![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Homage to crap food
Jun. 3rd, 2007 08:49 pmThe Guardian recently did a post on their new food blog about crap food, and everyone contributed with their favourite "recipes". Being mostly poms, Heinz baked beans, cheese, white bread, chips, butter and brown sauce featured large. These can indeed be fine things (excepting the white bread, sorry).
So, how about everyone else? What's your favourite comfort food? What's a disgusting, nutritionally-dubious, but tasty snack or meal substitute that you can pull together without thought?
Me, I have a few.
1. Sardines (in oil or proper brine), drained, on toast buttered with about 5000 tons of butter, enough malt vinegar drizzled on top to essentially pickle them in situ, and a ton of salt (*cough* Maldon or similar, often) on top. Maybe a tiny grinding of black pepper. Or if you're really lazy, salt, pepper and vinegar the sardines in the tin and scoff with a fork. Works well with almost all tinned bony fish (ie. except salmon and tuna).
2. Egg in Wattie's baked beans. It must be Wattie's! (Sorry, in-joke for the kiwis). You put the beans into a small pot and start cooking. Crack an egg gently in the middle. Cover with a lid and cook till the eggwhite has set. Eat out of the pot if you don't want to dirty a bowl, buttery toast on the side.
3. Instant Asian noodles, preferably the spicy seafood flavoured ones (with the spices and oils in little separate sachets). Open the sachets and put into a saucepan with the appropriate amount of water (and boil more for the noodles). Throw in cooked chicken leftovers or frozen shrimps, and a handful of bean sprouts. Maybe some whole beans if you're being extra fancy. Add extra flavourings in the cupboard like soya sauce/fish sauce/chilli, in case the MSG isn't quite enough to kill you. Add a squeeze of lemon juice. Serve over the instant noodles that you've soaked in the boiling water until cooked and then drained. Devour and feel slightly healthy (until you start to expire from the dehydration from the MSG).
4. Hash browns. Get some chipping/roasting potatoes, cut into halves/quarters and boil until the outer couple of millimetres is cooked. Salad/waxy potatoes won't work (too much sugar not converted into starch). Grate them all up (it helps if you have a food processor for that part). Add tons of salt and ground pepper and mix. Heat about a cm of olive oil in the bottom of the frying pan. Throw in the potatoes and squish into appropriate shapes (if I'm being a pig I just cover the whole (small) pan with it). Cook each side until crispy and golden brown, adding more olive oil if required. Throw onto a heated plate, and reduce the pan heat. You shouldn't need to oil the pan again; chuck in an egg. Cover the pan and cook till the eggwhite is done. Place nicely fried egg into geometrical centre of hash brown. Salt and pepper liberally, and put a good slosh of HP sauce at the side. Poke the egg yolk until it runs all over the hash brown. Enjoy.
Fancy hash browns start off the same, but while they're cooking in the pan, chop half a small onion, a tomato or two and some mushrooms and put into a small saucepan. Season and cook gently (lid on) until it's all mushy. Grate some gruyere (or half-and-half mozzarella/cheddar - cheddar by itself is a bit too oily even for me). Heat the grill. When the hash brown is ready, put it on a plate and start the egg. Throw the cheese on top of the hash brown and put under the grill until melted and bubbley. Remove from grill, spread over the tomato and mushroom mush, and place your egg in the exact right place. Eat as before. Mmmmm mmmm. (I loove huervos rancheros, but I don't know how to assemble them).
5. Porridge, cooked with water and a tiny bit of salt. Serve in a bowl with milk and unrefined (eg. rapadura or jaggery) sugar. Or, cook with sultanas, and vanilla essence, and serve with coconut milk and grated palm sugar.
6. Cheese on toast, with Worcestershire sauce. And maybe some mustard and ham and/or onion underneath, if I fancy some token vegetables/protein. I do like a proper Croque Madame as well.
So, let me know your crap snacks! The only rules are that there needs to be more than one ingredient and some kind of processing of the food (opening your bag of crisps does not count, nor does adding water to the Pot Noodles).
So, how about everyone else? What's your favourite comfort food? What's a disgusting, nutritionally-dubious, but tasty snack or meal substitute that you can pull together without thought?
Me, I have a few.
1. Sardines (in oil or proper brine), drained, on toast buttered with about 5000 tons of butter, enough malt vinegar drizzled on top to essentially pickle them in situ, and a ton of salt (*cough* Maldon or similar, often) on top. Maybe a tiny grinding of black pepper. Or if you're really lazy, salt, pepper and vinegar the sardines in the tin and scoff with a fork. Works well with almost all tinned bony fish (ie. except salmon and tuna).
2. Egg in Wattie's baked beans. It must be Wattie's! (Sorry, in-joke for the kiwis). You put the beans into a small pot and start cooking. Crack an egg gently in the middle. Cover with a lid and cook till the eggwhite has set. Eat out of the pot if you don't want to dirty a bowl, buttery toast on the side.
3. Instant Asian noodles, preferably the spicy seafood flavoured ones (with the spices and oils in little separate sachets). Open the sachets and put into a saucepan with the appropriate amount of water (and boil more for the noodles). Throw in cooked chicken leftovers or frozen shrimps, and a handful of bean sprouts. Maybe some whole beans if you're being extra fancy. Add extra flavourings in the cupboard like soya sauce/fish sauce/chilli, in case the MSG isn't quite enough to kill you. Add a squeeze of lemon juice. Serve over the instant noodles that you've soaked in the boiling water until cooked and then drained. Devour and feel slightly healthy (until you start to expire from the dehydration from the MSG).
4. Hash browns. Get some chipping/roasting potatoes, cut into halves/quarters and boil until the outer couple of millimetres is cooked. Salad/waxy potatoes won't work (too much sugar not converted into starch). Grate them all up (it helps if you have a food processor for that part). Add tons of salt and ground pepper and mix. Heat about a cm of olive oil in the bottom of the frying pan. Throw in the potatoes and squish into appropriate shapes (if I'm being a pig I just cover the whole (small) pan with it). Cook each side until crispy and golden brown, adding more olive oil if required. Throw onto a heated plate, and reduce the pan heat. You shouldn't need to oil the pan again; chuck in an egg. Cover the pan and cook till the eggwhite is done. Place nicely fried egg into geometrical centre of hash brown. Salt and pepper liberally, and put a good slosh of HP sauce at the side. Poke the egg yolk until it runs all over the hash brown. Enjoy.
Fancy hash browns start off the same, but while they're cooking in the pan, chop half a small onion, a tomato or two and some mushrooms and put into a small saucepan. Season and cook gently (lid on) until it's all mushy. Grate some gruyere (or half-and-half mozzarella/cheddar - cheddar by itself is a bit too oily even for me). Heat the grill. When the hash brown is ready, put it on a plate and start the egg. Throw the cheese on top of the hash brown and put under the grill until melted and bubbley. Remove from grill, spread over the tomato and mushroom mush, and place your egg in the exact right place. Eat as before. Mmmmm mmmm. (I loove huervos rancheros, but I don't know how to assemble them).
5. Porridge, cooked with water and a tiny bit of salt. Serve in a bowl with milk and unrefined (eg. rapadura or jaggery) sugar. Or, cook with sultanas, and vanilla essence, and serve with coconut milk and grated palm sugar.
6. Cheese on toast, with Worcestershire sauce. And maybe some mustard and ham and/or onion underneath, if I fancy some token vegetables/protein. I do like a proper Croque Madame as well.
So, let me know your crap snacks! The only rules are that there needs to be more than one ingredient and some kind of processing of the food (opening your bag of crisps does not count, nor does adding water to the Pot Noodles).
