The Beloved won’t eat fish, shelfish, anything out of the sea, iffy about things on the bone (because they look like they came from animals) and won’t touch offal of any sort.

I understand this; as the cook in the house, it’s limiting – but I get it.

And then she heads off on a hen party, for the glorious Al, and with the excellence of Suzi and Roselle. I feel that I should warn the town, but there doesn’t appear to be a central contact for such. It leaves me, however, with all the options of food that I could want. And other ways to fritter time away. Crossword and pint;  great – also with additional value of SkyGo giving me the cricket in one ear and visual when fun happens. Maybe Moon, finally? It’s Eurovision as well, for all of the soft lark that brings – though really, that’s only fun with other peeps and I appear to have run out of anyone who gives a toss. And the first England friendly since Roy Hodgson took over.

Well, options, then.

Perversely, the thing that has knackered most of my waking days for seven of them now, is what I should “treat” myself to… a hotter curry? Liver? Steak and kidney pudding?

There were so many options: I like the sense of spice beyond reason. But I also like food across the whole gamut – from crisp sandwiches, through a pub’s lasagne and all the way to Michelin starred marvellousness. In the end, I went with hot dogs. Princes’, not some clever variation. A hot dog isn’t a hot dog unless it’s an inherently processed, slightly rubbish thing.

But that allows for a  little leeway. Firstly, with hot dogs, one must have fried onions (which are a bit burnt, regardless of the opinion on that phrase). Cheese, mustard, ketchup and such are all optional but if you don’t have fried onions, you are de facto, a nitwit. Fact.

Spice was the thing for me. So, herewith, is a way to make ketchup EVIL (this is for one lovely tin of 8 hot dogs):

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 4 hot green chillies, or other sense of HOTness. You know best.
•  1 clove garlic
• fresh ginger, about a teaspoon, sliced and diced
• 1 cap fish sauce
• squeeze of lemon juice
• pinch salt
• pinch black pepper
• 3 level tablespoons of good ketchup; your choice.

Chop garlic and chillies and ginger; pan fry lightly in the oil, just until you sneeze, then add fish sauce, salt (be careful on this – fish sauce is salt, essentially) and pepper. Turn heat off and add lemon juice. Mix together in heat of the pan, give a minute and then tip into the ketchup. Leave for 2 hours minimum for all the heat and madness to spread and mungle.

Use in the usual way you might any sort of ketchup.

I went with larger bread because it was better bread – should have been finger rolls really. But it just meant it was two dogs per bun. No major loss!

Until this point in this post, it was all predictive, because I was “cooking” as blogging. I’ve now tried and eaten. One word and some accurate grammar: yum!!! Also, ran out of ketchup.

Tags: Cheese, Chilli, Main Course, Sandwich, spice