PH Cooking Competition #31 - Rich Man, Poor Man

[Dan_1981]

Not really sure this counts as its a little bit of a cop out but it may spur some others on

Grilled cod on a saffron infused chilli butter bean & tomato sauce, served with new potatoes. (Bit of a mouth full)

My butterbeans cost 0.68p or £2.89 per kilo, and the saffron was £4.16 for 0.4g or £1040 per kilo.

[Pixel-Snapper]

Looks bob on Dan I reckon your ingredients are justified.

I'm going for a trial run tonight I think.

[TeeRev]

What a bloody saga this has been but at long last here’s my entry. Home made Beef and Oyster Pie. I started making this nearly a month ago but a dodgy scallop issue and then a holiday meant that the beef bit had to be frozen after cooking and the first lot of oysters had to be given away.

Way back in the past beef was really expensive and the food of the rich with oysters being plentiful, cheap and the food of the poor. Today we can all eat cheap supermarket beef frequently and oysters are relatively rare and expensive so that’s my Rich Man/Poor Man theme.

The beef was shin, pretty well the cheapest cut and it was browned then cooked for three hours in stock and Guinness along with bay, thyme and onions until it was juicy and tender. I made the suet pastry myself, something I never bother to do but it was so worth it as it was really crisp and delicious, the oysters were the best available from the Maldon river at a quid each.

The theme was also extended to the vegetables in this dish, ordinary frozen peas alongside Sainsburys first in Jersey Royal new potatoes at £4.00 for ½ kilo, (ouch but lovely) the gravy was of course proper beef stock reduced and thickened.

I made two pies with three oysters in each for me and two without for my wife and daughter, there’s enough cooked beef and spare oysters to make another four pies tomorrow night but these will be with ready rolled shortcrust bases and puff pastry tops as I don’t have time to do the pastry again.

[TeeRev]

I still don't seem to be able to get more than one photo to upload at a time so here's the finished dish.

[Gruffy]

Mmmm that gravy looks fantastic. Sounds awesome. Great take on the brief.

[Pixel-Snapper]

Right im now back from the arse end of cornwall and ready to go.

Nice pie Tee ;0)

[Pixel-Snapper]

Well looks like i've ran out of time to cook my dish again.

Guess it's up to Dan and TeeRev to fight it out in the poll.

[TeeRev]

Just checking, was there a result or is the competition being rolled over for another month?

[Pixel-Snapper]

Looks like this is dying a death!!!!

I think we should just start a poll and run it till sunday or will never get any closer on this and it will just run and run and run and run.

I've just moved house and got a nice new kitchen to experiment in so I'm game for getting it going again.

[Dan_1981]

I'm happy enough to let Tee Rev choose a topic.

Lets get this one out of the way and crack on with a new, maybe quite generic topic to attract plenty of entrants?

Anf hopefully a PH apron for a prize to encourage a few more entrants

[Pixel-Snapper]

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

Polls up and running till Sunday gives some time for you two to think about the theme and only fair.


Then will run the next one till 23rd June.


All agree say Aye?

[Gruffy]

Yeah, time to move on. Sorry, I seem to have borked the cooking comp.

[Pixel-Snapper]

Not at all the Mr.Gruff it was a good theme.

[TeeRev]

Gruffy, I thought it was a tough but really good theme setting the thinking processes going nicely and life shouldn't be too easy. It sounded like there were ideas but it just seemed that everyone was really busy in March and April, it was lucky for me there was a month extension otherwise my entry wouldn't have made it.

If I win this one in the poll though I've already got what I think is a good theme in mind for the next competition, it's simple but something that hopefully people will have to think about and work a little to get some interesting dishes out on.