Okily dokily where to start. Right! I shall put today’s dinner recipe up in a separate post methinks.

So. I made the chocolate cake. Used the same recipe as my chocolate fudge cupcakes.  But grease and line 2 7 inch sandwich tins (I actually had to use 8″ and cooked for some less time), preheat your oven to 180. Follow said recipe and divide between 2 tins. Bake for 20-25 minutes until risen and nice and firm to touch. Then cool on a wire tray, make up your icing as per instructions. When cake has been sitting there, staring at you, willing you to eat it, until COOL, then you may spread the icing on. I cut one of the layers in half with a nice sharp knife- more surface for icing, oh yeah 🙂 Ice away as you wish and dig in! It looks like this:

So much cake, so little time.

Yep. That was a success. It tastes even better than it looks.

Next on the agenda- yesterdays dinner.  I believe I promised a seafood goujons recipe. Unfortunately I’m not used to this whole taking photos of everything mullarkey, so I’m a bit photo-short. But here we are- Olive Oil Chips (Fries) and Seafood Goujons

You will need:

For Chips

Potatoes. I use Roosters cos I love. Nice floury ones are best. Scrub em and get em nice and clean. The skins stay on, these are rustic baby.

Salt

Pepper

Paprika (If you’re going to follow this blog, you need a big ol’ jar of paprika. I love it)

A little rosemary if you so feel like it

For Goujons

Some nicely cut up strips of your favourite fish, patted dry on kitchen paper.

Plain Flour – about 1 cup or so. Basically throw some out on a plate.

Salt

Pepper

Paprika

1-2 eggs beaten

Breadcrumbs

Okily dokily. Cut your potatoes into loverly chunks. So that they look like this:

Yum.  Em. This is where the camera went byebyes.

Anyway, then you want to pop them into a nice big bowl of salted water for about half an hour or so, I normally leave it less but see how it goes.. Now preheat your oven to 200 (C) and get a nice big tray and pour a nice drizzle of olive oil onto it. Whack your tray into the oven. Oh but don’t do this too early. About 5 minutes before you dry off your potatoes.

While they are doing their osmosis thing, prepare 3 bowls for breading the fish. Or 3 ziplock bags. Though I prefer the egg in a bowl. 1. Flour, a pinch of salt, some nice black pepper, and a good sprinkle of paprika. 2. Your beaten eggs. 3. Breadcrumbs. Then you take your nice dry strips of fish and pop them into the bags in that order. 1. Flour mix: Make sure each piece is covered and shake off excess flour. Then 2. Into the egg it goes. Coat it nicely and again, shake off the excess. Then 3. Pop into the breadcrumbs! Simple! Then lay out onto a clean tray and pop into the fridge until ready to cook.

Back to the chips. Dry them off thoroughly- important to do this. When they’re all lovely and dry, grab your preheated tray out of the oven and topple your chips onto it. Season with salt, pepper and paprika. I never put rosemary on at this stage. Toss them around in the oil so they won’t stick! Into the oven they go!

Now. How long this takes depends on how thick you’ve cut the chips. My ones took about 30-40 minutes altogether I believe. Toss em round every 10-15 minutes to get them cooking evenly.

About 10 minutes before you’re done you can add a bit of rosemary (oh and/or finely diced garlic) to give it an extra ooomph! If you so choose. I like them on their own to be honest 🙂 You also need to get the fish cooking about now.

Now the fish. Really you have to fry these. Oven cooking makes ’em soggy. You could grill ’em. But you will lose some breadcrumbs if you grill them. So I fried them. They take maybe 4-5 minutes in 200 (c) oil. Don’t overcook the fish. Never overcook the fish. The fish doesn’t like to be overcooked. Please respect the fishes wishes. Oh hey that rhymes. Excellent. I rhyme now 🙂 Ok, Pat any excess oil on on kitchen paper and voilà. Plate along with some garden peas and you have some lovely fish and chips 🙂

Ok. That may be  a little higgledy piggledy. Oh I know. I shall put the fish-related in green and the chips in blue. Hmm. You’ve already read this. So you know.

Em yes. Enjoy my good people, enjoy. Oh excellent. The Godfather Part II is on. Fantastico! I mean- Study time. Really.  Byeeeeee.

Oh before I go, I shall be taking photos for the ladies GAA tomorrow, check back then to see how it went 🙂

K. I’m going now. Goooooing………