Hello. Time for another installment of Gourmet Wednesday from this savoury cursor. (Gordon the tv chef is the suavery curser.) When trying to knock the stuffing out of a week that seems never-ending, I – The Wednesday Gourmet – find that cooking a special meal later on a Wednesday evening for yourself and your special one, does the trick. Ease off the throttle, step out of the rat race, cool one’s jets awhile. A mixed drink or a glass of wine occasionally feature. Pretending to be your favourite celebrity chef (this time I’m Keith Floyd) makes the whole thing more fun, which takes the pressure off, so to speak; the less serious you take yourself when you’re cooking, the easier it is. You are allowed to fail the fish-pie exam, you can make a horse’s collar of the collar of beef, or, difficult as it may seem, a mess of the mash (too milky or too lumpy).

For any Gourmet Wednesday meal you will need:

• To send the kids / teenagers / live-in relative to the comfortably renovated attic / shed / or, if its a warm summer’s night, and you have one, the greenhouse; one can only imagine the Saki-like hilarity that would ensue if they all ended up in the same place
• possession of the undisturbed, peaceful kitchen to yourselves
• to prep (make a serious mess),
• cook (burn and / or undercook)
• eat (just about stomach) a lovely meal, together, more similar to the people you were when you first met than opportunity now affords
• decide whether and if so what to drink and how often: before and/or during and/or after, dining

And how apt to begin this evening’s episode with a really tasty meal which I had tried previously with limited success, that on, this, second attempt, made an even worse job of; haddock goujons with roasted new potatoes, side of broccoli. On paper, its a yum winner.

The previous attempt was taken from a book but this one is a tad different in that the batter is of the simplest tempura, rather than the, sometimes-too-much, breaded kind. You’ll find recipes for tempura all over the net, but I went the easy-peasy route: sparkling water, ice, plain flour, corn flour – mix. Before you do this, though, slice the haddock – 1 large fillet / 2 small ones should do you both – into bite-sized pieces. Before you do THIS, though, heat the oil. And before you even do THAT, heat a tablespoon of sunflower oil in an oven-proof dish and when suitably hot, chuck in your sliced new potatoes to roast for about 20 minutes. If you prefer to do things in the correct order, unlike me, follow these complicated instructions:

1. Set oven to 180
2. Put 2 tablespoons of sunflower oil in an oven-proof dish in that oven
3. After 10mins add the new potatoes to that oven-proof dish
4. Heat about 500 ml of sunflower oil in a wok / saucepan
5. Chop the fish into 1-inch bites
6. Make the tempura so its cold when the fish goes in
7. Boil or steam the broccoli for 6 minutes only so they’re not bleh
8. Deep fry your goujons – don’t crowd them – at high heat for 3 mins each
9. Release the roast potatoes from their oven
10. Eat, drink and be merry

Or, in my case, fume at the duff result; the oil for the fish wasn’t hot enough so the tempura was in too long and came out WAY too crunchy (another word for it would be ‘burnt’); the beautiful new potatoes didn’t roast (unless soggy is another word for roast); and I forgot to actually cook the broccoli; luckily, the ginger cooler was delicious.

So there you have it. Not taking yourself seriously can sometimes shank your carefully-planned and terribly executed weekly dinner date. Whatta ya gonna do? Correct! Pay more attention next time. We ate what I’d cooked but it was Wednesday Gourmet’s darkest hour; a Wednesday Dismet, if you will.