Crap Chef

Fried the tortillas. Yummy.

Mexican Night We were craving mexican food, and I wanted to try something new.  That's some ancho chiles that have soaked for two hours.  The water left over is fantastic, add a bit of it to black beans while they are cooking. It's almost chocolaty. Pico de gallo.  Tomato, onion, cilantro, lime juice, salt.  Let it sit in the fridge for a couple of hours. Easy guacamole.  Add some minced avocado to the pico de gallo.  Stick it in the fridge with cling film pressed down onto the surface, that way it won't brown. This is a sauce I made to go with the ground beef.  The ancho chiles that had been soaked, with a little bit of the water.  Garlic, salt, whole cumin, cinnamon, paprika, chiles.  Blend it all into a paste.  Brown the beef, add that sauce and diced tomato.  Cook for a bit, then add a can of tomato puree and cook it down. I made corn tortillas.  Pretty simple.  Mix the dough, ...

We used to go to a place in Buenos Aires called Sudestada.  An oasis of asian food in sea of empanadas.  It was great, until they changed their chef and then it went downhill.  But they used to do a dish with fat-backed pork in a spicy sweet sauce, with a sauteed vegetable that I think was morning-glory. Matt wanted me to try and recreate it. I got some panceta, and some pork ribs as well, which I had the butcher cut up into 2cm chunks.  That's some of the panceta above.  Panceta is just the spanish word for pork belly.  Look at all that lovely fat.  Is there anything in the world as fantastic as pork fat? I seared the panceta in tiny bit of oil, then threw it in a pot with the rib sections.  I added garlic, ginger, tamarind, soy sauce, mirin, nam-plaa, chilis, 2 cloves and some cinnamon, some pepper and salt and enough water to cover everything. Then it simmered for 3 hours.  Great smell. I wanted to do some si...

I wanted something quick and easy that used some leftovers, so spanish tortillas it is. Brown some potatoes and mushrooms in a little bit of oil. When the spuds are cooked but not brown, spoon them out and drain most of the oil. Put the veggies back in the pan. Crack in four eggs and cook until done. One each for me and Vero, one with chorizo and one without. Some pan con tomate on the side. 5 minutes. Some steamed pork dumplings for me... And some pan-fried ones for Vero. Pork, cilantro, garlic, a little bit of nam-pla and some spring onions. The mackerel at La Boqueria looked nice. I wanted to do something with that. This is a couple of filets cooked in the pan with dill, paprika and garlic. Then the fish is taken out and the pasta tossed in the oil. The dill flavour is so good. And some mackerel done in the style of pickled herring. I fileted the fish then pressed it into a mixture of cider vinegar, bay leaves, dill, crushed peppercorns, garlic and a little whole c...

Today is Tuesday, but I did all this stuff yesterday.  We got back from England last week.  We ate lots of good stuff that I hadn't had for ages.  Sharp cheddar, fish and chips, toad in the hole, sausages, shepherds pie, steak and ale pie, scotch eggs and pork pie, for example! I wanted to try my hand at pork pie.  A bit beyond my usual stuff, and outside of my cooking comfort zone (which is, I suppose, asian).  Anyway, this is the saga of yesterday. First, I boiled some water with a carrot, an onion, sage, thyme and garlic. Then I threw in some pigs trotters and boiled for three hours. I took a kilo of pork shoulder and chopped it up into little bitty pieces.  Did the same with some bacon, and mixed them together with some sage, thyme, garlic, a clove and some bay leaves. I melted 200 grams of lard in the same amount of water, then added flour to make a dough. I don't have a deep dish to make the traditional shape of a pork pie, so this shallower...

Bonus Crap Chef! Tonight, chicken curry.  It's not complicated but it's time consuming. First, chop up an onion and brown it in a generous amount of oil.  After a bit, add some garlic (about 6 cloves), some fresh chopped ginger and some chili.  Cook them for a couple of minutes on high.   Grind up the following - 1 tablespoon of cumin seeds, 1 tablespoon of cardamom seeds, 1 tablespoon of coriander seeds, a stick of cinnamon, turmeric and some star anise if you have it (I didn't). Throw that mix in the pot, turn the heat way down and cook for a bit.  Be careful not to burn it.  When it's all brown and gooey, put it in blender with a couple fingers of water and whizz it until it's smoooooth. Throw it back in the pot and add a can of plain tomato sauce, or some fresh tomatoes chopped without the skin.  I was feeling lazy, so this is from a can.  Turn the heat up to medium and cook it for a half hour or so, stirring once in a while to make sure ...

Today I thought I'd try my hand at spring rolls/egg rolls/ arolloditos de primavera. Chopped up some bean sprouts, carrots, spring onions, basil, lettuce.  Wanted to put in some cilantro, but like usual, the little cilantro that I had left had gone off.  Those are Vero's hands by the way, not mine. Roll up the veggies in the pastry.  I bought the pastry this morning in a chinese supermarket.  Try to make it tight.  My first attempt was a loose and saggy disaster.  I'd looked for some shrimp this morning in La Boqueria to put in them, but the only shrimp they had were waayyyy to big. Fry for a couple of minutes until golden brown (more than this).  We had ours with some rice, sriracha sauce and some soy sauce.  They came out quite well, gave me lots of ideas for the future.  And it's quite light for the summer.

Tonight's dinner, General Tso's chicken.  I had planned to do some fried and breaded boquerones with a garlic aioli, and some kind of meaty mushroom as a side, but the fish in La Boqueria looked a bit old and tired, so I had to come up with something else on the fly.  It's always telling when they try to sell you fish there and it's already been cleaned.  Seems to me that they're trying to get rid of old stock.  I asked to see the whole fish that hadn't been cleaned and they were definitely past their sell date.  Monday, it's not a great day for fish there.  Anyway. Boil rice.  That's easy.  For the sauce, it's ginger, garlic, white wine vinegar, red bell pepper, chili, spring onion.  Chop them all up and mix them together. Cut up a chicken breast into bite-sized pieces.  Dredge them in a slurry of corn starch and egg.  Fry them in hot oil in the wok. When they're golden brown, take them out to drain on some paper towels.  Thr...