Adventurous cooking on a cold night

'Adventurous' only in the sense that I wasn't indoors! 

I had a nice steak to cook, and, in the month or so since the electric grill on my kitchen cooker had failed, various experiments had convinced me that this steak deserved to be scorched rapidly in a proper grill, and not cooked by other means. 

I'd tried frying steaks, but although the pinkness within was preserved, the appearance wasn't the same as properly-grilled meat. I knew it wouldn't work, but I tried roasting a steak in the oven. But it merely produced roast beef, as the meat was evenly well-cooked throughout. Perfectly fine if you liked a unexciting well-done steak. But otherwise a travesty. I wanted my steak to be juicy, and both look and taste as if intense, nearby, searing heat had been directed onto it.

So it would have to be the gas grill out in the caravan. And that meant setting the caravan up beforehand. It would have to come out of its winter break six weeks early!

So I plugged it into the household mains - as it was going to be a chilly evening, I wanted warmth from the electric heater - and turned the tap on the propane gas cylinder so that I could use the cooker. It was nice to see the interior lit up with the lamps I use:

Believe me, when away on holiday, with all the stuff I take, the interior is a lot more cluttered! In particular the worktop over the fridge (bottom left of the picture above) isn't available, or only a very little of it. But I'd be able to use it all for my semi-outdoor cookery. As you can also see, my neighbours would be able to see me doing my stuff, and eating the result. I could pull down some blinds, but, just as is the case when pitched on a Club site, I like to give passers-by something to gawp at.

'Oooh look, that lady's eating her evening meal right in the front window! With all her lighting on! Nobody else does that. We certainly don't.'

And they don't. Most other caravanners seem to watch TV - and eat - in darkness or in very subdued lighting, and very few put themselves on display at night. But I do, until it gets very dark. And now, at home, I'd do the same, and if any neighbour wanted to chortle at the sight, I'd be happy to let them. As it happened, it soon got too dark for me to see whether my neighbours were staggering about, convulsed with mirth. As I saw it, I could be a welcome diversion, a lockdown attraction, doing my bit to break the endless monotony of Lockdown Life. A one-woman show. For one night only. A Caravan Covid Cookfest.

I tested that the gas was flowing well to the hob and grill. 

Yup. All systems were AOK. Thunderbirds were GO. 

Well, leaving my caravan to warm up, I got my cooking paraphernalia together in the kitchen. The caravan has its own set of pots and pans, but I wanted to use my regular kitchen equipment on this occasion. This was the steak, by the way:

As you can see, a Hereford beef steak from Waitrose, aged for 30 days. I do like this particular kind of Waitrose steak. 

Back at the caravan, things were getting cosy. I thought the lit-up interior looked distinctly warm and inviting from outside. 

Inside all was ready for cooking to commence! So I got things started. I was keeping it straightforward, nothing fancy. On the main course menu was the steak, with new potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes, broccoli, soy sauce and English mustard. For dessert, three mandarin oranges.

I never have such space when on holiday! I was going to devour my meal in the front of the caravan, at the little pull-out table:

As an experiment, I got out my Samsung Galaxy S20+ phone Prudence, and took a couple of shots of the caravan interior with the ultra-wide lens (about 13mm in full-frame terms):

Gosh, what a lot can be shown in a really wide-angle shot! These shots have come out well, but they give a totally misleading impression of spaciousness. No wonder estate agents used to overwork a wide-angle lens on properties they were trying to sell. Believe me, in real life you can't swing a cat in my little holiday home. When I did caravanning with M--- we were constantly dancing around each other, and squeezing by at awkward moments. Intimacy was unavoidable, and apart from the tiny bathroom there was no privacy for dressing, or very personal washing, unless you rigged up a curtain across the middle of the caravan. I definitely wouldn't want to share such a small space again with anyone. Not ever. The caravan is just too small. The wardrobe for clothes certainly is! 

One thing the pictures are truthful about, though, is the very reasonable state of the caravan after so many years of touring. It's now in its fifteenth year, and it still doesn't look shabby or tatty, even if the general decor and styling belong to a past generation. I look after it, and keep it clean and well-serviced. 

The meal was coming along nicely.

It was fun cooking in the caravan! And of course, it amounted to a foretaste or prelude to my first holiday of the year, still more than a month away. In any case, I'd maintain that any cooking away from the kitchen at home is an exciting change. That's why setting up a little stove high up on the South Downs on a frosty morning, to sizzle sausages with, has such appeal, no matter how cold it might be! 

It didn't take long to finish cooking and arrange the food on my plate. I remembered to set the little Leica up, and take a selfie with the self-timer. As you can see, I hadn't dressed for dinner!

The meal was delicious. Mind you, there was all this to wash up afterwards...

Hey ho. The steak had been very good. And after all, cooking it to perfection was the entire point of being outside in the caravan on a cold night in early March!