Instructions
I know I’m supposed to be healthy, after all I can’t seem to escape the message these days. It’s everywhere I turn. Apparently the great clock of life is ticking away and this mortal frame will eventually wear out. As such, I’m supposed to indulge in a low-fat, low-carb, low sugar, low-grog lifestyle.
‘Indulge’? Hardly.
Unfortunately for those who are keen to have me better myself, I am an unabashed lover of the kitchen and all its sensory pleasures. Be they creamy, sweet, crunchy or viniferous, I want more. As such, the great moral tug-of-war continues: sloth and gluttony versus activity and restraint. But don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against dieting. I’d be happy to go on a diet. Actually I’d probably go on two diets, there’s never enough food in just one.
Even if I were to mend my ways, where would I start? Well, according to the health food police (or at least a guy I know who is always clad in contoured lycra and bristling with taut, lean muscle) there’s nothing so health-inducing as skinless chicken breast. Packed with protein and light on the lipids, it’s the holy grail to the Devotees of Slim.
OK, I can happily accept that removing the skin from chicken halves the fat content, and almost eliminates its cholesterol value. I can even agree that breast meat is more protein rich than my preferred thigh meat.
But the fact remains, it doesn’t really taste like anything. Think about it. Ever tried crocodile? Tastes like chicken. Armadillo? Chicken. Possum, goanna, hamster or snake? You guessed it. Chicken!! And when I say chicken, I mean that amorphous and indefinable flavour that is skinless chicken breast. It is at once everything and nothing, in a way that would make the ancient Greek philosophers proud.
But then LycraBoy said something that piqued my interest. ‘You’re the chef’, he observed, ‘If anyone was going to find a way to make it taste good, shouldn’t that be you?’
Hmmm…. the fact that he’s right only makes me more put out. I start to wish for his over-stretched bodysuit to split along its sweatshop-sewn seams, until I realise that he’s unlikely to find that embarrassing in the same way I would.
Oh well, skinless chicken breast it is then. And between you and I, stuffed with full-fat goats’ cheese and rum-soaked raisins it’s actually pretty tasty. Don’t tell LycraBoy!
Roulade of chicken, goats cheese and raisins