Devilishly Delicious Oriental Chicken Casserole

This entry in the book was contributed by the absolute LEGEND that is Bobby Liebling from the mighty fuckin' PENTAGRAM!
I don't care if you don't take anything away from this entry food-wise, but please check out Pentagram, doom pioneers and still going strong!

So, this is probably VERY different to anything I've ever cooked in the past. The only reason I chose it is because I was cooking for my family, and they're all fussy as fuck, and this was the only thing they could all agree on. It's a dish made using both rice and noodles, two things I usually cannot STAND, because they just seem like fatty lumps of tastelessness designed solely to provide cheap sustenance with no real nutritional value or taste.

However, I'm willing to give anything a shot. Here are the ingredients you'll need for this bizarre carbohydrate-packed meal:

You're looking at around 500g of chicken breast, and that white bowl is actually filled with crushed up cornflakes (yeah I know, what the fuck Bobby, right?).

The first step I took was to get out my casserole dish, and smear the entire inside of it with full-fat butter. Once that's done, you can start cooking your various ingredients one-by-one.

First up is the chicken. Arrange all 500g worth on a baking tray, and stick it a pre-heated oven at around gas mark 5. It should take around 20-25 minutes to cook through.

While that's going, slice up your red onion into rings, or you can take it further and dice them, but due to the severe weeping involved with chopping onions, I try to take as little time with them as possible. Fire up your frying pan, and fry the shit out of the onions til they're nice and oily/burnt, then remove them and leave them aside for now.

Boil up a pot of water, and dump in your entire bag of rice. If you're like me, you'll probably only use around half of it, but what the fuck, it costs nothing, just use it all. Once your rice has been boiling for around 10 minutes, quickly remove and strain it, and put that aside too.

Refill your pot with water, re-boil, then dump in your noodles for about 4 minutes. Once the onion, rice and noodles are taken care of, your chicken should be about good to go.

Remove the chicken breasts from the oven, and leave them to cool for a minute or two. Here comes the fun part: tearing apart the flesh of an animal with your bare hands!

Grab the chicken and start ripping it up frantically, so that no strip is the same size. Tear at it like you're filled with murderous rage, like it's the face of everyone who's ever wronged you. Who says cooking isn't therapeutic?

Once your chicken lies in a ravaged heap, flesh clinging to your hands, bring over your casserole dish, and start to add in everything you've prepared so far.

Add it all in stages, so you're getting a good ratio of rice:noodle:chicken:onion. As you do this, splash in some cream of mushroom soup, this might seem fucking weird and gross, but it's pretty necessary to ensure that this doesn't just become a dry, tasteless mess. Once it's all in the casserole, give it a good mix around, preferably using your hands. Close your eyes and feel all those disgusting textures swirl between your fingers. Yeah, I'm a fucking creepy weirdo, what's the problem?

Sprinkle your cornflakes, and any sort of condiments you desire on top of this whole mess. I went for soy sauce, to follow the recipe as close as possible, but maybe go for something with a bit more flavour?

Pop the lid on your dish, and stick this in the oven at (my favourite!) gas mark 5. Give it maybe.... 40 minutes, 50 at a push. Remove the lid 15 minutes before the end so the top layer crisps up nicely, gives it a bit of BITE!

I made enough to serve 4 people if they're REALLY hungry, but this could easily stretch to serve 6 when combined with a starter. I wasn't expecting it to be as tastey as it turned out, I think the mushroom soup and chicken strips helped to liven up the boring-ass rice/noodles combo. I probably wouldn't make this again though, it took me waaaay too long, for very little taste payoff.

Mummified Chilli Bacon Bombs

A couple of weeks ago I was aimlessly wandering around Waterstones, drooling over their cookery section, when I caught sight of what I can only refer to as some sort of bible. I audibly gasped, and through the haze of excitement I discerned the name of this mighty tome: 'Hellbent For Cooking: The Heavy Metal Cookbook'.

I knew I had to possess this gastronomic grimoire no matter what, so with shaking hands and sweating palms, I handed over the book to the cashier, and prayed to the man downstairs that I'd have enough coins in my pocket to purchase this thing of beauty. I got financially lucky, for once, and came home with the book in my clammy grasp, aching to try out every recipe immediately. Somehow it's taken me until now to actually get around to it.

This will be the first of two posts, as I cooked two recipes in one evening, in an attempt to make up for lost time, and I decided to go for recipes by two bands I really fucking love.
The starters were inspired by AUTOPSY mainman Chris Reifert's contribution to the book.

Due to my inability to find a decent deli in the whole of central Glasgow (even venturing into the shitty affluent hipster/student areas yielded no luck!), the ingredients have changed a fair bit from his original concept. Here is what I managed to find in the shitty supermarkets:

In the original recipe it was jalapenos instead of regular chilli peppers, and Monterey Jack cheese instead of haloumi, but hey, those are some pretty good substitutes.

First things first, buy that album, because you're going to need it as your soundtrack for cooking this stuff.
Secondly, you want to remove the stalks, and the seeds from those chillies, because even I can't handly that much spiceyness. Slit your chillies length-ways, and just scrape out the insides with a spoon/knife. Set those aside for a moment, and open up your haloumi.
For anyone who hasn't tried this cheese before, be prepared for it to taste NOTHING like cheese. It has a texture more akin to chicken, except it's entirely dairy. It's this texture which makes it fucking EXCELLENT on a BBQ, or just to grill in general.
So slice and dice the whole block into a size that you think would fit well within your chillies/jalapenos, and arrange it on a baking tray, and pop it under your grill for... lets say 10 minutes, why not.

Once you have your grilled haloumi nice and golden brown, stuff it into the corpses of the chillies. For embalming fluid, I chose to use spreadable 'smoked' cheese. Take a butter knife and just wedge as much of the cream cheese into every available gap not filled by the haloumi, until it's seeping out of the cavity in your chillies.

Next you want to bring in the bacon. I went for streaky (FINALLY FOUND SOME!), but any kind is good I guess. Cut it into nice manageable strips, and twist it around your entire pepper/cheese things, making sure it completely envelopes them so no innards are spilled. Impale these with toothpicks to hold it all together, arrange them on a foil-covered baking tray, and stick them in your oven at gas mark 5.

In around 20 minutes they should have cooked through, and started to even crisp up the bacon a little. Unfortunately I didn't have time to wait around for that to happen as I was cooking for mi familia, and they have no love for crispy bacon. Serve on a bed of lettuce with bbq dressing. I didn't, because I forgot to buy any, but hey, you live and learn, right?