Cooking up a storm

I try to get to the kitchen once every often (and no, its not a blue moon day!!!!). It usually turns into a giant fun time exercise with the kids where mum is banned from the kitchen (thankfully, we really create a giant mess). This is a story of our latest gastronomic escapade. While browsing the local Sainsbury's store, I came across this excellent Gammon Joint and picked it up. Having never cooked a full joint, Muppet BD thought that its high time he tried it out. Ah, fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Here’s the first recipe which I found. Now I have the patience of a hot and hungry flea on a desiccated cat. Any recipe which has the word “hour” in it is automatically discarded. So when I read that i have to soak the joint in cold water for 3 hours, or simmer for a further hour or bake for another hour, I gave up the idea of cooking the joint whole, despite the idea of having cloves driven into the fat being very alluring. A clove scented gammon joint? wonderful. But no, too much time, I like cooking but not spending my life cooking.

So decided to cut steaks out of it and try this recipe slightly amended. It was less a cooking exercise and more like a conductor conducting a demented epicurean philharmonic orchestra and 2 kids and too many things to do and to take photographs. So please bear with me, sometimes I will have to skip.

So I have now cut the joint into the thick steaks. Very very nice steaks they were too. And now the sauce is being prepared from mustard, soy sauce, honey and couple of touches from the weird Muppet BD brain (Tabasco, a bit of lime sauce and a bit of garlic paste).

Here are the kids putting in all the stuff inside the bowl.

there was much enthusiasm over the mixing as one can see. I think there was more sauce on the tabletop rather than inside the bowl, but never you mind.

now the steaks were thickly coated with the sauce.

while lil ms. princess was on hand to do quality control, pointing out to dada where all he had missed.

Now, instead of mashed potatoes or new potatoes, I decided to go for roast potatoes in goose fat. The potatoes were divided up into two parts, and each was given one bit to cover with the fat. Goose fat is just brilliant, much better than normal fat or any other basting liquid that you might find for roasting potatoes. The potatoes feel very rich and taste very crunchy indeed.

Here are the kids using the basting brush and basting the potatoes away to an inch of their lives.

now for a side dish of peas and sweet corn, take them out of the freezer and mix them. Lightly dust with butter and plonk into the microwave for 5 minutes. Then you take it out, put in salt, pepper, a dash of lime juice, and its a great side dish to eat with your steak, doesnt take time to make, straight from the freezer.

 

while the steaks are getting marinated, I prepared the pineapples on the side, they have been drained and are ready to be caramelised.

 

Here’s the first lot of steaks in the pan and the plates on the right ready to receive the bounty.

big steaks, these suckers. 

Cook till golden brown, hardly took 4 minutes over a medium flame.

Everything is now served on the table other than the roast potatoes which are in the bowl.

Mum is coming in to do the final touches, Kannu is checking the potatoes in the oven while for some reason, little princess is making strange dance moves… As you can see, no pictures of the final dish, but it was a fun time.

Cost of ingredients? About $15 quid,

Time to prepare? about 50 odd minutes

Number of people required? about 3 people in all (can increase till space constraints you, but keep the kids away when frying the steaks, it will splatter)

Compliments to the chef: fulsome

Amount of scolding received after the end of the meal when mum looked at the kitchen to see the mess? Hideously awesome

Will we do it again? heck yes.

Here is the full slide show.

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