I’m Loving Matt Preston gets all clammed up.
With twists, turns and a culinary ending that will leave you happy as a (fresh) clam, Matt Preston is adding some theatrics to his spring clean.
I’VE FINISHED IT. My first screenplay. That drumming you can hear is a horde of Hollywood moguls beating a path to my door.
The story is packed with shocks, horrors and enough unpleasant surprises to turn your beard white… it did mine. And, like most gripping tales, it is based on a true story. The title: What’s at the Back of the Fridge, Freezer and Pantry – a Modern Horror Story.
It's a gripping first-person tale of fuzzy food and old jars containing what might have once been jam or perhaps that tomato kasundi that I hate more than anything but I couldn’t throw away because it was handmade by someone I love too much.
The crux of this film hits when I approach cleaning out the freezer. I can hear a hundred horror fans scream in well-informed unison, “Don’t open that door!”
It’s been so long since I last defrosted my freezer that I’m worried I’ll find a mammoth or two huddled in the back. It’s an eerie mass of unnatural shapes wrapped in paper. How old is that? What exactly is that? Why did I buy fish fillets every three months that I just interred here, never to use?
This is also a movie that asks the big questions, namely, “Is that safe to eat?” and "Is it ethical to try it out first on one of the kids – or someone else’s kids – to see if it is?"
Oh yes, this movie has it all, including memorable dialogue mercilessly stolen from cinema classics.
“Is it safe?” my character asks, when contemplating whether to defrost that unmarked paper parcel, unsure as to whether it could actually be the old prawn heads we hid in the freezer at Christmas when they started to stink out the bin.
“You never know what you are going to get,” he utters to the freezer, which really is like a box of chocolates when you don’t name and date the stuff you put in there. The trouble is that rather than raspberry cream, hazelnut or coffee swirl you are more likely to bite into flavours like three-year-old flathead, leftover burnt pasta sauce, or steaks of red meat of unknown origin.
“My precious” are my character’s words on discovering that last tin of expensive Cantabrian anchovies purchased from a swanky deli in San Sebastián that I thought we’d eaten but was, in fact, hidden behind all the tins of lentils I bought but never used.
I would have included “Soylent Green is people”, too, but even Charlton Heston would know the wet green sludge I scraped from the corner of the crisper draw was once a pair of zucchini that had rotted into one indivisible mass like entwined Edwardian corpses.
While horror in black and white has a certain power, this movie has to be shot in technicolour. Otherwise, we could never show the amazing pinks, yellows, iridescent blues and murky greens of the various moulds I uncovered.
Of course, what makes this kitchen spring clean blockbuster is that each of my shock discoveries have plot twists all their own. Like the compelling question: “Are shepherd’s pies related to yetis, and if not, how come my shepherd’s pie has grown a thick white coat of filigree-swaying hairs like it is part of the same hairy Himalayan family?”
All great movies need a boffo ending, and mine has one that is even more uplifting than the sight of organised shelves and freezer draws that open and close without a 12-round UFC battle.
And that’s this surprisingly successful dinner I pulled together from some of the random tins, jars and packets that I didn’t know we had, when combined with a bag of freshly bought clams that I now know always to eat fresh and never, ever, put in the freezer.
CLAMS IN XO WITH LAP CHEONG AND WATER CHESTNUTS SERVES 4
1/4 cup (60ml) sunflower oil
4 long green shallots, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2cm piece (10g) ginger, cut into matchsticks
2 lap cheong (dried Chinese sausage), thinly sliced, casings removed
1.5kg baby clams or pipis, purged 185g XO sauce
1/ 2 cup (125ml) Chinese rice wine (shaohsing)
230g sliced water chestnuts, drained
200g crunchy fried noodles (from supermarkets)
1 long green chilli, thinly sliced diagonally Coriander leaves and toasted chopped almonds, to serve
Heat oil in a large wok over high heat. When oil is smoking, add the long green shallot, garlic, ginger and lap cheong. Stir-fry for 1-2 minutes until shallot begins to soften and lap cheong starts to brown.
Add clams and stir-fry for 3-4 minutes until clams just begin to open. Add the XO sauce then the rice wine and cook for a further 3- 4 minutes until all clams have opened. Discard any clams that remain unopened. Add water chestnuts and stir-fry for a further 3- 4 minutes until sauce has thickened slightly.
Place fried noodles in a large serving bowl and top with clams. Scatter with chilli, coriander leaves and toasted chopped almond to serve.