Day 83: winding down

I have officially concluded that taking pictures of red food - at least on my phone anyway (and I believe it has a pretty decent camera) - is probably one of THE most frustrating and painstaking tasks in this cookalong. Correct, food shouldn’t be all about taking a photo: it should be about the cooking and eating of it. And even though every part of this cookalong is about the joy, pleasure and sustenance that food brings, I do still think it’s nice to have a little snap to catalogue and be proud of. I have tried every setting on my phone (including no settings), but as soon as I point the camera at red food an orange hue is applied on the screen. Which, on top of the food already being red, gives the dish a rather over-saturated and over-dramatised blood-red appearance. Professional photographers and photography hobbyists will know where the secret lies to overcoming this unwanted artefact, I’m sure. Perhaps a good place to start would be my choice of bowl: all that extra orange can’t help!

Maybe I speak for myself here, but when I’m taking pictures of food that somebody else has cooked, or if I'm eating out, there seems less pressure to get that perfect snap. When taking a picture of my own food, however, I get quite insecure about it. And therein probably lies the issue! Insecurities! No that much different from a selfie really! And I do say all of this with light humour: it is not a dramatic cry for reassurance.

Anyway, the latest pick to fall victim to this mysterious orange hue on my phone’s camera, and have a total of 86 photos taken of it (which is quite a lot for a simple, pre-dinner snap for Instagram!) was Nigella’s Pollo Alla Cacciatora.

Nigella’s Pollo Alla Cacciatora

In an attempt to continue to hone my kitchen skills, I de-boned and de-skinned chicken thighs myself for this (and also I couldn’t find boneless thigh fillets anywhere this week). I added the bones to my expanding collection of other bones in the freezer (for stock at a later date) and made Chicken Crackling (from Simply Nigella) with the skin. I had hoped to save a few pieces of this salty, crispy skin to crack over the top of the final bowl of Pollo Alla Cacciatora, but lack of will power triumphed.

I used a piece of smoked bacon cut into cubes instead of pancetta, as this is what I had on standby (and, personally, I don’t like the pre-cubed packets of pancetta you can get in UK supermarkets). I went for the option of cannellini beans over rice, but this was perhaps a mistake: you know my views on hard, floury pulses and the ones I had bought were not very nice at all! It kind of ruined the dish for me and I (shamefully) did fussily push them to one side. I know after a slow stew they’ll be more suited to my pallet, so they haven’t been wasted!

Flavour musings

I (rather unnecessarily) got myself into a bit of a two and eight trying to get a photo of it, but the eating of Nigella’s Pollo Alla Cacciatora ensured rapid reversal of said emotional distress! I’ve also had a nightmare of a week at work (ridiculously busy!), so this was the perfect way to wind down: with a warming bowl of tender chicken pieces in a peace-inducing, mellow tomato sauce. And it was enjoyed with a bitter-leaf salad of radicchio, lambs lettuce and frisée tumbled through with Nigella’s intensely creamy garlic and anchovy dressing and toasted walnuts. I also partook in some light mopping of the juices in the bowl with some fresh bread!