So it's 7pm,I go to local shop to get cabbage, potatoes and cheese for recipe from BBC; boil potatoes for 5 mins, cabbage for 3 mins, slice and layer with Italian cheese and butter, bake for 30 mins.
Arrive home at 7.30pm, start immediately.
It is now 9.50pm and I've put the dish back into the oven for some minutes more to finish cooking the potatoes....
Why do I never learn that recipes take 5x longer than than they appear to...
GOM, JohnM
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>> So it's 7pm,I go to local shop to get cabbage, potatoes and cheese for recipe
>> from BBC; boil potatoes for 5 mins, cabbage for 3 mins, slice and layer with
>> Italian cheese and butter, bake for 30 mins.
>> Arrive home at 7.30pm, start immediately.
>> It is now 9.50pm and I've put the dish back into the oven for some
>> minutes more to finish cooking the potatoes....
>> Why do I never learn that recipes take 5x longer than than they appear to...
>>
>> GOM, JohnM
2 hours and twenty minutes? Kin hell, is your cooker working?
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"7.30pm, start immediately.
>> It is now 9.50pm and I've put the dish back into the oven for some
>> minutes more to finish cooking the potatoes...."
Spuds - 7 mins in pressure cooker, 20 mins max in ordinary pan. 2hrs 20 mins and then more?? -
Better switch cooker on!!
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Potatoes NEVER cook as quickly in a sauce as the recipe says. I always pre-cook them, even if that is not required by the instructions.
For example:-
Marmitako.
A Basque dish from “Cooking in Spain” by Janet Mendel.
Serves 4.
1 kg tuna
50ml olive oil
1 onion – chopped
4 cloves of garlic – chopped
2 sweet peppers red and/or green – cut into strips & seeds removed
½ a kilo of tomatoes
2 teaspoons paprika
Salt and pepper
1 small chili pepper. As hot as you prefer!
1 kg potatoes
200 ml white wine
100 ml water
Fry the onion, garlic and peppers lightly, when soft add the tomatoes chopped, (deseeded and skinned if you want to be fussy!), the paprika, salt and pepper and the chili.
When the tomatoes are somewhat reduced add the cubed potatoes, stir and add the wine and water. Cover and cook for 20 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.
BIG TIP:- Potatoes take for ever to cook when in a sauce, so I always par-boil them until a knife will just penetrate the pieces, before adding them to the tomato mix.
Add the tuna, cut into chunks and cook, covered, for another 5 minutes or so until the fish flakes easily. Let it stand for 5 – 10 minutes before serving.
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Onions are another example. 'Fry gently for 3-4 minutes, until soft and golden' - pah! It will take at least 10 to get them past opaque and crunchy, and it could be 20 to get them really soft. Meanwhile, the garlic - if you put it in at the start as Roger's recipe suggests - burns dark brown and bitter and ruins the whole dish.
Recipes are mostly crap, and certainly won't teach anyone to cook. The food writers I most value - Slater, Blumenthal, HFW - are more about improving understanding, so when you roast meat, fry onions or whip egg whites, you actually know what's happening and why it matters. Blumenthal's C4 programme on cheese, especially the effect of acid on its proteins, was a revelation; you don't get that from Ms fake-as-a-Norwegian-pineapple Lawson.
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Maybe not, but I know which of them I'd rather look at!
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I'm sure her digital retouch artist will take that as a compliment.
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...and I meant to add that your optometrist probably won't.
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Recipes - Zero
