As a result of this, my meals this week have consisted of chip shop's finest; delicious and effective, but I've been pouring my soul (the only time it comes out to play) into preparing food for so long now, my being craves it when it hasn't been satisfied.
Sometimes, it can be immensely relaxing to give up one's constant quest of acting grown up, and regress to being younger and less restricted. I'm too young for nostalgia, and even when I do come of age for it, I will know that our memories are all a bit of a lie, but a lie only as big as the one that tells us that we've emotionally matured. This was all too apparent today, so I decided to cook a meal of chicken nuggets, mouldy guts potatoes inspired by a joyous Halloween recipe ala Lawson and the historically childish dessert of Eton mess. Don't get me wrong, I know how obnoxious it sounds when someone too youthful goes all 'my life used to be so much easier', but I would only serve this in the right mood, and to people who share my occasional appreciation for the juvenile.
1)Start with the chicken nuggets that need a good marinade- I use my buttermilk marinade recipe, a very Southern America vibe, with two tubs of buttermilk, 1 tsp each paprika, thyme, pepper, salt and mustard, plus a few crushed garlic cloves and a squeezed lemon. Smoosh 4 chicken breasts cut into chunks and leave to marinade for a few hours, or overnight. This can be varied very easily- use whatever herbs and spices you like or you can forgo all of them and go very heavy on just English mustard, and if you don't have buttermilk, you can use regular milk but just use another lemon to get the milk really soured. While they marinate, put some potatoes to bake in a hot oven. Baking potatoes are traditional, but I love red skin ones. To bake them faster, pierce them morbidly through their middle with a metal skewer, which heats them up from the inside and bake them for about 40 minutes.
2)Coat the chicken in some breadcrumbs. Japanese panko are undeniably the best, just toss in some salt, pepper, grated parmesan haphazardly and roughly toss the chicken pieces until coated. Make your own breadcrumbs by using some good stale bread or flatbread staled yourself in a very low oven and chucking them in the processor or use a new idea I've acquired and toss the pieces in some good quality savoury cheese for crackers either chucked in the processor or the more satisfying option of beating them to death in a freezer bag. At this point, the potatoes should be cooked, so take them out to be disembowelled, and throw the chicken in on a tray with them. Alternatively, fry the chicken in small batches in very hot vegetable oil for just a few minutes.
3)Cut each potato in half, and scoop out the flesh leaving the skin, and place it in a bowl , and add some cheap and cheerful mozzarella and a few tablespoons of very good quality (brutally so, the more you spend, the better the taste with this I'm afraid) jarred pesto. Mash it together, and then, (this is my fussy eater moment) swirl, not stir wholly, a few tablespoons of ketchup, mustard or tomato puree diluted slightly in. Refill the skins, add another squirt of blood or a streak of pus (ketchup and mustard respectively) and bake them in the oven until the mozzarella goes so elastic and gooey. Go for plastic, cheap mozzarella here, good buffalo stuff would be too runny and you want that big long elastic band of goo to ooze from each potato.
4)I served this with a simple romaine salad, which I lazily made by tearing up some romaine lettuce, chucking it on a plate with some parsley leaves and chopped spring onions, then dressing it there and then, heeding to the Italian saying of using a generous person to add the oil (rapeseed here), a wise person to add the salt, a stingy person to add the vinegar which was the fabulous white wine variety (my most fitting job), and a patient soul to toss it.
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