Weekend

We watched this movie last night - I enjoyed it too especially the bridge and running scenes. Dinner was at Spaghettini's after.

I had my usual (antipasti, duck risotto & ice-cream),

Mark had antipasti, a duck/mushroom pizza and tiramisu and Hazel had spaghetti carbonara.

Mark eating a complimentary paper thin pizza drizzled with a little olive oil and lightly sprinkled with cheese after his dinner while Hazel tries to cut a cat out of her little piece of dough. The pizza chef decorated her cat with whiskers (parsley) and baked it for her when she finished. We were all pretty pretty full after the meal and the drive back seemed particularly long with the children nodding off in the back seats.

Today I paid a visit to the fish market just to buy some squid but ended up 4 kgs of this lovely fish which the children love, a kilo of very fresh white fish, and just over a kilo of crabs (3 pieces).

So do have a look at the rest of our dinner tonight. Calamari rings with super crunchy light batter. Here they are, draining on kitchen paper.

And just before serving.

AND AND Black Pepper Crab.

Clean, cut crabs and cut into smaller pieces. Wash and drain. Crack claws. The oil which I had used to fry the calarmari with was still clean, so decided to deep fry the crabs first to rid excess water content and par-cook them. The crabs were lightly dusted with corn flour and salt and pepper before deep frying. Drain on kitchen paper.

In another clean wok, fry finely minced garlic, shallots and ginger. Add A LOT OF crushed black peppercorns, some oyster sauce and light soy, a dash of fish sauce, a tiny bit of sugar. Add crabs and fry till well mixed. Add little water and cover.

Add some spring onions. The sauce should be pretty dry and just cling to the crab. Ooh, I must say they were pretty good and tasty.

Adrian Mole was put firmly away as Mark needed both hands to tackle the crabs. That's watercress soup just above my plate.