Culinary disaster
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Cottage tales | 17 comments
We’d had a bag of lamb knocking about for so long in the freezer that I finally decided to cook it. It was a bit of a sacrifice as the bag had been useful. It was the perfect side prop to stop more precious things dropping out.
“What cut of lamb is it?”
I had no idea, even when I examined the four long lengths.
“Why don’t we give it The Beastley Treatment? It always seems to work with elderly frozen meat.”
So I did. The slow cooker bubbled away and it smelt delicious for hours.
Therein lies the rub. I overcooked the lamb. After five hours the meat had a pre-digested texture. Danny reached for a fork to savour the dish. There was silence and then he pronounced.
“It has the texture of dog food.”
“Don’t worry, I think I can pull it round.”
Secretly I wondered how he knew what the texture of dog food was like.
It sat in the fridge for a couple of days and I began to hate the sight of the bowl. Tonight I sifted out the meat and liquidised it – now it had the texture of Shippham’s meat paste (the stuff in jars). I stirred it into the vegetables and sauce and discovered that I had made a nasty pink baby food. Even though D made encouraging noises, I knew that I had a disaster on my hands.
I added a handful of soya mince to a coupe of portions of the sloppy mess and suddenly was on a slippery slope. The soya mince added a sort of plastic texture that underlined the hideous liquefied meat. It would have been better to remove the meat completely and use the tomato sauce as a base for other dishes.
Served with spaghetti and lashings of parmesan we managed to force down a few mouthfuls before pushing our plates aside.
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After reading this I think I need another shot of that anti-nausea cocktail they gave me in hospital last week!
Cooking up a disaster ratchets you up a notch on the culinary learning curve.
Celia
Hahahahaha! Hahahahah! Brilliant. Rest assured, we’ve all secretly made inedible slop at one time or another!
LOL, I love this! A kind of anti-food blog, an antidote to all those glamorous blogs with beautiful food styling and impossibly perfect recipes!
It just goes to show that even good cooks have disasters sometimes, but most don’t dare post them on their blogs 🙂 I particularly like the desperate attempts to rescue it, each taking you further from something edible … and the photo is one of a kind.
It always happens to me when I begin to think I’ve cracked this kitchen stuff.
The rest of your recipies are great, I’ll give this one a miss though 🙂
Thanks for making me laugh !! i guess we’ve all been through that scenario only most people keep very quiet about it
Fiona, it must have surprised D considering all the fantastic food you cook 😉
I’ve had way too many disasters. Good thing the pizza shop isn’t too far away.
Sometimes we just need to admit defeat and from there order a takeaway!!! It happens to the best of us.
re culinary disaster, had one like that a couple of months ago with pork, and that was following a delia smith recipe, was so looking forward to it, it sounded lovely, but like yours was the texture of dog food an tasted gross.
Oh yes! I recognise the scenario…
Oh dear, what a shame, but rest assured we’ve all had disasters like that!