Ben's your Uncle. (Gourmet & Speciality Foods in general)

Member Name: Muffin_the_Mule

Product:	Gourmet & Speciality Foods in general
Date:	27/09/01 (203 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Not Chips, Not Pasta

Disadvantages: Burning Potential

I was nineteen years old. My mum was sitting and waiting for the phone to ring.
After turning down an offer of free Double Glazing estimates and being updated on her Aunt's bad leg, she got the call she wanted. The caller advised that our family would be moving.

We weren't in the witness protection program. It was for a far more risky situation. My mum had qualified as a Vicar and had to wait to find out where she'd be placed. Poorly limbed aunt couldn't tell us, and the salesman soon made his excuses, but the man in the know was the man from the National ordination Council. His news meant that I would be living on my own in six weeks time. I had to learn some life skills and I had to learn them fast.

First hurdle was the washing machine, easy - 40 degrees for everything and don't buy anything white. Thanks.

Second hurdle, cleaning. Pah.

Third. I had to learn to cook/bake/avoid E Coli.

This was to be a bit more of a challenge. After getting bored of living for four months on oven chips and burgers, I moved on to making pasta. Pasta bake, spaghetti, lasagne, macaroni cheese, Pasta pasta pasta. Bored of pasta.
It's time to move back home I think.

Ahh but no. I have a new talent.
My current speciality is stir fry's. More specifically for the purposes of this opinion, Uncle Ben's 2 step Fry and stir spicy szechuan (it's not, as I first thought, a small dog.).

It's really not hard to do, you do as the Ronseal man advises, except it's not on a tin, its a jar. A fetching orange jar it is too.

Useful stuff.... Cooking method:

First off, (i'm going to do this in the way I think all recipes need doing) you need the following equipment:

A Pan:

This can be the frying variety, or, that Wok you got for christmas.

Several Utensils to stir with:

Start off with the short handled wooden spoon, but when it sta
rts burning your hand, you can pick up the progressively longer handled spoons, until you find a utensil of suitable length handle that you wished you'd used to begin with.

A Cup:

Following the instructions on the side of the jar for the amount of rice you need, then deciding that that's never enough and double it. Then spend the next 3 days eating rice based meals.

The fancy stuff:

You're meant to use chicken for this particular meal, but I've found that pretty much any meat fry's in a pan and therefore can be used. Admittedly some tastes nicer than others, but I don't like being tied down. Plus, what would you do if chickens went extinct from too many stir fry's?
There'd be an enquiry for sure.

Whichever meat is your choice, slice it into strips. Then go wash your hands because, and they don't say this on the jar, your hands go all slimy from handling the provisions.

Returning from hand washing, and after popping in to see if there's anything good started on television, return post haste to your pan, which has been heating slowly on the hob, and needs lifting off a bit to stop it from burning. Spoon out the top layer of the jar into the pan, and make "ooh aah" noises as it spits and leaves little burny bits on the back of your hand.

Fry, fry and fry, then add the meat. Stir stir stir stir. Brown 250 grams of the former farm occupant. (not black, just brown. If it goes black, it is detrimental to the final overall taste.) Then add the bottom half of the jar. Fry stir fry stir fry stir.

It is about now where you realise how inspired the name of the product is.

Meanwhile, as if all this frying wasn't enough and you're not under enough dextrous pressure, at the same time, you are boiling the rice nicely. Making sure it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan. If you find it does stick, then don't ask me to do the washing
up.

So to recap:

Heat top section,
Add stripped breast,
Make circular wrist motions,
Add a gloopy sauce from the bottom half,
Finish off with a further 2 minutes of circular wrist motions.


Szechuan is fairly spicy. Unless you don't like spicy food, in which case it'll blow your head off. However, if you're a Vindaloo demon, you'll have had hotter vanilla ice cream. It's as easy as that.
Along with other vegetables, and various oils, it contains onions, and garlic. It is perhaps therefore, not ideal sub first date stomach fodder, assuming you're not the romantic type who cooks the potential future spouse a meal. In such situations, it's ideal because it looks impressive, tastes impressive, and you'll both stink, so you can be cosy and private at the back of the cinema with no danger of annoying interuptions from others. They'll all be at the front, begging the staff to open the fire doors.

As I've said, it's not a hard meal to cook, and if you don't like it, I can always make you Chips.

Summary: