I'm the noodle doodle man!

Rrrrr, me hearties! Here's one for all you Pastafarians:

Pad Thai

I noticed that supermarkets have started selling squidgy packets of ready-to-cook pad thai noodles - ie the flat rice noodles used in Thai and Vietnamese cooking. Here's what I've been doing with them:

First, make some very thin omlettes. In a large frying pan/ skillet...lightly oil...pour in the beaten egg and make sure it coats the whole thing...cook, flip, cook, out. You need two or three for two people. Stack them one on top of another. Roll them up together. Then slice into 0.5cm strips. Et viola. You have 'egg strips'.

Next, get some stir frying shit together. It doesn't really matter what - one of those supermarket beansprouts+ combos will do fine (although usually like to make sure it has stuff like baby corn, sugarsnaps/mangtouts (mangetous?) and chinese cabbage). Stick it to one side a minute...

Heat your wok up nice and smokin', with a little oil. First throw in some salt and some shredded ginger. Then some sliced shitake mushrooms. I like these when they're fried intensely and start to brown - ot develops their flavour. Then throw in a thinly-sliced red chilli or two. Now the stir-fry veg. Again - intensity is the key with beansprouts. At around this time, add more shredded ginger and lotsandlots of thinly-sliced garlic (about 4 cloves). Keep on stirring and add some soy sauce - the sweet kind is best (eg ketjap manis) and (optionally) a sprinkle of the dreaded 'Flavour Powder'.

Next, toss in your eggs strips and noodles and throw it all around.

Finally...and this is The Big Important Trick...this blog talks a lot about the central role of 'shrubbery' in Vietnamese food. He's spot on! The secret is to throw in, at the very last minute before serving, great big handfuls of slightly-chopped coriander, basil and mint. How much? Take more than you'd think, then double it.

Serve garnished with lots of wedges of lime.



I can't think of an Italic bit at the end today, so I'll just shut up.

No I won't. Having nothing to say has never stopped me before. I've been reading 'Fermat's Last Theorem' by Simon Singh, so I'll tell you about The Catalogue Paradox:

A librarian is re-cataloguing all the books in the library. At the
end, he's left with a pile of catalogues, so he starts to catalogue them.
He notices that they can be subdivided into two types: thosen that list
themselves within their pages and those that don't. So he lists the first
lot and makes a catalog of them. Then he does the second lot...but he has
a problem. Should his 'Catalogue Of All The Catalogues That Don't List
Themselves' also list itself? If it doesn't, it's incomplete.
But...if it does...then obviously it's a catalogue that does list
itself, so by definition it shouldn't be listed. On the other hand...

My brain hurts.

I know what pakora are, but what are these 'leftovers' you speak of?

When I make pakora, I go for it in a big way. Here's what I did with the leftovers last night. I think it would also work with paneer.

Pakora Curry

Heat some ghee in your chosen pan.
Add some salt, asafoetida, mustard seeds, cumin seeds, a couple of bits of cinamon bark and a few star anise. Heat until its all popping away aromatically.
Add a chopped onion, some ginger (a fair amount), some garlic (not loads) and a finely sliced chilli. Heat until the onions begin to soften.
Add a few chopped tomatoes and soften.
Add some water and simmer until it's mostly evaporated.
Add some ground almonds and simmer a few minutes to get a creamy consistency.
Add the pakora and heat through.

(If using paneer, cut into cubes and fry until brown beforehand).

Of course, we all know about the guy who overdosed on curry and fell into a korma...

---

Some letters from The Grauniad:

"No offence, but do you think I could ask Jack Straw to wear a veil if I had
an appointment with him?"

and..

"I'm writing to express my concern about the wearing of the kilt by certain
extremist Scots. In the first place, it clearly marks them out as separate from
our society. Second, I feel threatened by the thought of what might be
underneath"

An Anniversary Tart and a Birthday Pie.

There was a double celebration at Pie Acres this weekend. Here's what was eaten:

Chard Tart.

In a flan dish, bake a shortcrust case blind. (I was going to make a cheese pastry, but wimped out and bought ready-rolled shortcrust),

Then catch some Swiss chard. I don't know why this delicious vegetable is so hard to find in shops. You see it a lot in vegetable gardens - possibly because it looks so nice. It's about the only thing growing in my own micro plot. (I'll do the veg thing properly next year. Promise!).

Anyway - take the stalks/ribs and cut into .5 cm lengths. Sweat in butter until softened. Add the coarsley-chopped leaves and cook until wilted. Add a little pepper and nutmeg.

Stir in some crème fraîche (you don't want it too runny) and spread it in the baked pastry case. Dot in a few small chunks of Gorgonzola, top with grated parmesan and bake until lightly browned.

Serve with new potatoes with plenty of butter, parsley and a little mint.

Sheperdless Pie

For the bottom bit:

Dice some aubergine and courgette into small dice. Fry in olive oil until they start to brown. Add some onion and chopped shitake mushroom. Sweat some more. Add some cooked green lentils, with their cooking water, and some small cubes of smoked tofu. Add a couple of stock cubes and a dash of Worcestershire sauce.

For the topping:

Mashed potatoes. Plenty of butter and some chopped parsley.

Put the bottom mixture in an oven dish. Top with the potatoes. Agigate with a fork to get a suitably rough texture. Dot with butter. Bake.

Serve with some finely-grated red cabbage which has been marinated in a mild vinegar for a couple of hours with some finely chopped shallots and a little salt.

---

We shall pass over this news item without further comment. It's the "...boxes of Capri-Sun and packets of Cadburys shortcake biscuits." that intigue me.

Zucchini/ Courgette Tortilla...and a variation

For today's recipe, I am indebted to azahar from Seville (where the marmelade comes from)...and to Psychocandy from whose blog I stole it,

azahar's original recipe was:

Whip up a few eggs in a large bowl. Then grate a zucchini (afterwards use some paper towels to get rid of excess moisture). Then add the grated zucchini to the eggs with a bit of salt&pepper and pour the mixture into a heated frying pan that has a good amount of olive oil also heated up to quite a high temperature.

The size of the pan should be chosen to make the tortilla mixture at least an inch or two high in the pan.

Once the mixture sets (starts sizzling) immediately turn heat down to LOW and cover until the omelette is about 3/4 cooked through, then flip it over (I usually ease it out onto a cutting board, then put the pan over top to flip it) and then continue cooking on low heat - uncovered - until cooked through. Then top with grated cheese and a sprinkling of white pepper and stick under the broiler until cheese has melted.
It’s lovely served with a side salad and crusty bread and also with some of ‘The Sauce’ on the side, which goes very well with the eggs.

In my variation, I took the cooked courgettes/ zuchinni out of the pan and mixed in some cream cheese and some chopped chives, pars;ey and dill. Then I put halt the beaten eggs into the pan. When set, I spread the courgette mixture on top, nice and flat and even, then covered with the rest of the beatenn eggs. I heated a little more, then topped with parmesan (you could use grated swiss cheese, or even cheddar) and put the pan under the gorilla.

---

Speaking of gorillas...

The libel action taken by Scottish Socialist Party MSP Tommy Sheridan is drawing to a close. For these as don't follow Holyrood politics I shall recount the salacious details
:
He took The News Of The World to court for alleging that he visited swingers clubs and was caught in a three in a bed situation in a hotel. What this has to do with politics I know not - but he's chosen to sue. The odds are not looking good for him, given that he admitted it all to his party. Plus he sacked his counsel half way through.

Amongst incidents from his trial:

• It was alleged that someone kissed him all over with an ice cube in her mouth. His wife dismissed this: "It can't have been very pleasant. My Tommy's like a monkey. She'd have got a mouthful of hair." Tommy has offered to prove this by stripping off in court.
• Tommy is known for his fondness for sunbeds. In a book on which the newspaper story was based, the writer claimed that her companion at the club had been a six foot six black man with a shaven head. Counsel (when he still had one) asked her: "Is orange the new black?"
• An alleged witness to his hotel romp was asked "By what body part did you recognise him?"

Then there's the reported incident in the a Glasgow hotel. A waitress went up to a table of six diners with a complimentary glass of champagne for those who were actually staying at the hotel. "Are you all residents?" she asked politely as the champagne bottle hovered. Obviously hoping for a free glass, but with only one of the couples staying, one of the diners told her: "Yes, we are all in the one room." Then added: "It's the Tommy Sheridan Suite."

Pasta with Fresh Broadbeans and Ricotta

Sorry. Sometimes the effort of dreaming up 'witty' titles just gets too much and I'm forced back into being descriptive.

I haven't actually made this yet. I bought all the ingredients and even podded the beans, but then a minor domestic emergency happened. But I'm looking forward to it tonight. It was one of those 'What if I...' ideas I have while waiting at traffic lights.

Signore Inginere Anton Gelli is one of The Pie's longest standing members. In time, that is. In stature he's a bit of a shortarse. He's been with us before we were even a website, let alone a blog. As he will attest, different forms of pasta have entirely different functions, and it's important to use a sympathetic noodle. I think this one would work with linguine, but as it was I settled on trofie. The site I stole this picture from tells me that they're Seattle's current 'it' pasta, but don't let that put you off. I nearly got orrichiete. That would have been quite wrong. For starters, they are too similar in shape and size to broad beans. I can't explain why that's important. It just is. Like...if you make a sauce with whole cherry tomatoes and basil, you have to serve it with buccatini. Serving it with spaghetti would be as wrong as serving garlic and chilli with buccatini.

But I digress...

Take your fresh broad beans and pod them. Some would also advocate peeling them, but life's to short. Just buy fresh, young beans.

Braise them very briefly in some olive oil, a little stock, some fresh thyme and garlic. I suggest leaving the garlic whole to keep it nice and sweet.
Cook your trofie.
Add the drained trofie to the broad bean pan.
Toss together with some crumbled ricotta, chopped flat-leaf parsley, a little fresh mint and snipped chives.
Serve topped with coarsely grated pecorino.

Sgr Gelli and I have also been discussing biscuits. Alexei Sayle once pointed out that a lot of biscuits seem to be named after Italian leaders:

"You've got your Bourbon biscuits, your Garibaldi biscuits and your Peak Frean's Mussolini Assortment."

(Links provided for the assistance of USAnian readers who may be unfamilar with UKanian crunchy comestibles. Oh...and we mean 'cookies', not scones with gravy.)

Following further research, Sgr Gelli has discovered Jacobs Jacobites. Leading Jacobite insurgent Bonnie Prince Charlie was, of course, Italian. Don't believe all those pictures on the shortbread tins! They're papist propaganda.

Eggy Bamyasi

A thoroughly misleading title, that. Not only does this ingredient contain no okra, but none of it's ingredients are canned (prizes for spotting the reference).

While I'm talking about okra...why do some cookbooks insist on translating them as 'ladyfingers'? I maintain that the only time one comes across okra is in relation to a cuisine that actually uses it. So why have an English translation. Mind you - I suppose it stops any quarrels about whether to call them 'okra' or 'bhindi'. Or 'bamya', even.

But this isn't about okra. No. It's about...

Cauliflower Kookoo

A kookoo is an Iranian omlette-y thing, similar to an Arabic eggah, an Italian frittata or a Spanish tortilla. Here it's the addition of herbs that gives it its particular Iranian character.

Take some cauliflower. Floretify it. Steam until it's a little soft, but not squishy.
Shred an oinion. Sauté it in olive oil in an omelette-sized non-stick pan until it just begins to brown.
Add in the cauliflower and a goodly amount of sliced garlic.
Once it's all nicely amalgamated, put in lots of finely chopped fresh dill, finely-chopped flat leaf parsley and a little fresh mint. Salt and pepper. Mix it all up.
Beat up some eggs. Four or so. Add to the pan and blend it all about, lifting up the cauli mix a few times with a spatula so that the whole pan is thouroughly eggy. Then start using the spatula to pat the top flat and start prising the edges away from the edge of the pan.
Continue cooking a while until it seems reasonably set. Then brown the top under a grill.
Ease onto a plate and leave to cool. (Putting a plate on top of the pan and inverting sometimes works).
Serve at room temperature with some nice bread, a crisp salad and Suitably middle Eastern pickles.

---

Dick Cheney says that the suicides in Guantanamo were 'an act of war'. The Pie urges him and his fellow government members to retaliate in kind immediately.

Happy biiirthday to Pooo-ooop...

It was Poop's birthday party at the weekend. He had sweeties, jammie dodgers, jellies and a Fifi Flowertot birthday cake. He's a most enormous fan of Fifi.

The grown-ups had more sophisticated fare. Today's Big Bumper Edition of Flaming Pie lists all the recipes you need for a simple summer party.


Chilled Pea Soup.

Boil up some vegetable stock with some onions. Throw in some frozen peas and a couple of mint leaves. Allow to cool. Liquidise thoroughly. Adjust the seasoning. Just before serving, throw in lots of ice cubes. Serve with a spoon of sour cream and a sprinking of chives.

I love the German word for chives: der Schnittlauch. Literally, 'snipping leeks'.

Tomato, Olive and Basil Tart.

Preferably, make your own shortcut pastry:
Half the weight of fat/butter to plain flour. Rub together (or food-process). Add just enough water to bind. Wrap in clingfilm and chill thoroughly.

Take a flan dish. Grease and flour. Tip: Shortcust pastry is very hard to deal with. One way is to roll it between two sheets of clingfilm. Another is to grate it into the dish and just squash it over the bottom and sides. However this doesn't work so well with store-bought pastry, which tends to be more elastic.

Bake the pastry case blind. Either cover it in rice/ dried beans/ pebbles and bake, or cover with kitchen foil, pressed to conform to the shape, bake a little, then remove and bake some more until it dries out a bit. Either way - you don't want to cook it thoroughly yet.

Now take the best, vine-grown, small tomatoes you can find. Cut into quarters and scatter, skin side down, in the pastry case. Chop up a few black olives and instersperse amongst the tomatoes. Tear up a good handful of basil leaves and do the same. Drizzle with a tiny amount of olive oil (don't overdo it). Sprinkle with a little sea salt. Bake in a low-ish oven.

Curried Rice Salad

This was the surprise hit.

Cook some boiled rice. Mix up with mayonnaise, mild curry powder (one containing fennel/anise for preference), finely chopped red pepper, chopped spring onions/ scallions/ syboes, some almonds, some raisins, some chopped banana, salt to taste.

Cucumber Sandwiches

Peel a cucumber or two and slice as thin as you can. I used a mandolin (but I'm sure a banjo would do just as well). Put the slices in a colander, sprinkle with salt, add a little vinegar and leave for about an our. Pat them dry on a clean teatowel. Add a few twists of black pepper.

Butter some sliced bread (ideally Hovis, failing that wholemeal) with unsalted butter. Spread with a thin layer of cucumber and make a butty. Press firmly together. Slice off the crusts and cut either into triangular quarters or fingers. Chill before serving.

Lettuce

My Stalinist approach to salad.

Take a nice lettuce or two (Cos, Romaine, never Iceberg!). Tear it up (It's a French thing. Apparently the French never cut lettuce). Simply dress with olive oil, a little vinegar (I used the kind that Delia Smith pronounces 'Boar's Mick'), a little sea salt, a little freshly ground black pepper.

Fruit Salad

For the first time in ages, I managed to score some decent nectarines...in Asda, of all places. For starters, thety were actually ripe. They had deep red skins and white flesh and a wonderful, perfumed taste. They made a great fruit salad, along with watermelon, honeydew melon and Packham pears.

---

The Italic Bits

According to the US State Department, suicide can be regarded as 'a publicity stunt'. Do you reckon that Max Clifford might pick up on this for his celeb clients? Here's hoping!


Open Source is a great idea. You can get Open Source Software...which means that you'll never again be stuck for something to do with your spare time...even Open Source Beer and (provided you can read Japanese) OpenCola. And coming soon...Open Source God. It seems that a bunch of geeks are getting together to make instructions on how to make a God Helmet publically available: a clever arrangement of magnets that allows people to...er...see god.


Radio 4's 'I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue' continues to deliver outrageous lines into our homes in the early evening. Two recent examples from Humphrey Littleton concerning the scorer, the ever-delectable Samantha:

"Samantha has to shoot off to meet her new gentleman friend. She says he's going into business growing scrumpy apples. If his predictions are correct, he's going to be very big in cider."

and

"Samantha has to go and by a birthday gift for her gentleman friend. He likes to play with model boats in his bathtub. She's thought about him long and hard and wants to give him a little tug."

Ahfangew!

More Samantha smut here.

Wavy Gravy.

Risotto – not, contrary to popular belief some boiled rice with a few vegetables chucked in it. It’s best regarded as a sort of semi-solid cereal-based soup. The Italian word is ondine– wave-like. When you shuggle the plate, it should ripple.

But I’m not here to talk about risotto. When you make it with barley it’s called orzalano. And it takes a lot less stirring and watching over to get right. Lovely stuff, barley. It has a great flavour and texture. It’s far too nice to restrict it to Scotch Broth.

Anyway…Barley. It’s dirt cheap. Apparently ‘pot barley’ is meant to be the whole grain and ‘pearl barley’ the polished, but I’ve never noticed a difference. It can be a bit starch and gloopy. I recommend pre-soaking it and rinsing it thoroughly in one of those watchamacallits with the holes, and/or bringing it to the boil in lots of water, then changing the water and boiling again. Then simmer on a low heat until tender but al dente. (40 minutes to an hour – depending on pre-soaking etc. etc.). That’s another advantage over risotto, where you have to add the water to the rice gradually. You can just cook the barley in advance in plenty of water and then drain it.

So – you’ve got yer barley. Now get a big frying pan sort of thing. Sauté some shredded leaks and a couple of cloves of garlic in a little olive oil. Then add plenty of sliced/ chopped mushrooms. Make sure you use the big, flat ones. (Sensible languages use a separate word to distinguish these from button mushrooms). Porcini/ Ceps, dried or fresh, would be even better – only somehow last autumn I never got around to foraging. Then add your barley (you want to keep a decent veg-barley ratio), stir it all up and moisten with sufficient stock (including the porcini-reconstituting water, if applicable.). When it looks suitably ondine, slip in a big knob. Of butter. And a handful or two of grated parmesan. Stir a couple of times.

Serve topped with chopped parsley, a little black pepper and more parmesan.

---

There are two more holes in Blackburn, Lancashire today as Jack Straw patronises both his constituents and Condaleeza Rice by showing her the delights of ‘modern, multi-cultural Britain.’ I don’t know whether to admire Straw’s chutzpah or to puzzle over his lack of social skills in inviting a guest to go places where she’s going to get shouted at all the time. I’d hope.

‘Hey, Hey, Condi Rice! Is murdering Iraqis nice?’

---

Lynne Truss has made a fortune by pointing out that the meaning of some sentences is dependent on the correct placement of a comma:

'Eats, shoots and leaves.'

Then there's Kingsley Amis' (Amis's? I'm never sure) example of a sentence whose meaning depends on the placement of an apostrophe:

'Those things over there are my husbands'.

Now, for the first time in public, a sentence whose meaning is dependent on capitalisation:

'I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse.'

It's pronounced "Keen-wa", apparently

Well...it's been a while.

To make up for it, despite my disparging remarks in the past, here's a recipe involving Quinoa, the high-protein grainy stuff, known to the Incas as "The Food of Hippies"

Superfood Salad

First catch your Quinoa. It can come covered in saponic acid, so first rinse it well in one of those...damn!...things made from metal or plastic mesh...you know the ones...those things that I've got a memory like. (Don't try rinsing in a pan like with rice. Quinoa floats.) Then -

1. spread on a tray in a low oven until dry
2. toast in a saucepan with a little olive oil
3. add double the amount of boiling water to quinoa
4. cover and simmer gently for about 15 minutes, until the shells of the individual grains (the dermis) have burst open
5. agitate with a fork, turn the heat off and leave covered for a little while.
6. uncover and leave to cool.

If pressed for time, omit stages 1 and 2.

Next take either some fresh, podded peas or some sugarsnaps or mangetouts (mangestous?) cut up into small-ish pieces. Slice some radishes. Peel, de-stone and dice an avocado. Combine the lot with enough cooked quinoa to add texture without dominating - you're looking for an effect like Tabbouleh (proper tabbouleh, that is), plus a good quantity fof chopped, fresh mint and (optional) flat-leaf parsley and coriander. Dress with either a little lime juice or a proprietary Caesar's dressing of your choice. Serve in a pile on top of a bed of cos/ romaine type lettuce.

According to the French, lettuce must never be cut with a knife, apparently, only torn.

The italics at the end.

I'm grateful to Psychocandy for informing me of the best chemistry-related pun I've heard in many a year. It's guacamole...geddit?

From the dearly departed Ivor Cutler (15/1/1923 - 3/3/2006)

Thatcher is an eight-letter word.

And finally...

A diversion. If George get's stuck, you can slide him around with the mouse.

Mair just as soon as.