What new foods have you tried recently?

[Orang Utan]

Samyang Buldak Hot Chicken Flavour Sauce:

Fiery business but it does taste good in ramen.

 

[Pickman's model]

Speaking of which, I have gone condimental and have loads of new hot sauces
First up - Crystal - Louisiana's Pure Hot Sauce:
View attachment 260419
Delicious - fuck Tabasco

i see you're taking tips from the guardian ‘This sauce will change your life!’ 30 brilliant condiments to transform your tired lockdown dishes

 

[Orang Utan]

Eaten Alive smoked sriracha sauce

Nice with cheese on toast - not too hot but flavourful

 

[Orang Utan]

i see you're taking tips from the guardian ‘This sauce will change your life!’ 30 brilliant condiments to transform your tired lockdown dishes

Yes, couldn't get them all though

 

[Orang Utan]

Ponzu:

It's just lemony soy sauce - which is fine I guess

 

[Orang Utan]

Best so far though is this Truffle Hunter Black Truffle Hot Sauce:

Lush but use sparingly, not for the heat but for the truffle flavour - it's banging in scrambled eggs on toast but i keep having dabs of it from the bottle
all of these are from this listicle:

‘This sauce will change your life!’ 30 brilliant condiments to transform your tired lockdown dishes

When you’re barely allowed out of your home, let alone your neighbourhood, you have to mix things up whenever you can. From Chinese XO to Romanian mujdei and Filipino banana ketchup, these spicy sauces will bring the whole world into your kitchen

www.theguardian.com

Wish I still lived in that Lundun as I could only get about half of them

 

[Orang Utan]

also had this:

or did I post that already?
ETA: yes I did lol

 

[Mogden]

On the scale of 1 to weird these are, interesting.

The flavour is not the fart in the bag you might expect and it's not easily describable. Bit of powdered spring onion, quite sweet as well but also terribly savoury. So yeah, not easy.

But the texture is something else. Either I've got a stale bag, which I don't think I have, or the texture is like they've been left out in the rain, soaked through then put in the oven to crisp again and the outside has formed a thick coating and it's still soggy in the middle.

Orang Utan where are you getting your oriental delights from? I have a list of sites and have ordered from a couple of them when I can't get the bits I want from my place here in Derby. I tend to swerve the Japan Centre unless desperate cos they're super expensive.

 

[Orang Utan]

Just off Amazon, Mogden

 

[Mogden]

Just off Amazon, Mogden

Ah well I'm going to drop a couple of links here to tickle your tastebuds, and wallet, and other seekers of interesting cuisines. I find Amazon are useful but still a bit more expensive than oriental supermarkets. Of course this means you can justify buying more, 4 packets of mochi in my last delivery (!), to make the postage worthwhile.

Wai Yee Hong Chinese Supermarket! 偉義行：中國超市 - Used them about this time last year. Understandably they were a little slow but a good range.
Oriental Grocery Store - Asian Supermarket Online | Oriental Mart - One of my favs in Nottingham. Can't wait to get back over there. They have a super snack range I think and extra premier noodle meal things, ie £4 or 5 for one.


And I've just Googled and you seem to have a good choice of places in Leeds. This one sets my good spidey sense off.

Sing Kee Oriental Supermarket

Sing Kee Oriental Supermarket

singkeefoods.co.uk

 

[polly]

Mogden Fwiw my absolute favourite East Asian place for delivery is www.starrymart.co.uk - I've fallen out with a couple (I think maybe including that one in Notts ) but this one is consistently good

 

[Mogden]

Mogden Fwiw my absolute favourite East Asian place for delivery is www.starrymart.co.uk - I've fallen out with a couple (I think maybe including that one in Notts ) but this one is consistently good

I have Starry Mart on my list of one I visit but haven't bought from. Their navigation pisses me off and I have to go elsewhere There's lots of others too but I've only ordered from those 2 as mine is pretty local, tiny but fairly well stocked.

I've just remembered I've got a bottle of Calpis in the fridge I need to try!

 

[polly]

Their navigation pisses me off and I have to go elsewhere

Ahh yes! It is really annoying and they also periodically empty your basket with no warning! So beware if you do go back to them.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

On the scale of 1 to weird these are, interesting.

The flavour is not the fart in the bag you might expect and it's not easily describable. Bit of powdered spring onion, quite sweet as well but also terribly savoury. So yeah, not easy.

But the texture is something else. Either I've got a stale bag, which I don't think I have, or the texture is like they've been left out in the rain, soaked through then put in the oven to crisp again and the outside has formed a thick coating and it's still soggy in the middle.

Orang Utan where are you getting your oriental delights from? I have a list of sites and have ordered from a couple of them when I can't get the bits I want from my place here in Derby. I tend to swerve the Japan Centre unless desperate cos they're super expensive.

They look interesting but what are they exactly? They don't look like crisps - more pastry like in appearance.

 

[Mogden]

They look interesting but what are they exactly? They don't look like crisps - more pastry like in appearance.

They are potato crisps but thickly so. Not in depth but flavour. Just eaten that one. It's a sort of egg fried rice flavour but not quite.

Calpis is lovely. I can even get past the sweeteners and the comedy name, say Cow-piss

 

[dessiato]

A friend from Mississippi has given me this to try

 

[dessiato]

Making my own kimchi with white cabbage. Smells ok. Only another 5 days to go.

 

[Mr.Bishie]

Want!!!

 

[dessiato]

A friend from Mississippi has given me this to try
View attachment 260519

This was excellent. We will make it again, if we can get the mix, or I'll have to make it from scratch.

 

[Epona]

This was excellent. We will make it again, if we can get the mix, or I'll have to make it from scratch.

It's easy enough to make from scratch - if you can make a roux for white sauce or other classics then you can make a roux for this - it isn't massively more complicated.

 

[dessiato]

It's easy enough to make from scratch - if you can make a roux for white sauce or other classics then you can make a roux for this - it isn't massively more complicated.

That's what I've learned from reading different recipes. The more I read the less I think there's any advantage to getting the mix.

 

[Epona]

That's what I've learned from reading different recipes. The more I read the less I think there's any advantage to getting the mix.

Honestly when you posted the photo I did (unusually for me LOL) bite my tongue to not make a joke about modern American recipe sites that always seem to involve recipes using pre-prepared mixes/cans of soup/cans of pie filling etc etc.

The trickiest bit is getting the roux to the correct colour without burning the flour as it is a bit different than the classic French roux, but it's more a case of patience and paying close attention to it rather than difficulty. Have a defibrillator on standby, it is not a healthy dish

EDIT: See I am actually looking for recipes now, and a lot of them say "1 tablespoon creole or cajun seasoning" which is not necessarily that helpful if you're wanting to make from scratch. I seem to recall white pepper is involved, if I find a recipe that gives a full ingredients list including all the spices rather than a mix, I'll post the link

 

[dessiato]

Honestly when you posted the photo I did (unusually for me LOL) bite my tongue to not make a joke about modern American recipe sites that always seem to involve recipes using pre-prepared mixes/cans of soup/cans of pie filling etc etc.

The trickiest bit is getting the roux to the correct colour without burning the flour as it is a bit different than the classic French roux, but it's more a case of patience and paying close attention to it rather than difficulty. Have a defibrillator on standby, it is not a healthy dish

I've been cooking and loving cooking for the vast majority of my life, so a basic roux will not be a problem. I had assumed, from how this was described to me, that there was something complicated about it. But really it isn't. In that regard I'm a bit disappointed, but it was so tasty.

And you are so right about American recipes. Nearly every single one I found relied to some extent on shop bought mixes.

 

[Epona]

Here we go, Chef John seems to know what we need when looking at recipes - this one details all the spices individually (I was right about the white pepper, the rest of it looks spot on too). Slightly disturbing lack of lard though - if you eat lard or bacon fat then I would suggest using that instead of butter for the roux - I know from experience that making this dish with just butter rather than lard/oil or part and part butter & oil or lard can result in an extremely strong butter smell - sounds lovely but it can actually be a little sickly when you're sitting down to what is a savoury dish rather than a pile of French patisserie

Chef John's Shrimp Étouffée

Étouffée is a classic New Orleans shellfish stew thickened with a roux. Chef John's easy recipe uses frozen shrimp and a delicious homemade spice mix.

www.allrecipes.com

And yeah it's just the roux is a lot more liquid than if you are making a classic French sauce, but if you give it as much care and attention so it doesn't stick and burn you'll be fine.

 

[dessiato]

Here we go, Chef John seems to know what we need when looking at recipes - this one details all the spices individually (I was right about the white pepper, the rest of it looks spot on too). Slightly disturbing lack of lard though - if you eat lard or bacon fat then I would suggest using that instead of butter for the roux - I know from experience that making this dish with just butter rather than lard/oil or part and part butter & oil or lard can result in an extremely strong butter smell - sounds lovely but it can actually be a little sickly when you're sitting down to what is a savoury dish rather than a pile of French patisserie

Chef John's Shrimp Étouffée

Étouffée is a classic New Orleans shellfish stew thickened with a roux. Chef John's easy recipe uses frozen shrimp and a delicious homemade spice mix.

www.allrecipes.com

And yeah it's just the roux is a lot more liquid than if you are making a classic French sauce, but if you give it as much care and attention so it doesn't stick and burn you'll be fine.

These days I tend to use, for this type of cooking, a mix of a bland oil and butter. I'm also very lucky in that I can get a massive range of olive oil from very light, almost like a sunflower oil, to the full on artesanal cold first press. I get very frustrated back in the UK when I need oil because it is either poor quality, expensive, or both.

 

[iona]

Something that was sold as mutabaq only this used aubergine rather than the bread version that comes up when you google. Was lush

 

[seeformiles]

Want!!!

View attachment 260564

You’ve just reminded me that I’ve got 3 frozen Bury Black Puds in the freezer (Waitrose were selling them for the bargain price of 70p each a couple of weeks ago )

 

[nottsgirl]

I made steamed dumplings at home, I've had them out before. Really nice, well worth the investment in a steamer. They were dead cheap too (I didn't make the actual dumplings).

 

[Callie]

Cruffin
Croissant thing in the shape of a muffin. Slightly more crumbly. Would eat again.

 

[gentlegreen]

Hairy bittercress.
My front garden has a lot of it at the moment.
I was watching some "eat the weeds" videos last night.

There was some in a pot safely away from feline activity so I randomly munched on some just now when putting out some recycling.

Yuck.

Initially nothing, but later on an indefinable persistent plant-y taste. I hope it has dissipated before I have my coffee ...