Cooking for engineers

When designing a cookbook or a recipe for the cooking school we want the ingredients and method to be as easy to understand as possible… and that takes time and page space. I should have known that an engineer could turn ingredients and instructions into something incredibly elegant… in fact the guy behind Cooking For Engineers has a patent pending on his innovative way of formatting recipes.

While the recipes on his site aren’t exactly 5 star, there’s some neat stuff in there. Check out his recipes at: Cooking For Engineers

Great Vietnamese food blog

Murray has just sent me to a great site/blog by an Aussie living in Vietname blogging about all his bizarre Vietnamese food experiences. A great source of knowledge if you’re thinking about travelling to Vietnam and want to eat like a local.
Stickyrice

Weird food

If you’re looking for monkey picked tea (yup, that’s tea picked by monkeys), chocolate ants, a whole range of fried insect treats then you need to visit EDIBLE. These guys have some of the most bizarre foods on the planet. Vodka lollies with edible scorpions and coffee that has been passed by weasels(and I don’t mean a weasel has walked by the coffee plant). You just have to love the internet… the long-tail of marketing means that these guys can make a living doing things with ingredients that we would never dream of.

medieval cookies

Murray sent me this link to an incredible site packed full of medieval recipes. The middle age woodcut images and recipes in old english will have you hooked for hours as you navigate through all the different recipes and links. My favourite part is the recipes and moulds for

‘ye olde cookys’. The moulds are awesome and you can buy them online.

Gode Cookery have done an incredible job bringing you a huge range of Medieval recipes to prepare for your next feast or banquet.

hot chocolate with spice

I was reading about a hot chocolate drink served at Hemmingway chocolate shop in Florence, Italy infused with chillis, cinnamon and vanilla; the chillis really inspired me so I searched the internet and came up with thishot chocolate with chilli recipe which I will make today. With winter here, this could be a great way to warm up your day.

Chilli sauce so hot it could kill

Blair Lazar has created a chilli sauce so hot that it could kill. In fact if you buy it you have to sign a disclaimer and he’s only releasing 999 crystal bottles of it. He describes it as “like having your tongue hit with a hammer… it hurts”. He named the sauce 16 million- after its rating on the scoville scale. You can buy it at extreme food: home of blairs death sauce

Fried grasshoppers anyone?

When I take people to Thailand we inevitably seek out some fried grass hoppers to try. Amazingly they taste ok… a bit like chips. Before you reach for a bucket, talking to one grasshopper vendor in Thailand she was disgusted that we eat raw oysters. Anyhow, I saw the site linked below that shows you the best insects to eat and methods of preparing them and points out that Insects are low in carbohydrates, high in protein along with fat and calories.
How to Use Insects as Food

Axis of Evil Cookbook

You’re not about to be served any of these recipes at George Bush’s house. Really cool recipes from Iran, Iraq, North Korea and other places where women are oppressed and George wants to drop bombs.

You can download the booklet by right clicking the link and choosing ’save target/link as’. Check out the nthposition website for more info.
nthposition online magazine: Axis of Evil Cookbook

Katrina’s recipes from TVs ‘Escape with ET’

Katrina, one of our cooking school chefs, does a weekly cooking segment for the Spirit House on ‘Escape with ET’ which shows on channel 9. I found the recipes for each episode on ETs website and because it’s a fishing show, they’re all to do with fish. All these recipes are for the BBQ and are quick and easy. Here are just some of the recipes she’s presented on TV:
BARBECUED SPANISH MACKEREL WITH GRILLED TOMATOES AND AVOCADO SALSA
GRILLED FISH BURGER WITH SAMSON FISH
SPANISH MACKEREL WITH FRESH TOMATO AND ANCHOVY BUTTER
MOROCCAN SALAD OF BARBECUED NANNYGAI
MAHI MAHI WITH TOMATO AND CHICKPEA SAUCE
CHINESE STEAMED PEARL PERCH WITH GINGER AND SHALLOT
PARMESAN CRUMBED TREVALLY ‘FISH FINGERS’
PEPPER CRUSTED TUNA WITH AVOCADO AND PICKLED GINGER

Thai food quiz

If you think you know the difference between a som tum and a tom yum then play this quick Thai food quiz. Easy Thai Food Quiz quiz