No, it’s not a new, fancy style of dressing for your summer salads. It’s not a gourmet delight and it’s not a high point in my culinary development. It breaks all the rules of physics in that there is three times more ingredients go into the dish than there are in the end result. Yes, it’s my Thrice Beaten Mayonnaise.
I have a conundrum. My problem is literary rather than culinary. I caused today’s difficulty when I wrote about The Man Who Wasn’t There. It was pretty straightforward writing about something that didn’t happen and somebody who wasn’t there to see it not occur. All that was easy enough. My issues started when I was handed this note by my friend who may, or may not, have made his second trip home from Australia since Christmas.
A few posts ago, I mentioned that I would give you the background to my collection of beautiful Castle brand copper saucepans. They are no longer made and now have a scarcity value. Apart from their obvious brass handled beauty, they are excellent saucepans. Recently, the Wife’s uncle Don mentioned that he had a box of Castle brand pots languishing under the stairs. He offered them to me. With what, on reflection, was pretty blunt acceptance, I managed to get my greedy hands on the collection.
The better part of the ingredients. A good bag-full of fresh Dublin Bay Prawns
It seems like every day somebody asks me “How do you make prawn stock, Conor?” or “I was thinking of making some prawn stock, how would you do it?” Given that I am a pretty average type of guy, I know that you too must be harassed on a regular basis with prawn stock conundrums. So I am going to tell you how to do it.
This is part 3 in my ‘Meat Reheat’ series where I take older posts and try to improve my efforts. In this case, it is not hard to do better than I did on my first sausage making fiasco.
I have been experimenting with slow cooking. There are many benefits. I get time on my own in the kitchen and if I’m in the kitchen, I am working, right? If things go wrong, I can always do something quick to fill a gap in the menu and bluff my way out of it. If I get it right, the food can taste delicious. Really delicious. The big bonus for us slow cookers has to be financial. Cheaper cuts of meat and things like sausages produce the very best slow cooking results. As the economic devastation continues here in Ireland, such slow cooking must be gathering a following…
I am suspicious of you. I believe that you are not always totally honest with me. Look me in the eye (Imagine I am there with you.) and tell me that you are always frank with others and with yourself. You are starting to feel a little awkward, aren’t you? We both know the truth. All those “Oooh, I invented it myself” recipes, the unhurried preparation and fun time had with loved ones while you turn out unhurried, perfect plates of food. I think not. I have seen what goes on. I know the realities of the domestic kitchen.
But, I am a nice person. I don’t want to shatter your carefully constructed fallacy filled world so I am letting you choose the post you want. Delusional kitchen happiness follows in purple (as it would be). Reality is in black (as it usually is).
There really is very little to it. Just make the dough, prepare the tomato sauce, get the toppings together, get the oven up to temperature, assemble the pizza, cook and serve, right?
Wrong. Oh so very, very, very, very wrong. If you want a quick pizza ring Domino’s. If you want the best pizza you have ever tasted, read on my friends, read on. The down-side is that preparing pizza for two is a lot of work for one. Particularly when I am the one doing the working.
The Irish Food Bloggers Association asked for recipes to appear in their ‘Something for the weekend’ series. I did a short version of this post for the purpose. Here’s the full story.
The Wicklow Hunter is a passionate man. This year, he has taken to growing vegetables and herbs in his expansive spread in the Garden of Ireland. He does not do things by half. So his first crop of vegetables has started to come into season over the past few weeks. Like so many enthusiasts before him, he is discovering that growing the vegetables can be easier than giving them away. In truth, so many urbanites prefer their salad to come in a bag and their vegetables to come out of the freezer. Research confirms that is what we prefer.
There are plenty of topics on which I flip and I flop.
I ask the question because I need something to hang this on. My piece of tuna is the shape (and nearly the size) of a baby grand. However, the answer does not lie there. I have been faffing around with this post for over a month now. I have procrastinated, prevaricated and generally beaten about the bush. It is not within me to just cook some food, photograph it and post it. I have to say something. The zing in this thing was the salsa verde. I followed a Jamie Oliver recipe pretty closely and it turned out very well. Then it would, would it not? He is one of the chefs who really is inventive and thoughtful. More than I can say about me and my bush beating. I will fill you in on the piano bit later.
