Though I am not entirely sure how environmentally delivered pizza in a pizza box is… but I guess if you do order pizza, it would be better in a box like this!!!
Do you know I don’t think I have ever had pizza delivered… well maybe once.
Steak and Fries
After a series of games of ten pin bowling we decided to have a quick lunch at Frankie and Benny’s the chain of American Italian restaurants that you can find across the UK.
I decided to go simple and have the Steak and Fries.
A 6oz* strip sirloin served plain and simple with house fries and a pot of American mustard on the side. Simple but classic!
It was as it was described in the menu, a simple steak, cooked to my liking, tender and with some flavour served with house fries.
A simple but classic dish. Maybe next time I should be more adventurous!
I want a sandwich…
If I have a big meal in the middle of the day then in the evening I usually happy to have a sandwich.
But if I am going to have a sandwich and I have the ingredients and the time then I don’t want a ham sandwich made from ‘plastic’ white bread!
Without sounding too much like a Marks and Spencers advert, I want a sandwich made from freshly baked ciabatta bread, a thin spread of unsalted butter, filled with fresh rocket leaves, thin slices of milano salami and a dash of mayonnaise…
Now that’s a sandwich.
Bargain, not!
This is one of those bargains you find at Tesco and other supermarkets, £1.00 each or on special, two for £2.00… hmmm
Good Flat White
I had a really good skinny Flat White today at Costa.
Good flavoured coffee and the milk wasn’t too foamy. This was a different branch of Costa to the one where I have been before.
Still don’t understand why it is more expensive than similar sized coffees. At Starbucks they even use a “short” cup and charge more!
Chicken Kebabs
I quite like kebabs, but I still have not perfected a technique that ensures that all the food on the kebab is evenly cooked and ensuring that the meat is “actually” cooked.
I recently made these chicken and chorizo kebabs and though the veg and chorizo was cooked, the chicken was still a little underdone.
I had done them under the grill, usually I would “roast” them at the top of a hot oven in order to cook them evenly, but then you don’t get that crispness on the edges. I am guessing that the ideal solution is to grill the vegetables separately to the chicken.
Roasted Vegetables
I really do enjoy roasted vegetables either as a meal in itself or as an accompaniment to another dish.
On this platter I have roasted squash, red onions, red pepper, mushrooms, tomatoes, courgettes, aubergine, parsnips and sweet potato.
The method I used for this was in the roasting pan I placed the squash, the parsnips, red onion and sweet potato with a good splash of olive oil. This was then roasted in the oven for about 15 minutes. I then added the mushrooms, tomatoes, aubergine, courgette, red pepper and another splash of the olive oil. This was then roasted for about 15-20 minutes.
Simple and delicious.
Time for a Caramel Waffle
When is a waffle not a waffle? When it’s a caramel waffle.
Most coffee places seems to sell these caramel wafers and now and again I have been known to order one alongside my coffee.
They are crunchy, chewy and rather sweet, however they complement the coffee quite nicely if you fancy something sweet.
However they are not in my opinion real waffles, they have a waffle texture to look at, but are more wafer than waffle.
Wagamama Pork Ribs
You don’t really have starters at Wagamama there are side dishes that arrive when they are ready. Out with friends we ordered a few alongside our main noodle dishes.
These ribs in a spicy pan-asian barbeque sauce were on the specials menu.
They weren’t freshly cooked, they had been pre-cooked and then reheated to demand when ordered. I understand why restaurants do this, it saves time, but wonder if they realise the impact this has on the quality of the food. A similar technique is often used with chicken wings, there is a big difference between chicken wings which have just been cooked and those that are already cooked and are just reheated. I wonder if there are techniques out there that allow for cooking from fresh quickly so negating the reheating technique.
Or…. if it does take time to cook and prepare, is there a way of knowing that your order is going to take longer to get to the table and as a result you’ll wait. I know restaurants will want to get people in and out quickly, I personally wouldn’t have a problem sitting in the bar, ordering in the bar and thirty minutes later I get my table and my freshly cooked food. I suspect though I can do that already, but need to pay a lot more money for the food than you do at places like Wagamama.
Back to the ribs, as a result of the reheating the texture of the meat on the ribs was soft, but you wouldn’t call it tender though. The sauce was nice, not too sticky sweet and the spiced just how I like them.
Rösti
Over the years I have tried to cook potato rösti and have generally failed miserably. Either the rösti was too soggy and grey, or was burnt on the outside and raw in the middle. Sometimes the whole thing just fell apart as I tried to turn them, or had stuck to the bottom of the pan. I had tried various preparation processes, cooking techniques with little success. In the end I use to buy prepared rösti from Waitrose, though very nice I took as a sign of failure.
However I think I have managed to get it right this time.
I took some Maris Piper potatoes and I think that this was key, getting the ingredients right. I have found Maris Piper a really good potato for roast potatoes and thought that as a result it might work well for rösti.
I peeled the potatoes and then grated the potato into a bowl. I gave the grated potato a squeeze to remove some of the moisture. I then added some grated cheddar cheese. Now according to Wikipedia, true rösti is just plain potatoe, however some regional recipes do use cheese so I wasn’t that concerned.
I then using a flat frying pan added some sunflower oil and placed a handful of the raw ingredients onto the pan. I then pushed and shaped the pile into a round shape not too thick. When I was sure the bottom was cooked and from the edges looked nice and brown, this was the moment of truth, would they stick or turn?
It was a huge sense of relief as I turned the rösti over, it remained in one piece. After finishing that one off, I cooked some more and then placed them in the oven to finish them off and keep them warm.
The next test, was the taste test. I was so pleased with myself, the taste was perfect, I think the cheese added flavour and a hint of saltiness, whilst the texture was just right.
The next big test will be, can I repeat the process to cook rösti to the same standard, that remains to be seen….