IdleRich

IdleRich
Had a traditional Portuguese lunch of chicken in blood sauce.
Just a stock pic but a fairly good representation of what it was like

ea6002097a96f5f4ef104a5cbe949ac3--wine-food-its-you.jpg
 

Leo

Well-known member
You've committed a classic blunder. Salads are teeming with arthropods, mini lobsters and so on.

Also, think of all the insects that died during cultivation.

Plus we're all agreed that plants have consciousness akin to a small dog.

Blunders intensify.

perhaps traditions differ over there, but we tend to throughly rinse our vegetables before eating them. our drainage systems must be teeming with all the mini-lobsters.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
No phone for the last few weeks so can't take any pics... still cooking and eating like crazy though cos there is nothing else to do during this motherfucking lockdown which is getting really really old now.
Anyway, today girlfriend was struck by inspiration or particularly bored or just wanted to try a groundbreaking and deeply rigorous scientific experiment into how much weight it would be possible to pack on in one day and whether that weight would be visible at the beach tomorrow. Whatever the thought process behind it, for dinner we gorged ourselves on three courses of her devising (well kinda), despite there being no real reason or even excuse to do much more than heat up some beans and crawl back into bed.
The first course was definitely inspired by Poirot on telly the night before. His coruscating attack on inexplicable English taste and the food that arises from it provided a vital clue towards solving the mystery, but, more importantly, his description of fish paste and salmon paste as indistinguishable slurries somehow caused Liza to become enthused with the idea of salmon pate to the extent that it simply had to open the batting today. The recipe she adapted called it salmon pate at least, but in my opinion, it was so light - despite its creation involving the blending of almost half a kilo of smoked salmon with creme fraiche and lemon juice and a few other things - so light and fluffy in fact, it seemed like it better deserved the name mousse. Either way it went down a treat on toast with pepper and chives etc
Girlfriend has just spent a few weeks in France and came back having fallen in love with the country. She's abandoned learning Portuguese and instead taken up a refresher course in French, plus she keeps banging on about their castles, the countryside, their style, their (relative to Portuguese at least) incredible friendliness and, in fact, to make a long story short, the utterly overwhelming superiority of every single aspect of their culture to that of Portugal. And most of all she's been talking about their food. As a result our main course was a cassoulet which my friend's grandmother was kind enough to cook for her during her trip (France also has amazing grandmothers it turns out). This one was white beans, three different types of big hearty sausage, numerous vegetables and... well you know what a fucking cassoulet is but trust me this oone was a particularly large and delicious example of the breed.
Thirdly and finally, while away she was invested into a secret brotherhood of melon obsessives (I assume so at least - she hasn't actually said that explicitly, but it's the only explanation I can find for the mountains of melons of every different size, shape and colour that are suddenly appearing in our house and then muscling their way into every meal) and that has caused her to search out more and more recipes using these huge beasts. Today it was coconut milk with two different kinds of melon floating in it and a dash or three of lime juice. Cold melon soup I think it's called which sounds sophisticated, but it also struck me as rather like a non-alcoholic pina colada which I understand is not universally viewed as a symbol of exquisite taste and opulence.
Well, I say "finally" and that was indeed true in her case, I however waited until after she went to bed and got so high I dribbled out all this bollocks on to dissensus... rule of thurmb that might be worth noting for those who have a life with worthwhile things to do in it and all that, if it's late night and I write this kind of amount the explanation is usually the same and you may be best advised to skp it...
Night all and sleep tight, hope the bed bugs don't bite.
 
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catalog

Well-known member
Good post Rich, that sounds like a lot of food and the washing down with cold coconut and melon soup, I'm not sure I could manage that part.

I think I would like my wife to have a pro-French experience in the way your girlfriend has had. She's very anti-French, something to do, I think, with a school trip, so we never go there on holiday. I wouldn't say I'm pro-French, but its the only language I learnt at school, and I've enjoyed holidays there in the past, cos I sort of like how stuck up they can be, so I would like to go again.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Last night was lazy dinner of some frozen* gyoza dumplings - the prawn ones, which I hadn't had before, which were OK although I think the veg ones and the chicken ones are probably better.

(*they weren't frozen by the time we ate them, before any smart-arses jump on me)

Monday night I did the old favourite, pasta with a cream/blue cheese-based sauce, with bacon, spring onions and mushrooms. The shrooms around here are juuust about starting to get into gear after some recent rains, so I had this bad boy to use in the recipe:

blue_shrooms.jpg
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I've just made a casserole, which is sitting in the slow cooker and is going to be tomorrow's dinner. 1.7 kg of on-the-bone chicken pieces, seasoned and browned in the pan; smoky bacon, various mushrooms, leeks, onions; sauce is chicken stock (low salt, otherwise it's just too much with the seasoned flour on the chicken and the bacon as well), white wine and a dollop of sour cream. Garlic, black pepper and thyme (would have been tarragon but didn't have any). It tastes pretty rad now but is going to be amaaazing tomorrow. Splash of lemon juice to serve, I think.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Last night was lazy dinner of some frozen* gyoza dumplings - the prawn ones, which I hadn't had before, which were OK although I think the veg ones and the chicken ones are probably better.
We eat quite a lot of pelmeni which are sort of like Russian gyoza and apparently they are best if you freeze them for some time. Dunno why but that's what they say.

DSC_0227.jpg


Today we had a Nepalese curry. Heavy night last night and the plan today was just to chill, get a mixed grill from a kebab shop down the road in Sacavem and pig out while watching the Champions League final. In the event the kebab place was shut and we dithered a bit and then went to Little Nepal for a take-away, but by then it was five minutes to kick off so we just ate in there. I had a fantastic thing called Malahar prawn curry which was creamy with enormous prawns, killer naan, great onion bhajis. Sadly this place doesn't do momos which are kinda like a Nepalese version of pelmeni - some of the other Nepalese places here do them and they are great but apparently there was no call for them out here in the sticks so they took them off the menu. Otherwise it's a great little place.

momo2-e1525660817767.jpg
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Thinking about all those different dumpling dishes, I love all of the following; gyoza (Japan), pelmeni (Russia), momo (Nepal), khinkali (Georgia), manti (Uzbekistan)...
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Oh yeah, momos are great. We often get them from a good Nepalese place here.

Not sure how authentic a Nepalese prawn curry is going to be, but if it's tasty then that's the main thing, I suppose.
 
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