How I Do Cooking

Category: sides

  • Roast Potato Salad

    It’s salad for hungry people.

    SERVES: 4
    PREP TIME: 10 MINUTES
    COOK TIME: 50 MINUTES

    Ingredients

    1 pound of wee potatoes
    2 romaine hearts (that’s lettuce)
    2 dill pickles
    1/2 a cucumber
    4 or 5 radishes
    1/4 cup mayonnaise
    1/4 cup Greek yogurt 
    2 tbsp olive oil
    1 tbsp dijon mustard
    1 tbsp pickle juice (it’s what the pickles came in)
    Salt & Pepper

    Method

    In a big pot, boil the potatoes until they’re fork-tender, drain, and allow to dry.

    Tip them onto a large oven sheet and bash with the bottom of a pint glass. Season liberally with salt and pepper, and drizzle with about two tablespoons of olive oil. Roast for thirty-five or forty minutes, turning once. 

    Roughly chop the lettuce, quarter and chop the cucumber, and slice the radishes.

    Blend the mayonnaise, yogurt, and mustard in a mixing bowl and season.

    Combine in a salad bowl and serve.

    Notes

    It’s fantastic while the potato is still hot, and great cold, but the dish doesn’t reheat well.

  • 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.

  • Peanut Butter Broccoli

    SERVES: 2-4
    PREP TIME: 5 MINUTES
    COOK TIME: 3-5 MINUTES

    Ingredients

    For Sauce

    1/4 cup peanut butter – buy the fancy stuff
    1 tbsp sriracha
    1 tbsp rice wine
    1 tbsp soy sauce
    1 tbsp toasted sesame oil

    For Broccoli

    About two heads of broccoli
    Salt & Pepper

    Method

    Add about a quarter cup of peanut butter to a small mixing bowl – the one you never seem to find a use for. Use a measuring cup the first time you make it; you’ll get an eye for how much you need when you make it more often. Any kind of peanut butter will work, but I like sugar-free stuff. If you’re feeling bougie, use almond butter instead.

    Add a tablespoon of sriracha to the bowl, or as I’d call it, “a good squirt”, then the rice wine, soy sauce, and sesame oil, along with a tablespoon or two of warm water. 

    Blend with a fork. If it starts to get mealy, add a little more warm water until you like the consistency.

    On the brocolli front, cut the crowns off the stem, and break those down into bite-sized pieces. Rinse thoroughly in cold water.

    Fill the bottom of a pan with about an inch of water.

    Steamer basket goes on – or in – your pan, broccoli goes in basket.

    Heat on and bring the water to the boil.

    The broccoli will turn emerald green as it steams – maybe two or three minutes – so pay attention. As soon as you can knock a hole in it with a fork, it’s ready. If it turns the colour of a Barbour jacket, you’ve overdone it. That’s for the bin.

    That’s it. 

    Heat off, give it a good shake in the basket or in a colander to shed excess water, and it’s ready to eat.

    Spoon the peanut sauce over the broccoli in a mixing bowl until it’s evenly coated.

    Notes

    For a twist, serve with pan-fried thick-cut bacon, or for an even twistery twist, serve with lardons*.

    *: Lardons are just fancy French bacon bits.

  • Air Fryer Asparagus

    If you just want the cook time, it’s three minutes at 400°F/200°C. You’re welcome.

    SERVES: 2
    PREP TIME: 2 MINUTES
    COOK TIME: 3 MINUTES

    Ingredients

    A bundle of supermarket asparagus.
    1 tbsp olive oil
    Salt & pepper

    Method

    Take the air fryer your mother-in-law bought you for Christmas down from the attic. With a boxcutter, carefully peel off the box the fryer came in, discard the box, along with the instruction booklet.

    Wash, rinse, and dry the fiddly bits.

    When the air fryer bits are dry, assemble the gadget and preheat to 400°F/200°C.

    Get the asparagus out. Cut off the elastic band and spread the spears out over a clean, flat surface. 

    Have a good long think about everyone who’s pawed since it was picked, packed, shipped to, and sat in the supermarket. Let your verminophobia be your guide on how meticulously it needs to be washed.

    Cut the woodiest bits off the bottom of each spear of asparagus with a sharp knife, or you can do what I do:  Hold each tree penis where it was cut from the plant, then pull the bell end back towards the bottom of the shaft until it snaps. Repeat for each spear.

    Fong the lot into a bowl, season with salt and pepper, and add a splash of olive oil. Shake the bowl until all the spears are lightly coated in oil. You really want the oil to just wave at the asparagus. Less is more.

    All that goes into the air fryer for three minutes. Pull the basket out halfway through cooking, and give it a good shake. 

    That’s it.

    Serve with a squeeze of lemon.

    Notes