Meals for one

Corn and chicken soup

Posted by Gary

Want to skip the story? Here’s the recipe.

Corn and chicken soup

Hello Reader,

I’m posting again this weekend. 😊

I hope you enjoyed last night’s pork chop, pickled vegetables, and crispy capers.

Tonight, I made Mum’s sweet corn and chicken soup. It is the first time I’ve made this soup.

Mum made this soup when I was a boy, and while I’ve lived away from home since 1993, I know she continues to cook it for Dad, my brothers when they’re visiting, and my daughters. It’s one of Mum’s better-known soups.

I decided to cook it a little differently.

Recipe

Ingredients

Instructions

Chicken

  1. Dice the chicken thigh meat into bite-sized chunks.
  2. Please place them in a bowl and add salt, pepper, MSG, and sesame oil.
  3. Massage the chicken pieces with the seasoning and oil.
  4. Place the seasoned and lubricated chicken pieces into a vacuum bag.
  5. Seal the bag.
  6. Cook for 2 hours at 76 °C in a water bath.
  7. Open the bag and empty the chicken and juices into the soup broth.

Corn soup broth with chicken pieces

  1. Empty the cans of corn into a saucepan with the stock.
  2. Bring to a slow simmer and cook for twenty minutes.
  3. Add the chicken to the saucepan and simmer for about 10 minutes.
  4. Break the eggs into a bowl, and beat them lightly, leaving white visible.
  5. Blend cornflour with some water to make a slurry. Pour the slurry into the egg mixture.
  6. While the soup is at a slow boil, pour the egg mixture in and stir until strands of coagulated white egg appear.
  7. Before serving, add cream and reheat slightly.

Plating up and serving

  1. Ladle soup into vacuum bags for meals later in the week. Vacuum seal the bags and refrigerate or freeze them.
  2. Spoon the remaining soup into a bowl.
  3. Give thanks to the Lord.
  4. Enjoy with a spoon.

Thoughts on the meal

The advantage of separately cooking the chicken means it can be cooked days in advance.

The soup was as good as Mum’s. I’m going to do this again and again and again.

Final thoughts

  1. Do you like corn and chicken soup?
  2. Do you ever modify family recipes?

Footnotes

Sous vide cooking the chicken allowed me to ensure the chicken’s pasteurisation and achieving tenderness. It’s a bit of a faff for people who don’t have a water bath and water heater circulator. You can cook the chicken in the soup broth. That’s how Mum does it, and it’s always delicious. I like to do things differently when I can.

Corn kernels are the fruit, and there are roughly 800 kernels in 16 rows per ear of corn.

Creamed corn combines corn kernels with the residue from pulped corn kernels scraped from the cob.

Corn and chicken soup
Corn and chicken soup
Corn and chicken soup

Pork chop and pickles

Posted by Gary

If you don’t care for the story, you can skip to the recipe here.

Sous vide pork chop seared

Hello reader,

I hope you’re well. I didn’t post last week because Katie and I enjoyed a weekend together, and while I did cook and shoot photographs, I didn’t have the desire to post.

How has your week been? My work week has been more ordered. After about four weeks, I was able to return to my honorary role at Canberra Health Services on Friday. CHS is my Friday happy place.

In my paid job, I’ve been working with a graduate, who, like me is very keen on Microsoft SharePoint as a platform for work collaboration. It’s a terrific tool to bring order and convenience to the work we need to accomplish.

I don’t know if you work in an environment where people collaborate on a task, and you end up with multiple copies with everyone’s versions. Trying to get them all together coherently is time-consuming. Being able to have one document and have from a few to dozens of people working on it at the same time makes more sense.

When coupled with a piece of referencing software like EndNote™, work becomes so much easier.

The collaboration extends into non-work environments too. This week, I participated in a church committee meeting, and we’re all using Google Drive to work on a document for our fellowship.

For my loved ones, as an Apple enthusiast, I use the MacOS and iOS operating systems and tools for collaboration like shared calendars, notes, and photos. Living in the 21st century is cool.

Recipe

Ingredients

  • Pork loin chop
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • Brussels sprouts
  • Savoy cabbage
  • Red cabbage
  • Red onion
  • Bird’s-eye chillies*
  • Shallots
  • Ginger
  • Cloves
  • White vinegar
  • Sugar
  • Capers

Instructions

Pork

  1. Season the pork with salt and pepper and vacuum seal.
  2. Cook in a water bath at 54 °C for 2 hours and 10 minutes.
  3. Remove the pork from the bag and dry the surfaces with kitchen paper.
  4. Sear the pork in a hot frying pan.
  5. Allow the pork to rest for about 10 minutes.
  6. Slice the pork with a sharp knife for presentation purposes.

Pickles

  1. Slice the two types of cabbage.
  2. Cut the onion and shallots into slices.
  3. Slice the Brussels sprouts.
  4. Mince the ginger.
  5. In a jar dissolve sugar and salt in some vinegar.
  6. Add the cabbage, onion, shallots, Brussels sprouts, ginger, and cloves to a vacuum bag.
  7. Pour the vinegar solution into the bag.
  8. Vacuum seal the bag.
  9. Halfway through the pork cook, add the pickles to the water bath.
  10. Remove the vegetables and pick out the cloves.
  11. Drain the vegetables.

Capers

  1. Add rice bran oil into a small saucepan and heat until it reaches 180 °C.
  2. Add the capers (once rinsed and dried on some paper towel) and cook until crisp (around 30 seconds).
  3. Remove the capers from the oil and transfer them to a plate covered in a few sheets of paper towel.

Plating up and serving

  1. Place the drained pickles on a dinner plate and lay the pork on top.
  2. Top the pork with the crispy capers.
  3. Give thanks to the Lord.
  4. Eat with a fork.

Thoughts on the meal

Because of the effects of Japanese encephalitis in Australian piggeries, prices for pork will likely rise. I’m trying to get as much pork in my mouth as possible.

I’ve been enjoying pickles a lot more lately.

The highlight was the fried capers. The capers were salty and crispy and could easily substitute for a packet of potato chips.

Final thoughts

  1. Do you like using collaboration tools at work?
  2. How has your week been?
  3. Do you like pickled vegetables with pork?
  4. Have you tried fried capers before?
Bird’s eye chillies
Pickled vegetables
Sous vide pork chop
Sous vide pork chop seared
Pork chop with pickled vegetables and crispy capers
Pork chop with pickled vegetables and crispy capers
Pork chop with pickled vegetables and crispy capers
Pork chop with pickled vegetables and crispy capers
Pork chop with pickled vegetables and crispy capers
Pork chop with pickled vegetables and crispy capers

Footnotes

Bird’s eye chillies are also known as Thai chillies. In Thai, the name means mouse faeces chilli because of the shape of the fruit. The Bird’s eye chilli scores between 50,000 and 100,000 Scoville heat units (SHU) on the Scoville scale. Chillies are good for my hypertension. [1]

1.         Shi, Z., et al., Chilli intake is inversely associated with hypertension among adults. Clin Nutr ESPEN, 2018. 23: p. 67-72.

Dinner from last Saturday night. Sous vide scotch fillet steak with potato mash, pickled vegetables, amd green peppercorn gravy
Dinner from last Sunday evening. Sous vide salmon and Hokkien noodles.

Crispy pork loin and pickled cabbage

Posted by Gary

If you don’t care for my silly story, you can find the recipe here.

Crispy pork loin and pickled cabbage

Hello Reader,

How are you? I hope you’ve had an edifying week. I’ve been pondering how good life is right now.

I feel happy in all areas of life, apart perhaps from the direction of my body weight. To be fair, I talk about it too much and do very little about it apart from eating more unhealthy food.1

We’re all told to balance work and our personal lives. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt joy in so many ways. The best part of every day is chatting with my girlfriend, Katie. It’s amazing how good it feels to chat and ventilate and get to know each other better. Katie and my daughters are the best part of my life.2

Work has also been rewarding in so many ways. I love the feeling of competence that comes with being able to enjoy time in the office. The best thing about my job is the people I work with. I also like applying my training to the work at hand.

How is any of this related to what I’m cooking tonight? When I’m not chatting with Katie or working, I’ve been watching cooking YouTube videos. I saw someone do a crispy pork belly and I wondered if I could do something similar with the skin and fat on a piece of pork loin. I’ve also been watching videos on pickling vegetables.

As a kid, growing up in Brisbane, I spent much of my pre-school years with my maternal grandmother, my maternal grandfather, and my grandfather’s brothers. They all lived together in a house on Hale Street. I often dream of that house. I can smell the flour bags in one of the storerooms, I can see the firecrackers in boxes, and I almost always dream of the downstairs kitchen with three gas hobs and well-seasoned carbon steel frying pans used every morning to make the flour-based wraps for the large chicken rolls which would be sold in the Golden Pagoda3 later that day. One of the distinctive smells was the odour of pickled vegetables, Chinese pickles. As a kid I don’t think I was a fan, but as an old man now, I must be getting my Chinese on because I’m wanting to eat pickles more and more.

The other great thing about that house was being able to see and hear Lang Park. I could also see Mr Fourex atop the Castlemaine Perkins Brewery. This brewery in Milton is home to XXXX beer. Contrary to popular belief that Queenslanders cannot spell beer, the Xs denote the strength of the beer. Lang Park and XXXX beer are forever linked as the home and sponsor for the Queensland Maroons (pronounced ma rones).4

Like most things I cook, I rarely follow a recipe unless it’s something Mum tells me5. Then for the first time, I will follow what she says I should do, knowing that most of the time, Mum’s recipes are more guidance rather than instruction. She cooks with feeling and that’s how I cook too. With feeling.

So my experimenting with pickling has been about the flavours and textures I’m imagining in my head. Chinese rice vinegar, salt, sugar, cloves, and ginger form the base of the pickling juices.

It was cold enough to wear a beanie today

Recipe

Ingredients

  • Pork loin
  • Salt
  • Rice vinegar
  • Sugar
  • Cloves
  • Ginger
  • Cabbage
  • Carrot
  • Daikon
  • Brussels sprouts6
  • Bird’s-eye chillies

Instructions

Pork

  1. I bought a large slab of pork loin a week ago. It was about 30 centimetres by 20 centimetres and 5 centimetres deep. I cut it into three blocks and vacuum-packed each and then put them in the freezer.
  2. On Wednesday evening I moved one of the blocks from the freezer to the refrigerator.
  3. On Friday evening I unwrapped the meat and dried the outside surfaces with a towel. I took a sharp blade and scored the skin and fat and then rubbed salt into the skin and muscle.
  4. Place the prism of pork on a rack over a tray and place it uncovered in the refrigerator to dry brine overnight.
  5. On Saturday afternoon I removed the meat and turned the oven on to low heat, about 120 °C.
  6. I vigorously rubbed the skin while being careful not to tear the skin and fat from the meat. The objective of the vigorous rubbing was to dry the skin to prepare it for becoming crispy and crackling.
  7. To avoid drying out the meat, I wrapped aluminium foil around the muscle and left the scored fat and skin exposed.
  8. The problem with a dry brine is the amount of meat shrinkage which occurs in the cold dry environment. It suggests to me the meat was injected with water to plump it up to full tumescence prior to selling to make it look more impressive than it is. This shrinkage means I had a little trouble mounting it properly in an erect position. I wanted the skin pointing up and I didn’t want the meat at an angle while it was in the oven.
  9. I placed my prism of pork loin wrapped in aluminium foil on a rack over a tray and then into the oven for about three hours. I fashioned the aluminium so it kept my meat erect in the oven.
  10. I looked at the meat reasonably regularly in case the skin started to burn.
  11. After the oven cooking phase, I removed the meat and drained the pork fat into a stainless steel frying pan and turned on the hob to heat the fat.
  12. I placed the pork skin side down into the fat and left it there to crisp the skin.
  13. Because of the meat shrinkage, I needed to use wooden toothpicks to keep the meat upright. Nothing like a little prosthetic surgery while cooking. 🤔
  14. When the skin was crisp I moved the meat to a warm place to rest. Resting your pork is important. It’s probably more important to rest your pork than any other species of meat. I’ve heard some cooks say that pork should rest for nearly as long as it was cooking.
  15. After seeing the size of the finished product, I dissected away the skin and remaining connective tissue that used to contain the fat from the shrivelled muscle meat. I thought I’d sequester the meat for cold cuts and enjoy the crackling with the vegetables tonight.

Pickled cabbage

  1. Shred some cabbage.
  2. Shred some Brussels sprouts.
  3. Dice some peeled ginger.
  4. Slice the Bird’s-eye chillies.
  5. Julienne some carrot and daikon.
  6. Dissolve some sugar and salt into a quarter of a cup of rice vinegar.
  7. Place the vegetables plus a handful of cloves into a vacuum bag and then pour in the pickling liquid.
  8. Vacuum seal the bag in a vacuum chamber.
  9. Towards the end of the pork cooking, heat up a water bath to about 75 °C and cook the pickled vegetables for about 30 minutes.

Plating up and serving

  1. Open the bag of pickled vegetables and transfer the vegetables to a dinner plate.
  2. I know some people like drinking pickling juices. It’s not to my taste.
  3. Place the crackling on top of the vegetables.
  4. Give thanks to the Lord.
  5. Eat with a knife and fork.

Thoughts on the meal and lessons identified

  1. The crackling was good.
  2. The vegetables were good. I liked how the heat from the Bird’s-eye chillies permeated the pickling juices and every bite was hot, spicy, and sour.
  3. I will cut my pork loin into fatter chunks next time. I think this would be a better meal with a big fat lump of pork rather than a thin shrivelled remnant.

Final thoughts

  1. Do you dream about the first home you lived in?
  2. Do smells and sounds feature in your dreams?
  3. Do you like pickles?

Footnotes

  1. This morning I weighed in at 75 kilograms. I’ve been eating too much chocolate every day. I’m not sure if you’ve ever experienced salted caramel peanut slab. I buy it every week from a local shop. It’s very good. I think I have an addiction problem. I know I have an addictive personality. When I get the first taste of something good or pleasurable, if I can get more I’ll go for it.
  2. Amongst the many things we chat about, food comes up regularly. For example, the other night we were talking about shaved lamb meat and chips. The morning, I had this craving. Yes, I do eat a lamb and hot chip snack pack with metal chopsticks! 😆 The tzatziki sauce was good as it oozed over the warm tasty meat.
  3. The Golden Pagoda was a café/restaurant at the truck stop in Rocklea in Brisbane. I don’t know if the trucks still stop near the markets much. The Golden Pagoda was destroyed in the 1974 Brisbane floods. At that instant, my grandparents and my granduncles all stopped working. I remember ‘working’ there as a youngster. The chicken rolls we served were basically a cross between a spring roll and a Chiko roll. Not much chicken and lots of cabbage and deep-fried. They were about 20 cm long and quite girthy. As a little boy, I needed two hands to manage one. My most entrepreneurial grand uncle told me the makers of the Chiko roll stole his idea.
  4. This Wednesday night the first State of Origin game is played. As always, I’m hoping for a Queensland victory.
  5. Following a recipe from Mum can be hilarious. Me “Mum, you know that recipe for x? I tried it and it tasted a bit odd.” Mum “Did you use the y? That’s the essential ingredient and you need to do z with it.” Me “No, Mum, you didn’t mention y or z; no wonder x tasted odd.”
  6. Do you like Brussels sprouts? If you don’t, may I suggest the next time you cook them, don’t! Just shred them finely and add them to a salad like coleslaw. I’ve also found cooking them shredded removes the bitterness. Check out this meal I cooked last night. I mixed shredded Brussels sprouts with cheese and added it to this tray bake of pumpkin and potato towards the end of the cooking process. Melted cheese and shredded Brussels sprouts make for a wonderful combination.
Crispy pork loin and pickled cabbage
Pork loin vacuum packed
Pork loin ready for dry brining
Brined pork loin on a wire rack
Brined pork loin on a wire rack over a stainless steel frying pan
Brined pork loin on a wire rack over a stainless steel frying pan wrapped in aluminium foil
Cabbage Brussels sprouts
Cabbage Brussels sprouts Fennel Carrot Daikon Bird’s-eye chilli
Pickled Bird’s-eye chillies, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrot, daikon, and fennel.
Crispy pork loin and pickled cabbage
Crispy pork loin and pickled cabbage

Surf and turf with hollandaise sauce

Posted by Gary

If you’re not interested in the preamble, here’s the recipe.

Sous vide porterhouse steak and king prawns with hollandaise sauce and peas

Hello Reader,

In last night’s post, I wrote that this weekend in Canberra is a long one because of Reconciliation Day on Monday.

Notwithstanding the public holiday, I’ll go into the office tomorrow because colleagues in the states and the Northern Territory are working. We need to get some work done. While working from home has become normative, coordinating multiple documents, and incorporating feedback from stakeholders is easier with two desktop monitors. Having leftover steak from tonight’s meal will make a wonderful lunch. I will nonetheless reflect on Reconciliation Day while I’m in the office.

Tonight, I’m cooking a steak and some prawns and serving them with hollandaise sauce. I’ve chosen a porterhouse steak and some king prawns.

Recipe

Ingredients

  • Porterhouse steak
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • Garlic powder
  • Rice bran or peanut oil
  • King prawns
  • Butter
  • Eggs
  • Lemon
  • Sriracha sauce
  • Bird’s-eye chillies
  • Peas
  • Shallots
  • Fennel
  • Vegetable stock

Tools

  • Precision water heater and circulator1
  • Vacuum chamber2
  • Water bath
  • Cast iron frying pan
  • Stainless steel frying pan
  • Stick blender
  • Plastic cup
  • Microwave oven
  • Knives

Instructions

Steak

  1. Unwrap the steak and place it onto a cutting board or suitable work surface.
  2. Season the steak with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. I use iodised salt and freshly cracked black peppercorns.
  3. Put the steak in a vacuum bag. If you don’t have the tools to vacuum seal, use a sealable plastic bag and displace the air before sealing the bag.
  4. Heat the water in the water bath to 54 °C (129 °F). Suppose you don’t have a water heater and circulator. In that case, you can use a stockpot or other suitable vessel on a hob. With a thermometer, keep monitoring the temperature and keep it within a few degrees on either side for the entire cooking period.
  5. When the water reaches 54 °C, place the steak into the water bath and cook for 2 hours and 50 minutes.
  6. When the time is complete, turn off the water heater circulator and remove the steak from the water bath.
  7. Open the bag and if there are meat juices, pour them into a container.
  8. Remove the steak and dry it with a paper towel or clean dishcloth.
  9. Heat a cast-iron frying pan until it is searing hot.
  10. Add a little high smoking point neutral oil.
  11. Sear the steak to the desired amount.
  12. Allow the steak to rest under an aluminium tent.
  13. With a sharp slicing knife, slice the steak to the desired thickness. I like my steak strips to be thick, meaty, and juicy.

Prawns

  1. Peel the shells from the prawns and leave the tail shell in place.
  2. Some people like to remove the alimentary canal from the prawn. I’m not one of those people.
  3. Heat a stainless-steel frying pan. Use the Leidenfrost effect to determine when the frying pan is at the correct temperature.
  4. Add a small amount of neutral oil and spread it across the pan’s surface.
  5. Add some butter, and once the butter starts to foam, add in the prawns.
  6. Cook the prawns carefully to avoid overcooking.
  7. Place the cooked prawns on top of the steak and under the tent.

Hollandaise sauce

  1. Place three egg yolks into a cup.
  2. Whisk some Dijon mustard, lemon juice, and Sriracha sauce.
  3. Melt about 100 g of butter using microwave radiation.
  4. Use the stick blender to process the egg yolks and add the whisked mustard, juice, and hot sauce.
  5. Keep the blender on and slowly drip the melted butter into the cup and watch the sauce form.
  6. Transfer the sauce to a small glass pouring jug and keep it warm.

Vegetables

  1. Put some frozen peas into a heat-proof bowl.
  2. Add some diced shallots and fennel.
  3. Boil some vegetable stock and add the meat juices from the cooked steak.
  4. Cover with boiling meat-juice augmented vegetable stock.
  5. Strain when the peas are cooked. The shallots and fennel will retain flavour and crunch.

Plating up and serving

  1. Remove the aluminium tent covering the beef and prawns and transfer the meats to a warmed dinner plate.
  2. Spoon the peas onto the plate next to the meats.
  3. Spoon on the hollandaise sauce.
  4. Give thanks to the Lord
  5. Eat with a knife and fork. A steak knife isn’t necessary, but a well-weighted steak knife always feels nice in hand. As an alternative, you could put everything into a bowl and use a pair of chopsticks, given the steak has been sliced. You can “shovel” the peas into your mouth by raising the bowl to your gaping lips and sweeping the sauce-laden peas with the chopsticks.

Thoughts on the meal

When I got out of bed this morning and weighed myself, I had reached a new high for two years. You may ask why I prepare such a large meal if I want to get closer to 70 kg. I’m asking the same question. I have no answer! 🤨

The steak was beefy. The prawns were fleshy and firm. The tangy and buttery sauce accentuated the flavours of each meat element.

I did halve the steak, but I did eat all four prawns and all the peas. Sliced steak for lunch tomorrow will go down a treat.

Thoughts on blogging and work-life balance

Social media is a curious phenomenon. My engagement on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram waxes and wanes depending on how busy I am and other personal factors.

I went through and looked at how many bloggers I follow. There are some who I’ve been following since about 2010. My work and personal time are getting busier, and I’m happy about that. I’m going to spend less time on social media, and I’m going to cull the number of bloggers I follow.

I’m conscious of the privilege I have living alone and being comfortable financially. I admire and respect people who have far more hectic lives, are time-poor, and struggle financially. I blog for a hobby; I hope bloggers who derive an income from their writing continue to thrive. I will continue to support the professional bloggers whose writing and photography I enjoy.

Footnotes

  1. A precision water heater and circulator maintain the water in the water bath at a constant temperature.
  2. A vacuum chamber is used to vacuum seal food in plastic bags.
Porterhouse steak in wrapper
Porterhouse steak
Porterhouse steak with salt and pepper
Porterhouse steak with salt and pepper
Porterhouse steak with salt and pepper
Porterhouse steak vacuum wrapped
Sliced sous vide porterhouse steak
Sous vide porterhouse steak and king prawns with hollandaise sauce and peas
Sous vide porterhouse steak and king prawns with hollandaise sauce and peas
Sous vide porterhouse steak and king prawns with hollandaise sauce and peas

Chicken tray-bake

Posted by Gary

If you don’t like reading the silly story and want the recipe, it is here.

Hello Reader,

It’s a wet Saturday in Canberra. It’s a long weekend here because Monday is Reconciliation Day. In Canberra, Reconciliation Day is on the first Monday after the twenty-seventh day of May.

In 1993, a week of prayer by some religious groups focused on reconciliation with Indigenous Australians. Reconciliation Week begins each year on the 27th of May.

The rain and the colder weather make me think I want something warm, easy, and comforting. Lorraine, aka, Not Quite Nigella, posted a traybake early in the week. While I don’t plan to replicate her recipe, I thought I’d throw some things in a tray, bung it into the oven, and hope for the best. If you don’t know of Lorraine, check out her blog. In my opinion, Lorraine is the most consistent and best food blogger in Australia. She’s scaled back a little from posting every day to every week-day. In each post, Lorraine tells a little story related to the food she’s sharing. I find the stories about her partner and her immediate family fascinating and compelling. Lorraine is of East Asian heritage, and we have a common bond through that. I often find myself commenting on her posts. I wish her blog had a setting to know if she ever responds to comments because I don’t receive a notification.

I chose chicken wings for my tray-bake because I’m a lazy slob at heart, and I plan to sit in front of the TV on my worn couch and eat dinner with my hands to lick all the fatty juices from my fingers. I have this coffee table thing in front of my dilapidated couch, and it sits between me and the TV. My girlfriend mentioned a TV show she thought I might like. It’s called Made for Love. I thought I’d watch it while enjoying dinner. If you’re in Australia, you can watch it on Stan. No spoilers, suffice to say, my girlfriend has amazing taste in everything including TV. She’s amazing.

When I say I’m lazy, I mean I’m not the greatest fan of washing dishes. I do it and happily do it because it’s hygienic; however, if I can make a meal in one vessel and eat it from that vessel and not need any tools, I’m a happy yella fella.

Recipe

Ingredients

  • Chicken wings
  • MSG
  • Brown sugar
  • Salt
  • Worcestershire sauce
  • Red wine
  • Capsicums
  • White onion
  • Red onion
  • Red Royale potato
  • Golden sweet potato
  • Kent pumpkin
  • Eggplant 🍆
  • Cream
  • Dijon mustard
  • Cheddar cheese
  • Monterey Jack cheese slices
  • Spring onion

Instructions

Chicken

  1. Remove the chicken wings from the plastic packaging. I usually wash out the plastic container, dry it, and then cut the plastic into smaller pieces and place it into a rubbish bin. I am lazy, so repeated trips to the rubbish bins outside the block of flats feel like a chore. I’d rather be warm in ugg boots and a flannelette shirt, more so in winter.
  2. Lay the chicken pieces over the bottom of the oven tray.
  3. Add brown sugar, MSG, salt, Worcestershire sauce, and red wine to a jar. Shake the bottle to mix everything. Of course, close the bottle with the lid first; otherwise, the mess will be horrendous with sugar and red wine. Mind you, licking the floor would be full of sweet, salty, umami flavours.
  4. Pour the liquid over the chicken pieces.
  5. The following steps are alternatives.
  6. You could cover the tray with some plastic wrap and refrigerate, or you can do as I did and put the chicken and liquid into plastic bags and seal them. I used two bags and will use one bag later in the week.1
  7. Allow the chicken to absorb the flavours from the liquid in the refrigerator for a few hours or overnight.

Vegetables

  1. Cut all the vegetables into bite-size pieces. For me, that’s about the size of a squash ball. You may have a more petite mouth so basically, think of how many balls you can fit in your mouth and make the pieces the size you like.
  2. I like cutting vegetables. I like having a sharp knife in my hand. I like the feeling of the cold hard steel and the motion of the blade through the vegetables and enjoying the tactile pleasure. In medical school, tutors would ask about possible treatments. Rather than a physician-type answer, I answered surgically, “There’s nothing like the feel; the feel of cold hard surgical steel.” Some readers who know me know I’m a specialist microbiologist and might wonder why I don’t answer, “Antibiotics.” More often than not, I’d recommend managing any collection of pus with incision and drainage. It’s also fun to poke your finger in and have a good rummage around to get all the pus out. Don’t get me wrong, most of the time in medicine, surgery isn’t called for; but it’s what I think when it’s an option.
  3. Place the cut vegetables into a large bowl and then generously douse with a neutral oil. I know I’m not going to be using high heat for this meal, so it’s not about burning olive oil beyond its smoke point; it’s more about the wank of olive oil.
  4. With your hands, massage all the vegetables lightly with the oil.
  5. Mix some dried herbs and spices in a bowl and coat the vegetables. You can choose for yourself what you’d like to use. I’m not going to share what I used just in case I stumble across some phenomenal secret formula to a spectacular vegetable rub. 😳😆

Cooking the tray-bake

  1. Turn on the oven to moderate heat.
  2. Use a large baking tray so that all the items have a little room.
  3. Rub some oil over the inside surface of the tray.
  4. Spread the chicken and vegetables out on the tray.
  5. Put the tray into the oven.
  6. Cook until the tips, edges, and corners of the food has started to take on some colour. When this happens, pour a carton of cream into a bowl and add a few tablespoons of Dijon mustard. Whisk it gently, and then fold in some grated cheddar cheese and spring onion. I reckon leeks would have been good on thinking about this some more.
  7. Remove the tray from the oven and pour over the Dijon-flavoured cheese stiffened cream.
  8. Put the tray back into the oven and cook until the liquid has reduced and thickened.
  9. Pull the tray out and add a few slices of Monterrey Jack cheese on top, season with some freshly cracked black pepper, and return to the oven until the cheese slices melt.
  10. Remove the tray from the oven and allow it to rest until the food stops wobbling, and it feels a little more firm when you give the tray a little nudge.

Plating up

  1. On a large dinner plate, spoon out the contents of the tray.
  2. Allow the leftover food in the tray to cool a little more and then transfer it to a storage bag. If you’re like me, fill a vacuum bag, seal it, and refrigerate to enjoy this again later in the week. If you use a vacuum bag, you can freeze it and enjoy a freezer surprise meal some weeks or months into the future.2
  3. Set up your eating area with enough napkins and wet wipes. It may be best to lay an old towel over the coffee table, and if you’re like me, place a towel on the floor between the couch and coffee table.
  4. Turn on the TV.
  5. Put the plate of food on the dinner table.
  6. Grab a big glass of water.
  7. Wash your hands.
  8. Give thanks to the Lord.
  9. Enjoy the chicken and vegetables and finger-licking while watching TV.

Thoughts on the meal

For a one-pot meal, my dinner was pretty good. The chicken was moist and juicy, and the vegetables didn’t squeak on my teeth. The flavours were on point.

Adding a dinner roll and butter would have been suitable for sopping up the leftover juices in the tray rather than wiping my fingers through them and licking my fingers.

Your choice of TV viewing is up to you. Suppose this was happening on a Wednesday night in winter. In that case, I might watch the “greatest game of all” played by the best teams in the most magnificent sporting spectacle. If it was late in September on a Sunday night, I might watch the “greatest game of all” played by two teams which I may or may not care about, in the second-best sporting spectacle of all. The “greatest game of all” is rugby league football, for those who don’t know me. The best teams are the Queensland maroons (or cane toads) and the New South Wales blues (or cockroaches). State of Origin football is the greatest sporting spectacle of all time. The second best sporting spectacle of all time is the National Rugby League grand final played by the two teams which have won the most points during the season. These teams are not necessarily the best. The best teams are the ones I support, and they may not reach the grand final. 😆 If you’re interested, next year I’m switching allegiance from the Brisbane Broncos to the Dolphins.

Final thoughts

  1. Do you like eating and watching TV at the same time?
  2. Who is your favourite food blogger? If you answer Yummy Lummy, I’ll give you a hug.
  3. Do you like one-pot meals?

Footnotes

  1. You may notice in the photo that the bag is vacuum-sealed and contains the marinade; if you have a vacuum sealer, I’d be careful. Vacuum sealers are not great with liquid in the bags. You could use a zip bag and displace the air by putting the bagged food in water, gradually lowering and forcing the air out, and then zipping the bag shut. The alternative is to use a chamber sealer.
  2. The benefit of placing the leftovers into a vacuum bag is you can reheat the food in a water bath. It only takes between 30 and 45 minutes, and with little effort, you have a meal ready to eat after a busy day. I’ve been doing this during the week because work has been quite busy, and I’ve been spending about 11 hours in the office each day and coming home and working a few more hours each night.
Chicken wings sans marinade
Chicken wings with marinade
Chicken wings with marinade in a vacuum bag
Chicken and vegetables prior to the oven
Chicken traybake watching TV
Chicken traybake watching TV
Chicken traybake watching TV
Chicken traybake