How Do You Know When A Girl From Oldham Has Had An Orgasm?

Friday 4/2/2005

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Diary and Notes

"Aah, chips and curry sauce, a blessing for all the world."

There is something about the combination of chips with curry that transcends normal cuisine and brings it into the realms of the divine. God eats chips and curry every Friday night (after he's been down the boozer) and how do I know this? Because God is an Englishman!

Now the trouble is that I came to visit my family (who live in the boondocks where there are no chip shops) so I am having to make my own. Also, there has been a slight disaster and one of my relatives has been taken to hospital. As such, I'm cooking for just me and there isn't much in the way of curry making ingredients in the house. This is why I'm doing chips and curry sauce, chip shop style that is.

I'm now going to have a whinge:

Just like ready meals and pre-packaged foods have stifled the variety in what people cook at home, the same thing has occurred to our once great chip shop curry sauces. Many years ago, when the world was still young, the British chippy used to make curry sauces on the premises in giant saucepans. Every chippy had its own recipe and some were definitely better than others. I remember the greatest ever being a small chip shop in Urmston shopping centre, which had a selection of three sauces of varying styles, all bubbling away behind the counter (with a pan of gravy of course - this is Manchester we're talking about).

If you go to a chip shop now this will never happen, no chip shop makes its own sauce any more, they buy pre-packaged concentrate and every one tastes the same. The standardisation of our food culture isn't just coming from macDonalds, we're all to blame, all complacent and lazy, all only too willing to make a slight cut here, a concession there.

If anyone knows of a chip shop that still makes there own curry sauce, let me know, I'll pay them a visit and give them a small award - well, if the sauce is up to scratch that is.

So today's dinner was a deliberate attempt to make a chip shop style dinner at home. The curry sauce, though using odd ingredients (it's what was available) was actually quite good. My niece Riann had some the next day for lunch and was quite impressed. A few sultanas would have really given it a chip shop feel but I couldn't find any. Oh well, at least another different curry experience was had by me and the challenge goes on.

And the answer to the riddle is:

She drops her chips!


Cake Blog

Double chocolate doughnut: A chocolate doughnut filled with chocolate cream. I was a happy camper eating this I can tell you.


Menu

Chicken

Chips

Chip shop style curry sauce

Processed peas


Ingredients

Chicken: A whole chicken, all purpose seasoning (a blend of spices somebody had bought from Lidl).

Sauce: Onions, vegetable oil, canned tomatoes, tomato ketchup, Tesco balti curry powder, black pepper, Oxo Chinese style stock cube, Bisto chicken gravy powder,


Preparation

Chicken: Rub a little oil over the chicken skin, sprinkle some seasoning all over, roast until crispy on the outside. Save any liquid for the curry sauce.

Fry an onion in a little oil until starting to brown. Add a can of tomatoes and liquidize. Stir in some curry powder, the oxo cube, and some kethcup. Simmer gently while the chicken cooks. Add any liquid from the chicken and thicken with gravy granules. Delicious!





JCBorresen@gmail.com