a few bizarre RECIPES

FLUORESCENT JELLIES

I made this for a Hallowe’en special on ITV’s This Morning

NB: You do need a UV light for this. You can find them very easily online. I buy mine from Lyco

Tonic water jellies – made with extra sugar and lemon juice so that kids can enjoy the taste of the tonic water! 

Requirements

6 x clear glasses

Or: 1 large jelly mould and a GLASS/see-through plate to put the jelly on if making a single large moulded jelly

Ingredients – makes 1 large moulded jelly or 6 glasses of jelly

1 pack of leaf gelatin (enough to firmly set 1 litre of jelly, at 1.5x the concentration listed on the gelatin packet)

2 x lemons, juiced

1 litre tonic water (chilled in the fridge)

100g caster sugar

Method

Cut the gelatin leaves into small pieces using scissors and put them into a large heatproof bowl. Pour 200ml of tonic water over the gelatin and leave for 10 minutes to start it softening. Put the bowl in a microwave and heat on full power for 50 secs (or place the bowl over a saucepan of boiling water), then add the sugar and stir until both the gelatin and sugar have completely dissolved. Don’t let it boil. Add the sugar and lemon juice and stir until it has dissolved, too.

Add the remaining chilled tonic water, pouring it in as carefully as you can to avoid it fizzing (you want to lock in all those bubbles).

If you are using jelly moulds, lightly grease them inside using vegetable oil on a piece of kitchen paper. Pour the mixture, equally carefully, into your jelly moulds (or glasses if using) and place in the fridge to set for at least 3 hours.

Serve under UV light. The darker it is, the better the effect, so serve at night, with the lights turned out and the UV bulb as close to the jellies as possible!

If you like this, you’ll find lots more like it in The Extraordinary Cookbook

HOW TO FRY AN EGG ON A PIECE OF PAPER

MAJOR FIRE HAZARD: ONLY TO BE TRIED IN THE PRESENCE OF AN ADULT AND A FIRE EXTINGUISHER

The trick is to only let the heat touch paper that is topped by egg - if the flames touch bare paper, they will set it alight.

FIre extinguisher or wet tea-towel standing by to smother potential flames

Splash of vegetable oil

1 egg at room temperature

Large piece of parcel-wrapping paper (not plain paper)

4 paper clips

Wire coat-hanger

Non-virgin olive oil

The smallest gas burner on your hob

Tongs

Pull the coathanger into a square shape (pull the long straight length of the coathanger until the whole thing resembles a square with a handle). Mould it it so that it sits flat when you place it on a flat surface

Cut the paper so that its larger than the coathanger by 2cm on each side. Place the hanger on top, then fold the edges over to make a flat pan. Again, check that it sits flat on a table so that the egg won’t slip off.

Brush vegetable oil all over the paper pan. Leave it on the flat surface and crack the egg into the pan, making sure it sits in the middle. Have a bowl of water/wet towel/fire extinguisher standing by in case of flames. MAJOR FIRE HAZARD: ONLY TO BE TRIED IN THE PRESENCE OF AN ADULT AND A FIRE EXTINGUISHER Turn on a small, controllable flame and carefully pick the pan up and using the handle PLUS a pair of tongs, hold the pan over the flame, maintaining a balance between getting too hot and burning the pan and too cold (whereby the egg won’t cook). Keep checking the distance. After about 1 mins, the egg will start to cook, turning white. After 5mins or so it will cook through.

MAJOR FIRE HAZARD: ONLY TO BE TRIED IN THE PRESENCE OF AN ADULT AND A FIRE EXTINGUISHER

There’s a slightly crazy video of me showing how to do this on Huffington Post Cooking

How to Cook Salmon in a Dishwasher

Yes, you really can poach salmon – and the rest of your lunch – in a dishwasher and, no, it doesn’t end up tasting of soap! Dishwashers heat their water during the cycle and that heat is enough to poach salmon, and gently infuse it with the flavours of aromatic herbs. My dishwasher runs a 55– 65C cycle that makes the most meltingly delicious poached salmon, and also makes extraordinary asparagus that’s very crunchy, yet oddly tender too. The trick is to keep your fish tightly wrapped in foil, don’t use detergent and run the dishwasher on the highest and hottest cycle.

You don’t have to use an empty dishwasher, but neither would I put anything particularly dirty in it in case of contamination. By the way, other household appliances that can be employed to cook food – provided you use them with caution – are hairdryers (good for cooking pizza, though it takes a long time), steel log-burner bins (make great pizza ovens), security lamps (you can just about cook pancakes on them) and irons (great for cooking bacon).

THE RECIPE

Ingredients

FOR THE SALMON PARCEL

1kg salmon fillet, skinned and pin-boned 

olive oil 

zest and juice of 2 fresh limes 

a large thumb of ginger, peeled and thinly sliced into rounds 

a large handful of coriander, finely chopped 

salt and freshly ground black pepper

FOR THE ASPARAGUS PARCEL

1 bunch of asparagus a knob of butter salt and freshly ground black pepper

FOR THE NOODLE PARCEL

1 pack of fresh noodles 2 spring onions, finely sliced 

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil 

1 teaspoon Thai fish sauce (nam pla)

FOR THE TWO MIXED VEG PARCELS

1 red pepper, cored, deseeded and finely sliced

500g bean sprouts 

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil 

300g bok choy (Chinese cabbage), chopped into thick slices 

a few thin slices of mild red chilli 

1 tablespoon soy sauce

Method

Place five double layers of foil, each 75cm square, on the work surface. Drizzle some oil onto each square of foil and spread it over the surface using a pastry brush.

Put the salmon fillet in the middle of one square and fold up the edges of the foil a little to make a bowl. Sprinkle over the lime zest and juice, place the ginger slices on top, then scatter the coriander on top and season. Bring the sides of the foil together, pinching to make a watertight package.

Follow the same method for the asparagus and noodle parcels, and divide the veg between two parcels, ensuring that the parcels are flat rather than round, otherwise the heat won’t get to the food for long enough. Place your packages on the top rack of the dishwasher, choose the hottest and longest cycle (the parcels should cook for about 1 hour), and don’t add any detergent!

At the end of the cycle, remove the parcels. Unwrap the parcels at the table and let everyone dig in.

From The Extraordinary Cookbook

Published by Kyle Cathie

Photography by Georgia Glynn Smith