As of late, I’ve been hovering over the stove quite regularly, prodding, stirring, humming. However, the stuff that I’ve been creating either isn’t quite good enough to be publishable, or merely too simple to warrant a recipe. The simplistic includes savoury pancakes with leeks, gruyere and bacon lardons (hardly needs a method, imo) or mixed peppers and tomatoes bathed in that thick, red oil that oozes from chorizo when it hits a hot frying pan, topped with halloumi and served on toast. The unpublishable includes a rather loose mac n cheese (I hadn’t figured out that spirali pasta can retain so. much. water after draining) and a mediterranean flatbread topped with tomatoes and red onion, which needs a bit more tweaking in terms of method and cooking times to be just right. Oh yes, and a vegan mushroom and lentil pie with which I was a little overbearing with the white wine. Hold tight though; the recipes will come – probably in the format of some 1950s retro car advert or whatever harebrained idea comes to me in the time-warp between sleep and wakefulness.
Now, I have realised over the years, and in re-reading the above paragraph, that I am not best suited to be writing student recipes, despite being a student myself. This is because I actually rather like food; no, rather, I am a food snob. That isn’t to say I won’t scoff at a £3.39 jar of scala red pesto which serves one, or be taken aback by the idea that some people are financially able to spend £10 on salmon fillets in one go – I am cheapish still; just not as cheap as I should be for a student recipe blog. My comparatively lavish consumer habits, however, are counterbalanced by some of my flatmates, who can spend £9.87 on food per week and still eat really well, but with less wine and fresh herbs involved. Hence, the following few recipes will be sourced from the knowledge base of my immediate human beings: Amanda, Eve, Lucy and possibly more if any of you want to get in contact with a Food Idea.
Amanda’s Easy Veg Scromblet*.
We’ll start with our resident vegetarian. Amanda’s signature potluck dish is a classic spinach and mushroom quiche, but a meal she regularly makes is “Vegetable Scromblet”, a mix between scrambled egg and omelette, which she can eat out of the pan while poring over her sociology readings. I asked her to write down her recipe as she would do it, but instead she told me exactly this:
“Get an onion – fry it. Get a courgette – fry it. Get a microwaved potato – fry it. Crack two eggs in the pan and mush them about. Eat it.”
And then she disappeared behind her laptop again.
Having observed the making of the scromblet many times, it should also be added that Amanda does indeed season it with salt, and on occasion, paprika. It is also my personal option that she overcooks her eggs, but I am a serial undercooker – of everything from broccoli (crunch please) to steak (practically mooing please) and especially scrambled eggs, which I think should be poured into a mug and and served with a drizzle of cream and a soup spoon. The beauty of this is that you can do the eggs how you like, but for full Amanda authenticity please cook them so they end up like those void-fill polystyrene nuggets you get in packaged white goods. Swings and roundabouts.
Also essential is the microwaving of the potato – waiting years for potatoes to cook is not on Amanda’s agenda, or indeed mine, so sticking your King Edward in the zapper for 4-5 minutes is a really good idea, while your onions are getting all soft. Delicious.
*****
I don’t really know what I’m hoping to achieve in the next few blog posts, but the next one will definitely document the phenomenon known as ‘Eve Food’, which is one of my favourite things in the world. I hope you enjoyed this installment of Flatmate Food and continue to go about your day as normal. Much love.
*I first came across the word Scromblet via my pal Jammie, and I have taken the liberty of adding a silent b, purely because I think it looks right.
Student Cuisine for the Gloomy Teen 