Food, glorious food... done my way. Pretence of perfection

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Vongolle a la Nazca with tiger prawns and scallops

I cooked the vongolle in white wine, finely chopped onion, garlic and olive oil for a few minutes. They all opened up, it was going to be my day! ;-)

I emptied the vongolle from the saucepan but left the juices behind and reduced them.

Meanwhile, I pan fried the tiger prawns and scallops in butter and olive oil.

To the wine reduction I added fresh oregano, fresh parsley, lime juice and a double cream. And then added the shelled vongolle to warm through.

I arranged the seafood around the bowl and served the vongolle sauce on a mound of basmati.

No pics I'm afraid. You'll just have to imagine the large smile on my face too :-D

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Cookies!!!

Recipe is here. The only difference was that I used vanilla extract rather than expresso (I don't drink coffee so buying expresso was not an option really).



Saturday, June 17, 2006

See food and eat it!

I was in the mood for some seafood today. So I went for quick, easy and sublime.



In a little butter I pan fried the scallops and tiger prawns for a couple of minutes. Then lifted them out and placed them on the buttered toast. Then into the butter I added a little olive oil and the asparagus. Near the end I added a little balsamic vinegar.

Salt and pepper and consume!

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Pork Stir fry (sans pictures)

Super hot wok, veggie (or any high flash point) oil and preperation. That's all you need for a good stir fry... well, assuming you have ingredients of course.

Having everything julienne'd (er, sliced nice and thinnly [this was done after four pints of Guinness {not recommended to extend your life }]) before hand is always a bonus. Then you just fry them in order of cooking time.

Day 1: Pork strips, baby sweet corn, spring onions, orange pepper, bamboo shoot, water chestnuts, chilli, garlic, lime juice/peel, bundles of fresh coriander and soy sauce. Served with stir fried noodles.

Day 2: Pork strips, baby sweet corn, mushrooms, spring onions, chilli, garlic, ginger, lime juice/peel, bundles of fresh coriander and soy sauce. Served on naan bread (obviously!). It had to be quick, England were about to pulverize Trinidad & Tobago... well, kinda! ;-)

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Get it all in

I was going down to London on Friday to celebrate England's first game in our inevitable sucessful World Cup. So I needed to get rid of the perishables on Thursday.


After slicing the raw chicken, I put paprika and cayenne pepper on/into it and pan fried it. I added red peppers, red onions and mushrooms. And emptied them onto baby tomatoes. Onto that went fresh parsley and (torn) fried eggs.

I sliced the chicken and added that to the mix. The concoction was then forced into pitta bread and snaffled pretty quickly.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Pork belly a la curry

Some regular viewers will remember I did a root vegetable soup not so long ago. Yesterday for those with memory problems. Today I had a pork belly joint to cook and left over soup to finish. What to do?

I rubbed Thai 7 Spice into the pork, with a little paprika and salt, and let it rest for about 20-30 minutes. Then into the oven (190c) for 70 mins.

I reheated the soup I had left, added tumeric, cumin, dried coriander and cayenne pepper. Let that cook out for about 30-40 mins and then added the juices from the pan of the resting pork and stirred.



I still have that other half for tomorrow. I think it'll be soup again tomorrow too, kinda over -bought on the veggie side!

Monday, June 05, 2006

Muscle surprise

No pic today I'm afraid, tough game of football this afternoon so I couldn't manage the stairs again after upping them twice already :-)

As I was in a dire need for food and a beverage I started by opening a bottle of Spitfire. Mmm hopy goodness :-)

Then I emptied, into a saucepan, the leftover Cornish pasty mix from yesterday. Potatoes, swede, onion and carrot. Fried that in olive oil for a min or two, then in went salt and black pepper [I under-peppered the pasty yesterday :-( ], a dried chili (whole, but split down one side) and two cloves of garlic (whole). Then boiling water to cover and a little dried oregano because it was looking at me from the cupboard.

Into the serving bowl I ripped some flat leaf parsley, and chucked in a few plump mussels. I removed the chili, and crushed some of the soup contents to thicken it a little. Then poured it over the muscles. It was surprisingly edible, it went down nearly as gratifying as the beer :-)

Cornish pasty

I've been weak recently. Ordering pizzas and buying easy food. Today I had some time, in between X-Files DVDs, so I whipped up a proper pasty.

The filling consisted of a mix of raw steak, potato, carrot, onion and swede. Seasoned with lots of salt and pepper. I laid a pile in the middle of the shortcrust pastry (store bought) and added a little butter on top. Then I folded it over and expertly crimped it, as you can no doubt see ;-)

The pastry was a little soft, you may be able to pic out a few patches. I cut a little hole in the top too, I didn't want any explosions!

40 mins at 220-230C and all was ready. The little one to the side was part of the leftovers...