By Rachel Carlin
It turns out Pringles are not the only thing that once you pop you can’t stop. Since popping my cherry, every time I so much as make a slice of toast, I am talking myself through it and seeing the process in print. As I firmly believe life is too short to ever eat bad food, or drink instant coffee for that matter, this “what will I blog next” question has taken over my life.
Living in the tropics, with manly man frequently off assembling big manly equipment, I am usually in the position to have chick food. This is not the corn and grain variety, or questionable substances if the sources of anti-battery farming are to be believed, but rather girly food, essentially salad. I am not one of these girls who has bought into the no carb after stupid o’clock diet. I have also never bought into one lettuce leaf and a murmur of carrot salad. So, I created THE SALAD OF CHAMPIONS.
A quick side note. My mobile phone provider gives 200, yes two hundred, free local texts a day. Texting is my communication mode. I seldom require a reply and have been known to reach close to 200 LOCAL texts in a day (this excludes bbm’s, whatsapp messages and international texts). Did I mention I run my own business?
So, due to this texting habit, I know what all my friends are having for dinner every night. And I am a bit competitive so I like to believe, even if it’s just in my head, that I am winning. It is sometimes challenging to remain loyal to TSOC, but I do. My dearest friend and next door neighbour was having chicken livers for dinner and coincidentally so was I. Sadly I knew hers would be the yummy restaurant variety with the cream and rich sauce lovingly mopped up with chapattis. Mine unfortunately would be the healthy variety, ten days until my trip to Switzerland and trying to store up negative calories to use on cheese fondue and hot chocolate being the driving force.
So here goes:
Chicken livers for good girls
2 garlic cloves minced.
1 onion thinly sliced
1 250g punnet of chicken livers washed, cut into the same size pieces (so they all cook at the same rate) and any bits that don’t look like liver removed. This is particularly icky, I find playing cheesy 80’s rock at full volume and singing along makes this a lot more tolerable.
½ cup of white wine – I have finally become an adult and will not drink bad wine. I froze, yes froze, not inhaled, wine I wouldn’t drink brought to a party and used that. I am still not convinced of the whole “do not cook with wine you wouldn’t drink” movement. Basically when you cook with wine, the alcohol burns off and yes, you are left with some toxins, but surely you eat some E numbers now and again. The beauty of cooking with wine is it is fat free, no need for butter or oil, and even olive oil, is still oil and using up the not good stuff means there is more of the good stuff left to enjoy the way it was intended. Cheers!
1 tablespoon of red chilli paste or if you are a martyr, finally slice a red chilli and remember not to touch your face.
A nice handful of parsley finely sliced
Salt and pepper to taste.
SO:
Pour the wine into the pan and bring to a gentle boil.
Add the garlic and onions: sadly these won’t caramelise due to lack of fat, but pour another glass of wine and enjoy calories spent elsewhere.
Once softened (roughly 3 minutes) add the livers and let them do their thing.
Add the chilli and a good grind of salt and pepper.
Let this simmer along nicely and assemble the salad.
I go for red pepper, yellow pepper, cucumber, cherry tomatoes and a mixed lettuce bag. Toss them all up, dress if you must and add a carb. Couscous is a great one, as is just cooked baby potatoes which was tonight’s carb of choice.
Add the parsley to the livers. Pour yourself another glass of wine and toast the magnificence that is you cooking with fresh herbs! I firmly believe in celebrating all of life’s small victories.Pour over the livers, for one you only need 1/3 and the rest is freezer friendly for a Sunday breakfast when manly man is back. Served on toast with poached eggs and large Bloody Mary’s, but more on that next time.