Come on Nige, mate.

I recorded an episode of Nigel Slater’s simple foods and just watched it a minute ago.

He took a bottle of supermarket sweet chilli sauce, poured it on a baking tray, put the prawns in it, grilled it, then served it to some fisherman with some lettuce.

The look on their face was priceless. Here they had a truly superb cook, a moment on the tele and must have been expecting something original and delicious. Instead, they got a nervous breakdown on a plate.

Jesus, Nigel.

I think he’s losing the plot.

ANYWAY

I have a recipe coming soon, but I made it today and it didn’t turn out like I had it in my head.

Adjustments must be made, Mr. President.

So I’ll be back at ya soon with something funky fresh, fully vibrant and that pumps out nyum like a fire hydrant. PEACE

 

Not Quite Huevos Rancheros

I’ve been working like a total bitch recently.

I remember once I had to gravel my auntie’s front garden. Sounds easy, but her front garden probably spans the same area size as my house. I was so not used to hard work like that. I was flobbering full of lazy-induced flab – But I remember when I finished, and sat down for dinner – The food and the beer tasted better than any food or dinner I’d had before.

So it turns out that when you work hard, your spare time is much more enjoyable. The only downside I’m experiencing of this life is that now I don’t drink so much anymore, I’m getting hammered pretty easy.

This spicy little number cured my woes one special mornings, where I awoke to find that the world around me was slowly tearing into two and my ears and brain had created a canal of searing pain between them where Italian men pushed their boats down screeching opera on the topic of impending doom and sad regret.

Welcome to Hangover Cure Centrale! I’ve fused inspiration from the puelo huts of Mexico, the rivers of italy and the… Erm… Whatever they have in Switzerland. Three countries, one fantastic breakfast.

Tri Eggs.

For this you will need:

1 green pepper
1 medium sized brown onion
1 tin chopped tomatoes
Garlic
Cumin
Chilli Powder
1/4 of a courgette
Gruyere cheese  (or any other good melting cheese)
Eggs

So simple. Cut up your green pepper, courgette and half a medium onion. Your pepper should be in 1cm squares, your onion diced and your courgette sliced, baby.

Chuck the peppers and onion in a pan with some olive oil first, adding a dash of cumin and chilli powder and cook for about 6-7 minutes or until soft – adding your courgette a few minutes before the end. Then add your chopped garlic clove for another minute.

Then a tin of chopped tomatoes and cook for another 5.

Salt, pepper to taste. Pour into a bowl, make a few craters in the sauce and drop eggs into them. Smother with gruyere cheese (or whichever you like) and stick it under the grill until the eggs are cooked.

Wow wa wee wah!

PEACE

Poached chicken breast on the bone, mushroom fricassee and spaghetti of carrots with a cream tarragon sauce

Perhaps those ‘humble’ frozen-food beginnings of mine have lead to a classic case of working-class chip-on-the-shoulder (as my good friend Jim once hilariously pointed out to me, though not in the context of food). I do bloody love poshing it up sometimes, and we’ll be soon starting a series on adding a little flair to those boring classics we sludge up at home.

BUT FOR NOW…

Serves: 3

Ingredients

3 Chickens Breasts on the bone (Available from your local butcher)

6 medium sized carrots, peeled

9 stalks of asparagus (optional)

500 grams of mushrooms (best you can buy, but definitely not button)

1 shallot, peeled and chopped

Glass of white wine

Butter

750ml cream

1 ½ tbsp Fresh tarragon

½ tbsp Fresh Parsley

Pre-heat oven to 240 degrees Celsius.

Take a large pot and half-fill it with water. Place on a high heat.

Begin by cutting your carrots into long julienne. They should look a bit like this:

You can achieve this by cutting off the root and tip, then making long slices down the length of the carrot, leaving you with a thinnish rectangle. Keep doing this until you’ve done the whole carrot – Then place a few of these slices on top of each other and cut down the length again, but this time into those long ‘spaghetti-like’ strands.

Hopefully you’d be able to do it better than I did. But I was having to use a bloody paring knife.

If using asparagus, drizzle with olive oil, season with salt & pepper and place on a baking tray. Cook in the oven for 10 minutes. When done, turn the oven down to its lowest heat and keep them warm inside.

Place your chicken breasts in the pot of water as you see below. For some extra flavour I crumbled a small amount of chicken-stock cube into the water along with a very small amount of herbs that I had lying around. Bring back to the boil, then quickly reduce the heat to a simmer. Leave it cooking like this for ten minutes, turning once, then turn off the heat entirely and allow it to sit in the hot water.

Meanwhile, half or quarter your mushrooms (depending on the size) and melt 2tbsps of butter in a large pan. Add your shallot and sauté until softened, then add your mushrooms and cook until they begin to brown.

Cover your pan with its lid and cook for another 3 – 5 minutes until the mushrooms are tender. Then add your glass of wine and cook uncovered until the mushrooms have absorbed the liquid. Stir in your chopped parsley.

Remove from the pan, place in a dish and put in the oven on its lowest setting to keep warm. BUT KEEP THE PAN! We’re going to use all the fantastic flavour that’s sitting at the bottom of it.

Place your carrots in a pot of boiling water and bring back to the boil. Cook for 4-5 minutes and taste. Remove from the heat.

Finely chop your tarragon, and on a medium-high heat – pour your cream into the same pan you cooked the mushrooms in and stir in the tarragon.

To plate:

Remove your asparagus and lay them on the plate. Remove the chicken from the pot and place on top. Spoon your mushrooms on the side, and lay the carrots on the other side. Season your chicken with salt & pepper and pour over the warm cream and tarragon sauce.

Word…

What’s up foolz!?

Picture the setting: In the deep south-east suburbs of London, where grey and concrete nullify the creativity of the mind, I would leave school and return to my Auntie’s house where I would wait until my Mum finished work to pick me up.

And then home we went.

With both parents drudging out the 9 to 5, dinner would be a real beaut of turkey burgers from the freezer, chips from the freezer and Heinz baked beans from the damp cupboard.

(We had a lot of damp).

So I’d love to get all Nigel Slater here and talk about the food education my family gave me, or the wondrous recipes that have been handed down from generation to generation, but that wouldn’t really be the truth.

We were part of the generation that TV cooking and cookbooks have been marketed towards for the past 10 years. See: 15 Minute meals! Quickeats! Speed-Food! How to shat out your dinner on the run!

Yeah, we all have a lot less time these days. Mostly because when we get in from work we don’t want to make dinner for an hour and risk missing the start of that TV programme.

For me, it’s not about getting back in the kitchen for 15 minute meals, it’s about getting back in the kitchen and staying put. Learning to love it. Letting it become your way of winding-down. Learning just how creative you can be and how rewarding that is.

Cooking, food… They’re not just a necessity, or a need.

They’re 2coulis for that.

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