Japanese stewed sardines picnic on Brighton beach yesterday. The oysters (not pictured) were also excellent. The cocktail is a barbotage: fizzy white wine, simple syrup, (super) lemon juice.
This is shichimi togarashi, a Japanese spice blend you may not have heard of. Typically it'll have nori seaweed, bitter orange peel, sesame seeds and dried chili. I think other 3-4 ingredients are changeable. Due to my supply being a bit old, I omitted the nori in mine and went for red/black/Sichuan pepper and dried ginger. Normally the sesame seeds are a bit less ground up, but my hand blend was a bit more effective than I thought.
Slightly unconventional toppings for this ramen. 2 parts tori (chicken) paitan (milky/rich) broth mixed with 1 part niban (secondary) dashi. Pork chasu slices pan fried. Ajitsume tamago (cured soft boiled eggs). Grilled tomatoes, leeks and pak choi.
First outdoor dinner of the year. Chicken stock with simple chasu/tare seasoning. Dried wheat noodles (commercial), thawed pork belly chasu pan fried, micro-poached egg, grilled leek and tenderstem broccoli, chili oil and black garlic oil. Looks like a lot but almost everything was prepped beforehand.
Dumpling weekend. Pork shoulder chasu filled yeast/baking powder leavened dumplings on Saturday night. Lazy Sunday and gyoza with pork and veg fillings: minced shoulder, ginger, soy, garlic, chives, chard. Wrappers were all done from scratch through an Imperia Restaurant pasta machine with the help of my lovely assistant. I don't have all-purpose flour (my usual caputo rosso), so I'm blending low protein Italian 00 and some strong bread to get the same effect.
Bit of a broth blitz the other day. Beef and chicken. Ramen results. Made a base stock of roughly one part each of homemade (frozen) dashi, chicken and beef broth. Tare (seasoning) was soy, salt, water and msg, I went at about 3/4 usual strength.