Yum Yum Ninja

I am a huge fan of Riddle and Finns and so when I saw they were opening an Asian sister restaurant I was very excited. Then I saw they were offering 50% off on their first 2 opening days; I nearly wet myself with excitement!

So last Friday I dragged The Boy to sample the Asian delights. The place looks cool. The outside is all black with obligatory lanterns which look lovely at night. Inside is pretty chic, with wooden tables and walls, and birdcages. We were immediately met by a very lovely waitress and within minutes had our drinks and complimentary bits (a fermented, spicy cabbage, pickled cucumber and something else which I've forgotten). The menu was exciting and fitted all price ranges. After much deliberation we settled on Singapore chilli crab, lobster dim sum and barbeque crispy pork. When the food arrived my tongue did its little excited dance, it looked amazing. We lucked into the lobster dim sum first. The sweet meat was complimented by a dipping sauce (soy and vinegar I think?), it was fantastic.

lobster Dim Sum

We then tucked into the crab. At first we didn't have any tools but these were soon provided by our lovely waitress. The crab was very fresh and tasty lovely. However, personally I would have liked a bit of ginger and lime to cut through the sweetness as it did become sickly after a while. I also think that maybe they should ask customers if they know how to 'do' a crab as a novice may not realise how much white meat is in the main body.

Singapore Chilli Crab

 Lastly we moved onto the pork. Jesus this tasted goooood! Sticky, sweet and sightly smokey. Again, on a personal preference I would have liked it crispy, but that's just me. And for a grand total of £35 for the both of us with the 50% off (including wine) it was all a bloody bargin.

hmmmmmm bbq pork

For a second day I really take my hat off to Yum Yum Ninja and I urge people to go. I really hope they get the traffic as so many restaurants seem to have failed in that location. However, with Riddle and Finns being just next door and with the food being so tasty I'm sure they'll be just fine, I'll definitely be going again soon

The Last Few Weeks

Found some foodie photos on my phone that I thought I may as well share. Really need to get into the habit of blogging as I go but the last few weeks have been taken up with writing 32 reports; very time consuming! Anyway, with just a play between me and the end of term I thought I should have a catch up!

 Beach Time Feasts

You gotta love eating al fresco. So when we had what was probably our total summer I made the most of it! The tuna nicoise had all the trimmings; anchovies, tuna, capers, red onion, green beans and boiled eggs. It was very tasty washed down with a glass of cold and dry white wine.

Tuna Nicoise

Piri Piri Chicken

The piri piri chicken was taken from BBC good and was lovely after being barbequed.

Ingredients

• 1 whole chicken , spatchcocked
• salt and pepper
  
  

For the piri-piri sauce

 

• 6-12 fresh red chillies, depending on how hot you want it
• 1 tbsp garlic, chopped
• 1 tsp salt flakes
• ½ tsp oregano
• ½ tbsp paprika
• 100ml olive oil
• 50ml red wine vinegar

 

Method 

• To make the piri-piri sauce, preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Place the chillies on a roasting tray and roast them for 10 minutes.
• Cool and roughly chop the chillies. Place the chillies, garlic, salt, oregano, paprika, olive oil and vinegar in a saucepan, and simmer for 2-3 minutes.
• Allow the mixture to cool, then blend it to a purée in a jug blender or food processor. 
• Marinate the chicken preferably over night. 
• If your barbequing par cook the chicken (roughly an hour) and finish off on the grill

BBQ chicken Piri and corn-lush!

 Trout Baked with Almonds

This was really disappointing. I am very lucky to have some fantastic fish mongers around me and because we're on the coast, its always very fresh. I bought this trout from Marks and Spencer so I thought it would be really tasty. How wrong I was. It tasted of nothing. The buttery almonds that I added were great but the flesh of the fish had no taste, even after heavy seasoning and lots of lemon it still tasted boring!
The broccoli was nice though! Oh and sorry for the awful photo!

This is not any fish....Its boring fish

De boning a chicken, bum style!

Check me out, proudest moment! De boning a chicken out of its bum and then stuffing it! Can't actually explain how I did it since a surgeon (human surgeon!) lead me through it but it was stuffed with good quality sausage meat and long veg such as carrot which meant when you carved it it has a mosaic effect, thanks Maurice!

A fantastic fish course

If you love fish and want some help on how to prepare it, get yourself down to Brighton and Newhaven fish sales (Fish for short), just past Hove lagoon.

So, being someone who loves fish, I found myself falling through the door on a VERY rainy Wednesday evening. I bought with me a vegetarian (she really can't call herself this as she eats fish and admits to loving bacon, but that is a different story) and my phone for picture taking, hence the rubbish photos.

First up was the crab. Having done crab before I was quietly confident but it soon became like one of my lessons at school; a competition of 'who would be the expert and finish first'. However, Jason, our brilliant, friendly and well informed teacher, did not rush us and I was please to see that the vegetarian and I had more crab meat than the others (the veggie was the overall winner- grrrrr!). I also learnt that all crabs have tails, apparently you know it's a male because you cant get it up...........something I found bloody hilarious, but no one else did....

I always like to look my food in the eye

The competition begins.....

Next was squid. This caused much hilarity with the vegetarian not wanting to put her hand in the box of squid (and consequently me whacking her with some tentacles and squeezing guts on to her hand). We were shown how to prepare it by the oh so lovely Jason and were given some cookery tips at the same time (slow or very quick boys and girls!)

The evenings entertainment then carried on with skinning Whiting and then descaling and gutting black breem. I have never been so covered in fish scales and the vegetarian was looking less and less like a vegetarian by this point (she was loving it!).

Beautiful fish-you can't beat Fish for freshness

We finished off by filleting and butterfly filleting mackerel (the next day I stuffed the mackerel with Moroccan cous cous, recipe to follow at a later date)

The course was brilliant; very reasonable (£30 for two hours and a massive bag of fish and seafood) and informative. I would definitely recommend Brighton and Newhaven Fish Sales, both for the course and their fantastic array of Fish; they really are on top of their game. A massive thank you to Jason who ran it; you couldn't have asked for a more patient and lovely lad.

vegetarian with gut covered hands!

The fantastic Jason!

Just a one more thing to prove that the boy is a lucky man. I got home at 9.30 to him asking to see the fish. He then turned to me and asked which one I was cooking for dinner. Now, this makes the boy sound like a prehistoric male, he can look after himself but has become unaccustomed to cooking for himself since being with me. He did, apparently, feel that something 'wasn't quite right' and then realised it was hunger about 5 minutes before I came home!