An Exercise in Irrelevance

I tried a new tofu dish last night. Very simple. I boiled the tofu in a frying pan with a stock made from some tamarind stock cubes, oxo veggie cubes and some garlic flakes, flavoured with cumin and MSG. I also added some rice vinegar which turned out to be a mistake as it was far too sour — in the end, it needed sugar to perk it up. Anyway, after boiling the tofu and reducing the stock somewhat on the hob, I toasted the top under the grill. Then, finally, returned it to the hob, added a little water to dilute the stock again, and sprinkled on raw garlic and onion. Left this for a few minutes till the onion was soft, and eat with ramen noodles.

Worked quite well, in general. As is my usual practice, I’ll probably do the same dish again tonight, while it’s still fresh in my mind.

Originally published on my old blog site.

Tried a garlic broth this week, with garlic flakes. Think that this was a mistake; a couple of bulbs of garlic would have been better. Essentially, I fried lots of garlic for a while with a some onion and then some stock. Then added tofu, potato and udon noodles.

The taste was fairly good, although it didn’t keep that well. The main problem was the colour; it was pretty palid looking and would have been better with, say, lots of soy in the broth base.

I will work on this; I like the concept of garlic as a main ingredient rather than a garnish.

Originally published on my old blog site.

Bought a copy of Bend it like Beckham a while back; personally, I disagree. I’d rather be able to cook Aloo Gobi than kick a curve ball. Fortunately, I can, I did. Yeah, it was alright.

Originally published on my old blog site.

Have been suffering from a problem; due to some over-exuberance, I’ve had to eat with a teaspoon for the last few days. Fortunately, on sunday I’d cooked some bulgar wheat with chickpeas. Today, was curried rice.

Very simple: garlic flakes, oil, pepper, black mustard seed, all fried. Then add rice vinegar and some soy. After a few minutes of frying put in a enough rice and fry it drish, then add enough water. Finally, spice with an Oxo cube, cumin, coriander, turmeric and add a small amount of tomato puree and chilli sauce.

To give it a bit of bulk, I added peas, broad beans and some quorn chicken. Turned out rather well, as it happens. Takes about 15 minutes in total.

Originally published on my old blog site.

Simple meal today; onion, a suede and quorn mince, fried for a while (yes, with chili and garlic flakes), then simmered with tomato puree, and thicked with Oxo cubes and gravy granules. Add mashed potato, peas, beans and spinach. Thick, warm and filling. Pity, really, that I got around to this just as the weather is starting to get warm.

And, yes, it should have been a pie. I’ve clearly been scared by the pastry experience of last weekend.

Originally published on my old blog site.

Decided to do sausage rolls and beans after a hill walk on sunday. Nice idea, but I turned out to have no beans, no self-raising flour and forgot to put fat into the pastry. The pastry was solid. The sausage actually worked okay, though. Some dodgy Sosmix from down the road. Just add boiling water. I put in spinach and garlic flakes into the water first, and lots of pepper.

Pretty good, actually.

Originally published on my old blog site.

I used to think that aduki beans were a joke from the Beano. When I was a kid, Baby Face Finlayson used to eat them after coming up with some dastardly scheme.

More recently, I discovered that they were real. So I tried cooking them last night. Rather nice, as it happens.

The meal was this:

• tofu
• red onion
• garlic flakes
• rice vinegar
• soy sauce

All of this was fried in garlic flavoured olive oil, tofu first with the soy and vinegar till brown and then all the rest dumped in. This was eaten with rice, with peas and broad beans, with a light drizzle of liquidizied chilli.

Very nice as it happens. The aduki beans taste like a cross between baked and kidney beans, but didn’t overwhelm the rest of the meal.

Originally published on my old blog site.

Decided to try the curry house from a few nights ago, as I was on the Quayside last night. I think it’s called "the Rasa" but I forgot to write it down. Sadly, it was suffering from the Newcastle disease — it was fully booked. I don’t understand why this is such a common problem here, but there you go.

Instead, we ended up next door at Vujon. It was okay. The seafood angle was well covered, but the veggie options were poor. I ended up with the set of side dishes option, which were adequate.

Originally published on my old blog site.

Finally got around to buying some garlic flakes that I saw being used in t a resturant a short while back. Combined with a bit of chilli, as well as being garlic flavoured, this are actually quite hot.

Cooked them with some potato, tofu, red onion and bulgar wheat. Very nice indeed.

Originally published on my old blog site.

Went out for a curry tonight, with an old friend of mine. Fortunately, he knows lots of nice places to eat in Newcastle; this is good, because, currently, I don’t.

I can’t remember the name of the place, but it’s near the Quayside, and rather pink. But the food was excellent. We had a daal, a strange pancake bread, a cabbage dish, dosa and some vedna. I’ve been a fan of dosa for ages, since discovering them in the Punjab Tandoori in Manchester. I’ve only had then in one other place, so it’s great to find another resturant cooking them. I even tried making them for myself once, using some of the wonderously named "Mr Git’s Dosa Mix". It never worked.

As well as his dosa mix, Mr Git also makes vedna mix. I did buy some, but never tried it. So, this was the first time I’ve actually got to eat them. They were great. A light donut made out of lentils.

Afterwards, we went back to the pub and I almost fell asleep. I hadn’t realised how tired I was.

Originally published on my old blog site.