Kimchi - Korea's greatest export!

Korea's not getting the best publicity these days due to petulant and hard boiled egg faced leader Kim Jong Un threatening to launch World War III 'just for funzies'. South Korea attemped to win people over by sending us the Gangnam Style, but the best thing to ever come out of Korea is its national dish: Kimchi.

Little Shit

Kimchi's main ingredient is fermented cabbage. It sounds like it should be revolting, but along with chilli, carrots, fish sauce, garlic and other stuff, it all comes together as a refreshing but spicy side dish that can be eaten with rice, as a sidedish, or as a flavourful ingredient to a range of dishes.

Good Shit

Now go to your nearest Asian supermarket and get some before we all die in Kim Jong Un's nuclear apocalypse!

How to....Make an insane youtube cookery channel!

The above video comes from the absolutely bonkers 'cooking' channel on youtube from user "HowToBasic".

His channel is stuffed full of such strange recipes. CLICK HERE for more of this madness.

Blair's Death Rain Habanero Pepper Potato Chips

I stumbled upon these crisps (Chips to our American friends) and just had to try them. I like crisps, I like spicy food. I like a challenge, but I'm not one of those mentalists that goes for maximum burn. When it comes to curries, I'll go for a jalfrezi and that's about my limit.

A bag of pure fire

I opened the bag, and was greeted by a vague smokey whiff, followed by a little spicy tickle at the back of the throat. The first crisp gave a delicious strong smokey flavour, followed by pure fire. Then I coughed a bit and reached for a cooling beverage. Yup, these things are hot. Chilli heads shouldn't be disappointed, but if anything I'd like them a bit less hot as the spice overpowers the flavour. I kept going, though. I wasn't going to let £1.50 worth of crisps go to waste. The quality of the 'kettle style' potato crisps that carry the flavour is pretty good too. They're crunchy and crisp, but not oily.

These things come highly recommended if you like your spicy food, but make sure you wash your hands before rubbing your eyes or going for a leak!
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Take-Away Reheats!

Sometimes, you just can't beat a take-way. Sometimes you just can't beat the guilty pleasure of reheating last night's take-away. It's wrong, but it feels so right.

Here are a couple of tips for reheating those unhealthy, tasty treats:

Perfect Crispy Based Pizza Reheats

Heat a non-stick frying pan so that it's pretty hot. Don't add oil. There's plenty in your pizza already. Microwave a slice or two for just long enough to get it hot all the way through, and then throw it base down into the pan. This will magically crisp the base.

Curry Toasties!

Dig out that Breville sandwich toaster (other brands are available) and re-live your student days by making toasties! Get last night's curry out of the fridge, and if the pieces of meat are large, then hack them into manageable chunks with a knife. Get a pan with a lid (to keep moisture in) and add a tiny bit of water. If you don't have a lid, add a bit more water. The water is to make sure that as you heat the curry, it doesnt get too thick and stodgy. Heat the curry through until it's piping hot all the way through.

The final step is to make toasties! Depending on the type of curry, I have occasionally added cheddar. It's filthy, but I'm a filthy boy. Also, this 'recipe' works with leftover chilli con carne or spaghetti bolognese.

Imagine the power of curry and toasties COMBINED!

Got any tips on how to use leftovers? Let us know in the comments below!

Bacon Jam

The human race really has achieved some amazing things. We've built empires, made it possible to talk to people on the other side of the planet, and even been to the moon. Well, now we've managed to engineer JAM made from BACON!

Bacon and Jam? It's like MAN is playing GOD!

How does it taste? Well, it kind of does what it says on the tin. It tastes sweet like Jam, and Baconey like ......well, like bacon. There's a maple syrup flavour in there, and it has an odd mushy meaty texture. I had it on a burger, and it was pretty good. I won't be racing back to buy more, but I'd definitely recommend getting some in for a novel addition to your barbecue.

CLICK HERE for the company's website , and Click here to find out how to make your own!

Chilli Sauce Recipe - Just like you get on Doner Kebabs!!

Here's a quick and easy chilli sauce recipe, perfect for splashing on kebabs. I had it with marinated chicken & veggies in a pitta bread and it was great. Fruity and refreshing but spicy, this should take you about 10 minutes. Try sticking it in a burger to give it a real kick.

I took a tin of tomatoes, a large white onion (sliced), 4 cloves of garlic, a splash of white wine vinegar, a big blob of ketchup, a couple of teaspoons of mint sauce and a handful of red chillis. It went into the blender until really fine, then into the fridge where it should save for a couple of days.

Told you it was quick and easy!



Chilli sauce! Behold it's ethereal glow!

I reckon that if you were to replace the mint sauce with horseradish, this would also work perfectly with seafood such as prawns.

Soft Shell Crabs - Ugly, but tasty.

I recently discovered the joys of cooking (and eating) soft shell crabs. Popular in Asia and America, they don't seem to enjoy the same popularity here in the UK. As far as I'm aware they can only be bought frozen in this country, but if you can find yourself a fishmonger or Asian supermarket that stocks them, you're in for a treat.

When a crab is getting too big for its shell, it does a crabby striptease and sheds the old one. Underneath is the new shell, but it's soft and takes a while to harden. When harvested in its soft shell, the crab can pretty much be eaten whole.  If working with fresh crabs, you need to take rip off its gills and 'bib' (blurgh!), and then cut its face off (retch!). An advantage of the frozen ones is that it has already been violently violated, and you can defrost it and get cooking. You eat the whole thing, including the shell and legs.

Uncooked crabs.
The one on the left is on his back, showing off to some prawns.

The simplest way to cook them is to just dip in a little seasoned flour and deep fry for a few minutes until they look crispy and brown. Put them in the frier on their back first so that they spread their arms and bask in the oil, if you put them legs first, they curl up an look sorry for themselves. They will spit because of all the water in there, so watch yourself!
You could also make (or buy a packet of) a tempura batter, or coat it in 'panko' breadcrumbs. I went for dipping the crabs in whisked eggs, and then in potato flour. This makes them go good and crispy.

He's ugly but delicious!

Soft shell crabs are good in a sandwich with mayonaise, cucumber and tomato. They also work really well with Asian food. I ate these badboys with egg fried rice and prawn toast, and some sweet chilli sauce for dipping.

Snails - What's WRONG with you, France?!?!

I recently wrote about finding a good frozen fishmonger in an earlier post, and one of the things I picked up was frozen edible snails in a garlic and parsley butter.

I once ate snails in Amsterdam on a stag party, and I scoffed them down, telling everyone how delicious they were. This was on a stag party...In Amsterdam....I would have eaten anything.

So I decided to give snails a try in the cold light of day. Consider this an experiment.

The snails before cooking. This could be a bad idea.

Straight from the freezer, these 'Epic Seafood' branded snails come in a foil tray, with a bright green bung of garlic and parsley butter keeping the snail sealed fresh. 10 minutes in the oven from frozen, and out they come, steaming and snaily. The smell is of garlic butter, and that's about it. I'm pretty sure that fresh would be better, but for now, frozen is where it's at.

So in goes my little fork, and out comes something from a sci-fi movie:

It Came From Outer Nose!

I consider myself quite adventurous with food, but I am not looking forward to this at all. In it goes and it's a bit of an effort to chew. Not because it's chewy, but because I'm creeping close to a gag reflex just thinking about what I'm eating. If I could seperate my thoughts from my tastebuds, I probably would have an easier time of it. It's a bit like a mushroom type texture, and doesn't taste that dissimilar. Slightly earthy, with a meaty quality. I swallow, and go in for a second one. In it goes. Chew. Blurgh. Mushroomy. I consider this a very French dish. I thought those guys were supposed to know all about food?!

I ate two from the tray, and the rest are in the bin. I don't think I'll be eating snails again....

And why do I feel so.......dirty?

Home Made Sesame Prawn Toast!

There's a big gap between real Chinese food and the sugary MSG laced stuff that most takeaways sell, but I still love a bit of prawn toast. Forget buying it from a takeaway, though, when you can easily make far, far better quality stuff at home.

Get some uncooked prawns, and either blend them, or do it with a knife, which is really satisfying. Lay the prawns out on a chopping board, get a large sharp knife, and just chop away until it's a lumpy pulp. Then throw it in a bowl. Fine chop some spring onions, and mix them in the bowl with the prawns, plus a small dash of soy sauce and a little beaten egg to help it stick.

I chop you good!

Get some white sliced bread that you've dried in the oven (low temperature for a while until it's a bit crispy), and coat one side with your prawn mixture, patting it down so that it sticks to the bread. Then coat with sesame seeds, and pat them down so that they stick.

Can you tell me how to get.. how to get to Sesame Seeeeeeds

Then simply deep fry the bread for a couple of minutes until a nice brown colour, cut into 2 or 4, and serve with soy sauce or sweet chilli sauce for dipping. Better than from a takeaway!

This is Sesame Prawn Toast, in case you weren't paying attention

Get googling for variations on the recipe, you can't really go wrong! Different versions include adding a bit of pork mince or chicken in with the prawns (since prawns aren't always cheap). You can also experiment with adding a little bit of chilli, a sprinkle of finely chopped coriander or Thai fish sauce into the mixture. I've chopped up a bit of salmon or scallops in with the prawn mixture before. It's always come out tasty.

Bacon Salt - Make Anything taste like bacon!

Once upon a time in days gone by, our distant ancestors received divine knowledge by powers greater than themselves. This knowledge formed the foundations of religions and gave people rules which guided them in how they should live their lives. These rules were many, but people felt thay they should follow them to please a higher power.

"Don't steal", said the rules. This was deemed good advice.
"Don't diddle your neighbours wife", they were told. Everybody thought this seemed fair enough.
 "Don't diddle your neighbours donkey" - everybody looked at one shifty looking guy.
"Don't have sex outside of marriage" - People were a little disappointed, but for eternal life, they thought it seemed a fair trade.
Then came the stinger - "Don't eat bacon!". People dropped to their knees, shook their fists at the sky and yelled "NOOOooooo!!! What kind of God would do this?!!?"

Cheer up, everyone, because thousands of years later EVERYBODY can enjoy the taste of bacon thanks to J&D's Bacon Salt !

It's completely Kosher, vegetarian and zero calories, but does contain MSG, so if you're not a fan of the controversial substance that makes everything taste like heaven, but allegedly gives you cancer, headaches and athletes foot, then you might not be so tempted.

Having tried some, it does indeed taste like bacon. I've had a little shake of it on scrambled eggs, cheese on toast, chips and potato wedges. It gave all of these things a bacon flavour. Verdict: the stuff works. I've even made a bloody mary with a dash of bacon salt, and it was tasty. Do not, however, put this stuff on bacon. I've heard rumours that adding bacon salt to bacon could open a portal to the pork dimension (known as a 'porkal') and turn the fabric of space and time itself into cured meat.

Bacon Salt is available from a number of retailers online.

Seafood Laksa recipe - Easy coconut curry

I mentioned to someone at work that I needed to stock up on Laksa Paste. My colleague looked at me in horror. The problem is that it sounds like I was talking about ointment for my bunghole, when I was in fact talking about a key ingredient in Seafood Laksa, one of the tastiest recipes I know. Just like a lot of the recipes I post on here, it's easy, it takes very little time, and tastes like something you would expect to get in a fine Asian restaurant. It's good served in small bowls as a starter, but works best served as a hearty and warming main meal.

The hardest part of this recipe is getting some Laksa Paste. I have been relying on Penta brand laksa paste, and it looks like this:

It's available in the world foods section of Tesco, but they'll probably expect you to beep it through the checkout yourself, and that's just rude. They'll be getting you to get up at 4am to stock the shelves yourself before you know it. Try and get it from an independent shop or an Asian supermarket if you can.

Laksa curry is a Malaysian and Singaporean dish. It's a coconut curry soup full of seafood and noodles. It's a good dish to make if you are serving a table full of people without getting into a panic about timing everything right and having enough space in the oven or on the hob.

The soup is made by mixing a couple of tablespoons of Laksa paste with chicken stock and coconut milk in a pan and heating it up. Laksa paste contains chilli, but is still fairly mild, so at this stage you might choose to add some chillis (fresh are best, but chilli flakes are fine).

Cook some noodles. Any type will do, but vermicelli are the authentic noodles to use. Cook a selection of seafood in the soup (don't overcook the seafood), along with a few baby corn, a few beansprouts and water chestnuts. For the seafood, I like to use prawns, bits of squid, pieces of salmon, and a few scallops. If you can get fried tofu, use some of that. I've seen it for sale frozen in asian shops, as it's a pain in the arse to make.

Laksa curry. Notice the deep fried tofu bottom left

Grab the serving bowl, and in each one put some noodles, then share out the seafood. Then pour the soup over the top and garnish with a bit of coriander, a couple of slices or strips of cucumber and half a boiled egg. The egg seems like an odd choice, but just trust me on this one, the Malaysians know what they're doing with this stuff.

I don't like to get into specific recipes and measurements for recipes like this one where you can improvise with it depending on what you like or what you've got in the house, but below are a few detailed recipes to get you started

BBC Good Food Prawn Laksa recipe
Seafood Laksa recipe from Taste.com.au
video of the recipe from http://www.asiafoodrecipe.com

And click HERE for a Laksa blog!

If you don't like seafood, do the exact same recipe with bits of chicken, but cook the chicken thoroughly just before you throw it into the soup.

Enjoy your meal, or as the french say "Eeet theeez food, you peeg!"


Update 11/04/2012:
It seems that Tesco have stopped stocking Penta laksa paste, as have a number of online retailers. It is my brand of choice at the moment, as a couple of other ones I've tried have been too spicy. I like spicy food, but my wife doesn't, so the extremely mild heat of the Penta brand stuff works because I can cook for us both and then throw loads of chillies in my bowl. I found a plentiful supply when i visited a Hoo Hing Supermarket today.

If you have a favourite brand of Laksa paste, then please comment and let me know. I'm all up for trying new ones.

Chinese Spoon are best spoon!

In China, spoons are better. This is a fact, because I'm telling you it is.

Teaspoons are ok for putting sugar in tea. They're even quite endearing to eat pudding with, because it takes longer to eat pudding with a teaspoon, so you can take a normal portion of pudding and convince yourself that there is more pudding. Eating pudding with a tablespoon is a waste of time, if you ask me. Tablespoons are only really good for measuring, opening paint tins, or using as a wacky circus mirror that makes your face look all onion shaped like Andrew Loyd Webber.

Onion face

Now consider the soup spoon. It's for eating soup. That's why they call it a soup spoon. But it doesn't hold much soup, which is a major design flaw. Screw you, 'Not-much-soup-spoon', you are only good for preparing Heroin. This spoon ruins lives.

Look at this idiot. Too much spoon.

Now consider the Chinese spoon. It holds loads of soup. It's good for eating Asian dishes that have noodles or large chunks of fish or meat, but they work for any soup. I've checked and everything. I have many Chinese spoons, and not one has come with instructions telling me NOT to eat Heinz tomato soup with it. I've even risked it, and it's safe and FUN! The tall sides to the spoon mean that you can't stick it in your mouth, you have to slurp it, and slurping a load of soup is one of the greatest pleasures known to man.

Chinese Spoon Are Best Spoon!

BEST SPOON!

Coconut Shrimp with Orange Mustard Dipping Sauce recipe

For a start, let's get the shrimp/prawn thing out of the way. Americans call them Shrimps, English people call them Prawns. I'm calling this recipe Coconut Shrimp because it's my blog and I can use the American words if I want to, dawg.

Prawns, flour (top), egg, Panko and coconut (right)

This recipe is a piece of piss. Get some fat tiger prawns (or any large prawns) and shell them, but leave the tail on. Set up an assembly line of 3 bowls and a plate. First bowl has flour in it, the second has raw whisked egg, and the third has a mixture of 1 part panko* breadcrumbs and 2 parts dessicated coconut. Take a prawn, dip it and cover it in flour, then cover it in egg, and then cover it in the coconut and panko. Fry them for 2 or 3 minutes until they're a nice golden brown colour.

Ideally, you want to serve them with a dipping sauce. Soy sauce would do it, or sweet chilli sauce, but if you're really feeling smart you could try making your own like I did.

This is how BAD ASS is made

Get about 3 tablespoons of Dijon mustard, 3 tablespoons of honey, and 1.5 tablespoons of orange juice and mix it up well. You can even give it a little taste if you want and decide if you want it more mustardy, orangey or...Honey-ey. If you're feeling cheeky, you could add a few chilli flakes. This stuff was BAD ASS. Tangy and spicy, it was perfect with the coconut flavour of the prawns.

Coconut shrimp with orange mustard dipping sauce

I reckon these would be good to serve up as a snack when friends visit for an epic gaming session, or watching a movie. If you're going the whole hog and having people over for dinner, then it's a great starter. The nice thing about making anything that's fried in batter or breadcrumbs is that you can cover pretty much anything in the stuff and fry it. Replace the prawns in this recipe with bits of chicken, or if you're feeling really posh, how about scallops! 

*Panko breadcrumbs are a really crispy and crunchy japanese version of breadcrumbs. They're available from most Asian stores, or in the world food section of your supermarket. 

Chip Shop Curry !!!

I have discovered something amazing! Goldfish brand Chinese Curry Sauce is available from a number of online retailers, and in supermarkets and Asian grocers. Just mix it with a bit of water in a pan, and you can pretty much throw any meat, fish or veg into it and it's tasty as hell with rice. It's savoury rather than spicy, and a little bit sweet.

..And here's the amazing part. IT'S CHIP SHOP CURRY!  Northerners rejoice! Get some chips (or wedges) cooked, and crack open a can of Dandelion and Burdock for that true Northern England chippy experience.

You need this in your life

Also, if you ever happen to see Japanese 'Katsu' curry sauce, that is also pretty similar to chip shop curry sauce. Food snobs would probably tell you otherwise, but as Gordon Ramsay says, "Fuck 'em".

Cioppino - San Francisco Fish Stew (EASY but TASTY recipe)

If this pug can run a hotel, you can make Cioppino

I was lucky enough to visit San Francisco last year. I stayed at a hotel which is run by a pug that has his own facebook page. I also met a homeless man who became world famous for jumping out of a bush. True story.

A signature local dish is a tomato and fish stew called Cioppino (pronounced Chuh-PEE-no). I spent the whole time saying I was going to try it, and didn't get round to it in the few days I was there. I promised myself I would have a go at cooking it back home in England, and it turns out that it's amazingly easy.

Cioppino recipes vary, which is good for me because I never have the attention span to follow recipes to the letter. You can make it as cheap or as fancy as you like depending what seafood you go for. In mine, I've gone for some blue swimmer crab pieces, some mussels, scallops, squid and lots of prawns. It's probably not that cheap for each bowl, but it's a pay-day treat. You can use any combination of fish you want, so for a cheap version you could probably use leftover cuts of fish if you've any in the freezer. Even crabsticks would probably work for a cheap alternative and it would still be delicious.

For an accurate recipe of Cioppino, google it. There's loads of good recipes out there. I googled a few recipes, then forgot what I'd read and just freestyled it as usual.

Essentially, it's 2 tins of chopped tomatoes, 2 tins of chicken and/or fish stock (I just used one of the tomato tins to measure from), and 1 tin of white wine. Use this liquid to make a soup with garlic, onion, parsely, oregano and basil. Then cook it for about half an hour, then throw all your seafood in. When it's cooked thoroughly, eat it with lots of bread.

A borrowed Cioppino picture. Sorry, internet.

I was hungry and got stuck in without taking a picture of it, so here's an 'illustrative' picture of the dish from someone else's website.

What I can't stress enough is how easy this recipe is to make. It's like you can't get it wrong! If you like tomato soup and seafood, then this is an ideal dish for an amateur chef to make to impress friends. It is really, really tasty. They'll think that you have ritually sacrificed and cooked Jamie Oliver, then eaten his flesh to absorb his internal genius and external punchability.


For reference, this is the recipe I followed the closest.

Frogs legs fit for a President

I bought some frozen frogs legs. One thing that you'll learn about me on this blog is that I'm a rebel. I'm just like James Dean or Marlon Brando. I wear a leather jacket and stick it to the squares. Well, I tend to stray from recipes when I'm cooking. Yeah! That's how I roll. Stick it to the man! Breadcrumbs? Screw you, BBC recipe website, I'm using Panko! Fight the power!

So I've been online and seen a couple of different ways to go about this, and I decided to not go strictly with any one recipe online. Rebellious, eh? I cut the legs in half (two legs stuck together still looks a bit too much like legs) and soak them in milk, which supposedly smooths out the flavour a bit and softens the meat. I then rolled them in flour (with some salt and pepper in there), shallow fried them and put a little pool of garlic butter at one end of the plate.

Incidentally, when I was googling frogs legs, I found this picture:

That's right, it's a picture of Barack Obama eating frogs legs.

I've thought about this image carefully, and decided that I'm pretty sure that Barrack Obama is awesome because:
(A) he's the first black president of America, which is a pretty big deal
(B) if I've got my facts right on this, he single-handedly took down Osama Bin Laden with a swift punch to the throat
(C) he eats frogs legs, which clearly helped him to achieve (A) and (B).
and (D) I think he's sending a clear message out to the French. He's saying "Hey, Frenchy! Next time we go terrorist hunting, you'd better help out or I'll eat your legs while doing a really mean GROWL face!"

Conclusion: Eating frogs legs makes you awesome like Barrack Obama.

So here's the finished thing:

Much to my surprise, my wife got stuck in and gave them a go. I thought that eating frogs might be a step too far for her, but she came away with the same conclusion as me. First time eating frogs, and the verdict is 'They were alright, they're ok, I suppose'. Predictably, in texture and flavour,they are a bit like chicken, and a bit like fish.

I think I went a bit too heavy on the salt that I added to the flour, but they were ok and nothing more. I'd be interested to try them done by a 'proper chef' in a restaurant, and I'd certainly like to try them done as part of an Asian recipe (Frogs legs are popular in places like Vietnam and China).


On a serious note, there are some that say it's really bad to eat frog legs. In the name of balance, I'll leave this link to an article from The Guardian and let you make up your own mind.

Shop : Bradley's Fishmonger

I always like to keep an eye out for places to get interesting ingredients, and browsing the internet brought me to http://www.frozenfishdirect.co.uk , which is also known as Bradleys.

They sell mainly frozen fish for delivery, but I noticed that they're only a few miles away from me in Feltham, England and they've got a factory shop. I paid them a visit today, and I think I'll be going back. It's in the middle of an industrial estate, and I get the impression that quite a few of their customers are local restaurants. 

At one point I was directed towards a large walk-in freezer, and as another customer left, he closed the door on me. Thanks for that, feller, I've seen too many movies where gangsters do away with people by locking them in freezers. I wonder how long a man can survive by sucking the moisture from frozen haddock?

There was loads of interesting stuff for what appears to be decent value (Soft shelled crabs are £18 for 14. This comes to about £1.30 each, which is almost HALF what I was previously paying!)

Here's today's bounty:

A frozen dressed crab, some Mussels, Blue Swimming Crabs, SNAILS, and FROGS LEGS!

I've never had frogs legs before, so I'm going to give them a crack tonight. I'm not sure if my wife will give them a try though.

Get Stuffed!

Welcome to my blog. I've been increasingly interested in cooking and food over the last few years, and I've decided to have a go at blogging about things that I've cooked and then subsequently eaten. It's a pretty simple concept, really.

My name is Russ, I'm 35 and live just outside of West London. I am married to a human female. I am under the command and ever-watchful eye of a cat which I think is trying to destroy me. We call him 'Professor Gizmo Roflcopter, the distinguished cat what just eats lobster'.

Later today I will be going to a shop which I've learnt sells frozen frogs legs. I've never had frogs legs. My wife does not want to eat frogs legs. I'm going to try and get her to eat frogs legs.