Food, a subject as emotive and at times decisive as music or politics. We all like different things, that is a good way to be.
Of course, nowadays food is a huge political and health related subject, too much sugar, too much fast food, the awful concept of fine dining.
There are many to blame, not least of which is the reaction to such things as lard, butter, margarine, sugar and pies.
Not wishing to sound like an old git (though of course I am one now) but back in the day when we had these evil foods, society was doing just fine, the introduction of modern processed foods and replacing natural ingredients with chemicals and substitutes was obviously going to have a massive effect on the human biology, not surprising that people became less healthy put on huge amounts of weight even when eating a well-balanced diet. To this we simply add that with increasing reliability on machines society also became slow and lazy, leading to a generation of unhealthy people doing little, somebody said smart drugs and smart phones but stupid people.
As for the restaurants, well these have become a victim and/or haven for fine dining a truly awful concept of overpriced crap with seven different types of flavoured foam and three dribbles of sauce over a small selection of meat, fish and vegetables.
Did you know that part of the success of fast food is down to these? You see people pay a couple of hundred quid for this rubbish and then they have to go for a burger or pizza to actually satisfy their hunger, the industry was quick to realise this and grew by 40% within two years.
Food allergies and food related illness has risen as well, again hardly surprising when these restaurants and the endless cookery programmes on television tell people to undercook their meat and fish, or just serve it raw, cover it all in extra virgin oil, yeah just what people need half a cup of oil with their dinner.
Here is a tip for you: Cook you fucking food properly!
Other tips I have include make a plate of food to eat, not to look at or wonder at its artistic merit, fill your plate, fill your stomach and enjoy food.
Most of these celebrity chefs cannot cook real food and they talk endless crap, making you believe what they say is the correct way that things should be, bit like politicians. Remember that most people in a position of authority talk to make themselves look clever and well educated, to put you in the position of looking up.
Take away their money, power and authority, remove the platform they preach from and you are left with just another little person with nothing left to say.
Oh and here is another thing, they say “Flame the brandy to get rid of the alcohol and just leave the flavour”, bet you have all done that at some point, I have news for you setting fire to your booze does NOT get rid of the alcohol in fact faming any alcohol in cookery simply burns the vapour which is 25% the remainder that’s 75% is still in the food and will remain so until you eat it, this is another basic example of the crap they spout. As for your rare steak, good luck with that salmonella or e-coli, your chance of catching one of these bacteria’s in your mouth and into your body are ten times more likely, still that’s okay because you think it’s the correct way to eat it because some twat on television says its correct.
It is true that cavemen and wild animals eat raw meat, but we evolved. Didn’t we?
Finally, you know how to make mash potato I assume, boil spuds then when they cooked drain them add some milk and butter and get a masher or fork and smash them up till all the spuds are small.
Not rocket science is it? Have you seen those utter twats on telly who sieve it and blend it and then add oil and fuck knows what else to it, That you utter stuck up ponce is not mashed potato that is, apart from a mess, what normal people would call a puree or baby food.
Here are a couple of recipes I remember from my past days of cooking:
RICE PUDDING
Get a cup and fill it full of pudding rice, don’t remember what they call it but it’s not the stuff you have with your curry.
Now with a saucepan full of water, and a big spoonful of honey and then bung the rice in and cook it, till it’s over cooked.
Now while that’s cooking, get another little saucepan and chuck in a couple of big spoons of strawberry jam and a little bit of sweet cider, over a very low heat start to mix them in to a sauce consistency.
Rice done? Good so it should be a big blob of rice, now grab yourself one of those wire sieve things and place it over a big bowl or another saucepan (If you have one) and tip it out then gently flatten the top of the rice and just leave it to drain, whilst it’s draining pour your jam sauce stuff over the top and let it soak in.
When it’s gone cold turn it out onto a plate and you should have a perfect dome shape of solid rice with strawberry sauce runni9ng through it.
Finally, cut it up into whatever size portion you want and splodge on a big dollop of clotted cream and then enjoy.
RHUBARB CRUMBLE
Guess what you need to do first? Yes of course get some rhubarb peel it chop it and then bung it in a pan and boil it down. No sugar in, you need the natural flavour coz the crumble Gonna be sweet as hell.
What you need to do now is make the crumble, so get butter and flour and then do that thing where you lift it up and rub your thumbs over it till its all mixed in and looks like breadcrumbs (or crumble).
Mixed? Good stuff now add in two big spoonful’s of brown sugar and again mix it in.
Grab a Pyrex dish (Do they still make them?) well I assume you know what I mean anyway. Put the cooked rhubarb in the bottom of the dish and then sprinkle the crumble over the top. Wow really complex this isn’t it?
One more thing to do, can you guess? No don’t put in the fucking oven yet, blimey you’re keen, no we need a magic ingredient, or as I call it a mistake that turns out pretty good.
For you see when I first did this I forgot that I had put sugar in the crumble and then couldn’t find any, so what I did was to cover the top of the crumble with golden syrup.
Now put it in the oven, on a slow heat, don’t know how long work it out for yourself, but when it’s done you will have a chewy almost toffee like topping with a bit of crumble texture in the middle and then gooey rich tasting rhubarb at the bottom.
Best served hot with loads of evaporated milk poured over it.
PORK & APPLE SLICE
This is a very complex dish, what you need is an apple and some cooked pork that has been sliced and then it is wrapped in pastry.
Slice the apple into thin pieces and then fry them in butter and brandy.
Get some puff pastry, you can make it or buy it, either way roll out a nice square and then take the remainder of the butter and brandy from the frying pan and brush it on the pastry.
Now take a slice of pork and lay it on the pastry and then a slice of the apple and so on till you have a strip down the middle of the pastry.
If by chance you have any blackberries or gooseberries to hand slice them in half and sprinkle them over the top of the pork and apple and then a decent crack of black pepper. Finally fold it over like a long envelope, cover the top with some egg wash and cook it for about 20 minutes, then eat it.
SPINACH & NUT CURRY
There is a lot of crap talked about curry, somehow the brits think it should be very hot, it should not, in fact the reasons behind the fucking hot curry is that it was disguise the fact that the meat or fish was off and the veg was rotting. No, a curry should be spicy and have flavour.
Super simple this one and very tasty.
Get a bag of cashew nuts and a big pile of spinach, wash the spinach, don’t want mud on it and put to one side to dry off.
Take a big frying pan, add some butter, a pinch to personal taste of the following spices...
Turmeric, Coriander, Cumin seeds and paprika.
Put in the pan and mix over a low heat, when it looks okay throw in the nuts and when they start to make that sizzling sound tear up the spinach and just throw it in on top, put a saucepan lid over the top to keep the steam in, give it five minutes and then take off the lid, give it a quick mic and it’s done.
Serve with rice, or bung it over a jacket spud, your choice.
FRUIT CURRY
Again, get a nice big frying pan, add butter and turmeric, coriander, cumin seeds.
Also chop in two tomatoes, one smallish onion then mix it together.
A little pinch of chilli powder is nice as well and crush up a few garlic pieces.
Now to the fruit, handful of sultanas, one banana sliced obviously, a apple cubed is best shape for some reason, quarter up some apricots and throw in a few blackberries.
All you do now is cook it down, when its ready, serve with rice and chickpeas.
HONEY BREAD
I can see why people just buy bread, making it is a pain in the arse, long winded and time consuming. That said there is nothing better than the smell and taste of bread straight from the oven.
This one is pretty straight forward from what I remember.
Get yourself a bag of wholemeal flour and throw it in a big dish.
In a little dish add the following, yeast, pinch of salt, lump of butter and two big spoonful’s of honey, mix all that together, now make a hole in the middle of your flour and pour this mix in, then slowly add in water and start to mix it all together, as it gets mixed in you should be able to work out when its ready for the next boring bit which is to take the lump of dough and put it in another dish, which you should grease up with some more butter, then cover the dish with a tea towel and leave it to rise up, normally say double the size of what you put in.
While that’s going on, make yourself a cup of coffee and sit there staring at the dough saying things like “hurry the fuck up” and “this is a waste of time, I have half a big of sliced in the bread bin”.
When it looks ready, get a suitable tin to shape and then cook the bread, again grease the dish with more butter, now comes the fun bit as you get to knead the dough, or as I call it punching the fuck out of it, for about five minutes, quite therapeutic, then guess what you have to leave the damn thing again under the tea towel to rise up.
When it has put it in the tin, now before you bung it in oven, cut a small line of the dough down the middle and then drizzle some more honey in the groove.
Finally put in the oven to cook.
Eventually it will be cooked, take it out of the dish, let it cool for a few minutes then cut yourself a big wedge and spread it nice and thick with butter and eat it.
ONION & HERB PUDDING
It’s a big suet pudding but mix in a couple of chopped onions and a massive handful of mixed herbs, makes a nice change from little dumplings.
I am just going to assume you know how to make a big suet pudding!
MARATHON CAKE
Super simple idea I had when I ran out of sugar and there was no drinking chocolate around to make a chocolate sponge cake.
So, mix up a lump of butter with some eggs and flour until it looks ready. Now grab a bar of Marathon (That’s a Snickers bar to you) and cut it up into say six big chunks.
Spoon the mixture into a greased cake dish with six cupcake spaces, then in the middle of each one place a piece of the marathon bar. Then cook it, if you do it right you will have a nice little cupcake with a squishy peanut and chocolate centre.
I would write a book but nobody would take it seriously!
JUST ENJOY FOOD!!!!
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