Seven Days, Cambridge

 Somehow the name "Week" doesn't roll off the tongue as well...

Hello Mr Chilli, nice to meet you.

PC, The Shok and myself manage to score a free meal off M&M, and whilst there are some strong suggestions for Midsummer House, it is decided in the end that we should do Chinese and go to Seven Days for dinner. Always on the ball, The Shok calls ahead to make a booking as it's a Friday night, and Seven Days is notoriously popular, especially amongst the Chinese student crowd in Cambridge.

Fish flavoured fried eggplant.

The first to arrive is the 'fish flavoured' eggplant, with the tender eggplant chunks cooked with a generous amount of oil, seasoning and serious wok hei. Perfect with rice, this dish is immediately PC and M&M's favourite, so much so that we don't hesitate to order a second portion. In my opinion, the sauce is a little too strong on both sweet and salty levels, but still delicious and superior to the rendition I had previously had elsewhere.

Fish fillets in hot chilli oil.

The next to arrive is a pile of dried chillies bathing in a giant bowl of scalding hot oil. And this is the small size. Underneath the layer of chilli lies slices of incredibly tender and silky fish fillets, thanks in no small part to all that oil. Right at the bottom of the dish is a bed of bean sprouts, which I find to be a little on the salty side.
This dish is also a clear winner, and everyone seems to enjoy "fishing" for the small remaining pieces of fish until the bowl is completely cleaned out of everything but chilli and oil.

I'm surprised that this Sichuan cooking technique (shui zhu) is one that has only become popular relatively recently, so the internets tell me.

King prawn fried with salted egg yolk.

Next is the prawns fried using salted egg yolk, something which I pick because M&M wants king prawn and I haven't had the taste of salted egg in a while. Reluctant to get their hands dirty, and perhaps a little uncomfortable with prawn heads, this dish unfortunately ends up being a little neglected. I get superlazy and start eating the shell... although after getting colder, this becomes a little bit unpleasant and I revert to peeling them. In my opinion, this actually isn't bad at all, although it does get too greasy and heavy when it cools down.

Tofu with fish mince in chilli oil.

Last but not least is the tofu which is basically like mapo doufu except with fish. Standard and does the job.

At the end of the meal, I feel like I've eaten several bricks, probably because of eating far too many of the prawns in a desperate (and successful) attempt to not waste them. Everyone is most definitely satisfied, but not requiring food for quite a while. Or at least until an hour later when we scoff down a blackforest cake between the four of us...

Seven Days is one of the best Chinese restaurants in Cambridge, with authentic flavours that don't compromise for a foreign palate. Perhaps a little too heavy on the oil to be eating regularly, but that's how the cooking style goes. At around £55 for 5 big dishes and rice for everyone, it's decent value too.

And by the looks of the crowd it attracts every night, we're not the only ones who likes the place.

Seven Days
66 Regent St
Cambridge CB2 1DP
Tel: +44 (0) 12233 309559

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I've been in Munich this week for a certain festival. Take a wild guess what I'm referring to...

Of course, the CIPSM Festival of Chemical Biology! Oh apparently, there's also some other festival on at the same time that has something to do with beer, but I mean who on earth would be interested in that?

Zhong qiu jie kuai le! (中秋节快乐!)

So I bought some overpriced mooncakes today for the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Clockwise from top left: Five nuts/seeds, lotus paste, red bean (double yolk), black sesame (double yolk).

Always eager to educate and expand horizons, I asked M&M and PC to come over to share some of these strange-chinese-cake-things with a decent amount of scepticism. I mean, who puts whole salted egg yolks inside a cake?

Asian protip: It is highly recommended to buy mooncakes after the mid-autumn festival date. They often go on sale for half price.

The insides, same order as previously.

The reactions were varied to say the least...

PC: "For your blog, you can say I liked it... but not the egg."
M&M: "I have stomach pain now. Man, this is probably horseblood mixed with lead and stuff..."
YH: "No way, that would be too expensive to make."
PC: "My nose is bleeding now."
M&M: *knowing glance*
YH: "I like tendon... pause... a lot."

I have to say, despite all the fancy types you can get these days, I still prefer the plain old lotus paste ones, and of course with the egg. So what are your favourite (or least favourite) mooncake flavours? And do you like egg yolks in yours?

Happy mid-autumn festival everyone!

Yim Wah Express, Cambridge

There are two good signs in this picture.

The first is that you can see the chef at work, meaning that they have nothing (or less at least) to hide. The second is the racks with hanging roast duck and pork - whilst some people apparently think it's unhygeinic, but for me it's always a reassuring and slightly mouthwatering sight at a Chinese restaurant.

After our last after-lab-dinner trip, this time YST and I decided to try out Yim Wah Express, the new Chinese place on the corner of Lensfield Rd and Regent St. Together with Golden House and Lan Hong House, this now makes a trio of Chinese restaurants on this corner. Unlike it's take-away style neighbours however, it looks like they've spent quite a bit of effort to make the place look nice, with shiny new furniture and a decent sized seating area.

I had initially intended to go for something with roast duck in it, since they had it just hanging there, but upon reading the MASSIVE menu (over 200 food items, a logistical kitchen nightmare... how do they do it? lots of frozen stuff?) I decided to go for something a little different...

Marinated beef tripe ho fun in soup (£6.80)

In my opinion, most non-muscle cuts of meat taste pretty good, and most people don't give it a fair go because they are turned off by the mental distress of eating a cow's stomach lining.
So I was delighted to find my tripe soup noodles turned out to be more than just tripe (stomach), but also liver, kidney and tendon.

Does anyone find this too hard to STOMACH? Get it? Damn I'm funny.

Tendon and tripe are my favourites - tendon is wonderfully thick and gelatinous in texture thanks to lots of collagen, a little similar to the texture of fat except without all the guilt. Tripe on the other hand is more chewy, but it really soaks up flavour!

Kidney wasn't bad either, with a mix of meatiness and jelly-like consistency. Liver however was my least favourite - it was a little gritty and had that characteristic livery taste which I'm not the biggest fan of (although I do like pate).

Chef's special mixed fish balls and vermicelli soup (£7.20)

YST's fish ball noodle soup was a little disappointing I have to say, with just a few balls and a bit of chinese cabbage as the only toppings.

Frog legs with chilli (£6.20)

We also split a dish of frog legs, which were deep fried and slathered in a generous amount of sticky sweet chilli sauce. Sensory overload but pretty bloody addictive!

Overall this restaurant seems like a welcome addition to the Chinese restaurant scene in Cambridge, with the generally milder flavours a good counterpoint to the more fiery style of Seven Days (which will be the next blog post!). I'm keen to go back and have some of the roast meat dishes, as that seems to be their kind of speciality.

Yim Wah Express
2-4 Lensfield Rd
Cambridge CB2 1EG
Tel: +44 (0) 1223 309530
http://www.yimwahhouse.co.uk/


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The Big Bake-Off (Part 2)

Last time on The Big Bake-Off...

Tasting and Judgement
On the panel today we have eight mathematicians including The Shok, a physicist (PC) and the chairman M+M himself.

Cakes can be awarded a maximum of 100 points: 50 for taste, 25 for creativity and 25 for presentation.

And now for the verdict. In this chocolate, fruit and cream cake battle, we've seen both chefs go at it for hours to create M+M's dream dessertland. Will it be the defending champion, the express precision of the TGV, or does the food blogger steal a win from left field? Who takes it? Who's cuisine reigns supreme?

...


And the scores for YH are as follows:
Taste = 423/500
Creativity = 188/250
Presentation = 191/250
Total = 802/1000

Now for the TGV:
Taste = 452/500
Creativity = 233/250
Presentation = 216/250
Total = 901/1000

The winner is TGV with her amazing croquembouche!

The Twist
But wait, did I not say that there were 8 mathematicians on the panel, including one statistician? A quick t-test on Excel revealed that in fact the results were not statistically significant (p > 0.05).

Does this mean TGV didn't win/I didn't lose? Well, even if statistically there's more than 5% doubt about the result, it was quite clear to everyone that  TGV definitely won the day, no doubt about it! Although clearly this calls for further experiments (ie. bakeoffs!) to increase the sample size and get a statistically significant result...

The Recipes
Alrighty, enough fooling around... here are the recipes for the different parts of the cakes, mostly adapted from a bunch of different food blogs!

The Secret Picture [kinda like the Secret Sound on old radio shows]... What is it? (10 points)

1. Chocolate Cherry Cake based on Not Quite Nigella
Melt 180 g butter, 140 g dark chocolate, 1 cup water, 3/4 cup vegetable oil and 60 mL coffee in a pan until melted.

Mix 3 cups flour, 3 cups caster sugar and 3/4 cup cocoa. Add melted chocolate/butter mixture to this dry mixture.

Mix in 3 eggs, one at a time. Then add 3/4 cup buttermilk (I used regular milk + juice of half a lemon)

Fold in a splash of vanilla essence, 2 tsp cinnamon, 2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper, pinch of salt and 20 chopped cherries.

Pour into baking tin and bake for ~50-60 minutes at 180 deg C.

(If I had 2 baking tins, it would be easier to split the batter into two tins rather than have to cut the cake into layers layer. Plus, the amount is too much for one tin - it overflowed in mine!)

2. Buttercream Frosting from Sweetapolita
Place 5 egg whites and 1 cup caster sugar into a very clean (any traces of grease will kill the egg whites) mixer bowl. Heat over a pot of boiling water whilst whisking until the sugar dissolves and the foam is hot. Keep whisking until thick and glossy.

Then with 450 g butter softened at room temp, add it in small chunks whilst whisking until a silky smooth texture is achieved. Add a splash of vanilla essence and pinch of salt. Refrigerate.

3. Candy Floss from Cooking Books
Add 400 g sugar, 1/2 cup water, and 1/4 cup honey in a saucepan and heat the bejeezus out of it.

Meanwhile, set up two skewers over the edge of a table, weighed down at one end. Place some newspaper or similar on the floor to catch the mess...

When it starts becoming thick and very bubbly, test it out by dipping a fork into the caramel. Bring it over the skewers and shake it back and forth. If the dripping liquid caramel forms strings which solidify over the skewers, all good!

4. Chocolate Cherries
Heat 125 mL cream in a saucepan until almost but not boiling. Pour over 250 g of chopped up dark chocolate. Mix with a fork until smooth. Leave in fridge to cool.

When cooled but still workable, take a spoonful of ganache, stud with a hazelnut, shape into a ball around the nut. Roll the ball in icing sugar. Stick a cherry stalk into the top.

Heat chopped cherries and sugar in a saucepan until reduced to a thick liquid. Use this liquid to coat the fake cherries.

5. Raspberry Jam
Heat raspberries and sugar in a saucepan with a squeeze of lemon juice until reduced to a jam consistency.

6. Ganache Drizzle
Same as the ganache in number 4, except use equal amounts of cream and chocolate (1 cup, 250 g).

7. Assembly
Cut the top off the baked cake so that it is flat. Then cut cake horizontally into 2 layers (difficult!). Coat the first layer with raspberry jam, then sandwich with second layer. Coat the whole thing with some of the frosting. Refrigerate for 10 minutes. Then use the rest of the frosting to do a second coat. Refrigerate again for 20 minutes.
 
Drizzle cake with ganache until it drips down the sides. Top with fruit, chocolate cherries, candy floss and some chocolate shavings (scrape a chocolate block with a knife).

Breathe a sigh of relief.

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Hope you enjoyed this two-part Bake-Off series!

On a totally different note, I'm in the process of writing BA dinner menus for the Michaelmas term. If you have any ideas, let me know!