New World Record

Well in my case anyway. For buying a cookbook and Actually Making a Recipe From It. On Sunday, merely a couple of hours. Utterly, utterly amazing. Unfortunately, the recipe, not so amazing!

I tend to buy cookbooks. A lot. Or at least, books about food - more often food writing these days than recipe books, but still, it's not hard for me to buy a cookbook of some sort or description every week or two. I don't mean a gorgeous glossy hardback each time, but even when I'm in the supermarket I'll notice those lovely little Women's Weekly $4 cookbooks or in the newsagent my eyes will accidentally drift towards the imported food magazines. I can't help myself, I tell you.

I picked up this little book Deep Fry for $8.00 in the bargain box - it wasn't something that would normally have grabbed my attention because (a) I don't deep fry much at all and (b) it is not a particularly extensive book.

But the recipe for crab cakes included a side of coconut rice and this lured me in. Coconut rice. Just the sound of it made my mouth water. I'll confess and say that it may not have been the recipe that t'was to blame, the fact that I used brown rice and not white, would have had a major impact. But, still, it just wasn't as coconutty as I had expected. I'll have to try it again. And I used roast chilli jam since I was out of fresh red chilli.

Still, the accompanying twice-cooked pork ribs with leeks wasn't bad at all. I picked up a tray of these cheap at the organic butcher and using a method from the Food of China, poached these in water with a little soy sauce and then drained, cooled and chopped. I then fried them in hot oil, and added julienned leeks, soy sauce and oyster sauce. Beware, that oil really spits!!