A useful free magazine

The Wing Yip Magazine

“Now” I thought, “having done the catalogue selling reader's tips items to death, here's some new cannon-fodder.”

I'd ran into the Chinese supermarket to pick up some of DLL's favourite dumplings and some prawns, and the checkout staff had stuffed a glossy magazine into one of the bags.

Actually, it's useless (in blogging terms – nothing at all to play with); and useful. There's articles on buddha’s hand fruit, and what to do with it.

Yes, how to cook with a cross between a lemon, and a squid.

The recipes pages feature a vegetarian one-pot dish, vegetables in coconut milk, a fruit and vegetable salad, and a tofu dish, all dead useful in these (generally) meat-free parts. With easter coming, there's even a recipe for tea eggs.

There's a change from the traditional Yorkie and Milky Bar Kid varieties.

I was about to find a small fault, in the lack of anything laden with loads of chillies, then found a vegetable curry recipe that starts by gently cooking, and then blitzing, onions, garlic and chillies to make the sauce to simmer the cabbage, broccoli, mushrooms and noodles in. That sounds like another winner.

Not only do the ethnic supermarkets invariably trump the boring usual suspect ones in terms of value and interest, their magazine (free...hear that, Sainsbury?...free) is actually worth reading, and isn't just a medium for selling their products.

The dumplings? They're going down a storm (they always do).