My fishmonger suggested a good way with kippers that really reduces the smell: pop them in a pan, with barely enough water to cover, pop the lid on, bring to the boil, remove from the heat and leave for 10 minutes. Dot of butter on the top to serve. Really does reduce the smell.

And mackerel – try baking it like bass in a case of salt. Keeps all the moisture and flavour, but again, reduces the smell.

Last visit to the Chinese supermarket I bought a jar of salted crab. Once I got home and read about it, I've decided to take it down to Devon next month and use it for wrassing from the rocks

Ah, the old "[iit seemed like a good idea when I was in the Chinese supermarket[/i ...".
Done that a few times myself.

Putting aside the "test-tube" idea (as it was grown in a Petri dish, not a test tube) the world's first Petriburger has now been made and consumed. www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... eat-eating news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... t-science/ I don't think there are any logical arguments remaining in favour of growing more cattle in the world, it's not do-able, well not to any much larger extent. Plus, the Petriburger would cut emissions by 95%, land use by 90% and there would no outbreaks of foot and mouth or CJD in the labs. All that remains is to ask whether the public would eat it. After having seen the Junkburgers that people will eat at RL games, I think the answer is yes. The lady I saw on the telly who tasted the Petriburger said that it didn't taste very meaty. Neither do McDonald's but they are very popular.

Putting aside the "test-tube" idea (as it was grown in a Petri dish, not a test tube) the world's first Petriburger has now been made and consumed. www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... eat-eating news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... t-science/ I don't think there are any logical arguments remaining in favour of growing more cattle in the world, it's not do-able, well not to any much larger extent. Plus, the Petriburger would cut emissions by 95%, land use by 90% and there would no outbreaks of foot and mouth or CJD in the labs. All that remains is to ask whether the public would eat it. After having seen the Junkburgers that people will eat at RL games, I think the answer is yes. The lady I saw on the telly who tasted the Petriburger said that it didn't taste very meaty. Neither do McDonald's but they are very popular.

Really interesting post.

I wouldn't - but then I don't eat at McDonalds or Burger King or even the 'posh' burger joints.

The most I'd do is eat a steak haché in France - very, very occasionally. And that was the case even before I really got into food or had a decent income.

What about you?

If you've ever shopped at Costco then you will have seen that they have some very excellent, and very expensive, meat products, including some very good burgers - and then you will also have seen the bulk boxes of thin, flat, frozen meat patties and if my memory serves me right they are usually labelled as "catering burgers" and are EXTREMELY cheap - if you've ever been to Costco and been shopping for yourself you will certainly NOT have ever bought one of those boxes for you take one look and keep walking



Having said that, I have had some excellent tasting meat patties from some street van caterers but you can usually judge how good they are by the fact that they are usually at the same location every day.

If you think Costco is expensive, you'd best not look in the back of my van

Years ago, I was sort-of-vegetarian(*) for more than a decade, not because I had an issue with killing animals for food per se ... but because I didn't agree with many farming, husbandry and slaughter standards or, more accurately, lack of standards, nowadays that has largely changed and I can usually avoid quite well, except in restaurants.
So, my first response would probably be to eat less meat.
It wouldn't be a great hardship as I still don't regard a meatless meal as anything unusual.
My view is that, if meat isn't good quality, tasty and responsibly reared etc, why bother with it?
I don't eat at McD, Burger King, KFC or any of those outlets and it's been decades since I was last in a Pizza Hut ... I just don't see the point of eating such rubbish unless you absolutely have to.
You won't find me in a Greggs or the god-awful mayonnaise(**) purveyors known as Pret-a-Manger either.

Nonetheless, I do enjoy the (very) occasional burger, usually made at home or at my local pub (who I trust).
Posh burger joints are probably more easily found in your neck of the woods than mine, although I did visit one in Soho once, out of curiosity, when they first kicked-off about ten or twelve years ago.

(*) I did get the occasional sneer about not being a "proper" vegetarian (not that I ever claimed to be such) but usually from people who didn't know the first thing about food anyway.
(**) I have an aversion to the inappropriate ubiquity of mayonnaise, why would you put mayonnaise in the same sandwich as cheese and pickle, why is horseradish always reduced to horseradish-flavoured mayonnaise? It's like slimy baby food, not for anyone with functioning taste buds.

Maybe I'm just picky ... but that's the way it is.

Japan's largest recipe site, now in English: en.cookpad.com/

Japan's largest recipe site, now in English: en.cookpad.com/

###Crosses him off the opening ceremony of the new studio next month####

Quote ="vbfg"Japan's largest recipe site, now in English: en.cookpad.com/'" Cool. Thank you.

Quote ="vbfg"Japan's largest recipe site, now in English: en.cookpad.com/'" Cool. Thank you.

Last night I had a glass of chilled Noilly Prat(*), probably the first time I have tried it.
Very nice indeed.
Like a gently herbed dry sherry.

It started me thinking about drinks that are nowadays unfashionable but are actually a quality tipple.
Ones with which I am comfortably familiar and come to mind immediately are rum, sherry and vermouth.

Any others I'm missing out on?

(*) I'm guessing a pronunciation of something like no-a-yee pratt.

Lillet, St Raphael & Pontarlier. Years ago I really enjoyed a large vodka with a large Campari topped up with orange juice.
NP is very nice I keep mine in the fridge an use it often if making a cream based sauce for fish.

I'm already familiar with vermouths but haven't tried Lillet yet.
However I never met a vermouth I disliked so will endeavour to give Lillet a shot.

Pontarlier ... I hadn't even heard of it and have just had to google to find it.
Hope I've found the right product, an absinthe?
I have also googled the performance with the sugar cube ... does the slow dripping genuinely make a difference to the "louche" effect or can one simply add chilled water into which one has stirred some granulated?

If you like caraway, you could always try kummel. I think one is called Wolf[is[/ihit

I recently paid £5 or a large shoe box full of someone's miniatures collection (about 70 bottles in total), there were some really brutal Spanish concoctions but surprisingly, many were quite drinkable

Haven't tried Kummel since I was in my twenties so it must be, oooh, nearly ten years ago

and my recollection is that it was very sweet, yes?
Mind you, I find most liqueurs a bit on the sweet side, so not ruling it out.

In the African and Caribbean French colonies, it was always frowned upon for caucasian men to fraternise with the local women. All it usually took was a session on absinthe to put such reservations to one side. Hence the phrase:

Absinthe makes the dark grow blonder

That's what your mouth tastes like in the morning after a heavy session on kummel - It's called Wolfschmidt. Love Kummel

Personnaly don't bother with the sugar with Pontarlier just water and ice.

Another blast from my past: Fernet Branca.

On a holiday in Benalmadena, I used to frequent a bar for my breakfast which usualy consisted of a bloody mary and a cheese & ham toastie. The morning after a particularly heavy session, I rocked up and declined my usual brekkie, in fact all I really wanted to do was crawl back to bed. The barman sensed my problems and offered his personal solution:

He filled a 12oz highball glass with ice then poured a 3rd of Pernod, a 3rd of Fernet Branca and topped it up with spring water. I was instructed to stand and drink it in one. I did as instructed, it tasted foul but apart from one brief moment when I thought the sluice gates would open at both ends, after about two minutes i felt fine again.So sat down and he brought me my usual breakfast.

A decent chilled Fino always goes down well as does a white port again chilled.

What about [url=http://thevoluptuousmanifesto.blogspot.fr/2009/02/absinthe-makes-heart-grow-fonder.htmlabsinthe makes the heart grow fonder[/url?

Pretty much the same here – well, a pescatarian, at any rate.



Absolutely agree.



Not even proper mayo anyway.



Nice stuff. Also great as an alternative to using white wine at the base of a risotto.



On the basis of how Rick Stein pronounces it: noir-lee pratt.

Indeed they do, and so many people are missing out on the dry white lightness of a chilled Fino, which is the absolute opposite of the sweet and sticky brown "grannie's drink" image that persists around sherry.

When I have a Fino, it's almost always Tio Pepe, available just about everywhere but no worse for that.

However, on a trip to explore the sherry triangle of Jerez, Sta Maria and Sanlucar de Barrameda a few years ago (preceded by London, Paris, Perpignan for t'match, Barcelona and Cadiz, all by train), I became an unshakeable fan of Manzanilla sherry, which is made only in Sanlucar.
It's "softer" than a Fino but with a slightly deeper flavour and still very refreshing, fabulous outdoors when the heat of the sun dips in the early evening, with a short procession of little plates of tapas before moving on to a restaurant for dinner.

Also before or after dinner, a darker but [udry[/u Oloroso sherry is delicious.
All the complex richness you'd expect of a darker sherry but dry and still light.

One thing for anyone who doesn't know ... a bottle of sherry should be treated like wine, once opened you can't cork it up again and save it for months and expect it to still taste fine.
It's often sold in half bottles for that reason.

They should be sold with crown corks as seals.

Someone once bought me a "wine saver", a device that you put into a bottle of wine an pump out as much air in the ullage space as possible. They couldn't understand my quizzical look and the simple question: "why?" It resided, unopened and unused in the "cupboard under the sink" until I parted with it at a car boot sale

Its like when recipes ask for left over wine, got no concept of what that is...