We reckon you can’t love Thai food without loving pad thai - the country’s national dish. Your average Thai cook can probably whip this up with a few swishes of the wok and flips of the, umm, wok flipper. But for us at home there are two pitfalls that are easy to, errm, fall into. As you’ll find out in this episode.
First thing is those rice noodles (and don’t ever get taken for a ride in a restaurant - unless these particular noodles are under your nose, you’re not eating pad thai). You usually buy the dried variety in a packet. They need to be soaked in warm water before going into the wok. But soaked for how long? You’ve just come to a trap for young players. Continue reading ‘Pad thai with two tries’
You can’t beat waking up to the smell of fresh-baked bread. But how to get it without the rising, the knocking down, the second rise, and then the EARLY rise on your own part to stick the dough in the oven?
Yes yes, I’ve heard of bread machines. They seem a great idea, but aren’t they a little soulless? Load everything in the evening and it’s done in the morning - the washing machine school of cookery. Surely the tactile experience - getting your hands messy - is part of the satisfying process of baking your own bread.
From what I’ve seen, people tend to buy bread machines as a fad item, then shelve them to gather dust or ship them off to the charity store within a few months. So I’m not sure they are worth the investment. Continue reading ‘Loaf to admit failure’
My mum would often make rice pudding when I was a kid. Though I loved the pudding, I would scrape off the skin with my spoon and plop it on mum’s plate, who made an ostentatious show of eating it while I curled up my nose in distaste.
Lenny was making risotto a while back and couldn’t find arborio rice, so bought some “Italian pudding rice” instead at a corner store. I insisted, though, that it wouldn’t work, and went out an ultimately successful mission to find the right kind for risotto. That left us with this packet of pudding rice, which Lenny has finally put to use.
All right you purists. I know what you’re going to say. “You can’t cook tandoori without a tandoor!”
Yes, well, who has a huge earthenware oven in their kitchen, I ask you? The closest most of can get to tandoori at home is applying the curry paste or powder to meat of some description and cooking the results over a grill.
This is another of our “lost” episodes. I had genuinely forgotten about it, and found the raw video while rabbiting through our archive for holiday footage. Continue reading ‘Tandoori flashback’
Our household effects recently arrived from Canada and in one of the boxes was a DVD containing raw footage of a previously unseen CTK instalment, filmed back in Edmonton earlier this year.
I had gone shopping on my way home from work and grabbed a few random things in the supermarket, hoping that Lenny would be able to make sense of it all, culinary whiz that she is. But I’d forgotten she was off playing volleyball and I was to be left to my own devices in the kitchen.
Just what I was aiming for, I’m not sure, but it all ended pretty miserably, especially for the two pieces of cod that had the misfortune to be plucked from the supermarket chiller cabinet by my maladroit hands that evening. Continue reading ‘The lost cod episode’
We saw a moose! Two or three, in fact, right here in Cape Breton Highlands National Park, Nova Scotia. One with a great set of antlers that any hunter would have been delighted to bag. Luckily they’re protected in this park.
A few weeks into our road trip we developed a superb roast chicken recipe using a pistachio and plum stuffing of our own invention. When Lenny’s brother Cam flew in from London (UK) to join us for a few days, it seemed the perfect welcoming dinner.
Well, as you know, things don’t always turn out as planned on Crash Test Kitchen. Our portable barbecue ran out of gas, and that should have served as a warning. Continue reading ‘A chicken crashes and burns’
I am going to open a French-themed seafood restaurant called The Poisson Chalice. Har Har. - Waz 2010/07/07
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About us
We're Waz and Lenny, a couple of foodies with a video camera. We're not chefs, and you won't find any of that "here's one we prepared earlier" fakery here - we make mistakes, and the failures get posted along with the success stories. CTK is a podcast and video blog (vlog) rolled into one.
Windows video (small)
mp4 video (small)
Let the jelly roll: Swiss roll recipe from Waz’s Nana
Duck in for Christmas
Our roast chicken recipe: hot and fast
No-fuss fish pie
Classic bolognese
Portuguese custard tarts (pasteis de nata)
About the soufflé
One chicken, three ways
Bones about it: Beef stock from scratch
Heart-melting chocolate pudding
Rice to the occasion
Trifle Part 1: The Spongeblob Redemption
Blackberry crumble with short ramble
Real Belgian fries, with mussels and mayo
Duck a l’orange