The Paranoid Chef

Now this is cool.

This unique tea towel holder is ace. I want one for my kitchen, but I don’t think my girlfriend will let me sadly.

After the news that Jamie Oliver won an Emmy for his Food Revolution programme I thought I’d write a post about my top 3 celebrity chefs. I watch ton’s of cooking programmes and have done for a few years now so I think I have a clearly formulated idea of who are my favourite TV cooks of all time. So, in descending order of cheffy greatness…

1. Jamie Oliver

I’ve had a bit of a love/hate relationship with Oliver over the years. Back when he was the pukka, Vespa driving lads favourite, he used to grate on me (no pun intended). The phony friends for whom he used to cook beach barbeque’s we’re equally nauseating. But over the years as he’s developed into a bit of a family, man he’s grown on me and the effort he ploughs into his projects that serve to improve the state of the nations appalling eating habits and educate consumers, such as “Jamies School Dinners” and “Jamies Ministry of Food”, can only be admired. Also as I’ve grown up, I now find his enthusiasm for cooking both endearing and infectious, even if his recipes can still be a little OTT and heavy on the olive oil.

2. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

The double barrelled lisper from Dorset makes number two on my list for many of the same reasons as Jamie did. I love his enthusiasm for growing and buying great produce and ingredients and his willingness to try new things (usually involving offal) is refreshing. Also his efforts at improving the quality of the food we eat in this country and raising our awareness of the welfare of our livestock is commendable. Another example of one man using his position to try and change things for the better. I also love his puns and how every single episode of “River Cottage” features him trying to beat his chums at some bizarre rural games or out-drink them at a cider festival.

3. Gordon Ramsey

Well, his f*****g programmes are f*****g brilliant aren’t they. F**k.











Who would be on your list and which of these wouldn’t make it?

I had the day off work today and decided to make myself a nice lunchtime snack. I love Mexican food and these quesadillas are quick and easy to make and really tasty. They use mostly pre-prepared ingredients you can buy from the supermarket so although not necessarily ‘cooking’ in the strictest sense of the word they do avoid a lot of faffing (or for Karl Pilkington fans - Alotofaffin, a country in its own right - If you have no idea what I’m going on about you need to check out the Ricky Gervais show either on podcast or the animated series on DVD). I believe that they are also vegetarian but please double check and don’t take my word on this - I’m not a vegetarian myself so I wouldn’t really know what is allowed and what isn’t - other than meat of course.

Serves 2 - You will need:

1 x 210g can of re-fried beans
3 or 4 spring onions - finely diced
1 yellow pepper - finely diced
1 red chilli - finely diced
A couple of big handfuls of grated Cheddar Cheese
4 x flour tortillas
6-8 sliced jalapenos, diced (I used Discovery red jalapenos from a jar)

To serve - all optional:

Guacamole (again, I used Discovery guacamole)
Sour Cream
Salsa


Method:

1. In a big bowl, mix together the re-fried beans, spring onions, yellow pepper and the diced red chilli.

2. Spread this onto 2 of the tortillas.Sprinle over the jalapenos.

3. Sprinkle over the cheddar cheese, 1 handful on each tortilla should be plenty.

4. Place another tortilla on top of each to make a sandwich

5. Very lightly oil a frying pan and heat to medium high. Fry each of your tortilla sandwiches for 1 - 1.5 minutes on each side, until the filling is hot and the cheese is melting. 

6. Cut each one into 6 pieces and serve with the guacamole, sour cream and salsa.

These are a taste sensation. And as a bonus, even I the paranoid one had no reason to fear these bad boys. There’s very little can go wrong with these bad boys. Arrrrriba.

photo from chapparal @ flickr

The answer is nope, he’s gay. I believe he revealed this in his autobiography and in his column for the observer. But the strange thing about this is that Google have removed “is Nigel Slater gay” from Google suggest and replaced it with “is Nigel Slater married”. As if the first question was offensive. I double checked this with Derren Brown (I don’t mean I phoned him up by the way) and “is Derren Brown gay?” has also been replaced with “is Derren Brown married?”. Weird.

I was watching Nigel Slater’s simple suppers tonight (in HD - woop woop) which reminded me about this so I thought I’d share it. I have a love hate relationship with Nigel Slater - he winds me up intensely with his smugness and general demeanor but I also quite like his cooking and his enthusiasm. He’s no Fearnley-Whittingstall or Oliver though.

image from http://organicallotment.typepad.com

We’re officially 214 days into the year 2010 and as 214 is my favourite number (it’s not - I just wanted an excuse to write this post) I thought I’d share some of my favourite food that I’ve cooked this year. It’s been a great culinary year for me so far - I’ve experimented with some recipes I’ve never tried before and I’ve become braver and less paranoid in my cooking. Apologies in advance for all the links to delciousmagazine.co.uk - I don’t work for them or anything, I just get a lot of my cooking ideas from there. So without further adieu, let’s go straight in at number 5 tip top pop pickers…

5. Seared Steak on Mediterranean Vegetables
Get the recipe

This is amazing. The garlicky yoghurt stuff sounds awful but it goes really well with the steak. I cook the steak medium, I used to be paranoid about eating rare steak but I think I’ve cured myself of that one :)

4. Lime Peppered Tuna
Get the recipe

I cooked this on the barbeque this very weekend. I like to serve this with chips (or for our American friends - fries). I like to serve most stuff with chips actually thinking about it. This is another one where the fish needs to be cooked very quickly so it’s still pink (read raw) in the middle. I still accidentally overcook tuna quite a lot due to the paranoia.

3.Baked Meatballs with Goats Cheese
Get the recipe

I used to not like goats cheese but now I can’t get enough of the stuff. This is dead simple to make and according to the recipe it apparently costs less than £2 per head - so it’s thrifty too.

2. Fish Pie with King Prawns
Get the recipe

I cheat a bit on this one and buy the sauce from a packet. The king prawns used to scare me a bit - I didn’t really get them, and I always remember the scene from the end of the Kirsten Dunst movie Drop Dead Gorgeous, where all the beauty pageant entrants are puking everywhere from eating the ‘improperly refrigerated seafood’ - but now I’m an addict and the big ones go really well in this dish. I haven’t plucked up the courage to cook them from raw yet though.

1. Prawn Laksa
Get the recipe

So this is my favourite thing I’ve cooked all year. I love hot and spicy, Thai style food and the Tom Yam sauce in this really makes it spicy. I think I made a batch of this big enough for 4 people, and ate three portions myself - I’d heartily recommend trying it - in fact I suggest you try all 5 and then come back and tell me what great taste buds I have!

I’ve transgressed from the food for today and moved on to drink. Recently I’ve given in to my Doctor Pepper addiction and in an effort to save money have invested in a bulk purchase of Dr Pepper. Its consumed all available space in my fridge. I think the makers of Dr Pepper should send me a prize for being its biggest fan…

For all those still cooking jacket potatoes in the microwave - I used to be like you. I was lazy. I liked the convenience and the speed. But I’ve changed. I’m a convert.

Ever since my dad shouted at me a couple of years ago for cooking jacket potatoes in the microwave I’ve followed his advice and am now cooking a superior jacket potato. And I don’t have to sacrifice the speed of the microwave (well that’s not entirely true but bear with me). Here’s how to do it.

• Preheat your oven to about 200 degrees C.
• Wash your jacket potatoes and prick them all over with a sharp knife.
• Stick them on a microwaveable plate at whack them in the microwave on high power. I tend to leave 2 large jackets in there for about 15 minutes. Adjust this timing accordingly depending on number and size of potatoes. You want your jackets to be cooked throughout and not hard in the middle when you poke a knife in.
• Rub your potatoes all over with olive oil - careful as they will be hot and the oil on your hands transmits heat very well
• shake over ground sea salt and coat the potatoes all over, top and bottom, front and back.
• Pop the jackets in a baking tin and stick them in the oven for 20 minutes or so until they’re golden brown.
• Throw on the topping of your choice and tuck in - I’m partial to a chilli beef and cheese topping.

Once you’ve tried the salty, crispy skin on these bad boys I’m certain you will never go back to limp, lifeless, microwaved tubers.

Paranoid moments: None! Paranoia free :)

Photo coutesy of cookiemouse at flickr

tumblrbot asked: WHERE WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO VISIT ON YOUR PLANET?

Good question tumblrbot. I’d say New Zealand. Lord of the Rings made it look amazing, but I fear that I’ll never be able to face the massively long plane ride and so I’ll never go. I hope I’m wrong

After being inspired by watching the great Japanese subtitled film Departures, yesterday my girlfriend and I decided to try making sushi for the first time. After an eye-wateringly expensive trip to the supermarket and a dash around town trying to find a bamboo sushi rolling mat (we found a serving mat in habitat in the end that we decided would be an ok substitute), we hunkered down in the kitchen with all our ingredients and tools, ready to get sushi-ing…

From left to right, back to front we have mayonnaise, rice vinegar, nori (the seaweed wrap that goes around the sushi rolls), sushi rice, light soy sauce, sushi rice seasoning, prawns, water, wasabi, crab sticks, smoked mackerel, bamboo sushi rolling mat, spring onions, cucumber, avocado, knives and peeler. Phew!

Once we’d chopped up all the ingredients and soaked the rice for 30 minutes and cooked it and cooled it, we had to add the sushi rice seasoning and coat the rice. We’d mistakenly bought rice vinegar in addition to the sushi rice seasoning when we only really needed the seasoning as it’s basically the same thing but a bit easier. This gives the rice its vinegary, salty taste.

Next it was rolling time so we laid the nori out on the bamboo rolling mat and decided on how we were going to construct these sushi rolls. We decided to make a couple of varieties. spring onion, prawn, cucumber and wasabi futomaki (fat rolls with the nori on the outside), spring onion, mackerel and avocado orimaki (inside out rolls, with the rice on the outside, and some smaller rolls with cucumber and crab sticks inside. The rolling was a bit tricky but the results were great - they looked and tasted delicious. Definitely something we’d love to try again. Pictures below along with the paranoid moments:

Paranoid moments:

• Only the one thankfully, but I had a bit of a paranoid moment when it came to cooling the the rice. I was worried as I’d heard that if rice stays at too warm a temperature it can quickly grow bacteria. There was lots of fanning and stirring going on. When I do this again, I’ll spread the rice out in a thin layer on a cold plate I think, to ensure it cools quicker.

So welcome to my new blog The Paranoid Chef - so called because although I absolutely love cooking and eating great tasting fresh food, I’m also prone to being absolutely paranoid about giving myself or my guests food poisoning. So I’m occasionally guilty of all of the following:

• Overcooking food to within an inch of its life, until it becomes a chewy, almost inedible mess
• Throwing away perfectly good food once I’ve cooked it because “something put me off”

• Throwing away perfectly good food because its been open for a day and I don’t want to risk it
• Washing my hands about 20 times each time I cook

All illogical, all crazy I know, but I’m trying to get over this and become more adventurous. This blog will follow my trials and tribulations in the kitchen and I hope to share photos, tips (unlikely but you never know) and recipes. Hope its to your tastes :)