Rice is nice

Unlike cats, who are generally happy with the same thing twice a day, humans eat an extraordinary variety of dishes. (Or at least Annie and Martin do. I can’t speak for all humans, as I have seen people in television commercials eating Crunchy Nut Cornflakes at inappropriate times of the day and night, and nothing else. However, I think they may be paid to do this.)

Take just one staple - rice. Martin steams or boils jasmine, basmati, simba, patna and brown rice. He’s also fond of red, green, black and wild (this last one isn’t really rice at all, but let’s not get into that). Recently he tried sticky rice, which is soaked overnight, steamed and eaten with the fingers, rolled into a ball and dipped into sauce. Sushi rice is similarly glutinous, and you can keep it and just give me the raw fish, thanks very much. In our house, left-over rice is often stir-fried with onions, egg and soy-sauce, Chinese-style, or with peanuts, dried shrimp and coconut, or some similar combination, for a South-Asian effect. Then there’s a whole range of constructed dishes where the rice is cooked from raw with other ingredients - pilau, biriani, jambalaya and rice-and-peas, for example. Risotto is a subject in itself, and can contain mushrooms, ham, chicken, seafood, peas, chicory, wine, cauliflower, lemon zest, saffron, chicken livers, cheese, radicchio and several other things I can’t remember - although never all at once. Suppli - which are balls of left-over risotto formed around cubes of mozzarella, dipped in egg and breadcrumbs, and deep fried – are a particular favourite of Annie’s. Then there’s paella; the classic one with rabbit, the touristy one with seafood, and any number of regional and seasonal variations on vegetables, fish and chicken. There’s even rice pudding.

Sorry if that sounds like Clement Freud on Just a Minute, but M prepares most of the above on a regular basis, so there’s not much he doesn’t know about or can’t do with rice. When he suddenly comes across a completely new and distinctive way of preparing rice, it’s quite an occasion. So it was at the weekend, when he tried Chelow, an Iranian way of preparing basmati that results in a fantastic chewy, crunchy crust together with light, fluffy rice. Here’s a recipe:

Wash basmati and soak in warm water for 3-4 hours, then drain. Boil plenty of fresh water in a large pan, add drained rice and salt to taste, and cook it like pasta, on a rolling boil, for just two or three minutes, until al dente. Drain in a sieve and cool immediately with cold water. Pour oil into a large pan and add rice. Make some holes through the mound of rice with the handle of a wooden spoon. Pour a little more oil (or butter) over the top of the rice. Cover the pan with a tea-towel and a tight lid, cook on high flame for two minutes, reduce the flame to an absolute minimum (use a diffuser if you have one) and leave to steam for 30-40 minutes. Dip the base of the pan in cold water in the sink (this helps loosen the crust). Now take the lid off and you’ll have fantastically fluffy, light rice and a delicious crispy layer of rice at the bottom of the pan. This crispy stuff is considered the best bit in Iran, and should be served separately.

This is rice-only Chelow. The technique is the basis for lots of layered dishes of meat and vegetables with rice; you just add half the rice to the pan, add your other (cooked) ingredients and put more rice on the top. Martin made one with cabbage and lamb cooked with turmeric, which was very nice (I know because I put my paw in the pot and pulled out a little bit when he wasn't looking).

Peas on Earth

I've just discovered peas! Before this week, I had no idea how much fun they could be! I wish someone had told me about them earlier.
Of course, I was aware of their existence - I'm seventeen, after all - but I only ever saw them in dishes and on plates; cooked on their own or in stews and curries, added to risotto or pilau, braised with lettuce and onions in the French style, or with ham and artichokes in the Spanish. Sometimes they were frozen, or tinned as "mushy" peas to go with fish and chips. When it's the season for English peas, Martin uses them in soups and pasta dishes, sometimes combining them with lemon zest and mint. So far so boring - I thought they were just another form of the green food that humans eat with inexplicable relish.

However, I experienced something of a revelation the other day, when M was busy peeling potatoes and asked Annie to shell the peas. She did this in the living room, sitting on the sofa and watching television, and this allowed me to get a close-up view as she split open each pod with her thumb and pushed the bright green bullets into a bowl. It was absolutely fascinating! She had quite a rhythm going - reaching into the bag, squeezing out the peas, throwing the empty pods into a second container - and I found it rather hypnotic. I could see my reflection in her spectacles, and noticed my head was moving in a triangular pattern following the movement of her hands between the bag and the two bowls for shelled peas and discarded pods. I knew I must have looked pretty silly, but I couldn't help it. Then - oh joy - when she wasn't looking, I managed to flick one of the little green jewels out of the bowl, onto the sofa and then to the floor, where I chased it all the way to the fireplace! I would have chased it some more, but it fell down a crack between the floorboards. I went back to the sofa to get another one to play with, but she'd finished the task and had taken the shelled peas into the kitchen, where M had them simmering in a pot with some shallots and chicken stock before I could tell him to stop. What a waste! There must have been about two hundred peas in that pot - enough for literally hours of entertainment.

So now I'm keeping my eye on the bags that come into the house from the greengrocers and the farmer's market, not to mention Tesco's and Sainsbury's. There must be a few more weeks left in the season, and I want to make the most of any raw pea action while I can!

Otterly delicious

My sister and I are clearly not cute enough these days. Annie and Martin ignored us on Sunday morning, and instead went to the Sea Life Centre at Loch Lomond to watch otters at play. M told me they were just like cats, but better at swimming. He said they were quite voracious and impatient for their lunch. Apparently they ran up and down their enclosure squeaking like mad, and then tried to bite the handler's boots while he was feeding them bits of chicken liver and slices of mackerel. I don't much fancy the raw liver, but the mackerel sounds delicious.

Dinner here has been fairly uneventful; keema curry with dhal, spinach and red rice on Saturday, soup made with pork stock and barley on Sunday, and tonight M made tagliatelle con fegattini. Now this last one is a really nice dish and very quick to make on a weekday evening, so here's a recipe.

Soak about 50 grams of dried porcini mushrooms in very hot water for 20 minutes. Take about 200 grams of chicken livers, clean away any fatty or bloody bits, and slice into slivers. Put the pasta on to boil, fry the sliced livers in a drop of olive oil in a non-stick pan, season and add the mushrooms, then a small glass of white wine. Boil fast and when the wine is almost evaporated, add the same quantity of chicken stock. Reduce while draining the pasta. Add the hot pasta to the sauce and toss, serving immediately with a sprinkling of chopped parsley and a grind or two of black pepper. Now that's what you're supposed to do with chicken livers, but you couldn't expect otters to know that, could you?

Big Box, Little Box

As a cat, I have impressive paw-eye coordination, excellent balance and an uncanny ability to judge space and distance with great accuracy using only my whiskers. At my age, I rarely bother to use my superpowers, but I've still got them if I need them. So I find Annie's attempts at choosing the right size of container for food quite comical. The other day she wanted to store about 200 ml of something - I think it was lentils - and chose a container that would hold about 1 litre, even though there were lots of smaller ones available. Martin asked her why she chose a container that was five times too big, and she said "I thought it would fill it". I laughed and laughed. That would be like me doing a big stretch on the 3 seater sofa and finding my paws poking over at both ends. It made me think of the odd combinations of scale in the Orlando books, where the cat is big enough to ride a horse or something. Or like Alice in Wonderland, when she eats a cake and grows and grows.

Anyway, it then occurred to me that if humans can't judge volumes very well, they must find it really difficult to park the car. We cats, on the other hand, would be absolutely brilliant at parking the car. If only we could reach the pedals with our little feet.....

Declining standards?

We don't go in for hamburgers much in our house, but every now and then, when there's minced beef knocking around and not much time to do something more complex, it seems like a valid option. Thus it was on Tuesday. To make hamburgers the way Martin does it, take about 120 grams of quality minced beef per burger and add salt, pepper and thyme leaves. If the thyme is fresh, chop it, but if it's drying out somewhat, rub the leaves from the stalks and grind them roughly with the salt and pepper using a pestle and mortar, then add to the mince. Knead the meat for a minute or two, roll into balls and shape into thick patties. If you have time, chill for half an hour or so to help retain the shape in cooking.

Heat the oven to 200c. Get a non-stick frying pan really hot and brush with a drop of oil. Lay the burgers in the pan and leave them there to sizzle for a minute or until browned on the underside. Flip them and give the second side a minute. Transfer to the oven for two or three minutes. Rest for two minutes and serve. This makes a rare, loose-textured burger with a pleasant flavour of thyme. Sometimes M makes burgers with Roquefort cheese in the middle. Another of his variations is to add grated parmesan or pecorino cheese, grated lemon zest and breadcrumbs to the meat, in which case he gives it a second grinding to produce a denser mixture.

Burger buns being uniformly horrible (even the sound is unpleasant), M served his burgers with Cornish new potatoes, curly kale and salad. The kale made a second appearance on Wednesday, accompanying chicken breasts wrapped in bacon, orzo pasta (the little rice-like one) cooked with garlic butter and chopped parsley, and more salad. Each meal was followed by fresh fruit, including nectarines and apples.

I'll never understand humans' liking for raw vegetable matter, or indeed their need for such a wide variety of food, although it is interesting for me to watch - in fact it's almost become a hobby. Personally I'm happy with my white-fish fillet and Science Diet, with an occasional stolen mouthful of my sister's Felix, and I only hope I can continue to enjoy them for a few years to come.

Thank Goodness....

...I feel my old self this morning. I enjoyed my breakfast of white fish and Science Diet, and had quite a chat with Annie as she got ready for work. Last night I felt terrible and I think Martin was a bit worried about me, but fortunately I've regained my appetite, so it can't be too serious. Still, I don't think I'll do anything very stressful today. Here I am in this picture, at about 10am, preparing for a light wash. Later on, I'll probably go and lie on the top landing for a change, as M's working from home and Chutney and I have got the run of the house instead of being confined to the kitchen. Then at about 3.30pm, I will start shouting for my tea.

Something that didn't agree with me

Oh dear, I don't feel very well today! I ate breakfast, but then this afternoon I came over all funny and I didn't feel like dinner at all. I don't recall, but perhaps I ate something that didn't agree with me earlier, like some woodlice, or a big spider.

Martin cooked picadillo last night and served it with tortillas de maiz, black beans and salad. In case you don't know, picadillo is minced meat (in this case beef, though it should be a mixture of veal and pork if you're trying to be authentic) mixed with tomatoes, garlic, onions, chillies, carrots, almonds and apples. You spoon the cooked mixture into warm tortillas, add cheese, salad and salsa, and roll them up to form tacos. (I've heard that in the Mexican state of Oaxaca they eat chipulines - grasshoppers - but I don't think they eat spiders.)

Tonight A and M ate what was left of the picadillo, but with rice and peas instead of tortillas. Then, in a Latin mood, they watched Robert Rodriguez' movie Once Upon A Time in Mexico, which they found silly but entertaining. I just sat on the top landing feeling sorry for myself, I'm afraid. I do hope I feel better tomorrow.

Undergine

Last night Martin cooked a fiery Chinese dish of aubergine (or eggplant if you're American) with chilli-bean paste and habanero pepper. An excellent dish in theory, but marred on this occasion by the fact that the aubergine was undercooked. If there is one vegetable that really needs to be cooked through, it's the aubergine. Raw, it has a horrible cotton-like texture which changes to a lovely melting velvet when it's properly cooked. Of course most aubergine recipes are flexible enough for you to add a few minutes to the cooking time if your vegetable is tough or cut thickly, but as this is a stir-fry, it's not that simple.

However, M has cooked it before and got it right, so as it's such a good dish (and an excellent choice for vegetarians, being quite substantial and "meaty"), I'm including the recipe here. Just cut the vegetable into nice thin strips rather than thick chunks, and keep the wok smoking hot, and you should avoid the underdone aubergine experience.

Hunan Aubergine

A big aubergine or several small ones, 2tb preserved chilli and soy bean paste (from Chinese grocery shops, substitute chilli sauce), 1 tsp dark soy, 2 tsp light soy, 1 tbs rice vinegar (black if you can get it), 1 tsp sugar, oil, Xaoshing wine or dry sherry, an habanero or two, chopped (other chillies will do if you can't find habanero), water.

Combine paste, soy sauces, vinegar and sugar in a small bowl. Leaving the skin on the aubergine, slice lengthways and then across to produce quite thin strips. Heat a wok over high heat, add oil, throw in the aubergine, toss, then add wine or sherry and chilli. Stir-fry for about three minutes or until the eggplant is soft, turn down the heat, add enough water to braise and cover for another minute. Remove cover, stir in the chilli paste, soy and vinegar mixture and heat through for half a minute. Thicken with cornflour if you like (and if it needs it) and serve with plain white rice.

Dangerous fruit

I think these things look like crabs eyestalks, but they are really a fruit called ackee. Ackee comes from the Caribbean and Annie and Martin developed a taste for them when they went to Jamaica a few years ago. The fruit is contained in a big red pod that hangs from the bough of the ackee tree, and when it's ripe it splits open. The yellowy-white flesh is the part you eat, and it has a flavour and texture remarkably like scrambled egg. (I've loved scrambled egg ever since I was a kitten, so I'm a natural ackee fan.)

The curious thing about the ackee is that when it's under-ripe, it is very poisonous, even potentially lethal. Apparently if it's over-ripe it can be a bit dodgy too, so there is a short window of opportunity for you to enjoy it.

When they returned from Jamaica, a big and rather daft man called Russian (his name is a long story) gave M and A a big bag of fresh ackees and they managed to get them home without squashing them. But normally they have to make do with the tinned ones by the Dunn's River brand. Last night M cooked Saltfish and Ackee, Jamaica's national dish.

To make enough for two, you need about 200 grammes of cooked, flaked salt cod fillet, a small tin of ackees (about the same drained weight as the fish, or more if you like), three roughly chopped spring onions, a chopped tomato or two (depending on their size), a couple of Scotch Bonnet peppers (they're the same as Habanero chillies) and some thyme leaves stripped from their stems (about a tablespoonful). Fry the fish and the onions in oil in a frying pan, add the tomato, chillies and thyme and cook for a couple of minutes, until hot. Add the ackees, taking care not to break up the flesh too much, turn the heat down, put a lid on the pan and warm through for about two minutes. Adjust the seasoning, bearing in mind that the fish is salty. Serve with rice and peas or, if you can get it, breadfruit.

No curried ham

Yesterday I was worried that Martin might combine his two current culinary obsessions - Spanish cured pork products and Indian food - in an ill-advised and possibly inedible bhuna jamon serrano. Fortunately, he stuck to vegetarian curry last night, combining a tin of borlotti beans with spices, onions and tomatoes to make a quick pulse dish, and stir-frying cooked simba rice with peanuts and grated coconut. To go with it, he reheated the karela from Sunday. As for this evening, he browned some chicken fillets in olive oil and added garlic, tomatoes, oregano, parsley and okra to make Kottopoula me Mpamiez, one of his favourite Greek dishes. I just hope this sudden interest in yet another national cuisine doesn't herald an imminent holiday and a subsequent return to the cattery for Chutney and me. I suspect they've got a season-ticket for that place.

I can't believe M would have any more holidays planned as he has a supposedly demanding advertising job to go to. Annie on the other hand works in education, so enjoys nearly as much leisure time as I do. Today she went on holiday to Edinburgh, but only for about four hours. I was rather disappointed she didn't bring me back any Edinburgh rock.

Better late than never

I'm so sorry that I've fallen behind with my blog, but you see I've been in cat chokey, a.k.a. Baldernock Cattery, again! It seems one trip to Spain in four weeks isn't enough for Annie and Martin - they have to go twice! I suspect that they have cats to play with there, too. If you look closely at the postcard that Martin sent me (better late than never - I didn't get one last time) you can see a picture of a handsome ginger boy like me sitting on a picturesque Spanish windowsill. I wonder if he has a tortoishell sister with a bad temper and questionable grooming skills hidden away in the dark room behind him?

We miss A and M when they're away, but I can understand why they go. M's card says "Dear Ding, Hope you're having a nice time in the cattery. You'd like it here in Spain. It's hot and there's lots of fish to eat. Love Mart." He's right, I would like it. When they got back I asked M to go into more detail about the fish, and he said they had cod, hake, swordfish, anchovies, monkfish, squid, octopus, prawns, bream, bass, sole, tuna, cuttlefish, sardines, mussels, clams and maybe some other fish he's forgotten. He also had snails, rabbit, goat and veal. Then there were all the vegetables, including broad beans, aubergines, wild mushrooms, peppers, lots of salads, gazpacho soup, and different kinds of potatoes. There were a good few eggs, this being Spain. But most of all they ate cured pig in the form of ham, chorizo, morcilla (that's black pudding, one of my favourites), longaniza, salchichon and tocino. There was fresh pig meat too, including lomo (that's loin), chops, carne en salsa, cerdo en adobo, pinchos morunos (spicy little kebabs) and unidentified porky things cooked up with chick peas and beans.

I asked how he managed to enjoy such a huge variety in a visit of just a week, and he explained about tapas. He says in Granada Province where he and Annie were, they are free with drinks, and the bar gives you something different each time you order. So if you stop for three small beers or glasses of wine you get three different little dishes, and these can be as simple as a piece of cheese, or much more elaborate, like stewed rabbit with olives. You can't choose what you get, but you're not paying for it and you can leave it, which sounds rather like being a cat but with more variety. If you drink as much as A and M do on holiday, you don't ever need to buy any food. Whoever says there's no such thing as a free lunch hasn't been to Granada.

Ah well, they're home now, and so are we. They picked us up from the cattery last night and brought us back to the house, where I ate my usual fish and biscuits. I got bored halfway through and tried to muscle in on my sister's dinner instead, but without much success as Martin kept picking me up and manhandling me back to my own bowl. He cooked a scorching hot curry chicken, with side dishes of karela and bukhara dhal, and Sri Lankan simba rice. It's obvious they miss their curries when they are abroad, as they always have some as soon as they get home. Then in the proceeding days they rather predictably eat things that remind them of where they've just been. Tonight M cooked a revuelto - that's a Spanish scrambled egg dish, in this case with peppers and mushrooms - and served it with potatoes fried in duck fat. I wonder what it will be tomorrow, Spanish or Indian? Perhaps he'll combine the two and curry some ham.