Day 2 (31st March)

Hugh: The Fife Diet, Day 3: Stoo!

Some things are slower than you think. Example number 1: going to Fife to buy a week’s worth of food, which took forever and cost something like £60 in taxi fares.

Other things are faster. Example 2: Cooking stew.

See, I’d assumed, and indeed learned from past experience, that cooking stew was very, very slow. But needs must when World of Warcraft drives, and Alex and I needed to eat in approximately the same time it took Mannheim-Black to go buy his shamefully non-Fife Chinese takeaway. So—

Root Veg And Bacon Stew

Take 7 potatoes, one and a half parsnips, two normal-sized carrots and one freakish monster carrot, and 500g of Puddledub Bacon. Slice everything into rounds, except for the bacon, which isn’t round to begin with—or if it is, you should be having a serious conversation with your butcher.

Whack it all in a massive pot and fill with hot water until the water covers the food. Discover that your f—-ing stock pot is aluminium, and hence won’t work on your snazzy induction hob. Swear.

Separate the stoo into two pots, place on the heat, and bring to the boil. Optionally, then forget that they’re on the boil, and leg it through when you hear the sound of them boiling over to turn the heat down to a slow boil, with a few bubbles coming up.

15 minutes later, you’ve got extremely nice stew.

And I do mean extremely nice. The potatoes were flavourful thanks to the bacon, the parsnips were sweet and tender, and the bacon itself was marvellous. And the water miraculously turned in a spectacularly short period of time into really lovely bacon soup, the remains of which I promptly decanted and stuck in my fridge.

I’d been very concerned about speed before this week—I have a mildly hectic lifestyle, and had a distinct suspicion that wasn’t going to be compatible with cooking everything. However, it doesn’t seem to be a problem so far.

Partially that’s because of the simplicity of the cooking techniques I’m having to use. With a limited selection of food and no fats except what we can render from the meat, mostly it’s boiling down to… boiling. Or steaming, or occasionally roasting, or sous-vide when I remember. But none of these things require a great deal of setup and complex multi-stage cooking.

In other news, we have learned from the comments on my last entry that Fraoch is not even vaguely Fifely. Not brewed there, not made from ingredients coming from there, according to Feorag, who Knows Her Beer. I am increasingly unimpressed with the depth of the Fife Diet guy’s research.

Alex: Parties

I must admit to being fairly satisfied with my rather half-arsed attempts at cooking on Day 1, and thought that this would probably be pretty easy from then on. However, I hadn’t counted on the party that night.

As it would happen, neither the mini-quiches, nor the pizza slices, nor the copious quantities of free alcohol were sourced from Fife, so I spent the entire night, carefully rationing my 5 bottles of astronomically priced Fraoch, whilst the rest of the assembled guests made merry.

Partying on the Fife diet is no fun at all (except for others, who will find your self imposed misery greatly amusing).

Alex: Day 2 and 3

Day 2

I managed to avoid any culinary adventures by eating only venison oatcakes (which appear to be becoming a staple of mine) and eating a simple stew made by Hugh.

The stew was pretty nice, with the high quality ingredients really adding flavour.

Also that day, the “stolen egg” situation apparently resolved, Paul brought us cheese, which though expensive as hell, was greatly appreciated.

Day 3 (so far)

So far today, I have eaten bacon and scrambled eggs, with cheese grated on top, and some Kale.

Bacon and Scrambled Eggs:

1. Fry the bacon (I prefer not to bother to chop it up, as that just takes time) in a dry (no-oil), non-stick frying pan, and leave over the hob on a low heat, in the hope that some oil to fry the eggs will be produced.
2. Upon realising that dry cure bacon doesn’t produce much fat, vaguely go at the eggs in a bowl, with a fork, then very slowly fry the eggs in the dry pan with the bacon.
3. Consume

With this one, the lack of butter, oil or any other fat really showed, however it seems dry frying actually works if your pan’s non-stick. Tasted pretty much like bacon and scrambled eggs. Pleasant enough.

Kale (Steamed)

1. Get a small saucepan and a bloody huge colander
2. Place some water in the in the saucepan
3. Place the colander on top of the saucepan (water should not reach the colander)
4. Put the kale in the colander
5. Put apparatus over the hob and heat until boiling
6. Leave for a bit (I think about 15 minutes)
7. Remove kale and consume

I’ve discovered that I quite like steamed Kale, some butter with it would improve things.

Kale (Raw)

1. Get Kale
2. Consume

I’ve also discovered that raw Kale is probably the tastiest thing I’ve got for a random snack. Not sure if my digestive system will agree, but I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough.

Hugh: The Fife Diet: Teaches You Stuff

Today I have Learned Things on the Fife Diet.

I’ve learned that “medium” oatmeal makes the best porridge.

I’ve learned that kale should be steamed for about 2½ minutes, unless you want very floppy kale indeed.

I’ve learned that the lens cap I’ve been looking for for a week was in my bag all along.

I’ve learned that oatmeal is very cheap, whilst oatcakes, oddly, are very expensive (£1.47 for a pack of 6!)

I’ve learned that it’s OK to serve whole pork cuts rare these days—as rare as beef—if you’re in the UK. The incidence of Trichinella, the worm which is the primary reason for cooking pork well, is astonishingly low in the UK—according to Richard Fagan, foodservice development manager at the UK’s Meat and Livestock Commission, there hasn’t been a detected Trichinella worm in UK-farmed pork in 28 years, whilst the Food Standards Agency shows that even in wild foxes the incidence of trichinella is less than 0.13%. DO NOT try this with non-UK pork, though.

I’ve also learned, rather accidentally, that rare pork tastes fantastic, and not completely unconnectedly, that I should be quite careful my saucepan is placed directly above the heater on my induction hob.

(It’s not as bad as it sounds – the pork was at about 65 degrees, high enough to kill Trichinella anyway. Still very interesting, though.)

Paul: The Fife Diet: Day 2

Probably as a result of some experimentation with Fifeshire beer last night, I slept late this morning and, as a result, my porridge oats had soaked for longer than they did yesterday. This may be the reason why today’s porridge was a marked improvement on yesterday’s. It cooked in about a quarter of the time, and—most importantly—actually displayed a willingness to be swallowed.

…that’s what she said. No, wait.

Moving on.

It also helped that I’ve recovered my Fifeshire bramble jam from Hugh’s flat. I’m not sure quite how authentically Fifely this is, since the sugar and the pectin have to come from somewhere, but Alex has been eating the equivalent, so it must be all right. This has been my first refined sugar since Friday, and my headache instantaneously dissipated. On the way out to the museum this morning there may, or may not, have been hopping and/or skipping, which naturally I could neither confirm or deny.

The jam was delicious, too, and really made the porridge into a breakfast.

~

Alex and Hugh have been concerned about the amount of fat they have available for cooking. I roasted a pork joint on the first night and a decent chunk of gammon yesterday, both of which have released large quantities of delicious juices into the stock. Once they’ve cooled I’ve been skimming the fat off and decanting it into a jar, so I have plenty of dripping to use.

Here’s the gammon, and the jar in the back of the photograph is full of the solid fats.

Lunch, then, was a two-egg omelette with bacon and cheese. I had reservations about this: I have no idea what the smoke point of my dripping is, and indeed it turns out to be completely the wrong one for cooking eggs in, but these problems were surmountable.

The eggs were fantastic, rich and tasty with deep orange yolks. I was sparing with the cheese because cheese is a precious resource, but this was okay because the cheese was sharp and crumbly and flavoursome (and bloody well should be, given what I paid for it). I was a little concerned about the egg sticking to the pan, but I needn’t have worried. With a little encouragement the omelette came off in one glorious piece, the cheese wonderfully browned and the bacon lusciously meaty.

Best. Omelette. Ever.

I was tempted to have seconds, but I’m still somewhat limited in eggs. I think I shall be having omelettes a few more times this week.

~

The gammon I’d cooked off yesterday was intended to be eaten cold, but that’s not the only thing I can do with it. Tonight:

Fife Diet Gammon Steak and Chips

1. Scrub and chop up a potato and a parsnip.
2. Part-boil until almost done, but take them off the heat before they get mushy. Drain.
3. Heat up delicious dripping in a pan. Fry the chips until crispy.
4. Slice gammon, brown in the same pan on both sides, and serve.

Look at the Maillard Reaction on that.

And it tasted better than it looks.

Of course, gammon steak is pretty pointless without pineapple. Or tomato ketchup. Even some peas would be nice. It only occurred to me after I’d inhaled it that I could have fried an egg.

And that was my third potato of the week. I have a huge bag left, three-fifths of a swede, and carrots and parsnips, and plenty of green stuff.

Today was a good day. I still have no herbs or spices, but as long as I have the Maillard reaction I’ll be okay.

Alex: Day 3 Evening

It’s actually a bit of a strain to remember what I ate that evening, which suggests that it wasn’t great.

Ah yes…

Baked Potatoes with expensive Fife cheese

1. Bake 3 small potatoes for about 55 minutes
2. Grate some expensive Fife cheese
3. Put cheese on top of potatoes
4. Consume

In the last dish, I discovered that the cheese worked quite well as a topping. Sadly, it just doesn’t work in baked potatoes. This one didn’t really work.