Cooking with Raymond (Italian) - Flamed Pepper/Mozzarella/tomato salad + Pancetta/Liver/Mushroom Tag

[Raymond Lin]

First the ingredients

Now - The Salad

Put the pepper straight onto the flame, keep turning it and don't worry, it will go black and that's the point. It will take about 6 to 8 mins.

When it's all done, put it into a bowl, cover it with cling film and leave it for 10 minutes. The reason is that it will steam itself and cook it through properly, and the skin will come off easily later.

While that is doing that, with the 10 mins, slice up the tomatoes and mushrooms. And also rip apart the Mozzarella by hand into bite size chunks.

Put the tomatoes on the mozzarella.

Now the pepper, use your hand and rub it, the black skin will come off.

Then once it's off, slice it in half then rip it into chunks with your hands again.

Then season with salt and pepper, drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, garnish with parsley or basil.

Then Main.

Olive oil into the sauce pan, add in the pancetta and fry for about a minute, keep it moving.

Then add in the garlic and keep it moving for a minute

Then the liver (You can use chicken or pork liver) and fry for a few minutes until the liver is lightly brown on the outside.

Now its time to cook the pasta, I am using fresh tagliatelle so it takes less time than dried, if you are using dry then you might want to start that before you cook the pancetta so they finish at the same time.

Then add in the mushrooms and keep it moving, then add in the double cream, season with salt and pepper, then TASTE, if it's not enough salt or pepper then season some more. Then add in some parsley or coriander.

Cook it until it simmers and keep it simmer for 1 minute.

Then drain the tagliatelle, and put the rest on top.

Then add some grated parmesan, sprinkle some parsley.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Ugh, dof blur, look I'm a professional photographer guys!

Sorry, not really having a go at you, but I see this all the time on some of the art forums I visit and it really irks me. Most of the time it's completely unnecessary.

The recipe however looks great and I will definitely be trying it although I will probably find something to substitute for the lardons as they are pretty expensive.

Do you want to see the state of my hobs or something???

 

[Raymond Lin]

It does seem a little over the top in some of those photos though.
Just looks stupid when half the saucepan is out of focus IMHO.

Do you want to see the food or do you want to see the rim of my sauce pan?

It is a sauce pan, what's there to see? I dunno why people crit about my pictures when I took it to show food. If I wanted crit on the photos I post it on the photography forum?

 

[Raymond Lin]

No, I want to be able to see more than one tomato half in focus in a picture that's entire point is to show me tomatoes.

And one tomato is the same as the next, you expect them to be different?

The point is slice them, 1 or a 100, they are still sliced?

Thing is, your eyes work exactly the same way. You never see everything in focus, EVER.

 

[Raymond Lin]

is that code for something?

I dunno, someone obviously wanna see my rim.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Well I'm not going to get into an argument about it, it's just my opinion, but I think those pictures are really suffering because of your overuse of dof blur. Although I don't seem to be the only one that thinks so. Pictures 4 and 5 are diabolical. I'm not trying to offend, just give some constructive criticism.

Well, thanks i suppose.

Anyway, BACK to the food, please? Lol

 

[Raymond Lin]

I have to agree that blurry pic thing is played out.

It's not a fashion thing. It is a technical thing, sucbconsious and artistic thing.

Go look at some food photos online...Ergo www.jamieoliver.com

 

[Raymond Lin]

Looks nice apart from the liver. I would just use chicken and then I would be happy.

Or just drop the liver conpletely, pancetta and mushrooms are nice.

 

[Raymond Lin]

ray what happened to my request for Alba white Truffle Risotto?

They are a bit hard to source in Morrisons

 

[Raymond Lin]

Dear Photography Critics

I have been thinking about this and some point last night it even annoyed me, about how some people are ungrateful, complain about petty little things. I took time out to photograph, put a £3,000 camera & lens in front of fire, oil and boiling water and they complain about the photographs. When my intention is about the food. I am also bitterly disappointed that some people would even complain in the first place and would think I have a motive to pimp my pictures. If I want to pimp my pictures, I would spam the forum with random photographs of anything and everything in every thread daily. Not spend money on ingredients.

I even had the idea that the next time (should I start another cooking thread), I would take 2 sets of pictures. I would take one using my 5Dii, and another using a disposable camera with the built in flash in order to keep the moaners happy. Trust me, that my kitchen is dark, with the built in flash, all you will see is a wash of white light.

Then I had a thought, why the hell would I do that? That would be lowering myself to your level, being petty about it. I like taking nice pictures and I am doing a nice thing here am I not, that I am contributing to the forum am I not? Does food threads HAVE to come with photographs that comes out of a point and shoot? Is there a rule that prevent me to shoot with my DSLR?

With the greatest respect, if you don't like it, there is not much I am going to do about it. If you want to look at average/rubbish looking food photos, may I suggest you go take some yourself, because I am not going to change because of you. I am not going to compromise myself and my photography for you. And to be honest, photographing food is relative easy in comparison to photographing people. It is just as easy for me to take a photo with my 5Dii than with my iPhone. Not to mention I do not have to justify my style of photography to you and I do not owe you anything.

Lastly, you don't find me criticising other people's threads about their photography skills when they post photos of any sort in GD (food thread or not), why do you feel the need to judge mine when it is posted in GD?

Yours faithfully

 

[Raymond Lin]

I want to talk about food.

Anyway, BACK to the food, please? Lol

Or just drop the liver conpletely, pancetta and mushrooms are nice.

They are a bit hard to source in Morrisons

You want to talk about pictures.

WHY?

 

[Raymond Lin]

It's just an interesting discussion from my point of view, in terms of why pro photographers occasionally feel the need to blur the crap out of their photos. I think it's relevant given your blatant attempts to advertise your business.

I've already commented on the fact that your food looks very good and you seem like a cook that knows what he's doing.

My "business" is taking pictures of women getting married, NOT cooking.

ANOTHER person brings up the subject of MY pictures, not me.

So are you saying I have to take crappy pictures now? Is that the rule?

What if I can CRAP out pictures like this in my sleep? How would that be advertising? Do I have to lower my standard because you say so? If another poster post better photos than me but he does not make photos from it, would that be advertising? Would removing the watermark make you happy? But what about my username? Should I change my username too so that it doesn't link back to me directly make you happy?

I want to talk about food, please stop bring the subject of photography up.

You know what, I am going to keep doing it, until the mods makes it an offence to post good photographs, I am going to keep doing it.

You can keep on moaning, I have better things to do than justify myself to you.

Good day.

 

[Raymond Lin]

And I appreciate the effort he's gone to, it's an excellent thread. But surely the discussion is there to be had? No need for people to get overly sensitive here.

The discussion is about food, the cooking.

Not "ooh, I can't see every tomato on the chopping board".

 

[Raymond Lin]

Except he's not really moaning, he's making some pretty good points. Although I apologised earlier your handling of this and the tone of your posts almost makes me wish I hadn't bothered.
There's no reason why we can't discuss your pictures instead of the food, this isn't a cooking forum, any topic is open for discussion as long as there are no personal insults.
Also, if you hadn't of phrased your responses the way you did then we probably would not still be talking about it.
Having not clicked any of the links in your sig before I have to say that I am actually pretty surprised you get away with it, although there's no direct 'business' link, there is a link to what you do as your job, and then several ways to contact you.
Like I said, if you had just gone "lol never mind" to the initial comments I probably wouldn't be posting this now, grow a thicker skin and learn to accept that not everyone is going to like your stylistic choices.

My first response was

Do you want to see the state of my hobs or something???

As I was really confused why you would want to see more depth.

Which followed by the "lol never mind" in which I tried to redirect the thread back on topic, but clearly people disagree.

Well, thanks i suppose.

Anyway, BACK to the food, please? Lol

and we might as well get a few facts straight while I am at it.

I started the thread with the intention of FOOD. You disagree. Nothing I can do there, we can argue until the cow come home on that.

There are many ways to contact me. Unless that is illegal on the forum, well, there is not much you or I are going to do about it. So I don't really see what your point is there. Practically every member has it in their sig or profile page one way or another, it has been there since 2001. It just happens that I take pictures, and posted a thread with pictures that you think I am using threads like this to pimp myself. Well, like I said before, I shoot weddings, if I were to pimp myself, I would post a photo from my weddings once a day, everyday. I have over 5,000 processed shots in my Lightroom library that I can post. It will be perfectly legit to post it. I don't, I took pictures of a pepper on a gas hob instead.

My "response' comes from you guys' comments. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Sure, sure. Except it's not for you to decide what course the discussion takes, unfortunately.

I can understand that you 'just took the photos' on whatever settings your camera was on, and nobody is asking you to take terrible photos. I just find it interesting that overly blurry photos are considered 'good'.



I don't think your photos are that good tbh.

I don't mind you say the photos are bad or that you don't like shallow depth of field. But if you really want to understand, and want to talk about photography then I will explain it to you.

My kitchen has 3 lights, none of which are directly over the worktop OR cooker. To get the maximum amount of light, I need to open the lens up. Sure you can say I can up the ISO on my camera, it is a 5Dii right? Well, to me, that is the last thing i want to do because that is the last thing anyone does in a low light situation. It is not a style, it is what every photographer does. You would change aperture and shutter speed before you change ISO. That is a rule of thumb.

Given that fact, and the fact that my kitchen is dark, the way to lit the photo is to use wide aperture. Now thankfully I do own some fast glass that can let in a lot of light. So I use it. Even though I use a flash, it is bounced. I bounce it (off the ceiling and wall) because it gives a more diffused result than firing it directly. What happen when you do that is you get what is call a "dear in headlight" result. I light background by open up the lens, that gives the atmosphere.

I do all the above almost second nature, there is no intention of "blur". If there are any intention, my intention is make sure what I want in focus, IS IN focus. Whether it is a face, a ring, a flower, a pepper on a hob, parsley in a pan. I pick out a subject, focus on that, and that is that. The background is blur, it doesn't matter to me because that is NOT the point of the photograph.

That is the intention.

I don't mind you talking about photography, but to suggest I use it as a backdoor way to promote my business? Pepper on a hob? If I want to promote my business, you think I won't use a better and more relevant topic and subject ?

 

[Raymond Lin]

Why are you getting so up-set?

There's not much to comment on other than your photography because of what was made. It's just some pasta, that's not to say you executed the dish well, it's just pasta.

Unless you posted just for positive comments, which is fine, I'm not condemning.

As a tip though, use big tomatoes instead of those tiny little danish waterbombs.

Did you cook the liver whole or chop up and fry?

I like to cover the liver in flour and fry in butter because I'm unhealthy like that.

I wouldn't say upset, but offended. You can say the photo is too saturated (someone has), and I am okay with that, in fact he's right, a couple are a touch too saturated. You can say the DOF is too shallow, and I accept that too. I do get offended when I get accused of something that wasn't my intention, as you would if I accuse you of something you didn't do. Then I will defend it the best I can. It is simply as that really.

Back to the food.

I thought about the bigger tomatoes you know when I was doing the shopping, I did!!! I do like cherry tomatoes though and I eat it like a snack sometimes so I bought a small box.

The liver was chopped up then fried, it was actually quite hard to chop up as it is REALLY slimy and quite tough. Tougher than chicken breasts. And although i did enjoy eating it, but I think next time I would replace the liver with something else, may be some kidney? or some kind of salami or sorts. But liver is cheap, that 250g was just 39p.

Flour over the liver is an interesting idea but you are right about it being unhealthy lol there is already double cream and pancetta and the salad has mozzarella.