of spices, additives, taste enhancers, bits & pieces & sauces to make things taste good...
From that, i can only deduce the fact that if a product is good, the dish will be hard to screw up.
Respect the seasons, and the product will taste good.
A tomato needs the sun, like a chicken needs space...
So keep it simple. Let the product do the "work"...

Chop some tomatoes, add some chopped basil and pour in some olive oil.
Crunch some salt and pepper.
Done.

razor clams

2008-08-01T05:34:00.000-07:00

Barcelona
by the sea
white wine
evening heat
warm breeze
tapas
"la marcha"
and razor clams.

i can understand that these mollusks don't look very inviting, but they are so good. The ones i had were very chewy which means they were probrably over cooked... having said that, eating them with my brace made the whole excercise enven more complicated... but what the fuck ? they taste so good, the pleasure lasted even longer.

wash your clams, put them on a plate.
pour olive oil, chopped garlic.
steam for about 5/7 minutes.
sprinkle chopped parsley and serve with lots of black pepper and lemon.
to be tried at least once in one's life.

You can also stir fry them using the same ingredients.

Most excellent fast food

2008-08-01T05:22:00.001-07:00

First, i must apologize for the poor quality of the picture, both technically and aesthetically... but i'd gone through most of my dish before i'd actually thought of photographing it. I will re-cook it one day and take a decent snap.
Anyway, back to fast food. This is fast and damn good for your health and weight.
Here goes.
First make up the sauce : boil up some a pint of bonito broth. Add a couple of table spoons of soya and a couple of sugar. When everything is diluted and tastes good take off the heat.
Then cut your solid tofu into cubes. Cover them in cornflour, then drop them in very hot oil for a couple of minutes. Serve in a bowl with a bit of your broth and chopped scallion.
yep, it's damn good.

Saffron sunsets

2008-07-28T08:35:00.000-07:00

A quick pasta dish. devinely sexy.
for 3 guests and yourself.
Chop up 1 big onion, 3 cloves of garlic, 3 courgettes, and peel 3 ripe tomatoes, and 4/5 prawns per person.
fry up the onions + garlic on high heat. Add the courgettes, a small glass of white wine a minute later, and a teaspoon of saffron another minute later. everything should be boiling by now. add the prawns and stir fry for about 3 minutes. Stir in a tablespoon of cream per person. season before throwing in the very al dente pasta for another minute before serving.
enjoy

italy, my love

2008-07-28T01:18:00.000-07:00

ok, i may have had a problem with Italy, but that will be the subject of another post on another blog...
my problem now with this beautiful country is coming to terms with the incredible gastronomic resources it has to offer.
Like chinese food, italian food is family food. It is prepared and food cooked with friends and family.
For it to be good there is only one criteria : the quality of the products used. Because of this unique criteria, italian cooking entertains a very intimate relationship with nature, which must be respected, and followed. It is not innocent that movements such as SLOW FOOD come from Italy. The abundance of products has blessed ths country with a rare luxury : the possibility to eat an incredible variety fresh productsaccording to the seasons.
The dishes are so simple, there is no need to hide/mask/disguise the true value of a product with a thick sauce, zillions of different spices...
If ever you go to Florence go here ...
Ask to meet the mama, and et her to talk about the food she produces.
It's all completely natural and delicious. Unfotunately, she will not sell any of her products as "it is forbidden to sell good things here"...
i did manage however to get this recipie off her. I haven't tried it yet, but i will until i get it right, as few things have blitzed my palet as much as this :

Marmalada al peperoni (pic above) :
750g. red pepper
250g. ginger
1kg. sugar
2 glasses of cider vinegar.
Wash the peppers. Cook them in the vinegar with the ginger.
Once cooked, throw the liquid away and purée the peppers.
Put the purée in a pan and add the sugar. Bring the lot to a boil for 3 minutes.
And there you have it ... easy no ?

don't kid yourself

2008-06-26T13:37:00.001-07:00

we stop being smelly hypocrites
we all love fast food
we all love junk food
it tastes good,
it smells good,
and sometimes it even looks quite good.
it's bad for your health, but then so are most of the things
we
love.

P

2008-06-23T02:56:00.000-07:00

fuck i love peas !
i have a basic prepreation for them which consists in frying them genlty in butter with a sliced onion before adding a cup of water and letting them simmer for about 20 minutes. After that, i put them in anything/everything from fried rice to omelette.
there's this great chinese dish that goes like this :
you need about two thirds of meat for a third of peas...
fry up some garlic, fresh ginger, and some spring onions.
add in your minced meat + soya sauce, a bit of sugar and a splash of rice wine.
once it starts to smell good and that your meat is nearly cooked, toss in your peas. stir fry for a few minutes. when everything is cooked, mix in a tablespoon of sesame oil and a beaten egg.
serve with plain white rice.

i see red

2008-06-23T02:31:00.000-07:00

summer, and at last we get to eat real tomatoes. we get tomatoes all year round, but how many actually really taste of tomato ? to be true, none.
tomatoes only taste good whan they've had their dose of sun... the real one, and not the 40 Watt one. To give the winter tomatoes some tase, i usually peel them, chop them and add about a teaspoon of sugar per threesome and mix.
My favorite tomato sauce is the following :
peel, chop a load of tomatoes... make it 2 kg
fry up some garlic, and about 4 sliced onions in a generous splash of olive oil.
add in a couple of teaspoons of sugar, and get the whole lot caramalized.
throw in the tomatoes, and a glass of white wine then stir fry until they become mushy.
[ if your tomatoes aren't ripe and are really tasteless, you can put in a soup spoon of concentrated tomato. ]
add some salt...( i like adding the ground pepper when it's in my plate.)
kill the heat, add a dollop of thick cream, mix in the pasta...
... parmasan + a bunch of chopped basil...
... the rest of the white wine...
need i say more ?

Chips

2008-05-30T06:50:00.000-07:00

... and i'm not talking about two cheesy smiling highway patrolemen on bikes...
I'm talking about crisps actually, not chips.
In English english, the picture above is one of a crisp. A chip is a french fry in US english, or a frite in french. [But just to confuse us beyond the point of reason, they call a crisp a chip.] ...
confused ?
don't be, because chips are also chips/crisps in England... whatever...
Having grown up in London, i have been used to a whole variety of flavoured crisps... [my favorite being cheese and onion], so you can imagine my amazement when I came to France [just a few miles acress the Channel] an saw that only had saltd crisps...
that was years ago...
since then they have managed a few boring flavours... but they have also manages to import all sorts of crisps to liven up the all too dull crisp shelve in the supermarket...
Bref, the one above is a sweet chili crips made by TYRRELL ...
Brilliant, light, very crisp, thin, tasty... whhat else does one want from a piece of deep fried potato ?

not for the squeamish

2008-05-28T08:41:00.000-07:00

The andouillette ...
The french answer to haggis.
Pure pork, sometimes veal.
There are two ways to prepare these sausages. The whole difference lies in the fact that the sausage retains it's skin without splitting.
1. On the grill. you have to be careful as the skin tends to split easily when it's too cooked, so best grill on a low heat.
2. Lison's recipe. Melt up alarge chunck of butter in a shallow pan. Throw in the andouillettes with an egg cup's worth of white wine, and let them simmer gently. Once the white wine has evaporated, add hallf an egg cup of calvados, and let the whole thing to simmer for another 15/20 minutes.
Simple no?
Obvioulsly, they must be accompanied with forked mashed potatoes.

easy scallion pancakes

2008-05-19T02:30:00.000-07:00

i spent the week end running through as many foodie blogs as possible.
it's amazing how many there are and the amount of time people have to nourrish their blogs. I must be in the wrong business...
anyway, one of the most common recipie when it comes to chinese food,is the scallion pancake.
piss easy to make, and yet so hard to get right.
mix 2 cups of flower and 1 cup of warm water.
Knead and let rest for a quater of an hour.
chop up a bunch of scallion as thinly as possible.
... 15 minutes later...
devide the pastry into 5 or 6 balls.
Flatten them out, then spread out some sesame oil & soya sauce over the surface.
sprinkle the scallion generously.
roll the pancake up.
once you have your long 'sausage', roll that up into a spiral, and flatten the whole thing out again.
fry on both sides for a couple of minutes...
yum
the next step would be to use the pancakes as a burrito and stff it with a stir fry of some sort.

a true surprise

2008-05-07T02:36:00.001-07:00

OK, it doesn't look like much, but it's amazing.

A salmon tartar with some shredded veg & passion fruit.

What was the most amazing thing was the fact that the food was served

at a place called LE RESERVOIR , a small concert venue very similar to Dingwalls/Break for the Border with the velvety atmosphere of Ronnie Scott's,

the difference being that the food is of extremly high standards.

It isn't a cheap eatery (50/70 euros per head with the wine) but it's worth it.

Main courses are very elegant, and the meats are tender, lean, and of great quality.

Deserts were great... a farandole of caramel presented in different forms : ice cream, madeleine, flan...

(And dear reader, you must know that i do not have a sweet tooth. So for future reference, if i do indulge in desert commenting it's because it was either really good or a pile of shite.)

... and for those about to rock...

EAT SHIT

2008-04-29T00:58:00.000-07:00

So for the third year running El Bulli has won the obsequious prize of the 'Best restaurant in the World'. The Fat Duck & Gagnaire being yet again runners up.

It's amazing how gastronomy has managed to force itself into the world of bling bling and gliteratti...

Restaurants being more and more the place to be seen at. It's the 'pseudo intellectual bubble'. A few decades ago, it was art collecting, as Picasso's and Pllock's were harder to come by, and therfore more expensive, and therefore a sublte way to vomit your ostentatious personality. Now it's the BIG restaurants. El Bulli being the most exclusive, as he closes for 6 months, and has to refuse dozens of thousands (yes thousands) of demands...

I mean it's easy, how the fuck can you compare restaurants ?

What makes the food you taste at El Bulli better than your secret little eatery that you discovered on a street corner ? What is the the criteria of making one restaurant edge another to take the master spot ? How can something as personnal as eating/tasting be but into competition ? One can compare, yes, feelings, impressions, but not evaluate them.

After all nobody has ever dared say that Guernica is better than the Mona Lisa, that is better than the sunflowers...

How is it possible to compare a deconstructed raviloi to a delicate green curry or to a simply grilled fish, or even a boiled farm egg, and to say that one dish will have 10 points because it involves several different way of cooking using steam, pressure, heat, cold, and another dish gets just one point because just about everybody, just about everywhere can stick an egg in boiling water for a few minutes ?

Yes I've been to El Bulli. Yes, i was baffled, and yes i thought it was the most amazing experience my palet would ever live. Yes, we talked about it. Yes people talk to you as though you have been to Mars. Yes, the picture above was taken there, and it represents a light parmesan raviloli that when it comes in contact with the warm basil froth/bouillon, expands like a baloon. And yes, it tastes good. And yes, simple spag al dente, with a dash of pure olive oil, a squeeze of garlic, a load of shredded basil, some ground pepper, tastes just as good.

Have a laugh

my new best friend

2008-04-22T01:43:00.000-07:00

my new favorite poison si Saké.

the more i drink it the more i love it.

i prefer it warm than cold or even chilled which is how i tasted it last night.

when it's warm, it's so smoothe

you can feel it stroke your throat so gently

it's subtle tastes and different flavours come to life as it glides across your palet.

i have to drink more to get more acquainted with what it has to offer.

the rituals are worth getting into...

when i'lll know more, i'll the you,

but for now the philistine that i am will humbly take pleasure

in drinking and tasting as much of this nectar as it is possible

at ZEN, last night, they had this oversized expresso machine that automatically warms the saké

brilliant

i want one too

simple is best

2008-04-18T06:45:00.000-07:00

Quite honestly,

is there anything simpler and better than an egg?

from a simple boiled egg to a vanilla flan, or fresh pasta,

eggs can be used so diversly.

ma favourite is probrably a soft boiled egg

with a generous quantity of coarsely ground BLACK pepper

accompanied by salted buttered mouillettes.

another favourite is creamy and buttery scrambled eggs

into which you have added a few dops of light soya sauce.

having said that, scambled eggs with jelapeno peppers

have suddenly popped into mind,

and memories of breakfast in Oaxaca under a blazing sun

after a night out with Mascaline dance in my head...

a soft boiled egg would certainly feature in my top ten meals.

'nuff said

right ?

Two extremes

2008-04-15T05:53:00.001-07:00

... so here we are for the first post.

My lunch today was at KFC. I hadn't been in a long time, and before even getting a bite out of the bits of chicken, i was reliving a true Afgan madeleine.

My last KFC rout was about 20 years ago, and i was very excited to get back into the box...

Well fuck me dead, they're no more red and white stripped boxes, the KFC trademark.

The chicken is still as good as ever, and the fries still tastetless.

The problem is all the bits that existed all that time ago, and that made the meal a real KFC meal, have gone ; the boxes, the gravy (it was so good), the coleslaw...

but then, 4 pieces of chicken, some fries and a drink for 8 euros is a good deal, which is more than what i can say for KAISEKI, a very fashionable restaurant.

KASEIKI is a pure product of the Parisian bobo hype. It looks like a cantine, the chef is there cooking for you, what he cooks is devine in taste and in looks, everybody looks happy happy to see you, serve you, and rob you of a fucking fortune. 3 courses, a 'farandole' of deserts, a couple of glasses of wine for 125 fucking euros a head. The problem is not to cough up so much money, but the fact that there is the choice of [only] 2 menus : the 'normal' one and the infamous OMAKASE, (sorry but i can't be bothered in explaining).

So, basically, 2 menus, that have a difference of 50 euros between them, and by the looks of the 'normal' one, the OMAKASE can only be mind blowing. Well the two menus turned out to be two twin brothers, one of which, like all twin brotherships was a bit bigger... just a bit... so 'just a bit', in fact that we couldn't really tell the difference between them, a part from 50 fucking euros...

... mind blowing indeed.