h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

For the record, I bought a 4lb box of Brooke Bond Red Label loose tea today. I'm putting this here so that I can get an idea of how long it lasts.

I also bought a 1lb block of jaggery (Indian sugar). I haven't the foggiest idea what I'm going to use it for, I just remember seeing Rick Stein banging on about it in his last series about Indian cooking. I guess I'm going to have to watch it again.

Arn't there a load of really* really* sweet, err, sweets and desserts In Indian cuisine? I must admit wehnever I've been to a resturant out, I'm alwyas way too stuffed to even consider a dessert... But I'm sure I vaguely recall something... cake... sweets...

There are lots of Indian sweets - gulab jamun, jelabi and suchlike, but it's used in other dishes too.

Y'know, maybe it was Floyd, not Rick Stein...

I seem to recall Rick Stein burbling on about it recently - I only see his stuff when I remember to watch Saturday Kitchen though

Floyd was the last sort of 'celib' chef, I kinda liked, really... its all gotten a bit too much about the 'celib' bit, IMO, and less about the 'chef' bit in recent eons I've never heard of any of those sweets! but I've always been more into my savory than sweet stuff, and when I do* need a sweet something fix, I just reach for the ole chocs that have been about since I were a child... yeh, all the crapy non high coco stuff though I do occasionally crave to brankrupt myself with buying an expensive high coco type one... I keep meaning to get into making my own choc, cake type things... I wanna have a go at making some kinda biscuitsy thing, with choc... somehow

Well, it wasn't in the first episode, which I watched last night. It's been a while since I made a curry; I really must do something about that.

Y'know, I could just go to the BBC food website and search for recipes from Rick Stein's India that include jaggery
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/search?keywords=jaggery&occasions[]=&chefs[]=rick_stein&programmes[]=

Or Keith Floyd
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/search?keywords=jaggery&occasions[]=&chefs[]=keith_floyd&programmes[]=

Job's a good'un.

This looks tasty
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/slow-roasted_lamb_43301
Slow-roasted lamb shoulder with cashew nut and caramelised onion gravy

Recipe: "1 lamb shoulder, boned, rolled and tied, with bone left in (you can ask your butcher to do this for you)"
Your butcher: "I'll be the judge of that!"

Not content with having one of the most annoying, labyrinthine, slowest and downright unusable websites, now the BBC seems determined to make their links unlinkable too <facepalM

Ooh, I wonder if I should use it in the Eccles cakes I'm making today, instead of the brown sugar the recipe calls for

I suppose I'd better cut a small piece off and taste it. Rick Stein did say that it should be used in Indian recipes if you can get it, and that there's something about its manufacture that sets it apart from regular sugar (also it says 'palm tree sugar' on the label)...

Hmmm, that's interesting. Definitely a different flavour to brown sugar. I wouldn't know eactly how to describe it though. Not particularly sweet, perhaps a hint of caramel, quite nice.

I have Madhur Jaffrey's Curry Bible here and I know theere are loads of recipes with jaggery in cos I'm always annoyed that I can't get it here. Only when I look it up in the index, it only takes me to the Special ingredient list.

Then I googled 'Madhur Jaffrey Jaggery' - Bob would indeed be your uncle and keep you until I go through the whole huge book and find those recipes that I wished I could cook properly. I am a child of the tech age, but it really is easier to google then go through a 400 page recipe book!

Speaking of tea...

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27243269

It's called 'Bkon'... and it looks like it Hipster look, hipster name.

"the brewing process is a lot more complicated than simply dipping a tea-bag into some boiling water."
It certainly is! You have to boil a kettle, warm the pot, put the leaves in the pot, put a tea cosy over it and wait for the tea to brew, then pour it through a strainer. Tea bag my arse.

"The machine can brew more than 60 cups of tea an hour."
At nearly eight grand, it bloody well better!

"It has led the makers to boast of having created "tea 2.0"."
R-i-i-g-h-t. I'll stick with plain old tea, ta very much.

"There are a lot of parameters to consider when making a good cup of tea, and the pressure parameter is one of the most expensive," she said. "But it is an important parameter and would be likely to have a significant impact on taste."

The tea it makes doesn't *look* that good, anyway - it seems very watery-looking to me!

How much?! Oh... BoB... William brews tea, from tea leaves, faster than that (or at least has done, in a previous job he had; most massive tea pot I've ever seen they had at the place he was working ) and a massive.... err, big metal silvery thing, like a giant cilender... sort of kettle but not kettle... err, they've got a name, I know they have, we bought de-scaler stuff for the one he 'opperates' now, a week or so ago ahh... isn't it called soemthing like a tea urn?

The definitive article on TEA! A61345

Yep

Well, substitute Ty-Phoo or Brooke Bond or Sainsbury's Red label (do they even make that any more?) for Earl grey, and I think it's spot-on

And as far as that "Bkon" thingy goes, I trust is as far as I can comfortably spit a rat. It must be sentient and probably has a Genuine People Personality (GPP). It'll all end in tears and probably a Eddy's in the Space Time Continuum!

Dammit... "probably Eddy's in the space time continuum." I know where that superfluous "a" came from, but I'm powerless to remove it now. I still say a timed edit function is desperately needed here.

Yes - GPP! When it's made your tea it probably says something "Enjoy" or " Yummmmm"

You don't suppose it has a brain the size of a planet... do you?

Why don't we have a smiley?

Why yes, I am quite right now. How did you know?