Sticky Situation

27/02 STICKY SITUATION

Time seems to be elusive at the moment. The start of a new year comes with the feeling that everything that can happen will happen. When it doesn't quite turn out as expected that feeling becomes a subverted murphys law. Time to slow way down, and realize that its just another year full of deliciously sticky situations.

This recipe is the first sweet moment. Its a slow cook, an intense eat and will absolutely slow your mind down until meandering through life seems like a nice idea. It is very sweet but because its essentially a natural sweetness it isn't cloying. While divine on their own, these figs are transcendent with a curl of vanilla ice-cream. Relish these moments that we have, these moments of pleasure.

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

1/2 Dozen Figs
100g Raw Honey
1 Shot Whiskey

What I did - Oven preheated to 160

This is a recipe that cant be made without good ingredients, and ripe fresh figs are essential. As for the honey, keep it as raw as possible. On a ceramic baking dish stand the figs on their plump bottoms. drizzle, dollop or scatter  the honey (depending on what form it takes)evenly over the fruit.

Then feed them the shot of whiskey. The whiskey heats up faster ensuring the fruit release their juices and melt the honey leaving a dark burgundy syrup to bubble around the figs. Bake them for around 2 hours (before the sugar starts burning up).

You can leave these in the fridge and have cold, but they will seem sweeter. The heat takes away the sugary feeling, and leaves them glistening, dangerously hot and divine. Let them explode over thickened or iced-cream and melt a spinning mind.

JG

Killed Bill

17/02 KILLED BILL

We are all students of life, and it may be hard to comprehend but no one will ever call themselves master over their existence. All we can hope is to learn the five point palm exploding heart technique, or how to flick a silken moustache in contempt at the world - two skills only passed down from Pai Mei.

This vaguely Asian bowl was created in a similar state of worldly frustration, with half munched scraps from the fridge. However channeling end of the day exhaustion so masterfully turned out something to lift my grump, a bowl of wannabe Asian - yet intrinsically western - chicken and rice. I roared. I rampaged. And I got bloody satisfaction.
 

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

1/2 Chicken Breast (cooked)
1 Celery Stick
1/4 Capsicum
1 tbls Hot Chilli Sauce
1 tbls Plum Sauce
200g Jasmine Rice
1 tsp Nigella Seeds
400ml boiled water
Mint

What I did - 

Firstly slice the bit of leftover roast chicken in the fridge (otherwise any fish or meat you have lying around half eaten) into thin strips so that it will tangle and go farther. Then cut the capsicum and celery in the same manner to that they end up as white, red and green slivers. Pour the sticky sauces over and stir together until it has an unhealthy gloss. Leave to marinade and get the heat on.

Heat just being rice. Rice is one of those things which tends to either be great or awful. If theres a rice cooker available tip the rice and nigella seeds in and set to cook. Otherwise, and just as simply. Put the rice into a pot and slick with a drizzle of oil so that the grains don't gloop together when boiling. Fleck with the jet black seeds and then use the boiled water to boil for about 5 minutes, or until they look cooked.

Strain the rice and tip into a bowl. Then rudely interrupt the steaming white with the marinated leftovers. The residual heat is enough to make the ex-fridge scatterings nicely warm and let the marinade soak through the rise. Samurai some fresh mint for aromatic decoration.

JG

Mad Mex

08/02 MAD MEX

There is a hunger that strikes hard late afternoon. A hunger which cannot be satisfied with a mere meal, only tamed by a desparate rampage through the fridge. This dystopian scavenge drove me to create a grilled Mexican jumble, which is an excellent way of faking a plan where there was nothing but a lone tortilla lying in the fridge. All the ingredients here were the last bastions of their kind; the three mushrooms fated to be together for all time, the crippled capsicum and the last surviving egg.

All the ingredients were grilled simultaneously between a griddle, a frypan and in a oven grill. A feat of juggling that Cirque du Soliel fear to stage. Arranged together in a post-apocolyptic jumble on a so-hipster board and downed with an iced cider. Either the heat of the sun, the spice from the food or the stress of grilling in heat triggered darwinian survival instincts. This Mad Mex meal is fuel for the melting road ahead.

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

1 Egg
1/2 Capsicum
1/2 Avocado
1/2 Tortilla Wrap
3 Mushrooms
10g Parmesan
Chilli Powder
Salt + Pepper

What I did - 

Time to get the circus up and running. Pans at the ready. The main fact is that most of these ingredients don't need cooking, they just need resuscitating. The three cooking heats here are fun to juggle, can all be used or singularly if its all thats at hand. Its all about sending heat into the soul of the ingredients.

In the Grill: Heat as high as possible, start to grill the mushrooms with their round cloudy heads up. When they start to darken, before they get a burnt toupee, turn them over and blanket with grated parmesan and grill again until blackening. The juices will pool in the mushroom, and are blisteringly hot which will keep the cheese molten.

On the Griddle: Preheat the iron griddle for a few minutes so that its scalding. Cut the capsicum into large pieces, and then use a rolling pin (or heavy can) to bash them flat - This makes sure they grill evenly and release all their sweet juices. Then place them on the griddle carefully to avoid any hot splatter that they spurt. Scorch for about five minutes a side until burnt black lines appear. before you turn the first side, throw the tortilla onto the other side of the pan and toast until the pasty white becomes a lined tanned bronze - think Donatella.

Out of the frypan: Small drizzle of oil, crack the egg over and turn the heat on. Don't stress about this part, its just frying an egg. Even if it cracks just clean it up onto a place with a spatula. There's something satisfying about such a hot mess.

Arrange all the scorched pieces on a plate (or wooden plank to impress). Spoon out some pale green curls of avocado on one side and let a sandstorm of salt, pepper and chilli attack the plate. Eat in the sun while trying not to sweat. Then open a cider because its all about survival.

JG

Swimming Upstream

02/02 SWIMMING UPSTREAM

Returning home, to an old way of life can often be as isolating as being in a completely alien city. It takes time for your mind to adjust, for your body to settle and your sleep to synchronise to a new moon. With time away the old and familiar become foreign whereas constantly experiencing the new is common - if not always easy. There may always be a Starman waiting in the sky and if food is the one thing that can bring us back, this is the man who fell to earth.

All the elements here are from different meals since returning home, thrown together to help battle the intense seasonal change from minus five to over thirty degrees. The ingredients here are collectively light and hydrating, tied together with a sharp spritz of lemon. The only thing needed to help your body cope with the heat is a frozen glass of wine. We are all salmon fighting the current, but sometimes its best to let it take you home.

Ingredients (all approximate) - Cold from the Fridge

1 Salmon Fillet (steamed)
2 Heads Broccoli (steamed)
1 Wedge Lettuce
1 Egg (hard boiled)
Lemon
Salt + Pepper

What I did - 

Most times in summer the desire to cook is completely absent, so the simplest way to prepare this is to use all the old leftovers. The ingredients don't have to be exactly the same as here, but the combination of fish, an egg, a lettuce and steamed vegetable is perfect - all served cold from the fridge.

Peel the last few green leaves off the decaying iceberg lettuce, or nice fresh one if lucky. Folded them in half and sliced them into long thin strands, this helps keep them sharp as you pile on the other softer ingredients. Arrange the strands into a welcoming nest.

Dice up the head of broccoli so that its a fine green scattering which can be used to fill the lettuce nest. The salmon had previously been steamed for about 15 minutes and then the leftovers steeped in lemon juice overnight. This makes the pale pink flesh easy to flake apart and add to the green nest.

If there isn't a hard boiled egg in the fridge, quickly boil one for four minutes and then crack the shell off. Crown the fleshy salmon with the yolk before dusting in crystalline salt flakes and pepper.

These ingredients are all orphaned, but together help bring you back home. There's no place like it.

JG