What's for dinner tonight?

[Robin Garr]

We really suffered.

You are such a masochist.

My wife was born on St. Patrick's Day, so we tend not to celebrate that day in the fashion I became accustomed to.

So, as a makeup, last night we braised a 5lb. corned beef brisket in a bottle of Guinness, and served it with roasted turnips, shallot, and garlic. Is there a better, more luscious meat out there than beef brisket? A trimmed but all-over fat cap, slow cooked but still pink from the corning, was heaven.

The turnips were good, too, browned by the high heat of the oven and creamy inside. Best of all, I didn't have to cook it!

The only thing missing was Irish soda bread, our family friend Nancy O'Donnell, a butter lamb blessed by a priest, and watching "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" on TV. Yum.

Walt

Let's kick things up a bit with a traditional "What are you having for dinner tonight?"

To be honest, I don't have the foggiest idea what we're going to eat tonight, but I can relate what I did last night.

I like Asian food. A lot. Of course, getting the ingredients for non-French food in France can be a bit of a problem unless you're in Paris (and I'm not), but some of the real basic stuff is not too hard to find.

Anyway, the menu last night was a kind of ginger chicken with influences from several sources.

You fry up a finely chopped onion in sunflower oil with a bit of sesame oil added for that "toasted", nutty flavour. While it's cooking you chop up your meat. Chicken, turkey, lamb, beef or meaty fish like shark, swordfish or tuna (you leave softer fish 'till the end), just about anything will do. When the onion is nearly cooked, chuck in the meat, and stir the lot up with a good glug of soy sauce and oyster sauce, a bit of sake or mirin if you can get it works well, too.

Into the liquid that forms you add some minced ginger and a bit of ground turmeric to give it some colour. Also add either a small amount of chilli powder or a finely chopped fresh red chilli. Mix it up and lay some fresh bean sprouts on the top. In fact about half-fill the wok because the sprouts go down to nothing after they're cooked - almost as bad as spinach.

Leave it to cook for a while with the cover on the wok so that the steam cooks the bean sprouts.

If you were planning on using softer fish or seafood of some kind, then now's the time to add it to your concoction. It won't take more than a few minutes to cook if you just plonk it on the surface of your mixture and whack the lid back on the wok straight away (in effect, you'll be steam-cooking the fish), cook for a few minutes and then fold the fish into the mixture and watch it go bright yellow

Serve on noodles or rice to taste.

[Robin Garr]

a kind of ginger chicken with influences from several sources.

Thanks for the report, grs ... or may we call you Godwin? Either way, welcome to the forum! I'm glad RR pointed you this way.

I had never thought about buying exotic ingredients in France but assumed that it wouldn't be hard to do in Paris. I've also had very good Vietnamese food in Avignon, by the way, and assume that regions where there had been a strong French influence are probably still well represented in France.

Thanks for the report, grs ... or may we call you Godwin?

Oh, go on then, if you're very good

I had never thought about buying exotic ingredients in France but assumed that it wouldn't be hard to do in Paris.

You're right. In Paris it's not that hard.

Outside Paris? Forget it unless you actually go to an "ethnic" restaurant. Buying the finished product is sometimes possible, but buying the ingredents that go into them is pretty much impossible apart from some of the basic things like soy sauce, bean sprouts etc.

You want oyster sauce? You have to go to a specialist stall in the market.

Coriander, chillis? I grow them myself, it's the only way.

Lemon grass for Thai food? Can't get it. Anywhere.

Spices? You can get some, like ground cumin, in ridiculously small glass jars that cost the earth. Chilli powder, turmeric, green cardamom (whole and ground), fenugreek, tandoori massala, and star aniseed, I have to buy whenever I go to the UK. I tend to raid a Pakistani shop I know in Charminster Rd., Bournemouth, when I'm over in that part of the world. Next "supply" expedition planned for August

I've also had very good Vietnamese food in Avignon, by the way, and assume that regions where there had been a strong French influence are probably still well represented in France.

That's a reasonable assumption, and an assumption that's confirmed. I just wish I knew where the restaurants got their supplies from!