Practise, practise

I took an avid interest, as you know, in exactly what I eat when I had my chest/heart/circulatory problem and gave up smoking. One of the things that I took very seriously was the debate about the dangers of transfats and today, I notice, there is a news story from America highlighting again the deadly nature of them. People worry about MSGs and the like which have been used in Chinese cuisine for a millenia with no adverse effects but it seems to me that there are far more serious problems in our diet much closer to home that, generally as yet, are not fully appreciated.

Today Teresa and I are going to cook again in the bar in order to get the logistics of our culinary venture further refined. Just a meal for ourselves to put the newly acquired Microwave oven through its paces and further identify shortcomings in the "kitchen system". It is still early days yet and there is much to sort and learn.

More-or-less straight out of the cookbook that came with the oven, I like the sound of this so here goes:
Chicken Breast in a Spicy Paprika Sauce (4 portions)
INGREDIENTS
4 Chicken Breasts
350g Button Mushrooms
150g cubed (thickcut) Bacon
200ml Double Cream (or Creme Fraiche)
2 tblspns Tomato Purée
Salt
Pepper
Paprika to taste (Hot Spanish Smoked is my choice)

METHOD
Season the Chicken Breast and place them in a suitable (microwaveable) dish, adding the cleaned and halved Mushrooms. Mix the cream, Tomato Purée, Bacon and Paprika in another dish and cook at 600watt for 5-6 minutes. Pour the sauce over the Chicken and cook at 300watts until the Chicken is done (approx 20mins) before finally "gratinating" the dish under a grill for a couple of minutes but our oven will do both functions in "combi" mode which, in this case is 55% microwave and 45% grilling of the total time required.

Teresa has suggested serving simply with just some rice...so that's what we'll do. We have also talked about putting this dish on our menu as a two-parter including a soup starter to cover the 20mins cooking time so I'm going to serve her a bowl of my homemade veg soup first, as a surprise, to prove or disprove that idea. If it works we think that we can get service started within a couple of minutes of the order which cannot be bad! I know that you remember "old boy" Bill in the Bar Jardin. Well, he once explained to me, as an ex restauranteur, how to cost a meal and I reckon that this one, according to his rules, could go out at 7.00€.

And just to set your mind at rest....some weeks ago I told you that, in response to my comment that to do food in the bar would require two behind the bar, Favio "dropped" a name.....'nuff sed!