My Kitchen Confessions..............

- Expectation, impatience and disappointment come from my kitchen – and occasionally something edible -

For someone who cares a little (possibly a little too much) about what he eats, there is a recurring theme to my own cooking. It is one of disappointment.

Sorry about that.

I know newspaper food columns are supposed to be filled by people who can bone a pheasant one-handed while whisking a sabayon and who think nothing of making a red wine sauce with a bottle of Grange but it ain’t me, babe.

Possibly this disappointment has something to do with expectation. More likely, it comes down to the nature of the beast (me, not the animal whose snout/rib/muscle/leg/ear I happened to be frying/grilling/baking/braising/tartaring – if there is such a word).

First come impatience. It’s not a trait commonly associated with anything creative. And I am chronically impatient. I can barely finish the sent……….

And I cannot tell you how many three-minute eggs have come out of the saucepan at a surely-it’ll-be-right-by-now two minutes, 30. How many undercooked crumpets have popped from the toaster, pale and wan but been buttered consumed (impatiently) anyway. Hot, unset egg whites are bad look. Pale, insipid crumpets even worse (I try to make crumpets once but rushed through the method and they were hopeless). I am impatient.

Second, and linked to the list, is a strange resentment of recipes and their detailed instructions, unless trying to impress someone outside my closed friends – that rarest of sightings, the dinner guest. Unless you have a lot of time on your hands, recipe-following is a tedious business.

It is also usually the best way to achieve a satisfying, interesting result. Strangely, that rarely sways me from a pig-headed determination to ‘create’ something based on the ingredients at hand. And the result? Mediocrity, most of the time.

Acceptable mediocrity, well-meaning. Mediocrity but mediocrity nonetheless.

And third, which is linked to the second, is a reluctance to go shopping for the bits and pieces a recipe says I’ll need. Without time, and the motivation to thrill guests, food shopping is a bore. Parking, out-of-stock items, curly parsley and people who want my Bonus link card. So I cook what’s at hand 90 per cent of the time. Others share the burden but that doesn’t make it any better.

Substitution becomes the name of the game and, with nobody else to impress. I’ve indulged in some pretty dodgy substitution rackets. No parmesan? I guess these Coon singles will do, sort of chopped up, because you cannot grate a single. Out of spaghetti (it happened once): Chinese noodles (awful). Carbonara with yoghurt instead of cream….. I am ashamed to admit it.

Throw these characteristics into a blender, add a dash of enthusiasm and a large pinch of appetite and 90 per cent of the time you’ve got disappointment. I can live with it, because I recognize the shortcomings in their foundations. It is something I can usually modify for a better result should I make the effort, find the time.

What I can’t live with is disappointment despite following a proven, done-it-before-and-it-worked-a-treat recipe: despite doing everything from first principles (stock, home-bottled tomatoes). Despite planning indulgent shopping and resisting the urge to cut corners. Especially when you have a chef and a wine expert and a restaurant around to dinner. But that’s another story and I’ll never cook osso buco again, never. Bloody Italians.

But sometimes, just occasionally, I surprise myself. Something ends up on the plate that is not only less than disappointing, it’s actually rather good. So here’s part of the 10per cent that got away, despite meeting all the aforementioned criteria for mediocrity i.e. took virtually no time, came from no recipe and was created entirely from what I found in the house halfway between morning shift and last coffee of the day.

An omelet (without the glass of wine, because I am impatient and would swill it and get a little squiffy and want to snooze instead of work). A lovely omelet.

In a heavy pan, combine olive oil, butter and a semi-crushed clove of garlic and fry those sliced button mushrooms you found in the veggie box. After awhile, season and throw in the chopped parsley you discover, removed from the heat and set aside, discarding the garlic after you’ve sucked it. Leave a fair bit of the frying oil and parsley remnants in the heavy-based enameled iron pan from which all the non-stick coating has been scoured off, properly, so it doesn’t end up in your food. Bloody French.

Grate a little parmesan and chop some mozzarella you bought from pizza making. Whisk two eggs with a little water, gently, crank up the heat and add the egg mixture, spreading, properly by tilting the pan slightly and pulling the edges into the centre with the fork to allow the liquid o get to the outside and cook.

Add the cheeses, the mushroom/parsley mix, wait a little bit and then do that thing you do with the pan to make the omelet fold. That shuffly slide thing on the stove top. This takes a little practice and, more importantly, the right pan but it’s how I justify all the butter. olive oil in the first place. Remove from pan. Eat with some nice toast.

That’s not so much a recipe as a recommendation: a thought. A non-recipe for people with high expectations, a low tolerance of written instructions and a high threshold for disappointment.

I know I am not alone....... But don't try this at your home urgh!!!!