Tea......

There is only one thing more frustrating than planning your evening tea than finding that the supermarket has nothing you need in stock and that is finding the supermarket has stock but it's completely rubbish.

I was pleased to see that Waitrose in Twyford had some venison steaks in stock but less pleased to see that in each packet of two one steak was significantly bigger than the other meaning that if you really needed it then to make two decent portions you'd need to buy two packets at £8.00 a pop. How can anybody be expected to serve one person a piece of meat half the size of the other persons ?!?! Is this exploitation? Is this intentional? Why not put the small bits with the small bits and the big bits with the bit bits? It seems a bit too uniform for all 10 or so packs to be packed like this so perhaps it's not just a random occurance.

I've noticed this with their packs of chicken and duck breasts too, very rarely do you get a pair that are matched in size and density. I have this image in my head of all these wonky breasted animals roaming the countryside. Thousands of chickens walking about like Lee Evans doing a primate impression.

The next thing I wanted was a nice piece of fish for my eldest sprog. I really wanted to get her some lemon sole as it's the only fish I've ever heard her say as her favourite but there was hardly anything on the fresh fish counter that looked edible in fact most of it looked like it had been dragged around the car park before putting on display. In the pre-packed section there was some cod and some plaice but I'd already been put off by the suspicious venison packaging and the dodgy fresh display so she ended up with gammon, egg and potato wedges.......................which she absolutely loved!

Sort it out John Lewis....

The better half and myself had a pork fillet which I coated in the Weber chilli mix and waterbathed at 64.5C for about 2 1/2 hours. The chilli mix was actually rather good although it lacked the heat I was expecting from something labelled as "Intense". The all round combination of herbs and spices really worked with the pork and gave it a kind of citrus note. I think next time I'll slightly lower the cooking temperature and leave the meat to rest a bit long than the few minutes I did this time. Served up with some potato wedges cooked in duck fat and a salad of baby leaves and peas shoots this was a superb and very easy dinner. It could also be done on a BBQ or in the oven rather than using the sous vide method although you'll never get the texture as consistently good as when done in a waterbath.

This evening I'm again going to keep it simple but effective. we have some cooked chicken in the fridge that need to be used up so I'm going to grab myself some raw tiger prawns and a few other flavours (coriander, ginger, lime, lemongrass etc etc)  and make a nice Asian style noodle soup using a broth made from the remainder of the duck stock that I still have in the fridge.

In other news a buddy of ours is raising money for charity by organising a man raffle. The idea of these is that you auction off a man with skills (whatever they may be........the ones you're thinking.......are the ones I'm lacking) then the winning bidder can use the man for a few hours or a set period of time so I've volunteered myself to cook a four course meal for four at the winning bidders house.

Should be fun............. :-)