Wot's for Tea, Ma?

[500N]

They look good and not too difficult.

[Ibbie]

Tonight, from the Great Wall of China in La Cala:

Spring rolls, hot and sour soup, grilled pork dumplings, chicken lettuce rap, spare ribs in house sauce, half a crispy duck with pancakes,sliced onions and cucumber, plum sauce.

[Ex-Ascot]

OK, Ibbie but what is the second course?

Veggie lasagne here. One of Mrs Ex-Ascot's very best dishes.

[A Lutra Continua]

Prosciutto and parmigiano tortellini plus beef ravioli with grilled pork bangers in Arrabiata sauce, lossa chilis. One is indeed a Philistine.


Dashed fine scoff though...

[Ex-Ascot]

Salad for lunch. Haven't asked wot is for din dins yet. Probably 'Duno' again.

[Capetonian]

Chicken Sate, home made from fresh ingredients.

[Tall Bird]

Scallops wrapped in smoked bacon + some greenery and a good sauvignon blanc.

[Ex-Ascot]

Got an answer from the chef, vegetarian chickpea casserole with sun dried tomatoes and mashed spuds. All washed down with a SA Merlot.

[Pipal Pani]

Chicken Sate, home made from fresh ingredients.

I've always found it a little hard to understand what people really mean when saying "fresh ingredients". I can almost imagine Capetonian chopping-off the chicken's head earlier (did it run about a lot and make a mess of the garden paving afterwards)?! Or even digging up the peanuts in the vegetable plot. I've heard that the gentleman could easily afford a maid and cook. So even "home made" becomes subject to conjecture...

Whatever, no home made Scotch eggs for me this weekend. Instead, I cooked up my 1st batch of home made "onion bhajis" as part of my recently-discovered interests in home cooking. Especially as I had all that leftover peanut oil from last weekend. The ingredients, all of which were store-bought were:

4 large ordinary onions (fresh)
200g red onions (frozen and pre-sliced)
4 cloves garlic (fresh)
2 green chillis (frozen which I bought fresh originally)
200g gram (chick pea) flour
dried spices, most of which I ground myself: coriander, cumin, red chilli, fenugreek
coriander (pre-chopped frozen)
salt (and a little sugar)

Basically followed this recipe to the letter:

[bbvideo=640,360]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1p6VxDtvEo[/bbvideo]

Amazingly good. The local Indian restaurant will have to find a new customer. There looks to be no end in sight to my culinary prowess.

[Ibbie]

Extra Large, matured entrecot steaks, from Juan the Argentinian artisan butcher, with an onion, tomato and rocket salad.

[Capetonian]

I've always found it a little hard to understand what people really mean when saying "fresh ingredients". I can almost imagine Capetonian chopping-off the chicken's head earlier

That's a reasonable if somewhat pedantic comment.
Chicken - farm chicken from a local butcher shop, not packed in plastic off a supermarket shelf.
Other ingredients as fresh as possible, and not ready mixed out of a packet. Made the saté sauce from various herbs and spices, and peanut butter.

I get a bit narked when I hear someone say : "I've made curry" when what they mean is they chucked a jar of curry sauce over a few pieces of meat and let it simmer for a hour.

I've heard that the gentleman could easily afford a maid and cook

Not sure whence that idea comes, but she's been doing the ironing most of the afternoon and is now out walking the dog while I slave over a hot stove.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Gloriously sunny day here, pottering around the garden.
Tonight's nosh will be local mussels in white wine followed by steak and lobster from the barbie. Maybe a bit of cherry cheesecake to go with the espresso afterwards, but I'm usually too stuffed already.
Knocked up a chicken satay last night, oddly enough.

And you don't want to chop that head straight off - saw a mate do that once on a survival ex; they really do run around afterwards - hilarious! Best just to break its neck first.

Thanks for the Onion Bhaji recipe - won't use it till first frost though.

[Pipal Pani]

Tonight's nosh will be local mussels in white wine followed by steak and lobster from the barbie.

Sounds like you're single-handedly wiping out a lot of creatures on the endangered species list. Or at least subject to strict quotas...?! And a bit gourmande, lobster and steak: in the same meal?!

PS. Capetonian, I may have inadvertently confused you with OFSO. Neil Young and "A Man Needs A Maid":

[bbvideo=640,360]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOuQywiRUJo[/bbvideo]

[Cacophonix]

One notes that Jim Corbett's Tiger is playing up again and (heaven forfend) using the video musical double entendre in his multi fanged armoury... (so jejune Pipal, even if it hurts me to say so)!

Steak and lobster, surf and turf (as in turf out I guess)!

Caco

[Pipal Pani]

Is Caco a bit miffed that another presumes to step onto his own turf and preserve, that of being the main person to post YouTube videos...?! And/or did you not get any tea?

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Lobster ($7 a pound) is so plentiful here that the prisoners in jail used to complain because they got it every day. Ditto Mussels ($1.49 a pound). Top Sirloin $6 a pound - I'm eating cheap here!
So my meal will cost around $21 (including the wine for cooking and drinking). Spuds for fries are free.
The only locally consumed (by me) stuff that doesn't grow here is coffee.

[A Lutra Continua]

Sounds like SA in the early days. Crayfish, alikreukel, mussels and snoek were poor man's food. These days only forex totin' tourists and we dinner table poachers can afford it.

[Pipal Pani]

Fox3, may one ask where is this cheap food paradise you hail from? Do you think I might be able to claim "culinary asylum" there? And would any UK or French pension be payable out there without being frozen at the date of departure from culinary hell to paradise?

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Culinary asylum?! Like that!
Except we could expect the entire population of mainland Scotland to decamp

http://fallflavours.ca/

UK unfunded pensions (e.g. civil service,mil.) cannot be transferred any longer, the Government stopped that this April. They won't say why, but I would estimate anywhere between £3bn and £8bn has been transferred out in the last 10 years by emigrants. The UK State pension gets frozen. Don't know about the French.

[Cacophonix]

Is Caco a bit miffed that another presumes to step onto his own turf and preserve, that of being the main person to post YouTube videos...?! And/or did you not get any tea?

Not at all Pipal, be ye man, beast or the odd mod himself, it matters nought when you play good music with the stamp of Mr Young. As for tea I am full of post prandial bliss having enjoyed a sirloin steak and a good bottle of wine with my long suffering Obergruppenführer (ein). It may be a school night, but I am replete and in good humour and good to see you so too.

Caco