みなさん、こんにちは。
今日も英語の勉強お疲れさまです☆彡
イギリス英語を話せるようになりたいあなたへ。
当ブログでは英語圏に２３年在住している著者が、これまでにしてきた英語学習をもとに、みなさまの英語学習に役立つようなリアルな情報をお届けしています。
英語学習に役立つ情報や、私がイギリスでよく耳にする日常英会話のフレーズ集の他に、不定期に英語エッセイも掲載したいと思っています。
記念すべき第一回目を飾るエッセイのタイトルは「Cooking Catastrophe」。
昨日の夕飯にタイ風グリーンカレーを作る予定だった私に起こった大惨事の話です。何が起きたのでしょうか。そしてこの経験からどんなレッスンを学んだのでしょうか。
では、お楽しみください。
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Cooking Catastrophe
I made the worst dinner ever in my life last night.
I was planning to make Thai green curry yesterday and bought all the ingredients I needed for the curry. I didn’t pick up a jar of curry sauce as I thought we’d already had one in the kitchen cupboard. I came home, only to find out that there wasn’t curry sauce in the cupboard. My mind went blank.
I swear I bought it a couple of months back. Was I dreaming or what?
As both my husband and I were excited about our curry-night-Friday for the first time in a few months, I was determined to make it out of what we had.
I went online and searched for coconut curry recipes, when one particular recipe caught my attention. It had nearly 300 good reviews with five stars. Checking the ingredients, I noticed tinned tomatoes was listed. I hesitated. Immediately my instincts were telling me that the combination of coconut milk and tomatoes were very odd, and alarm bells began going off. But the great reviews had me convinced, and despite my better judgement, I followed the recipe, deciding to give it a go.
‘It might be one of the best curries we’ve ever had.’
It was a huge mistake.
I browned the 1 kg worth of diced chicken along with some diced onion in a heated pot and added curry powder, chicken stock, tinned tomatoes and coconut milk to simmer. I put the lid on and let it simmer for about 20 minutes altogether. Then, I started to notice that something… something was very wrong. I took the lid off to stir the curry and caught a whiff of something unpleasant. I didn’t know what it was, but it seemed like the smell was coming from the pot.
It can’t be…
Then, I took a sniff of the curry.
It made me feel sick.
It smelt of vomit.
I had to make sure the flavour was ok and tried a teaspoon of the sauce.
It tasted exactly how it smelt.
It literally smelt and tasted of sick.
I wasn’t sure if it was just me, so I asked my daughter to try some. I didn’t say anything about what it tasted like, of course, as I wanted her real opinion. She put the sauce in her mouth, paused for a second and frowned.
‘Mum….. sorry to say this, but it tastes like…… sick?’
I wasn’t the only one then.
It was very acidic – so much to the point it burnt our throats – so we were trying to come up with an idea to take the acidity away somehow. I checked the recipe again and noticed I had forgotten to add two tablespoons of sugar. Sugar will take the acidity away, won’t it?
I added sugar in the pot and gave it a good stir. I didn’t think it would change the flavour dramatically, but I was hoping it would make the curry actually edible. I put the lid back on and let it simmer for a further 10 minutes.
I wanted my husband to try it this time round and gave him a teaspoon of the sauce.
The verdict?
‘Yeah, you are right. It does taste like sick.’
We burst into laughter, but at the same time, I felt I had been insulted. I was the one who made it. How did I manage to create something so disgusting when I’ve been cooking for all these years? Although I’ve had some cooking hiccups in the past, they’ve never been to the point of inedibility. That was the worst thing I had ever cooked, and I was devastated about wasting not only my time, but a whole pot of food. I wish I had never found that recipe. I really do. I should’ve known better. What was I thinking?!
I can almost taste it at the back of my throat just writing about it now. Yuck.
A lesson learnt from this experience though,
Follow your instincts!
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