A random thread for food things that don't really warrant a thread of their own

[citoyen]

Guacamole needs nothing more than salt and pepper and lime juice. Anything else is frippery.

[Basil]

Guacamole needs nothing more than salt and pepper and lime juice. Anything else is frippery.

Correct.   

[T42]

It has to be hand-bashed too, so that I get to lick the fork.

[ian]

You are just eating raw avocado. HTH.

Anyway, I've not really thought of a use for avocado other than guacamole. I had it in a omelette once and it was meh. As I hang about in California a lot, I encounter avocado a lot and it's just there, a kind of sludgy green culinary malingerer. I do remember being in an LA hotel a while a back, sitting down to breakfast to hear the person on the next table declare their allergy to avocado. The waiter looked him up and down and said 'you really are in the wrong state then.'

[T42]

Which reminds me:

Holy, holy, holy,
Not in guacamole
Nor on a frijole
Thy countenance we see
But on a tortilla
- Bless St. Sinsemilla!
There we get to see ya
Etched eternally.

Saw that somewhere back when the face of Christ appeared in a Mexican diner.

[citoyen]

You are just eating raw avocado. HTH.

Yup. Roughly mashed with a fork and seasoned with a generous pinch of salt, a sprinkle of pepper and a glug of lime juice. Slathered on toast and topped with crispy bacon and grilled tomatoes.

Just how my old abuelita taught me to make it when I was a kid growing up on the mean streets of Guadalajara.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Which reminds me of a (probably best forgotten) 1980s pop song:
I wish I was in Tijuana
Eating barbecued iguana

[Andrij]

Which reminds me of a (probably best forgotten) 1980s pop song:
I wish I was in Tijuana
Eating barbecued iguana

Mexican Radio, by Wall of Voodoo! 

[Cudzoziemiec]

I'd forgotten the band name, but that was it.

[ian]

I like avocado stones. They're quite smooth and pleasing to handle. The best bit. I think I'll throw the rest away. They don't really taste of much other than green, which is a colour and not a taste. If, of course, you can find one that's ripe. They seem to come in concretey under-ripe, or mushy gone-to-purple smoosh. There's possibly an entire hour at some point in avocado's life where it's actually ripe. You probably have to watch them for days, diligently and gently poking them with a stick every couple of hours to check. They remind me a bit of the meteorite at the beginning of The Blob. And look what happened when they poked that with a stick.

There's nothing you can do with an avocado that can't be done better with cheese. Holy cheesomole, Batman.

[spesh]

There's nothing you can do with an avocado that can't be done better with cheese.

Or, if your name is Peter Mandelson, marrowfat peas.

[T42]

You are just eating raw avocado. HTH.

Yup. Roughly mashed with a fork and seasoned with a generous pinch of salt, a sprinkle of pepper and a glug of lime juice. Slathered on toast and topped with crispy bacon and grilled tomatoes.

Just how my old abuelita taught me to make it when I was a kid growing up on the mean streets of Guadalajara.

You left out the shredded coca leaf.

[Tim Hall]

Which reminds me of a (probably best forgotten) 1980s pop song:
I wish I was in Tijuana
Eating barbecued iguana

Mexican Radio, by Wall of Voodoo! 

I saw them once, at The Lyceum.

[ian]

I love mushy peas too. They're green and a lot better than avocadoes. I could eat mushy peas on toast all the time. Admittedly, they do lead to a occasional rumble in the intestines, but that's part of the pleasure. It's not just Kim Jong-un that likes cracking off something noisy and explosive. Stuff your madeleines Proust, mine is childhood recollection of bonfire night with styrofoam cups filled with superheated, steaming mushy peas and mint sauce.

I may replace my mashamole with mushypeamole.

I don't actually know what marrowfat peas are. Has anyone ever seen them in the wild? I remember my gran used to soak them and cook them grey and then have to recolour them with sort of green food colour that is now banned as a chemical weapon. I think they're some kind of WWII ersatz vegetable. They were the only 'vegetable' my grandad would trust to be on his plate.

[Cudzoziemiec]

That should be mushamole, surely.

[citoyen]

I don't actually know what marrowfat peas are.

I think they're just normal peas that have been left to grow until they achieve that plump, mealy state, then are left to dry. But I like the idea of them being a WWII ersatz vegetable - made out of mangelwurzels mashed, dyed green and shaped into pea-sized balls. And washed down with a mug of Camp coffee.

[ian]

I think marrowfat peas were the only veg I'd eat at my grans. They were the generation that would start cooking the veg for Sunday dinner on a Thursday evening. I'm sad my grandad didn't stick around long enough to see an avocado. I doubt he'd have believed in them, and he would certainly have been disgusted. Not that he'd eat a proper British pear unless it had been stewed for a week. Why needlessly risk vitamins.

Camp coffee, of course. Served at precisely 4pm by my gran. Every day. I asked my wife to get me a drink yesterday and she drew me a map on a post-it note showing the route to the kitchen fridge and firmly applied it to my forehead. Bloody feminists.

[campagman]

I like avocado stones. They're quite smooth and pleasing to handle.

I have avocados most mornings mixed in with scrambled eggs and veggies. The stones end up on the compost heap. It only happened once last year but this year quite a few of the stones have sprouted and started to grow in my veg patch. I've dug them up cos they won't last the winter although I am tempted to put one in a pot and bring it inside.

[hellymedic]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-41229459

Given how wasteful I think cut flowers are, maybe this is a good idea!

[citoyen]

Lunch at Almost Famous in Manchester today. I've heard of this place before but never visited - mainly because the chain has so far only spread as far as Liverpool and Leeds. It's totally awesome. Probably the filthiest burgers you'll find this side of the Atlantic. Absolutely no sense of restraint with the toppings. Nothing so refined as napkins, instead they leave a roll of kitchen paper on the table. We used up nearly the whole roll.

I had the "Butter, Blood & Bleu" which is a double burger topped with "Cheese, Rump Steak, Chorizo, Wonder Onions, Red Chilies, Peppercorn Sauce, Bleu Cheese Sauce, English Mustard", and a side order of "Baddaboom fries" which are "Curly Fries, Garlic Salt, Mumma’s Red Sauce Pepperoni Cheddar.

The boy went one better by having the "Filthiest Show In Town" which is a double burger topped with "Cheese, Chorizo, Pepperoni, Fried Mozzarella, Shoestring Onion, Parmesan, Mumma’s Red Sauce, French’s Mustard, Dynamite", and a side order of Phoenix fries, which are "Winning Fries, Bacon Rain, Shoestring Onions, Frazzle Dust, Red Chillies, Bacon Bacon Mayo, Redneck BBQ"

I don't believe the staff ever eat there themselves - they're all far too skinny.

[ian]

In Louisiana, they call that breakfast.

[citoyen]

In Louisiana, they call that breakfast.

It did occur to me that any visiting Americans might consider the burgers a bit small.

[ian]

I always like the concept of 'bottomless fries,' in a meal like that it's hard to be sure you're getting your daily carbs.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Stepdaughter wanted to cook rabbit. So rabbit was purchased.

Son is home for a week, before he goes travelling for a 6 months. He wants to cook with stepsister, he is a chef. He goes out and buys two more rabbits.

We get back from shopping, stepdaughter is too busy playing computer games to cook. Son is downhearted by this but says; "You know, I really want to do something different with those rabbits"

Kitchen is then distorted into something from one of those bizarre TV programs. 4hours later we sit down to:

Rabbit balantine
Rabbit mouse
Rabbit pate
Rabbit something-or-other (dunno what you'd call it but it involved roasted aubergines and 6 other ingredients)

A pesto something

Scorched pears with fig

Sweet potato/harissa

Roasted new pots/rosemary

We weren't allowed to serve ourselves, of course. It had to be plated by the chef. It's the 'art of the swipe', apparently.
The previous night he visited a friend and improvised a way of smoking mussels on their bbq
I'm really not sure how he's going to cope with just travelling around.

[ian]

If the hotel restaurant menu is to be believed, I am hosting a tomato party in my mouth.