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I've always liked the idea of kedgeree. Smoked fish, rice, curry flavours, eggs if you got them: what's not to like? Made kedgeree today with a hunk of smoked salmon, not quite the kosher way because I used leftover rice. Leftover rice is not the problem. The hot smoked fish seems to be the problem. Cold with lemon the stuff is delightful; hot with rice it's not. This is sad.

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I think my father uses haddock, but I'm not sure. I remember his kedgeree as being rather nice, though. Do you want me to ask him for his recipe?

If you wouldn't mind, that would be lovely. The online recipes can get a bit fancy, with scallions and cilantro and so on. I think haddock is the trad fish, but smoked haddock isn't quite as come-at-able as salmon.

(Wondered why you were up so late, then recalled your clocks don't go forward for another two weeks, isn't it?)

I'll drop him an email and ask. I know he's made the recipe several times for the family, and it always goes down well -- I think he originally got it from a newspaper article, which he has preserved somewhere.

(I don't think our clocks go forward for another couple of weeks -- at least, I hope not. I could wish they didn't go forward at all, but . . .)

I wish they'd go forward and stay forward. Light in the evening for as long as possible; even in winter it wouldn't be truly dark till almost 6.

Morning people don't understand my problem with light at 5 am, but I say it's wasted.

I haven't got the recipe yet, but I have just received a book of Chinese poetry from you. Thank you very much indeed!

I've only skimmed through and read a couple of poems so far, but it looks to be a lovely selection, with excellent translation.

Thank you so much!

Good, glad it got there. I'm very fond of the translations of the Book of Songs in that version, though reading the preface suggests that what we have is literal translations by Chinese scholars that were subsequently polished by Mr. Payne. This is a method that normally gives me hives; but if not entirely accurate (I don't know whether they are or not) the poems are certainly poetic.

Yes, I've been noticing that.

I think part of it might be that hot it gets a bit... fishy. One thing that actually works quite well at unfishifying fish, if that's the issue and not something else, is adding a bit of hard liquor or vinegar. Malt vinegar is smelly, but when cooked with fish, the vinegar smell and taste somehow evaporates together with the fishiness.

Decidedly that. I'll try the vinegar thing next time. I already added lemon juice, which helped.

The standard list of Chinese additives for un-fishifying things (eggs included), if I recall correctly, are alcohol, acid, ginger. I'm looking forward to incandescens kedgeree recipe, we eat a lot of smoked fish and something other than fish on crackers would be great.

Wait ... are you talking about "cold smoked" fish like lox on bagels or cold temperature "smoked fish"?

Didn't realize until I googled that there were different kinds of smoking. I was thinking of 'cold-smoked' salmon, but what I bought must have been 'hot-smoked' salmon, just because the taste and texture are so different from the lox-type. It still tastes better cold than hot.

Yeah, the hot-smoked has a taste and texture like cooked fish with smoke flavoring. The cold-smoked is a completely different texture and taste entirely.

The kids only eat the hot smoked stuff, and only when it's hot out of the smoker. When salmon season arrive this year I think I'll try and make "cold-smoked" salmon. I've been meaning to try for several years now.

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