Junece Tripice

So what else did I buy in the Chinese supermarket? Tripe! (and fortune cookies)

'Is your blog all about strange and unusual recipes?' someone at work asked me today, what's so strange about tripe? You don't see it much in Britain but I've had tripe before, the boyfriend brought me back a tin from Spain (what a prince, no fancy bottles of wine or duty free perfume for this lucky girl!) and recently I had some for lunch in Croatia, so I was pretty excited about recreating it at home.

The book I'm using is called Traditional Dishes from the Home Kitchen, and I know I've said this before, but I can't believe there isn't a Croatian restaurant in London. Oh well, who cares.

Check this out, bitchez. It was so tempting to get a few more packs of tripe and play 'Recreate the Stomach' (Frankenstein style) but no, I'm almost 24 and it's time to put away the childish things. The hardest part of the recipe is figuring out their crazy measurements system, everything is given in decagrams, no one onion and three rashers of bacon here, but I translated it pretty well, I think.

I had a fortune cookie while I was waiting for the tripe to boil three separate times, it said - Your hard work will soon be rewarded. And this is what I was rewarded with

I think it looks like old torn up carpet that's been sitting in the rain, the boyfriend thinks it looks like a fleece. We're both wrong of course, actually this is going to be our delicious dinner.

The recipe is very simple, it will be very sad if I screw it up. But seriously, what is a decagram, who uses that unit of measurement? Tomorrow I'm going to try and find a recipe that calls for a bushel of something.

Result: Woo, it looks exactly like the picture (except mine doesn't have a scummy oily film on top) and tastes almost as good as it did in Croatia. The last line of the recipe says you're meant to serve it with cheese - no. And it could have done with a few more vegetables, but I'll let it slide this time. Success, I'm the best.

The tripe almost melts in the mouth, I heard that in Spain they sometimes add a few slices of pig's ear to give it a little crunch, but I don't think it needs it. It is a bit smelly while it's cooking, but what's the problem? Open the window, layzeeass!

I had another cookie for dessert - Do not provoke your neighbours next week, it will bring you trouble!

Well, you play with fire, and you get burned...

Junece Tripice

750 grams of fresh beef tripe

200 grams of onion

400 grams of potato

100 grams of bacon

4 cloves of garlic

1 tablespoon of oil

2 bay leaves

25 grams of tomato paste

1/2 teaspoon of paprika

1 teaspoon of chopped parsley

salt

pepper

Wash the tripe and boil with the bay leaves for 20 minutes. Drain and repeat twice. Let the tripe cool and slice. Heat the oil and fry the finely chopped onion, bacon and garlic for a few minutes. Add the tripe and the peeled, sliced potatoes. Add the tomato puree and enough water to cover, stir in the paprika, parsley, salt and pepper. Cover and cook until the potatoes are cooked through and serve with grated cheese.

Frogs' Legs, Vietnamese Style

I get paid in two days, and having enjoyed the end of the summer a little too thoroughly I was down to my last £10 this afternoon. What would one do with such riches? Go to the cinema? Use it to buy lunch tomorrow? Um, keep it in the bank? No, all wrong. You guys have no imagination. I went to Chinatown and bought a kilo of frogs' legs, duh.
I'm not a nut by the way, I specifically wanted to try another one of Floyd's recipes. I didn't really do the Ginger Chicken justice, and it's been haunting my dreams, so this is make or break.
In case you're interested this delicacy set me back £8.50, the equivalent of chicken would be less than half that, but elsewhere online prime leg of frog fetches around £16 per kilo - so remember, shop local.
And one last thing, in case I haven't put you off food entirely so far, this is what Wikipedia says about frogs' legs:
'Frog muscle does not resolve rigor mortis as quickly as warm blooded muscle (chicken, for example), so heat from cooking can cause fresh frogs legs to twitch'
I'm so glad the ones I got were frozen. If you read the rest of the article there is a revolting guide to hunting and skinning frogs, but even having read that and almost thrown up in my mouth I still want to go ahead.
I'm making a few, substitutions, of course. I didn't have any brown sugar, and I'm using chilli flakes instead of fresh chillies. Almost every recipe I've made so far calls for shallots, I have never bought one, but I swear that's just the same as onions, right? The biggest deal, I guess is that I'm swapping coconut milk for cream, I had some left over from the souffle, and if this goes on I might as well spread it straight on my thighs...
Look how cute the froggie legs look in their individual little bags! It so convenient and I can defrost them with boiling water without scalding them. I'm only using half of the box, so if I find anything else to turn the rest into, I have that option (hmmm, isn't Halloween coming up?)
Is it a cheat to use curry powder instead of assembling all the spices individually? That too is left over from my souffle making days, at least this recipe is simple!
I make noodles like Floyd suggests and pack the whole thing into my lunch box, it looks and smells quite nice, but I'll have to wait until tomorrow to try it.
Result: How to win friends, influence people, and ruin everyone's appetite at work.
1) Bring in something weird for lunch, make sure everyone knows what you're eating and give them a taste
2) Get into an exciting conversation about all the weird stuff you have ever tried and, if possible, where you travelled to try it
3) Complain about the scarcity of said foodstuffs in your locale
4) Turn the discussion onto something controversial like veal, make sure your view is diametrically opposed to everyone else's, try and heat things up by mentioning any revolting details you gleaned from late night sensationalist TV programs on Five
5) Secret surefire way to get everyone to agree with you, two words - Your mum.

No not really. My mind was kind of drifting as I was trying to think of an appropriate adjective for the texture of frogs' legs. The taste is really minimal (maybe it was all that cream) but you can definitely tell you're not eating chicken, it's a lot more fiborous. The sauce was lovely, Floyd is great. Even I couldn't mess this up, but really frog is nothing special. I would make it again, but with something a little more... readily available.
At least nobody was sick

Oyster Souffle

My dad has this amazing foraging predilection. Every weekend this summer he has driven to the coast to look for mussels and oysters, and snuck around the countryside collecting apples and pears from trees in parks. Well, I'm trying to make all of that sound tons nicer and more desirable than fishing half eaten sandwiches out of a bin.
Anyway, the point is that we have 3 buckets of oysters to get through. I think he got these in Colchester, and the taste is pretty strong and salty and sea-y. Yummy! But I'll eat anything.

Get this, I looked everywhere for an interesting recipe for oysters. I know they're expensive so most people eat them raw, but one does love variety. So I looked through all my cookbooks, and even (hold on to your seat) on the internet, and there isn't a lot. I toyed with the idea of a traditional English steak and kidney pudding with a few oysters chucked in, but I wanted the oyster to be the centre piece. So grudgingly, I turn to Sophie.
Soph, it's nothing personal, and maybe the Besugo al Horno was a fluke! But I just don't like you.

So, souffle. I've never had a savoury souffle, I've never made any, and I don't know anyone who has. Apparently it's really hard.
Oysters are listed as the alternative to mussels in the recipe, but I'm not sure how 1.35 kg of mussels translates to oysters but I settled for a conservative 20. Which the boyfriend and I conservatively spent an hour shucking, and even though it's cold blooded murder, it's so infuriating that it becomes very satisfying. In an sinister way.

The onion is missing from this picture,
But check out how much the oysters look like a bowl of snot (this is becoming a theme)

Maybe it's my incredible arrogance, but the preparation is pretty simple. Stir this, add that, blah blah blah. Instead of one big dish I put them into individual ramekins and away they go. It isn't mentioned in this recipe(thanks for nothing, Sophie), but I've heard countless times that you're not meant to open the oven door while the souffle is cooking, so I satisfy my feminine curiosity by peeping in though the glass, and... they rise!

Result: Well, perfect obviously. I mean, they look perfect, but I wanted to spit out the first bite I had. Everybody else liked it, for serious, I'm not joshing you. I just couldn't hack the savoury egg fish thing, but I've had requests to repeat the experiment. Either my family are all perverts or else I just have really bad taste...
Frozen Mars bar for dessert

Peach pie

I don't have much of a sweet tooth. I would always have the starter (or another drink) instead of the dessert in a restaurant. I don't get a great paroxysm of pleasure if 'someone' brings me a box of chocolates. I would eat them, you know, out of politeness, but my mind would be on other things. Desserts are also in my experience quite hard to make. And so, with that attitude I am trying a recipe that I am particularly sceptical about.

I believe I made my feelings about William Dufty known in a previous update after I came back from holiday. The title of the book is Sugar Blues, and on the edition I have it is typed in handsome Spencerian cursive just like the Coca Cola logo, how ironic! Ha ha. And the basic message of the book is that sugar is bad, man. Check out the before and after picture, take the sugar out of your diet and you turn into fricking Robert Redford!

This isn't really a cookbook, more like a parsimonious mandate with a few recipes in the back. Imagine a dried up casuist with a Japanese fetish and you might get an idea what I'm talking about, everything tastes better with an umeboshi (salted plum) thrown in. OK? Lock up your sons and daughters! Especially when you hear this :
"I've had some success weaning youngsters off sugared puddings by making a whipped mixture out of stewed dried fruit and tahini"
Well, I didn't have any youngsters lurking around, and as I started making the pie crust I wondered where one would get some...
This 'recipe' was a real mental challenge for a pedant like me, there were pretty much no measurements, which always worries me. As I mix the dough the texture is pretty revolting, the cornmeal is like sand and the whole thing reminds me of the mudpies I used to make when I was five. I also used to eat those pies, so no judgement!
The crust bakes/dries up in the time specified and as he didn't mention greasing the dish I was expecting it to stick to the pie dish (which I borrowed from the boyfriend's mum) which thankfully it didn't.
Luckily for us, we don't live in the 60s so I was able to obtain peach halves in natural grape juice as opposed to syrup, and that was pretty much the only ingredient. Having been dealt a lifelong blow by the 'ginger' chicken, I am pretty paranoid about sourness, but the unspecified amount of lemon peel goes in, along with the raisins.

Result: I am pleasantly surprised. Apart from the snotty texture of the filling I can't fault it. 'Even you have to admit, this is nice' said the boyfriend, what is that supposed to mean?
I would make the pastry crust again, it was crazy easy and tasted like every other pie I've had. Fancy pants claims he never makes pie out of fresh fruit because you're meant to eat it raw, but I would totally put strawberries in the next one.
Good, and it makes it easy to pretend that eating a pie is good for you.

Sarma

In February I went to Bath with some girls, and either because it was frickin' freezing or because I'm thick, the only memory I have is of all of us walking around, stopping every five minutes to pose and take pictures. At one point someone said 'Hey, lets all of us almost flash the camera!' That picture's in Facebook now, and let's just say some of us are almost flashing more than others...

The other thing is this Favorite Romany Recipes booklet by Keziah Cooper I bought in the train station gift shop as soon as we arrived. Yeah, it doesn't have anything to do with Bath. Every recipe has a little story preceeding it, and there's a bunch of ye olde time sepia photographs of caravans and horses and that kind of stuff all over the place. Cute.

I don't have access to a scanner today so I'll have to type out the recipe at the end, and take a photo of the cover, but I have a new phone, so hopefully the food will look as good as it... tastes hahaha

I'm not a big fan of the old 'a good pinch of' this and 'a mixture of' that, especially after I've been stung but playing fast and loose with the ingredient in the previous recipe. And I was about to halve all the ingredients when I thought that I didn't have enough rice, before I realised that 1 pound of cooked rice is made out of half a pound of uncooked rice. Thanks for keeping that to yourself, Keziah Cooper. But clock the cute little tomatoes from the garden :)
I didn't have any bacon, which is optional, but you're not told to put a little salt in the mixture if you don't use any. Is there a danger of this being, dare I say it, bland?
I'm still under the influence of Julia Child, from the weekend, so I'm using butter and not oil to prepare the filling, and it's pretty simple until you start trying to wrap them up in the cabbage leaves. I was really pleased with myself for having one of those gigantic flat cabbages from the Turkish supermarket, easy, right? No. A couple split and only one or two were neatly wrapped and tucked in to the steamer, I had visions of the contents spilling out, trickling through the holes and making a big mess... (Julia Child might tell me to have no fear!)

Result: You are meant to eat this with tomato or mushroom ketchup, Cooper gives the recipes for both, but I didn't have time to make either. That's Heinz in the picture, and I understood the recomendation as soon as I tasted it. The sweet acidity of the ketchup goes really well with the starchiness of the cabbage, without that it was blaaaaaaand. You can just about taste the dill and peppers, but next time I would cook the rice in stock and instead of steaming the parcels might stew them in tomato sauce. Otherwise, this is a dinner to make for yourself when you've been really bad >:( (that's what you get for being such a loser on a Friday night)


Sarma
When I was young we made several trips in May to the great annual Romany pilgrimage at Saintes Maries-de-la-Mer in the Camargue in Souther France. Apart from the excitement of seeing the Camargue cowboys rounding up the wild horses, there was something magical about witnessing so many different tribes coming together in one place. Our aitchen tan (stopping place) was part of a rich tapestry of different cultures. This recipe was garnered from out neighbours there and is one I always associate with those colourful spice-and-garlic scented visits.

Large cabbage leaves (red or green)
4 shallots or a handful of ramsons (leaves and bulbs), chopped
A little oil or butter
2 well flavoured tomatoes, chopped
A mixture of sweet peppers, de-seeded and chopped
Diced cooked meat or bacon (optional)
1 lb plain boiled rice
A good pinch of fresh chopped herbs (dill, parsley, marjoram)
4 oz smoked or herbed soft cheese
1 large egg, beaten

Saute the shallots or ramsons in the oil or butter until soft, add the tomatoes, peppers and meat (if used) and cook lightly. Remove from the heat and combine the rice, herbs and the cheese into the mixture, including the beaten egg. Fill the cabbage leaves with the mixture and fold them over to make secure parcels. Steam these for twenty minutes and serve with tomato or mushroom ketchup

Update

OK, nothing to do with cooking, but I just came back from watching Julie and Julia. Oooh, when's the DVD coming out!!!
I liked the look of the boned duck pie at the end, but I don't think I really want the book. I'm not ready for it. Plus the boyfriend has kind of put a moratorium on cook book buying until I use all the ones I have now.
Maybe that's because I told him that Stanley Tucci gives me major wide on...

Ginger Chicken

I'm back in business, baby!
Today, that business is using up whatever in the fridge is about to go off which was chicken and steak. I couldn't find any recipes for steak that didn't necessitate a trip to the shops, and doing this blog has made me so perverted that I don't really want to cook anything that doesn't require the use of a recipe. So just like, you know, frying the steaks to make - steak - for dinner was out.

So taking all of that into consideration I decided on the rather simple looking Ginger Chicken from Keith Floyd's book of Great Curries. Great!
As I have written earlier in the Biryani post, I don't really trust Westerners trying it with asian food, but Floyd gets special dispensation because he's so cool! To be honest, alsmost none of the stuff he made on his shows looks that tasty, but I still want to try all of it. As far as I can tell the idea of his programs was to make international food accessible to English people. I remember one bit where he cooked something in France and the woman he gave it to to taste told him, in French, that it was kind of OK, but not that great. I think that's the point, you make it for yourself and everybody else can go jump in a lake!

OK look at the picture and see if you can tell where my downfall is going to come from. The recipe calls for the juice of 2 lemons or 2 limes. I figured that since the citruses we had were soooooooooooo small that I should use both the lemons and limes. Ha.
The method is pretty simple, you fry the chicken, then season it, and then simmer in the liquid. Hey, how is the flavour supposed to get in to the chicken meat? Shut up, that's how.

Perhaps another way in which my misguided self assurance sealed the doom of this dish is that I didn't use the entire bunch of spring onions. Come on, look at the size of that thing! We got it in the Turkish supermarket up the road and it's pretty big, yeah?

I also made Raita, but you don't hear me bragging about it. Check out the recipe below, though, I wouldn't have been able to do without it!

Result: 'Yeah, you can definitely taste the ginger' generously offered my stepmother. Everybody else was a bit more honest about the meal. Ahem.
All you could taste in the sauce was the lemon :( having said that I'm not sure if you would be able to taste anything significant in the absence of the lemon. The raw spring onion was supposed to provide the heat - um, maybe I didn't put enough in, or maybe it just tastes like onion. Or maybe I'm in the Twilight zone, up is down, left is right and this recipe is really authentic and delicious. Lets just say if I fed this to an Indian he would die of shock.
Raita was good.

I kind of have a cold today, so just leave me alone