Rory's Blog - food

Healthy eating in schools

Rory Street — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 19:43:25 GMT

I read with interest an article in the Evening Standard regarding the governments plan to do a u turn on healthy eating in schools. It appears the new government is rejecting the teaching of Jamie Oliver and will inevitably end up with school dinners going back to the unhealthy stodgy meals they were in many schools.

I don't believe parents should be forced to get their children to eat healthy school meals although I do believe schools should offer healthy meals. If parents and children don't like that approach they can always send their children to school with packed lunches, but at least the government and schools can say "we provided the healthy option and you didn't take it". Parents then only have themselves to blame if their children suffer from childhood obesity later in life. I am pretty sure if the government stuck with healthy meals in schools, over a period of time (and it will take a while) we will end up with generations who have been through the education system who have known nothing but healthy school meals. These changes are not going to happen over night we are talking decades here to see the end result each generation will eventually pass these healthy eating habits onto their children.

Eggs Benedict

Rory Street — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 11:16:33 GMT

Eggs Benedict has always been my favourite breakfast, however it has been a dish I have never made myself until now. Partly because of how difficult people told me it was to make. However I was inspired to make it myself after trying it at a cafe (Bar 163) in Egham.

So I started by searching the Internet for the best recipe and as before I ended up on Delia Smiths website you may have seen my earlier article about making poached eggs (another difficult thing to cook). I soon discovered from reading the notes about her recipe that the main issues with making the Hollandaise Sauce to go over the poached eggs is.

Stopping the sauce from curdling
Keeping the sauce warm while you are poaching your eggs (without it curdling)

I found the best way for this was to follow Delia's recipe for Hollandaise sauce however when it came to melting the butter to blend with the rest of the ingredients I followed Delia's other recipe on how to poach an egg. As soon as the water started to simmer for poaching the eggs I started to melt the butter for the Hollandaise Sauce and put the eggs in to poach (this doesn't take long), at the same time I put the bread in the toaster. As soon as the butter was melted and simmering I turned the food processor back on (this contains all the blended ingredients as per Delia's recipe for Hollandaise Sauce) and poured in the melted butter (very slowly). Then I turned my attention back to the poached eggs but left the blender on to stop the sauce curdling. As soon as the toast pops up I placed the poached eggs on the toast and pour over the Hollandaise sauce from the blender. If you want you can flash the eggs under the grill for 20 seconds to give it that tinged golden look (this doesn't take long so be careful). And there you go Eggs Benedict!

Technorati Tags: eggs benedict, hollandaise sauce, delia, poached eggs

The onion chopper

Rory Street — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 20:08:44 GMT

I wasn't a big fan of the onion chopper when my mother in law first brought it about and it didn't work when I first used it and then I discovered I wasn't using it correctly. Instead of pushing the chopper down slowly all I had to do was give it short fast taps on the top to chop up the vegetables.

BBQ Chicken

Rory Street — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 22:14:19 GMT

One of the things I constantly see when going to BBQ's is people completely cremating chicken. It seems like such a shame, but you can understand why they do it. There is this constant fear that the chicken or any BBQ'd food is under cooked, so to feel "safe" the food gets "cremated".

If you really want some nicely done chicken on your BBQ you have to be patient, don't flame the chicken unless near the end if you want a crispy finish. A little trick I use is to season the chicken with black pepper and salt, then wrap the chicken in Sage and Rosemary. Wrap it all in foil and place on the BBQ, you'll be amazed by how fast the chicken actually cooks this way!

After about 15 to 20 minutes open the foil and check on your chicken. I have a nifty little gadget I bought in Sainsburys, its a fork you press into the meat which tells you if its properly cooked by measuring the temperature inside. When the chicken is cooked take it out of the foil and place straight onto the BBQ grill to get that nice crispy BBQ finish. Use the juices from the foil to pour over the chicken and enjoy.