The recipe: p. 88, "Avocados with Prawns 2 Ways"
"There are," Delia says in the introduction to this so-called recipe, "some quite ordinary yet lovely things that end up being overlooked because they are not fashionable." And if you think she's only talking about avocado and prawns, you're a less cynical reader than me.
To date, two themes have emerged from our encounters with Delia's controversial cookbook of cheatery: revivals of old-fashioned recipes, and shortcuts that don't actually save a great deal of time while certainly costing a great deal of money. So I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that this week's random.org selection fits the bill perfectly on both counts.
Never mind revivals, this dish really is more of a throwback to 1970s dinner parties, or perhaps a family meal at a Berni Inn (which I never actually experienced myself - we were more of a Harvester clan). I'm quite happy to let it scratch a lunchtime itch in this futuristic and frankly depressing year we call 2016, though - so let's see what tasty treats and pointless cheats Delia has in store for us this time.
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| And hey - it could always be worse. |
The prep: The first problem with this recipe - and I really don't mean to be such a grouch, but it's amazing how many problems there are with Random Kitchen recipes - lies in the phrase "2 Ways". To my mind, that implies a plate featuring two different types of avocado/prawn concoction. As far as Delia's concerned, however, it means preparing the avocado and prawns either one way or the other.
Well, absolutely fuck that shit. I want to try both variants, so I double the quantities of everything on the ingredient list - that's avocados, limes, lettuce and the cheat de résistance, namely shop-bought prawn cocktail ("we've made it with Tesco Finest but any similar one is fine"). If you're starting to get the impression that this is going to be yet another "just chop and assemble some stuff" kind of recipe, you'd be right...
The recipe also calls for buttered slices of "traditional Irish wheaten loaf", which I choose to interpret as "whatever nice fresh bread I can actually get at the Lewisham Centre on a Sunday" (some vaguely sourdough-y seeded thing from M&S that turns out to be really, really good).
The making: "Making", hahahaha. Well, okay, there is some work involved. First, I have to empty the prawn cocktail into a bowl and add seasoning, a good pinch of cayenne pepper, some lime juice and some tomato ketchup (specifically organic, because it's important that tomatoes are raised in an environment where they can roam freely). Two points here: firstly, that's clearly going to make the whole thing far too liquidy for its intended purpose; and secondly, if you're going to make me add several ingredients to it anyway, why not just get me to make the prawn cocktail from scratch? IT'S NOT HARD.
Anyway, prawns duly sauced up, the first of the "2 Ways" turns out to be simply piling the mixture "into the halved avocado". The idea seems to be to scoop it into the hollow left by removing the stone, but that actually isn't a great deal of space for this quantity of prawn cocktail, so - as predicted - both prawns and sauce end up overflowing and spilling down the sides of the avocado halves. Good start.
The second of the "2 Ways" is slightly more involved. Lettuce is shredded and piled in the bottom of a glass (yes! A glass! How Come Dine With Me is that?). The contents of the second avocado are scooped out and cubed this time, then piled atop the lettuce, before the prawn cocktail mixture is piled on top of that. It's multi-layered-starter-tastic!
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| I mean, seriously |
Both "Ways" are finished with a further sprinkling of cayenne, before being served with lime quarters to squeeze and a couple of slices of the buttered bread. I might have let the diner do the buttering to taste, but Delia's the boss, and in the 1970s (and at Maggie's caff in Lewisham in 2016, for that matter) tea comes with milk and bread comes already buttered.
And there we have it. Messy prawn cocktail in not one but two difficult-to-eat-while-not-actually-that-visually-impressive forms. Hurrah!
The eating: Let's get one thing out of the way - this is really nice. Of course it is! It's avocados, prawn cocktail and gnarly bread, three of life's better foodstuffs.
IT'S JUST SO POINTLESS.
Seriously though. Take shop-bought prawn cocktail - which isn't exactly cheap - and turn it into a sloppy mess that leads to presentation hiccups like the above, then serve it in arcane ways, only one of which we're apparently allowed to enjoy at the same time anyway? That isn't "cheating" at cooking, it's corrupting the meaning of cooking while simultaneously introducing random handicaps for no apparent reason.
And yet, and yet... this is so close to making sense. The glass-based variant, while kind of ludicrous, is actually a fairly easy way of making a cute-looking (if retro) starter or lunch, and even the other approach would work fine if you scooped out the avocado then reassembled its contents, diced, with the avocado shell as a receptacle and a layer of prawn cocktail on top. Still very 70s and all - just not, you know, immediately glooping its way down the sides because that's how gravity and viscosity work, Delia.
Would revisit, v. nice lunch, and yet somehow still: gaaaah.
One-word verdict: Tortuous.
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