I'm a great believer in simplicity in the kitchen, or the home kitchen at any rate. For a domestic cook it's clearly easier to get something quite basic right than to master some 13 stage three days of preparation grind your own hand-picked spices splendour. Though I love cooking I don't necessarily want to spend my whole day in the kitchen. I also think that in cookery as with children mixing paint and anyone unskilled mixing cocktails if you have too many ingredients you end up with brown.
The colour of my breakfast this morning was indeed brown, or at least grey-brown, but the flavour was wonderful. Four quite large mushrooms sliced, fried gently in a little butter till the juices ran, a tsp of plain flour stirred into the juices and cooked for a minute or two, then a bare sherry glass of milk stirred in and cooked until there was a shiny sauce that spooned onto toast was thick enough not to soak into it. Salt, pepper, eat. As with a previous post about a boiled egg I took huge pleasure in getting something as good as it can be, a very rare moment.
An aside: why does that sauce, made with flour, need only a brief simmer to lose the floury flavour?
As my son gets nearer to university age I'm thinking more and more about the sort of economic and simple dishes students should be able to cook. I think he will be able. Those creamed mushrooms, with more toast to fill the bottomless stomach of youth, would suffice for the day's lighter meal. And it would cost well under £1. Substitute two baked potatoes (one of the few things I cook in the microwave - quicker, cheaper, and no loss of flavour) for the toast and it's a substantial main course, still with intelligent shopping less than £1. How many students have the resources to do that, though, compared to the number living off supermarket pizza?
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