The **Now Eating** Thread

Soldato
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Just made myself a cheese omelette. Yummy!

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Soldato
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Late shift tonight, but now I'm finished work till the 3rd of January. Since I've hardly had anything to eat today I decided to celebrate with a pizza.
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Medium pizza with double Mexican chicken and double Cumberland sausage, on thin and crispy base. Pretty nice :)
 
Soldato
Joined
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Finchley, London
I made Cottage Pie for the first time. 1kg beef mince, diced onion, carrots, mustard, garlic pepper, worcester sauce, tomato puree, salt, pepper, pint of beef stock, curled parsley, petis pois, and mashed potatoes topped with grated cheese. Delicious! Took me bloody ages to make though what with all the frying and then baking. However, I missed an important step. 3 tablespoons of flour to thicken up the stock and make it like a creamy gravy filling. I'll add that next time.

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Soldato
Joined
17 Aug 2009
Posts
17,818
Location
Finchley, London
A cheese omelette with chips and peas, WTF.

Yeah, I'm the first person ever to put chips with omelette. I'm a freak!

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/feb/02/how-to-eat-omelettes

Accompaniments

Normally, the choice is between chips and salad? But why not both? There is something magnificent about the interaction of all that rich egg, a hot, rustling pile of glossy, well-seasoned fries (they must be thinner fries, not hulking great Brit-chips),


https://www.weightlossresources.co....mushroom-omelette-with-chips-salad-363220.htm

http://thisisunifood.blogspot.com/2014/01/omelette-and-chips-awesome-way.html

https://www.wiltshirefarmfoods.com/ready-meals/vegetarian/omelette-chips-beans
 

VTR

VTR

Soldato
Joined
29 Oct 2002
Posts
4,268
Location
South Wales
I made Cottage Pie for the first time. 1kg beef mince, diced onion, carrots, mustard, garlic pepper, worcester sauce, tomato puree, salt, pepper, pint of beef stock, curled parsley, petis pois, and mashed potatoes topped with grated cheese. Delicious! Took me bloody ages to make though what with all the frying and then baking. However, I missed an important step. 3 tablespoons of flour to thicken up the stock and make it like a creamy gravy filling. I'll add that next time.

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20181222-004521.jpg


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Looks great! Got the recipe? :)
 
Soldato
Joined
17 Aug 2009
Posts
17,818
Location
Finchley, London
Looks great! Got the recipe? :)

Thanks! :)

My potato came out good but to be honest, the meat filling was a bit dry and I'd overcooked the mince, but I think I know why. I didn't add flour to thicken the stock and I think it was in the frying pan too long. Here's the ingredients I used.

I used 1kg beef mince but next time I'll use half that as there was too much, enough for 4 meals and I only just fitted everything in my pan. I also didn't use lean steak mince, it was cheaper fattier beef, so I'd recommend the lean stuff.

With a little oil in the frying pan, I first fried 1 diced onion and 5 diced carrots together on a fairly high heat for a few minutes and then removed them from the pan.

A little more oil and then I added the mince and fried it until it changed colour. I put the carrots and onions back into the frying pan with the mince.

I stirred in 2 tablespoons tomato puree and 3 tablespoons worcester sauce. I made up almost a pint of beef stock from one dissolved cube and added it to the pan. I think I'll use 2 stock cubes next time, my stock didn't look very dark coloured. A few squeezes of mustard, about a tablespoon of garlic pepper but you'd probably be better of with real garlic cloves, bit of salt and black pepper, and some chopped curled parsley.

I then just let it simmer to reduce the liquid, stirring occasionally. If you decide to follow all this, I'd recommend adding 2 or 3 tablespoons of plain flour which is what I wish I'd done. It will thicken the stock to a gravy consistency.

This was mine simmering away.




Half way through the above, I'd also started boiling some peeled potatoes. I think I used about a kilo or so of spuds, kind of eyeballed what I thought would make up enough to cover the baking dish. I always boil till they almost fall apart when sticking a knife in, roughly 15 to 20 minutes. Drained the spuds, mashed, added good dollops of butter, salt and pepper and a fair bit of milk. I think I also mixed in a few bits of the parsley.

Poured everything from the frying pan into the baking dish, smoothed it out, and I sprinkled a large handful of frozen petit pois on top. Peas are probably even better.

You can see here that my mixture looks a bit dry. It was missing too much moisture, I'd reduced it too much plus hadn't added the flour. This will be rectified the next time I make it! :D




Then I put the mash on top and smoothed it out with a spoon, going to the very edges to seal the meat underneath. I then put grated mature cheddar over the mash.

Baked in the oven at 200c for about 25 minutes, basically until I thought it had a decent colour and crispiness. You could brush some egg on the potato before baking it to give it a better colour and sheen.

Check out this recipe, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hLjaP0_8ws

I kind of mostly followed what he did but didn't use all the ingredients he added. It seems that adding a bay leaf, some Rosemary and some Thyme is probably essential for cottage and sheperds pie, and something I'll add next time.
 
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