Vicky Goes On (Again)

Tag: Recipes

  • The Joy of Eggs

    eggs, eggs, eggs

    We give a lot of love to potatoes, and rightly so. Potatoes are great. Elite. Mashed, boiled, roasted, fried… and so many ways to fry them too for a different experience each time but I wanna talk about eggs.

    Let’s talk about eggs, baby.

    A number of people have told me that they “HATE” eggs. Like, how fucking dare you!?

    Eggs make mayonnaise and salad cream (and it still blows my little mind that the only difference is salad cream is made using cooked yolks or something like that. I’d look it up but I will not.) Eggs can be boiled, fried, poached, hard boiled, soft boiled (with “soldiers”. Which they do not do in the US. And we wonder why they are so weird?), coddled, baked, scrambled…

    Scrambled eggs

    Whenever a chef comes along showing us the best way to cook scrambled eggs they’re always damn near raw looking. “Add some creme fraiche, whisk on a low heat, sprinkle with parsley.” No, I won’t. There are 2 ways to cook scrambled eggs. Number 1: Whack it all in a pan and cook, cook, cook to your liking. Number 2: Mix in a bowl and then add to the pan with butter or oil lightly heated already and cook to your liking. Here’s another point: I like ’em both kinds of way and I like ’em slightly firm to bloody done and cooked right proper. (sidenote: I tried really hard to not use words like “loose” and “firm” to avoid scatology and sexual double entendre.)

    Boiled eggs

    How do you like your eggs in the morning? I like soft boiled eggs with soldiers. I have an egg cup in the cupboard and everything. But, here’s the problem. It’s so difficult to know exactly and for sure that you have got it right. I did get it down to an exact science once but then I started buying different sized eggs and it all went to pot. Now, I know, I could look it up and set a timer and blah, blah, blah. But I just scramble them or fry them. And I can fry a good egg, let me tell ya.

    Fried eggs

    I cannot stand a fried egg with any, and I mean ANY raw albumen. You serve me a snotty egg and my whole entire day is ruined. Yes, it is that deep. If I ever go to a cafe I will always order scrambled eggs, if possible. I’d rather have mediocre scrambled eggs than a snotty fried egg. I will die on this hill.
    If you also hate snotty eggs but don’t know how to cook them I suggest using a tablespoon to gently spoon the hot oil over the yolk. Just a li’l tip for you. For free.

    Coddled eggs

    You know when you try to poach an egg so you use one of those pans with the little sections in it and it sits in like a hot water bath? THAT, my friend, is actually a coddled egg. A poached egg is directly placed in the hot water. So, now you know. We had these fancy coddling egg pots which we never used. I should find them and steal them and have fancy coddled eggs.

    Poached eggs

    I do not like poached eggs because they are too wet and often snotty and too much is made of them being difficult to cook (I watch a lot of Channel 4 show ‘Four in a Bed’) and I will bet my bottom dollar they’re not THAT hard to cook. People like to overcomplicate things. Bastards. Get a coddler.

    Also, eggs are great because they are used in cakes and biscuits.

    I know that vegans exist and I respect that, you, and your life choices. But I love eggs more than I love you.

  • Russian Salad recipe

    Because of this damn heat I’ve been having salad for dinner A LOT. So, a recipe:

    Ensalada Rusa (Russian Salad)

    • Potatoes (boiled. Preferably new potatoes or salad potatoes but really any good potatoes)
    • Eggs (hard boiled)
    • Tinned tuna (in an ideal world I’d use in oil – drained, but I’ve been buying in spring water because calories but is this really any way to live?)
    • Green beans/frozen peas/lettuce (or all three or some or none. It’s your life)
    • Mayonnaise (again, in an ideal world – full fat but I buy “light” mayo. It’s fine)

    Lemon juice in the mayo, if you want.

    What to do?

    Boil the eggs and the potatoes (and green beans if using) and mix all the ingredients together in a big bowl with the mayo. Do chop the eggs and potatoes into reasonable sized chunks.

    Russian salad with pork chop
    Russian Salad with a pork chop

  • Chinese dinners

    Chinese dinners

    A lot of my dinners are some variation of “Chinese” takeaway food. I’ve put Chinese in quote marks simply because it is not authentic at all.
    I used to live in Kilburn and then moved to West Hampstead and there was a severe lack of British Chinese takeaways. You know the ones, metal containers with cardboard tops, paper bags full of greasy prawn balls, FREE prawn crackers. Since moving to N17 I have found TWO (2) Chinese takeaways that were amazing. One in Dalston and one near Wood Green BUT in the meantime I developed some dinners that were, in my opinion, pretty flipping good. After much trial and error I now use the following on top of most protein and rice or noodles for a quick and tasty meal.

    Soy sauce saucy sauce for anything

    Lee Kum Kee anything is used mostly. https://uk.lkk.com/
    You can find this in most supermarkets!

    Ingredients:
    SOME premium dark soy sauce
    A drizzle of oyster sauce
    Wee bit of honey (or some brown sugar)
    Sesame oil
    Garlic
    Cornstarch

    Yeah, but what do you do? Huh?
    In a pan drizzle a little sesame oil and crushed garlic. Add some soy sauce, oyster sauce, honey and swizzle it about. Add some cornstarch flour to some cold water and dump into the soy sauce pan. Take off the heat and continue to mix, mix, mix. The cornstarch slurry will thicken this sauce. If too thick – add some water and back on the heat whilst continuing to mix.
    That. Is. It.

    This is a salmon and stir fry thing I made.
    I put the salmon in some kitchen foil with a drizzle of soy sauce and popped into the oven for about 15 mins at 180°c
    I stir fried onion and garlic with some broccoli whilst I cooked some basmati rice in a rice cooker*. Dished it up, added the above soy sauce saucy sauce thing and sprinkled with sesame seeds.

    Don’t it look good?

    (Approx. 600 calories, if you care)

    *I CANNOT COOK RICE ON THE HOB AND I CANNOT LEARN