I'm not one to boast, as you all know well, but it is pretty amazing when you think about me - and when do you not think about me? - that as well as being good-looking, intelligent and terrific in bed - well I am, I can drop off in seconds where-ever I sleep! - I am also a top-notch, master chef. Last night we celebrated - "not wisely but too well" - an old friend's 70th birthday. I insisted to the 'Memsahib' that whilst she could do the pud I would do the starters and the main course. So we began with home-made mackerel pâté (well, yes, alright, the 'Memeshaib' made the pâté) but I served it on a slice of German rye bread set on a bed of dressed salad with a dollop of the finest caviar that my NBF, Roman Abramovich, has flown in specially for me - sorry, did you say something?
Then the main course was Lyme Bay scallops served on rice with a sweet and sour sauce laced with tomatoes, mushrooms, onion and - the pièce de résistance - chopped chorizo sausage! I tell you, it was the 'dog's bollocks', er, in fact being scallops it actually looked like it, too! For DM's curiosity we began with dry martinis - natch! - followed by either a white Languedoc (for sentimental reasons which need not bother you) and/or La Capanuccia, Chianti Rufina, Riserva 2006 (available from all good Sainsburys!). Alas, I cannot provide you with an opinion on the Chianti because I was too far gone by then! The evening ended on a glass or three of Calvados, again for sentimental reasons which, alas, neither my friend or I can recall with any detail except that it took place late at night in Normandy after the ladies had retired and during which, I am certain, we settled all the problems of the world!
Pud, of course, had to be 'Bisadol Booster'! Don't ask me how it aquired that name but in essence it is condensed milk on a biscuit base - and who doesn't like condensed milk?! There's more to it than that, of course, and I am sure the 'Memsahib' will release the recipe if you're interested.
Going back to the main course, irrespective of anything else, its main attraction for a 'shamateur chef' like me is that it can all be cooked inside 10 minutes! First, fry the chopped chorizo and keep it warm. Then just soften the mushrooms, tomatoes and onions in a pan, pour the sweet 'n' sour sauce over them whilst simultaneously putting 'Uncle Ben's ready cooked rice' in the microwave - 2 mins. Arrange the rice round the edge of the plates you have already warmed in the oven and pop them back in to keep warm. Then, having heated a little oil in a frying pan to a fairly high level, sling the scallops in - they only need a couple of minutes. Simultaneously, mix the chopped chorizo in with the bubbling sauce. Get the plates out again, share the scallops amongst them and then pour over the sauce - et voila!
Of course, it goes without saying that it is essential to imbibe deeply and regularly of dry martinis both before and during this process. It doesn't make you cook any better but it removes all anxiety such that, 'frankly, my dears, you don't give a damn'!
I'm off now for - yes, you guessed it - another birthday lunch! Sometimes I think my liver deserves a medal!