Silversea Water Cooler: Part 3, Welcome!

[UKCruiseJeff]

Thanks both, I'm still learning. The smoker needs a degree of coaxing as all the functions don't work as they should ..... and I created my own rub. So a learning curve!

[Lois R]

Jeff, whatever you are doing? Just keep doing it:D...seriously, those ribs are making my mouth water........:D

[UKCruiseJeff]

Thanks . I couldn't buy meaty ribs, and baby back ribs don't seem to work for me. Tried them during the week and they were dry and not good. This was pork belly and I think was great.

[Lois R]

Baby backs don't work? They are supposed to be the most tender of all the ribs. But all those meats look awesome......

are you making pork and beef?

[UKCruiseJeff]

On the pictures on the web, the baby back ribs I've seen in the US look thick and meaty. The ones I've had so far have a meat seam of I'd say a quarter to half an inch. Also the pre-heat cycle is too high and fierce, so I'm doing this manually. When I get to a proper butcher I'll try again. luckily within a few miles we have countless free range pig farms.

 

Work in progress.

[Lois R]

Hmmm...normally Baby backs do have alot of meat on them but they are quite small in size, hence the name....baby:)

 

Anyway, I hope you are enjoying all this cooking:D. and I don't know if you have kids but if so, HAPPY FATHER'S to you:)

[spinnaker2]

Happy Father's Day all.

 

Jeff that food did make my mouth water. Drool!

 

I am barbecuing using today, but it's shrimp on skewers and a cilantro lime garlic vinaigrette to finish it. Potato salad and Cole slaw to accompany and will probably throw some burgers on the grill as well since it hardly seems right to use all that charcoal for just a few minutes.

Making chocolate mousse bombes enrobed in ganache with a raspberry sauce for dessert.

 

Some of the snarky comments on other threads make me sad and not want to post. There is no reason for the haughty nasty stuff. We have enough of that going on all around us.

 

 

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[UKCruiseJeff]

Thanks!

[Lois R]

Happy Father's Day all.

 

Jeff that food did make my mouth water. Drool!

 

I am barbecuing using today, but it's shrimp on skewers and a cilantro lime garlic vinaigrette to finish it. Potato salad and Cole slaw to accompany and will probably throw some burgers on the grill as well since it hardly seems right to use all that charcoal for just a few minutes.

Making chocolate mousse bombes enrobed in ganache with a raspberry sauce for dessert.

 

Some of the snarky comments on other threads make me sad and not want to post. There is no reason for the haughty nasty stuff. We have enough of that going on all around us.

 

 

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Your menu sounds wonderful:).....If I bring the beverages, can I join in?:D

[Tothesunset]

Hey Jeff, I've got a message from the Mrs who reckons if a dish is overspiced - particularly overchillied (yes there is such a word - I just made it up) then adding Yoghurt will take the edge off. She then rambled on about the chemical that gives chillis their heat is fat soluble so is absorbed into the fat in the yogurt, coconut milk, cream etc. Whatever, it seems to work.

 

And apparently if a chilli is burning your mouth then drink milk not water for the same reason. Personally I find Guinness equally effective.

[UKCruiseJeff]

Happy Father's Day all.

 

Jeff that food did make my mouth water. Drool!

 

I am barbecuing using today, but it's shrimp on skewers and a cilantro lime garlic vinaigrette to finish it. Potato salad and Cole slaw to accompany and will probably throw some burgers on the grill as well since it hardly seems right to use all that charcoal for just a few minutes.

Making chocolate mousse bombes enrobed in ganache with a raspberry sauce for dessert.

 

Some of the snarky comments on other threads make me sad and not want to post. There is no reason for the haughty nasty stuff. We have enough of that going on all around us.

 

 

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Hi Spins, thanks ... !!

 

Your meal sounds delightful .....

 

As you know it only takes one or two people to ruin a forum and however many decent, tolerant and generous people you get it is the nasty bullying posts which hurt and stop others from participating. The problem is that they do not receive the amount of condemnation that makes doing so a discomfort. Instead people ignore the horrible posts and support the poster and provide a mutually dependant gang ie "I support you, and you must support me". It takes a degree of self-control that I sometimes lack in not responding with a pithy put down, and it is of the school playground and it is hard to accept they are mature adults.

 

I'm not complaining or criticising but I wish that posts solely intended to upset and bully others and disrupt are always deleted as they really serve no purpose and hurt the vibrancy and atmosphere of the forums for all.

[Lois R]

Hey Jeff, I've got a message from the Mrs who reckons if a dish is overspiced - particularly overchillied (yes there is such a word - I just made it up) then adding Yoghurt will take the edge off. She then rambled on about the chemical that gives chillis their heat is fat soluble so is absorbed into the fat in the yogurt, coconut milk, cream etc. Whatever, it seems to work.

 

And apparently if a chilli is burning your mouth then drink milk not water for the same reason. Personally I find Guinness equally effective.

 

Hi:)...oh that milk suggestion is true.......also BREAD.....if the food is overly spicy for the person, the milk will absorb the

heat much better than water.......and bread (or crackers of the savory type) will do the same......

[UKCruiseJeff]

Hey Jeff, I've got a message from the Mrs who reckons if a dish is overspiced - particularly overchillied (yes there is such a word - I just made it up) then adding Yoghurt will take the edge off. She then rambled on about the chemical that gives chillis their heat is fat soluble so is absorbed into the fat in the yogurt, coconut milk, cream etc. Whatever, it seems to work.

 

And apparently if a chilli is burning your mouth then drink milk not water for the same reason. Personally I find Guinness equally effective.

 

Absolutely right. Yoghurt does take spiciness down, but you don't want yoghurt with every spicey dish. And dishes that have yoghut in the recipe tend to be mild to start off with. If most hot Indian meals do not have yoghurt in the recipe adding yoghut changes the dish into something else entirely ......probably a Korma.

 

In Indian restaurants for example, by adding yoghurt or cream, sugar almond and coconut to the base curry it is a korma. By adding tomato soup and cream it is a Masala. Less Tomato and more cream and butter, it is a butter as in butter chicken. By adding more chilli and peppers and tomatoes and making it dryer it's a jalfrezi or dopiaza - one simply leaves the chillis in one and in the other you remove them. There is no difference between dishes called "balti" - and those not. Most come from one original pot ...;

Edited June 18, 2017 by UKCruiseJeff

[Lois R]

Hi Jeff, my post was not meaning to add milk to the recipie.......hope that I didn't cause confusion. I was just meaning if the

mouth is overpowered by too much spice, drink a glass of milk:D

[Tothesunset]

Absolutely right. Yoghurt does take spiciness down, but you don't want yoghurt with every spicey dish. And dishes that have yoghut in the recipe tend to be mild to start off with. If most hot Indian meals do not have yoghurt in the recipe adding yoghut changes the dish into something else entirely ......probably a Korma.

 

In Indian restaurants for example, by adding yoghurt, sugar almond and coconut to the base curry it is a korma. By adding tomato soup and cream it is a Massalla. By adding more chilli and peppers and tomatoes it's a jalfrezi or dopiaza. There is no difference between dishes called "balti" - and those not. Most come from one original pot ...;

You would be envious of my undergrad days - I had a room in a house owned by Mr and Mrs Parmar, an Indian couple, who generously provided their impecunious medical student with sustenance when he begged! Mrs P always had effectively a cauldron of base sauce on the hob; it seemed to gently simmer continually and be topped up from time to time. From this she would ladel some into a smaller pan then do her magic with spices and, plenty of fresh veg (they were vegetarian). Rarely had rice, mostly chapattis, and various samosa-like confections and crunchy side dishes with spinach, cauli, carrots (yeah, I know) and other tasy treats. Wonderful stuff. Have to say though, that her puddings were sickly sweet and barely edible to my Western palate.

[UKCruiseJeff]

I am envious. Indian families are proud of their 'secret' base recipes and it means that lot's of different dishes can be simply made by adjusting. And that base sauce can be gently bubbling .... for ever!

 

What you ate courtesy of Mrs Parma will be a lot nicer and better than the stuff we eat in Indian / Bangladeshi restaurants who produce food that has mostly been nowhere near the original countries and have been developed for the British taste.

 

I'm envious.

[Tothesunset]

What you ate courtesy of Mrs Parma will be a lot nicer and better than the stuff we eat in Indian / Bangladeshi restaurants who produce food that has mostly been nowhere near the original countries and have been developed for the British taste.

 

I'm envious.

Indeed. In fact even if she made notionally the same dish it was always a bit different - maybe a bit spicier, more spinach, sweeter peppers etc. As you say, nothing like the Taj Mahal Curry House.

 

As an aside, I treated a Bangladeshi lady who spoke no English and was accompanied by her husband. She had a significant facial anomaly which we fixed for her. This was in the 80s and they ran an ''Indian'' restaurant. He explained that people just didn't know what they were having if they said Bangladeshi (in fact I suspect, at that time, most people couldn't have placed Bangladesh on a map) but the customers were happy if they thought they were in an Indian!!! He said they produced dishes that simply only existed in the UK - chicken tikka massala etc - or were vastly different from the proper Bangladeshi or Indian fare that people ate back home.

 

We would get a takeaway maybe once a week and I always let them know it was for Dr S. That meant we got not only about 3 times more than any reasonable couple could eat (isn't that what freezers are for?) but he made sure it was more authentic. The real joy was not knowing what we were going to get. He'd get £20 and we'd get a great meal (or 2 or 3). Honestly, after Mrs P's food this was probably my second favourite ever place to get food from. (OH must not be allowed to see this post otherwise demote Mrs P and Ahmed to 2nd and 3rd).

 

And finally, to really brass you off, I got to spend 3 years with the Gurkhas in Hong Kong and Brunei where, again, they took great pride in producing food for Sahib and Memsahib that was just so much different from the sort of ''curry'' we get offered in the ''Taste of Delhi'' or wherever. The big downside was that they used goat - not just the meat but the whole animal so eating this delicious food was punctuated with spitting out bone, gristle and other unidentifiable bits of animal (they at least had the grace to skin them). Wonderful food and even more wonderful people.

[Camillus112]

What wonderful food stories to spice up Fathers Day! Thank you Jeff and Dr. S.

[UKCruiseJeff]

Dr S,

 

Thanks so much for sharing those memories. I'm never envious of people's bigger cars or houses or whatever .... but as I think you would know, I am really envious of those travel and consequential eating experiences. That's why my travels always focus around street food ......

 

I'm envious of you experiencing both genuine Indian and Bangladeshi food .... and even more so, Burmese food. Because the country is so small their food is so under experienced. You might remember I've suggested a few times to folk travelling on SS to ask that some of the chefs cook home and village food with decent reports back. Mysty had such an experience I recall.

 

Your goat story reminded me of the times I spent in Cyprus on extended working visits in the days before the Russians arrived and before the banking crisis and where it was a lovely quiet place. (You sound like you may have visited seeing as you went to HK?)

 

I use to take my team down to Kourion Beach for lunch over our weekends off where in those days there were three beach tavernas, and only shared with a few locals and the guys and girls from RAF Akrotiri. For some of the winter we'd often see The Red Arrows doing their stuff. We use to stay all day and eat and drink and eat and drink .....frozen Aphrodite wine and Keo brandy and ouzo etc and at no cost at all. Those were the days.

 

On one visit one of my team, a particularly picky eater was saying how sweet and uniquely different the lamb was in the kebabs and absolutely nothing like "back home", and after I asked her "Have you seen any sheep in Cyprus" from then on for some reason she wouldn't eat anything with "lamb" in it.

[Tothesunset]

Dr S,

 

Thanks so much for sharing those memories. I'm never envious of people's bigger cars or houses or whatever .... but as I think you would know, I am really envious of those travel and consequential eating experiences. That's why my travels always focus around street food ......

As you might remember OH's professional career was essentially food-based so it's fair to say she can be a harsh critic but also easily charmed by quality - whether that be at a Michelin 3-rosette restaurant or a back street eatery. So whenever we visit anywhere I get dragged around markets, hunt out the places that don't know what a tourist is and so forth. Not always successfully, I might add.

 

I'm envious of you experiencing both genuine Indian and Bangladeshi food .... and even more so, Burmese food.

No, Burma isn't on the list. It was Brunei where the majority of street food is Malaysian. And good.

You might remember I've suggested a few times to folk travelling on SS to ask that some of the chefs cook home and village food with decent reports back.

They should. They must. We do exactly that and have had some wonderful meals but we make a point of saying that we don't want what the chef thinks we might like but rather as real as possible given the limits of the larder. The best was a Philippino meal which was not only splendid but was the first time they had been asked to do this. Needless to say the galley staff and front of house from the Philippines were chuffed to bits.

 

Your goat story reminded me of the times I spent in Cyprus on extended working visits in the days before the Russians arrived and before the banking crisis and where it was a lovely quiet place. (You sound like you may have visited seeing as you went to HK?)

 

I use to take my team down to Kourion Beach for lunch over our weekends off where in those days there were three beach tavernas, and only shared with a few locals and the guys and girls from RAF Akrotiri. For some of the winter we'd often see The Red Arrows doing their stuff. We use to stay all day and eat and drink and eat and drink .....frozen Aphrodite wine and Keo brandy and ouzo etc and at no cost at all. Those were the days.

 

On one visit one of my team, a particularly picky eater was saying how sweet and uniquely different the lamb was in the kebabs and absolutely nothing like "back home", and after I asked her "Have you seen any sheep in Cyprus" from then on for some reason she wouldn't eat anything with "lamb" in it.

Never got to Cyprus courtesy of HM, nor indeed for any other reason. In fact, because of my specialty I was limited to certain places where there was a large enough troop concentration and, at the time, the Army looked after that in Cyprus. But I think HK was a reasonable alternative.

 

HK (Cantonese) food is not to our taste. All meat tends to have been boiled to death and slimy, vegetables likewise but they do a good bowl of rice. It's also said that any sort of cuisine is available in HK and that's probably true. We tended to go to a stall run by a Pakistani guy (this was 25+ years ago) who, for $HK10 (about 70p at the time) would dish up a chicken curry, 3 chappatis, 2 onion Bahjias and a can of drink. And, boy, was it good. Even the Gurkhas liked it! In fact there was a choice - take it or leave it.

 

The other thing about being a resident of somewhere truly foreign is that you get time to try everything and get to know the culture a bit better. I'd not for one minute pretend to understand Chinese society etc but would hope to have a bit more respect for the differences especially as we were never made to feel like outsiders. Brunei was the same - people, once you make the effort to bridge the narrow cultural divide, are very similar in their everyday business. Food, drink, shelter and family. All else is quite superficial and I was humbled by the generosity of many of the local people I came into contact with. Fantastic hospitality.

 

I've got to agree that the best way to meet a new culture is via one's stomach. It's perhaps why we don't leave the ship as often as many - it seems a bit superficial.

 

Spent a fortnight in Vietnam and Cambodia in April. Now there's cuisine that hits the western stomach with a bit of a shock! Especially the fried tarantula, locust etc. But I'm trying to forget that...

[MissSophia]

Serious incident in the Finsbury Park area of London happening right now....vehicle has collided with pedestrians near a mosque.......

[UKCruiseJeff]

Soapy, past your bedtime!

 

yes, hopefully not too serious. Fingers crossed.

[MissSophia]

Haha....have been in bed reading, too hot to sleep!

 

It doesn't look like a terror attack but l fear retribution Jeff......

[UKCruiseJeff]

A white van mowing into Muslims leaving a mosque?

 

Bizarrely, was watching the news in US CNN which was interrupted and on instead of Bourdain .... had to resort to BBQ Pitmasters Collection for my nightly dose of smoking porn! It is like going to Open University for smoking pork. :D

 

CNN are telling the Americans that we are all getting up in a couple of hours ie at 4am. Bless.

[jpalbny]

We don't have much info here about the incident. Retribution crossed my mind...horrible thought. It's a terrible thing no matter why it happened.

 

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