This is the McDonalds Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese. They have just started serving these things at my local Maccys and I want them to stop.

I am trying to loose a little weight you see and now this appears and with it being down right delicious, I cannot resist the pull of the Golden Arches.

I would in all honesty have one every day if i could afford it.

I actually prefer Burger King to Macdonalds. But this makes it worth going in. My youngest daughter prefers McDonalds and we go there when she wants as the choice of meal is hers. Luckily nowadays it is less than once a month. However now I may have to say “What do you want for tea? McDonalds?”

Doubly Cheesily Awesome

While we are on the subject of Maccys, why can’t we have this beauty, in the pic below, over here in Blighty. It is the McRib and looks tasty (yes I know they don’t look like they do in the pic but still I want one, or more)

It’s quite amazing that a £1.00 piece of white plastic can surprise you into being a great cooking aid. I am referring to the very cheap, very basic, microwave egg poacher. This little gem is the gateway to a great Egg Muffin.

Simple ingredients:

2 English Muffins
2 eggs
2 cheese slices
butter and pepper to taste

Open the lid of the poacher, place an egg in each bowl – for there are two. A little splash of water and then prick the yolk and white with the sharp pointy end of a knife. Close the lid.

Cut the muffins in half and pop in the toaster, set to low. Put the loaded egg poacher in the microwave. I have a category ‘E’ machine so I set it to high for one minute. If you have a different power microwave, experiment with timings. Once that minute has expired, leave them in there standing for a further minute.

By this time your muffins will be done. I am looking for a slight browning of the inner surface. Butter to taste.

At this point I look at the eggs. If they are a little too runny I blast them for another 20 seconds. I do this so as not to spill any yellow goodness whilst eating. It’s a pain in the arse when you bite into the sandwich and the yolk explodes and gets wasted. If however you have poached eggs on top of ‘Beans on Toast’ then forget about the extra time. I digress.

Plop those steamy ovum out of the poachers’ plastic embrace onto one half of the muffin. Next a sprinkle of Black Pepper if that is your thing. Cheese slice. Close the sandwich with the other half of the muffin. The beauty of the plastic microwave egg poacher is the finished egg is pretty much the ideal size and shape to fit on an English muffin.

Eat and enjoy. They are exactly like the McMuffins from McDonald’s but without the Bacon or Sausage element. These can and have been added to the home made recipe at times, but I like the plain old Egg Muffin at chez Tucker.

A glass of orange juice and a great breakfast is made. It’s quick and tasty. Try it.

I love chips me. I do. you can tell because as stated earlier I am rotund, fat, lardy. I’m a fan of the fried potato. So simple; potatoes, fat and of course heat. But why is it so difficult to cook the perfect chips?

Oh, a clarification for all you loverly peoples from the US and A – Chips are what you would call ‘fries’. I know chips to you are what we in the UK call crisps. They are different. I love ‘em both. Crisps is a subject for another time, here we will concentrate on chips.

Anywho, now we have cleared up the semantics of the fried potato let us move onto a bit of a rant. I know variety is the spice of life and I know people have their own tastes and all that but how is it that it’s very hard to find the ideal chip. The ideal chip ladies and gentleman is a chip that is cooked in very hot fat, until it is golden and just on the cusp of going brown on the points and corners. The result is a chip of such immense flavour and texture as to tickle you taste buds into a frenzy of ecstasy. Crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside.

For instance we have a great chippy not 200yds from where I live – Excel Fisheries – and two ways of cooking. They use real dripping for their cooking liquid which is the fat of choice. So we have the same potatoes and the same frying medium in the same fryers in the same shop. This is where the similarity stops unfortunately. OK so both the following scenarios produce chips which are better than most admittedly but that doesn’t detract from the fact there is a clear gap in the deliciousness of the finished product.

When the gentleman of the shop is on cooking duty the chips. . . well they look and feel as if he has just shown the potatoes to the fat. They are anaemic to be honest. They still taste great for sure, but the visual and textural aspects are sadly lacking. It’s also a suspicion of mine that the fat is not of the high and required temperature to give them a golden glow… even if he left them in long enough that is. However salvation is upon us as most of the time the lady of the shop is on the rota more often than not. She has the fat so hot it smokes, she has the knowledge and fortitude to leave them there potatoes in the fat for a goodly long time, until a golden hue radiates from every stick of spud. Oh heaven.

The way I have described also leaves the chips dry. A lot of chippies in this humble little corner of Lincolnshire produce soggy, wet, greasy chips. My in-laws are in the wet soggy greasy camp. They shun the ideal; crisp, golden dry chip, with a paucity of regard to their taste receptors. Each to there own I suppose, but who’s writing this?

Portion size is another issue that boils my piss. At my local mentioned above we have a medium portion that is enough to fill, but not so much you feel bloated. Some decide that a single scoop is sufficient. They would be wrong. There is a chippy in a village a few miles away that does fish patties. These are a slice of fish sandwiched between two slices of potato and then battered. No chippy that I know of in town does these, they are sublime by the way, so off we go to the village in question only to be confronted with a portion of chips that makes even McDonald’s medium fries look generous. (McDonald’s, and Burger King for that matter, they are not chips they are fries. So they don’t count.)

The opposite is true of the best chippy in town. It’s called Wilson’s and it been here that long that even my Dad went there in the 60′s. The chips are the best made in Scunny, plus the portion size is massive, I’m not joking here, you can feed two grown men on one portion. It’s the same with the kebabs. Jebus they are big!

There is nothing quite like ‘Chips and Peas’ in the fresh air, better still if the air in question is cold, preferably salty like at the seaside.

Now I have travelled the length and breadth of this fine land of ours, as far south as Lands End and as far North as Wick. As far east as Great Yarmouth and west as Aberystwyth. All over the place and in most of the places I have been, I have indulged myself in bag of chips. Therfore due to this vast knowledge of the fried potato I would like to name the ‘Best Chip Shop in the UK’

The Chippy, the Best

The Chippy

90 Old Christchurch Rd

Bournemouth, BH1

.

Crisp, hot, golden and with Salt and Vinegar – Perfect chips

The fish was cooked to perfection granted, but the chips are where it’s at and they were sublime and fully deserved of the accolade bestowed upon it by this lover of chips.

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They can’t brew a decent beer in the south but man can the do a chip.

I love Sushi. I particularly love it from Yo! Sushi. There have been many a word written both on the interwebitubes and in print media extolling the virtues of sushi. I just like the taste.

There are many restaurants in the capital, London, that serve sushi. I have been lucky enough to frequent the odd one or several. In my quest to find ‘nice’ sushi I hit upon Yo!

Me and a friend, Scott, found ourselves in Leicester Square one evening. We were in London on a job and decided to go into the centre and see the sights, drink the beer and eat the food.

So we went to sample the delights of ‘fresh off the belt’ sushi. Basically you sit around the preparation area with a little belt running around the outside, onto which the chef places the little coloured bowls of food. The colours denote the price and when you finish the cashier tots up your dishes and charges you accordingly.

I must say it was expensive but worth it. We must have eaten sixteen plates between us. There are so many dishes to choose from. Raw fish is the main staple of sushi but there are also cooked dishes as well as chicken and beef.

Having been a few times now, and bought the book, I have a few favourites to go with my Japanese Green Tea.

First of which is the Chicken Katsu Curry. Now with this you get it served in a bowl of rice. This is a way of curbing you spending. If cost is not a worry and you don’t mind laying down upwards of £40 then don’t start with this. Just order the Chicken Katsu. Same taste – no rice. It makes for a cheaper meal by filling you up more, therefore you don’t keep plucking delicious dishes off of the belt.

Then there is the Sashimi – tuna is best. Iso rolls – Yo! roll is my fave. Nigiri – Yellowtail (hamachi) Yum!

Basically I like it all. I did have a slight aversion to an Ikura Gunkan, served once in Bristol, but I think it was because the roe was still slightly frozen.

I haven’t mentioned the taste, texture or smells. Nor have I mentioned the whole menu – which is available from the Yo! Sushi website http://www.yosushi.com/yo_restaurant_menu.php

Just go. Go sample the delights. I have introduced several people to the Yo! experience and all has been positive.

There is now a Yo! Sushi in Meadowhall, Sheffield. I just need to convince the kids raw fish is nice.

Is it me? I love fried eggs, but I’m particular in the way they are cooked but more so in the way they are consumed.

The best way, for me at least, to cook an egg to perfection is a three point plan.

• Point 1: Don’t have the oil – or to be really great, lard – too hot. It makes the white bubble, not good, and produces that brown crap around the edge and underneath, also not good. A perfect fried egg’s white should be just that, white.
• Point 2: Don’t, I repeat Don’t, ever, and I mean it, pop the yolk whilst cracking the egg into the pan. Ever.
• Point 3: Flick not flip. Flick the oil/lard over the yolk. Don’t flip the egg – this could produce the nightmare situation of yolk sack breakage. Too horrible to contemplate.

We have the perfectly cooked chicken ovum on our plate. Time to eat the treat. Now I have been called weird and strange – on more than one occasion, and to be honest on many a subject * – but I eat my eggs in a regimented and structured way.

First off, I cut the white off, using straight cuts with the knife. So as the yolk and a little white is left. Then I eat the rest of the breakfast or dinner. It has to be stated here and now that a ‘Full English Breakfast’ is the daddy of all meals, and a personal favourite.

Then, once the meal has been consumed. The Yolk. Slip it onto the fork with care and attention, mustn’t break that delicate membrane keeping all that yellowy goodness intact. One fluid motion and it’s in the pie-hole. Slowly break the seal with the tongue, and let the flavour flood out into the mouth and then I take my time to savour that flavour, for it is a fleeting pleasure. And remember, there is nothing more heart breaking than egg-yolk on porcelain.

And there we have it, the perfect fried egg experience. I have been eating eggs this way for as long as I can remember and today at work, a kindred spirit arose from the mire of philistine yolk breakers. Brian, a gentleman of advancing years revealed his credo of egg consumption. Exactly as above described.

I am not alone.

( * buttered Weetabix anyone? )