20 best Chinese recipes: part 2

Stuffed squid, a classic Peking duck and stir-fried clams: OFM’s collection of Chinese recipes from cooks including Yan-kit So and Hunan’s Mr Peng

Mr Peng’s stuffed baby squid

Both chicken and prawn mince work well as a stuffing for the squid here, though chicken offers a greater contrast in texture after cooking. Try the squid with other sauces too, like sweet and sour sauce or sweet chilli sauce etc.

The punchy Sichuan chilli sauce is essential to Hunan’s cooking, and the Sichuan peppercorns lend their characteristic numbing spice to many of our dishes. You need a lot of oil to make this sauce as it captures the flavours of the chilli and also helps to preserve it. When the sauce settles, you should have a layer of oil on top. If you add too much, you can always use the excess as chilli oil. Continue reading...

Published By - Theguardian.com - Tech News, Politics news, UK and world political comment and analysis: Tuesday 3 May 2016 08.00 BST

Chanel's Havana show: controversy, communism and Tony Castro

Staging an elite fashion show in a country with an annual salary of £3,000 is rife with complications, but it’s also classic Lagerfeld

Karl Lagerfeld likes to ruffle feathers almost as much as he likes to make ballgowns out of them. Remember the Feministe fashion show? The time he dissed sweatpants? That time he dissed ADELE, for freak’s sake?

His latest spotlight-grabbing setpiece was to stage a catwalk show in communist-ruled Cuba less than a year into the warming of diplomatic relations with the west. Lagerfeld told Reuters the show was a homage to the “cultural richness and opening up of Cuba”. But the staging of an elite fashion event in a country with an average annual salary of £3,000 was always likely to court controversy. Chanel goods are not available to buy in Cuba.

Published By - Theguardian.com - Tech News, Politics news, UK and world political comment and analysis: Wednesday 4 May 2016 12.47 BST

20 best Chinese recipes: part 1

The first instalment of Observer Food Monthly’s collection of the best Chinese recipes, including dishes from Kenneth Lo and Fuchsia Dunlop

Kenneth Lo’s egg fried rice
Simple as it is, this is a satisfying dish to eat even with only a very limited amount of accompaniments, such as some chopped pickles, or just a tablespoon or two of soy sauce.

Serves 2-3, with at least one other dish
onion 1 medium-sized
eggs 2
salt 1 tsp
spring onions 2
vegetable oil 3½ tbsp
cooked rice 1½ bowls, cold

Slice and coarsely chop the onion. Break the eggs into a cup, add the salt and beat with a fork for 10 seconds. Clean and cut the spring onions into fine shavings. Continue reading...





Published By - Theguardian.com - Tech News, Politics news, UK and world political comment and analysis: Monday 2 May 2016 08.00 BST

Why is Kim Kardashian famous? You asked Google – here’s the answer

Every day millions of internet users ask Google life’s most difficult questions, big and small. Our writers answer some of the commonest queries

How do you begin to dissect fame like that of Kim Kardashian? Where do you make the first cut in such omnipresence? Because it’s not just about her, the flesh and bones woman, any more. We exist within her vast show, literally and figuratively. Even if you don’t actively choose to follow her movements, she’s there. Inescapable.

We should start with the unavoidable: the sex tape. In the mid-00s Kardashian wasn’t famous like her friends Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton, for whom she was a stylist. Richie and Hilton were catapulted into the public eye with their feckless and fantastic reality show The Simple Life, blasting a tsunami of velour Juicy Couture and Von Dutch trucker caps into society. They giggled and pouted on every red carpet and magazine cover going. But this kind of fame eluded Kardashian, despite her notorious parents and her social life. Until, that is, her sex tape – recorded in 2003 with her then-boyfriend Ray “Ray J” Norwood – was “leaked” into the public domain. Continue... 

Published By - Theguardian.com - Sports New, LifeStyle News, Politics news, UK and world political comment and analysis: Wednesday 20 April 2016 08.00 BST

My three dads – my first loves

Most of us have one father but Sophie Ellis had three, who were life-giving and life-affirming in different ways. She pays tribute to the wonderful men who made her

I turn 30 in June. Among the list of things I feel I can boast about – running a marathon, raising a healthy, happy baby girl, mastering shorthand – the fact that I’ve had three dads feels like a particular privilege. The fact that I’ve lost three dads, less so. Let me explain. My biological father, Derek, had ginger hair and drank cherry cola. He liked British pubs and American baseball. I’m not so sure he wanted children, but he got one anyway and I’m told he liked me very much. Continue.......

Published By - Theguardian.com - LifeStyle News, Politics news, UK and world political comment and analysis: Saturday 16 April 2016 06.14