The Slapdash Chefs

Breathing Curry Fumes - Comfort Food 4/4

2009-08-13T04:24:00.001-07:00

Things are... a little unsettled in The House Of Wen right around now. There's a new guy on the horizon, for a start -- actually, he's not so much on the horizon as he's some variation on "objects in the mirror are closer than they appear."

It's making my life difficult, and not just because I find potential relationships inherently scary - it's also that I can't think straight when he's wearing knit jumpers. I don't know what it is, but it's right there, staring everyone in the face. A fire-engine-red blush, a burgeoning stammer, and a complete flusteredness that would rival Bridget Jones at her worst.

What do we do when we're spinning out of control?

We play in the kitchen. If you didn't already know that, I... don't know how you even got here (well. I do technically know how you got here, and now I also know that you have a dirty mind).

So, I've re-alphabetised the spice rack and cleaned out the fridge and reorganised the pantry and sorted all of the containers by size, shape and type of plastic (cheap or impressive). I've been to the store sans list, burned through my choice paralysis, and come home with the goodies. I'm ready to cook something ridiculously comp.li.cated.

OOBA GOOBA, people. It's ON. Fire up the backburner and stock up on milk, because we're cooking a curry. Oh, and you'd better change your top. Did you know that turmeric helps prevent Alzheimer's and chilli staves off cancer? I'm just trying to look out for you, but that stuff stains like the proverbial mo-fo. (no, that doesn't make any sense, but what can you do? kids these days)(*shakes head sadly*)

you are gonna need bunches of stuff.

3 or 4 chicken breasts, depending on how much people at YOUR place complain that there's not enough chicken

4 or 5 ripe tomatoes, medium dice

one white onion, fine dice

8-10 jalepenos, rounds

4-5 serranos, fine dice

if you can get them, add a couple of haberneros. Don't cut them. Just bang them in. If you can't get them, I recommend The Chilli Factory's jar of TurboCharge Habernero paste. It's awesome.

2 red or green long chillis (all of this subject to taste, of course), sliced in half lengthways, seeds and pith left in

scads of garlic and ginger - 4 cloves and a thick finger length

juice of a lime, juice of a lemon

2 teaspoons each ground cumin and ground turmeric

8-10 cardamom seeds (not the pods - there's about three a pod, ime, so three if you get them)

a really decent shake of smoked paprika

a couple shakes each of dried coriander and tarragon (fresh if you can get it/be arsed)

pinch each of nutmeg, cinnamon, curry powder (homemade or store-bought) and pepper

a dash of hp, worcestershire sauce and soy sauce

a decent splash of pickling liquid from a jar of jalepenos (or some white vinegar)

and a teeny tub of tomato paste.

Wow. That actually looks even more complicated when you type it out. Mostly it's just a little bit of everything, and I've done it so many times now that I had to think, hard, about how much of everything I use.

Chuck all of it in the pot except for the tomato paste and the chicken, then collapse the tomatoes on fairly low heat. It should smell all entirely of awesome. Hot and red and yellow and... happy somehow.

Once it's all a big soupy mess, add the chicken. Stir through to coat, and let it brown (whiten, I guess), then stir through the tomato paste. Now, add enough water to fill the bignormous stewing pot you've been cooking it all in (I use Captain Anolon. It's... five litres, maybe? It's two hands high and two across. My hands are not huge. Neither is the pot. It's an average-to-large pasta pot, I guess. Oh, here.).

This simmers for hours. HOURS and HOURS. All day, or all night if you've got nothing else on. I've done it for up to eight, and I've done it in as little as two, but four is about average. As it goes, you can dip. Dip bread. Dip tiny little tasting bowls. I've gotten so I never eat the stuff with rice any more - I just dip bowls all night, fix the hot/sweet/sour ratios by taste (I have jars and jars of stuff, from fish sauce to a spicy/smoky bbq sauce, and tinkering? All good), and then give the resulting chicken curry to the freezer.

Trust me, lining up almost every spice in your rack, mixing almost every teeny little jar of sauce through the diced veggies, waiting out the collapsing of the tomatoes and the interminable simmering time - this is order from a prodigious amount of chaos, and excellent eating to boot. There's nothing more comforting to my addled, control-starved psyche, and even if it turns out inedibly hot, it remains my recipe of choice at the end of my longest days.

Comfort Food 3/4 - Risotto

2009-08-10T05:46:00.000-07:00

I have, on occasion, been known to get somewhat overwhelmed by life, the universe and everything. When I get like that, I cook - because cooking is, at heart, an organised activity. No matter how much mess you make, or how much you improvise, cooking is about combining things that always react the same way, for a (somewhat) reliable result.

Exerting control over a chaotic kitchen works for me. It's soothing, distracting, and has the added bonus of feeding people I care about.

Risotto, for me, is the ultimate caring/comfort meal. It takes a lot (a LOT) of stirring, but something about the gooey, buttery goodness just makes people feel warm inside. When Becs couldn't get out post-car-accident, I filled her freezer with risotto. When Lisa was pregnant? Risotto. When Vic asked me to teach her a couple of dishes? We started with risotto.

It's almost always awesome, and though it's high in effort, it's low in actual difficulty. I've got about four bog-standard risottos, and one or two experimental ones (...and we won't talk about the red wine one. It freaked me out). If we're talking comfort food (and we are), we need to be talking sweet potato and mushroom and baby spinach. No spice, all warmth, and, at last count, 37 types of awesome.

you will need

let's say two medium-large sweet potatoes, diced into cm cubes

8-10 cup mushrooms, sliced

one french shallot, diced as finely as you can manage

one cup of arborio rice

one lemon, juiced

about 3/4 ltr chicken stock (I get reduced salt if I'm using store-bought)

butter - lots and lots of butter. Sorry. (this means about 100g, I'm afraid. I know)

couple of pinches of cinnamon and nutmeg

3-4 basil leaves, finely shredded

2-3 garlic cloves

half a thumbtip of ginger (I have large thumbtips, what?)

a dash of HP & worcestershire sauces

cracked black pepper

the tiniest splash of the pickling liquid from a jar of jalapenos

a bag of baby spinach

depending on how decadent you're feeling, a teaspoon or two of goat's cheese.

you're going to

Chop. A lot. And stir. Smile. Look, I'm going to be upfront, here. I cheat a little. I bang my sweet potatoes into the microwave for a little while to soften them up. That way, the only danger is in smushing them to the sides of the pot, and not that you'll bite down on a piece that is not cooked all the way through. I add a couple of drops of water, cover with glad wrap, and let them go for five mins, or until they're easily pierced with a fork. And taste awesome.

Now, you're going to need one small pot, and a large-ish pan - I will call it a Boyfriend Pan, but you can call it a saute pan if you'd like. If you want to be all technical, and stuff.

Into the little pot go your mushrooms, garlic and ginger, a pinch of your nutmeg and cinnamon, all your splashes of sauce, half your lemon juice, pepper to taste, and about a finger's width of all that butter. Melt the butter, add your sweet potatoes, then cover and leave on the backburner while you're doing everything else. If it looks low on liquid, you can add some water or a splash of that wine you're drinking.

You ARE drinking white, right?

Into your Boyfriend Pan goes the shallot, the rest of the butter, another splash of wine, and the rest of your lemon juice.

Once you've melted the butter, add your rice and stir to coat. Yep, that's it. Keep stirring. Now some more. Now, add a little splash of stock. Stir. Are you adding goat's cheese? You should totally do that now. Because then the end flavour will be more intense. Because I said so. Do it. Now stir. And now some more stock. See how that's absorbing? No, no, stir and look at the same time!!

Get the picture? Everyone seems to hear something different about risotto, but the word that I heard is that you get a creamier result the more constantly you stir, and it's always worked for me.

Once you've got pretty much all of your stock in, you can add the mixture from the small pot. There should be some liquid in it, so don't fret that your rice seems only half done.

If you get to what looks like an end product, and your rice is not cooked through, add more water, just a little at a time.

The very first time I cooked risotto, I used packet instructions.

They read "cook until done."

I was livid until I tried it, and found they were right. You cook it until it's done. You can taste it, or you can watch for it, but you can tell when you've hit it. It'll be done. I generally turn the heat off when my rice is still a (very) little hard, then let it sit for ten minutes before serving. Just before you're ready to turn it off, stir through your baby spinach, making sure you turn off the heat as it starts to wilt (the buggering stuff goes bitter if you overcook it, but until that point? Made of awesome).

You can serve it with bread, or with a salad, but the important part is that you serve it to as many people as possible.

Comfort Food - 2/4 - Warm Spinach and Chorizo Salad

2009-08-10T05:31:00.000-07:00

Part Two of the TNS Comfort Food Series.

This dish was first encountered - wait. This is way too big. Better. Ok, we first had warm spinach and chorizo salad from a place at Fed Square. For anyone who knows, it's the one at the top of the hill, right opposite ACMI. [No, not the one with all the cocktails. Opposite that.]

We ordered this, thinking it sounded interesting, and some sort of pizza that came with goat's cheese. I don't recall what else was on the pizza, and I'm pretty sure we didn't even finish it. Spinach and chorizo salad is made of pure awesome - large chunks of tomato, big ol' garlic undertaste, lemon juice for zing, plus smoky chorizo and plenty of sauce to mop up with turkish bread.

I looked at Aims, Aims looked at me, the notebook came out, and a new staple was added to the kitchen. Aims loves it bestest, because it's the only time she's allowed to break down and eat real bread. I love it bestest because it's cheap, it takes about ten minutes, and everyone loves it.

you will need

two sticks of chorizo, sliced on the diagonal into rounds

two or three large vine-ripened tomatoes (but not too ripe - you don't want to collapse them) in medium chunks

a bag (aw, about 100 grams, maybe? two, three large handfuls?) of baby spinach leaves

one red onion, sliced into rings

2-3 cloves of garlic

a thumb of ginger

juice of a lemon

pinch of pepper and smoked paprika

a dab of butter

turkish bread, to serve

you're going to

melt the butter and fry up with everything except the spinach. Cook it until the sauce is tacky - you've got to wait through the liquid that's going to come out of the tomatoes, but not long enough that they collapse. Add baby spinach, and mix it in on high heat until it wilts. Serve.

No, really. That's it. Bang into pot, cook, add spinach, enjoy. You can choose your own adventure on how liquidy you like your sauce, you can add chilli to it as required, you can improvise to your heart's content, but at heart this one's about good produce matching up well.

Yeah. I should NOT have started typing these up tonight, because I'm making myself hungry and dinner feels like long ago.

Comfort Food - 1/4 - Meatballs

2009-08-10T03:41:00.000-07:00

Thursday Night Smackdown has had an attack of the self-proclaimed crazies. I am not unfamiliar with this phenomenon. Many of my (three or four) readers will be aware that I am often somewhat loose in the screw department (d'ya see what I did there?)(I will wait while you giggle).

TNS has asked for links to Most Comforting Food recipes, and my mind has, of course, exploded. There's the food I cook when I am upset, which is COMP.LI.CATED (and also impractically spicy)(for certain values of the word impractical)(those values = inedible).

There's the obvious risotto, with all its buttery goodness, which warms your insides with the dual awesomeosity that comes from (a) tasting good and (b) knowing that I've been stirring that bastard for 45 mins.

There's spinach and chorizo, I am reliably informed, that is warm and zingy and comes with Turkish bread (that's Aims' contribution - methinks she's having an America's Sweethearts moment due to her gluten allergy, and spin/chor is the only thing I consistently serve with bread).

And, you know, there's meatballs. I mean, come on. MEATBALLS, people. They are meaty. And bally. And they are cooked special in the Mum Pot.

I figured I'd write them all up, because that's what I do - write up recipes and send them on. I have no interest in winning the Jamie Oliver cookbook on offer, because (1) I already own it and (2) it currently lives in America while I live in Australia, and I've played that postage game before (ow! my hip pocket just twinged!).

So... this will be kind of long. And random.

MEATBALLS

I nicked this recipe from a tiny Italian cookbook Kel sent me, and I am pretty sure I either loaned it to someone or lost it in the move. Distressing, but the only recipe I cooked more than once was this, and I somehow managed to write all over the book while glueing the pages together. I'm special like that.

you're gonna need

half a kilo of mince

one long green or red chilli

one white onion

one egg

about eight basil leaves

a jar of passata (or, I guess, eight to ten really ripe tomatoes and more time than I've got)

3-5 cloves of garlic, depending on how big they are

about a thumb's worth or ginger (or less if you're not a fan)

one lemon

2 pinches each of nutmeg, cinnamon, smoked paprika and cracked black pepper

some butter. Just to melt into the pot at the start. A dab, I guess. Not much, or the ptbs yell at me.

then you'll

Well, first up I mix the meatballs. Finely dice half the onion, the chilli (with or without seeds, depending on personal preference), shred half the basil, mince (or crush, or grate) half the garlic and ginger, and mix with the egg, one pinch each of the spices, the mince, and the juice of half the lemon. I often add some fresh breadcrumbs here, too, but it sticks together ok all on its own, so that's optional.

Roll into balls (if you're making Spaghetti Madness, make 'em huge, if not, well, don't), and fridge them for at least half an hour.

Meanwhile, start the sauce. Dice or shred or mince or mash everything you've got left (...except the jar of passata)(and you should probably juice the lemon, too) and bang into a (kind of large) pot. Melt the butter and fry everything off, then bang the passata in, too. I usually just fill the empty jar up with water, and use that as my guide to how much, but I'd say a litre of water. Let's be frank, over-simmering this stuff is not going to be a problem.

When your sauce smells awesome (this should be quite soon), you should start thinking about sealing your meatballs. I've got to be honest with you, I don't think too hard about this part. I just kind of show them a hot pan, let them roll around a little, and splash them into the red sauce. The Amazing Buffman seals them properly, and I can taste. no. difference. Cook's choice, I guess.

Once you've "sealed" all your meatballs (in small batches, unless you've got the world's largest frying pan) and dropped them into the sauce, the waiting begins. And by "the waiting," I mean "the dipping of bread." This can simmer for up to four hours, if you've the time and inclination (...and no objection to your meatballs kind of falling apart). I'd never simmer it for less than an hour (adding more water if it seemed necessary).

Serve with pasta, or, if you're feeling particularly lazy, in bowls accompanied by sliced turkish bread. It's warm, and buttery/gooey/meaty/awesome. It's Buff's favourite indulgent, comforting dish, and has the added bonus of a massive payoff for very little effort. You're going to have to use your imagination on what it looks like, though, because (a) I am mildly technologically impaired and (b) there's never anything left.

Quick Poll: Will My Heart Explode?

2009-01-08T01:57:00.000-08:00

...if I eat my lovely golden crumpet with the leftover goat's cheese? Because it's looking at me.

Beej is a legend. And so am I

2008-12-31T03:14:00.000-08:00

Well, we played Christmas, y'all, and I can speak from experience, Aims' chocolate-chip cookies are, in fact, da bomb.

I will try to get Benny to remember what exactly he put into The Incredible Vietnamese Rice Paper Wraps, because wow, were they good. I will try and remember what I put into the For Just Ten More Dollars I Could Do Pork Shoulder pork, because let's just say Johnny Depp would have killed me.

Unfortunately, most of our best work seems to get done when we are both in the same kitchen, throwing spices and sauces from one side of the bench to another, sorting ginger, tomatoes, garlic and chilli into eight different piles and trying to rationalise stealing slivers of spice from the Mum Pile.

All of this happens over bevvies, of course, so we can rarely recall with any accuracy what went where.

Roughly, the rice paper rolls were smoked chicken with slivered carrot, cucumber, capsicum and vermicelli, flavoured by ginger, serrano chillis and a sauce biased towards the sour.

The pork shoulder braised in orange juice, soy, lemon, ginger and chilli, with added everything I could get my hands on, up to and including curry powder and the pickling liquid from a jar of jalepenos.

All of which is rather a long way of saying that this year's kitchen was pretty damn good - a summer-based menu of light items and finger food, plus spinach and chorizo and an eight-and-a-half-hour roasted lamb, shredded, in bread for breakfast.

Merry Christmas to all.

These biscuits are the bomb!

2008-12-16T02:02:00.000-08:00

Though Ben is grumpy right now because I ate one but didn't bring one in for him! They are:

Aim's Amazing Choc Chip biscuits!!!

In other news, I need to get a nifty little catch phrase to introduce myself so you know it's not Wen typing, though I guess one sentence in you can probably tell.

Anyhoo, back to the topic: more accurately they are the chocolate chip cookies from the baking bible which has turned out to be, in fact, quite the baking bible! Awesome!

So here it is...

things you will need:

125g softened butter

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup soft brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

1 cup plain flour

1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda

pinch of salt

3/4 cup choc chips

Glad wrap (wtf???)

things you can do with said things you will need:

regular flour

cream butter and sugar, then add in egg and vanilla and beat.

sift all the dry ingredients (flour, bicarb and salt) into the mix and give it a stir. Add choc chips then stir again. I can't speak for this mixture, but the GF mix will be quite sticky at this point.

Roll mixture into a log - as thick or as thin takes your fancy. If mixture is sticky you'll need to 'pour' it straight onto the glad wrap (ahhh, it makes sense!). Wrap said biscuit dough log up and stick it in the fridge for several hours. I mean that. Not like the way you put the shortbread dough in, do the dishes, then get it back out. I'm talking hours. Christmas shop. Go to work. Have a bath and read a book (little known fact: if you make your bath several hours long it justifies the water usage..) anything that takes hours. Alternatively put it in the freezer for 1-2 hours.

After hours preheat over to 180, 170 or whatever you like to bake at. My oven loves 170...

Cut log into pretty little slices as thick or as thin as you like. Bake for 10-12 mins. Enjoy with a cup of tea or coffee*

amendments for GF...

As usual... beat egg first, then add sugar and beat like you've never beaten before! Not really, but stiffer is better. Then add butter and beat again.

Add everything else as per usual recipe. However, when you get to the 'get it out the fridge and put it in the oven' bit, you may need to roll it into flattened balls to save it from 'melting' out of the biscuit shape.

Tips:

I swear by melted butter. That's up to you though.

We use less bicarb than recommended because Ben is sensitive to it (not like I'm sensitive to wheat, he can taste it a mile off...) and can't see any side effects to it.

It's bloody expensive to by little choc chip drops to put in. You get LESS in weight and it costs MORE which is CRAP!!! I get the big huge round bits of chocolate and then rough cut it. Cost effective. I do think though that I do this because it makes me feel like a country baker. Small things, small minds and all that.

That's all for now,

Happy Baking

*not necessary for actual enjoyment

Best I can give you on the baking bible is this:

recipes compiled by Lanham, J et al, 2008, Baking Bible penguin books: Victoria

It has no author on the cover, just Baking Bible, ISBN 978-0-14-300825-5

Lou Has A Question

2008-12-02T17:38:00.000-08:00

Lou has to transport food for Christmas, to Adelaide, and if we tell her how she's going to tell us how to make awesome pickles. Grin.

I am leader of the esky brigade on this one - ice in the bottom, food on the top, but let's see what Aims thinks.

We're driving to SA on Christmas Eve and I need to bring half of Christmas lunch. We have a small car fridge, which will fit the ham and maybe one or two other small things. The car should be airconditioned, but it will cheap-rental-car-quality airconditioning. Turkey and plum pudding is under control at the SA end. We can take an esky if we need to. There'll be four adults and four kids.

Things I Do Not Know

2008-11-30T02:46:00.000-08:00

I know a lot of stuff. I know "don't use that chicken." I know "don't mix genres." I know what curry from scratch needs when it's not tasting right; I know what to add when things taste too thick, and what to add when they taste too thin... I even know what to add when Kim pulls a face and says "it needs... zing."

The stuff I know about cooking makes me pull faces at the Top Chefs even though they're more well-trained than I. Mostly this is because they trip up on real-world challenges like "feed a family" or "make food for the freezer and reheat it." I OWN that shit. But I also know what goes where - don't add chocolate to that smoked salmon dish, don't scramble eggs with cauliflower - I know, goes without saying, right? Except both those things have been tried on Top Chef.

So, yeah, well, I have this point, right?

However.

I. Do. Not. Bake.

Yeah, I mean, Vic is coming round later in the week with Sebastian, and there is no way known I'm not making some cheatin' cookies so the house smells like welcome (say what you want about me, but I'm all about family and home), but I don't really know anything about baking and timing and longevity.

Whiiiich brings me to my point. How long does shortbread last?

OK, I can wait while you laugh.

Thing is, I have uneaten shortbread here, and the structural integrity remains intact, but I don't know that I can eat it, even though it's been in an airtight container these last bazillion years.

If it's edible, I am loooooooath to waste it - it's AIMS SHORTBREAD, people!

Help!?

Is it Thanksgiving yet?

2008-11-17T01:22:00.001-08:00

Because I am thankful for my family all the time, but I don't want to miss my moment to officially say so. Smile.

Tonight, I am thankful that there is an Aims. Have you guys noticed that Aims is awesome? Also awesome: Benny. Because between the two of them, they are going to make Lisa's recipe for jalepeno bread happen.

I swiped this from her archive, but I do it while fully crediting her. I made my first bowl of Texas Red to her recipe, and had a brief but entertaining correspondence with her regarding mole and its total weirdness.

Not a day goes by when I don't check to see if she's posted something new - many of the good "ideas" I've had lately involve incorporating something she's suggested into a recipe that's grown, if not stagnant, then completely familiar.

Anyway. Hint, hint.

Jalapeno Cheese Bread (adapted from a Sheila Lukins recipe found in the Houston Chronicle)

Ingredients:
1 packet of yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
1/4 cup of warm water
4 tablespoons of melted butter
1 egg
2 1/2 cups of bread flour (I used King Arthur) plus more if needed
1 cup of semolina flour
5 jalapenos, stemmed and seeded, diced (should be about a cup)
2 cups of Longhorn (or any other cheddar such as Colby) cheese, grated.
1 cup of buttermilk
1 teaspoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of salt (can add more to taste)

Method:
1. Mix together the yeast and water.
2. Mix together the melted butter, egg and buttermilk and add to yeast and water.
3. Add the salt, sugar and bread flour to the liquids and mix well. Then add the semolina flour to the dough and mix well. If the dough is too wet, gradually add more bread flour 1/4 cup at a time.
4. Place dough on a floured surface and knead for five to ten minutes until dough is smooth.
5. Form dough into a ball and place into a bowl greased with butter.
6. Cover the bowl, and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size—about an hour.
7. Turn out dough on a floured surface, and slowly knead into the dough the jalapenos and cheese, a little bit at a time.
8. When cheese and jalapenos are incorporated into the dough, place dough into a greased bread loaf pan (8-1/2" x 4-1/2" x 2-3/4). You can also sprinkle semolina in the bread pan for additional friction.
9. Cover the pan and let dough rise until doubled in size (it should be at the top or a bit over the top of the pan)—about an hour.
10. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
11. Bake bread for 40-45 minutes on a center rack (when you thump the top and it sounds hollow, the bread is done).
12. Let cool for ten minutes, and then slide it out of the pan, slice and enjoy!

Pasta

2008-11-17T00:37:00.000-08:00

OK, so I know it's totally wrong of me to come home from the gym and eat pasta, but I needed to cook it for work lunches this week, and I just couldn't resist. It smelled so... pasta-y!

I cooked the pumpkin ravioli the other night, with a few revisions to the recipe I'd planned on making, mostly because, well, I pulled a Scaredies on the rocket and used the ginger in a pot of Texas Red instead.

I came home from work at around half eight on Saturday night to find that my once-sprightly bag of rocket had slumped sadly to a half-cm bag of wilted green not-quite-goo. I tried valiantly to revive said goo (soaking in lemon juice and cold water, then rinsing, can occasionally work), but the rocket had left the building. I was looking at grass clippings, fit only for the garbage bag.

Loudly bemoaning my rocketless state, I nevertheless embarked upon making something of The Free Ravioli. Never let it be said that I let free food go to waste. Grin.

All I had to play with:

butter
a splash of champers
pepper
four cloves of garlic
half a red onion, thinly sliced into half-rings
a few shakes of tarragon
a shake each of nutmeg and cinnamon
a dash of HP, tomato, worcestershire sauces
a quiet splash of the pickling liquid from a jar of pickled jalepenos
the juice of two lemons

I put the pasta on, and just fried the onion and garlic off in the butter, wine and juice of the first lemon. Once it was all melted, I turned it off, and waited for the pasta to be done. I threw the drained pasta and the mix back into the emptied pasta pot, and re-warmed the mix through with the juice of the other lemon.

Easy, simple, and yum. Kim's Boys would maintain that it suffered from the lack of baby spinach or rocket, but it worked out just fine as far as I was concerned.

OhGodOhGodOhGod

2008-11-11T02:39:00.000-08:00

I was home late last night, and I was a wee bit wasted, which is Kim's fault (plus work, since we didn't drink that much). And Evan was in bed.

I was up at four, rehydrating and checking email and just generally setting myself for the next four hours of sleep, and Evan was up.

"Good Morning!"

"Blurblehiandthebleargh."

"I made soup!"

Never have there been three words to strike such fear into the hearts of all FauxChefs.

Because last time, lo, the soup was crocodile.

"I... I saw the pot. I didn't try it, but I saw it. Yay? I have to go back to bed."

Tonight, when I got home, the soup was on the stove. To his credit, it actually smelled all right. Yes, I actuallyed the boy. No, that was not uncalled for.

I've been home since seven. It's now nine-forty-five. About ten mins ago, I finally got up enough courage to look into the pot.

As far as I can tell, it's rib soup. There were pork ribs in the freezer, and I think he just bunged them into the pot with some water, and sauces, perhaps some pickled jalepenos because I remember there being more of those here, looks like there's some red chilli, he might have bought that fresh, and there's an onion in there, for sure.

It's been a while since he went to bed - I can tell because the fat's been separating... I... look, I'm sure it tastes all "home-on-the-range"y, and I am no stranger to rendering pork fat (from a pork shoulder, and I work it into the sauce later), but --

I am scared of the soup.

And it's in my Analon pot.

Sigh.

That pot might as well have "ooba gooba" carved into the side, too.

Doom. Just... don't go telling Ev I said so, OK? I will tell him I tried it, and that it is really nice, and he will be proud, and I will think that's sweet, and we will just make sure to be home more often in the future, ok??

You get what someone else paid for

2008-11-11T02:01:00.001-08:00

Well, technically, I get what someone else paid for.

Tabcorp has decided that I will be working extended hours. From October 27 I will (er, have been, HAVE BEEN! In no way have I been relying on my lack of posted opening hours!) be opening the DOORS TO HADES at ten instead of eleven on a Weekday, and at nine on a Saturday. Cheers, Tabcorp, it's not like I had much of a life left to give, but you've drained the dregs admirably.

This Saturday just past, however, it worked in my favour. I was doing the Brisbane scratchings (they want me to open before the scratchings have even finished coming through. Ridonkulous? Yes. Policy? Sadly, also yes), when Danilo came up and tapped me on the left shoulder.

"You come with me."

Well, I've got four customers, two of whom quite obviously don't know what they're doing and need my help. The back staff door is latched open, so I can walk in and out without needing a key, and there's six grand in the drawer.

"Um, ok. How far are we going?"

We walk out the door, up six car lengths (or three shops), and he opens his car's boot.

"You take three boxes."

He's got pasta. In boxes. These boxes are a foot wide, a foot deep, and two feet long. The labels say "pumpkin ravioli," "meat ravioli" and "ricotta and sundried-tomato tortellini."

"I'll take one box."

"You'll take two. Or three? No, two, ok."

So he loads me up with these two boxes (the pumpkin ravioli and the tortellini), gets into his car, and hoons off (he's eighty. I mention the hooning because: eighty). I stagger back to work under the weight of ten kilos of pasta, serve my lost-sheep novices, and look around helplessly.

I have two huge boxes of needs-to-be-refrigerated pasta, and one teeny beer fridge that's already full of fruit, beer, cans of Beam, jelly slice and cheese.

I have bench space in three places: above the beer fridge, where the pasta will be right next to the kettle, plus right in the fridge's rising heat; above the radio/sky/foxtel boxes - ditto re heat; and above the security camera/Tabcorp downloady shit (otherwise known as The Gateway)(they're pretentious, no?). All pretty hot, then.

I have a coke fridge, but it's pretty chockers... well, maybe if I lay an ENTIRE SLAB OF SOLO down on top of the other cans in the fridge... and take out that one bottom shelf... ok, but that's... maybe I message Kim.

TO: Kim
hey, I've got all this pasta, and it needs fridging, and I can't do it at work. If you're around, you want to stop in? We can share it.

FROM: Kim
yeah i have to be in city later anyway will stop in

Kim, understandably, misapprehends the precise amount of pasta we're talking here, and parks about two miles away.

"Hey hey! Look."

"Oh my god, that's a lot of pasta. I... I parked at the Lemongrass."

After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing with Adrian, who, for the record, took the last box home ("you're taking the pasta. you don't care about me.""you must be adrian."), it was decided that I could have ten mins off to help transport the pasta three blocks to Kim's car.

Last night we split it. Five one-kilo bags of pasta in each box; only a slight argument as to the division of said bags. Dinner last night was tortellini with a jar of tomato/capsicum/olive sauce that even Ad thinks is ok. What follows is what I plan to do with the ravioli tomorrow.

You Will Need:
one massive fuck-off bag of free pumpkin ravioli
one lemon
one bag of rocket from safeway
two cloves of garlic
about a thumb of ginger
a pat of butter
a shake of pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, smoked paprika and tarragon (maybe two shakes of the tarragon)
a splash of white wine
a dash of all the usual sauces - tomato, hp, bbq, worcestershire, hot mexican wooden-lid sauce

...and maybe, just maybe, one defrosted chicken breast I've been saving for no reason. I think I'll defrost it, and taste my sauce, and rescue it by adding chicken.

See, the thought process here is that the pumpkin ravioli is going to be somewhat sweet. So I will cut that sweet with the acid in the lemon, and add some chilli for flavour, and wilt the rocket, which will give flavour, bulk/texture, and some bitterness which we will counter with the richness of the butter and the sauces and spices.

Then, if none of that works, we add chicken, and some boiling water, we simmer, and rescue it based on trial and error.

Who's in??

(Nanna's) ANZAC Biscuits

2008-11-05T01:54:00.001-08:00

Howdy regular readers. It's me, Aims again. Hacked and ready to write. Today we chat about those ever tempting, never quite the same, ANZAC biscuits that were never as good as when you were little. These ones are: they're from the same recipe. Handwritten, by my Nan, and transferred here today. Apologies for typos - I'm watching Criminal Minds right now!

You will need:

bowl, mixing stuff, tray, oven etc *

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 dessert spoon golden syrup (just over one table spoon - let it spill over for a bit)

1/4 lb butter (about 110 grms)

1 egg

1 cup castor sugar

1 cup oatmeal

I cup coconut

1 cup SR flour

1 teaspoon soda

With this stuff you should:

Melt the butter, golden syrup and vanilla in a small put (or big, you know, what ever gets you goat [waits for people to sign goat])

Meanwhile, while it's melting, beat egg with sugar. If butter mix still not melted, feel free to sift flour and soda - but this is not mandatory. You can sift it in later...

Add melted butter mix into the egg and sugar. Beat a little.

Sift flour and soda into the mix, then add coconut and oats. Mix it all together with a spoon.

Roll into small balls size of a small walnut. Cook until brown in oven 200 degrees cel. These are her instructions - you can have it a little lower, but the temp means they melt into a good shape.

Best of luck to you. As always, you can sub SR four with white wings gluten free - 2 teaspoons of baking powder to 1 cup of flour will give you a substitute for SR flour. You can buy gluten free SR flour, but I can't get it to work - apologies for being all pretentious with my baking!!

Enjoy Wen's adjustments that she'll make,

Happy Baking

*You may not need oven if you, like me, manage to eat to whole lot before you manage to put them in.

Real Faux Plans

2008-10-29T03:01:00.000-07:00

SOMEONE came to my house and RAISED MY HAND for this year's faux. I know it's going to be awkward (see: last time), but between them, Kim and Evan seem to have decided.

I think we should do it somewhere around the end of November. This has the added bonus of being before Vic gives birth, which, I think you'll agree, will be more conducive to faux mayhem than the alternative.

It will be a Sunday. It will be Sunday the 16th or Sunday the 23rd, or Sunday the 30th. I think I like the 23rd. Because it's the middle one, and I think the 16th is too close to Cup and the 30th is too close to Vic's due date.

Let us now open the forum to dish suggestions.

Well, this is too good to ignore

2008-10-24T04:14:00.000-07:00

I read a blog called "Quick Indian Cooking" by a lady in the UK (who just fell pregnant - congratulations, Mallika!) who actually IS Indian. It's great - it's where I got the courage to try the fresh turmeric, and it's an awesome font of inspiration for those days where I go a little bit off-reservation at the market.

Anyway, she made a quick curry stir-fry thing and posted about it. I think those who hang it on me regarding my bog standard ingredients can now shut up, don't you?

400gm chicken thigh, skinless and boneless
1 large onion
2 medium tomatoes
1 tsp ginger paste
1 tsp garlic paste
1 tbsp whole cumin
1 dry red chilli

See? OK? That is ALMOST EXACTLY what I start with (I use four tomatoes), so obviously, I'm not as seat-of-my-pants as I look. So nerr.

Lazy Bruschetta

2008-10-18T04:02:00.000-07:00

Also, because I forgot the special crusty bread I meant to use, this is really, really easy and can be made with stuff you mostly already have on hand. Unless that's just me.

You Will Need

Three tomatoes, diced as fine as you can manage (you guys won't believe it, but I used two. Not four! I just dialled everything up here, since you're probably not just feeding yourself and Ev a quick entree because you got distracted and there's still three hours til dinner.)
Half a red onion, ditto (on the dicing, not the rambling)
Juice of half a lemon
One garlic clove, smashed (it'll be removed later, so not too smashed)
Three basil leaves
Four slices of white bread
A handful of grated cheese

You Will Need To

Dice stuff. Duh. Smile.

I just cut the tomatoes and the red onion as finely as I could be bothered, banged in the garlic and the juice, then bruised the basil leaves and threw them in, too. You could finely shred the basil leaves, but I find people can be picky about their presence in the final product.

Leave the mix to steep for at least a half hour, but not in the fridge - your tomatoes (you bought the vine-ripened expensive kind, right?) will lose a lot of their flavour in there.

Lightly toast your bread, spread a layer of tomato mix over the top, and sprinkle with grated cheese. Don't accidently toast the garlic onto your slice of bread, toolshed. Remove it or work around it when you're spooning out the mix.

Throw bread (which I think can now officially be called bruschetta) under the grill until the cheese melts (and everything else will be warm). I've been pre-heating the grill so I get a more even heat on both sides of the bread, but this is an "I can't be bothered" recipe, so I won't tell if you don't bother.

Of course, the gluten-free version of this is a teeny bowl of diced tomato and onion with rice crackers, served as a dip (er, the tomato mix is the dip, here, not the rice crackers).

[It also goes good on toasted sandwiches when you get home from seeing Wicked for the ninety-first time. I swear, I know those lines better than they do. I knew the regular conductor was having a night off.]

Actually, this is just a half-a-salsa-on-toast, isn't it? Hmmm. I wonder if I can find some jalapenos and habaneros somewhere. I could deal with a serious salsa this week.

Sunshine... in my kitchen

2008-10-16T20:38:00.000-07:00

...yeah, I know my next line should be about it making me happy, but it's actually making me giggle a little nervously.

I knew it would happen - everyone knows what happens when you get fresh turmeric, right?

I'm having palpitations over here, because I can't decide how to describe it - like I've killed a krishna, or like I've been kicking arse Clive Owen style. One way I get to sing "hare, hare krishna" all Ross Noble, the other way I get to go watch Sin City again. Man, that film's fun.

Either way, the short version is that there's all sorts of yellow here. Thin Choppy Choppy is a little indelibly stained. My chopping board (can you believe I used the unstained side? What was I thinking?) has a yellow patch that looks like a kindergartener's butterfly painting.

Don't even start me on my fingers. I look jaundiced. I look like all the years of drinking all of a sudden caught up with my hands. And they're worse since I did the dishes - the basin and donger gets steadily less yellow, and my fingers get sloooooowly more radioactive-looking.

It's madness, but the food is awesome.

Market Day

2008-10-15T20:23:00.000-07:00

i.

I need to make a list. It needs to be enormously detailed - we're talking dish names, and a breakdown of ingredients for each.

We are, in fact, talking about something akin to the fabled Faux Feast List.

This is because without structure, I can't be trusted at the market. I will bring home dragonfruit and pomegranates and we don't know what to do with them, and they just sit there, waiting to take their place in my rendition of a Scaredies song.

On the bright side, my kitchen becomes a riot of scent and colour, because the tomatoes always look so good and the fresh herbs are irresistibly inexpensive and the half pineapple... maybe Evan will eat that with ice-cream?

And the meat... we've got meat in the freezer that I've not used, but I invariably come home with two-for-twenty-five legs of lamb, a pork shoulder, chicken and pork mince, something I can cook into a casserole, and something that just... looked interesting.

ii.

Oh dear. I was in the middle of typing this when Evan told me he could drop me at the market on his way somewhere else. Would you like to hear about my produce? Of course you would!!

two red capsicums
two green capsicums
two red onions
one huge white onion
about fifteen truss tomatoes
one punnet cherry tomatoes
small pack birdseye chillis
four long green chillis
spring onions
about ten swiss brown mushrooms
pack of straw mushrooms
eight heads of garlic
about a foot of ginger
bean shoots
snow pea sprouts
five lemons
four limes
a cos lettuce
a bag of carrots
fresh galangal
fresh turmeric
fresh tarragon
fresh basil
half a butternut pumpkin

and the meat:

pork shoulder (told you so)
chicken breasts
half kilo diced lamb
half kilo diced pork
chorizo

Which isn't that much meat, really. So far the plan is to make bruschetta, and salad, and call that dinner. Then I was thinking hot and sour soup, and ooba gooba. Mushrooms and pumpkin go for risotto, since I have a half litre of stock here. The lamb becomes a casserole, though I don't have any potatoes, worse luck. The chorizo goes into a pasta sauce, and the pork shoulder gets braised with the leftover oranges I'm not sure about eating. I think the diced pork can get more finely sliced and go into the soup, actually.

Yeah, that should take care of everything. Couple of recipes tomorrow chronicling how they went, and we're sweet. The only problem's going to be containers, but I've been shopping twice today and I'm not going back. So there.

Catering emergency - guests sans me

2008-10-15T03:21:00.000-07:00

OK! For the Saturday, I have a tub of risotto that can probably be shared out (at a pinch) to feed four, if one adds salad and crusty bread.

For Sunday, I have people coming round who are lactose intolerant, gluten free, and will only eat (by way of protein) organic free-range chicken.

Risotto with no butter, y'all?

Or a stir-fry I set up so it can be cooked without me?

Helpety help help help??

Best Shortbread EVER!!!*

2008-10-10T22:27:00.000-07:00

*made by someone under the age of 70. Shortbread may in fact not be best ever (but it is, and I include the shortbread I've tried made by those over seventy).

BUT if you ask any who have had said shortbread, you will find that it is, in fact, totally awesome. Howdy by the way regular readers... this is Aims, and I have officially hacked Wen's Blog to bring you my own recipes. They all involve baking. I bake. They cook. [I may have hacked back to fix a usage error - Wen]

For this you will need:

a sense of adventure

no tactile defensiveness - you WILL get messy

375g of regular flour (or GF flour - hot baking tip is to use white wings)

250g (a whole stick) butter

125g castor sugar

1 pinch salt

What to do?

Contrary to many popular recipes and traditions in shortbread baking MELT THE BUTTER. Yes, this makes for soft squidgey crumbly shortbread which is the choice of my family. (if you want the more crispy sort, substitue about 100g of flour with rice flour)

Whilst the butter is melting, sift the sugar and the flour.

Make a pretty inverse anthill (also known as make a huge hole [I'm done now] in the middle of the dry ingredients) and pour the butter in. Stir it with your fingers and then begin kneading the dough for a bit. The more you can get it to stick together and be a smooth mixture at this stage the better. If you are using GF flour, you may have to get your back into it. If you cannot get the dough to the right consistency then add some cold water to the mix

Roll it into a massive ball and cover in gladwrap. Refrigerate for about 20 mins and do the dishes, or take the other cakes out of the oven, top up your wine... you get the idea.

***20 mins later, a glass of wine and clean bench***

Sprinkle the bench with some flour and put the un-gladwrapped dough on it. If you are a baker, go nuts. If you suck at it like me and end up with more dough on the rolling pin than on the bench, get some baking paper, place it over the top and roll away to desired thickness. Double the thickness for GF flour - they have a habit of melting in the oven.

Cut into desired shapes with whatever is handy - cookie cutters, glasses, bowls etc.

Bake at 160 degrees celsius for 20 - 25 mins.

Cool on rack, and if you're feeling saucy, melt some chocolate and smother on the bottom for something different!

Happy Baking

Evolution and Bolognese

2008-10-09T04:44:00.000-07:00

Here's how we used to cook bolognese. No offence to the dear departed Uncle John, who was the original One Of Us, but the changes are probably for the best. Old way:

You Will Need:

one can champignons
one can tomato soup
one onion (or, as per the Aims-trasnscribed recipe, 1 oinoin)
500g beef mince
butter ( I think)
one tablespoon tomato paste
one bayleaf (whole, dried, to be removed later)
egg noodles, to serve

Yep, you read that right. There's nothing interesting on that list - no garlic, no ginger, no fresh herbs. Tomato soup and paste, no fresh tomatoes. Canned mushrooms!

Don't get me wrong, I am ever so glad we live in a world where things can be canned. It's gonna save us when the zombies come. You know, that, or Mikes and I will end up standing in a field somewhere, looking at a cow. Looking at our knives. Looking at our knives, looking at a cow. Be meat already!!

The excellent thing about Uncle John's recipe was that it was easy. It took about twenty minutes, and there were no flavours strong enough to put off the picky palate. We were probably 14, 11 and 9 when first we tried this, the product of a home where meat and three veg always, always equalled steak, potato, carrot and peas.

We grew up good, so we did.

Anyway, we were naively blown away by that recipe, as I would be again in a year and a half's time when I first encountered what would become My Taco Recipe. We'd never really experienced food with sauces, food with flavour and texture and complexity.

Please note that I don't blame mum for this. She may have been the primary cooker, but she was ever overwhelmed by Captain Plaino.

Mum as a person? Oh, that lady will eat anything. The hotter the better, though we didn't know that way back when. You know, you hear these stories about abused women who are so proud and scared when their kids finally grow up enough to stand up for them.

We were the culinary equivalent.

A kind of smug satisfaction suffused the kitchen the year Mum realised we had decided to expand our culinary horizons, and that Dad wasn't game enough to say us nay (oh, she raised her some brawlers, so she did).

Curries, pasta with tuna or salami, sweet and sour stir fries with veggies he wouldn't touch. The man wouldn't eat cheese, for God's sake.

I know it's not considered cricket for the children to take over the house, but with mum's tacit permission, we did. The house grew ever more redolent of exotic spices and happiness, and we've never looked back.

The latest incarnation of ye olde spag bol does have two iterations. Mum's crew insist on a can of tomato soup and a bay leaf, and prefer egg noodles to regular pasta.

[Seriously? Egg noodles are no substitute for regular pasta. Not by any stretch of the imagination. They won't work for the gluten-free people, either -- they need special gf pasta. Just make sure you cook it carefully and never, ever use it in pasta salad - that shit gets sticky in a hot second. If you have a gf mate, seriously. Make risotto or rice salad.]

Adam's side of the food divide will only ever settle for real pasta, done al dente. They also hold that tomato soup is a cheat, and that the only way to a real sauce is to spend hours on it. I buck tradition in that I use tomato paste, which is barely tolerable, and I only take about two hours. I am continually blighted by Ad's "actually," but I maintain this sauce is going from strength to strength.

You Will Need:

500g mince
4 tomatoes
1 white onion
8-10 basil leaves, shredded as fine as taste decrees
garlic (I use about 3/4 of a head)
ginger (about a thumb's worth)
pinch of nutmeg, cinnamon, smoked paprika
dash of tomato, HP, BBQ, worchestershire sauce
pepper to taste
teeny tub or three tablespoons of tomato paste
2 dry bay leaves (to be removed later)

You Will Then Need To:

1. Melt the butter with everything except the mince, bay leaves and tomato paste. Do this until the tomatoes collapse. Don't look at me like that. If you don't know it when you see it, email me, and you can come round and I'll show you. I am that sure.

2. Splosh in some wine. What? Why not? Wait, are you not drinking? See previous.

3. Add the meat. The most important thing, and I can't stress this enough, is that you break the meat up. I knead my mince over the pot while I'm throwing it in, and breaking it down into a smooth consistency is my priority for the next bazillion years or so. I'm not making meatballs, I'm making sauce. Break that shit up.

4. Once it all boils, stir in the tomato paste. Once that gets tacky, add water. Tacky... well, you'll see. It's bubbles while things are sticking to the pot, it's like your food is the Bog Of Enternal Stench - that sort of bubble. If you don't know it when you see it, I don't know what to do with you. Anyway once it hits it, add a drinking glass of water, bring to the boil, then turn way down.

5. Now, done-ness is a thing. I basically want to mix my sauce with pasta when there's about a half a cm of sauce in the bottom of the pot, so I start to boil my pasta when there's a tacky cm and a half. In general, I would put the pasta on once the sauce is constantly tacky on low, and stir through once the pasta's been boiling ten mins, but all that is trial and error - everyone likes their pasta differently.

Oh, Dear Lord

2008-10-09T02:34:00.000-07:00

Oh, man.

I got home tonight and Evan was pretty proud of himself. He'd brought home some steaks.

An inch and a half thick, only very lucky if they'd fit on a dinner plate, these were some truly burn-worthy pieces of meat.

I should have taken over, right away. I really should have. Did the crocodile soup teach me nothing lasting??

But I was busy with the bolognese, and the mushroom sauce he'd requested.

So I let the boy cook his own steak.

On the George Foreman grill.

Now, if you're not familiar with how I feel about the GFG, well, hi, my name's Wen. It's nice to meet you, and the GFG is the single most evil piece of equipment in the history of kitchenalia.

It spits, it leaks, and it never, ever gets cleaned, so it often smells.

I. Hate. It.

And now, we add a new item to the list of reasons why.

The George Foreman Grill. Cooked. That steak. To WELL DONE.

Oh, I could weep. That was such steak, you guys. The butcher asked Ev if he was trying to impress someone. That's how good it was.

And he killed it! It's inch-thick shoe leather! I got/had to try some! Mmmm, card-board-y!

Oh, it's doomed. And I am resolving anew to keep Ev out of the kitchen. Maybe I could hide the GFG?

Yeah, that's it. I will hide it. I will buy a cast-iron thingy at 70% off from the people I know who are closing down, and I will prove to him the awesomeness of (a) medium-rare steak, and (b) stuff cooked by me.

Not that he didn't know that second one. But the lack of effort should be a selling point, right?

Where can I hide it? Someplace he never goes. Linen closet? No, sometimes he fetches a fresh set of sheets.

I know! Under the sink! He's got no idea how to tighten the tap, so he stays away. Awesome.

Right then.

2008-09-30T02:14:00.000-07:00

Ok, people, this may or may not be the most horrifying thing you see today. I... yeah, I've got nothing.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has urged US ice cream makers Ben & Jerry's to replace cow's milk in ice cream products with breast milk. "The fact that human adults consume huge quantities of dairy products made from milk that was meant for a baby cow just doesn't make sense," PETA spokeswoman Tracy Reiman said.

I'm putting "anyone with a PETA membership" on my list of People Not To Hire In The Food Industry. Oh, and watch out for the Swiss, too. PETA got this idea from some guy over there who plans to buy breast milk from lactating mothers so he can make 75% breast milk ice cream.

No, I did not make this up. Here is the link , if you don't believe me.

Gingery Pork in Lettuce Cups

2008-09-29T22:35:00.000-07:00

If there's one hard-and-fast rule of slapdash cheffery, it's that no recipe is immutable. Every recipe morphs according to (a) what's on hand (b) what level of heat my guests can stand and (c) what I forgot to bring home from the store despite clearly having it written on my list (and why do I have pine nuts?). Omni mutatem, nihil delendum, as we were so fond of saying in the BuffyBoard days.

[Contrary to popular belief, this pretentious latin motto does not translate to "everything changes, nothing is destroyed." The actual meaning is more along the lines of "for the love of GOD, people, stop bitching about Riley!"]

Our ever-evolving kitchen laid-backery has led to some awesome changes to the recipes we started with. Chicken, one onion and a spoonful of curry paste has become the riot of heat and flavour we call Ooba Gooda; a lamb biryani had an illicit affair with a wok of paella and lo, Lamb I'll Eat It Later was born.

This particular recipe started life as gingery chicken wontons with a soy-mandarin dipping sauce, outgrew the difficult/fiddly wonton wrappers and steaming, wrapped its gooey chickeny goodness in lettuce cups, got tired of infusing a bbq-soy sauce mixture with mandarin, and finally was unable to procure chicken mince, and morphed, semi-permanently, into a pork dish.

The basic recipe, once we settled on a meat and a format, hasn't changed. It's one of the very few things I cook that I resist tinkering with (mostly because Becs would kill me). It's pretty healthy, as these things go, and it doesn't take long. You can omit the marinating part, if you're pressed for time, and you'll spend about ten mins in the kitchen all up.

You will need

half a kilo of pork mince
a bunch of spring onions (green parts only)
a one by two inch piece of ginger
a lemon
a baby cos lettuce
bbq sauce, for dipping.

You will then need to

1. Slice the spring onion into small rings and grate the ginger as finely as you can manage. Mix with the pork in a bowl, and let sit in the fridge for a half hour or so.

2. Juice the lemon into a pan and fry the pork, breaking it up into a fairly fine crumble.

3. Spoon the mixture into lettuce leaves, drizzle with bbq sauce, and eat.

Advanced Options

1. Wrap spoonfuls of (cooked) pork mix in wonton wrappers, seal with water and steam (fiddly. takes ages. only recommended if you're trying very hard to impress someone).

2. Waaay back when you're marinating the pork, add equal amounts of soy sauce and bbq sauce to the juice of a mandarin (in a bowl, not just on the bench... how explicit do I have to be, here?). Leave the peel (I wanted to go wtih "depleted mandarin halves," but thought it would be too much. Is it too much?) in the bowl too - the rind adds flavour. While you're frying the pork, strain the sauce into a small pot and heat, then use as dipping sauce.

I'm bored

2008-09-27T04:41:00.000-07:00

...and I figure I've got a blog where I ramble, and a blog where I review. This one can be the one where I cook.

Ideally, we'll post and archive all the fave faux foods here, so when you're sitting at home wishing you could have something Ben or I once made at a feast, there are simple instructions right here, just begging to be idiot-proofed.

I also have a massively long blogroll of people whose recipes I want to try, and I intend to discuss my spectacular failures at length, right here.

Until I get a day off (one more day! one more day!) to start the whole ball-rolling extravaganza, though, I thought I'd better make this a less-than-empty blog.