Blood & Guts Potatoes...Cheater's Style

After watching an afternoon episode of Nigella Feasts, I decided to wing it & give one of her recipes a shot. She disgusts me, but I love her cooking. My sister & I love bitching about her as much as we love drooling on the fare she displays on her table.

So, one of the dishes she was demonstrating to us that day was called Blood & Guts Potatoes. It's literally just baked potatoes with mozzerella & ketchup. What you do is first boil the potatoes, then halve them. Scoop out all the flesh inside those halves & put them in a bowl. Cut chunks of fresh mozzerella & dollops of ketchup according to taste and mash everything up. After doing so, put everything back into those potato halves & bake. Don't ask me how high the heat or how long the time. I don't know.

But since I hadn't the patience for boiling & baking, I decided to cheat & try it out on my own. After all, we had the ingredients on hand. I sliced the taters into wedges, skins on. Because I didn't have fresh mozzie, I used the normal, yellowed slab we bought from Mustafa. It's in the shape of a huge, fat sausage. Like, those German Sausages you see during Oktoberfest. I forgot what the heck they're called, but yeah, think those.

The difference between the fresh ones is that they're milky white & they're not covered with a gooey layer of rind you would find on cheeses such as say, brie.

In went the chopped up mozzie & a splash of ketchup. Nigella used a metal masher to masticate her blood & guts. I on the other hand, used my hand. It didn't matter because in the end, I was the one who would be consuming it, anywayz.

Heating up a non-stick pan with a generous splash of extra-virgin olive oil, I fried my potatoes instead of using the oven. I waited until they turned slightly golden brown before adding my blood batter.

I didn't recall Nigella using any spices so I took the liberty of adding my own. A liberal shake of ground black pepper but no salt because the oil would flavor the taters. After a second thought, I added a sprinkling of oregano just to see how it tasted. After all, oregano did go well with a tomato base commonly used for pastas & pizzas. The cheese melted not as quickly as I would have liked it, probably because I turned the heat down low as to not char the taters.

The moment of truth awaited me as I sat myself in front of the TV with my plate of Blood & Guts. Samantha Brown was chittering excitedly about the town of Interlaken.

I pitched my fork through a thick layer of gooey tomato mozzie & potato & shoved the stringy mass into my mouth.

Hell-LO!!

Oh. My. God. Total gastronomical love.

The tang of ketchup burst into my mouth as the cheese melted into my tongue. This was combined with the robust oregano and the heat of the black pepper.

And as I lay back against my couch, I clutched my plate possessively thinking, thank God I had no one to share this with.

Laterz...
Lenny