|
mailto: blog -at- heyrick -dot- eu
Christmas dinner
The chicken-thing was big. Like, really big. Plus, I couldn't cope with the idea of shoving it in the oven for two or three hours. Because if I knew if I did that, I'd start eating chocolate and wouldn't fancy anything by the time it was cooked.
So I put on a pair of latex gloves swiped from work, washed the big knife, and went into panic mode. That's because the last time I cooked a chicken for myself, I think I was about 13 and I didn't cook it all the way through. It made me quite ill. Mom was away, doing something, so I made myself chicken with Bisto gravy over it. It was nice, but deadly.
I hacked off the breast meat from both sides and chopped it into pieces. Aiming for about 2cm wide, 1cm tall, and 3 cm long. But since it's squishy meat, the end result was more "sort of maybe" than regular sized nuggets.
These went in the frying pan on a high heat to give them a nice browned texture, and then on low heat for ten minutes or so until cooked. I then added a frozen mixed veg selection (carrot, potato, peas, fried onions, various herbs) and cooked it all together on a lowish heat for a further 10-15 minutes (until the potato was done). By this time, the chicken was cooked sufficiently that it wouldn't be lethal.
Only really missing Bisto gravy, but the supermarkets in Châteaubriant only carry beef flavour, and it's about €9 a tub (170g) from Amazon. So I had it just nicely fried.
 Christmas dinner.
I had been planning on my usual ritual of a Fray Bentos Just Chicken pie. I guess I'll have that for New Year.
The chicken itself? Meh, to be honest. It tasted... watery? Like there was a chicken taste, but not much of it. It did have a nice texture, though.
These birds, Capon? Chapon? They usually sell for around €16 each (it depends upon the weight), and they came from a local farmer who has an arrangement with the worker's committee to supply them pre-ordered for a better price (and quality) than in the supermarket.
He must have thought his Christmas had arrived early when they called and were like "Yeah, we want to place an order for a few birds, to be delivered here on the 23rd". How many? "About a hundred and sixty."
Etc...
Today, I'm eating a do-it-yourself pizza. I got it in Châteaubriant last month, and today is it's expiry date. It's a sort of UHT dough vacuum packed in a tube, so it would probably be good for a couple of weeks longer, but given my wonky digestion, I have a strict rule - anything that is beyond it's sell-by gets tossed. Additionally, anything that looks or smells in an unexpected manner is tossed. "If in doubt, throw it out".
It's a lesson learned from experience. Sure, it's great to eat something and "it's only a little over". What's not so great is sitting on the bog for a few hours while your internal plumbing rearranges itself in ways that would confuse M. C. Escher.
It is raining. That's the bad. It is nearly 11°C. That's the good. Which, I guess, means it's time to upload this, put the kettle on, then get into bed (heated blanket, yay!) and - oh - a new episode of The Expanse was released on Friday. Time to catch up.
Your comments:
Please note that while I check this page every so often, I am not able to control what users write; therefore I disclaim all liability for unpleasant and/or infringing and/or defamatory material. Undesired content will be removed as soon as it is noticed. By leaving a comment, you agree not to post material that is illegal or in bad taste, and you should be aware that the time and your IP address are both recorded, should it be necessary to find out who you are. Oh, and don't bother trying to inline HTML. I'm not that stupid! ☺ ADDING COMMENTS DOES NOT WORK IF READING TRANSLATED VERSIONS.
You can now follow comment additions with the comment RSS feed. This is distinct from the b.log RSS feed, so you can subscribe to one or both as you wish.
| John, 26th December 2021, 13:20 |
I'm afraid the capon has been chemically neutered with hormones rather like I am at the moment with the cancer treatment! It makes them get fatter - again like me!
At least I'm still alive, unlike the capon. |
| Gavin Wraith, 26th December 2021, 15:45 |
My Danish Christmas meal (on the 24-th) was roast pork
with sprouts, carrots and roast potatoes (caramelized for the others) cooked by my youngest daughter, followed by riis'a'l'amande : cream, chopped almonds, rice and hot cherry sauce. My English Christmas meal (on the 25-th) was ragoust of duck on pappardelle, cooked by my eldest daughter, followed by a pavee de marrons and whipped cream. Tonight I shall make biksemad with the remains of the pork: parboil and dice potatoes, fry grated onion, add the potatoes and diced pork, serve with fried eggs on top. |
| Rick, 26th December 2021, 17:21 |
Well, riis'a'l'amande sounds rather nice...
The capons are castrated, not chemically neutered. It's a local farmer rather than a big producer.
Of course, reading up on what they actually do, it's rather ****ing unpleasant. But one has to remember that over here, foie gras is still a thing, and that's marginally worse.
|
| Gavin Wraith, 26th December 2021, 17:59 |
It is very nice. I first had it at Christmas 1970 made by the lady who became my mother-in-law. I liked it so much that I finished it off for breakfast the next day. |
| VinceH, 27th December 2021, 00:43 |
My traditional lunch on Christmas day consists of ham sandwiches or something similar. However, this year I didn't bother going off for a walk.
So I cooked up a couple of sausages, shoved them in a couple of bread rolls, and plastered ketchup on them. Perfect. |
(Felicity? Marte? Find out!)
- RISC OS WiFi - restarting, When is a fork not a fork? (2024/04/16)
- Dumb sci-fi movies, Sakura!, Other flowers, I blew sixty euros on gunk, Biting off more than you can chew, The truth about bug lamps, Not a creme egg, Red flags for dodgy builders, The first Swallow. (2024/04/14)
- How not to fill up. (2024/04/10)
- Scotland's hate crime law, School photos. (2024/04/07)
- Who's four some Tea? (2024/04/04)
List all b.log entries
Return to the site index
PS: Don't try to be clever.
It's a simple substring match.
Last read at 05:29 on 2024/04/19.
© 2021 Rick Murray
This web page is licenced for your personal, private, non-commercial use only. No automated processing by advertising systems is permitted.
RIPA notice: No consent is given for interception of page transmission. |
Have you noticed the watermarks on pictures?
|
| |
