Not every night in my Mastercheffy kitchen is a winner. Tonight was Training Day and one of those dinners that would have been called a work in progress if I ever had to serve it to anyone other than Annie who loves everything I cook, or at least she makes all the right oohing and aahing noises when I do.
I tried making Andy Allen’s Burnt Cabbage recipe that I saw on one of the Masterchef Mastercalsses. I didn’t take a pic of the scullery and the kitchen after I finished cooking. I’ve got a reputation for using every pot and pan in the house when I cook and tonight I surpassed that, and dinner was only average on top of that. So many dishes for so few stars. We never give up. Tomorrow is another cabbage.
I started off with a simple element – slice 6 apples and pop into the juicer, only I don’t have a juicer so I tried the SMEG blender. Two seconds later I smelled this burning smell and I hadn’t even turned on the stove. Almost 2 years to the day and just after the warranty ran out, so did my Smeg blender. Bloody expensive, pretty looking but utterly useless and never again. Juiceing a Granny Smith was completed in a Kenwood mixer that’s probably 15 years old and still rocks like a U2 concert, and then a little tango between me, a wooden spatula and a sieve.
At least the wine was good, as it usually is after litres and litres of research. Well for me anyway. Annie’s allergy to sulphites means I get to drink alone, but a glass of wine while cooking is standard issue, and if that should happen to run dry, it gets a bottomless refil like a mug of Mugg coffee. Still polishing off leftovers so Glen Carlou Quartz Rock Chardonnay 2021 kept me company while I was figuring out how to smoke a tomato, burn a cabbage, juice an apple and make a Pangritata without the pork chop. With the rich and smokey tomato flavours, Louisvale Dominique 2020 found it’s place. And of course when all the smoke had cleared and the noise from the kitchen and burned out SMEG appliances had cleared, Saronsberg Shiraz 2019 brings it all home.
