Anticipating a lost afternoon

Bitter experience long ago taught me not to use electronic communication after I've been drinking, so I'm doing this blog post a bit early…

/blur

As a result, there's not much I've got to say, since I'm not going to join in the debate about Lady T's legacy. What I can do is offer the recipe I used last night, as an addendum to the cookbook. It was inspired by one by Bill Granger in the Independent on Sunday magazine, as usual modified to make it simple for us boating types.

Chinese Omelettes

Ingredients for two

1 tbsp cooking oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
4 eggs
½ tsp prepared garlic
½ tsp prepared chilli
½ tsp soy sauce
Small pack cooked prawns, drained
½ tin bean sprouts or bamboo shoots, drained, or equivalent fresh bean sprouts

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a heavy based frying pan or chef's pan
2. Fry the onion for 5 minutes until translucent
3. Meanwhile, beat the eggs in a medium bowl and add the garlic, chilli and soy sauce
4. When the onions are ready, increase the heat and pour in the egg mixture
5. Fry until mostly set, tipping the pan from side to side to distribute the egg and smoothing it from the middle to the sides, producing a large, quite thin omelette
6. Add the prawns and sprouts/shoots to one side of the cooked omelette and fold it over.
7. Cut in half and serve.

I served it with fresh baked petit pains; in summer adding a side salad would make a very pleasant light supper dish, served with chilled dry white wine.

The original used spring onions, shredded and half added to the egg mix and the other half to the prawns and shoots, and I'm sure that would work. If cooking for more than two it would make sense to do individual omelettes.