caretaker

I can't see it missing, tbh, it's pie. I think you could batter and fry patties of corned beef hash like the battered sausage and get away with it too.

BristolUK

I don't see why not. You get battered (burger) patties in the UK and I tried it with a sausage roundchere and that worked well enough.

I find corned beef hash a bit sickly though and batter might make it more so.

caretaker

And salty, but if they were reasonably small, say, like a perogie or slightly larger [say 2 1/2"] then the pastry [or batter] to filling ratio might make it better.

caretaker

caretaker

I had some shrimp left in the freezing compartment, along with some fish from ice fishing, so made saganaki. I dropped the thawed fish into boiling salted water, covered and removed from heat for 10 min then peeled the meat off the bones. Diced green onions, garlic, and a bell pepper then sauteed that in butter and olive oil, added tomatoes and parsley, salt and pepper and cooked that down a bit. Added fish and shrimp, ouzo and lemon juice and cooked stirring occasionally until the shrimp were nearly done then topped with feta cheese and under the broiler for about 5 min. A last squeeze of lemon and that's all.

BristolUK

Looks good. How was it?

caretaker

Good! But I can only eat half of it. I'll have to take the rest to work with some rice for lunch tomorrow.

BEVS

OK. So I really need to move into your gaff.

Attachment 130603

BuckinghamshireBoy

OH found a cheese shop in our locality, and invited a bunch of people over for a 'proper' cheese fondue. She finally remembered to mention this to me late last night, the meal is set for tomorrow evening.

I had some doubts, but Mr Cheese had three of my five Swiss favourites in stock. He spoke no English at all, but with OH as translator we got there. He also had some obscure dried meats (not my thing really), but damn good - we got tasters.

Can't get Swiss wine here, obviously, so have humped for something from a known French departement.

Found Kirsch in supermarket.

Watch this space...

caretaker

If I ever get a bottle of Swiss wine I'm ready.

BuckinghamshireBoy

There are generally two schools of thought on Swiss wine:

a) It's crap
b) When found to not be crap it's kept within, not exported.

Better the white than the red, although the red has evolved over the last 20 or so years, and can now be considered quaffable.

Best check your health insurance policy first.

Without getting into Eiswein etc, the best (IMO) white wines come from canton Vaud.

Valais (Fendant) is the 'Donald Trump' of Swiss wine.

BristolUK

I had some Austrian wine on one of my Swiss/Austrian trips. Terrible hangover the next day. It wasn't long after that wine/anti-freeze scandal

BuckinghamshireBoy

The fondue actually worked out quite well, despite a couple of issues. One being the fondue heating stove; having filled it with the only burning alcohol to hand, it pumped large clouds of black smoke, so we had to move it outdoors sharpish. The backfix was to use a hotplate to keep the stuff bubbling as it should.

The second issue was the age of the secondary cheese, Vacherin, it was far too young to be introduced into the fondue arena – it really shouldn’t have been allowed out in public imo. Yummy though.

And I put too much wine in up front, so we ended up with a very thin fondue. But the taste was excellent. We’d upped the ante with blanched cauliflower and broccoli florets for dipping alongside bread and patatas, all in all it worked ok.

The dried meats were not just for an apero, BIL wrapped a slice around a piece of bread, dunked that into the mix and declared the result as a winner. He was correct.

The next attempt will be better… I’ll ask one of my stepdaughters to bring me some suitably aged Vacherin on the next visit.

caretaker

I might try to push the envelope with braised roasted Cantonese duck..
https://media.giphy.com/media/3oriNM...Z7VK/giphy.gif
https://thewoksoflife.com/2015/01/roasted-braised-duck/

caretaker

I was looking forward to leftover duck with stir-fried cabbage and mushrooms, but the freezing hadn't come out of my face from the afternoon at the dentist, and I was scared I'd bite my cheek or tongue, so it was Campbell's potato and bacon chunky soup. Salty, but safe.
The Wednesday duck was good, but the recipe is more involved than the way I usually do it, and dirties a lot of pots and pans, but it didn't hurt to try it once. I like to cut the duck into pieces first and cook the carcass for stock and fat rather than roast it whole, and I see simmering the portions in the sauce and stirring occasionally being easier vs turning the whole bird over and over every 15 minutes.