Flour and water, touch of salt, spoonful of oil, it should be so simple. But to go from a shaggy, sticky mess to a dough so smooth, you could inflate it like a balloon, takes a little bit of patience and care. Add some scallions and Sichuan pepper, employ some ingenuity when rolling, and you’ll be rewarded with a crispy, chewy and layered treat.

Somewhere, somehow, aeons ago, the gods of creation probably decided that potatoes, eggs and onions are meant for each other. And while I don’t dabble in the finer details of divine worship – I find it distracts me from a raucous song or a good drink – I thought it wouldn’t hurt to oblige.

Don’t you hate it? You stock up on your food, go adventuring, things turn super weird, you get distracted, next thing you know you have a bag full of stale bread.

No worries, just steam those suckers and serve them like tacos with some crisp lettuce and a nice dipping sauce.
Does not make the stuff we run into less bizarre though. Like at all.

*Haps*

More leaky than I would have liked and less intense than I remember, but hey, it kinda works and doesn’t put me in mortal danger.
Now I wonder what it would be like to smoke things with spices like cinnamon and star anise… and I smell like a bonfire, go figure.

If you’re making Yorkshire pudding and are too lazy to pour individual ones, just dump it all in a pan and watch it go, aka the toad in the hole method.

It might be the jankiest damn smoking gun in the world though. Couple years old, haven’t even used it yet.
Now I just have to figure out what I’ll use it for and whether I want to risk burning my house down. Supposedly you can smoke vanilla ice cream, which sounds bonkers honestly.

In case you’re wondering what the title is referencing: La Trahison des images

Pork ribs with a kombu, salt & lemon pepper dry rub.

So, if you want umami (essentially glutamates) in your food, there’s many ways to go about it. Soy sauce, fish sauce, miso, parmesan, tomatoes, mushrooms, plain ol’ MSG, heck, even green tea has some, and there’s many more sources. What really fascinates me about kombu right now is how it totally adds a savory taste to whatever you throw it on, but at the same time it seems to be much more subtle than the other ingredients. Your ribs just happen to taste more mouth-watery all of a sudden.

Got served some Vietnamese coffee today. No pics though.
Kinda ambivalent about the taste of the coffee roast, but the brewing process is fun. Maybe I’ll get some of those filters someday.

Another fast food classic, I was wondering how close I could get to a prototypical hot dog (I know there’s all sorts of regional varieties). Best enjoyed on a sunny day, with a cold drink, watching a game of goblin baseball.

“Lemme try kombu on everything” continues. Those two go together like peas in a pod.