This week, Lolz bumped into Masterchef presenter Gregg Wallace on the tube. I say "bumped in to" - apparently he got into her carriage, she smiled at him awkwardly and proceeded to Tweet about it. It's not unusual to celeb spot in London - I once bumped into The Hoff in Brent Cross shopping centre* but what is was surprising is that Gregg retweeted her. Rather than be concerned about the fact that he ends up dating most women who tweet him I decided that this was a sure sign that BBC bigwigs and experts in the culinary industry have spotted my cooking/blogging talent and I would shortly be securing some celebrity endorsements and, possibly, my own TV show.
And so, confident in the knowledge that I am in touching distance of stardom, and hoping that Lolz wasn't too scarred (mentally, at least) by our last attempt at cooking prawns, I set to work on meal 46. I had been looking forward to this one because a) it looks really simple - it's grilled prawns and mash with some fried veg - but exciting and colourful and b) I knew I could get some really good, fat, juicy prawns from the fishmonger. He did indeed fix me up with a carrier bag full of prawns for under £4 and I easily found all the other required ingredients.
The first job is to cook the potatoes and once again the recipe tells you to slice the potatoes in order to speed up cooking time. Partly because I remembered what happened the last time I did this (soggy mash), and partly because the slicing attachment on my food processor was somewhat broken, I ignored the instructions and instead chopped them into one inch-ish cubes. I got the prawns and veg on and liberally coated them in cajun seasoning and paprika respectively - I was expecting some powerful flavours here...
The potatoes did take slightly longer than anticipated but I was very close to 15 minutes on this one. It's a dish which, if you were to present to a group of friends, you know they would be impressed. Taste wise it doesn't let you down either. The prawns are zingy and delicious. The trouble is, although they look big, once you've got through the shell there's not really that much meat to them, and four per person, for me, is not really enough for a meal's worth of protein. I think it's crying out for an extra bit of fish to go with it. The sweet potato mash is nice (although the rather stingy addition of cheddar does not make a difference) and goes well with the veg although Lolz objected to the celery and green pepper.
Lolz gave the meal 8/10. Difficulty rating 1/10.
*went to his book signing
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