I too can cook a little.

With Wonfy taking on a job looking after anklebiters at a creche she gets home late. Consequently, I do a little (very little) of the cooking. Wednesday evening I did MY signature dish, Cottage Pie. Goes like this.



Chop up two onions and soften in a large pan. Use butter, nothing else does onions as well. Add a little water and stew one kg beef mince, a bunch of chopped ham (we had none so I chopped up a packet of back bacon instead) and the three large carrots (I used six small ones) that you have chopped into little pieces. Use that flat wooden stick thing to stir and break the mince up. Add a tablespoon Soya sauce (Worcester is just as good), salt and pepper to taste. When done transfer to a deep dish suitable for the oven. This is a lot of food so I divided it into two dishes, one for the freezer.



At this point I used to take the potatoes that had boiled in the meantime and would mash them with a little milk, butter and a sniff of baking powder for the pie topping. This time I took a shortcut. With my superpowerful Teutonic potato ricer I riced the potatoes directly onto the meat. It worked just as well but next time I will also brush the top with a little butter. Shove into the oven for a while to finish off and brown the crust. I served the above with frozen peas nuked in the micro.



Wonfy, DMC (Dearest Male Child) and I pigged out, even half the recipe is plenty. DMC said it leaned in taste towards venison and I think he was right. Any road, it is very different to run of the mill mince.



A word about the potato ricer, if that is what it is called. That's what we called it when I was sub-adult. The one I have now comes from Germany and is built stouter than a Bavarian hausfrau. I don't even peel the potatos, just boil them, cut them in half and rice them. The fractured potato comes out in beautiful, delicious rice-like grains and the skins stay behind. My DDM (Dear Departed Mother) would have killed for a device like that.



Being a man I know little of cooking except for one thing, you (or at least I) can not cook successfully by remote control. You have to stay in the kitchen (or braai) close to food, you have to give it attention, you have to care for it, you have to feel for it. It is not easy but the more effort you put into the dish the more the people you share it with will enjoy it. The part I like least is when eveyone has stuffed themselves they express varying degrees of appreciation and you are left with bugger all else except dirty dishes. At least when you paint a picture,no matter how crappy, you have something tangible in the end.



No, Matilda, this is not an unhealthy and fattening dish. The proof is my slim, trim 34 inch waist.