Food Glorious Food

Ahhh... Food!  I've actually posted a recipe on here before, but it was trolled mercilessly in the comments, so I quickly learned never to do anything of the like ever again.  This is not a food blog by any stretch of the imagination, and the only recipes I post here now are for disaster. 

As discussed at some point last week my lack of diet-watching.  I eat when I'm hungry (usually), and eat whatever I like.  Even though I'm really really picky, I absolutely love eating the food that I actually do.  I've gotten a lot better recently with things like vegetables, but still, all green things must die.  As adventurous as I have become comparative to my youth, I still operate with the same sort of approach to food - separation of wet and dry food, close attention to textures, and flavour combinations that I'm used to.  I originally learned to cook as a measure of control, because I am so picky.  Unlike other people with wide-ranging tastes (especially when I was much younger), I really can't eat just anything.  I can eat what I like exactly how I like it, because I have done it for myself.  From this very, very simple and inward looking reason, I now enjoy cooking a lot; I'm certainly nothing in comparison to a pro, of course, but I like to think that what I make at least smells, tastes and looks interesting.  There's nothing worse than boring food.

I didn't completely teach myself how to cook, it was one of the few things that I truly needed help with, aided and abetted by the fearsome person of my mother, who had been trained professionally many years previous.  Mother used to run a kosher kitchen in her own house, and used to be able to purchase the ingredients for a Sunday Lunch for three people for less than a fiver... when a fiver meant something.  Mother taught me basic methods in mains, but not pastry or sweet cooking; while I used to love desserts I hardly ever have them, especially now I'm lactose intolerance, and I'm not a pastry fan - for saying I've been in Cornwall for almost two years, the amount of pasties I've eaten is still in single digits.  I was packed off to university with some classics under my belt - super basic pasta sauce, foolproof rice, stir fry, roasting meat, frying... Nothing hugely thrilling, but making sure I'd never starve.  The things that I don't eat, like minced...anything, mashed potato, green vegetables, tomatoes... This is down to texture just as much as flavour.  I have been known to abandon meals because I don't like how they feel.  I am a strange person.  Get over it.

A large part of my traveling library is made up of recipe books.  I'll be honest, I don't often follow the contents.  Cook books are a funny thing to me, I love looking at the pretty pictures but often just can't afford the ingredients.  Jamie Oliver is a particular figure, there are three of his books on my shelf, and I hardly ever use them for anything but general reading.  The problem really, is that Mr. Oliver's kitchen is fully stocked with all manner of spices and seasonings, a range of utensils for each and every job, appliances and all, perfectly equipped to deal with any meal he should so desire.  I do not live in an environment such as he does.  The Scholary kitchen is... well, it is a nightmare plain, pure and simple.  Unlike the galley at Bury street, there is one way in and no way out.  It is usually unwashed, sides strewn with a graveyard of plates, cutlery, utensils and roasting dishes... While I may have resolved to clean and tidy only my own things now to try to break out of the pattern of doing everything, it still makes me uncomfortable.  Also, the fact that I tend to wash my own things regularly, it seems that this increases the frequency of their use, as they are usually the first to be used again by anybody.  I travel with a kitchen, not the room but the contents so I'm always comfortable with everything.  I usually travel with my heaviest knife if I go to cook anywhere as well.  It must seem ridiculous, true, but think about it!  If you go to someone else's place to cook, what can you guarantee?  Nothing, really.  Living in student accommodation taught me that you can't rely on every oven to be the same in any way shape or form.  If I can guarantee the knife, my primary utensil, I can at least feel comfortable enough to take on any other insane variable.  My things are there to be used, but I get fed up if they don't get respected...or cleaned.

Due to my still limited tastes, I work on some very basic templates.  Rice, Pasta or Potatoes form a 'backbone' to any meal usually, then meat, then vegetables.  I like to think I can maintain a pretty balanced diet following this easy formula, I mean, let's look at my typical stir fry recipe:

• Rice or Noodles
• Meat - usually turkey leg, pork chop (or loin), rarely chicken, sliced thinly
• Vegetables, usually sliced into ribbons rather than sliced and diced

This is only three types of ingredient.  Meat and veg cooked in a super-hot wok, rice made in the usual foolproof manner or noodles simply boiled alongside.  When I went to Norwich last October, I basically invented a dish from sauteing cubed potatoes with sliced red onion and chopped up smoked bacon that accompanied chicken thighs that I had fried in a pan.  Okay, sure there's nothing green there, but should the inclination take you, it would be a simple job to add some boiled or steamed veg too.  I don't season too heavily, because I have quite a powerful sense of taste still.  That said, I like to use decent ingredients that have decent flavour themselves, and not have to salt and pepper the hell out of what I've got just so it has some modicum of taste.  I usually don't slice veg up to finely because of this (unless I'm going to grind an onion paste up for a curry which I haven't done in an age anyway). 

My top meal for years and years and years, though is simply Chicken Wings and Rice.  That's it.  My favourite treat: the first meal I get when I get home, and the last dinner I have before I leave again.  For saying how much I enjoy curry in Nepalese, Indian, Japanese, Chinese and Thai form, authentic Oriential foods, fresh pasta dishes... I don't care.  I really just do not care.  Roasted Chicken Wings, seasoned lightly with salt and pepper, served on top of a bed of rice prepared in my trademark fashion:

• Heat a pan on a high heat, and melt a knob of butter therein
• Once the butter is melted, pour in the amount of rice you want and stir up to cover all in the butter
• DON'T LET THE BUTTER BURN
• Pour in boiling water, make sure it's TWICE as much as the amount of rice
• Stir up, and once the water is boiling, put a lid on the pan that fits (ideally the matching lid) WITH A CLOTH
• Once you put the lid on, turn the heat down to the lowest without it being switched off
• Leave it like that for 15 minutes. 
• Once 15 minutes is up, turn the heat off.  Do not disturb the lid

 Prepared like this, I have found that the rice is always perfect.  Drop a bit of salt into it if you really want when you serve.  I prefer to mix in chili sauce (okay, Nando's sauce) at service, take the meat off the wings, mix it up and eat it like that.  I really love Chicken and Rice.


I am slowly improving my skills.  Not having any formal catering training, and having low hand-eye co-ordination my knifemanship is quite mediocre in comparison... more slow and steady.  I have knives for different reasons and different seasons, and keep them on a magnetic grab on the wall.  I may not be a top chef, but I care about what I eat and how I prepare and eat it.  I treat my ingredients and my kitchen with respect, and like to think I benefit from it.  Food can always be glorious, from a 15 course banquet to the the cold cuts from yesterday's roast fried in soy sauce.  It's just about caring about what you do.

That's all.  For now.

Tales of new Employment

So it's all change again.  I'm not coming back to Derby, and I'm not unemployed!  BOOM.

For the last week, I have been working as the Kitchen Porter at the Cathedral Restaurant.  I seriously and wholeheartedly believe that this is not a job designed for one person; more that it is a sore test for those who do not know what hard work is.  Over this week I have earned some two hundred pounds, and have work lined up for the whole of the summer.  Over the course of the Vac, I'll need to vacate my house for some ten days only but that's about it.

Here are some things that I have learned this week:

! - The Dishwasher truly is my mortal enemy.
" -  The Squares of Ashoni was the best training for plate stacking.
£ - Full trays from tables dumped on the deck are the bane of everything.
$ - The smell of Carrot and Coriander soup makes me want to brech.
% - If you don't ask for a break you'll never get one, regardless of the legality.
^ - Once the cutlery goes through the machine is is literally HOTTER THAN THE SUN.
& - Having a mostly Guinness and Jager based hangover will not help.
? - The sight of the pass closing can cheer the lowest of hearts.

Monday was insane.  Like, actually mental.  I've been burnt less in baptisms of fire already!  (Actually I never truly got burnt, but did scald myself with the ROASTING HOT CUTLERY).  Interestingly enough, as allergic as I am to hard work... I haven't been put off totally.  I always used to (and continue) to say that once I'm done with all this music rubbish, I'll train as a chef.  Where does every one start?  At the Porter's station.  

It's not great, by any stretch of the imagination, but not awful.  There is still a sense of achievement even when all the tables get cleared at once and all the plates ever appear in your immediate vicinity.  I only dropped one plate all week, but sadly also knocked the handle off a teapot.  Sad times.  

Tuesday was just as bad, but I arguably got a bit more help.  On Wednesday I decided that the only way to keep the pot wash room sane was to put away dry stuff myself, which once again considerably sped the process up.  Thursday was slightly marred by the addition of midnight prosecco to celebrate Mr. Barrett's 19th birthday, but still remarkably busy.  The soup was very popular.  Not so much Carrot and Coriander but Carrot and Crack Cocaine.

Friday was definitely the quietest.  I even managed to get a whole 15 minutes off where I conversed with my disasterously hungover housemate and bought lunch from the Co-op, rob dogs that they are.  Anyway, even with a whole quarter of an hour off, I managed to get almost everything finished in time for 4pm!  How exciting!

However.  Working 9:30 til 4 every day has left me drained and somewhat irritable, and in bad shape for evensong.  Granted this won't be a problem from next week onwards, what with this Sunday being the last services of the year, but seeing as these were some pretty hardcore services (Monday Howell's St. Paul's, Tuesday Langlais Messe Solennelle, Wednesday Leighton 2nd Service and Friday Tallis Lamentations), I can;t help but feel like I let the side down a bit by just being so tired.  Granted, I wasn't falling asleep at the end of the Nunc Dimittis like I was when I worked at Truro School, but there we go...

The long Vac stretches out before me.  I have a month of employment ahead of me before I even consider August.  But there will be rest for the wicked at some point, and it's my girlfriend's birthday at the end of this month, which I have been preparing for at least a month now.  I had to make sure everything would work out if I wasn't staying in Cornwall, see, but now I am I have some extra wiggle room, as it were.   All I'm really going to say about her now is that things are so much different than ever, and I don't ever need to panic any more.  Oh.  And she's marvellous.  And short.*  But that's enough for now.  

Now, presumably I'm going to do some laundry or wash up in the kitchen now, I suppose.










*This fact included at her request.

THE CAPTAIN'S COOKERY CORNER: VOLUME ONE

Hello friends, 

As I recently said, I am the de facto chef de maison of 20 Old Bridge Street.  For a few years now I have also held Thursday night as a time sacred to curries, ie those that I make myself.  As an exceptionally picky eater, I usually deal with food myself, in case anyone decides to do something that I'm not going to have, like a serving of peas, for example.  While my track record with green vegetables is notably poor, it slowly improves, but only in my own time.  

Anyway.  Today I made a particularly delicious stir fry, even by my standards.  I haven't had any oyster sauce since I got here, nor any hot chili sauce (God damnit Nandos!  Y U NO IN TRURO), but a bottle of light soy has done so far.  I usually cook by instinct, having built a working relationship with my knives and my boards and my utensils that I won't deal with anything else.  I always bring my knives, my pasta pan and my wok wherever I go (not quite attached at the hip but you get the picture).  But here I pass on my recipe to you.  Make sure you read it all the way through before you start.   

HAJIME!!!

Firstly, before anything else, make sure your prep is done or the hotter it gets the more you'll sweat just before the end.  At the moment, I make stir fry dishes with pork, but this ought to work with any meat of your choice.  Beef will be the fastest meal of all though, so only do this if you're definitely on top of it.  This one is a definite pork dish though.  There are no measurements, as I have never used any...except for the rice!  AHA.  Just use enough!  If you use too much or too little, then learn for next time.  I managed to serve 4 tonight, so just think about how many people you want to feed and change your amounts accordingly.

So.  To start with, finely slice your pork into strips.  This is a chow mein style, and it'll all cook quickly.  Speed is of the essence!  Next, cut off enough pieces of Broccoli and halve them.  If you are planning on using the stalk, cut that up just as, if not more finely as the pork (Don't worry about getting it identical.  Broccoli will take the longest time to fry after the pork though).  Thinly slice two cloves of Garlic, and put them to one side of the board.  Skin a medium sized white onion, and roughly chop it into slices.  With that all done, sort out your pans.  

Put your noodle pan on to boil.  I use a pasta pan, because I use a pasta pan for everything.  It's just a big pan with a stout handle, with a glass lid that has large and small draining holes in the sides, very useful.  I put in 5 nests of egg noodles earlier, but use however much you need, and then put enough water in to cover the nests and put it on a high heat.  If you put the lid on, it'll boil much quicker, but you might be busy by the time it starts to boil over, so think carefully.  Just before you do this though, put your wok on to heat.

Put your wok on to heat.  I said it again because you actually need to heat it.  None of this pussy-footing around.  Your wok should be approximately as hot as hell by the time you start cooking.  Put in a glug of oil, be it sunflower, vegetable or groundnut (the last of these being the best), BUT NOT OLIVE OIL.  UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU USE OLIVE OIL.  Olive Oil will burn and not taste especially great and ruin your wok.  Put it on the highest heat available to you on your hob/raging inferno.  

Once the oil in the wok starts to smoke gently, it's almost ready.  Let it heat up a little bit longer, and then get the pork in.  Slide it in off the board slowly (or as slowly as you can), because you don't want to spray the boiling hot oil everywhere.  You will notice that the meat will colour almost instantly due to the fabulous heat and the large surface area of the strips.  After maybe a minute, or when all the strips have begun to colour, add in a healthy serving of LIGHT SOY SAUCE.  Light goes in at the start of cooking.  When you have done this, add the Broccoli.  Adding more ingredients causes the overall temperature of the inside of the wok to drop ever so slightly.  Toss the wok to make sure everything gets covered in the soy.  After a while, add in tomato puree.  Add a load as well, and spread it around, coating everything in the pan.  Add a drop more soy to keep things moving in the pan.  Don't let it burn!  Let it cook out for a little bit.  We're moving towards service now.

The noodles out to be nearly ready by now.  I used a short pair of tongs to separate them, but feel free to use whatever you like.  Stir them round and make sure they're cooked.  Turn the heat off and pop the lid on.  Stir the contents of the wok.  Now, toss the onion slices in to the wok, and break them up with whatever you're using.  Make sure they also get coated.  Now, move quickly!  Drain the noodles, but don't get rid of all the water, you'll need a bit.  I hope you haven't forgotten about all that Garlic you had, because now's the time to use it.  Make a space in the centre of the wok and throw the garlic in.  This needs only seconds, as you only want to toast the garlic, and woebetide you if you burn it.  Once that's done, pour in the noodles.  The water you left in needs to go in as well, because it'll stop it all from sticking and make a little bit of sauce out.  Put in a bit more soy at this point, if you have any DARK SOY SAUCE now is the time to use it, but be sparing.  You don't want to overpower the pot.

Let the noodles cook in the wok, and toss regularly to make sure they get covered as well, and be careful not to let it burn.  

There is only one course of action left to you now. 

   SERVICE!!!

I usually prepare stir fry in this fashion.  Sometimes I have rice instead of noodles, and ideally I have bottles of fish sauce and oyster sauce to tide me over as well as chili sauces of sveral varieties to add to the flavours, colours and textures.  If I use a red onion, I add it slightly later to keep the fiercer flavour and the strong colour intact.  Red onions are my thing though.  All in all, this meal should take about half an hour to prepare and serve.  Always make sure you don't poison anyone, but the meat should always be done by the end just due to the sheer temperature.  

Anyway.  I hope that some of you might be brave enough to try this, and my following recipes at home, for yourself, your friends and family.  My house style is gutsy and slightly chaotic, much like everything else I do, especially my Countertenoring.  On Thursday, I will be opening the famous Curry House, and serving two distinct dishes, the first time I have done so in my whole life.  But I'm not worried.  I might make the first one on Wednesday, and then put all my energy into the second dish on the day.  No problem.  So!  Until next time!