Friday Food

[Derek Wheeler]

Im going to go mad. Some of my favourites.

Grasshopper Gumbo

Ingredients
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated ginger 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 tablespoon minced fresh herbs -- parsley, mint, thyme and/or tarragon.
12 frozen grasshoppers, katydids, locusts, or other suitably sized Orthoptera, thawed.(you can try Dunnes Stores, but they may laugh at you.)
1 red pepper, cut into 1 1/2-inch chunks
1 small yellow onion, cut into 8 wedges

Directions: Mix all ingredients for the marinade in a nonreactive baking dish. Add the Orthoptera, cover, and marinate overnight. When ready to cook, remove the insects from the marinade. Pat them dry,(make sure they're definetly dead as doornails) for ease of handling. Assemble each kabab, alternately skewering the insects, tomatoes, and onion wedges to create a visually interesting lineup. Cook the kababs two or three inches above the fire, turning them every two or three minutes and basting them with additional olive oil as required. The exact cooking time will vary, depending on the kind of grill and types of insects used;(stay away from earwigs as there's feck all eating on them.) however, the kababs should cook for no longer than 8 or 9 minutes.

Boiled Flamingo

1. Scald the flamingo with the feathers still on.
2. Wash it and remove the feathers and other parts not meant for eating.(unless you're starving)
3. Stuff it with greens, celery leaves, etc., and tie it to keep its shape. Coat it in lard.
4. Boil the bird in a pot of water with salt, dill, and a little vinegar.
5. Put the half-cooked bird in a sauce pan and brown in oil. Add a bunch of leeks and coriander. Add a little broth. Cover and continue cooking.
6. To add color, pour in some grape juice thickened by heating.
7. Crush some spices—pepper, cumin, coriander, laser root, mint, and rue. Moisten them with vinegar.
8. Add dates and some of the juice from the sauce pan. Stir this back into the sauce and simmer.
9. Add flour and cook till thickened. Strain and pour the sauce over the bird.

The recipe works just as well for parrot.(Honestly)

And some others worth trying, when bored.........

Squirrel Brain

Yes, the brain of the small tree climbing rodent. (Freely available in the Pheonix Park) You cook the head with the rest of the body (after cleaning of course), then, using your fingers and a fork, you crack the skull open and dig the brain out. (beats lobster anyday.)

Criadillas (Big in Spain and Canada).

Also called Prairie Oysters in Canada (But Canadians always try to be posh). It is called "criadillas" in Spain but has different names in other Latin countries. The criadillas are the testicles of the pig. They are sliced first and then cooked with garlic and parsley, better if they are barbecued. If you don´t know what you are eating, the taste is intense but in a nice and pleasant way. (yeah, right.)

And finally......for that dinner party, where you are really trying to impress, I recommend the following.

Seal Flipper Pie

4 Seal flippers
1/2 Cup diced pork fat
1 tsp flour
cold water
2 onions, chopped
1 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp worcester sauce

Soak flippers in water and soda for 1/2 an hour. Trim excess fat. Dip the flippers in seasoned flour and pan fry in the pork fat until browned. Add the chopped onion.
Make a gravy of flour, 1 cup water, and Worcester sauce. Pour over the flippers. Cover and Bake in a moderate oven (350f) until tender.. which should be two to three hours. Cover with pastry and bake at 400f for 1/2 an hour. Seals are freely available off the coast of Skerries, Co. Dublin.

You just don't see quality like this on Saturday Kitchen.

[Thomas J Stamp]

Now this is what Friday food is all about.

Lets eat the world.

[colmoc]

Think Network Catering were serving some of these recipies cunningly shaped in the form of sausage rolls. which are equally as off putting as pigs testicles

[PaulM]

Originally Posted by colmoc

Think Network Catering were serving some of these recipies cunningly shaped in the form of sausage rolls. which are equally as off putting as pigs testicles

That's cause they probably are pigs testicles.

[Thomas J Stamp]

It's Tiger time!!!

Traditional chinese tiger recipe

10 oz of tiger meat
1 oz of 1000 year old gingseng
2 slices of ginger
5 tiger claws
1 tiger penis(optional, depending on availability)
2 teaspoon of the finest chinese wine
100g of tiger bone grind to powder

Method :
Blanch tiger meat and penis in hot water first
Then put the meat, penis and 1000 year old gingseng
to simmer over slow fire for four hours.
Add in the tiger bone and simmer for another two hours

Serve :
Add in the ginger and garnish with the claws.
Dish out the delicious, nutritious and exotic tiger soup and
serve on a tiger skin carpet

Hang the whiskers and the tiger teeth on your door to prevent
unwanted intruders.

With thanks to Aine "will the Tigers be put down?" Lawlor

[PaulM]

Is that what you meant about giving your cat a blow job?

[Colm Donoghue]

well don't try giving them a handjob....

especially standing beside the sign
"Don't pet the Tiger with remaining hand"

[ccos]

I'm half way thru a chicken loempia right now, bit on the greasy side

[ACustomer]

What's that, a chicken with an interesting medical condition?

[James Shields]

Well, it's chicken and chips in the canteen today (we're supposed to call it the staff restaurant, but until there's a waiter to show me the wine list, it's a canteen). I'm trying to raise interest in going out for chinese.

[Thomas J Stamp]

Today I shall be mostly eating hang hangwishes cos I'm off to an auction this afternoon, in a sterling effort to inflate property prices even further

[Thomas J Stamp]

Today, for your survival, we are offering cockroaches (you can adapt for beetles, just multiply the ingrediants by 10)

Method To Prepare a Cockroach for Human Consumption :
Take a fresh cockroach ; steal one from the exhibit's in Dublin Zoo's insect house if necessary. Then :
1) Remove & discard the solid wing covering flaps.
2) Slice off the head and arse area.
3) Pull off the legs.
4) Make an incision along the back of what's left & crack it open down the middle, revealing the fleshy insides.
5) Place your opened 'roach under a low grill for two minutes.
6) Artistically present it on a plate (i.e. put a slice of lemon next to it).
7) Yummy! Use a teaspoon and fingers! It looks like a black olive!





nice.

[Louise Ball]

What i'd like to know Thomas, is where you got this picture from?? Im getting worried about your eating habits!

[Gobdaw]

Maybe he could work on his coddle receipe

[Thomas J Stamp]

My coddle is fairly advanced, you know. Not for novices like you.

[PaulM]

Originally Posted by Louise Ball

What i'd like to know Thomas, is where you got this picture from?? Im getting worried about your eating habits!

Was it not your husband who suggested 'Grasshopper Gumbo'? Someone had to teach him to make that.

[Derek Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Paul Mulcahy

Was it not your husband who suggested 'Grasshopper Gumbo'? Someone had to teach him to make that.

Nope. Wasn't Louise who thought me that one. Anyway, Grasshopper tastes nicer than Cockroach. (I heard) You never no where a cockroach has been. Irish people complain about them being in their Spanish apartments, but I'd rather catch one there for cooking, than the one's that crawl out of drains in Spanish cities. There as big as rats and have more attitude!

[Thomas J Stamp]

Cudos due to NIX over on f365 for this one and yep this thread is a homage to another lawyer with nothing much to do on a Friday:

"Today I shall cook the perfect chicken,

Take one free range chicken, bring it up to room temp, then place some Thyme under the skin/in the cavity/in the creases of the thighs and wings. Add a few fresh bay leaves into the cavity. Then, get some olive oil in your hands and massage it in to the bird (no the chicken you damn fool!), season generously with black pepper an rocks salt the courser the better.

Take a large leek and cut it down the middle. Place them in your roasting dish and lay the chicken on top of it. Cook at 180-190c for 20 mins per 500grams plus 20 mins. When you take it out of the oven remember to drian to juices from indide to chicken into the pan. Cover loosely with foil and leave to rest for at least 20 minutes. Then tear the bleeder apart and consume like a crazed Viking with English mustard. RARRRRRRghhRR.

There are a few tricks here, use some or all. The room temp thing ensures quicker and even cooking. Use it with all meat and fish dishes. The oil first and then the salt ensures a perfect crispy skin.

The leeks allow the bottom of the bird to raost rather than braise. Thyme, lemon and garlic are my number 1 match with chicken.

Also, spend more on chicken it will go further and taste like chicken.

Chef's treat. Turn over the chicken under the wings you will find 2 pockets of meat these are called 'the oysters' and are the best part of the bird. Steal them before anyone else gets them. I treat the kids with them, its also gets them used to the chicken anatomy."

[ccos]

A recent lunch I was served up during my holidays.

Mongolian BBQ

You will need 1 UAZ van, 1 blow torch, some round stones, firewood, 1 marmot, 20 cm of wire, pliers, lots of Mongolian drivers and 1 knife.

1. Siphon petrol from van into blow torch. (Use driver with no front teeth)
2. use blowtorch to light firewood and throw stones into fire
3. chop head off marmot and skin by pulling all the innards out through the neck being carful to keep skin in one piece.
4. laugh at vegitarian tourists running away.
5. using pliers start putting hot stones and bits of meat into marmot making sure to fill the legs first. (caution lots of steam)
6. tie the wire around the neck of marmot until its airtight and the marmot starts swelling up to camel size.
7. use one driver to realease steam from marmot before it explodes.
8. pull loose hair off marmot.
9. using blowtorch and knife burn the remaining fur and scrape it off all the time releasing some steam to keep marmot at beachball shape but prevent explosion (at this stage the marmot will be having its last "Eartha Kitt")
10. chase flies off pile of marmot guts.
11. using the blowtorch and rubbing the guts all over the skin baste the marmot.
12. slice open marmot stomach, pour juices into cup and hand stones to tourists. (caution; we're not all ameteur jugglers the stones are really hot)
13. eat every peice of marmot except bones and head. drink the juices add vodka to taste.

note; lots of marmots have bubonic plague so be warned and tuck in.

Pictures anybody? pm or email me your email address.

[Thomas J Stamp]

No need for that, just stick them up. The Friday food gang have strong stomachs.