So, who wants to help ... to take refuge in the Cellar?

Yeah, That Fish usually chucks out rice after about a day, while I’ll eat it for three if it’s been in the fridge.

Boiled rice that’s got cold is the best for frying IME - doing it when it’s still warm doesn’t work well.

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Yes, Dunnock

If I am planning fried rice I cook it a bit first, & then let it cool down & dry off

Carinthia.xx

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It’s when it is warmed through again and kept warm that it gets Vicious, Hedgers. So we don’t do that unless we hates the guestses…

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I am recycliing left-over cauliflower cheese. Boiled a spud, chopped an onion, started making a rudimentary bubble & squeak and have now mixed in the chopped up cc. A dish designed with testing non-stick claims in mind. Baking tomatoes to go with, then I can whack the oven up a bit further to incinerate the bread…

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Am going to sound very unimaginative and announce that buggers ‘n’ chips will be appearing tomorrow. In my defence, I would point out that they are currently masquerading as a bag of roosters*, a couple of sirloin steaks, fresh herbs, flour, yeast, olive oil…

Am toying with the idea of some sort of chilli tomato sauce.






*The potatoes, that is, lest anyone thinks we’ve opted for an extreme solution to our galline gender balance issue.

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What time should I arrive, joe?

1 tin good quality plum or chopped tomatoes. If plum, mudge them about a bit before starting.
small onion
bayleaf
Muscovado sugar
Soy sauce
White wine, cider or sherry vinegar
Chipotle paste, or yer actual
Ground cumin
sunflower or similar oil
Finely chop the onion, season with salt, and cook v gently in some oil until transparent. Turn up the heat and mix in a good teaspoon powdered cumin and about the same of your vinegar of choice. Stir like mad,chuck in a bayleaf and the whole dried chilli if using, then add the tomatoes, and bring to the boil. Turn it right down and put a lid on the pan and simmer v gently for 15 minutes. Season with chilli paste (unless you did the dried one). soy, muscovado sugar, salt, pepper, and (cautiously) vinegar and continue to simmer gently until thick. You can blitz it for smooth & gloopy or just fish the bayleaf and chilli out. It should be brownish, not bright red, when done. Is nice.

Not that you won’t have your own recipe or that this is particularly groundbreaking. Done without the early simmering, though, and with a bit more cumin and a spot of ground coriander too, this makes a good second-cooking sauce for ribs done in an oven. Not suited to barbecue because it falls off.

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It was 19° & full-blown sunny today. Delightful.

So we went to Bodnant Gardens & then the delightful town of Conwy.

Maybe, just maybe Spring is sprung.

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Looks fabulous, Armers.

Today was the first day this year on which I felt too hot in boots in the car. But that was at about two pm; by evening I was cold again.

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That, Gus, is pretty much exactly the sort of thing I had in mind - thank you! I suspect it would benefit from being made now rather than tomorrow? I generally find anything involving chillis improves if left for a day or so to infuse properly.

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It will sort of gently fester and mature, so yes, if you feel like pootling with it this evening. But it is fine if made for pretty much immediate consumption, too. A versatile beastie. Don’t omit the bay leaf. It seems to be important to it.

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There is also the advantage of being on my own in the house at the moment, so I have a couple of hours uninterrupted kitchen time.

Was thinking of using a couple of deseeded and chopped birdseye chillis; any reason I shouldn’t? (This is being offered as an option, and two thirds of the regular gannets have rather taken the masochistic route where chillis are concerned. The other third can have Heinz…)

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Cooked rice should be rapidly cooled, spread thinly on a baking tray and then fridged asap. Bacillus cereus is a vicious bugga, and uncooked rice often contains the spores. So, leaving a mound of cooling rice is arsking for trouble as the bacteria thereby cultured produce the toxins that have the ghastly GI effects.

Feel sick, now.

Soo xx.

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I would be inclined to use the two birdseyes whole, pricked all over with a needle and give them a bit of a scorch when you are doing the cumin and vinegar bit, and leave them in it overnight, then remove them. If you then feel inclined to add a bit of the soft flesh back, do, but I don’t think you will feel the need.
All sounds splendid, though. Do please let us know how you get on.

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OK - I will be guided by you.

No set time to arrive, incidentally - just make sure you have room in your bag for a couple of egg boxes when leaving…

Now pottering in the general direction of the kitchen…

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Aye, wee Bee, but no one was leaving mounds of warm rice, about. It’s the slowly cooled, insufficiently reheated, held-over rice that poses a danger. A somewhat overstated one, imo, in the domestic environment.

Yrs, Gus Borgia xx

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Aww joe. Lovely eggies from your kind and thoughtful birds would be a bit wasted on me, though (although I do feel another load of that gingerbread coming on: it was glorious). I suppose I could import them for deserving Cellarites this side of the water.
I do hope you like the sauce - it’s just a version of a fairly standard recioe that a feller called Paul, who threw very splendid barbecues and then went slightly insane and married a cousin of mine, taught me. I just don’t think it needs ferocious chillification, though I have no objection to Scoville ferocity on principle. And it shouldn’t be too sweet. Ach, taste as you go, you’ll work out what you like, you are a more than competent cook, you’ve given that away long since :wink: But the bay leaf is essential, as is the cumin.

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Reheating would not disable the toxins, Gus.
Yrs, Ya Bee XX

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Well there’s eggs and there’s eggs. Still have a bit of this giving me the old come-on in a secluded corner. I might be persuaded to share, with a bit lot of arm twisting…

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The Lad will not eat any leftovers from a Chinese takeaway the next day, Soo

He eats what he wants from the feast & then, if it’s at their house, it goes in the bin

When he was in Orsepiddle in Leeds, he ate toast fer breakfast, because it was made on the ward, & then had wrapped/packaged sandwiches, preferably brought in by DiL

Do have an Gin, or 3

Carinthia.xx

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Thank you.
(I know someone who had B.cereus food poisoning and it nearly fettled her. Chinese fried rice was the culprit, although it has never come back to bite me.)
Soo xx

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