This is rather good

[Pepper Pig Profile]

The chefs and how to improve your cooking for £5.

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/f ... king-for-5

[Renee Profile]

I like some of those ideas Pepper Pig.

I always use Kikkoman soy sauce and wouldn't be without it.
Yotam Ottolenghi's Chilli paste is interesting, although I would remove the seeds before slicing.
I often use lemon.
Smoked sea salt I get from the Halon Mon place on Anglesey which I prefer to the Maldon.
The parsley sauce is interesting.
The Belazu rose harissa blended with a can of chopped tomatoes sounds a good idea.
I always have plenty of lentils.

Thanks for the link!

[Sakkarin Profile]

Don't know how I've managed to survive all these years without a gnocchi paddle!

Mind you, if the date on my photo is right, the last time I made gnocchi was 2002...

Kikkoman is the best, but Lee Kum Kee light soy is pretty good too, and about a third of the price, so that's what I use. Purists would probably shouldn't use Kikkoman for Chinese dishes as it's Japanese soy.

I only use dark soy if the recipe says I have to, but even then it invariably makes everything too dark, so half the quantity usually seems to do.

[jeral Profile]

I feel a "How do YOU tweak" thread coming on. (Last year it would have been twirk).

The parsley is not exactly the star since it involves several other powerful ingredients that'd survive without it. Maybe that's me though as I like that Turkish bake that is simply fresh parsley set as a block, with egg white binder I think.

Doing a cupboard search, almost any condiment that "adds something" ought to be on the list, so it could be a long thread...

[Pampy Profile]

Twerk?
I saw a chef on tv last weekend using a gnocchi paddle - never seen one before.
I'll not be taking up Simon Hulstone's suggestion of buying cheap non-stick pans then using them as ordinary ones when the non-stick surfaces goes. I'd be worried about flakes of the non-stick surface getting in to my food.

[jeral Profile]

See, already we twirk/twerk differently. Photo demos please.

I wondered about the pans with non-stick flaking off too.

On knives, I bought a new chef knife and the blade at the base is a right angle, not rounded off. If my hand moves down the handle, it catches the corner, ouch.

One thing about umami things in bottles or jars is that once bought they do tend to take years to use. Maybe fresh lemon is a one fits all.

[Badger's Mate Profile]

I'll not be taking up Simon Hulstone's suggestion of buying cheap non-stick pans

Same here. I was thinking that I must make a note of this place so I can avoid it.

[Sakkarin Profile]

I'm afraid all I could think of was that exponentially growing pile of used flakey pans, 50 more every few weeks.

On the everlasting umami issue, I found a little bottle of Japanese Shichimi Togarashi at the back of my cupboard a couple of days ago, which cost a fortune, but I realise I've never ever used. Anyone any bright ideas what to use it for, without Googling?

£1 for five aubergines? I wonder if that means those weeny asian ones? 20p each for proper ones doesn't sound feasible.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

That’s Pierre Koffman, talking about Church Street market, off Lisson Grove near the A40 flyover

No, all inner London street markets seem to have these £1 veg bowls, and while 5 aubergines would be the most you’d get, I think I get 3 or 4 usually, they are ordinary aubergines, though quite variable in size, often giants

My favourite is the pointy peppers, you get the twisted ones that don’t fit into supermarket packs. I think quite a lot are “wonky” fruit and veg.

[Sakkarin Profile]

Some of the Asian shops round here have those £1 bowls, but they always the shops with the most wizened dried-up looking veg. There's one in particular that everything they sell looks like the stuff I throw out, which is odd because it is next door to a Turkish shop that is worshipped for the quality of its fresh veg.

[Badger's Mate Profile]

Yes, veg bowls were (and presumably still are) common on Edmonton Green market, which has long been a source of cheap veg.

Sakks, I've got no idea what your Japanese stuff is for - I read it as a litre bottle, so at least it should take you less time to use that I first thought.

I'm not sure I go along with the idea of putting lemon on almost everything. It reminds me of the Indian restaurant we used to have in Hertford. They served every curry flambéed, except they used to employ Hertfordshire's least successful arsonists as waiters, with the result that most of the dishes tasted of cheap brandy.

[Sakkarin Profile]

Yuk! (or Yum! if you like brandy I guess...)

A litre of that stuff would be about £100 I reckon, my bottle is about a baby's thumbful...

https://www.japancentre.com/en/products ... lsrc=aw.ds

Look further down that page, that "Sansho pepper" is 4 times that price!!!

[Renee Profile]

I did buy the Japanese Shichimi Togarashi from Wing Yip many years ago, but didn't use much of it! I can't even remember what I used it on, except to sprinkle it on rice.

[Pampy Profile]

A recipe for making Shichimi togarashi https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/recip ... shi-recipe

[Sakkarin Profile]

Interesting - the only thing I don't have on that ingredients list is the orange!

Technically the pepper used is not szechwan pepper, but sansho pepper (4 times the price, see my earlier post). I daresay there's not much difference though, and I've not really tried the real thing other than licked a weeny bit, which doesn't tell me very much...

[Pepper Pig Profile]

Talking of eggplant.

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/f ... es-to-this

[Stokey Sue Profile]

Someone should explain the derivation of the word “eggplant” to the author then stand over her until she corrects it aubergine; where are the Guardian syubeditors?

For those who don’t know aubergines are called eggplants because one variety is white and roughly the size and shape of a hens egg, they are called garden eggs in parts of the Caribbean

[Sakkarin Profile]

I wondered why she called it "eggplant" at all, the answer's in the last paragraph, "...we in Australia".

For that matter I wondered why it was called an aubergine, and Google doesn't seem to know, giving several different answers, the dumbest being "...aubergine is French for eggplant".

EDIT: ... if so, I wonder if it has anything to do with "auberge".

[Stokey Sue Profile]

She may be in Australia, but she’s writing for a UK publication, and British English and therefore Guardian house style is to use aubergine, and it seems to me that it’s lazy not to enforce it. And just blimmin’ irritating to us registered pedants

In parts of the West Indies they are called melomgenes, but I hadn’t noticed until mentioned in the article that the Latin name is Solanum melongena

[karadekoolaid Profile]

Sounds like it was a Grauniad error.
If the editor doesn´t know the difference between Aubergine (Eng) and Eggplant (USA), then he/she/it should probably be fired