Yearly Archives: 2012

121212 Sushi
Cooking

121212 – Smoked Salmon Sushi Dinner Day

Dinner!

I probably should schedule these nights regularly again, but in a bid to eat healthier I’ve felt discouraged in making sushi for dinner due to the high concentration of carbs. But being the last day of the century for the day, month and year (well, the last 2 digits anyway) to be the same.. Ah fuck it, it was for lulz. And using up some smoked salmon in the fridge.

Doing a dinner like this I find takes quite some time and complete reign of the kitchen. My time management is getting a little better which coincides with regular practise for rolling out the maki but my knife skills are still rather lacking in speed and precision.

But this isn’t a post fishing for reassurances for improving these deficiencies, it’s about food porn! Actually, it’s the best way I’ve found to document these dinners if I want to repeat any elements from them.

Side dishes

Carrot salad

Carrot salad with wasabi dressing

I wanted to serve a light salad with a vinaigrette-style dressing, but I have little choice for things available in a hurry. When you have plenty of carrot, you can make a French-style carrot salad but I took this as inspiration. Rather than use mustard, I used some dried wasabi powder that we have in the freezer with rapeseed oil for the dressing. If repeating, resting the salad in the fridge generally brings out the nose-clearing spiciness of wasabi so be wary – I still found it not potent enough but Yvan would disagree!

Tamagoyaki

Tamagoyaki

Apart from the main dish containing the bulk of the protein I felt that I had to add some tamagoyaki as it’s simple to make and provides a flavour contrast to all the other items in the meal. In retrospect, I should of cut the block along the length to avoid the cutoffs – though these weren’t wasted as much as they were “chef’s perks” 😉

Pickle, veg & stuffed vine leaf

Pickle, veg & stuffed vine leaf

The cigar-shaped bundle is one of the last of my home-brined vine leaves stuffed with a mixture of seasoned shiitake and chestnuts with sushi rice. The chestnuts were a little old, and I figured that if they were lacking water (as they are when fresh) then it can be reintroduced through simmering – it would of been fully successful if given more time (see the soup details).

The bright pink/red ‘flowers’ are a staple of my bento, consisting of appropriately cut ‘radish chrysanthemums‘ that have been salted and stored in rice vinegar in the fridge. Though it’s commonly used technique for turnips, I’ve taken the recipe from my second-hand copy of Emi Kazuko’s book.

The leaf was a rescued spinach leaf from the garden – the frosts and few remaining stubborn caterpillars have been devastating most things green outside. The carrot flower was uncooked and hand carved. With smaller carrots that cannot be cut with a cutter like this one was, you are better off trimming by hand along the length of the carrot prior to the petal sculpting stage.

Sushi

It was during late in the afternoon that Yvan mentioned “Let’s have smoked salmon sushi for dinner” after recalling that there was a spare pack he didn’t use for a previous dinner. He also suggested some avocado, but my luck in finding such a thing in our local grocery store I knew I had to try something else..

Salmon helix maki

Salmon helix maki

The star of the show was uramaki (inside-out roll) that contains smoked salmon, spring onion, lemon (rind and flesh) and cooked prawn. The ‘helix’ refers to the outside strips of nori that was placed in that manner, then rolled in sesame seeds. The appearance was influenced by an old clipping I saved from an ad for ‘American rice’, it featured what appeared to be paper-thin carrot and cucumber covered rolls (which replaced the nori) that were placed on the diagonal. Knowing that the nori length would need to be longer than the rolls, I cut the uramaki in half and used strips cut along the width of a whole sheet to avoid wastage.

Salmon hosomaki

Salmon hosomaki

With more smoked salmon looking forlorn and little other choice, it was a no-brainer to make hosomaki (thin rolls) as part of the sushi course. These contain the thinnest slither of green onion to offset the oily fish.

All the sushi turned out fine apart from not being able to cut straight and not being able to cut them at uniform lengths.. boo!

Soup

Miso soup

Miso soup filling / Miso soup served

I’ve tended to use our whiskey glasses for the miso soup as it gets to show off the items inside before I serve it hot. During the cooking time of the entire dinner, some water and stock was on the go, ready at the last minute for the miso to be mixed in at a lower heat. In the course of preparations, one whole chestnut (if you recall they were lacking in water) was accidently dropped into the bubbly stock but I didn’t bother fishing it out as I had used all the chestnuts needed. So at the very end, after completing the soup with soy and mirin simmered shiitake slices, green onion and cooked prawn we ate the chestnut that was still in the soup the entire time. Result: a rather interesting way to revive chestnuts rather than abandon them to the compost; it was juicy and slightly more savoury from the time in the broth.

Task breakdown

I surprised myself how I managed my time for this – 5 years ago I would of probably taken another hour to get everything ready. Excluding the steps in advance, I took only 2 hours to make 6 items plus edible garnishes – a personal record.

  1. (In advance) Prepare radish chrysanthemum pickles
  2. (In advance) Toast desicated chestnuts
  3. (In advance) Reconstitute shiitake
  4. (In advance) Reserve spinach leaves
  5. Prepare carrot salad, and refrigerate. Cut out carrot flower garnishes. Peel 3-4 chestnuts
  6. Prepare rice – but don’t switch on the rice cooker yet
  7. Cook tamagoyaki
  8. Trim and slice shiitake. Cut lemon and reserve some rind and flesh for uramaki. Chop up chestnuts
  9. Boil water and place stock cube (home made venison stock). Start the rice cooker to ‘cook’
  10. Simmer shiitake and chestnuts together in soy and mirin. Rinse out vine leaves
  11. Prepare sushi rice and cut green onion for maki filling, take off mushrooms and chestnuts from heat when most of the liquid has evaporated
  12. Carefully pick out chestnut pieces and some slices of shiitake in a bowl. Add about 2 tablespoons of sushi rice and mix
  13. Make vine leaves stuffed with rice, chestnut and shiitake
  14. Make inside-out roll with prawn, smoked salmon and green onion (nori is halved along the width rather than the length of the sheet, using one half per roll). Cut uramaki into 2 exact halves
  15. Cut 5-6 nori strips about 6mm-wide along the width and arrange carefully around one half of the uramaki. Repeat with the other half. Place one on top of clingfilm and sprinkle toasted sesame seeds along gaps. Wrap in the clingfilm and repeat for the other half and set both aside
  16. Reduce the heat to stock and mix in appropriate amount of miso (can be done in phases between rolling the hosomaki)
  17. Prepare the hosomaki with smoked salmon and green onion (nori is halved along the length rather than the width – convenient for 2 diners)
  18. Cut lemon slices for garnish and green onion for miso. Slice up tamagoyaki and sushi rolls. Plate up
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Android

Rinse, repeat.. Jaaaavaaaaaa! D:<

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Updates applied, then a broken Eclipse.

It’s like having a Windows machine again, where I have to burn everything and install it all again.. Except there isn’t much else to do but share the frustration with the Google results. Even PHP doesn’t carry as much bad press because it’s easy to install

My family has a history of high blood pressure; and you aren’t helping. Nor does this help reduce the angry, angry people out there.

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Random

IMBC: It. Was. So. Awwwwwwwesome.

After a hectic Letchworth festival this year, I felt noticeably less nonchalant after it had finished. Leading up to IMBC I was utterly exhausted (volunteering *again*?!), and to be honest I didn’t get terribly excited until we got to the venue for set-up. Hard not (HardKnott??) to be excited after setting up in such a lovely building.. I’ve even made a splash page of it – a panorama before a near-full day behind the keg bar (bath?).

Quite an assortment of people, from almost all aspects of the (dare I say ‘craft’) beer ecosystem: the beer aficionados, the brewers, the beer suppliers stretching to those interested in what they ingest: the foodies, the coffee geeks, the purveyors quality food. I struggle to think of any faces that left lacking a smile, a healthy liver, and a shortage of memorable moments. It was the Woodstock of the Beer Renaissance.

Though there was no resolution on the definition of ‘craft beer’ the general consensus was that it was the people, not just the beer, that really impressed the most. Perhaps it’s reflected in the beer: a more honest, take-it-or-leave-it attitude. It’s a personal, complicated journey of mapping your own tastes on which you can find like-minded company from brew to end product.

Though the video is short, there was a definite theme built-in right after someone had the idea to send in the ‘juice..



Our take on the Independent Manchester Beer Festival
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Android Selected Button/List Screenshots
Android

Android says “what selector?” – list items & buttons

The Butt is On

I’ve been optimizing and cleaning up the AlertMe for Android app to put into the Google Play marketplace, and after using drawable shapes I figured that it was time to throw away those duplicate button images. The original used a technique familiar with web developers/designers: change the whole image according to the state of an element, in this case a button:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item 
        android:state_enabled="false"
        android:drawable="@drawable/ic_home_status_home" /><!-- default state -->
    <item 
        android:state_pressed="true" 
        android:state_enabled="true"
        android:drawable="@drawable/ic_home_status_home_pressed" /><!-- pressed state -->
    <item 
        android:state_focused="true" 
        android:state_enabled="true"
        android:drawable="@drawable/ic_home_status_home_focus" /><!-- focus/hover state -->
    <item 
        android:state_enabled="true"
        android:drawable="@drawable/ic_home_status_home" /><!-- default state, just in case -->
</selector>

All 3 images; a bit repetitive, no?

All rather neat so far. Now, developing for mobile you start to appreciate things like space – particularly when you phone is rather low on it (true story) – and the same image is kind of wasteful. Images are the worst to keep around for mobile application because they can only compress so far – while text is rather easy. When I did the Letchworth Beer Fest app I used shapes to define a background rectangle and a single image over the top, so now I save on 2 less images and a cleaner looking ‘button’ to boot:

<!-- excerpt for 'pressed' state: -->
<item android:state_pressed="true" android:state_enabled="true">
    <layer-list>
        <item>
            <shape>
                <gradient
                    android:startColor="@color/button_pressed_light"
                    android:endColor="@color/button_pressed_dark"
                    android:angle="270" /><!-- gradient box, just because -->
                <stroke
                    android:width="1dp"
                    android:color="@color/button_pressed_dark" /><!-- 1dp border -->
                <corners android:radius="3dp" /><!-- neat - round corners -->
                <padding
                    android:left="10dp"
                    android:top="10dp"
                    android:right="10dp"
                    android:bottom="10dp" />
            </shape>
        </item><!-- end box -->
        <item><!-- now overlay the image on top: -->
            <bitmap
                android:src="@drawable/ic_home_status_home"
                android:gravity="center" />
        </item>
    </layer-list>
</item>
<!-- now an excerpt for default state -->
<item android:state_enabled="true">
    <layer-list>
    <item>
        <shape>
            <solid android:color="@color/button_default_light" /><!-- can be anything, but I've made it transparent -->
            <corners android:radius="4dp" />
            <padding
                android:left="10dp"
                android:top="10dp"
                android:right="10dp"
                android:bottom="10dp" />
        </shape>
    </item>
    <item>
        <bitmap
            android:src="@drawable/ic_home_status_home"
            android:gravity="center" />
    </item>
    </layer-list>     
</item>

List item select?

When I tried to use the same states for list items in my odd/even rendered lists, I switched over from setBackgroundColor to setBackgroundResource. However I found there wasn’t a change in the pressed or focus states. Some Googling later I found these states worked for me:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- for the 'odd' background; you can guess there is another file using '@color/menu_even' -->
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:state_enabled="false" android:state_pressed="false">
        <shape>
            <solid android:color="@color/menu_odd" />
        </shape>
    </item>
    <item android:state_pressed="true" android:state_enabled="true">
        <shape>
            <gradient
                android:startColor="@color/button_pressed_light"
                android:endColor="@color/button_pressed_dark"
                android:angle="270" />
        </shape>
    </item>
    <item android:state_focused="true" android:state_enabled="true">
        <shape>
            <gradient
                android:startColor="@color/button_selected_light"
                android:endColor="@color/button_selected_dark"
                android:angle="270" />
        </shape>
    </item>
    <item android:state_selected="true" android:state_pressed="false">
        <shape>
            <gradient
                android:startColor="@color/button_selected_light"
                android:endColor="@color/button_selected_dark"
                android:angle="270" />
        </shape>
    </item>
    <item android:state_enabled="true">
        <shape>
            <solid android:color="@color/menu_odd" />
        </shape>
    </item>
</selector>

The result is now a more unified look-and-feel as the button and list item states use the same focused and pressed highlighting colours.

Android Selected Button/List Screenshots

Screenshots of the a pressed button (left) and a focused list item (right)

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Random

Sticky

Hmm, my left control key is sticky – having splashed the keyboard with a little bit of beer probably didn’t help.

Remember kids, don’t drink and code! Illegible code may not be the only result! 😐

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Beer app icon set
Android, Graphic

Beer app icons

When I was writing the Letchworth Beer Festival app I knew I had to have visual cues to aid scanning the long list of beers and ciders/perries. Failing a to find any free icons within the same set, I turned to Inkscape and the Tango guidelines. Here are my personal guidelines that I have used:

  • Resize the document to the final size in icons – you can easily review the generated PNG. And it’s a vector, so if you want it larger then just do so in a new and larger document.
  • Keep things simple applies here as the smaller they get, the icons lose their details but the user still needs to recognise what it is. Thick-ish bold lines and simple shapes are key.
  • If the icon set represents a ‘type’ or well-defined option, try to restrict the colour palette. I did used the restricted Tango palette, but the each of the icons have an obvious main colour – this helps to ease scanning the list (I’d hate to do ‘pyder’ – a combination of apples & pears!)
  • Skip the bottom surface shadow when you are using them in a list that has a ‘line break’. This is a personal preference as the line denotes a division between items. If I styled the list without them I would probably have the shadow to enforce an ‘invisible line break’ between items. But since this is for a small screen, a proper line is more user-friendly.
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