crisps - the experiment

Yesterday saw the revival of my wonderful bake dates with Rory. (For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, me and my lovely assistant Rory get together sporadically and cook something we're too intimidated to try on own and then tell each other at length about how amazing we are. They're great fun altogether.) It's been a while since we last got together in the kitchen and when he arrived laden with dinner goodies and enthusiasm I must admit my enthusiasm was nowhere to be found. I just couldn't really be bothered. Why wouldn't I just go to the shop and buy a bag of crisps to go with our movie? They'd probably taste way better than anything we could make ourselves right? Wrong. The crisp experiment was a total success and as soon as we started my mood changed from lethargic to terribly excited. Sad isn't it? But lets not get too ahead of ourselves. There's plenty to talk about here.

oven roasted crisps

deep fried crisps

 The task we set ourselves was to try and make homemade crisps from scratch on which we could munch while we enjoyed a movie and a glass of wine. In the interests of science we tried two methods. We did oven roasted and deep fried. The conclusion I came to was that the worse something is for you the better it tastes. As much as I wanted the oven baked variety to come out on top, it would appear nothing beats deep frying. The deep fried crisps were light, crunchy and tasted of potato. The oven baked were either floppy or hard and chewy. They never got a good crunch on them and didn't have a nice potato flavour. So, there it is. Debate closed. 

the offensive oven baked crisps

the delectable deep fried version

Having said that, we used a potato peeler to slice the potatoes thinly. It worked brilliantly for the deep fried crisps but perhaps had we used a knife and made slightly thicker crisps for the oven, they would have come out better. I'll have to wait for another day to figure that one out.  

Now as far as I understand it the only proper way to flavour crisps is the addition of powdered flavour which will stick to the crisp. With limited powdered flavourings in the old press we tried to come up with alternative ways of flavouring them. Some worked, some didn't. 

It was easier to get the flavours on the oven roasted crisps as you could brush them with flavoured oils before putting them in the oven. The deep fried ones simply had to be tossed in flavour after you'd fried them so you couldn't use anything too wet or they'd get soggy. Here's what we came up with.

the flavours

Cheese and onion - everyone's favourite flavour (well, actually mine's salt and vinegar, except when in a pub, then it's cheese and onion all the way. weird). This we achieved by infusing olive oil with grated parmesan and red onion which we then dabbed onto the crisps after they were fried, or in the case of the oven roasted, before they were roasted. The flavour was great, but you have to be careful not to put too much on the deep fried crisps as it can make them too oily. Hard to tell on the oven baked as they tasted so awful anyway. Also, it was brought to my attention by my lovely assistant that Tayto invented the cheese and onion crisp. How did I not know this before? Well done Mr. Tayto. Bake dates are all about learning you know.

Salt and vinegar - we only tried these on the deep fried version. I coated a dish with a small amount of vinegar (we tried balsamic which was a bit too mild and red wine which I preferred), then threw some coarse sea salt in and tossed the freshly cooked chips quickly round the dish so they wouldn't get too soggy before turning them out into a serving bowl. This worked really well, but you do have to be careful not to use too much vinegar, or leave them in for too long or they'll go soggy.

Sweet chilli - I wasn't sure this one really worked. Again we infused some oil with chilli, sugar, rice wine vinegar and soy sauce and basted the oven baked crisps. As we only tried it on the oven baked crisps (it would have been too oily for the deep fried ones) it was hard to tell if it was any good. (The oven baked crisps really were awful.)

Last but not least, a bit of late inspiration from Rory, saw a last minute concoction of chilli, Italian herbs and salt which was delicious. Simply toss your deep fried crisps in the mixture and eat. Yum. Possibly my favourite.

So that was the big crisp experiment. While the oven baked ones were a disaster, the deep fried ones really did taste as delicious as any you'd buy. Only problem is that they're kind of hard to enjoy when you realize just how bad they are for you.

Oh, and I can't finish this post without thanking Rory for the delicious meal he made me without which I never would have had the energy to fry anything.  It was a delicious pasta dish with pan fried chicken and rosemary. (I think he stole it from Gordan Ramsey. Here's the recipe)

Curry Club

I really am very far behind on my blog posting. I've just been very busy...things are getting on top of me..I'm sure you've all been there. Anyway, you'll all remember a few weeks ago when Dublin turned into one giant pond for the day? The day where God was really upset and cried all day long? He just wouldn't quit. He must have been watching a particularly weepy movie that day. Anyway, for some reason, beyond me, I thought that was the perfect day to go for a little stroll around our fair city to do some book shopping. Book shopping? In the middle of the worst deluge our town has ever seen? I have strange ideas sometimes. Off I went, tootling about town thinking how clever I was, not letting the rain ruin my day. In to Eason's I went. I thought it had been raining before I went in. I laughed in the face of rain. 'I've an umbrella you know, you won't best me', I said. But when I came out I found out what real rain was. Real manly rain. 'Where's your umbrella now?' it roared. Clearly my umbrella had died in fright at just one look at this rain. I felt just a little sheepish and to honest quite stupid. Why had I left my lovely dry house? And why on earth had I gone book shopping? Books. Made of paper. Paper that melts when it even looks at that kind of rain. Anyway, with the books bought and paid for and then swiftly shoved up my jumper I walked/waded home. Luckily the books survived with only minor damage and I just about made it too.

The reason I was so desperate to make such an idiotic life choice on this particular day is I REALLY wanted curry.  Dal to be precise. Those of you avid readers out there will remember this from a particularly exciting earlier post. My previous attempt wasn't up to much scrutiny so I needed a recipe. A real one. I would have to buy a curry book. 

I bought this one!

With curry book in hand the next obvious step was to invite the fabulous Rory over for another bake date. We set a date and a menu and we two intrepid spice explorers cooked up a delicious dinner of tarka dal, lamb and spinach curry, pilau rice and chapati. It was a huge success. It tasted great and even looked vaguely like the real thing. 

This is a great beginners curry book. Very simple recipes and all the old favourites are in there. I always think it's better to start with dishes you're familiar with when experimenting with a new cuisine, so at least you've some idea what it should taste and look like and then when you know where you're at with the spices and flavours you can start getting a bit more adventurous. It seemed that most of the curries in the book were started by making a paste with spices and tomoatoes and then when this paste has been cooking down for about 30 mins you can start the curry proper. It went something like this:

Curry paste

Ingredients

20g fresh ginger

3 tomatoes quartered

6 cloves garlic

6 tbsp vegetable oil

2 black cardamon pods (I used green)

4 cloves

5cm cinnamon

2 bay leaves

1 onion chopped finely

salt

2 tbsp ground coriander

3/4 tsp turmeric

3/4 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp chilli

Method

1. blend the tomatoes, ginger and garlic until smooth
2. heat the oil in a large pan and cook the whole spices for 15 seconds, then add the onion and cook until the onion is golden
3. add the tomato paste, the ground spices and salt, cook over a moderate flame for 15-20 mins until it becomes a paste and droplets of oil start to release on the base of the pan
4. reduce the heat and cook for another 5-7 minutes (This was where my patience was lacking. It's definitely worth holding your nerve here)
5. it's now ready to use as the base of your curry 

Spinach and lamb curry

Ingredients

portion of curry paste as above

500g lamb

10g fresh ginger julienne

2 green chillies

1 tsp garam masala

oil for frying 

Method

For the lamb and spinach curry you simply add the lamb (about 500g) to the paste and cook over a moderate flame for 5 mins, until the paste has been absorbes by the lamb. Then pour enough water to cover the meat, bring to the boil, reduce to a simmer and cover. Cook for an hour. You may need to reduce the sauce at the end if there is too much liquid. The liquid should come about 1/4 way up the lamb by the end. Fry off the ginger and fresh chilli in a frying pan, wilt the spinach on top and add to the lamb. Add the garam masala and cook for another 5 minutes.  Check the seasoning and serve.

And now the Tarka Dal......

Not as complicated as one would think. There's two stages to this. First you cook the dal.

Ingredients

150g chana dal (you can also use 100g chana and 50g masur dal or as I was assured, red lentils)

1/2 tsp turmeric

3 cloves garlic grated

10g fresh ginger grated

salt

fresh coriander to serve 

Method

1. wash the dal well
2. place in 1 litre of water and bring to the boil, scim off any scum that forms
3. add the turmeric, garlic, ginger and salt and simmer for 40 mins, stirring occassionaly 

Stage two - the tarka (which means a few ingredients fried up and added to the main, in this case dal, ingredient at the end) - start making after dal has been cooking for 30 mins

Ingredients

3tbsp oil

1 rounded tbsp butter

3 dried red chillies

1 round tsp cumin seeds

1 small onion chopped finely

2 small tomatoes chopped

1/2 tsp garam masala

Method

1. heat the oil and butter and fry the dried chillies and cumin seeds until they start to brown
2. add the onion and fry until browned
3. add the tomatoes, garam masala and salt and saute for around ten minutes, until the oil starts to release (again this is a patience moment. this releasing of oil seems to be key in good curry making!)
4. pour some of the cooked lentils into the pan to incorporate all the spice, then add the contents of the pan into the pot of cooked lentils
5. cook the dal for another ten minutes, squishing some of the lentils against the side of the pot to achieve the texture you want (I think I would blend some of the lentils seperately to make the texture slightly thicker the next time, but I think that's a personal thing)
6. taste, adjust seasoning and sprinkle with fresh coriander to serve 

A tale of two halves

I wasn't going to post about my cooking efforts yesterday because they left me feeling utterly deflated and to be honest like a bit of a loser in the kitchen department. But it doesn't seem right to only write about the good stuff and I'm sure there was some learning/character building in my humiliation somewhere. So, pride swallowed, I will proceed.



The reason for yesterday's experiments was that I had in my possession the mother of all courgettes. This thing was ginormous. This, I now realise was probably where I went wrong. When a courgette is so big that it has become a marrow and left it's courgette essence behind, it no longer acts like a courgette. Surprise surprise. Anyway. I got this beast from my friend's dad's allotment, which for the record was one of the best kept pieces of horticulture I've ever seen. (Curses for not taking my camera) Anyway he gave me the beast and suggested a courgette cake, which sounded like just the job. One online search later and I had these two recipes to try and amazingly they weren't from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall but my other all time favourite Nigel Slater. One was for a courgette cake and the other was for a courgette bake.


Well both efforts were pretty much pants. I don't think it was the recipe's fault, more the fact that I used marrow instead of courgette but made no allowances for this. The cake was supposed to be in the oven for an hour, at which point I checked it and it was still liquid inside. I left it in for another half hour but it still didn't seem right. When it came to cutting it was very crumbly and quick to fall apart. I may have been a little impatient in not letting it cool fully but it seemed to punish me excessively for this.



The bake, which looked delicious in the recipe was disappointing to say the least. I added a bit of lasagna to make it a bit more substantial for my dinner but no matter how long I left it in the oven, the marrow wouldn't soften properly and the sauce just dried out. I stupidly left the skins on the marrow thinking they would soften on cooking but they didn't. The flavours were yum so I'll probably try it again with softer courgettes and a few adjustments. Anyway, one disappointing dinner later and I'd learned my lessons. I hate learning.


What a difference a day makes......

So it was with a heavy heart that I looked forward to today's, what is turning into a very regular, bake date with Rory. This week Gyoza.....and, thank God, they worked.....brilliantly.


...so I haven't given up on it all just yet. One bad day won't get me down...etc.....

This was the recipe. We cheated and bought our own wrappers. Making your own seemed very time consuming and I wasn't up to another failure. The filling is dead easy to make and allows you to do lots of fun chopping!
The actual cooking is the hardest part and just takes a bit of getting used to as I found out. After last week's deep frying success I was totally blaze and unprepared for the gyoza cooking. Sure, the recipe says throw the water in on top of the hot oil, grand, no bother, nothing could possibly go wrong there! Right. So after a gentle reminder that oil and water don't mix so well, we got the hang of it and it was plain sailing from there. The results were delicious and we scoffed about 15 of them in about 30 seconds.

Thanks Rory for another great bake date. Whatever next?