I’m a 36 year old man and I can’t cook. It’s pathetic.  I can make cocktails and this, plus the kindness of long suffering friends, girlfriends and wives, has allowed me to go through life without dying of hunger.

But times have changed.  I asked my friend and colleague Toby to help me. He wrote the following cooking guide for the drinks lover – all his words, in his style. 

And it worked. I am now cooking! 

The Two Page Mark Cooking Guide™

The Oven

It’s only got one setting that matters, it’s the one with the fan the makes it get hot. Anything with pigeon spikes is a distraction.

Yes, the top shelf is hotter. No, it doesn’t matter.

• 230 degrees == Nice and hot. Beginning of a roast.
• 180 degrees == General Hot cooking temperature for all of the things
• 130 – 150 == The rest of a roast, general slow cooking. ‘forget about it cooking’

The Hob

You know this one. It’s mostly used for bacon, but many things have a home on the hob.

If you’re reading instructions that say anything other than ‘fry + adjective’ – look here:

• Sweat = annoy the food with heat, like enough to make Alex send you passive aggressive messages, but not enough to take his headphones off. Stir like a Treacle (cocktail).
• Saute = Really annoy food with a lot of heat, but stir like a Negroni until it gets used to it.
• Brown = Make it hurt like it’s nicked your whisky, but not for long. Probably going somewhere else.

The Basics

THE ROAST

King of all things.

General principle the works for everything:

• Put in roasting vessel.
• 230 degrees for 15-30 minutes, until it looks very pissed off.
• 130 – 150 degrees for a hour or so. Just google time vs weight.
• 10 minutes resting out of the oven, or that bloody annoying time your not supposed to attack it.

Alternative for chicken:

• Put in deep-ish vessel on top of a load of veg (onion, garlic carrots, sweet potato, whatevs) and some herbs if you feel like it.
• Add wine / dry vermouth / water to it, just enough to cover the bottom, of the tin.
• Wrap it in tinfoil like a boomerang in a glass. No escape!
• Stick in oven at 180.
• Forget about it. Netflix time.
• Remember it at least 4 Old Fashioneds later, more if it’s a big chicken.
• Mix yourself a drink.
• Remove foil. Burn yourself and swear.
• Extract meat and veg
• FEAST.

FISH

Type one – Oily

See – Mackerel, Bream, Salmon, Trout, Tuna (fresh)

Cooking instructions:

• Mostly frying or sticking in the oven at a fairly high heat (it’s up to you if you do the tin foil boomerang cover, depending if you want ‘crispy’, but there is a risk of dry fish).
• A note on prawns – these little dudes basically need to get hot all the way through. Add them to everything. Wine, garlic. Yum. Shells on = more flavour, more mess.

Type two – Not oily

See – Cod, Haddock, all that lot. These are overpriced, go for pollack / coley / whiting.

Cooking instructions:

• Slower cooking, usually with liquid (wine, or milk / coconut milk). ^ These generally hold together quite well and aren’t much drama. Good for curries.

Actual things to cook:

LAMB:

• The roast ^ instructions are above.
  • Shoulder or leg are the best cuts, because they’re fatty
  • Add garlic, thyme, anchovies (just make a stabby hole with a knife and stuff them in). Olive oil the surface.
  • You can also do the boomerang cover trick.
• Lamb in sauce
  • Neck, shoulder, random bits
  • Slow cook.
• Frying lamb – need expensive cuts like chops, apart from that, crack on.

Chicken

• Roasting instructions above
  • Non covered roast is best with oil on the skin.
• Flavours:
  • Stuff with lemon, or garlic, thyme
  • Salt, pepper, or paprika / chilli on the skin.

Curries

Hmm. More involved. The key is finding a good recipe book. Most curries follow this pattern:

• Chop lots of stuff
• Grind some spices
• Make a paste
• Gently fry the paste (this cooks the onions, they’re ever present)
• Add liquid
• Cook until done.

Shortcuts:

• Coconut milk is your best friend in the world. Always have some in stock
• Thai Taste do good pastes (supermarket). That is literally 10 minutes – Paste plus heat (bit of oil) then meat / veg… mix Negroni… add coconut milk. Drink Negroni. Poke occasionally.

Good Recipe People (google stuff)

• Nigel Slater (everything) – great writer
• Yottam Ottolenghi (some odd ingredients, but genius veggie stuff)
• ‘Moro’ cookbook (Sam & Sam Clark)
• Rick Stein – bit finicky
• Jamie Oliver – his best is Jamie’s Italy IMHO
• Hugh Fearlessly Eats it all – if you need to know about meet.