As part of our recent kitchen experiments making things we’ve not made before, we recently decided on making Chinese Pot Stickers. The great thing about Pot Stickers, in my opinion, is that they’re a mixture of all the best parts of a dumpling: They’re both crispy and they’re soft and steamed. And delicious.

There are plenty of recipes abound for Pot Stickers, but the main thing is to have a mixture that tastes good and sticks together without being goopy. I made a pork and ginger mixture, with cabbage. I threw some minced ginger, minced garlic, cabbage and ground pork along with some soy; an egg bound it together. I smelled the mix a few times until it seemed to have the right amounts of the flavours I wanted. Justine did the same, but with cabbage, mushrooms, spring onions, carrot and a couple of eggs as it wasn’t very sticky.

The great thing about living in the “Asian” part of the city is that it’s super easy to find Wonton wrappers. We grabbed a small packet (which we later found out had 50 wrappers) to use. Assembling the dumplings couldn’t be easier: Put a teaspoon of your mix into the middle, fold the dumpling wrapper over, and pinch it a few times to seal and look pretty. At least it sounds simple — and it was, up until the the pinching part. Luckily, Justine recognised the technique was the same as making a pastie, so after a few duds and a larger number of poorly assembled dumplings, I got up to speed. To pinch the dumplings once folded, you pinch a small part of the edge of the wrapper, then fold a small part back over itself, then pinch that closed.

After completely ruining two of the wrappers, we ended with 48 dumplings, and a lot of left over filling. Cooking the dumplings is a simple affair. To cook, cover a pan with sesame oil (other oil will do, I’m sure), throw the dumplings on and let sizzle for a minute or two, until the base is crispy. The dumplings aren’t stuck to the pan which is a good sign that the name may be misleading.

Once you think the dumplings are cooked enough on the bottom, throw a cup of water into the pan and cover straight away. Since you have hot oil cooking there will be an almighty sizzle with oil splattering everywhere. As I had to cover the pan I used the lid as a shield and slammed it onto the pan as fast as I could. The immense steam pressure inside causes the usually-tight-lid to bounce around in what I find an extremely amusing display. Leave the dumplings steaming for a few minutes and you’ll find the liquid evaporates pretty fast. Once it has evaporated you just need to let the dumplings cook for another couple of minutes to crisp up again.

And this is where Pot Stickers get their name. They’ll be stuck to the pan pretty well now. An egg flip or spatula will get the off the pan quite easily but you need to be careful. The final result was delicious, fun to make and very easy. While it does take some time to assemble the dumplings, you can do other things, such as get drunk, chat or listen to music, so the time passes quickly enough. We froze around half of the dumplings (eating 12 each sounds like a lot, but they’re pretty small).

These are certainly something we’ll make again.

Quite possibly the most delicious (though not most tender; it was rump) steak I have ever eaten. Grade 9 or 10 Wagyu; Rockpool Bar & Grill, Melbourne.

Normally we don’t eat such extravagant meals but I was given some money over Christmas and rather than just throw it away on useless junk we decided to treat ourselves to a nice meal out–usually we make excuses on why we shouldn’t do so.

My initial impressions of the steak were 1) that it was cooked more than I requested, which it wasn’t–it was exactly what I asked for and 2) that it’s taste wasn’t that great. Again, I realised later–about halfway through–that I was missing the point and that it did indeed taste amazing. The amazing flavour comes mostly from the marbled fat and there is a buttery, creamy character that lingers in the mouth. Not to say that it doesn’t taste “meaty”, because it does.

The bites became smaller as I began to understand the taste and attempted to savour it’s richness better. The red wine recommended by the sommelier complimented it well–as it should, this being their job–though I could have stood to have a slightly more full-bodied flavour.

So, yeah, not the sort of steak I could afford to eat regularly but it was certainly worth a one-off.

Last night, Justine and I went to TGI Fridays to see someone from Justine’s work off as she’s leaving.  Even though I didn’t want to go, don’t know the person and was basically forced to come along, dinner wasn’t too bad (I had a Jack Daniel’s burger).

The thing I don’t like about most work outings is that if the significant other doesn’t know the work people very well, they usually end up sitting around being totally bored.  Also, unless there are lots of significant others (which there weren’t last night) then you don’t usually have anyone to talk to.

But I digress; when the girl was taking our drink orders, I was carded!  What the heck?  I was easily the oldest person there (besides the owner of the store at which Justine works) by a large margin.  Maybe it was because I’d shaved recently, maybe it was because I’d had my hair cut over the weekend, maybe it’s getting really annoying.  Even stranger, I was the only person at the table of around 15 people to get carded… least that I saw.  Apparently I look younger than a bunch of 18 and 19-year-olds.

This weekend I have been playing with dodging and burning. Yesterday’s shot had a little bit of dodging and burning done which I hope wasn’t too obvious.

Today’s shot has had a hell of a lot of dodging and (mostly) burning to try and bring out the look of a very complex lighting setup. I did use a spotlight on the bits I wanted lit up as well.

To be honest it’s not a particularly good job and on a bright screen probably looks pretty crap. If you want to ruin it, just have a look at the funny dark and light spots on the microwave on the left.

Side of a freight train at Amsterdam’s Centraal Station.

Taken while eating curry and fritjes (me) and mayonnaise and fritjes (Justine). We were waiting for our overnight train from Amsterdam to Munich and grabbed a hurried dinner from a crappy diner.

This is the last photo I took in Holland.

Day Forty-Eight
Bangkok
24 September 2007 21:36

Our taxi ride from the airport, when we had finally figured out where to get the taxis, was hair-raising indeed.

The traffic here is as bad as I’ve seen on TV or heard about. The drver was doing 110 in an 80 zone and a number of times I thought a crash was imminent.

When finally we reached our hotel, the brief step out of the air-conditioned taxi into the hot, thick, humid street was a shock to the system.  After so many cheap hotels we’ve gone for a 5-star hotel, partly because we got a good deal, and besides smelling of smoke it’s quite nice.

Since our time is limited, we opted to do some “tours” instead of legging it ourselves as we’ve been doing.  Our feet need a break anyway.

The first tour was a rice barge along the canals of Bangkok.  I new the city was on the water but am surprised at how much water, rivers and canals there are here.  The barge moves at quite a pace which makes taking photos quite a challenge.

The barge came to a stop on some stairs (literally, it just pushed onto them) which came out of the water.  Here, people were washing their clothes on the bank in muddy waters.  Washing themselves, too.

We got off the barge with the group, turned around onto a dock and got onto a larger boat where we cruised back to the starting point.  Thai fruit was served but we didn’t likemuch of it.  Mango and sticky rice wasn’t bad though.

Our tour bus took us back to the hotel in the busy streets again; it’s strange seeing a city this was as we have been on street level the whole time.  This feels a bit removed from it all.

At the hotel we hit the pool, on the top floor of the building, which offered nice views.

Another tour, this time for dinner took us to an old, lame restaurant.  There were maybe 15 guests in the place who all came to see traditional Thai dancing.  The dancing was fine but we expected a lot better than this!  I guess you get what you pay for.  The dancing included a “battle” scene with people in “monkey” and “demon” costumes.

Since our day had been technically 36 hours, we both crashed and need some sleep.

Eight of us recently dined on the Colonial Tramcar Restaurant to celebrate the birthdays of four of us. A good time was had by all.