Outed

I cooked for my parents this weekend. Without breaking into a cold sweat. And I've outed myself: they now think that I can cook (eeek!). I did the Simon roast chicken (which I can now do with my eyes shut after a couple of glasses of red - well, I haven't tried that experiement yet but I'm willing to give it a go) with roasted onions, potatoes, garlic, red peppers and a thin gravy, followed by the Magimix apple crumble (translation: shove all the ingedients into the Magimax, hit the button, pour into dish, shove into oven, take out, gloat) with the custard recipe from my well-thumbed copy of the Good Housekeeping cookbook. And apart from cooking the custard a little too quickly (not watching it enough whilst chatting to my mother; possibly also affected by said couple of glasses of red by then), it seemed to be perfectly edible.

Okay, a little background here. My little sister is, as I've probably said before, a serious chef. A *really* serious chef. Gold medals at 18, world competition title by her mid-twenties, own gourmet restaurant before 30 - that sort of serious chef. And I by comparison - well, let's just say that I grew up burning things and making almost-inedible sauces with lumps in that looked like new life forms. My parents have been visiting a lot lately (few things to sort out down on the old farm etc), and every time they come I offer to cook and they do anything - anything, up to and including going out for a kebab - to avoid this. But yesterday they were so tired that I got away with it - and had the lovely warm feeling of producing a whole meal from start to finish including dessert in just over an hour. And having my mother go back for seconds (something she very rarely does) of *my* cooking. I'd consider being shocked if I wasn't too tired.

But a few details before I go. The crumble was great: a real light French apple crumble. This was partly because it was a French recipe book, but also because the apples were right. I had a bag of little red apples (I think from Tescos) that were floury and nasty to eat: I thought they'd cook well, and they did. I'll look for them again, next time I want to do a baked apple dish. It *is* possible to hurt yourself badly with a potato peeler (I did). Roasting peppers and garlic works really well if you put them into the roasting dish 30 minutes before the chicken's due out of the oven. And you can't hurry a good custard: if you set the temperature too high and whisk it too much, it will curdle (will taste fine but look horrid). Be gentle, be patient and it will, as most things treated gently in the kitchen, come right.

More Simons

I've been a little remiss about writing this blog of late. Food has happened, exercise has happened, weight has happened (both up and down), yet the keyboard has remained silent. My apologies, gentle invisible readers.

So. Some delicious Simons have happened of late. Except it wasn't me cooking them: all the glorious credit should go squarely to Hwsgo and his equally glorious culinary talent. Which Simons? Poulet Saute au Viaigre (page 40) happened last weekend, but I can't right now remember what the earlier Simons were. I remember them being absolutely delicious though.

Plans for today

Today is a good day to buy and cook a chicken to the next book recipe (poulet poche). And to attempt an rotw (lemon meringue pie) at the same time. And maybe consider buying a straightjacket in advance.

I was so out-of-sorts that Hwsgo cooked the chicken instead and we missed the lemon meringue completely. He was ever so sweet, and re-did Simon's roast chicken recipe for us; we bought a big bird (2.4kg, the smallest they had) at Allen Martin Meats; it was a good bird, but I think a little too large for the recipe; we got good firm flesh, but not quite as infused with lemon and herbs as the earlier one had been. The really really good thing was the banana shallots that Hwsgo packed around the baking tray (with roast potatoes; also good, but not as spectacular); they picked up the butter sauce, and caramelised into melt-in-the-mouth sweetness. We also finally found a use for the comedy turkey baster that's been sat in my kitchen drawer for the past year: it really does work, and it saves an awful lot of fishing around in the baking tray with a spoon.

Old ROTW: Winter Chicken

ROTW from 19th November 2007

Organic corn fed chicken of around 3 lbs
8 rashers dry-cured bacon or Parma ham
1 lb potatoes, peeled
2 bulbs of garlic in cloves, peeled
1/4 lb gruyere or mixed gruyere and emmenthal
white wine, butter, cream

Preheat your oven and an appropriately sized roasting tray to 190. Clean the chicken cavity. Stuff the garlic into the chicken. Boil your potatoes in salted water until almost cooked. Drain and allow to cool. Slice the potatoes into discs, season with salt and black pepper. Cut the cheese into thin slices and layer between the potatoes in a dish that can go into the oven.Place the chicken on the tray and cook for 40 minutes.Remove from the oven, cover the chicken in the bacon or ham, deglaze the pan with white wine, and cook for another 15 minutes. Put the cheesed off potatoes in the oven at this point too. When its all done, remove the chicken from the pan and rest for 5 minutes. Meanwhile deglaze the pan again with white wine, a knob of butter and a small pot of cream and serve the result as a sauce. Remove the potatoes, carve the chicken and serve with wilted spinach.