The Dad’s Onion kitchen is on the move! In just a few days we’re heading off to India for a holiday, and as well as all the wonderful sights and experiences, I’m perhaps most looking forward to the food and the opportunity to get some ideas and expand my repertoire.
Until I embarked on this blog writing endeavour I’d never really used Instagram, chiefly because I didn’t get the point. I had an account, in my name, with a grand total of one picture. Coincidentally that picture was of the dish with which I metaphorically kicked my dear friend’s arse and took out the trophy in our occasional Masterchef challenge. Starting a Dad’s Onion Instagram page was precipitated by a friend of a friend who, not content with a web page and a Facebook page to look at, asked if I had an Instagram page. Bloody ungrateful!
Becoming a parent turns most of us from rational, honest people into lying, cajoling and bribing individuals with a host of associated questionable behaviours. We lie to children about all manner of things, including the fat red man, the chocolate delivering member of the Leporidae family, and that dog that went to “stay on a farm”. Food in particular seems to bring out some of the worst examples, probably because children can be such picky eaters, which fuels our irrational fear they will starve to death or become an axe murderer or have some other grisly fate befall them. The story of space pie is one such example.
Until the last couple of years I never really made risotto and was not overly keen on it, probably for several reasons. One was that I was not very good at it and never seemed to be able to get that nice risotto consistency and texture, nor had I had it anywhere else that convinced me it was worth my time investing in learning. It shouldn’t be hard to make but it’s not called the curse of the Masterchef kitchen for no reason. Another was who wants to spend 20 minutes or more continuously stirring stock into rice, especially if you’re pretty sure the end result won’t live up to expectations. But then two things happened for me – I had a risotto that convinced me to try again, and I discovered doing it in the pressure cooker.
