Category Archives: Food

Mr Fussy's Marmalade

Chinese Hoi Sin Chicken Wrap

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I’ll apologise now for how slack I’ve been with updating this. The truth is I’ve been quite busy having a creative block, and trying to come up with features for a radio show I’m presenting. I seem to work better under pressure because I’ve known about the show for months, and a week before the first one, the ideas started and just kept coming.
Maybe I should give myself deadlines for other things that are very close. I can’t immediately think what though. Answers on a postcard please.

So anyway, a week or so ago, bored, browsing Tescos. I had an idea I’d cook something involving duck (instead of chicken) for a change. I was disappointed to see Tescos don’t sell it. Unless it’s not with the beef, pork, chicken, etc for some reason, they don’t seem to do it.

As I wandered the aisles aimlessly, I spotted something similar to the fajitas I’d done before, but described as “Chinese”. For some obvious reason, anything oriental always grabs my attention.
It was pretty much tortillas as before, but involved a few ingredients I’d never eaten before. To my knowledge, I’ve never had “Hoi Sin Sauce”.
And I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a spring onion before either.

It’s a kit of tortillas and sauce and you add your own spring onions, cucumber and chicken.
I did alright with the cucumber, but if truth be told, I couldn’t really think what spring onions looked like.
I browsed the entire vegetable and salad section hoping for something to jump out at me.

Nothing did.

So I called my sister and asked her what spring onions looked like. I believe she described them as “little onions with long stems”. I wandered a bit more, then finally gave in and asked a guy putting out apples if they had any spring onions. No.

I had something boring for tea that night. Oven chips or something most likely.

Several days later, I got the spring onions (or “salad onions” as they’re actually described in Tescos for some reason). Went home and followed the recipe on the packet.

Now, as I said I’ve been busy. I intended to write that up when I had it a week or so ago, but never did.
So – tonight I did this same meal for a second time. Partly to refresh my memory, and partly because it’s pretty quick and I didn’t go to Tescos til gone 20.30, so wasn’t cooking til gone 21:00.

So this meal’s ingredients (what it says on the Uncle Ben’s packet):
– Uncle Ben’s Wraps – Chinese Hoi Sin Meal Kit (tortillas, hoi sin sauce, and “oriental spice blend”
– Chicken – about 200g of skinless breast
– 1/4 cucumber
– 2 spring onions

I’ve cut the ingredients in (roughly) half, as it’s meant to serve 4. The first time I cooked this I bought 1/2 cucumber, and it was horrible, so I didn’t bother when I did it tonight. Other than that, I did the same tonight as a week or so ago.

So, back to my trusty wok, chicken cut into strips and fried. I’m fine at that. If anything, I overcook it a bit, but it tastes fine to me and nobody else is desperate enough to need me to cook for them.

That done, you add the “oriental spice blend”. This is a very odd looking thing. It’s a type of powder that looks like a sand and gravel mix that a tiny builder from a model village might use.
It smells bizarre. Not nice at all.
Not to be put off by this, I added it to the chicken and stirred it around.
For those of you wondering, the ingredients listed for the “spice blend” are:
anise seeds, fennel seeds, cinnamon, pepper, clove, chilli powder, ginger, sesame seeds, garlic powder, sugar, tamarind powder, salt, and plain caramel.

While this is finishing cooking, I set about cutting up the spring onions. The instructions on the Uncle Ben’s Wraps say: “slice the spring onion into thin sticks and place into serving bowls”. I guessed I had to wash the spring onions first, but after that I had a slight issue.

Which bit of a spring onion do you eat? The bulby/oniony bit, or the green bit?

I gave it a sniff at either end, and both ends smell like onion. I guess that’s to be expected.
I had a look on the photo on the box, but you can see a lot more cucumber than onion. I couldn’t see much white – mostly green vegetable-wise, on the box.
As it was a 50/50 shot, I decided on the green leafy bits. After all, they tell you to eat your “greens”.

That done, the instructions tell you to “remove the tortillas, cover with cling film and heat on full power for 1 minute”. Nice and easy that.

Tortillas do intrigue me, as they’re not easily breakable. After warming them, you can fold them around, scrunch them up, and then straighten them back out again.
They should make shirts and trousers out of tortillas. You wouldn’t have to iron them, just put them in the microwave to warm them through, then put them on. Hey presto – instantly to the shape you want them.

I removed them from the microwave and instantly burnt myself.
Maybe trousers made from tortillas aren’t such a good idea after all.

I opened the sauce, and turned off the heat on the chicken and “spice blend”.
It’s just a like a big sandwich from here on. Spoon in some Hoi Sin sauce, spring onion, chicken, roll up, eat.

The first mouthful was ruined the first time I did this by the awful cold cucumber.
I removed the rest from the first one and binned the rest. Tonight when I cooked this, I didn’t buy cucumber at all. Maybe if I cooked the cucumber with the rest it might be nicer.

Spring onion is quite nice though. I’m not saying I’d want to eat it on its own, but it doesn’t taste too bad with something.

The oriental spice blend tastes like nothing I’ve had before.
When it’s cooking it smells like you’ve just set fire to something.
Before it’s cooked it smells bizarrely strong.
After its been cooked and coated all over chicken though, it doesn’t seem so over-the-top. Weird.

The Hoi Sin sauce smells a bit tomato-ey, looks a bit tomato-ey, and according to the ingredients is made of mostly…tomatoes, plum juice, soya, soy sauce, sugar and vinegar.

Altogether, its not bad. Unusually I don’t have to say “but I might change my mind when I have it again”, because I did have it again. Tonight. And it was still nice.
I’m really not sure if it’s good for me at all, as the only vegetables my version of it contains is a couple of small spring onions.
It’s probably healthier than oven chips and and baked beans though.

Mr Fussy's Marmalade

non-oriental chicken stir fry + couscous

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This week, I really did start with the best intentions. I went shopping Monday, looking for new things to try.
I picked up an alternative to the fajitas I had success with before – which uses soy sauce and attempts to be more of an oriental-style affair. However, that particular “kit” called for spring onions, and after trawling Tescos up and down, and I had called my sister and asked her what spring onions looked like (I didn’t really know), and then asked a member of Tescos staff, I was informed they didn’t have any.
So I thought I’d keep with the oriental theme, and try and create something involving duck. Tescos didn’t have any of that either.

I bought the soy sauce, and some chicken breasts anyway – and assumed I’d put more effort in later in the week.

But then Tuesday my new computer arrived. It’s an iMac, and I’ve not really got a clue how to use a Mac. I work in IT support on exclusively Windows machines, fancied an upgrade to my computer at home, and I think Vista is a pile of bloated marketing BS that is harder/slower to use for no good reason. So I thought I’d see how the other side live and try a Mac instead. iThink it’s alright, but iDon’t really have a clue how to do what iWould consider basic things on a Windows machine. iGuess I’ll pick it up.

So yes – tonight iWas playing with my iMac til gone 9pm, and thought iHad better cook something for dinner. At that sort of time, the options if you want to be eating sooner rather than later are pretty slim.

I opted for a stir fry, as it would give me a chance to try a different sauce I bought in a jar the other day. And after my sister heard about me being indifferent towards rice, she had suggested I try couscous instead. So it’d give me a chance to have this.

So used tonight for this:
1. Knorr Chicken Tonight sauce – Spanish Chicken variety, with tomatoes, peppers, olive oil and thyme
2. about 250g of skinless chicken breast
3. Crazy Jack’s organic wholegrain couscous

I’m fine with heating oil then adding strips of chicken now. However, given the late night, I couldn’t really be arsed to wait for the oil to heat up, nor cook it properly. It was probably a bit badly cooked tonight.

The sauce is unusual in that it says to “stir in the sauce, cover and simmer for 20 minutes”. This seems an extremely long time considering the oriental version of the same sauce (with half the same ingredients), cooks in 10 minutes.
I gave it 3-4 mins and started on the couscous.

Now couscous seems unusual.
The instructions say “boil water in a wide bottomed pan. Remove from heat and add couscous. Cover and leave for 5 to 7 minutes. Add a knob of buter and fluff up with a fork”.
I boiled the water in the kettle cause its quicker, added it to the pan, then attempted to add couscous, which all stuck to the inside of the cup I was using for measuring, as I’d just had hot water in it. It would work better the other way around if I do it again.
A bit of rinsing the cup with boiling water to remove it from the cup, I put it all in the saucepan and put it back on the hob.
I re-read the instructions and realised this is apparently a mistake on my part.
Is that right? Boil water, add couscous and leave for 5-7minutes? It was closer 5 than 7 it has to be said. I don’t really see its doing anything apart from getting wet.

Anyway I gave the sauce about 10-12mins tops, and plated the lot.
Couscous is a different taste, but I’m not rating it so far. I could/would eat it if someone cooked it for me, but just like the rice – why I would bother on my own is beyond me.

Another point my sister had used while selling the benefits of couscous to me was that it didn’t need to get a sieve dirty, like you do with rice. While this is true, it still needs a saucepan, apparently with lid, plus a fork to “fluff” the couscous, and something to remove it from the pan. There seemed to be some water left in the bottom of the pan (probably due to me not leaving it long enough), so something with holes in it would probably have helped to remove it – maybe.. a sieve.

Overall I’m not impressed. I ate the chicken, some of the sauce, a bit of couscous and left the rest. However, I think this post shouldn’t be considered too accurate given I didn’t cook most of it properly, and I was cooking while already tired, fed up, etc, plus disappointed with myself for not eating properly this week. This evening I’m also fed up of people banging on my door or ringing my doorbell every 30 f*kin seconds trick-or-treating.
I may try this again another night with a slightly more positive pre-cooking outlook.

Mr Fussy's Marmalade

Young’s Mediterranean Fish Bake

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A load of Pollocks.

It’s been a while since I actually cooked anything on here, I know.
Basically it’s because last Monday I picked up a Nintendo Wii from Virgin Megastore (or whatever they’re called now.. zazzi, vazzi, something like that) and I’ve spent the best part of the last week pulling muscles getting overly enthusiastic at Wii Sports Boxing, shooting angry villagers in Resident Evil 4, and saving lives of fictional characters in Trauma Center: Second Opinion. I’ve never been much of a gamer, but the motion detection, angle detection, wirelessness..etc of it all appeals to me. Plus it’s a lot cheaper than an xbox360/ps3, and really tiny. About the size of a dvd/cd writer in a standard pc. Or for you non-geeks out there – imagine three standard-sized dvd cases on top of each other.

A friend came over Sunday night to have a go with one for the first time, and he’s a guy very much into his gaming. He seems to have had every console created at some point of another (and still has most of them littered around).
But put him in front of a Wii and he’s just as confused as the rest of the world.
You’ll be playing baseball and he asks questions like “which button do you press to throw the ball?”. Answer: none – just throw the remote as if it were a ball (but don’t let go of it).
Having spent years getting my ass kicked at every game he had, its interesting to see him confused at what I think is a much easier system than trying to remember combinations of buttons. It’s also amusing to hear him complain about how a kind of wireless mouse pointer should really be a D-pad. Whatever a D-pad is.

Anyway, back to food.

As mentioned – I’ve planned nothing in the past week, so tonight would have been another pie and chips. However, I stopped off for some toilet roll in Tescos on my way home on Monday, and grabbed some food products at the same time. Biscuits, croissants, some frozen oven chips, and I was trying to think what to have for tea, when I happened upon the frozen chicken/beef/fish aisle.

I’ve never been sure I like fish. For years I definitely didn’t like fish. The look, the fact that its about the only meat sold with the eyes still in it, the smell – there was something about it I just didn’t like.
Even as far as fish-fingers – I didn’t really like them. I ate them as a very young child apparently, but somewhen in between primary school and 18 years old, I had decided I didn’t like fish of any type.
I used to eat a lot of fish cakes at my parents’ house. But fish-cakes being fish-cakes, there’s not a lot of anything in them. Certainly not much fish – they’re mostly potato and batter/breadcrumbs. That said, I don’t really like mashed potato on its own either.

I have distant memories from when I was very young, of my gran on my mum’s side cooking some sort of fish that smelt absolutely revolting. Something a weird yellowy colour that may have put me off for years to come.

Anyway, at some point between leaving college and now, I discovered these Birds Eye cod fillet things – essentially pieces of cod in batter. Like a kind of adult-version of fish fingers. Having decided I quite like them again after all, I started about having things with them. The obvious choice is chips. Then I added baked beans.
I later switched from chips to new potatoes, then tried to find some sort of sauce to go with it. Brown sauce didn’t work, nor barbeque. Gravy just seems like it would be wrong.
I looked around Tescos some weeks ago to try and find something to go with it. There is a big collection of Schwartz sauces that go with fish. However, they’re all in non-resealable packets and serve 4-6. Unless I starve myself for a couple of days first, that seems a bit of a waste to me.

So Monday night I picked up something in Tescos that already has sauce with it. How’s that for a stroke of genius.
So product for dinner tonight is: Young’s Mediterranean Fish Bake.

It is described on the box as “wild Alaskan pollock fillets in a tangy mediterranean sauce made with red peppers and creme fraiche, topped with a sprinkling of cheddar cheese”. It’s also got tomatoes in it.
I’ve never heard of a fish called a “pollock” before, and on the back it says “Alaskan Pollock is from the same family of fish as cod. It’s white flesh has a firm, smooth texture and a delicate, slightly sweet flavour.”
I’ve never thought of fish as having families before – just referred to them all as “fish”. I guess that particular family is cashing in on the life insurance payout now anyway.

It doesn’t say how many it serves. My sister pointed out to me recently that you can work this out, because on it somewhere it will say “a quarter of a pack contains” or “half a pack contains” however much salt, fat, etc, and this is frequently used to show one person’s share.
I don’t watch these markers on food products a lot, but it is slightly worrying that half a pack contains 21.7% of my daily salt intake. Although I suppose if the marjority of an evening meal is only 21.7%, then that’s not so bad as long as I’m not eating 6 meals a day.

So on with the cooking.
The first negative point has to be the overall cooking time. 55mins in the oven. It’s a slow one. I was originally going to have this for dinner last night but I was playing Resident Evil 4 til gone 9, and with Charlie Brooker’s screenwipe on the tv at 10pm, I had to cook something in less time. And finish eating it too – so I don’t spray it across the screen laughing.
While this might be down to my bad planning last night, I’m normally home around 6pm. By the time you’ve got the oven hot and cooked the thing, it’s still nearly 7.30 allowing for nobody else in my shared house using the kitchen (which I was unusually lucky with, tonight), and me actually starting cooking dinner the second I walk through the door. Because of this, I doubt it’ll be a common meal. I’m rarely that well organised.

As far as cooking goes – it seems very odd. It comes in a container plastic, with a plastic “film” lid, much like a microwavable product might. However, it’s done in the oven. Some housemates who know my cooking ability isn’t amazing, mentioned I should remove this film lid, but according to the instructions from Young’s – it stays on for the first 35mins of cooking. It is then removed.
I followed it all to the letter, and as I had an hour, the one upside is I had plenty of time to wash and boil some new potatoes to go with it.

I was slightly concerned when I checked on the progress of the thing. While I was waiting for my dinner to cook, I was busy trying to stop the possessed monks in the castle getting to Ashley (Resident Evil), and I paused to go and check about 10-15mins before it should have been ready. It had gone a bit burnt down one side, but I didn’t want to remove it then in case the exterior looked like a sunbed addict, while the interior was as white as – well..me.
I gave it 5-8mins (give or take a few) and removed it.

Plated with potatoes, and time for the tasting.
It’s surprisingly very sweet. I wasn’t really expecting that but it was quite a nice surprise.
I’d say I can taste the tomatoes and the cheese. I can’t get over how sweet it is though, for something with no sugar, or e-numbers or anything.
I tried some of the fish alone, and I wouldn’t say it tasted exactly like cod, but the similarity is there. Quite bland, which I guess is why you need the very strong sweet sauce with it.
It’s quite nice.
It’s probably the nicest thing that I’ve cooked with a the film lid still on it.
It’s not something I’d eat every day even if it cooked in 20minutes, but was an interesting experience.

I ignored my half-pack-being-one-person theory and ate about three quarters of it, plus some potatoes. The last step of the instructions on the box says “portion as required” anyway. Clearly its hard to cut it in half before cooking, and you can’t refreeze it so they say – so it would have gone to waste otherwise.

As normal, I’m not selling myself out and saying I’ll eat it every week – or even that I like it enough to eat it every six months. If I commit myself, I’d likely get bored of it like most other things. My interest in the Oriental stir-fry has been fading lately due to overuse. I wish I could say the same about the other oriental things I saw chatting by Trenchard Street car park this afternoon. I don’t think my interest in them will ever subside.

Mr Fussy's Marmalade

Takeaway – Pieminister

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Ok, so I’ve mentioned before I like pie and chips. A friend of one of my housemates works in a shop in St. Nicholas Street Market in Bristol called “Pieminister” which oddly enough, sells pies.
Because the guy who works there spends a lot of time round my house, I happened to hear of the place, and apparently its all fresh ingredients (meat and vegetables), free range, locally sourced, etc.
Anyway – I took lunch today, wasted 55mins arsing about, bought a sausage roll from Parsons and ate that, then I was passing St Nicholas Street Market and remembered Pieminister, so thought I’d go and check it out. And maybe buy something. A double fat-bastard lunch, as it were.

I was slightly concerned at the menu when I got there.
Me being a bit fussy about my food was expecting to see some basic pie favourites – chicken and vegetable, etc, but they were surprisingly extravagant.
Kidneys, asparagus, spinach, sweet potato. There were plenty of things putting me off their pies – plenty of things I might not like.

I decided on the “Chicken of Aragon” pie.
It is described as “free range british chicken, smoky bacon, roast garlic, vermouth and fresh tarragon in lovely pastry”.
I’ve not the slightest clue what vermouth or tarragon taste like. Isn’t vermouth used in cocktails?

I asked about how long it took for a pie when I got there, and was disappointed to hear they were cooked as ordered – in order to make sure they weren’t all dry and crap like most takeaway food generally is. As I only had 5 mins left of my lunch, I wouldn’t have time to wait. As luck would have it, they had just cooked a load of Chicken of Aragon pies and somehow had wound up with one left over.
I purchased that one, declined mashed potato, gravy, mushy peas, and whatever other sides they had, purely because I was in a bit of a rush.

I ate it while walking to my next place of business, and enjoyed it. I wouldn’t say I noticed the garlic in it, which is a definite good thing – and the chunks of chicken were very nice. It did taste very fresh and as you know – my tastebuds aren’t really acquainted with such cuisine, having grown up on a diet of jam sandwiches and luncheon meat. That said, the pastry was superb.
Someone who enjoys freshly cooked food made properly will probably enjoy it more than I did, but I certainly didn’t dislike it. It will require further visits in the future when I have more time to sit down and enjoy it, and maybe try some of the rest of their range.

I was under the impression they only had one shop in Stokes Croft. Not having been wandering through St Nicholas Street Market in a long time, I wouldn’t have noticed that one if it weren’t for a guy working there frequenting my house. Turns out they’re doing better than that though – and they’ve expanded from Bristol – with lots of them now all over the country. So if you happen to be reading this in Oxford for some reason (or any of their other locations) – go check out Pieminister.

See www.pieminister.co.uk for more details. Some vegetarian options are available.

Mr Fussy's Marmalade

Squash

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Ok – this is slightly cheating as I only had a very small amont, and I didn’t even cook it.
But it is a great example of trying something and changing your mind about liking it.

I took a bit from the frying pan as a housemate’s girlfriend was cooking some and invited me to try some. The first bit I would say almost tasted like a cross between potato and parsnip. I like both of these things, so that should be good. Wasn’t sure about it though really.
I got on with my usual Monday night cooking-something-easy-because-I-can’t-be-arsed-after-work thing. Chicken pie and chips. Except I didn’t really have enough oven chips so I rummaged through the freezer and found some Mccain Smiles.

There’s never enough gravy in the pie for all of this, so I made up some extra Bisto to go with it.
By the time I’d finished cooking all this, my housemate had eaten what they’d been cooking, but had a bit of squash left over. She said I could have some with my meal, and as it was lacking a bit in vegetables (there are some in the pie though!), I took the opportunity for a second try at it.
I ate the first bit on it’s own but already it tastes a bit less like potato/parsnip and a bit more like something else. Something I didn’t really like. Regardless, I ate it with chips, and some with some pie, and ate the majority of what I took.
Might have it again at some point.

Mr Fussy's Marmalade

Sausage, barbeque sauce, new potatoes

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I feel like sausages tonight, like sausages tonight.. that one doesn’t really fit.
I was shopping this afternoon and struggling to decide what to cook tonight, when I remembered that a week or so back I’d bought a jar of “Sausages Tonight”, on the back of the success of “Chicken Tonight”.

So I went wandering Tesco’s aisles in search of sausages, and was surprised at how many different types of sausages there are. They even had some stuffed with cheese – which sound interesting.
I’ve always liked sausages in fry ups, and also sausage rolls if done well. They’re few and far between, but Parsons stores in and around Bristol do superb sausage rolls.
Sadly, I’ve never been able to cook sausages really. I tried in my old flat several times and huge great plumes of smoke resulted. I’ve since learnt this was likely because I had the oil too hot in the fryer. After the smoke experience, I tried with a deep fat fryer, with less than satisfactory results. I tried grilling them but they seemed to turn out very dry.

So, with that in mind, I browsed the sausages, and picked some ordinary pork sausages.
I considered the organic ones, but they were crazy expensive and all very small. Which is odd. I can understand why some organic things might be smaller, but sausages? It’s all random bits of meat stuffed in a skin anyway – surely organic sausages could be the same size as ‘normal’ sausages?

Strangely enough, sausages are all the same price. Tesco’s own, branded (walls, etc), organic – all seem to be priced around 2-2.50 for 300-400g. Obviously there’s “value” crap cheaper, but I make enough money to eat better these days, and I’m trying to teach myself to appreciate good food, so this is no time to get short-arms/long-pockets syndrome.

The most normal ones I could find that looked like proper sausages (“90% pork” on label), were part of the range offered by “The Black Farmer” aka Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones. These stood out, because I saw a kind-of reality show on Channel4 a while ago where he took inner city black kids and taught them about farming. He claims (or certainly used to) to be the only black farmer in the UK. Was an amusing documentary though – seeing the reactions of extremely white people in Devon, when the local black population has gone up 10-fold overnight.

So ingredients used tonight:
– Knorr “Sausages Tonight” – Ranch Barbeque sauce – with tomatoes, onion, and paprika. Also contains soy sauce, lemon juice, parsley, and a few other bits and bobs.

– The Black Farmer – premium pork sausages.
It says on the top of the (400g) packet “flavours without frontiers”. This set me off in the supermarket singing a rehashed version of “Games Without Frontiers” by Peter Gabriel to myself. “Flavours without frontiers….and without…err….fears, if looks could kill they probably will….” and so on.
Actually “if cooks could kill” would work better. With a bit of work, it could definitely be a cookery song, to go on the tv/radio advert for the sausages.

– New potatoes. Bought in the poncy bag because from the day Tesco started selling pre-packed potatoes, their loose potatoes have become almost non-existent.

So at home, in the kitchen, I go for a wok to fry these sausages in based on moderately good past experience.
Instructions on the sausages says “Heat a dessert spoon of oil in a frying pan. Cook on a medium heat for 8-10 minutes, turning regularly. Drain before serving”.
I got the potatoes on, then started heating the oil. I added some sausages, and wait.
This is taking a long time. I’m hoping thats a good thing because I’m told the reason they go black externally, but uncooked internally, is down to cooking them on too high a heat.
They seem to go brownish, so I turn them.

Sometimes its amazing what makes me laugh when I’m bored. One of the sausages seems to have kind-of ballooned in one part so its not quite as sausage-shaped as the others. The fat spitting sets it off kinda rocking back and forth like it’s moving on its own. I mention to a vegetarian housemate in the kitchen at this point how it might not be dead yet, as it’s still moving. Sadly, it stops rocking before she looks, making me look like I’m totally mad.

After a long time of cooking, turning, etc. I’m still not convinced these sausages are done. They’ve browned in some parts, but they still look whiter on the ends. I decide to cut one up and taste it to see if it’s edible. It tastes kind-of hard, but edible.
Still not convinced it’s cooked right, I give it another few mins.

Shortly after, i try again, with another sausage.
Thing is – I’m poking them with a very sharp knife. I ditch it and decide to use a normal dinner/eating-knife to see if it’s harder than I’d expect a cooked sausage to be. Still not sure if it’s cooked.
Rather than risk food poisoning, I decide to cut the sausages up into smaller pieces, as small-pieces-plus-sauce seems to work a treat with the chicken stir-fry.
I give it another few mins frying and although I’m still not convinced the sausage-bites are cooked properly, I’m bored of waiting.

“Stir in the sauce and heat through for a few minutes”.
Gives me time to drain the potatoes and put butter on them.
Only realised after I added the sauce, I missed a step listed both on the sausages and the sauce jar, where it said to drain off the excess fat before eating. It’s a bit late to remove it now i’ve added the sauce to it, so I’ll have to put up with it now.

Heated sauce for…3-4mins (not sure what the definition of “a few” is), and plated.

It’s not so bad. It’s not anything like normal HP Bbq Sauce. Probably healthier I guess. It’s not revolting, but my screwed up tastebuds are taking a long time to adjust to eating stuff that doesn’t have more E-numbers and artificial colourings than real things.
I probably poured on a bit too much sauce really as the sausages were drowning in it. I do also wish I’d drained the oil out before adding the sauce.
And even now I’m not sure those sausages were cooked properly. I feel a little weird at the moment, but I’m hoping it’ll culminate in “early night and awake refreshed”, rather than “long night in the bathroom”.
I’ll probably have another go during the week, as I’ve got half a pack of sausages left, and half a jar of sauce to use up.

Mr Fussy's Marmalade

Rice plus previous oriental stir-fry

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Ever eaten something and not been sure if you like it or not? It’s happened to me a few times.
At a Chinese restaurant at Christmas 2006, my then-girlfriend told me I wouldn’t like the seaweed – so it almost became a challenge that I had to have some to see how bad it was.
To this day, I couldn’t be 100% sure I really liked it. It was weird. Kinda salty and crunchy. It somehow tasted like it looked..if that makes sense.

Likewise, I’ve had people give me food before – watch me eat the first mouthful and say “well..do you like it?”, only for me to reply “I don’t know. I’ll tell you in a minute”.
Normally I wind up eating some more, and some more, and sometimes a bit more. Occasionally I’ll eat half the cake/meal/other foodstuff, and still not be sure either way.

Last year, the aforementioned girlfriend cooked me a curry (although remove the rice and I’d have said it was a casserole). She did rice with it, and I don’t think I’d ever actually eaten rice prior to that. At the time, I wasn’t sure if I liked it, so as I was tired tonight and had left it til gone 9pm to start cooking, and as I have chicken in, and I bought some rice before for future stir-frys, and I have Chicken Tonight, I did a repeat of the oriental stir fry (listed on this blog, 16/09/07) but added the rice I should have put in the first time.

Quite simple to cook really. I had no idea when it was ready or what I should be looking for, to tell if rice is “tender”, so I followed the instructions on the packet. I was slightly put off as it was a weird kind of orangey-brown colour to start with. There seems to be a lot of different types of rice, and at the time I bought it, I hadn’t done any research, so grabbed the one that was described as easy to cook.

You seem to wash it in a sieve in cold water, put in boiling water for 12 mins, and wash it again in boiling water. Seemed easy enough although it loses points for making me use a saucepan lid (“cover the rice and leave to simmer”), and because the sieve is a sod to clean. You never seem to be able to get all the bits out of it, and theres always some stuff caught between the handle hoop part, and the meshy part.

I think it turned out alright. My rice with sweet and sour chicken on top, was quite a lot like the picture on the Chicken Tonight jar.
Taste-wise I’m still not sure about rice. I could have happily eaten the meal without it, although it does seem strangely filling, which can be good if I’m not sure I’ve cooked enough, to fill up on.

Mr Fussy's Marmalade

Old El Paso Fajitas – Chicken with Tomato and Peppers

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¡Arriba! ¡Arriba! ¡Ándale! ¡Ándale! (spelling courtesy of wikipedia)

“Wow!”
There was a certain look of surprise on a housemate’s face as he walked in on me cooking something that didn’t come entirely from a packet. Something that actually involved actual vegetables.
Also, apparently it’s something he likes a lot. Well that’s nice to hear from someone who I consider to eat a lot healthier than me.

Coincidentally, my first major cookery mistake since the start of the blog, happened tonight. Details below.

I chose these in Tescos the other day because you have chicken with them, and I like the overly-Mexican adverts on tv with the dancing cacti.

Also, I thought it was a simple dish – pour in, fry, done.
But when I turned the pack over in the supermarket, I saw you had to cook fresh red pepper, green pepper, and onion with it.
Normally I’d shy away from anything involving such a detailed list of vegetables, but I was near the fresh vegetables anyway, so thought I might give it a try after all.

So ingredients used tonight:
Half a green pepper
Half a red pepper
Half an onion
About 250g of chicken breast
and
Old El Pasto Roasted Tomato and Pepper Fajita mix (consisting of 8 fajitas, 1 sachet of spice mix, and 1 packet of tomato and pepper salsa).

The recipe says to use 500g, and whole vegetables, but the packet says it serves 4. Two person’s share is enough for me I think.

So onto the cooking. Cut the chicken into strips and place in a pan with a little bit of oil. I chose a wok as it holds more and I didn’t get burnt with fat the last time I used it.
Started that cooking away, and went to chop the onion, and peppers. I’ve no idea how to cook peppers and having never eaten one before – was surprised to find them hollow.

Onto the onion, and I peeled the outer skin, then started chopping. Half way through chopping (which seemed a little hard going), I realised I hadn’t removed the whole of the outer skin.
That done, it was a lot easier to chop.
Are you meant to cry when you chop onions? I didn’t seem to.

When the chicken was cooked, I added the onion and peppers.
Next complex step here. My housemate mentioned earlier showed me how to move things around the pan so they all cook and nothing burns. It might be useful, that.

Next I needed to add the “roasted tomato and pepper fajita spice mix” – a small packet contained within the fajita kit. It has a “helpful hints” section on the back of the box all this comes in, that tells you to make it less spicy – use less spice mix.
This makes sense, and as I haven’t eaten anything spicy ever, I decided to put about 1/3rd of the sachet in. Remember – I’m using half the ingredients.
I did a quick turn of the chicken, and make sure everything was coated in the spice mix.

As I don’t like vegetables cold, I left them in a long time. I added more oil when it went dry because I was determined to get some properly cooked vegetables.
I microwaved half of the supplied tortillas so they were warm, eventually thought the vegetables must be cooked and killed the heat.

Now, onto the serving, where the accident happened.
You are supposed to add “2 tablespoons of the chicken and vegetable mixture” into the tortillas, then pour on some of the included salsa, and roll to make a fajita. It includes pictures of before and after rolling, for the truly stupid (me).
I’ve never eaten tortillas before either by the way – so this was interesting. Looks like pancakes, tastes of not a lot. Saves putting hot food directly in your hands though.

I added the chicken, tried to add more peppers than chicken, to up my extremely poor vegetable intake.
Then onto the salsa sauce. I poured some of this on in a line, then rolled.
Started eating…unusual…bizarre – different mouthfuls taste different to last depending on if there was more pepper or more chicken in it. It’s almost like a weird healthy version of Revels.

Seemed quite hot though, even though I’d only put 1/3rd of the spice mix in.
Weird.
I drink some water.
Still hungry, I finished that fajita and started on a second – chicken, vegetables, salsa.
I really am feeling quite hot in here. Maybe the heating is up too high, or it’s just because I’ve been cooking. I ignore the sweaty sensation on my face and get myself another glass of water.
These fajitas are quite filling but I don’t want them to go to waste so I get a third started – chicken, vegetables, salsa.
I can now feel the sweat on my face quite badly. I give in and get some kitchen roll to mop my brow. I get another glass of water.
My housemate comes in and draws attention to the fact that I seem to be sweating quite a lot. I near the end of the third fajita, but can’t finish it. I stop eating.
I can’t understand why I’m sweating – I put less than half of the spicy bit in, and the rest is just chicken and some vegetables. I read the ingredients for the first time tonight, check what I’ve cooked, and what I’ve eaten.

Ahhhh. Now it all makes sense!
Turns out that I’d slightly miscalculated one part of the meal. Onions, peppers, spice mix – all fine.
BUT I’d been smearing the salsa on in plentiful supply. In fact I’d eaten over 3/4 of the packet on 3 fajitas….when it was designed to be enough for 8.
The spice mix – that they warn you off using too much of – seems to contain mostly tomato, pepper, onion, and lemon.
Oddly enough, the ingredients of the salsa are almost the same. tomato, pepper, onion, lemon, chili…….I think that explains it.

Overall though – an unusual meal, which was quite interesting.
Not sure if I liked it or not, but I didn’t hate it. I could eat it again I think.
Also, when I looked in the wok at what was left – there was more chicken left than vegetables. This means either I ate more vegetables than chicken, or I had more chicken to start with. As I can’t really remember, I’m going with the former.

Mr Fussy's Marmalade

Swedish meatballs, new potatoes, gravy

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…and I even threw some green beans in for some ‘vegetable’ aspect.

Tonight I was struggling to decide what to cook. I finally settled on Swedish-style meatballs, purchased yesterday in Tesco.
Despite Swedish meatballs looking very interesting in an episode of Eurotrash I saw years ago, being made by a half-naked Victoria Silvstedt, I had only first tried Swedish meatballs a few months back in the restaurant section of my local Ikea.
They came with something brown I assumed was gravy, and I was offered cranberry sauce which I foolishly took and wished I hadn’t.

Recreating this at home seemed like it might not be too difficult, I thought optimistically.
However while shopping in Tesco yesterday afternoon I realised I didn’t actually know what went into Swedish meatballs, except for meat of some kind. While browsing the fresh meat aisle, I spotted some Swedish-style meatballs already prepared. Convenient or what?

So tonight – meatballs!
What do you have with meatballs? The ones in Ikea had come with potatoes, cranberry sauce and…some sort of Swedish form of gravy?
A quick look on Ikea’s website tells me it wasn’t gravy at all. Apparently what is sold in the restaurant is “traditional Swedish meatballs with cream sauce and lingonberry sauce”.
What the hell is a lingonberry?

Well, lingonberry jam, according to wikipedia:
“is served both as jam, with cereal or pancakes, and as a relish with meat courses such as Swedish meatballs, beef stew, liver dishes, and regionally even fried herring. It has also been used to sweeten the traditional oatmeal porridge. It is less commonly used as marmalade on toast and as a topping on vanilla ice cream”.
Talk about versatile! I can’t think of too many things you could have with sausages, fish, on toast, and with ice cream – and have them all still be edible.

Well that was out anyway.
I’ve got a friend coming round in an hour, and I’d quite like to finish eating before they get here, so I don’t really have time to go to Tescos and get lingonberry jam/sauce/juice/relish to go with them, so I decided that ordinary chicken Bisto would have to do.

New potatoes on, and the oven too. The oven took a surprisingly long time to heat up, but I’m not too fussed because new potatoes always seem to take longer than the 20mins I think they will, even if I start them off with boiling water instead of cold.

The meatballs don’t smell particularly appealing cold from the fridge, it has to be said.
15-20mins in the oven is apparently enough for these. Even starting them probably 10mins after, and putting them in for a full 20mins – the potatoes still didn’t seem quite done by the time the meatballs were.
I killed the oven and left my balls to keep warm (ok – I had to have one – I lasted this long), while I did the green beans.

Eventually, all done..
I removed my balls from the oven (that’s the last one, I promise). The tray is a bit greasy and they’re not really smelling much nicer cooked – they don’t really smell much like I remember the ones in Ikea being like. More like ‘value’ sausages.
Still, as I’ve decided I’m not judging food entirely by smell anymore, I plated the meatballs, potatoes, and green beans, and added gravy.

From the first one, I can tell you Tescos pre-prepared meatballs taste absolutely nothing like what I ate in Ikea.
I don’t know if I left them in a bit long, but they looked a bit overcooked for one thing. Even allowing for that, the blackened outer coating wasn’t hiding much inner goodness either. They were a bit rubbish really. I’m not sure what the official definition of “Swedish-style” is, but clearly English supermarkets and Swedish furniture stores have different guidelines.
I only ate roughly half the packet, so I may attempt a second cooking of the rest, later in the week.

I guess as the Scandinavian flat-pack-masters sell them in their food section, I could buy some next time I’m looking for a stool the size of a bedside table and some unusual pot-plants. Definitely worth considering.

Mr Fussy's Marmalade

Ciao Burger – chicken burger

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Last night after my radio show, I broke the habit of a lifetime (well…of the last year or so anyway) and didn’t go to a Miss Millies for a fast-food dinner.
Instead, I thought I’d try an alternative local fast-food outlet called Ciao Burger.
I’ve heard good things about this place from various people – one of them was one of my housemates.

I entered Ciao Burger and queued behind a woman who may have been drunk. I think it was English but it wasn’t really understandable. She wasn’t talking to me though, so what did I care.
I gave my order of chicken burger and chips – price around £4.20ish from memory – ever-so-slightly more expensive than Miss Millies, but not a deciding factor in future visits.

It’s at this point I realised I was quite bored and tired.
I was straining to hear the radio, which considering it was playing Radio1, was surprisingly good. Mark and Lard got mentioned a lot, and apparently Colin Murray was going to be having Mark Radcliffe on as a guest later on. Mark and Lard leaving Radio1 is about the same time I stopped listening to it to be honest, so this sounded like it would be interesting.
Apparently it was going to be on “soon”, and like I say, I couldn’t really hear it well enough to linger around the takeaway for the whole thing.

Now I know I’m meant to be trying to eat better, and that was the purpose of me going to Ciao Burger tonight, BUT if doing so meant missing a good radio show, I’d gladly accept Miss Millies instead, purely on a speed-basis. Maybe this is part of my diet problem.
Sadly, everything in Ciao Burger seems to be cooked fresh, so while it might taste nicer – it wasn’t fitting in with my then-ethos of “get out quick and put the radio on at an audible level”.

Shortly after (but it seemed like longer), my food was ready, and after a member of staff assured me I would be back and I’d love their food (I guess he knew from how I read each and every poster for every local music venue in there, that I hadn’t been in before), I left with it.

Home, and I’m slightly uncomfortable about the amount of salad that’s in this.
What I wanted was a chicken burger with barbeque sauce.
What I didn’t really want was half a lettuce, half an onion and possibly some more vegetables all crammed in there.
The chicken is a lot nicer cooked, it’s not coated in all the spices and stuff, which is a shame – but I have to admit it tastes fresher, and.. alright I’ll admit it – the chicken tasted nicer.
I ate about 1/4 of it, before I decided to remove the lettuce and onion as they were spoiling an otherwise-perfect takeaway burger.
The chips were cooked – which is an improvement on how shockingly bad Miss Millies was last week (the reason I was here tonight), but they were so salty I was forced to have a drink with my meal. They’d included an extra unopened salt sachet in with it too, just in case I wanted even more.

So overall, I suppose it is better. Healthier. Although with more salt.
That said, I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet. I still prefer banana flavouring to actual banana. Really, I want the same old greasy chicken burger I used to have – but cooked better. I’ll probably just take a detour next Thursday and go to a different Miss Millies.