Friday, November 25, 2011

All done up like a dog's dinner - but is it good enough for Molly Roux Jr?

'I had a lovely dream,' said Tom, unusually seraphic for that time of the morning 'it was a cooking dream.  I was cooking.'
Sounds like a good dream to me too.
'Really well, much better than I ever cook in real life.'
'Were you cooking for Michel Roux jr?'
'I was, I was cooking with him!'
'What did you make?'
'I can't remember, but I was wearing a mask of Monica Galetti.  It was only a joke, I took it off and everyone laughed.'

Molly, who watches Masterchef Pro with us, was distressed to learn that according to cheffy wisdom, it is really impossible to achieve truly effective, beautiful presentation with food served in a bowl, since, being a dog, that's what she gets to eat out of.  She is undoubtedly being short-changed.  So we decided  to remedy this, and that evening plated her dinner up (for that is the term one uses) on a flat plate.  (Yes, OK, it's a paper one but, easy-going as we are in such matters we didn't really fancy her eating off one of ours):


For Molly's main course, we have prepared a duo of croquettes - Royal Canin's Hypoallergenic and Specific's Food Allergy Management - topped with some doggy puffed rice and a bit of beaten egg out of the fridge scrambled in the microwave.  This is served with rondelles of carrot and fannied up with some shreds of duck leg meat (yes, she really does get to eat this, in small quantities), brought together with an arrosage of jus and surmounted with a raw broccoli floret.

Molly is an internationally renowned dog-food critic and gastronome whose opinion can make or break a chef's reputation, but she scoffed it down quite happily so I guess I'm OK to go on working here.  In fact she is totally incapable of eating off a plate without scooting it all aver the floor so we had to empty it into her melamine bowl anyway, presentation notwithstanding, but she carefully picked the broccoli floret off and ate it first, so I that must mean the thumbs up for that element of the meal. 

~

Ok, its Friday night and the 25th of the month, you want something sensible?

15 comments:

The Crow said...

Oh, but this was great, Lucy! I enjoyed every bit of it. Our long-gone dog loved carrots and broccoli, freferring them raw to cooked, but he absolutely detested green peas. He would carefully lick any jus or gravy from them, then spit them out in a neat arrangement on the floor next to his food dish. Reading about Molly brought back lovely, funny memories of our beloved dog-buddy. So, I thank you, sincerely, for this post.

Zhoen said...

I like bowls, since I am more suspicious of good looking food. I want good smells, good tastes, and by the time I know that, it doesn't matter what it looks like, and like Molly, I'm not a tidy eater.

Catalyst said...

It's good but I would have preferred you tell me about something I could eat!

Rouchswalwe said...

Dare I tell you about how I served Cat his share of the Thanksgiving Trout?!

Sweet Lucy, this is partly why I like you and Tom so much! Molly likes the green stuff, huh? Sehr gut! She is health conscious.

Fire Bird said...

hehehe

Julia said...

Sensible isn't necessary when there is dog food plating to write about. Thank you for sharing the fun! (And by the way, I could have used Molly when I was a kid, my cats would never eat broccoli).

Steve said...

Oh, this gave me a great laugh. Well done.

D. Jean Quarles said...

Too funny! Loved it.

Roderick Robinson said...

Can't keep up. Have admitted defeat.

The Crow said...

PS: Artful arrangement, by the way.

Anonymous said...

So sweet and so funny. Love this.
- alison

Unknown said...

I don't know about Michel Roux but guess that Greg Wallace would have wolfed that plate down quicker than Molly. Incidently I would like you to recommend Molly to replace almost any of the food critics who turn up to pronounce on the work of the poor chefs in Master Chef. I hope that in the process of preparing the dish for Molly you did not declare to the camera your "passion" for canine cuisine" and your relentless ambition to run a brasserie for dogs, above any thing else.

Lucy said...

Thanks all, evidently Mol's Meals (good name for the brasserie we're going to open together) are a crowd-puller. She really does like vegetables very much, especially crunchy ones, though she doesn't really digest them much... nuff said.

Z - I love food in a bowl and will serve just about anything I can in one.

Plutarch - oh but I had to give it 100%, you know, or I might as well just have gone home now, I'm in-it-to win-it, you've got to be passionate...
I love how every time they've completely ballsed up taking the innards out of some poor sea bass or woodpigeon or whatever and left it a bleeding mutilated mess they say they're absolutely or totally 'gutted', which seems unfortunate under the circumstances. But we are completely hooked on the whole hammed-up, portentous nonsense of it, it's our one bit of 'reality' tv indulgence really. And it would certainly do the poor little inarticulate, nerve-shredded souls good to have our Molly eagerly and appreciatively licking their plates clean and asking for more instead of those repulsive food critics poking and abusing them.
She's not too impressed with pin-bones, mind...

Rosie said...

Porridge would eat veggies all day if she could get them. But then she just eats everything, or wears it as perfume if it is too decomposed...

Sheila said...

Love it, love it, love it.