Feeling a bit listless at the moment. Yes, it probably is the fact that it's almost three am, but there you go.
So anyway, these last couple of days I've had a bit of an experimental thing going on in the kitchen. Yesterday I made a thai marinade and did chicken kebabs, today I found a recipe which looks a bit yicky, but is apparently one of Japan's favourite dishes which I realised I only need ketchup and a big sieve before I can attempt it.
Y'see, I'm quite proud of my collection of herbs and spices. There's a whole cupboard given over to them - turmeric, basil, chives, lemon grass, fish sauce, three different kinds of oil, two different types of chilli, worcester sauce, tons of garlic...you name it, it's in there.
The revelation I've had, though, is to watch a cookery programme and to be able to say "Oh, that looks easy, I'll knock that up tomorrow" - and not just about Spag Bol, or roast chicken or something, we're talking teriyaki or thai fishcakes or green curry paste, or that Japanese favourite I'm going to try out tomorrow - Chicken Katsu Curry.
No, there's no cat in it. It's basically chicken nuggets served with sticky rice and a sweet curry sauce. How many people would never eat that outside of a restaurant?
As I mentioned Spag Bol, I'd just like to point out that a top italian TV chef once made my exact Spag Bol recipe on TV. To be honest, it really couldn't be easier though:
Dry fry (no oil in the frying pan) loads of good mince, drain off the fat, add a tin of tomatoes, fresh garlic, basil and fresh ground black pepper (white pepper is shit, avoid it) and leave it to reduce to a thick sauce. I like shoving a big dollop of tomato paste in (not ketchup) after it's stopped cooking. Thickens the sauce a treat and gives it a really fresh taste. Knocks the crap out of anything I've had out of a jar and you only have one pan to wash up. Now, anyone can do that, right?
Well, I reckon anyone can make any of the stuff I've been cooking lately. But for some reason, people have been going nuts about it. For example, when Charlie completed her Aromatherapy course, they decided to have a little party on their last day, so everyone had to bring some food in. I decided to provide pizzas and garlic bread. Only thing was that there were more vegetarians than meat eaters, so instead of buying a few slives of pepperoni and shoving it on some chopped up french bread with ketchup and cheese, I got a green and yellow pepper, chopped them up all tiny, shoved them on some halved part-baked finger rolls with garlic, spring onion, cherry tomatoes and olive oil. Fair enough, piece of piss, knocked twenty of them out in 45 minutes, job done.
Charlie came home that night with a page full of requests for more! Well chuffed, me.
The kebabs yesterday - thai marinade (coconut milk, lemongrass, garlic, fish sauce), tons of chicken soaking it up for a couple of hours, mushrooms, pineapple, chunks of green pepper, skewer the lot, stick it in the oven, burn yourself removing red hot metal skewers from said oven, get mega compliments and a demand for a load more to take to friends house tomorrow night!
Well, I reckon anyone can do that, but they keep telling me no-one would bother. But it's piss easy, I say. Yeah, for you who's got the knack, they say. Well, everyone goes hungry if I don't, I say. Ah shuddup, you know you're a good cook, they say. Shucks, I say.
And all this because we're on a diet.
