Peaches were available cheap at Coop today. So decided to make Peaches, Vegetables Curry. Was amazing 
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Last night it was warm and sunny. I had a perfect avocado, a huge ripe oxheart tomato, and a handful of large prawns. Cut the prawns in half and mixed them with truffle mayonnaise. Using a ring, I perched them on slices of (salted and drained to prevent water damage) tomato and topped it off with a limey chunky “salad” of shallot and avocado. Placed one whole prawn and a sprig of basil on top. Surrounded the little island with a pool of pesto vinaigrette and called it dinner.
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Many many moons ago during my apprenticeship as a chef, the hotel hired a cook from Hongkong and on one occasion he made Ko lu yuk, or sweet 'n sour pork.
I never forgot as this was the very first time I had “chinese.”
For years I tried to recreate this memory but all attempts came short and I gave up…
Untill I read that the pork is treated with baking powder!
So yesterday SHDNRA and I had S&S pork.
Mixed pork with baking powder and after half an hour added tomato paste, W-sauce, soy sauce, a few drops of fish sauce. Then the usual pepper, salt, garlic.
Thennnnnnn.
Added corn starch and rice flour and into the deep fryer.
Feast your eyes on perfect Ko lu yuk…
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The Chinese use baking soda (not powder) to tenderize meat. It’s a process called “velveting.”
I learned that yesterday.
Its a game changer.
If you use it on very thinly sliced beef, it becomes incredibly soft, no matter the cut. If you leave it too long, though, it does get a little glibbery.
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Learning never stops.
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Surprise, surprise! The quietly deposited doorstep gift was indeed another kilo of plums, perpetrator unknown. I combined Emma Duckworth’s recipe with my own frangipane recipe I always used to make Tarte Normande when we lived in Alsace. It’s fiddly, but OH loves it. Now what to do with the other kilos?
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After forgetting to take pics of my food for about three weeks, I finally managed to snap a shot of the Horsd’œuvre for this evening:
My … ahem … “cooking” contribution was opening them myself by hand without flooding the kitchen with liters of my AB+ (collateral damage was some light injury to the oysters, I’m afraid) and slicing the lemon.
Milady always commits to I’ll just have one (with lots of wine) but then reliably chickens out. Heroic Goofy reliably comes to the rescue then.
Bon Appétit!
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He he… Last year SWDNRA tried oysters for the very first time.
She would not eat them again with a gun to the head, but the picture are hilarious.
@goofy, oysters in August?? I was awaiting our fall visit to Normandy and Brittany to partake. Oh, for a plateful of Kumamoto from N. Calif.!!
Edit: Metro usually gets a load of French oysters in, and in two weeks they have a sale, so I await…
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The oysters were perfect, August or not. They were French, but still great. Maybe ranked third behind Sydney and Cali oysters when those are best? But I’ll take them French oysters any day I can get them fresh (from Zürich-Altstetten – der-frisch-fisch.ch). 
Today I even managed to take a shot of the main course:
Spigola, fried. Cous-cous.
We vacationed in 2020 – in July/August! – in Arcachon and had like hours before freshly harvested oysters from the same bay and they were just heavenly. I say this as the snob of having eating kilos of Sydney harvested oysters.
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I was just surprised, having avoided oysters except for R months…and some of the best I’ve had were in Normandy. But I have a special love for the Kumamoto, which is so small, sweet, and plump.
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Oh, you awakened a memory…In the 70s I went to a wedding of a friend, where all the attendees cooked the food. I was put in charge of tubs of tiny Olympia oysters that one of the brothers of the groom had brought from Washington. Oh. My. God.
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I ate one once when we went on an oyster bed tour on the west coast of France.
They were the freshest they could be but one was enough for me. Hubby likes them though and he’s welcome to them.
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I love them. My late father was a big fan, and we always have them as an homage to his memory when we can. Although I like mine with a bit of horseradish, and I don’t see that here at all.
I would never try to open one myself though…I’d surely bleed to death.
They had fresh horseradish in the coop here yesterday. I often see it in the stores here. Maybe the Swiss Germans aren’t as keen on it as the Swiss French.
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Oh right. They do have it in stores. What I meant was that when we’re served oysters, horseradish is not a common accompaniment.
I’ve never ordered them or even looked at them on the menu so I don’t know what they’re served with here.
Just pop them into a hot oven for a few minutes…they will open themselves before they start to cook.