I’m out of the loop. Let’s start a new thread for this year.
I eat herrings every week.
Fresh dates
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Sous vide yolk
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North Sea shrimp (Crangon crangon)
Same shrimp with shell intact. Everything is from the North Sea.
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Beetroot buckwheat pancakes
Steamed razors with beetroot chilli sauce
Matjessill is Swedish-style herring
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Biscuits and Lebkuchen.
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Your picture of the small shrimps remind me of my trip to Brussels last year. Had some fabulous food there. My DCs and I had dinner at a well known seafood restaurant one night where they presented a small bowl of their gray shrimp as a table snack (small, shell-on – apparently a well-known Belgian specialty).
I started popping them into my mouth whole. They were super sweet, and when the maitre’d saw me he stopped by and started shelling one for me - probably aghast I was eating the shell. I asked him if he’s ever tried with the shell on, since the shell is thin enough on small shrimps. He just looked at me funny and probably thought I was off my rocker or some crazy American. My DCs all tried one with the shell on and the both conceded the shrimp is much sweeter intact (probably with the fantastic shrimp head too).
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Don’t let him discourage you. Here in France, for those small shrimps, many eats the whole thing. Kind of snob, I would say, this restaurant.
May I ask how you put the yolk in the avocado?
Sous vide yolks with olive oil or butter in a bag. Remove avocado pit and put a yolk in it.
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There’s nothing wrong with eating these shrimps straight up. I do it when I’m lazy. But it’s very easy to peel. Hold the tail and head with both hands, push towards the middle and twist, then pull the shell apart.
Netherlands has the biggest shrimp fleet, like the oysters and mussels most North Sea shrimps are exported to neighbouring countries. The shelled shrimps are a lot more expensive as they are shipped to Morocco to be peeled and processed then shipped back to Netherlands. I always get the shell-on shrimps from the market fishmonger, price is between 10-20 euros per kilo. Costs more in Belgium and Germany. Saw them at Carrefour in Brussels, 32 euro/kg. (400g = 1 pound). In Belgium you usually get them alongside a dark, sourish beer.
Did you have shrimp croquets in Brussels? Costs about 6 or 7 euros each there. It’s a bit time and labour intensive, not to mention costly. I have made the croquets twice, it was enough.
The next day, ready to form the croquets.
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But they’re so much tastier with the head on! 
It’s all the shrimp heads and what I joke as shrimp head goo or shrimp brains.
mmm brains (in zombie-like voice)
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DH and I went for Korean today.
Banchan - tofu skins, mustard greens, bean sprouts, kimchi, daikon, and a little fried white fish.
We shared the “popcorn” dumplings and bulgogi. Not pictured was also a little bowl of soondubu jjigae (tofu soup).
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The dumplings look deep fried and small. Nice? The meal looks delicious. I like all kinds of “jiggae”.
Pastry with quark, onion rings and Speck. Store-bought dough.
Noodles with prawn roe. The noodles already have roe but you can’t really taste it. I use a lot of roe here. In Hong Kong and Macau you get a tiny amount.
Brought back from Hong Kong. Many more noodle and roe meals to come.
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Those bean sprouts banchan are my favorite! I always have to ask for refills :))
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That looks phenomenal, yum. I’m curious what type of store-bought dough works well for this preparation?
I cheated. I got pizza dough. It works in a pinch or when you are lazy to make the dough. If you have time to make the dough do that, it’s so much better. Look it up using search term “flammkuchen”. Crème fraîche is the standard but my quark is from a farm, very thick and rich, has a similar texture and taste to crème fraîche so I use that. Besides, I always have the quark in the fridge. If you don’t have Speck use smoke bacon or something similar.
Flammkuchen is popular at christmas markets and restaurants in south Germany and is cooked in a wood-fired oven.
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Thank you for sharing, @Presunto. That is exactly the kind of cheat I would want to try. We can buy quark from Vermont in a nearby supermarket and our butcher stocks speck, so with your inspiration I would like to attempt flammkuchen.
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This recipe is super delicious! The dough is worth making if you can find time. It includes rye flour.
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Big fan of all things rye. Thank you so much.
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Took a lot of time to remove the meat. Normally I crack the claws and eat the meat straight away. Unseasoned eggs because there’s lemon juice, pepper and parsley in the crab meat. With crab meat I like to keep it simple so the taste doesn’t get lost in the seasoning.
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