Tuesday 14 October 2008

Domestic Goddess Channels the Urban Peasant

The DG recently returned, with colours flying, to expose Chris to the wonders of the Urban Peasant.

I was given his (James Barber's) Fear of Frying book at Christmas, a few years ago, by my mom.
The secret of life: all you need is an electric frypan and a bit of wit, and you can make fabulous meals for yourself and all your hippie friends!

Even if you don't cook, it's readable as just a book, in a really neat style - a write-up on one page, describing where he came up with the recipe, or who he spoke to when making it, or even an amusing anecdote that's completely unrelated, and then a comic-book style for the actual recipe. It's not an easy-read, easy-to-follow format, by any means, since the characters in the comic strips often talk back or have conversations, which, again, have nothing to do with the recipe. Also, the cat (as cats do) often has some points to add. I love this book.

All this to say that I subjected my dear husband to Garlic Chicken - possibly the garlickiest chicken he's ever had.

I heated up 2 tbs (ish) of canola oil in a frypan, and added 2 chicken breasts, chopped into bite-sized pieces. After they browned (5 min), I tossed in 15 cloves of garlic (yikes! you say, and rightly so, but the secret is to separate them, but not unwrap them), cooked until their skins were transparent. I squeezed the juice of 1/2 a lemon over top, salted and peppered it all, stirred it for a while, then covered it for 10 minutes. That's it. We pipped the soft, sweet garlic out of its skins, and spread it on slices of baguette, so that we were equally garlicky.

The last instructions say to "eat it out of the pan, with cheap red wine, a green salad, spanish music, fingers, and friends".

We did.

One of the comic strip characters lifts his nose in the air and says, "it's not gourmet, y'know". The others say, "but it's marvellous."

It is.

2 comments:

Garrett Family said...

We have that book! Matt found it in some used book store years ago. I think we have made the fried banana recipe(?) Not really sure. I'm shocked to learn that someone else actually owns this book. I should try the chicken. Matt would be pleased to know that I used one of his cook books!

PS - Didn't all that garlic give you heartburn?!

Anonymous said...

That recipe sounds really good! Don't mothers give lovely gifts? I figured you would like it, but I also am shocked that one of your friends actually owns a copy too!
Mommmmmm

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