Cooking on a Friday Night...

Look, I know that I'm only 21 years old, and probably shouldn't be settling so happily into domesticity just yet. Perhaps it would be more normal for someone my age to be out drinking or clubbing on a Friday night (and I do love to dance), but sometimes the lure of the kitchen is just too strong.

I did a lot of cooking tonight. So much, in fact, that I didn’t have time to make dinner. My brother ended up having 2-minute noodles before leaving for work, whilst Mum made the rest of us some proper noodles later on out of leftover chicken and random vegetables.

This afternoon, I made the braised pheasant with mushrooms and bacon from Cooking in Advance for tomorrow’s lunch. Yes, with the bacon in it – and I’ve decided that I’m even going to eat it! Gasp! (More on this tomorrow, though).


Pheasant ready to go in oven.

We ate dinner after the pheasant was cooked. Then I made some den miso…



…and marinated some salmon fillets. This needs 2-3 days sitting in the fridge before grilling it. (I'll explain the process of making both the pheasant and the salmon when we eat them.)


Salmon marinating in den miso (Low Fat)

After this, I went to the gym (yay!), came home and made rhubarb ice-cream and a chocolate malteaser cake simultaneously. The chocolate malteaser cake cake comes from Feast, not How to Eat, but I’m making it for my friend Adriana’s graduation dinner tomorrow night – it’s her favourite out of all the chocolate cakes I’ve made, you see.

78. Rhubarb Ice-Cream

The ice-cream is for an unspecified future date; I just thought I should make it whilst I have the time and whilst rhubarb is still in season, gorgeous and intensely scarlet-hued.

You start off the ice-cream much like the vagina jelly (aka Rhubarb and Muscat Jelly), that is to say, poaching some rhubarb with vanilla sugar in the oven for an hour.


Poached rhubarb on the right, liquids for the Chocolate Malteaser Cake on the left.

After draining the rhubarb, you beat it with a fork to form a pulp. Then you make a custard (with 3 egg yolks, 45 grams of castor sugar and 300ml single cream). I really think now that I've overcome my custard problem, as this is the second custard I've made successfully. (The first was vanilla ice-cream). This one thickened surprisingly quickly and didn't turn feral or grainy at all. I've concluded that this is due to two factors - firstly the pan that I'm using, and secondly, my new-found confidence.


Yellow and Pink

Anyway, you then let the custard cool, and beat in the rhubarb pulp, followed by 300ml of whipped double cream. However, the double cream I buy (Gippsland brand), is basically solid, so I don't bother whipping it. Then you churn it in an ice-cream maker.


Rhubarb Ice-cream (pre-churning) on the left, chocolate malteaser layers on the right.

Look, I did make them at the same time! I am super-woman, hear me roar!

Ooh, another thing I have to report – Low-Fat August took a serious beating tonight, whilst I was making the ice-cream. I tasted a teensy spoonful for sweetness, and it was so gorgeous I couldn’t help myself and after churning it, obsessively licked the pot, bowl, and every utensil clean. Well, I guess it’s ok… I went to the gym today, I’ve been eating very healthily this week… but really, what justification do you need apart from the taste?