My even guiltier secret is that the chips are 100% faux. And the salad came from a bag. The magic bit is that by starting from raw potatoes and making your own dressing, you can achieve the perfect illusion of authenticity. And the salad dressing is a bit of saucy sorcery in itself.
Salad dressing (takes a matter of minutes)
Ingredients
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Wine vinegar (red or white) or balsamic if you prefer
- Sugar, preferably brown
- Mustard (preferably Dijon or wholegrain)
- Salt and pepper
- Most important of all, a jam jar or similar (preferably straight-sided, but Bonne-Maman-shaped will do)
Method
Pour about two fingers of olive oil into the jam jar. Now add about one finger of vinegar. The vinegar will sink to the bottom and the two ingredients will remain completely separate. Put the lid on and shake 'em up for a laugh. Then marvel as they separate again. As in your friendly neighbouring world super-power, nothing can bring the two incompatible factions together.
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| Vinegar sinks, oil floats. |
Remove lid. Now add a generous teaspoonful of sugar and a teaspoonful of mustard, along with salt and pepper to taste. Put the lid back on and shake vigorously again, uttering magic words of your choosing.
Now your dressing should be thickened and fully combined into a delicious vinaigrette that you can pour over leaves or cooked vegetables to create a healthy side dish. Huzzaaah! Suck on that Harry Potter. And oh, would you believe it? Since I started writing this, your squabbling next-door neighbours have negotiated a compromise. The US government is open again. Hurrah, as well as Huzzaah!
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| Miraculous! Now they're inseparable and thick as thieves. |
As for the salad dressing we have just made, it will keep for at least a week in its sealed jar in the fridge. Does the magic never end?
Homemade oven chips (takes 1 hour)
Ingredients
- Potatoes (as many as you want to eat)
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Salt
- Optional rosemary leaves (you can always steal a sprig from a front garden or ornamental shrubbery if you can't bring yourself to buy herbs in a continent that think they're called urbs)
Method
Heat your oven to about 200 degrees Celsius. Clean your potatoes, preferably with a vegetable brush and some water – or peel them if you must. Cut into chunky chip shapes (quarter small potatoes lengthwise, while large ones will need to be cut into eighths or smaller). Put them into an ovenproof dish in a fairly thin layer, glug over some olive oil, sprinkle with salt (and rosemary leaves if using) and stir up to coat the chips in oil.
Put them in the oven for 55 minutes or so. If you want to make it really complicated you can stir them about half way through to brown them more evenly.
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| Raw oven chips. Warning, do not eat. Yet. |
Suck on that Mr McCain. Easy as cheesy peas. Talking of which, you can transform your chips into highly alliterative cheeky chunky cheezy chips... and thus your two accompaniments will turn magically into a nutritionally balanced meal for the impoverished and/or lazy student.
Cheezy chips (takes 1 hour)
Ingredients
- Same as above
- A geneous handful of grated cheddar-like cheese from the dairy aisle – as strong as you can get it (O Canada, terre de honte laitière)
Method
Also same as above. Just add the cheese by sprinkling it over the chips about 10 minutes before the end of cooking time. Better still, cook enough chips for two meals, then reheat the left-overs the next evening with cheese on top.
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| Cheese before cooking. |
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| Cheese after cooking. |
Banish the aroma of feet from your studio apartment by cooking cheese. Also, if you wait ages for a recipe, three will come along all at once.
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