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I’ve become quite obsessed by cooking fish sous vide since the revelation of sous vide monkfish in Nantes

I’ve cooked monkfish (twice; once for my mum’s birthday dinner last week, when it went down very well), cod, haddock, sea bass and salmon (twice; I love how the salmon still looks carrot coloured once it’s properly cooked)

Tonight I’m going to have hake, with a Nantaise sauce, green vegetables and fries

Sounds lovely. What does Nantaise sauce contain? Muscadet, surely.

Butter, spring onions, veg stock, white wine, lemon juice and zest, crème fraiche, parsley, chives and dill (ingredients can vary)

Cooking the fish sous vide has changed fish for me

The texture and taste are both massively improved. It’s a bit more of a pain in the arse to cook than frying, grilling or baking. But it’s worth the extra time, and near impossible to overcook the fish

Apparently you can buy a sous vide machine and a vacuum sealer. I make do with a large pan of water, a digital thermometer, an electric hob and ziplock bags

I love fish cooked at 48°C

Just put it out in the sun next week during Malcolm's "global warming my arse" warm spell. Sous soleil.

Cooking very low in the oven has the same effect, and uses virtually no electricity despite the fear of this. I've not tried with fish though.

It transformed pork fillet for me. Those dick-shaped things that look nice in the packet but are a bugger to cook right. 6 hours at 50 or 55C (depending whether the oven runs hot or cool), then a quick flash fry - or vice versa. From the trickiest toughest meat that's either inedible or raw, to something dead posh.

It doesn’t take as long as meat, only about an hour for a fish fillet. And it doesn’t need a slow cook; it’s just the best way of bringing it to that perfect temperature, texture and taste

I love slow and low cooking meat, but it’s a different game from sous vide fish

Use BPA-free bags if you can please - those made for the purpose should be. You don't want monkfish with a side order of developing mammary glands or worse.

I’ve become quite obsessed by cooking fish sous vide since the revelation of sous vide monkfish in Nantes

I’ve cooked monkfish (twice; once for my mum’s birthday dinner last week, when it went down very well), cod, haddock, sea bass and salmon (twice; I love how the salmon still looks carrot coloured once it’s properly cooked)

Tonight I’m going to have hake, with a Nantaise sauce, green vegetables and fries

Sounds lovely. What does Nantaise sauce contain? Muscadet, surely.

Butter, spring onions, veg stock, white wine, lemon juice and zest, crème fraiche, parsley, chives and dill (ingredients can vary)

Cooking the fish sous vide has changed fish for me

The texture and taste are both massively improved. It’s a bit more of a pain in the arse to cook than frying, grilling or baking. But it’s worth the extra time, and near impossible to overcook the fish

Apparently you can buy a sous vide machine and a vacuum sealer. I make do with a large pan of water, a digital thermometer, an electric hob and ziplock bags

I love fish cooked at 48°C

Just put it out in the sun next week during Malcolm's "global warming my arse" warm spell. Sous soleil.

Cooking very low in the oven has the same effect, and uses virtually no electricity despite the fear of this. I've not tried with fish though.

It transformed pork fillet for me. Those dick-shaped things that look nice in the packet but are a bugger to cook right. 6 hours at 50 or 55C (depending whether the oven runs hot or cool), then a quick flash fry - or vice versa. From the trickiest toughest meat that's either inedible or raw, to something dead posh.

It doesn’t take as long as meat, only about an hour for a fish fillet. And it doesn’t need a slow cook; it’s just the best way of bringing it to that perfect temperature, texture and taste

I love slow and low cooking meat, but it’s a different game from sous vide fish

Here we go again.

Iran closes Strait of Hormuz and accuses US and Israel of violating ceasefire deal

Least surprising news item of the year.

Danny (Dennis) Citrinowicz ,داني سيترينوفيتش
@citrinowicz

As I have argued repeatedly, the current situation in Lebanon is fundamentally incompatible with a sustainable U.S.-Iran agreement.

https://x.com/citrinowicz/status/2068326244584681533

Fuck Bibi

Fuck Israel

They misled Trump into starting this

Now they want to jeopardise the global economy to keep Bibi out of stir and give Bart a boner

There are two resources in Lebanon that are highly valuable to Israel. The first is land and the second is water. Extending control to the Litani has the same effect as controlling the West Bank's access to the Jordan i.e. the WB doesn't have any access as it is all under military control. There is a long term desire (promised land, chosen people) to increase control of land even if borders are somewhat flexible. The main issue is how to you reach peaceful agreement with the people whose land you have just taken? I suggest Israel doesn't actually care much in the same way most settlers throughout history don't care (and I include Britain in that)

Off topic, but possibly a problem that some of you may be able to help with.

We have been at war with the mullahs in Iran since 1989. After we overthrew Saddam Hussein, the mullahs changed their strategy to avoid direct confrontations with the US, and instead use proxies, and indirect means, in their war against us.

A series of presidents, Carter, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama have tried different strategies in this war, with varying degrees of success. Reagan and George W. Bush used threats. Obama worked with European allies to constrain the mullah’s efforts to get nuclear weapons.

What should our grand strategy be against the mullahs? That’s a genuine question, to which I do not have a full answer. But I do think we need to think hard about the problem, and I do think we can solve it, just as we solved the problem of the Soviet Union.

If we are willing to think long term.

I’ll start the discussion by saying what we should not do. We should not shut down the Voice of America. And, it seems, majorities in the Congress agree with me on that:

Lawmakers from both parties and houses of Congress have agreed to provide about $653 million to fund Voice of America’s parent agency, rejecting President Donald Trump’s demand to defund the international broadcaster and shut it down.

A bipartisan spending bill released Sunday would allocate $643 million for broadcasting from the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA, plus nearly $10 million for capital improvements. That figure is down from the $867 million appropriated for the agency each of the past two years, but it’s more than four times the $153 million Trump requested that Congress provide to “support the orderly shutdown of USAGM operations.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/01/13/voice-of-america-trump-congress-funding/

But not the Loser.

Bit left field but…..

Renewables!

Iran has vast renewables potential particularly solar but also wind. Offer to invest in these as an Alternative to Civil Nuclear.

I am not saying send John Sweeney but as a country that has had civil nuclear and has rejected it in favour of renewables you make the case that Nuclear is last centuries technology not this one’s.

Harder to do if you yourself have a nuclear programme!

It gets a dialogue going it offers them something and it undermines their argument for enrichment.

We could redirect or build it into the £300bn reconstruction fund.

Also just to add.

Like Iraq under Saddam and indeed Russia and China, they talk of revolution and defeating us, but their core priority is their own survival not defeating us.

Don’t turn a Nasty Thug into a Bond Villian!

Peter.

I’ve become quite obsessed by cooking fish sous vide since the revelation of sous vide monkfish in Nantes

I’ve cooked monkfish (twice; once for my mum’s birthday dinner last week, when it went down very well), cod, haddock, sea bass and salmon (twice; I love how the salmon still looks carrot coloured once it’s properly cooked)

Tonight I’m going to have hake, with a Nantaise sauce, green vegetables and fries

Sounds lovely. What does Nantaise sauce contain? Muscadet, surely.

Butter, spring onions, veg stock, white wine, lemon juice and zest, crème fraiche, parsley, chives and dill (ingredients can vary)

Cooking the fish sous vide has changed fish for me

The texture and taste are both massively improved. It’s a bit more of a pain in the arse to cook than frying, grilling or baking. But it’s worth the extra time, and near impossible to overcook the fish

Apparently you can buy a sous vide machine and a vacuum sealer. I make do with a large pan of water, a digital thermometer, an electric hob and ziplock bags

I love fish cooked at 48°C

And I did make the sauce with Muscadet for Mum’s birthday, but have a Bordeaux white for tonight

I think the United (Opposed To Everything) Kingdom is apt .

Nothing gets done because politicians are too frightened to tell some home truths . Put taxes up to pay for defence opposed, try and build anything opposed , try and deal with social care opposed etc .

The public just aren’t interested in anyone telling them the reality so just want to continue down the path into la la land .

I think this is wrong.

Politicians have bought into the focus group bullshit to the point they don’t want to upset anyone.

This leads to upsetting everyone.

See the driving test farce.

Yes - but you have to decide your priorities. People will normally accept governments pursuing one or two unpopular policies if they seem part of a generally acceptable whole - they tend to accept that unwelcome decisions may be needed if the general picture is right. For example, I don't favour monarchy, but I wouldn't advise any party to make abolition of the monarchy a key objective - people would rightly feel that the government wasn't attending primarily to improving their lives.

For me, the key Labour policy should be improving the situation of the poorer half of society, ideally through measures such as improved education which pay an economic benefit in the long run as well. If that means that comfortably-off people (like me) are paying more tax, that's OK.

Can we start, whoever replaces Starmer, with the removal of Phillipson? She's utterly mad, and comes across as a rather nasty piece of work to boot.

I can't imagine, to take only the obvious examples, why she thinks extending Gove's policies on academies, defunding proper teacher training programmes to extend the lunacy that is Teach First and crippling an already buckling SEND system is going to do anything to improve children's education.

But really she should just be sacked for that truly ghastly video with Gemma Collins.

Phillipson is a gender-critical feminist who was appointed as Minister for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities to do gender-critical things, which she is doing thoroughly. The education of children and the pursuit of equality is not relevant although if it happens then that is a happy accident.