Today I had to endure that same terrifying sense of the days repeating themselves. Thai Vegetable Green Curry and Basmati Rice are hardly taxing dishes, but like yesterday, they are a test for me. Stick to the plan, stay clean and organised and get things done.
I am making the Thai curry by half. As yesterday, this means buggering about with weights and measures, the pain exacerbated by the list of fifteen different ingredients. The whole dish is incredibly labour intensive. Each vegetable has to be prepped and cooked individually, then you make the curry and add them back in at the last minute. I line everything up in neat little piles in the order I am going to add them. I am staying in control. As the curry takes shape, I taste along the way; add a little more paste as it needs more heat. All good.
Towards the end of the cooking time I get my rice on. I’ve always struggled to consistently turn out decent rice, but even a total imbecile can follow this recipe. It’s especially good if you want a nice stickiness as you probably do with a Thai dish. Put your quantity of rice in a Le Creuset or casserole dish and add enough water to cover the rice by half an inch. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer on a low heat until the water has evaporated, probably just over ten minutes. Too easy.
But there is something not quite right with my curry. All the flavours are there; the lime leaves, the paste, the chilli, the lime juice, the fish sauce. They’re just not leaping out at me. They are subdued and listless. Rosie tastes and looks puzzled. It needs salt, she says. It can’t do - there isn’t any salt in the recipe; it gets its saltiness from the fish sauce, and I can taste that. We decide it needs to thicken up, so put it back on the heat to reduce. While I am pissing about transferring it to a wider pan, I realise what I’ve done.
The twelve fluid ounces of stock that went in right at the end - they should have been six. Recipe by half. The curry is dull and vapid because it has been diluted. I have made exactly the same fuck up as yesterday, only this time it actually matters, since it is too late to rectify. Once is careless, twice a coincidence; three times, you’re a fuckwit. Or something like that. If there is a third time, I will commit hari-kari with my 10” chef’s knife.
There was a flurry of excitement this afternoon as exam results from Friday became available. An eager queue formed. I waited, since I already knew mine would be shit. I’ve read all about dumbing down, and back when I took my A-Levels getting three As meant you did more than just spelling your name correctly. But how anyone could judge my performances last week as worthy of 80 and 83% respectively is completely beyond me. Not only that, but it transpires that most of the things I got marked down for not doing, I had actually done, though not, it would seem, whilst anyone was looking. Staggering. I live to fight another day.
Buoyed by this unmerited success, I quickly recover from the curry-induced sense of shame and defeatism. Normally curry induced traumas take at least 24 hours to pass, but this one passes with no such nastiness. It was actually very good until I ballsed it right up, and eventually recovered to be a perfectly good dish. I take comfort in that fact. I still have my shit together: my merde en place. Tomorrow’s order of work is done and we shall see what the day brings forth. Unless the alarm clock is playing I Got You Babe by Sonny and Cher that is, in which case I’ll just reach straight for the Wusthofs.
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