Tag: food and drink

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Napowrimo

napowrimo 11: Making Pizza

some pizza I made

Start with Tipo 00 flour.
So fine and white, it makes your usual flour
seem hard and vulgar,
and makes a dough as silky and elastic as
(supply your own lascivious image here).

For two, use half a pound of flour
with a quarter-pint of water.
Add olive oil, salt and yeast,
knead until smooth and springy
and leave an hour or two;
split into portions, knead again.
Oil the rounds of dough,
drape clingfilm on them lightly,
and leave to swell again.

Only the fussiest stickler would insist
that the tomatoes must be grown
in the volcanic soils of Napoli.
It is enough they are Italian plum tomatoes
—tinned, not fresh—
broken up slightly in the saucepan.
A potato masher is ideal for this.
Then simmer slowly,
for an hour or so,
to thicken, darken and enrich.
Some salt is vital;
they must be savoury as well as sweet.

It is acceptable to add a little something;
a dribble of West Indian pepper sauce
or half a chopped chipotle.
Or crush a clove of garlic,
add it to hot olive oil,
and immediately mix the simmering oil
with your tomato.

Cow’s milk mozzarella is fine, if bland,
but does not have the farmyard sourness
of buffalo.
A variation is a different cheese;
perhaps a little feta or a chèvre.
Roquefort, and other affectations,
should be avoided.

Toppings must be sparing.
Gild the lily lightly.
Perhaps some finely sliced shallot,
a little Jámon Iberico or saucisson,
some kalamata olives.
And don’t forget a pinch of oregano;
get the good stuff at your local Turkish grocer.

Your enemy is moisture.
You must be quick, like a boy scout;
be prepared.
A newly-rolled pizza base, left to sit,
will sweat and stick
like a hot thigh on a leather chair.

Cooking must be hot and quick;
as hot as possible.
Bake the bases for two minutes
with nothing on them.
Then quickly add the toppings
and bake until the crust is golden
and the mozzarella has a hint of colour.

Categories
Other

The Incredible Hulk smoothie

Let me just make it clear, in case any of the lawyers from Marvel Comics (soft drinks division) should happen to be watching: by using the phrase ‘Incredible Hulk’, I’m not claiming that Marvel Comics endorse, recognise, or know of the existence of, this drink. Or indeed that it gives you a short temper or superhuman strength.

But you have to admit, it’s certainly green:

The flesh of a small pineapple and three kiwi fruit chucked in a blender, since you ask.

Categories
Other

Doublehard Goans

I made ‘rechad’ spice paste today. It’s a recipe from Goa; Goa was a Portuguese colony, and the name is apparently from the Portuguese recheado, ‘to stuff’, because the Goans use it to stuff fish*. I used some of it tonight to make a particularly good Goan seafood curry called ambot tik which uses the paste with some tamarind to make a hot, fragrant, sour dish. I got both recipes from Madhur Jaffrey’s Flavours of India. Her ambot tik recipe uses squid; I made it with prawns today.

I’ve made the paste a few times before, but I noticed something today. Her recipe calls for ‘about 45’ dried chillies, and even the first time I made it I thought that seemed a lot and toned it down to about 15. That still makes something with a kick to it, and my ambot tik tonight seemed quite hot enough to me. But actually the recipe calls for ‘1oz of dried chillies (about 45)’. She’s clearly using chillies which are bigger and heavier than mine – I’ve got the little tiddly ones, and 45 of them barely weigh enough to register on the scales. I weighed out an ounce, and I reckon my paste is about one-twentieth as fiery as her recipe suggests.

Even allowing for variable hotness in the chillies, all I can say is: OMG. Those Goans are like superheroes with lips and tongues and throats and indeed whole digestive tracts of steel.

*Similarly, ‘vindaloo’ is derived from ‘vin d’alho’ because it’s derived from a Portuguese dish made with wine and garlic.

Categories
Nature Other

Food with a face

BBC News has the story of a hunter who shot a duck, and took it home and put in the fridge thinking it was dead. According to the BBC:

The plucky duck was taken first to a local animal hospital, and then to an animal sanctuary for more specialised treatment. A veterinarian at the sanctuary said he thinks the duck will live, but will probably never be well enough to be released into the wild.

There’s something odd about taking a duck to the animal hospital when you yourself were the one who went out and intentionally shot it. Presumably the hunter knows how to wring a bird’s neck? Why not just put the poor maimed bird out of its misery and then eat it?

Categories
Culture

Worst product design EVER!

OK, not the worst ever, but the one which is currently annoying me: screw-top beer bottles. You know the ones, which look like traditional crown caps but actually screw off.

You can see why someone thought they were a good innovation; they look the same (which is important, because what kind of girlie-man drinks beer from bottles with the same type of closure as a bottle of coke?) while being more convenient: no need for a bottle-opener. But ‘looks like a crown cap’ translates as ‘authentic serrated metal edge’. They’re like little blunt circular saws. If a piece of packaging is painful to open, there’s something wrong with it. Come on people, this isn’t fucking rocket science. I’m looking at you, Fentiman’s Ginger Beer.

Categories
Culture Other

‘Fish, Flesh and Good Red Herring’

I’m just reading a book by Alice Thomas Ellis called Fish, Flesh and Good Red Herring: A Gallimaufry. It’s a book about the history of food and it’s both very entertaining and extremely annoying. Annoying because it is indeed a gallimaufry (‘a confused jumble or medley of things’). The book is loosely organised into themed chapters, but within the chapters she cheerfully hops from topic to topic and period to period, often without so much as a paragraph break to mark an abrupt change of tack. The content is interesting enough to keep me reading, though. The emphasis is on English food from the 19th and early 20th century; more, I think as a reflection of Ellis’s collection of old books than for any other reason.

An example of the kind of thing I’ve been finding interesting. In the chapter about food for infants and invalids (the Victorians seem to have treated children as effectively invalids for several years) there’s some stuff about beef tea. I’ve seen references to beef tea in books but always assumed it was either like a consommé or broth, or something like Bovril (a beef concentrate sold in jars you can make into a hot drink). But no. Beef tea was made by taking finely minced beef and soaking it in warm water for a couple of hours. You can heat it, but allowing it to boil destroys the goodness. Obviously. One writer suggested serving it in a ruby-colored glass because, presumably, even Victorians found something slightly off-putting in a glass of warm, bloody water. And if you find that a bit icky, how about a drink for invalids called ‘liver cocktail’: half-cooked, sieved liver mixed with the juice of an orange and lemon and a pinch of sugar.

Much of the book is less repulsive, fortunatley, since just the idea of the liver cocktail makes me feel ill.