I’m not happy at all. The squalid conditions on my student halls (i.e. bugger all fridge space and an average 33C room temperature) have meant I lost a lot of food. Firstly my ostrich steaks 
, which were bloody expensive, and then my poussin and the lamb hearts which had only been in the fridge for two days. Somebody is going to get an earful tomorrow.
Apart from losing £20 of meat, I also had to deal with returning home at midnight to find out everything in fridge had rotted and make a quick trip to a dodgy Fulham curry house. Luckily their lamb vindaloo turned out ok and was actively good paired with my own saag daal, which I whipped up in a few minutes.
I have a solution to the state of my halls: get my own fridge. It is being delivered tonight and I’m putting in my room, for which I already have an air con unit. That should sort things out.
Anyhow, to cheer myself up I bought myself a funky “presentation” plate and a brand new cast iron griddle pan. Last night I took the opportunity to use them by making myself a comfort meal of ribeye steak with garlic and mushroom sauce, cheese and basil polenta and asparagus.
Ribeye steak is lovely and tender- almost as good as fillet and much cheaper! This particular one was perfect. It was stripy on the outside but pefectly rare in the middle.
I discovered the secret to doing this very recently. The trick is to undercook the steak slightly and then immediately wrap it in baking foil. The foil stops moisture escaping from the steak but the residual heat will continue to cook it for a while. So, to make my “just beyond blue” steak, instead of cooking it for 90 seconds on each side like the packet suggests, I cooked it for 1 minute per side then let it rest. The result is a juicy, evenly cooked steak.
On another positive note, I found my favourite cookbook. It had gone missing in my parents’ house for over a year and then miraculously re-appeared on Saturday.
It is part of a series published by Murdoch Books. It’s perfect for a beginner cook. It has basic recipes for pretty much every classic meal. Classic bolognese, pilaffs, kedgeree and nasi goreng are all in there along with crumbles and cheesecakes. It is just the thing to find out the basic components of a meal so that you can practice and improve on the recipe yourself. I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who want’s to get into good cooking and especially to students wanting to break out of the “pasta and sauce” mould.
I’m not happy at all. The squalid conditions on my student halls (i.e. bugger all fridge space and an average 33C room temperature) have meant I lost a lot of food. Firstly my ostrich steaks , which were bloody expensive, and then my poussin and the lamb hearts which had only been in the fridge for two days. Somebody is going to get an earful tomorrow.
Apart from losing £20 of meat, I also had to deal with returning home at midnight to find out everything in fridge had rotted and make a quick trip to a dodgy Fulham curry house. Luckily their lamb vindaloo turned out ok and was actively good paired with my own saag daal, which I whipped up in a few minutes.
I have a solution to the state of my halls: get my own fridge. It is being delivered tonight and I’m putting in my room, for which I already have an air con unit. That should sort things out.
Anyhow, to cheer myself up I bought myself a funky “presentation” plate and a brand new cast iron griddle pan. Last night I took the opportunity to use them by making myself a comfort meal of ribeye steak with garlic and mushroom sauce, cheese and basil polenta and asparagus.
Ribeye steak is lovely and tender- almost as good as fillet and much cheaper! This particular one was perfect. It was stripy on the outside but pefectly rare in the middle.
I discovered the secret to doing this very recently. The trick is to undercook the steak slightly and then immediately wrap it in baking foil. The foil stops moisture escaping from the steak but the residual heat will continue to cook it for a while. So, to make my “just beyond blue” steak, instead of cooking it for 90 seconds on each side like the packet suggests, I cooked it for 1 minute per side then let it rest. The result is a juicy, evenly cooked steak.
On another positive note, I found my favourite cookbook. It had gone missing in my parents’ house for over a year and then miraculously re-appeared on Saturday.
It is part of a series published by Murdoch Books. It’s perfect for a beginner cook. It has basic recipes for pretty much every classic meal. Classic bolognese, pilaffs, kedgeree and nasi goreng are all in there along with crumbles and cheesecakes. It is just the thing to find out the basic components of a meal so that you can practice and improve on the recipe yourself. I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who want’s to get into good cooking and especially to students wanting to break out of the “pasta and sauce” mould.
