The Kitchen

The Kitchen Chicken & Veg Korma (Improvised) Click to Enlarge ---------------------- ---------------------- COMMENT No fun today.   Kitchen hell. Headache.  Probably result of bad hours again.  Was tired but then I forgot and went to sleep at some insane hour.  Waiting for headache tablets to kick in. Tired, unmotivated (it would be the insane hours).  Was told I was lazy.  Well, maybe I am.  I don't know.  I just didn't feel like cooking.  And it's not like making do would have harmed me.  I'm more in need of boot camp than fattening curry. But ... I was asked to cook and I felt guilty not wanting to, so I launched into the "Do something with the chicken" suggestion. Chicken Korma wasn't a smart pick, as prep is a bit involved.  But I pushed past my reluctance and got things started ... only to find a single chicken fillet in the refrigerator. WTF?  What am I supposed to do with that? "Who the #$@! buys a single chicken fillet? What's wrong with you?," was my pissed off response. "Who the #$@! doesn't look in the frige?," was what I got back. Well, ... I do have a consistent record of not really looking in the refrigerator. With a big job toasting nuts, caramelising onions, pulling out food processor & grinding etc, I wasn't going to do all this work for a single chicken fillet. But I'd started already, so I had to improvise. The above contains fried potato slices & carrot slices, as well as broccoli.  Otherwise it is a normal korma ... almost. One disaster after another.  Usually, I'm quick and can monitor something cooking on the stove-top, while I prep the next stage.  But I must have been too slow this time.  Burnt the potato and carrot slices -- badly.  Tipped out what was not stuck to bottom of pot.  Filled the pot, containing charred remains, with cold water. Disaster struck:  proceeded to tip a large pot of water all over myself, the kitchen cupboards and the kitchen floor. One false move wearing killer-slippery plastic (sorta) 'Crocs', and it could have been ugly. Seasoning the pan I had to swap to, I forget the pan was mega-hot ... and I put my fingers on the base, intending to steady the pan that I was moving.  Ouch! Reflexes must be really quick, because the burn isn't bad.  It's sore, but it's passing and there's no finger tip damage (I think). Next f*ck-up was putting in cumin powered instead of coriander. Just as I don't look in the refrigerator, apparently I don't always read jar labels. Was ready to throw in the towel ... or throw the pan across the room, more like it.  But I persevered, hoping my mistakes would go unnoticed.  Taste test indicates I just might get away with it.  :) Made the mistake of cooking down the liquid without tasting first, thinking dish ought to be done.  Yes, it ought to be ... but it wasn't because the potato slices were still hard (despite pre-frying that involved burning what was on the base!).  Remedy:  more water and more cooking time.  But that means broccoli that has just about fallen apart.  Can't be helped.  Dislike hard bits of potato more than I dislike mushy broccoli. Cooking longer didn't help:  now there's hard potato & mushy broccoli.  It's granite slices.  But it will have to do. If I ever throw potato in anything like this again, it will probably be microwaved in advance.  Thought about it, but opted for the pre-fry, thinking it would make a difference.  Nope.  Not effective.  Not in this case.  Messed it up. Taste was OK, but it's not something I'd do again.  It only turned out like this because it was too late to make a special trip to the supermarket for more chicken (likely closed early for holidays). Think my initial pissed-off chicken fillet outburst was justified:   while the food is edible, it's meh. It's not what I intended.   Having mushy broccoli and other bits that don't belong messes up the anticipated 'uniform korma' experience:  the nice texture isn't there, nor is the intensity and the visual appeal. Cooking without being in the frame of mind to cook is a sh*tty experience.  But it has its up side:  the food is average and uninviting.  I'm also in such a bad mood that I'm unlikely to overindulge. *Hybrid Korma was acceptable, but the hard potato didn't go unnoticed.  LOL *Frozen meals set aside. *Depression marks on fingers from burns I don't feel after that initial sting -- how weird.