Delia's Thai chicken with lime and coconut

Judging by the interested shoppers gathered around the end cap in Waitrose where all the ingredients could handily be found, a good number of households sampled Delia Smith's Thai Chicken over the weekend.

Heavily promoted on TV, the ingredients were well discounted so the recipe  costs just £2.30 per serving.

Thai cooking is regarded with great suspicion by J who is a traditional meat and two veg man. So I didn't tell him what I was preparing and served it up as a fait accompli. He actually liked it! Although he is heavily prejudiced by the words "Delia Smith" and "Waitrose". I have found that Nigella simply doesn't have the same effect.

My observations from cooking the recipe are:

• The juice of two limes is quite plentiful, and if anything the recipe was a little "wet," so I would only use the juice of one next time
• The coconut flavour was more elusive than the lime flavour. J said he couldn't taste coconut at all. I was expecting the sauce to be a bit thicker.
• Delia's method for cooking rice was flawless and worked perfectly. Measure out 150ml rice in a measuring jug (for two), pour into a small frying pan with a lid and add 300ml boiling water and a pinch of salt. Stir once, then put the lid on and barely simmer for 10 minutes. The liquid had been absorbed by then and so I placed a teatowel over the top (having taken it off the heat!) to keep the rice warm. If the liquid hasn't disappeared, Delia advises increasing the heat for a minute.

This campaign is great marketing from Waitrose. The recipe is pretty fool proof but looks impressive, and the average Waitrose shopper likes to cook from scratch when he / she has enough time. The fact that the chicken is reduced in price to £2.89 from £4.33 is a pleasant surprise because Waitrose has only recently started competing in price against the other supermarkets. Its profits were buoyant last year and put down to the successful Essentials range.

93/365: Delia's roast chicken with grapes, Riesling and tarragon

I'm not a very adventurous cook, mainly because J is a traditional meat and two veg man. In the past when I have made boeuf bourguignon or coq au vin, he has sniffed at it suspiciously and groaned "not stew".

But he seemed very impressed by the Waitrose ad where Delia Smith makes roast chicken with grapes, Riesling and tarragon. Find the recipe here. Yesterday I told him I'd bought all the ingredients, and somewhat touchingly he said "Did you go to Waitrose then?" I don't think they have a monopoly on chickens, Riesling or tarragon.

So today the dish was served. I have to say, Delia is right about roasting a chicken quickly, although the smoke was tedious and the mess in the oven is a sight to behold.

But the grapes didn't seem to add anything, although the sauce was creamy and rich enough.

I had to admit that really my ordinary old roast chicken is just as good.

The Waitrose ads are a master stroke though. Last year Waitrose, thanks to its Essentials range, became the fastest growing grocer in the UK which is good going in these recessionary times. I think they could have saved money by losing Heston Blumenthal. To me, he epitomises Emperor's New Clothes. I've been to the Fat Duck twice and had the tasting menu, and the first time it's all "mmm, smokey bacon ice-cream, interesting!" but the second time you start to yearn for some top quality produce cooked simply. But, somewhere along the line, the pretentious few have lauded Heston and El Bulli for their use of canned nitrogen and E numbers. Give me Delia over foul mouthed Ramsay and dull Heston any day.

Which TV chef are you?

I was planning a blog post in my head last night about TV chefs, and then today came the sad news that eccentric TV chef Keith Floyd has died at 65.

He was a classic example of a celebrity chef who polarised opinion. You either loved him or hated him. I never bought any of his books, but he was very watchable.

TV chefs come under three categories: firstly, watchable and entertaining but not "proper chefs" (Nigella, Floyd, Worral-Thompson, Ainsley, James Martin etc). Then there are those who are proper chefs, but not always very entertaining - Heston Blumenthal. And then the very rare hybrid, both entertaining and a seriously good chef (Marco Pierre-White.)

I love watching cookery shows and J finds it strange that with all the knowledge I must surely have acquired, I can still turn out tough roast beef on Sundays. It's the meat, I try to tell him.

I adore Nigella Lawson and I do have most of her books, although I haven't tried many of the recipes. I just like looking at the pictures. I think we all wish we could be Nigella: rich, famous, elegant.

I've never understood the appeal of Jamie Oliver. He seems too young and inexperienced to me to be held up as a food expert. I remember him throwing stuff into a pan and that characterises his approach to me. I can't take it seriously.

It's the same with Gordon Ramsay. I'm afraid I never got over the fact he was a footballer. I used to like his Kitchen Nightmares programmes - the first time - but he's too shouty and profane for me.

James Martin is a tubby twit without a neck who specialises in spun sugar baskets (yawn). Delia Smith is the one who's taught most of us how to cook. I don't enjoy her shows very much but her books are indispensable in terms of know-how. I also have an old Marguerite Patten book - she's now over 90 and used to advise housewives on how to cook in the war years.

I admire Marco Pierre White very much but I wonder about his taste buds. He uses a lot of ketchup and Knorr cubes, both containing vast amounts of salt. I always want to shout at the TV when chefs criticise food for not having enough salt. They should be weaning us off it and using herbs instead.

Heston Blumenthal doesn't do it for me, either personality or food wise. I've been to his Fat Duck restaurant on a couple of occasions. The first time it's a thrilling experience. The second time, oh not smoky bacon ice-cream again.

I would like to see Michel Roux Jnr given his own show. I could imagine that with his high degree of expertise and his stern, no nonsense approach, we could learn quite a lot, although it wouldn't be as entertaining as when Floyd was cooking and pouring himself generous measures of wine.

It's Thick and Yellow

I have spent the last 10 years on a gastronomic quest. No, this is not my tireless campaign to visit the best restaurants in London, although that's ongoing. My quest has been to find the perfect blend of the thick yellow stuff. Piccalilli. 

You may think piccalilli is downmarket. I began to suspect the same after Nana Royle asked for a cheese and piccalilli sandwich in the Royle Family. But I can't help it. I'm like Nigella with her pickles obsession. I adore piccalilli, and particularly in a cheese sandwich. 

The problem is, Epicure, my favourite purveyors of the pickle,  stopped making piccalilli about 10 years ago or longer, I've been trying to find one that ticks all the boxes and I've failed miserably. 

It's not through want of trying. I've tried all the mainstream ones from supermarkets: own brands, including M&S (one of the worst), Garners, Haywards, Heinz (yuk!), Bartons. I've also experimented with specialist pickles bought at farmer's markets and delis. Until now, my piccalilli of choice was from Fortnum & Mason, but it was nowhere near the towering achievement that was Epicure's historic brand.

Now though, I have a new number one. In Tavistock recently I went into Creber's, one of those delightful old-fashioned deli / grocer's that sells everything by Epicure (except, ironically, the piccalilli).  Anyway, I scoured the pickle shelves and decided to try a jar of piccalilli which was marked "gold medal winner." It is a piccalilli to die for: not too dayglo a yellow, not too acid or bitter, and not too sweet. It has the perfect balance of silverskin onions and cauliflower. It hasn't got preservatives or anything nasty (once open, you have to keep it in the fridge). And the best news is, you can buy it online direct from the makers in Wiltshire. The company is called Tracklements and Delia mentions their chilli jam in her new book. They also have many other products including chutneys, pickles, ketchups, jellies and, oh bliss, hampers!

Update:  news just in - November 2020:

Epicure Piccalilli is back.  I've been contacted by the new owners, who have quite an extensive range at their website. I'll be giving my verdict on my current blog, Is This Mutton, on Nov 13 2020.

Thank heavens for Delia

It's five years since Delia Smith had a TV show or new cookery book out. Now she's back with her "How to Cheat at Cooking" and apparently the chattering classes are in a furore. Not only has she included tips on using pre-made items like M&S casserole mixes (the horror!) but on Radio 4 she said she wasn't part of the organic lobby and believed that cheap chicken provides a good source of protein for poor families.

Hear hear!

It's all very well for Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall to get tearful over chickens, and I do agree that the chattering classes (myself included) should spend more on free-range organic birds. But only if you can afford it. The problem with free-range organic birds is that they are tiny. I often spend around £10 at Sainsburys on a bird which scarcely feeds three for lunch, let alone provide anything for meals afterwards. So I'm not surprised that people still buy the battery chickens. OK, they're fattened up with water and we know what terrible lives they lead, but people on very low incomes still need to eat.

It's a misnomer that it costs a lot to eat well. If you ate a lot of pulses and vegetables you could eat fairly cheaply and nutritiously. But most people haven't got a clue, and the TV chefs are partly to blame. When did a TV chef consciously give us cheap, nourishing and healthy meals to make? They're either exhorting us to cook above our skill level (tuille baskets / spun sugar / reductions) or they're using upmarket ingredients like venison, wild boar and so on. Fine for the chattering classes and their bijoux dinner parties, but not so good for Kerry Katona and her gang who stuff themselves with pre-packaged E numbers from Iceland.

At least Delia Smith is recognising this and encouraging busy people to cook from scratch while cutting a few corners. Hurrah for her. I wish her recipes were a little healthier, but maybe that's step two.

Nigella of course had her "Express" book and show which sold much the same premise, but Nigella's short cuts are all about buying niceties from the Italian deli. A lot of her shortcuts can be bought at the gourmet aisle in Sainsburys and some can't (Italian deli). Delia's short cuts seem to be mainly from Marks & Spencer but at least the store is accessible (if maybe over priced for many).