Christmas Duck

I think it was Mork and Mindy who explicitly pointed out something I had felt for a few years. It is a long time since I saw the show and have no idea who anybody is apart from Mork. But basically, somebody is trying to explain Christmas to an outsider (in this case a slightly deranged space-alien). They have no difficulty explaining what turkey is. It's like chicken, only dryer and not as good. So when asked to explain why you have an inferior bird for the most special of occasions, the man was a bit stumped.

I used to eat Turkey for Christmas, but not for a few years. We had ham for at least the last two years, and this time I got to thinking we should do something different. And I came out of Sainsbury's carrying a frozen duck. 

This isn't a food blog, or a recipe blog, but I will tell you my thoughts anyway. The duck cooked with no issues, and I made an exciting glaze which was sweet, hot, salty and umami. It was however more than a bit tricky to carve. I am rubbish at carving at the best of times, but we very nearly had Chinese style shredded duck for Christmas.

One duck, "lovingly" prepared for roasting. I should have paid more attention is GCSE science, because I was unaware than the insides of a duck were neatly contained in a plastic bag.

Nearly done. Glaze added, just needs another 10 minutes.

Not too bad for my first attempt.

I seem preoccupied by the mathematics of my glaze. It had four ingredients, and four flavours. So it should be that case that each ingredient is there to supply one taste. However that is not the case, and I am unsure what to do with the pigeon principle. Oh shit, there were five ingredients, I forgot about brown sugar. (Which substituted for the molasses I don't have.) 

Right then, a Christmas riddle. Four flavours (see above), five ingredients to accompany duck, one of them is brown sugar. What are the ingredients?

1, (6,5)

2, (5)

3, Brown sugar (5,5)

4, (3,5)

5, (3,5)

First correct answer wins something appropriate. Maybe a Subway turkey sandwich. Obviously, people who live here and ate the meal are excluded. Don't jump in and ruin it for everybody else like you did last time. Yes, you know who you are.

I will accept if you get 4 and 5 in the wrong order! One last clue, the letter E appears 5 times.

Couldn't Be More Caribbean If It Played Cricket

Got an exciting recipe book for Christmas: Gregg Wallace's Favourite Puddings. Before I went to the kitchen and got my rolling pin out I had to ask the obvious question...

So who is Gregg's favourite pudding?

Motivated by the desire to do something with a bag of dessicated coconut and ripening bananas I picked up the book and stumbled upon the perfect solution: Coconut and banana tart. Gregg points out that with coconut, bananas and rum, it is a very Caribbean desert.

Yet another tart based desert.

There were flaws, my pastry was quite thick round the edges and my syrup glaze stuff went a bit hard. But I can't complain for a first attempt.

You might have thought I would be more interested in "The Great British Bake-off". (BBC2 on Tuesday evenings) It ticks all the boxes: a food based competition with "Great British" in the title. But for some reason I haven't really got into it. It probably would have been good material for my blog. Including, as it does, lines like

"Release the tarts"

Sounds like something the Chief Inspector might say the morning after his police force had raided a den of inequity.

Man vs Bush

I cut the hedge yesterday

or

Man's crusade to eradicate women's pubic hair

I like pizza, and unlike some people I don't know of any single ingredient you could put on a pizza that I would object to. Pizza now far transcends the original dish the Italians once made (maybe they still do). It has become a canvas for expression. You want meat, have a meat feast. You don't want meat, have a veggie supreme. You want something salty, put anchovies on it. Or maybe you just want pineapple, whatever, put it on your pizza. Really fancy a curry? Put is on your pizza. You get the idea.

Of course you shouldn't be limited to having savoury pizza. Pudding pizza is great fun for the kids and tasty too. Just replace cheese and tomato sauce with chocolate spread and marshmallows and decorate with whatever sweeties you like.

In an unrelated event, I recently got reading about pubs. I was mostly drawn in thinking it was a discussion of bars vs pubs, but found it was quite funny and actually talked about pubs more generally. If you don't want to read the whole thing, let me present some highlights.

The Italians are as familiar with the idea of a pub as they are with the concept of personal space.

And on the topic of crisps in pubs:

Various flavours on offer, and the bar staff are fluent enough in drunkese to know that Zoltan Finger means Salt and Vinegar.

Another food canvas waiting for the imaginative chef to make his own, is the humble pie case. You could go for apple, or apple and blackberry. Or maybe lemon goo and meringue. Instead, for some reason I am not aware of, I resurrected a recipe from my childhood: Manchester tart.

The story goes that I came back from school one day (age 6 maybe) and, like usual, my mother asked me what I had eaten for lunch. I said, "turkey in custard". Which bemused her for days until she eventually found out (presumable from a conversation with another parent) that the turkey was actually banana, and I was talking about Manchester tart. Needlesstosay, even if I thought it was turkey, I still loved it. Only freaks don't like cold custard.

Step 1. Blind bake a pie crust

Step 2. When cool, spread on a layer of red jam and add sliced banana.

Step 3. Fill with custard and allow to set.

Apparently traditional Manchester tart is covered with dessicated coconut and had some sort of red fruit in the middle - possible a cherry. I have only recently become aware of this, but this is what my pudding could have looked like.

Step 4. Serve and enjoy!

Maybe I could put more exciting traditional recipes ideas on my blog. It's easier than writing considered opinions on a topical and controversial topic.

[You see what I did there, purposefully used the root "topic" twice in the same sentence to make it a rubbish sentence. Demonstrating how much effort I am putting into my blog. On the other hand I put extra into that self-referential sentence. Oh Epimenedes...]

Supersize

A far person and a thin person engaging in some sort of competition. The title says it all really.

I was watching "Supersize vs Superskinny" the other day. This woman was a fan of pork pies and sausage rolls. So Dr. Christian thought it would be a great idea to get some unsightly bits of pig and dump them in a big bowl and say, "This is what goes into your pies." Fortunately for her, the woman reacted like he expected and doesn't eat nearly so many pies any more. However she missed a trick, she should have been like:

I just been watching Masterchef, yeah, and they are like always cooking pork belly and trotters and pig cheek. They serve it in all the best restaurants and whatnot and folks pay loads to get some trotters on their plate.

Some bits of pig in a bowl. It just takes a couple of hours and highly trained chef to turn this into a plate of food that costs £60. Notice I didn't say it is worth £60.

The thermostat must be broken cos they always seem to be wandering around the Channel 4 health-clinic in their underwear.

I'm Back

You know how you don't notice change when it happens slowly, but when you go away for a couple of weeks and get back you suddenly see everything. Now I am back from my little holiday I get to spot all the things that have happened in and around my house over the last two weeks. Fortunately it is not a lot. Not like previous trips to the USA, when the biggest tree I have ever had the displeasure of owning ended up in nextdoor's garden. (Well some of it did.)

The things that caught my eye were the moribund plants in the kitchen, the new stain on the carpet and the little bits of cat litter dragged all through the house. At least two of those are the responsibility of the evil cat. A more positive thing was that my crocuses are in full bloom now. They were just pushing through when I left. 

I actually took these photos last year, but the crocuses looks very similar right now.

We had Denby Dale pie for tea lastnight, fresh from the freezer. It is a lot like my favourite meal from childhood, my mum's meat and potato pie. The pasty is different though. And so is the filling. Then we watched a little TV. It was nice to see Paul Daniels on Harry Hill last night, doing a joke about a chainsaw. Quelle surprise!

Not a piece of a real Denby Dale pie, that would be at least 12 years old, and perhaps a little stale now. Instead from the supermarket freezer and having the name of, and perhaps a similar recipe to, the Denby Dale pie.

I have all sorts of things to blog about from my trip. Maybe I will do that when I have a little more time.

Seventeen Minutes

I made a risotto this evening. And it was lovely. I was guided by a recipe of Jamie Oliver. (It would be inaccurate to say I "followed" the recipe.)

Let's start with the ingredients. The recipe called for raw prawns, which is fair enough. And having watched countless shows about all the amazing seafood our country produces I was happy to get prawns. However the only uncooked prawns I could find in the supermarket were from Thailand. Why?

I don't know much about wine, so when I saw a bottle that said "Good Dry French Wine," I thought, "That's the one for me." Ordinarily, I wouldn't know which wines are good and which are not. But this one said it was good. I couldn't find Parmesan, so I used cheddar. I don't have any olive oil in at the moment, so that is Morrison's own sunflower oil. And that isn't a real lemon either

Why didn't home economics teach me something useful, like how to chop finely?

At this stage it didn't really fit in the pan anymore. Then I had to add peas, prawns, cheese, butter and more peas.

Jamie says this is where the magic happens. Leave it alone and it will become creamy. Okay then.

A hearty portion.

Rhubarb: Part 2

It seems customary these days to begin my post by explaining why it is so long since the last post. However I can't imagine anybody is eagerly waiting for an update on Coughing Fit. The explanation is simple; I have been putting more of my spare time into other things recently. Like watching all the cookery shows on TV at the moment.

Today I finally got to do some gardening. Which is a relief, because I was on the verge of missing my opportunity to get lots of tasks done before winter really prevents gardening. This morning was one of those rare occasions when the weather and my family responsibilities simultaneously allowed me to get in the garden. I seized the moment and made sure I got everything done I needed.

There are still lots of leaves left on the trees, but I got most of the ones on the ground. If I don't get a chance to collect leaves again this year I don't think it will be too bad. But more importantly I moved project rhubarb along a bit. Having cleared a suitable space last time, today I continued to prepare the ground. I mixed loads of home made compost into the clay and rocks. I also removed a few rocks. The soil gets a little better everytime I go out there. As instructed in my rhubarb book, I stuck a whole load of compost into some deep holes and marked the spots ready for spring.

Not only that, but today was one of those very rare occasions when I do some gardening that isn't just weeding and tidying - I planted some things. I had three peonies to plant - can't wait to find out what they look like when they grow. They were just weird bits of twigs when I opened the bag. I hope I put them in the right way up. After that I started the knee-destroying job of planting enough bulbs to keep the Dutch economy going a little longer.Well, perhaps not that many. There were 65. The idea is that you randomly toss them over the site and then plant them wherever they fall. The first part of that is much more fun than the second.

At first glance this may appear very similar to my previous photo of the site. However now it actually contains three peonies, which are virtually invisibly at this stage. And a stick indicating where to plant rhubarb.

After al that work I was tired and dirty and reckoned I deserved a little rest. So I treated myself to a luxury lunch of Heinz smoky BBQ beans on toast. Which was pretty good. Perhaps the second best BBQ type beans I have ever had. The best was at a BBQ earlier this year: some people who I didn't know did them properly, cooking bacon and onions and things. They were nice.

Beans on toast: A meal fit for a king

Something to look forward to

Not just lots of rhubarb crumble. I have made a couple of discoveries this week, which might possibly brighten my life a bit over the coming months.

Since getting back from america, I have had a renewed enthusiasm for playing the piano. And I have changed the way I play in two ways, both motivated by my desire to amaze people with my fingers (and emotional swaying) should I ever get chance to play the piano to my friends. I plan to play music people will like (aka popular music) and, I plan to play it at any opportunity. This means learning some pop songs, and also, learning them so well that I can play them with no sheet music or aide-memoires whilst drunk.

This is not an easy task, and I have never been very good at memorising music. But with enough effort it might be possible. The hard part is remembering which songs I can remember. I think I am allowed to make a note of that in my phone. But I still have to learn some pop songs. I have been spending some time in the evenings in the last couple of weeks watching videos explaining how to play particular songs.  The frustrating thing is that it is often 18 hours or so later before I can actually play the piano. It is quite a memory challenge to watch a video tutorial and then try to play the piece so much later. I have so far failed to get anything more than the main hook for a few songs.

But then I made a real discovery. A professional pianist who "gives" away sheet music of the pop-songs she plays. (Turns out that gives means you are required to make a donation, but whatever.) So I am totally going to get a few and see if I can learn them. Also, watching all her videos made me realise that I don't object to keyboards (and digital pianos) as much as I used to.

Vika Yermolyeva getting a good sway on.

In a completely unrelated turn of events I started listening to my first ever podcast today. Not entirely sure when I am going to get to listen to it, but now I can get clued up on the weekends NFL fixtures before they happen. It features my favourite ever sports-pundit (it's not a long list): Mike Carlson.

Win a trip to Krispy-Kreme (cash value £10). Be the first to correctly comment with what Mike and I have in common. I will give you a clue, it isn't our taste in shirts. 

Another upcoming treat to look forward to is the new season of Masterchef: The Professionals. Featuring beard enthusiast Michel Roux Jnr and his dim-witted sidekick Greg Wallace, it is actually quite entertaining. It also has Monica Galetti in it, who glares at the contestants until they start crying. Masterchef random quote generator says:

There's no place in Masterchef for pink food. There's no place in the world for pink food.

Another poll about food

Am now back from a recent trip stateside. Which, in part, is responsible for the lack of blogging in recent weeks. I got to do both those things that Americans love to do: work hand and impose democracy on a far away country. Only kidding, the two things I am thinking of that Americans love to do are eat far too much and watch TV. I got to eat lots and lots, and I also watched a small amount of TV. Sometimes I even got to combine the two by watching TV whilst eating. Not only that, but on at least one occasion when I wasn't eating, I was watching the food network in my room.

Which reminded my of Rachel Ray.

Rachel Ray. Like really, what are you going to keep in those pockets?

Who is actually some sort of celebrity chef, who totally has a TV show and writes cookbooks and things. I like this acticle about her, particularly the sentence, "Objects derive meaning from their context".

Food shows are vaguely educational right? Although perhaps for TV purposes they get classed as entertainment. But the the thing that grinds my gears about Ray (or Rachel Ray as people like to call her) is that she can't decide how to pronounce endive. Every single time she mentions the vegetable she says "en-dive or on-deev" and makes a failed little joke out of it. I strongly feel she is supposed to be the authority on this recipe she is presenting, but she seems to be admitting her own ignorance. Just pick one and stick to it woman, people will follow you. And if someone writes it to complain about your pronunciation, then you can sit back and smile, smug in the knowledge that they are a tool, and you are far better looking and wealthier than the people that watch your show.

We all know sex and food make a great combination. And I think we should have a poll on the topic. Another celebrity chef who who likes to combine the two is Nigella.

I was about to try and write some words to express my thoughts on the her, but instead I will unashamedly quote from this blog.

When she leaned over to stir the batter for a chocolate cheesecake I swear I could see the cameraman waging a Herculean internal war to remain professional and not fill the screen with her magnificent breasts, and as my own febrile lust reached the boiling point Nigella pulled her wooden spoon from the creamy, russet mixture, trailing a thick bolus of sweetness to her slowly-parting lips and orgasmically sighed “Mmmmmm…” with unbridled sensuality, later punctuated with an equally erotic and drawn-out “Yuuuuuuum.”

I remember seeing a photo of Ainsley wearing nothing but a bunch of grapes. The internet seems incapable of finding this photo for me again, and so I am unable to share it with you. It will just have to remain a happy memory. It is also the sole reason why I think he deserves a spot in the poll.

Giada de Laurentiis is another american who, like Ray, clearly got a job on TV for her culinary knowledge and skills. Sophie Dahl on the other hand is some sort of ex-model who likes food. The rest are just in the poll to make up numbers.

What's on TV

Filling the hole left by Thomasina Miers is a new cookery show on Channel 5. The "Real Food Family Cook Off" features well known foodies Matt Dawson, Lisa Faulkner and Anton du Beke. (Fair enough it does have Ainsley Harriot).

Celebrity slapper Matt Dawson MBE had a successful rugby career but has spent the subsequent years faffing around trying to keep his face on TV. He tried dancing and cooking, and now he is trying hosting a food show. If A Question of Sport was Shooting Stars, then Matt Dawson would be Jack Dee.

Anton du Beke is quoted as saying that he can turn anybody into a great dancer. He was also in another cooking show, "Step up to the Plate" with Lloyd Grossman.

Lisa Faulkner used to be a model or some shit. They say don't trust skinny chefs, I guess that might extend to commentary on cookery shows by skeletor.

However, this latest competition based show pales into insignificance next to Monday's "gripping" final of Antiques Master. Unfortunately, I was rooting for the lady specializing in antique tiles, who didn't make it to the final.

Celebrity lesbian Sandi Toksvig was an obvious choice to host  Antiques Master

A Note on the Nature of the Universe

Made a discovery this week and I feel it is my duty to share it with the world in the hope that others don't make the same mistake I did.

I had just finished cleaning up after dinner and made a cup of tea, and I knew that a little later on that evening we would be having plum crumble and custard. I figured I would do some preparation and start the custard, then I could sit down for an hour and all I had to do later was press "start" on the microwave. So I mixed the custard powder and sugar and milk and left it in the microwave. Then I could settle down with my tea and not move for a while.

Later I put the second part of my plan into action and turned the microwave on. However things didn't work out quite like I had planned. For it seems that in the hour I was sat watching TV the custard has settled. So when I first checked to see how it was getting on, it was all runny at the top, and proper solid and messed up at the bottom. Perhaps the best thing to do in this situation would have been to scrap it and start again. But I was so looking forward to not having to bend over to get the ingredients out of the cupboard, that I just made the best of what I had. It tasted alright, but it wasn't the lovely velvety custard I was expecting.

Keep this in mind though... The plan might have worked if I had stirred it just before starting to cook it.

Taco

Just been watching Mexican Food Made Simple with chef Thomasina Miers. I like shows about food, and this definitely ticks the box. I couldn't help but notice that every recipe she cooks he describes as "my favourite". Makes me think that she isn't being entirely genuine and is over-egging her descriptions.

However the best thing about the show is that she keeps saying the word "Oaxaca". Which is a funny word. I was enjoying how she kept slipping it in at every opportunity and repeated the sounds: wa - ha - ca. I have since discovered her motive for her comical overuse of this place name; it is also the name of her chain of restaurants in London. Perhaps she is trying to implant the name in people's minds so that she gets more business in these difficult economic times.

Pizza

Just finished three days off work, which gave me some time to chill and relax at home. You can believe that at your peril. I did, however, get to go to Pizza Hut. Everybody loves their all you can eat buffet lunch. However, it was a little disappointing this time. The salad bar was missing one key ingredient - lettuce. They tried to make up for this with two types of chillies. Not only that, but they have removed my favourite ingredient, beetroot, from their salad bar. I haven't seen it there for years, I guess it is gone for good.

After my trip to the salad bar I tucked into the pizzas and pastas. I like their white and green pasta; I think their philosophy is, "if it's green and a vegetable, then put it in". Cos it has spinach, broccoli and peas. Lovely. 

I have to admit I was a little disappointed with the size of this slice of pizza.

And just one more thing, while I am in full on rage mode: no toilet seat!

I'm such a fool sometimes. On Monday I cleaned the car for only the forth time in two years of ownership. This turned out to be a mistake, cos on Tuesday I parked it next to the grass while the guy was driving his lawnmower all over it. Consequently it is now covered in bits of grass. Then on Wednesday I took it to a farm with all the mud and fun that entails. I figure things may have worked out better if I had done them in a different order.

A lovely hill I saw the other day.

In the interest of balance, I should point out that I like Pizza Hut and will definitely go back there. Remember, other disappointing pizza themed eateries are available.

Elevenses

Today I was faced with that perennial problem that has confronted Englishmen throughout the centuries: What to have with my tea as a mid-morning snack. Today I went a bit crazy and chose something that I very much doubt Brunel had when he took 10 minutes out from designing bridges.

"What is this stuff?" you may ask. I know I did. Apparently it is some giant breakthrough in material science: Spreadable marshmallow.

You put it on toast.

It looks like some futuristic goo that wouldn't be out of place  falling out of tubes in Portal 2.

The finished product; looks so yummy.

I took the plunge and had a couple of bites...

... then a couple more.

All gone. It actually does feel and taste like marshmallow. Weird.

High pressure

Just been watching The Great British Weather on the BBC and felt I really should express the rage it caused me in the most public way I know how. (Hence this post...)

They seemed to assume that because I was British I wanted it to be hot and sunny. And then proceeded to tell me about all the places in the world where it is uncomfortably hot and how the sun is dangerous. I already knew that, which why I don't want it to be hot and sunny.

I already knew that it used to be fashionable to be pale, but that changed when the working classes moved from the fields to the factories. They failed to explain why so many people find it desirable to be tanned. I did learn that 59% of people in Liverpool use fake tan 5 times a year (or was it a month, I forget).

I really don't understand the appeal of heat. It just makes it difficult or uncomfortable to do simple tasks, like get where you are going, or cut the grass, or sleep. And I don't understand people's desire for tanned skin. I once knew a perfectly normal woman who was worrying about getting some fake tan before she went on holiday, with the justification,

"I can't possibly go sunbathing if I am all pale."

In other news, I had a productive day on Sunday. I did some gardening, and did all the usual things like make meals. I had a potter round the park with the family where I got to watch a few overs of cricket. Not only that, but I baked scones. The circle ones are regular scones with sultanas. The triangle ones are cheese. A jot of mustard makes them extra special.