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Fresh Meat

When you cook yourself, you know what's going into your food and you also know that it's been made hygienically and that you chose the fresh ingredients yourself. Be a bit of a connoisseur when buying meat, fish and vegetables get to know the smell of fresh food - meat should only smell mildly of meat - if it is strong smelling, sweaty or has a perfume-type smell - don't use it. Meat should also be a slightly brownish colour and if you see bright red meat, it has food colour added to it. (In fact, the more people that are aware that butchers and in particular, supermarkets add red food colour to their pre-packed meat the better, because if enough shoppers reject this meat we might be able to stop this practice. I doubt if butchers or supermarkets would admit that they do this but think about it, if it were real blood it would congeal if left too long and if it were real blood, I would question that they must have added a chemical to it to prevent it from clotting).

Pre-packed raw or cooked food can sometimes give the game away when it is going bad because the plastic cover over the food bubbles up - this is due to gasses being released. Also remember that you can't go by the 'use by' date - I've thrown pre-packed meat and fish away because the packaging bubbled up yet the 'use by' date was days away. In recent years this has happened too often and if this happens to you, you are perfectly within your right to take the food back to the supermarket, complain and ask for your money back - in fact, the more people that do this the better.

If you buy fresh meat from the butchers and fish from the fishmongers you are more likely to get decent produce.

Food preparation

Meat and fish should always be rinsed in clean water and dried. (As a butcher, my father stressed the need for washing meat in salt water as half sides of beef, pork and lamb were dragged off lorries onto the pavement and across the shop floor where it was chopped and hung in the back of the shop. Think about what happens to your meat and fish and who handles it. Don't forget that red food colouring that some butchers and supermarkets put on meat - gently wash it out under cold water.

Cooking Kidneys - (this will turn you off kidneys for a while)

A Malaysian staff nurse years ago complained to me about the strong smell of kidneys from the food cabinet - she then went on

'I hate the way you English cook them. In Malaysia, we soak them overnight in a saucepan of cold water and then in the morning we strain the kidneys and pour in more cold water and let them soak again before straining and then cooking them. They smell because you don't soak them, you just wash them under the tap and that bitter taste is stale urine'.

I was speechless, because it's true. (The kidneys' function is to filter urine). I've never forgotten that and I don't suppose you will either and I can't help but smile when I watch professional chefs on television rinse kidneys under the tap and then cook them. They don't think about the function of kidneys either.
If you soak kidneys as the Malaysian's do, they won't taste bitter and they won't smell.

Crispy Duck

A work colleague told us that somebody puts duck into a pillowcase and ties the hairdryer nozzle into the opening of the pillowcase and switches on the heat. Apparently this dries out the skin of the duck and when it has been roasted, it's lovely and crispy. (I'm not saying that you should try this but if anybody does this as a standard practice - please let me know).