The one about cooking something that hopefully wont kill ya on Valentines night

As promised, here we go. Men of Cork are elsewhere for that matter, its time to do something nice for the love of your life. If your single, well this can wipe those blues away for an hour or so and then its back to singledom. Alternatively, be a Dial a Date!!!!

What you need:
Balls for a start. I know theres some of you out there who are terrified of cooking and cant boil an egg to save their life. If truth be told, boiling eggs isnt something Id be shouting about myself. If this is your first trip into a kitchen, then keep your eyes peeled for strange devices. Theres more than likely a big white / grey thing in there somewhere with a big glass circle in it. This is called a washing machine. Somehow, your clothes manage to get into this once a week, transport them to a washing line or dryer and appear in your closet all clean again. It helps if you have a g/f, wife or partner for this as well. Most of all have a bit of craic. And dont worry if the kitchen looks like down town Baghdad after your finished, thats normal. If it all goes wrong, which it shouldnt, you'll get brownie points anyway. If you can cook, then theres not much point reading ahead as your probably planning a banquet for Wednesday night. Real Chefs who are reading, well what can I say. Take note :)

Daycent Chilli Bread with Bacon starters:

• French Loaf / Stick
• Real Chillis - Found in the veg section of a supermarket
• Mozzarella - Found in the cheese or specialist cheese section in the supermarkert
• Smoked Bacon / Rashers
• Olive Oil
• Frying Pan
• Bowl
  

Firstly bang on your oven and preheat it for around 5 minutes to 180. While the oven is heating up you can either scratch yer arse or start doing the following. With a bread knife, start horsing slices outta the french stick, half and inch thick or soGet a sharp knife (Dont scratch your arse with it) and start chopping the chillis very finely. A word of warning, these little bastards will take your eye out if your not carful. Ware rubber gloves or dont touch any part of your body with chilli covered hands. And DONT scratch ANYTHING, whatever you do. The seeds are the hottest part of the chillis, so unless you like it burning, it might be an idea to discard of them. Chillis chopped? Good. Cut up the rashers into small pieces with either a sharp scissors or knife. Fry these up until cooked, or lightly crispy. Turn off the frying pan. Get yerself a bowl and carefully cut open the package of mozzarella over it. Theres a light of liquid that will come out of the bag, so be wide and get it into the bowl. Start cutting the mozzarella into slices around half an inch thick or smaller, roughly the size of each bit of French stick. Thats it. Sorted! Now get a baking tray and get the French Stick bits on it. On each piece of bread, put on a piece of Mozzarella, bacon and a few chilli bits. Squeeze a tiny drop of Olive oil on each one and bung in yer pre heated oven. It should take anywhere between 6 and 10 minutes. You'll know its cooked when the mozzarella starts dripping and gets gooey.


Dead Easy Modified Chicken Curry with rice:

• 3 Chicken Breasts (You can buy packets of cut of chicken, but sometimes this looks a bit shite in the packet
• Uncle Bens Medium Curry Sauce in the jar. Get the one that DOESNT have carrots in it. You know the difference by looking at the sauce or reading the ingredients. Now I know the chefs out there are cringing at using Uncle Bens, but Im going to be modifiing it. Anyway, this is meant to be easy. If people wanna run out and get curry leaves, coconut milk and mustard seeds, then off you go.
• Crushed Chillis in a jar or use some left over from the Chilli Bread. I find theres a bit more of a kick to the crushed and dried chillis.
• Cayenne Powder - Spice section in the supermarket
• Heinz Tomato Ketchup
• Basmati Rice
• Saucepan
• Collander
• Naan Bread - Bread section of supermarket
• Salt
• Tinfoil
  

You have to do 3 things at once here, ie Chicken Curry and Rice AND Naan Bread. Ill give the 3 individual reciepes first and then Ill work out the timing.


With a very sharp knife (Watch your fingers) cut the chicken breasts into small pieces. How small, finger size, bite size. Leave in the occasional big bit. Be careful where you cut the chicken, wash it down afterwards so you dont cross contaminate anything. When the chicken is lightly browning, its cooked. To be on the safe side and make sure no one ends up in the CUH, cut 1 or 2 of the bigger bits. If they're pink on the inside, eat and call for an ambulance or leave cook a while longer till white! Now for the modification. Drain off the chicken and throw the jar of Uncle Bens into the pan with the chicken. Cut this on a medium heat (think 7-9 o clock on the dial) for around 10 minutes. 5 minutes into this throw in as much or as little of the crushed chillis and cayenne powder as you want. Keep in mind that the both of these will burn the arse outta ya, so use sparingly. Towards the 8-9th minute squeeze in a good dollop of Heinz and stir it in till its part of the sauce. Done!

For the rice, boil up a large saucepan of water. Quickest way is to boil the kettle and then throw that into an empty saucepan. You can heat an empty saucepan but beware of pompei like erruptiopns if its too hot, when adding the boiling water. Throw in a good bit of Salt, AFTER its boiling. Unsalted water boils quicker. Throw in whatever amount of Basmati rice that you think is enough for the both of you. Give this about 6 minutes. Keep an eye on it and reduce the heat slightly if it starts foaming and spilling out all over the place. After the 6 minutes, drain the rice into the Collander. Put about 2-4 inches of cold water into your empty large saucepan and put back on the cooker. Get you collander, full or rice, and cover with tinfoil. Now stick this onto the saucepan. What happens now is the cold water in the saucepan starts boiling and steaming the rice in the collander. Leave this for another 5-6 minutes and thats it. Perfect Rice. Just be mega wide getting the tinfoil off, unless you fancy a nice few steam burns. Pierce it with a knife first!!!


Now with a ladel or whatever, scoop rice onto each plate. Then scoop chicken curry on top of rice. Sorted!

Naan Bread. Buy in supermarket and read intstructions. Normally takes 5-10 minutes at around 180. Done!

For the timing of all this. The rice is the vital part of all this! When you stick your chilli bread into the oven, start cooking the chicken. It helps if your chicken is cut up before hand. By the time your adding the Uncle Bens the bread should be ready. Unless you fancy her good self eating by herself, then turn the curry down to a low heat while you mangle the chilli bread. But before you do that, get cracking at the rice. When you put the rice into the collander, put on the Naan Bread, into a preheated oven. It might be an idea to use a stop watch or whatever to get the timing right. When I started fiddling in a kitchen, I used write everything down and what times it should go on. So here, just for you is that...

Providing everything is at hand and cut up and ready to be cooked, lets say you start cooking at 8pm. This doesnt include the preperation.

8.00: Put Chilli Bread into Oven
Start cooking chicken pieces
8.10: Chilli Bread Cooked. Put sauce into chicken and keep on a low heat. Stirring occasionally
Serve Chilli Bread and Eat.
8:15 Put on rice
8:21 Drain and put rice into Collander and steam
Put on Naan Bread
8:27 Done.

All in all your looking at about an 45 minutes, with 30 minutes for cooking.

Desert

• Semi Skimmed Milk
• DOUBLE Cream
• Vanilla Pod (Spice section in Tesco or English Market)
• Cadburys Buttons
• Ice Cream Maker
• Pint Glass
  

Remember last week I mentioned on air about getting an Ice Cream Maker. They're incredibly cheap and easy to use. If you didnt buy one, heres hoping you have more than whats in your pants for desert! Your better off doing this one 2-3 hours before anything else.

Im not going to be exact with measurements, but smash up 2 - 3 bags of small buttons with a hammer or whatever implement of destruction you fancy using. When smashed, open bags and put into a bowl. Now get your Ice Cream maker (You have had the mixing bowl in the freezer for 24 hours havent you?) and switch on. Get a pint glass and just under half fill it with double cream, top it up to just over 3/4s full with the milk. Open the vanilla pod (use 2 if you like things really vanillaey) with a knife, by scoring it down the centre from top to bottom and scraping out the seeds. They look like mush. Throw into pint glass with the cream and milk. Give it a bit of stir. With the ice cream maker on and stirring, pour into your mixer. This normally takes about 10-15 minutes for it to get really thick. After about 4 minutes throw in your buttons. You'll know its thick enough by looking at it. Scoop into a container and bung in the freezer. Horse into a bowl, eat and enjoy. Return to sitting room, Switch on obligatory love cd and have "fun".

Bloody hell that was long!!!!!