How I Do Cooking

Category: lunch

  • Spamen

    It’s as quick and easy as Graham Norton

    SERVES: 2
    PREP TIME: 5 MINUTES
    COOK TIME: 5 MINUTES

    Ingredients

    1 can SPAM®
    2 packets of any instant ramen
    2 eggs
    2 heads of baby bok choy
    1 clove of garlic
    2 scallions

    Method

    Slice the Spam® into soldiers and fry in oil until brown and crispy. Set aside.

    Cook the ramen per the instructions, and poach, fry or boil two eggs.

    Mince the garlic, and fry in oil for a wee minute. Blanch the bok choy until the leaves soften and turn green.

    That’s kind of it really.

    You can kind of figure the rest out yourself. If you bought the fancy ramen, there’s probably a picture on the carton of how it’s all supposed to look.

    Notes

  • Tea

    SERVES: 1
    PREP TIME: 3 MINUTES
    BREW TIME: 3-5 MINUTES

    Ingredients

    Barry’s tea bags
    Water
    Cow juice

    A Pot of Tea

    In an electric kettle, boil about enough water to fill a teapot. 

    Scald the inside of the pot with hot water. By scald, I mean add boiling water, swirl it around, and empty the pot.

    Add one teabag per tea drinker, plus one for the pot. That’s two teabags. 

    Bring the kettle back to a boil, fill the teapot about three-quarters full, and allow to brew for three to five minutes. That’s also about the length of one RTE ad break. 

    Remove bags if arsed. 

    We can agree, can’t we, that a cup is a measurement? Pour one cup into a teacup or mug, and add a splash of milk.

    If you’re seven, add sugar. 

    Enjoy with or without biscuits. 

    Maith an cailín!

    A Mug of Tea

    Dig out the mug you were gifted by the CEO of a now-defunct animation studio two weeks before you were laid off, and before he fled to Romania with a bunch of hookers, all the cocaine, and everyone of your co-workers’ last two weeks’ wages.

    Boil kettle.

    Add one tea bag to said mug, fill with hot water, and stir. When it looks about right, mash the bag against the inside of the mug with a spoon, then discard.

    Add milk, and have a look in the press for Jammie Dodgers.

    Notes

    When I was growing up, you were either Barry’s Tea or Lyons; the only exception was if you were from Blackrock, and Ma Ma swore by Bewley’s. If you had a strange obsession with garlic bread, and slept with a teddy bear into early adulthood, you drank Bewley’s.

    Our house was Barry’s. I’m ok with that, I wasn’t buying the tea anyway, and even at eight, the Lyon’s Minstrels weirded me out. We’ll circle back to Lyon’s weirdity later*.

    The Barrys are from Cork. That’s fine. Cork perfected black pudding, and if they hadn’t perfected tea, they’d have taken credit for it anyway. That’s what Cork people do.

    Herself is tickled pink when we’re back in Ireland at the mandatory morning coffee review with my aunties. 

    I’ll ask for tea, and that request is sufficient, while her request for coffee comes with multiple add-on enquiries. It’s exactly – as she will tell you – the opposite of asking for tea in America. To her, asking for tea in Ireland is like visiting the Upside Down. I suppose it is. 

    The ONLY place in Ireland – that I’m aware of – where they don’t seem to know how to make tea is Burger King at Dublin airport. You’ll  get a paper cup of lukewarm water with a Protestant  teabag on the side. 

    Irish, English, and Scottish breakfast teas are all blends of black tea. English tea is piss,  Irish tea has a strong Assam component, which gives it a stronger, bolder, maltier taste, and a lovely reddish colour.. It;s perfect. Scottish tea is a punchier blend because the Scots have no tastebuds from smoking all the fags.

    Black tea needs boiling water to open up its flavour, so starting the brew between 200°F and 212°F (93°C and 100°C), which is just off the boil, is ideal.

    If you think Kelvin is the way to go, let’s call it even at 373.15K. I agree with you, let’s go with Kelvin!

    Tea Etiquette

    Upon entering an Irish household, you’ll be offered tea more or less immediately, and most certainly before you’ve taken your seat in the “good room.” Once presented, accept the offer graciously, even if you really wanted coffee.

    Children have no business making tea. If a child offers you tea, it should only be in the context of a doll’s tea party where you and a stuffed donkey are the guests of honour. Accept graciously, mime a sip or two, and murmur appreciatively. She’s six, and you’ve made your niece’s day, now go inside and see if there’s a pot on the go. If there isn’t, wait.

    Here‘s a video of Garron Noone getting upset about someone making a hames of a cuppa. He’s precious!

    Grandma Simon always has a box of Barry’s handy when we go to Grand Rapids for a visit. I love her.

    *: Lyons stuck with the minstrels well into the nineties, releasing a set of collectible badges in 1996 to highlight their redesign, and by redesign, I mean they finally ditched the blackface and gave them all names: Lucky, Smiler, Showy, Tricky, Sleepy, Happy, Dancer, and Hoppy.

  • Corned Beef Sloppy Joes

    I inherited this recipe from my mother-in-law. It sounds awful, but it’s strangely satisfying during daylight hours, and pure excellent late at night after a feed of pints.

    SERVES: 2
    PREP TIME: 2 MINUTES
    COOK TIME: 2 MINUTES

    Ingredients

    12oz tin of Libby’s Corned Beef
    1 packet of Lipton Onion Recipe Soup & Dip Mix
    1/2 cup sour cream
    8 hot dog buns

    Method

    In a mixing bowl, break up the corned beef, and fork in the sour cream and the dehydrated onion nastiness.

    While the Lipton Onion Recipe Soup & Dip Mix is considered ‘traditional’, omit if your doctor has you on Lisinopril.

    Microwave for two minutes, stopping one to stir.

    Spoon over open hot dog buns.

    Make sure you have your cardiologist on speed dial.

    Notes

    When my ladywife emigrated from Michigan to New York in the nineties for college, her family sent her off with a survival kit, which she still has somewhere. The kit contains everything a soon-to-be-eighteen-year-old might need to survive in New York: two types of screwdrivers, a pair of pliers, a phase tester, a roll of duct tape, and a recipe book of classic Midwest recipes. By classic, I mean novel uses for mayonnaise, novel uses for hotdogs, other things you can do with mayonnaise, and this gem.

  • Tayto Sandwich

    SERVES: 1
    PREP TIME: 1 MINUTE
    COOK TIME: N/A

    Ingredients

    1 bag of Tayto Cheese and Onion Crisps 
    2 slices of white supermarket bread
    Irish creamery butter

    Method

    Generously butter one slice of bread.

    Empty the packet onto your buttered slice.

    Place the second slice of bread atop.

    Smash, and eat.

    Notes

    For best results, use the nasty white kind of supermarket bread that gives seagulls diabetes.

    A slice of cheese is optional and perhaps controversial, but if you fancy giving it a go, make sure it’s one of those questionable types you’d think twice about feeding to your children. In Ireland, buy Easi Singles; in the US, Velveeta or American cheese is a perfectly acceptable pasteurized prepared dairy product.