A Chicken

I made a chicken yesterday.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of it, so you'll have to live with this one.  It was good though.  Believe me.  Got some garlic and grated it finely and mixed that with some thyme and olive oil.  Rubbed that all over the bird, followed by a good amount of salt and pepper.  Inside the animal was placed a lemon.  That is it.  He went in, with a loose covering of foil, at 200 for half an hour.  Then I took the foil off and put him back at 160 for another 30 mins.  I like to rotate my bird, so I did that before rehousing him in the fiery realm.  Let your chicken rest, brothers and sisters, for at least 10 minutes after cooking.  During that time I made a gravy by adding some white wine to the pan juices and stronging it with the heat, deglazing as I went.  I intended to eat a lot of chicken, so I forewent the potatoes and just ate half of the fowl with some salad.  A respectful end to a proud beast.

The Electric Spanking of War Babies.

get on this, maybe earn me money and, most importantly, FIGHT ME.

http://warlight.net/?Token=Vw5RFMbgwkiTZurwW

New Mix for Getting Fucked on Flirtinis

Let's Get Small by Ace Inhibitor    Here is a new mix.  It's not very long, so you have no excuses.  It goes quite well with a Cambodian Beef Salad and a warm glass of shut the fuck up.

Cambodian Beef Salad

Health food. This cost a few quid the first time, but once you've got some of the ingredients in, they'll last for a few salads. Got this one from Rick Stein off of a youtube vid, so, as the recipe on the vid rushed by in less than a minute, I had to employ a bit of intelligent guesswork. I still have no way to check if I'm doing it right, but it sure tastes fine to me. Right... so I got some steak (fairly basic frying steak, but it worked ok) which I cut into strips and laid down in a bowl. Finely chopped some lemongrass and put that with the beef, then squeezed a lime over it and some fish sauce. The lime juice "cooks" the beef if you leave it for half an hour or so, meaning less washing up added to the extra satisfaction that you are eating "caveman style". So, while that was doing its chemical thing, I thinly sliced some thai shallots (I've since run out of these little treasures, meaning another walk to the Asian supermarket is imminent), a red birdseye chilli, a little bit of gem lettuce, a big handfull of beansprouts, lots of roughly chopped thai basil and coriander and peanuts, yes you heard me, and put them into a bowl. Now for the skanky bit. Shrimp paste. This dangerous condiment comes in a jar and it is the same shade of grey as the face of a dead old man. And it smells like that man's ballbag. However, once I mixed a bit of it with some more fish sauce, some brown sugar and some water I had a feeling it would taste ok. So now the beef was ready, so I threw all that, along with the lime juice and lemongrass, in the bowl with the other ingredients. Finally, the shrimpy death sauce gets poured over and the whole lot is mixed up. I then ate the whole thing rapidly as it was delicious and made me feel like I'm on some kind of pretentious macrobiotic diet and never drink or stay up late ever. And, ladies and gentlemen, it can do that for you too.

Bastard's voice is in my head...

Mushroom Risotto

This is a pretty standard mushroom risotto.  Nothing particularly innovative, just following the rules as the rules are good rules.  What you can see here is some chopped onion, mushrooms (oyster, shitake, dried porcini soaked in boiled water for 20 mins) and garlic (note massive garlic bastard behind the chopping board.  This is the Daddy of garlic).  Keep the mushroom water, put a bit of a stock cube in it (chicken or veg) and put it on a low heat.  Onion and garlic go into some foaming butter and a bit of olive oil in a frying pan, very gently, to soften them.  Up the heat a bit, put in all the mushrooms and soften them up too.  Then comes the rice - about 2 mins for that, just to make it a bit translucent.  Add a bit more oil or butter if its too dry.  Then comes some white wine - I used about half of one of those mini bottles.  Once thats reduced, start ladling in the mushroom stock.  This is the part that won't suit those of you with low attention spans at all.  But then you're probably not cooking anyway.  ONE ladle at a time, low heat, stirring slowly till its gone, then a bit more.  In other words, you have to stand at the stove and stir for about half an hour.  I generally have something on the radio to keep me company through this part.  Once all the liquid has been absorbed (and it looks vaguely like a risotto), get some parmesan in there, and some salt and pepper.  I threw some parsley on at the end, partly because it tastes nice and partly because I knew I was going to take a photo of it for this wanky blog.  Enjoy.

Breakfast

Italian piccante sausages, poached eggs, toast, black coffee, standard bloody mary with a red wine float.  Worth getting a hangover on purpose.