Help me cook a posh meal

[IdleRich]

My flatmate suggested squid ink pasta (tagliatelle) with melon juice and cream - any thoughts? Sounds interesting but is also quite easy apparently. But as soon as I started looking interested he kind of backed away from it and said it's not that good - I guess he can't handle the responsibility.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Buy a couple of up-market cook-at-home pizzas, hide the packaging really well and scatter some flour, garlic skins etc. about the kitchen.

 

[DannyL]

Buy a couple of up-market cook-at-home pizzas, hide the packaging really well and scatter some flour, garlic skins etc. about the kitchen.

Actually you can make pizza dough dead easy and it's so amazing when you cook it. The whole house smells of fresh bread. Let me know if you want the recipe Rich, and I'll type it up. Dead easy and well impressive. Bit of basil, mozarella, anchoives, toms and Bob's your auntie's live in lover.

 

[STN]

You should go to a snooty wineshop after you've decided on your meal, tell them what you're having and ask them to recommend something.

I also think, when you've picked your dish, it's only fair to invite whoever suggested it along. What could make you look cooler than having a bloke you met on the internet along?

Good luck.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Hmm, I dunno Dan, getting the consistency of the dough right, stretching it out without tearing it and all that malarky could be a bit tricky if you haven't done it before, I reckon. But I'm going to shut up now because there are loads of great recipes in this thread already, some of which I'll be using myself I think.

 

[grizzleb]

Pizza dough recipes please. I'm thinking about getting some sourdough on the go too.

 

[DannyL]

Pizza dough recipes please. I'm thinking about getting some sourdough on the go too.

The one I've always used is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2003/aug/10/foodanddrink.shopping2

from the ever-reliable Nigel Slater.

... and Ollie, it's dead easy. The only difficult bit is rolling it out and trying to get it round, you just have to use plenty of flour to stop it sticking.

 

[DannyL]

You should go to a snooty wineshop after you've decided on your meal, tell them what you're having and ask them to recommend something.

There's a great place on Old Street that is the sheeeeeeet for this.The City Beverage Company I think it is. I once heard the guy say, apropos of a bottle, "it's drinking exceptionally well at the moment" which is just 7 shades of awesome. It's a phrase I need to employ more.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Pizza dough recipes please. I'm thinking about getting some sourdough on the go too.

I use a modified version of Delia's recipe - hers is slightly too salty and too wet*:

6 oz strong white bread flour
3.5 oz warm water (she says 4 oz)
0.5 tsp salt (she says 1 tsp)
0.5 tsp sugar
1 tsp dried yeast (half a sachet, more or less)
2 tbsp/3 dessert spoons olive oil

Sift flour with yeast, add other ingredients then knead until it has that nice glossy look, leave to rise somewhere warm-ish for an hour, maybe a bit longer.


*fnar!

 

[grizzleb]

Sweet. Sounds pretty damn easy actually. I've heard home made bread trounces even the fanciest of store bought so I look forward to getting in about it.

 

[IdleRich]

Funnily enough the only thing I have made regularly is bread - dunno why but some reason I used to make it every day for my work sandwiches a few years back.
On skim reading I actually though Mr Sloane was advocating cooking a dead rat - nice and cheap and easy to find in these parts but unlikely to impress i think.

 

[Lichen]

but unlikely to impress i think.


Unless the lady is a goth.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Or a cat.

 

[IdleRich]

She's neither, she's an artist - cue much hilarity when I told my friends I was planning to see her opening that evening (I may have sniggered a bit myself to be honest - I really enjoyed going down there actually - it was a lot bigger than I was expecting etc etc).

 

[jenks]

According to my wife, who is a proper bread making genius she reckons this bloke is the bread making don:

http://www.danlepard.com/
he has a q+a forum

she's currently deep into teh arcane mysteries of sourdough made from this natural rising agnet she made from flour, water and raisins. The gloop has alife of its own and emits gurgles and hisses from the corner of the kitchen like a malevolent force.

On teh recipe front Rich - I'd go for a Cassoulet kind of thing - decent sauasages, soak and boil range of nice looking beans/pulses (dead cheap), slosh a bottle of red in there, add aome water, pepper (no salt until just before the end so the beans go soft), add carrots/garlic/ celery and any other veg you fancy and whatever herbage you have to hand - stick in the oven on gas 2 for an afternoon - big bowl, nice bread, job done.

Stick a rice pudding in the oven at the same time and that's dessert sorted.

 

[Sectionfive]

Don't laugh but if you want something that can't go wrong try a stew.
Meat, Veg, Potatoes in the pot, crack open a bottle of wine, fresh crusty baguette on the side.
House will smell great when she arrives.

Might not be glamorous but its always tasty and a perfect winter warmer.
And the best part is if you make a big one, all you have to is flick on the heat the next day and you have second day stew,
the finest meal know to man.

 

[martin]

Right, I've started seeing this girl, it's her birthday tomorrow and I'm broke so I said I would cook dinner for her on Sunday. Problem is, I'm rubbish at cooking. So I need tips on a (maybe three course) meal that is

a) Easy to make
b) Cheap (or at least not super-expensive)
c) Gonna impress her, be really nice etc

Obviously b, er, I mean c is the most important criterion. Actually a is pretty important too 'cause it doesn't matter how impressive it is if I fuck it up.

How did this actually turn out in the end?

 

[IdleRich]

"How did this actually turn out in the end?"

Well, Sunday hasn't arrived yet so I dunno. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the options though. As for STN"s comment about inviting someone round, it would have to be Mr Sloane I reckon for his beyond-the-call-of-duty thinking about it "all night". If I was gonna invite somebody that is.

 

[martin]

Well, Sunday hasn't arrived yet so I dunno. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the options though. As for STN"s comment about inviting someone round, it would have to be Mr Sloane I reckon for his beyond-the-call-of-duty thinking about it "all night". If I was gonna invite somebody that is.

Oh right. I thought this was one of those 2007 threads that suddenly got reactivated, didn't check the date.

I reckon I know what you should do -steak onglet and chips. You'll have to find a good cut first, and make sure you do the chips properly, like dunking them into ice water half way thru (google it), but it'll work. When you're cooking, make sure to get some blood down your shirt and wave a big knife around while you're talking to her. Have a fag in the kitchen too. This is because all her previous being-cooked-for dates probably involved some guy tenderly fannying around with paprika and talking about classic taste combinations he'd only discovered 24 hours before on the internet. Get the raw carnivore stuff out of the way first, buy yourself some time to actually work out with herbs go best with white fish.

 

[mistersloane]

Well, Sunday hasn't arrived yet so I dunno. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the options though. As for STN"s comment about inviting someone round, it would have to be Mr Sloane I reckon for his beyond-the-call-of-duty thinking about it "all night". If I was gonna invite somebody that is.

I was! I was working til about 4 in the morning and it's really tedious work so my brain was like 'black bean soup? nope. beans. not good for a date. curry? might not like curry and they can turn out bad'...etc for hours.