First broccoli cheese soup of the new year. I’ve made a pot almost every week since the pandemic started. Maximum comfort food.

This is how cheese differs around the world 🌎

Mini Hungarian language lesson: the secret dish.

"What's a dish universally known and eaten in your country but virtually unheard of outside it?" is a question that makes the rounds on Twitter every few months but I can't be bothered waiting for the next one.

It's "főzelék".

The word itself looks as simple as the dish: "főz" is "to cook" and "-elék" is a suffix roughly meaning "the result of", so "the result of cooking".

Thanks for nothing.

The official definition is "any kind of boiled or parboiled vegetable"; closer, but still a load of bollocks.

So here's mine: "főzelék is made of vegetables and it has a thick sauce".

What kind of vegetables?

Practically any: potato, cabbage, bean, pea, chickpea, spinach, squash, carrot, but usually only one veg at a time.

There is a mixed abomination called "finomfőzelék" but we don't talk about it.

Most of us have been scarred for life by school dinners featuring the pallid little harbingers of death suspended in a beige gel of doom.

In all honesty though, főzelék in general doesn't look very appetising: it has its roots in that old peasant staple of gruel and it has a serious image problem as a result.

Which is why, even in Hungary, you won't see many on restaurant menus, except in specialist outlets.

Okay, last night’s gnocchi recipe in one single Instant pot:
You’re gonna need gnocchi. I happened to have some that I rolled a while back, hanging out in the freezer. It’s cold mashed potatoes, flour, egg. Simple. But also, store bought is FINE!

Boil them JUST until they float. That’s, like, long enough to get out the rest of what you’ll need.

When the little potato dumplins float, scoop then out gently with a wire strainer like this one, and place them in a colander you’ve sprayed with cooking spray. They are sticky.

Pour out the gnocchi water except dor about the last cup and a half, the really cloudy bit. Set it aside. I use a yeti tumbler so it stays hot. You’ll need it later.

Don’t mistake ‘tater water for a hot beverage, though.

Get your instant pot back on the low-low setting, and put in a goodly-but-not-scary amount of butter. In this case, a teaspoon. Then another teaspoon of duck fat. (Or just a bigger scoop of butter if you don’t have duck fat).

The duck fat I used is from Fatworks:

To that, add a cup of whole milk, or if you’re me, a cup of 2%, and a hearty splash of half and half otherwise intended for your coffee creamer.

Now comes the thawed drained spinach. You want to press out all the green-brown water, and plop that whole block in:

I’m getting individual permission from everyone sending me pics of their food boxes in my DMs to repost them here but without identifying information because I try to be responsible with this large platform and there are ~children~ involved here.

Disclaimer done, now get angry.

Bexleyheath.

Kent.

No location given for this one, but the contractor is Harrison in this case, not Chartwells.

2 slices of ham, three slices of cheese, one pear, one apple, two bags of crisps. For one child, for a WEEK. Are they meant to only eat on Tuesdays and Thursdays or something?!!! Also pictured, the Govt legislation on Free School Meals for comparison.