Recent content by Kujiraya

I'm thinking of getting the new type of non-stick cookware which is PFOA-free and PTFE-free. Which brand do you think is the best? Some brands saturating the TV in Australia at the moment include: Flavourstone, Free N Ezi and StoneDine.

Thank you all for some great ideas!

I'm keen to roast a leg of ham to get a very light and crispy crackling. Do you think that this could this be possible, considering all the curing and smoking that the ham rind would have been through already?

I love the aromas and flavours from burning charcoal and smoking wood, but I don't know what to do with all the ash afterwards. I'm worried that spreading the ash in the garden will alter the soil's pH. I grow lots of acid-loving plants in my garden. Any advice?

Thanks for sharing! My mom is like this, too! My dad was the gourmet in our family. One time, the cook was away and the maid had to make dinner. She didn't know how much mushroom to put into the mushroom soup. She rang my mom to ask. Silly girl, she should have asked my dad! Our mushroom soup...

This reminds me of a Chinese proverb: Blessed to be closer to the kitchen/cook. My room was always close to the kitchen when I was growing up :rofl:.

If you're going to use yeast, I'd only recommend fresh yeast. It makes a big difference whether you are using fresh yeast vs. dry yeast. Fresh yeast gives much more yeast flavour to the bread than dry yeast ever can.

One of my food heroes is Masuo Yoshino, who calls himself a sushiologist. His passion for sushi, and nigiri sushi in particular, led him on a series of self-funded quests of adventure and discovery, that helped him bring to light the prehistoric origins of sushi in the jungles of the South-East...

Do you have a food hero, and if so, why is this person your food hero? Is it an author who wrote a cookbook that changed your life? Or maybe it's your mom who cultivated in you a passion for good food? Or is it a celebrity chef whose lifestyle you envy? Please share stories about people who have...

Thanks, Addie! It was very interesting and useful information in the video that the pomegranate arils will sink and the white pith will float!

Oh dear! I have boxes and boxes full of top-grade shark fins! I think I'll still have to eat them all, but I won't be buying any more shark fins until they are harvested with more care and respect for the shark.

I'm not sure, but there's probably a lot of fiddly cleaning involved with stripping away the shark's skin and flesh and any thick, inedible spines that help keep the fins' shape in the water. I don't know at what stage, but the shark fins would be dried somewhere along the way, and also...

Thanks so much for the encouragement, buckytom! I might describe the creative process behind my Confit of Abalone In Black Truffled Butter, so that you might be able to catch a glimpse of how my brain works. So, to prepare and cook dried abalones takes a very, very long time. Most Chinese...

OK, thanks for the clarification, CharlieD. It seems that good quality pomegranate juice is a little bit fiddly to make, but then, top quality ingredients do deserve the respect and effort, after all.

Hi Addie, pomegranates are one of these "superfoods", which are rich in phytonutrients and anti-oxidants, that people have popularized a couple of years ago, so bottles of pomegranate juice carrying multiple health claims are now very expensive. Pomegranate fruits themselves are not cheap, but...