How Not to Visit an Art Gallery

I was supposed to meet a friend tonight who has returned from the Cayman Islands for a couple of weeks. As part of the occasion we were going to visit her brother's girlfriend's handbag stall (http://www.carmenwoods.com) at a professional designers' weekend.

Only I misread the map and ended up at an art gallery that was raising funds in aid of a tribe of Malaysian "sea gypsies" who are under threat from the more land-based lifestyles. It was next door to the proper venue, so Google Maps didn't really seem to know the difference. And nor did I.

I spent a good hour there wandering round, pretending I belonged there in my suit, surrounded by floppy haired, baggy clothed artistes, until I finally got summoned to the right building by a "Where the hell are you?" phone call.

And that is how not to visit an art gallery...

How Not to Seal a Wok

Whenever I try to be clever I normally end up doing something dumb instead. Last night was no exception.

I haven't done a stir fry for a while so my wok was a little dry and I figured I'd heat a bit of oil in it to revitalise it first. Being 'clever', I also decided to put a lid on it since the oil would heat faster and smoke less.

Half way through the washing up I heard this "whoompf" followed by a god-awful clattering, and spun around to find the oil had reached its flash-point, caught fire and blown the wok lid halfway across the kitchen.

Luckily there was only a bit of oil left so I took the fiery hemisphere out to the garden while I worked out what to do with it.

Then I remembered wet towels, so I soaked a tea-towel and tried to cover the wok, but sort of mis-threw it and it landed in a ball smack bang in the oil, which then exploded in a big fireball.

Luckily that took the wind out of its sails and I was able to put the rest of the flames out. The wok is now beautifully sealed, and my teatowel is now burnt to a crisp.

And that is how not to seal a wok...

Wing Rib of Beef

One thing I've never cooked is a Sunday roast. I'm not sure why, but I think I've been a bit scared of it to be honest - I guess it could be the amount of conflicting advice about the 'best' way to do everything. But with the next cook-off being British-themed I figured I should face my fears and get some practice in.

After a bit of Googling I found a recipe by Heston Blumenthal for slow cooked wing rib of beef:

Obtain a two-bone joint of wing rib beef. The butcher helpfully part-boned this (with a giant hacksaw!) and stringed it for me.

Coat in ground nut oil and rub in plenty of salt and freshly cracked black pepper, then sear the outside of the joint. The picture above shows my unconventional technique for doing this. (I did buy a brulee torch but they omitted to tell me it didn't come with any gas, so I had no choice really).

The joint, ready for roasting. You might notice I burnt through a couple of the strings while searing it. Oops.

The recipe calls for cooking the joint at 55°C for 20 hours (yes, twenty) so I bunged this in the oven at midnight on Friday night.

After a little snooze, followed by a pop down the shops for groceries it looked like this at about 16:00 Saturday afternoon. Slow cooking it means hardly any of the juices run out and it keeps the meat moist and tender.

It came out of the oven at 20:00 Saturday, and was left to stand for half an hour while I cooked the veg. After carving it looked like the finished product above - slow cooking means there's no chemical reaction which would normally brown the meat. That's why the recipe says to blowtorch the outside to start with to get the aesthetics right.

It tasted amazing, by the way. The peppercorns added a nice spicy touch, and my "generous" carving meant the slices were more like thin steaks. I had a couple of friends over to guinea pig for me as well and they went home smiling. Yay.

I Like Fudge

There's only one thing I like more than toffee, and that's fudge.

This is actually a bit of cheat's recipe. If I was going hardcore there'd be clotted cream, corn syrup and all sorts of complicated ingredients and instructions. I might try that another time, but for now I'll just have to lose a couple of marks for taking the easy route.

Some of the ingredients I'll be using. Sound familiar?

Melt some chocolate chips and some butter. We don't want this to seize like with the truffles so keep all the equipment bone dry. Also, don't put the bowl's handles right over the lip of the saucepan where the steam comes out so it's really hot when you go to pick it up. I found it kind of hurts.

Q. Why was the cat so small?
A. Someone fed it condensed milk.

Once you've recovered from the terrible joke, mix the condensed milk in to the chocolate, heat it a bit more then pour into a clingfilm-lined cake tin and allow to cool.

I phail piping. It kind of looks like a little drunken mouse with dysentry scampered across it in the fridge :-(

Oh well, I'm sure it will taste fine... I hope.

I Like Toffee

There's only one thing I like more than fudge, and that's toffee.

Some of the ingredients I'll be using.

First things first. I didn't have any chocolate chips, but I did have some chocolate and a food processor. And then I had some chocolate chips.

Melt some butter and sugar together. Keep the heat low to start with so it all dissolves together.

Once it's all combined we can turn the heat up a bit more.

And a bit more...

And a bit more...

Pour it out to cool (suspiciously like the praline a few weeks ago).

Once it's cooled a little bit sprinkle the chocolate chips on top. The residual heat of the toffee will melt it and it can them be smoothed out over the surface. At this point we've basically got a massive Dime bar.

Add some chopped nuts for a little treat. I didn't have any chopped nuts, but I did have a bag of mixed whole nuts and a food processor. You know the rest...

And that's that, for now.