The longest damn meal ever

Last night I visited my friend (and cooking idol) Haido, in one evening she converted me to the cooking channel! She was telling me about how much she loves Barefoot Contessa and lo and behold what was showing this morning? Barefoot Contessa! It was the episode where she was making fish and chips. Ovenbaked chips with rosemary, I'm inspired!


What goes well with chips? Steak of course! I got some good steak tips from the next show, Cooking For Real, damn that lady doesn't shut up for a second, I like her! These two foods sounded really simple so I decided to try skordalia (which also sounded really simple). So let's add broccoli and bread, I'm good at those. This meal is going to be a breeze!

HALF the ingredients!

This looks like a lot of work but the recipes are really simple so I'll be done in no time....

..........Famous.Last.Words.

Let's marinade the steak:

Read the fine print BEFORE you leave the store Stavvie

Noooooo! This steak already has a marinade, dammit! A sweet & sticky BBQ glaze to be exact. A glaze that I'm certain is not going to work with my marinade. I don't care, I'm marinading this stupid marinated meat, I've already bought all the ingredients.

I placed the (already-marinated-so-what's-the-point) steak in a freezer bag with red wine vinegar, worcestershire sauce, fresh coriander, the juice of one lemon, and the peel chopped into four. I was literally just throwing ingredients in the bag, no measuring, throwing is what I do when I'm annoyed (stupid glaze). I also used a lemon instead of a lime which in hindsight was a bad choice, think of all the cocktails I could have made with the lime, if only  I had known I would need a stiff drink or ten after this meal.

The marinade bag needs to be in the fridge for an hour so let me quickly make the bread dough, it also needs an hour to rise so I will be able to pop them both in the oven at the same time.

I LOVE using my scale, it's a newbie thing hey?

The last time I made bread I doubled the recipe and that lie that cookbooks tell you about volume = mass was made clear by the fact that I needed 100g of seeds - the whole bag weighs 100g, how have I made bread twice already and still have seeds leftover in the first bag of seeds?

100 grams does NOT equal 100 millimetres

*squints* that's 50g right? I really need a digital scale for small stuff

I was so distracted by the lies and maths that I absentmindedly threw the pumpkin seeds into the dry ingredients without toasting them, doh!

I toasted the sesame and linseeds first and added the poppy seeds a few minutes later because they get hot too quickly and literally start popping.  The mix was much more even than when the pumpkin seeds are added, the seeds were evenly toasted and had a nice colour. See, something good came of this! Next time I will toast the pumpkin seeds separately.

I opened the cupboard to get a saucepan out and somehow my nail got hooked and died a sudden death. I should have turned the stove off and walked away. This was the point of no return. Things would not get any better. If only I had known.

It's a sign

My only complaint about my previous bread attempt was that the colour wasn't quite right. A friend suggested using molasses to give it that golden brown colour.

Don't be fooled by the flashy packaging, it tastes like crap

I glanced over at the recipe book and I swear I don't remember ever adding oil to my bread. Did I? Oh well I must have if it's in the recipe book.

Eeeuuw! I definitely didn't add oil before

The molasses and oil mixture seemed to work after a fair amount of stirring and kneading, the dough was looking good and felt nice and airy

That feta is going to go into a spanakopita, watch this space

As I walked towards the oven with the bread tins, something caught my eye, gaaaaaaaaaah, the stupid seeds!!

 I've toasted the damn seeds so I'm sure as hell going to use them. I figured I could pour them over the dough, in a line down the centre, it would look like it was planned. My line came and went. There were just too many seeds! I ended up with a thick layer of seeds over the dough

I had to at least press the seeds into the top layer of dough. I pressed my fingers into the dough, OMG it's hot! Oh for Pete's sake I've put the tins on the stove where I've just heated up the molasses mixture, the bread is hot throughout, and this is before I've left it to rise for an hour. GAAAAH!!!

Red means danger, Stavvie

The pressing plan didn't work

I had to empty both tins, re-knead the dough, grease the tins again. I am so over this bread! Get these tins out of my sight!

Time for the skordalia (for you uncultured folk this is a garlic dip). My greek recipe book has a nice and simple recipe:

Stale bread? I don't have stale bread lying around. This is a Greek house, bread is NEVER leftover, we practically inhale bread. I'm sure fresh bread is just as good, probably better.

I read somewhere that removing the crust off the bread gives the skordalia a better texture. Removing the crust off each and every slice of two (of course I'm doubling the recipe, anything with garlic must be doubled!) loaves of bread is a pain, the texture had better be perfect!

I needed 500g of bread, it turns out that a 700g loaf without the crust is exactly 500g (minus two slices that I used for a sandwich, mmmmm fresh bread!). Waste of bread, but win for the recipe.

When the recipe said 'blend the bread and garlic' it sounded effortless. Why is this mixer having a hard time? Whizzzzzzzzz, SILENCE. 10 seconds into blending and it's died a sudden death. Has it overheated? Surely these things are designed for heavier workloads? Oh well, let it cool down.

Cooling down isn't working.

Let's scoop out the extremely doughy mixture, give the blender a clean and try again

 Whizzzzzzz, SILENCE.

Gaaaaah! Let's leave it cool down for longer. Patience is a virtue and all that. Speaking of cooling, I'm getting very frustrated and hot and bothered, I need to cool down

Of course my fan matches my scale

Potatoes. I'm good at potatoes. I need something to go right with this meal. Potatoes. Barefoot Contessa taught me how to cut them, yes I used to butcher them before and getting them all to look more or less the same was mission impossible. First, cut the potato in half lengthwise, then slice each half into 3.

No matter how hard I try I just CAN'T get 3 equal pieces

4 it is! Shoutout to Byron for the funky chopping board *hug*

Barefoot Contessa says the secret to great roast potatoes is fresh rosemary, it bring out the flavour beautifully apparently

Season with salt, black pepper, olive oil, rosemary and of course lots of garlic. Mix it all around to ensure that all the potatoes are seasoned

What do you mean that's a cake lid not a bowl??

I arranged them into my Le Creuset cake tin, added some water, and was thrilled that nothing went wrong with the potatoes. Well almost nothing, I forgot the lemon juice but added it 15 minutes before the potatoes were finished roasting. Oops. They still tasted yummy. I'm good at potatoes! With an added bonus that they are now visually appealing too. Yay me!

Almost two hours in and we are finally ready to start the actual cooking. Sheesh.

Multi-tasking at it's best

After a lot of preparation and even more frustration, the meal finally came together:

Except for the damn skordalia. After almost 3 hours of trying to get the mixer to work like it should I realised the reason for using stale bread is so you don't end up with a doughy glue-like mixture. Noted. No more uneducated recipe modifications Stavvie!

Skordalia is SUPPOSED to look like this:

 

NOT like this:

The pic looks better than the real life version. So horrid!

Dinner is finally served! Don't worry, the skordalia was disposed of using the appropriate nuclear material handling methods. Not fit for human consumption.

Where is the broccoli?

I'VE BEEN SLAVING AWAY IN THE DAMN KITCHEN ALL DAY, YOU'RE NOT GETTING ANY DAMN BROCCOLI!!!