We’ve all done it. Don’t pretend you haven’t.
In a fit of brazen chutzpah (is there any other kind?) you imagine you know better than the recipe. A professional food writer has shared the knowledge and experience garnered over decades of hard work, but you look at their offering and think ‘pah! What do you know, Simon/Hugh/Delia/Nigella/Jamie/Albert/Marco Pierre/Heston (delete as appropriate)? I can do this standing on my head. Where you say butter, I will use sunflower oil. Where you say fifteen minutes, I know very well you mean thirty-five. Where you ask for the juice of half a lemon...well I’ve got all these lemons in the basket and they’re going to go off soon - I’ll chuck three in.’
For this recipe you will require:
Fillet of salmon. For eight. Three of whom are ill and have cancelled.
Some potatoes - neither the same amount nor variety as in the recipe.
Purple sprouting broccoli.
Those lemons.
Garlic. Plenty.
Fat of some kind. Whatever you have.
A chisel.
- Check the recipes. Salmon wrapped in foil with lemon juice - piece of cake. Grated Golden Wonder potato cake - no problem. Steamed purple sprouting with garlic and anchovies - duh.
- Put the books back on the shelf. You won’t need them again.
- Peel and grate the potatoes. Some of them go a bit brown. That’s ok, they’ll be brown once they’re cooked anyway. Add the cloves of garlic, crushed, to the potato gratings.
- Lay the salmon fillet on oiled foil.
- Squeeze the lemon(s) over the salmon.
- Pick the lemon pips out of the salmon.
- Wrap the salmon parcels.
- Foil torn. Start again.
- Once that’s done, turn your attention to the potatoes.
- They really have gone quite brown, haven’t they? And you haven’t started cooking them yet.
- Heat the fat and add the potato/garlic mixture.
- So far so good. Relax and watch a bit of cricket.
- Shot!
- What’s that smell?
- Ah.
- This is why you need the chisel. Hack the potato from the bottom of the pan. Remove burnt-but-not-actually-inedlble crust and set aside. Put the rest of it back in the pan and return to the heat.
- Back to the cricket.
- Got him!
- Bugger. Fish.
- Oh God when should I put the broccoli on?
- Not now.
- Idiot. You’ll regret that.
- Potato doing nicely, fish ok.
- Consider making broccoli puree instead.
- Realise that success of dish depends on people being at table at the right time. People sadly not in evidence.
- The potato is burning again. Never mind. Crunchy bits are good.
- Assemble plates, cutlery, food, wine, people.
It was all so simple. And, despite your best efforts, absolutely delicious. Pat yourself on the back and thumb nose at food writers. Consciously or not, you knew better all along.
Love it, Lev. Another inspired blog entry!
Posted by: Edward Solomon | 06/04/2010 at 18:43
Giggled at (and identified with) everything in this blogpost. I'm also of the 'Impro School of Trash Cuisine' which, against the odds, works fantastically well - as does your writing, Lev *waits expectantly for 'Lev's Book on Household Management' xxx
Posted by: SarahSiddons | 06/04/2010 at 21:56