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One of my passions in life is cooking. It doesn’t mean I’m any good at it, or have any delusions of Grandeur when I’m in the kitchen, I just enjoy experimenting in there. Today was one of those days…

Having lived in Korea for just over 7 months of my life, Mike and I ate a lot at a little place called Gimbap Chonguk. It was basically a Korean “fast food” franchise that specialised in fresh Gimbap (Korean equivalent of sashimi, I guess, would be a close approximation. Nore, rice and a “cooked” sandwich type filling instead of raw fish. My personal favourite was tuna) and inexpensive yet nutritious meals. One of my most ordered dishes was Cheesu Donkas.

Basically, its a pork cutlet and a piece of cheese, coated in breadcrumbs and deep fried. Its served with a sweet and sour-esce sauce, rice and a side salad. It’s awesome. It’s also really easy to make so I thought I’d share how!

Ingredients (Donkas)
1 Pork Fillet
Cheese Slices
2 Slices of bread
Corn Flour
2 Eggs

Optional to season the coating
Garlic Salt
Black Pepper
Coriander
Sesame Seeds

Ingredients (Sauce)
Tomato Ketchup
Tomato Purée
Soy Sauce
Sugar
Salt and Pepper

Right, start by ripping up your bread and tossing it in a blender. Bung in the rest of the things on the list, and anything else that you think might work. If you want to kick it up a notch I recommend some Cayenne Pepper to get some subtle heat into the coating - I usually do this if I’m making spicy mozzarella bites and I can imagine in a Donkas it’d work well. Fresh coriander also works well. Blitz them up so you have some loose breadcrumbs.

Next you need to bash the shit out of that pork fillet with a rolling pin so its nice and flat. The first image is a prime example of why it needs to be thin; it needs to cook through quickly and there seemed to be a fine line between the oil being too hot and browning the coating too quickly and it being too cool which causes the cheese to pour out and go mental in the oil. A professional would be able to tell you the ideal temperature (but that’s not me…)

Once the fillets looking good, you need a cheese slice or two and mirror the fillet with it. I’d recommend putting a bit more in the middle of the fillet so as it melts, it spreads throughout the donkas. I’m sure you could use any cheese but standard burger slices work well as they cling to the pork better.

Next, coat the pork cheese with the cornflour. Rub it in so it’s nice and smooth and all over both sides. Then, dip in the whisked up egg and into the breadcrumbs. It doesn’t need a major coating, just ensure the cheese side is fully coated. Now we’re ready for deep frying!

The ideal temperature for the oil is cooler than what you would use for chips. I use a chip pan on an electric hob and normally it would be between 5 and MAX for chips, I found donkas needed to be on 3. Make of that what you will.. I recommend a few trials with a little offcuts!

If the oil is just right, the cheese will start to seep out just as it hits cooking perfection. Whip it out and pat it down with a bit of kitchen paper, plating up with rice.

The sauce is just a pan, a blob of ketchup, a squirt of purée, a dash of soy sauce and a sprinkling of sugar. Stir and season to taste, then pour over the cooked donaks and boom… she’s done.

Plated up it would normally come with a side salad of finely chopped cabbage, sweetcorn and a blob of thousand island sauce but I didn’t have the cabbage in the fridge. The results were delicious!

It took me three attempts to get the oil right, and I put the large cutlet in the oil a little tentatively but cutting into the donkas, the results spoke for themselves. Just as I remembered it!

I also whipped up Amy some Cheesu Ramen too… another of Mikes favourites, and a few mozzarella bites (Amy lived on these in Korea) on the side seen as we had left over breadcrumbs.

All in all it was a successful day of experimental Korean cooking and Cheesu Donkas is definitely on the menu in the future!

Now I hate using the term best in the World to describe things because 9 times out of 10 they won’t be. But the kebab to your left most certainly is The Best Kebab in the World! It even beats a Dannys Armenian Kebab… only because both have the same name and this is fucking awesomeness to the max. Dannys still wins hands down in as far as regular pita kebabs goes.

I was challenged to take this bad boy on last night, being the eating machine that I am, with the bet being I wouldn’t finish it. One extra large kebab…pfft.. thats nothing for the man who orders 2 small kebabs on a standard night out after eating a massive tea. What arrived I seriously wasn’t expecting!

As you can see, the kebab is the length of 2 large curry trays, so thats about 45cm / 18″ by my reckoning. It contains 2 kima meat rolls as you would find in a kima naan bread, then full to the brim with chicken tikka and lamb tikka, a bit of salad on the base then polluted further with chilli and garlic sauce. The content is in a giant naan bread and being a fan of all of the above, I was in Hog Heaven.

I started by cutting the fucker in half to leave me with what would’ve been two very large kebabs individually. Then I was picked out and ate enough meat to get my chops around it and devoured the first half in a flash. In fairness I was pretty full after it, somehow naan is a lot more filling than pita bread, but I persevered.

I hadn’t eaten all day being out on site for most of it (and only being offered one fucking brew might I add and I was in an INTERNET CAFE) so I was famished by 9pm when this arrived, just to put the word full into perspective.

So a few bites into the second half and my stomach is rumbling with the usual IBS bullshit curries, chilli or anything spicy brings, but I’m used to it now and just ignore it. Unfortunately my arse doesn’t think on the same lines and after a quick dash to the bog I was back to continue. The second image below is testimony to this stage.

Within moments of my return I was defeated. I tried to ram a few more mouthfuls down but after actually listening to Health Advice off my girlfriend, I put the last few bites down and admitted my failure. The last photograph is what I had left, and whilst you might think “pussy” for not finishing the lot, when you have the Tikka Shakes, you’re probably best doing so too…

Every moment of it was awesome though, so if you’re in the Fylde area of the UK, I highly recommend Kai’s Balti House for an Extra Large Special Kebab with Chilli and Garlic Sauce. It was fucking shit hot, and about 11am this morning it was hot shit…

Readers of Delmorpha.com…..welcome.

It is a period of civil war in the Horse establishment. I was talking to a friend of mine just recently, amongst other company, and we somehow got onto the topic (no pun intended) of chocolate bars and confectionary as a whole.

Why did they change “marathon” to “snickers”?

Why did “opal fruits” become “starburst”?

Why did they change the light, fluffy centre of a milky way from dark brown to white??

The mood suddenly shifted as t’other half chirped up politely “What the fuck are you talking about? Milky ways have always been white in the middle…”

…..”Excuse me, precious….BOLLOCKS! I specifically remember that, some time around the late 1980s / early 1990s, milky ways had a revamp. The wrapper changed from dark/navy blue with gold stars and a large ‘milky way’ logo to a white and blue one and the malty brown chocolate flavour whipped nougat centre became the same texture but white!”

As I said this, 3 of my boys sat with us nodded in agreement with mutterings of “true…true” while the women stared at me like i’d put some beastie boys on a ghetto blaster, turned my cap to the side (i don’t wear a cap, i’m 25, and just using it to set the scene), spun round on my head a few times then jumped up, body popped, stepped back and pointed at the lady with a “HUH!” awaiting her bust-a-move. It was filth.

Her reply was “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Milky ways have always been white. You must be thinking of the dark chocolate mars bars they brought out”…the group of girls all broke in to head jerking and clicks of the fingers like some shit of Ricki Lake…you go girl.

I didn’t shed a tear. Instead I just asked her to wait til we get home then I can look it up on google or some shit then prove her wrong….with a smirk.

Lo and Behold! There is absolutely no infomation on the web regarding the internal change of the milky way in Britain…..which leaves me fuming that I can’t prove her wrong and she’s giving it “well you must have been wrong then…” Girl Power!

Please, people, I ask of your help in my hour of need. You, like George Bush, now have the power to stop a war. Please use it.

If anyone remembers the brown centred milky ways and/or the changeover to white then please, please let me know and we will increase in numbers together. Even better, if anyone can find any information on the web to prove me right then please send a link.

The outcome is in your hands!

Til next time, soldier,

H.

How do y’all. Sorry it’s been a while but i’ve been away at a) the sister in law’s wedding and b) promoting the site in a very self amusing way. Anyways, i’ve come across some information which may shock / amuse / interest you…

Check this shit out,

Me, the boy and the woman returned home late last night. Needless to say we’ve got the day off work today and don’t exactly feel like doing much, let alone prepare some proper food, so we decide to treat ourselves to a McDonalds for us dinners.

I can usually pop to McDonalds for a snack and use it like a pick and mix spot ie) 2 cheeseburgers, one chicken sandwich, a bag of fries, a box of chicken nuggets…..ooh and a large milkshake to wash it down. Today, however, I decided on one of the new mexican quarter pounder meal with a rolo milkshake. Quite tame for me but it was, technically, my breakfast so I didn’t want to make myself ill.

I’m going to let you in to a personal side of me now. It’s not something i’m ashamed of but the rest of the post will be pointless without it: I am on the line of being “unhealthily underweight”, according to my doctor. I’ve weighed around 10 and a half stone since I was 15, never going more or less than about 3 pounds. I feel great, I eat REALLY well and I can handle the occasional bit of exercise so I couldn’t give two shits. The only reason I found out is that I changed doctors a year ago and this was the outcome of the required medical. The doctor’s advice was to “try to put a little bit of weight on”. I don’t know how i’m meant to but I have been trying sub-conciously. But, no matter how much crap I eat the scales refuse to move. Still, I don’t really care but it got me into wondering why. So I recently started monitoring how much fat I am intaking on a daily basis. I’m not doing this like i’m on a diet or looking things up on the net to see the exact credentials of any foods but, if it’s on the label, i’ll take note.

It turned out, with eating exactly as I have done every day for…..ever, I actually intake on average about 250% of a grown man’s recommended daily intake of fat. This makes me wonder as to why my weight isn’t going up slightly, although I am very active most of the time so that’s probably it, but I find now I actually have an interest into the amount of fat in different foods. I’m not obsessed with it at all and i’ve never been interested in any sort of diets or health foods or shit, but sometimes, what I find is shocking.

For example, while i’m at work I always have some snacks next to my machine. Usually a packet of biscuits. Now a chocolate chip cookie contains 5% of your recommended intake of fat on average. They come in packs of about 25 and I can eat a full pack in half an hour while i’m snacking. So, in just half an hour I consume 125% of my recommended daily intake. I don’t think twice about doing it, I just find it kind of shocking, that’s all.

So back to McDonalds (sorry for coming off the point). I ordered my Quarter pounder meal. It was only a medium size meal which is actually the smallest size it comes in. It consisted of the burger itself, a medium bag of fries and a chocolate milkshake. The lovely cashier told me that the chef (ha ha - chef! That’s like calling a brickie a fucking architect or a postman a master of the arts (bites lip), talk about bigging someones job up) had just put the burgers on the grill so she’ll bring them over to the table in 5 minutes. I had absolutely no problem with this, considering at a pub you’d be waiting about half an hour for your food so we sat down politely.

On the tray she had given me my drinks on was a sheet of paper talking about beef farmers (ha ha - bet you get loads of them in Blackpool). On the reverse of this sheet was the nutritional information of all the food on the menu. Thought i’d just have a glimpse at the fat content in each of the things I was about to have.

FUCK ME! I’ve heard things about McDonalds being ‘unhealthy’ but what a fucking eye-opener. The quarter pounder burger itself contains 38% of your recommended daily intake (which from now on i’m going to refer to as RDA because I can’t be arsed typing it over and over), the ‘medium’ fries were 25% and the milkshake was 16%. In the 5 minutes it took me to eat my lunch I had already consumed 79% of my daily intake. Like I said before, I don’t give a shit about what I eat but i’m very sure that not many of McDonalds customers are actually aware of these statistics.

The girl who had served me and brought our dinner over apologised for the wait and offered some complimentary McFlurrys for the trouble. That would have been an extra 20%, pretty much giving the full RDA in 10 minutes.

Now, i’m quite sure not many people that reads this page give a shit about what they eat either but I just thought it would be interesting for you. It doesn’t really make sense either that you’re always hungry again after about half an hour. Still it’s McDonalds and it’s tasty, quick and a treat so what the fuck.

For the full information (facts count) you can visit www.mcdonaldsmenu.info but i’d probably feel less of you if I found you had done. Ha!

Til next time peeps

H.

P.S. Something tells me the comments won’t be as controversial as the postman shit…..

Yesterday I received another £2 worth of vouchers off KP with the above rather generic sounding complaint response. I now have enough for a couple of kilograms worth of nuts from Home Bargains (500g bags are 79p I think) so I’m going to be nuttastic soon enough. lets just hope karma doesn’t catch up with me and I choke on said nuts… oh the irony…