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Eddie

Jukly 2010

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I went to this year’s Hong Kong 7s international Rugby Tournament last week.

The exchange rate is approx HK$11.3 to £1. This makes everything very expensive. You are looking at around £6 for a 330ml bottle of beer in a hotel. Beer at the HK stadium was $52 for a pint of Carlsberg. A glass of house champagne in Felix (Peninsula Hotel) was $180 + service charge.

By the way, the HK stadium was sold out for the 2.5 day tournament. The capacity is 40,000. The local paper reported that over 1 million pints were consumed during the tournament. I estimated that 20% of the attendees were under age. Now work out how much each adult drank.

Eating out, the average price is around £30 a head.

Amongst the places I visited are:

Yung Kee, Peninsula Hotel, Mandarin Hotel, Park Lane Hotel, Spring Deer, Dan Ryan, the Peak Lookout, Spring Deere, the Outback etc.

There will be detailed reports over the next week on this gastronomic tour as well as advice for anyone who is interested in visiting HK.

The initial view is that a few places are trading on their “historical prominence” and is not that great.

When I was in South Africa for the 2009 Lions Tour, I discovered Braai.

This method of cooking is described as applying “direct and intense heat” to your cooking. In short, it is South  African BBQ. What was interesting is that besides the “naked” fire generated by charcoal or wood, applying gas to a pan is also braai.

On my tour, I managed a few days in Kruger national park. Within the park – about the size of Wales – there are gated settlements where you sleep, eat and get refuelled. On all these settlements, there are cafés that will allow you to hire a gas (butane/propane) bottle and a contraption similar to a wok. The wok sits on a gas ring. Most people seemed to cook sausages (boerewors) or scramble eggs on this. I am afraid that Boerewors is an acquired taste – I hated it – it has beef, pork, vinegar and coriander in it. Vickers in Reading does an authentic version.

The other interesting news re “open air cooking” is potjies (http://www.potjies.com/shop/). This a cast iron pot with 3 legs. You can sit it on /or hang it over a “fire” to cook a stew – very good for camp sites or in a fireplace – if you have a big one at home. You can “slow” down the cooking by varying the distance between the pot and the flame.

I shall now tell you two facts about South Africans and Braai. The first is from JPR Williams (ex British Lion, Wales international and retired orthopaedic surgeon). According to John, South Africans have the highest “heart attack” incidents in the world and that is because they (some) eat too much fatty meat. The second story is that whilst I was in Cape Town, I came across a “braai” restaurant. I went in and discovered that Braai for One consists of nearly 4 kilo of meat of various types – and I thought that when I had a 48oz T bone in the States that I was over indulging! The new “slim” me chickened out.

Here is an interest recipe – for 1 or 4 people depending on appetite. This approach takes just under a week!

Soutribbetjie (From: Best South African Braai Recipes by Christa Kirstein, ISBN 978-1-86825-403-3)  

Cut one breast of lamb into nearly 4 pieces – saw through the bone but leave one side of the meat intact.

Marinate in 1 litre of water with 225grams of salt, 2 teaspoon of saltpetre (get this from a pharmacy or from a friend who has access to a lab), 2 tablespoons of sugar, 2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda.  Bring the water to boil, add all the ingredients, stir to make sure everything has dissolved. Cool, strain and you can reuse this up to 4 times. If you can’t get hold of the saltpetre, ask your butcher for curing salt – this is salt with saltpetre mixed in. Beware, saltpetre is used in making explosives, hence you might be questioned if you buy a kilo.

Marinate the meat for 2 days in a plastic container (no metal please as it will taste metallic). Now dry it in the garage. This is now called a ribbetjie. If you are making a batch, freeze what you do not need.

Next simmer the ribbetjie for an hour and half in water – no salt to be added. Next, hang the meat to dry – another half a day. Finally, grill the ribbetjie over hot charcoal until done.

Enjoy.

Eddie

February 2010

Please see competition.

Here’s a list of our latest content …

• 30 July 2010: Foraging for Wild Food (Guardian/ River Cottage)
• 29 July 2010: UK’s Cheeses (BBC)
• 29 July 2010: Japanese ginger pork (recipe – Japan Centre)
• 29 July 2010: Squirrel meat available in Budgens (Telegraph) Updated 30 July (Guardian)
• 28 July 2010: American beer @ Great British Beer Festival – Earls Court (Aug 3-7)
• 28 July 2010: Squid – an article (Independent)
• 27 July 2010: The Five Horseshoes, Maidensgrove, Nr Henley-on-Thames
• 27 July 2010: Competition Winner – July – announced. Also, top Lebanese wine for August!
• 27 July 2010: Top 10 places to eat in Palma, Mallorca (Guardian)
• 26 July 2010: Glasgow and Madrid, any recommndations re restaurants.
• 24 July 2010: Traeth, New Quay, Wales (Comments from the chef)
• 24 July 2010: Venture In (evening meal), Ombersley, Worcester WR9 0EW

Dec:

We are going to start publishing recipes (from restaurants that we have visited and various cook books (the recipe WILL be tested in our kitchen) that we feel is interesting to our readers.

The first is smoke haddock welshrabbit from The Pheasant – see updated article.

Coming soon:

Christmas gifts and another Food Market Review. Recipes etc and improved index.

Announcements:

Mr Michael Le Brocq is the winner of the November competition – Breakfast in Winchester. He wins a bottle of Krug 1990.

For Dec, we are offering a bottle of Dom Perignon 1990.

KEEP those emails coming in ! 

We now have 300 regular users every week.