Matarást - Love of Food

Video: "I'm Trying to Cook"

2011-04-07T14:01:00.002Z

I came across this while looking for something else on YouTube. If it sounds familiar - it's a parody of Julian Smith's satirical rap video "I'm trying to read".

An evocation of hearty, down-to-earth English workingman's food:

2011-04-03T13:44:00.000Z

However gross it might be in reality, he makes it sound like the most heavenly meal in the world:

"On my own once again, I found a snug little room over an eating-house in the Lower Richmond Road - a shambling second-floor back which overhung the railway and rocked all day to the passing trains, while the hot meaty steam of boiling pies filtered up through cracks in the floor.

The café downstairs was a shadowy tunnel lined with high-backed wooden pews, carbolic-scrubbed and exclusively male, with all the comforts of a medieval refectory. My rent of twenty-five shillings a week included the furnished room and three café meals a day - a carte blanche arrangement which I exploited fully and which introduced me to new ways of eating. The blackboard menu, propped on the pavement outside, offered a list as immutable as the elements: 'Bubble. Squeak. Liver and B. Toad-in-the-Hole. Meat Pudding or Pie.' My favourite was the pie – a little basin of meat wrapped in a caul of suety dough which was kept boiling all day in a copper cauldron in a cupboard under the stairs. Turned out on the plate, it steamed like a sodden napkin, emitting a mournful odour of laundries; but once pricked with the fork it exploded magnificently with a rich lava of beefy juices. There must have been over a pound of meat in each separate pie - a complete working-man's meal, for sixpence. And remembering the thin days at home, when meat was only for Sundays, I ate at least one of them every day. Otherwise I was encouraged to ring the changes on the house's limited permutations - Squeak, Toad, Liver and B; or as a privilege, an occasional herring. A mug of tea at each meal was of course served without asking, and was so strong you could trot a mouse on it. As for afters, there was a postscript at the foot of the menu which seemed to be painted in permanent enamel: ´During the Present Hot Spell Why Not Try a Cold Sweet?´ Winter and summer, it was custard and prunes."

From As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee (1914 – 1997)

A droolworthy feast, but just imagine the heartburn

2010-10-05T09:00:00.011Z

"Here I am, Aunt Kate!" cried Gabriel, with sudden animation, "ready to carve a flock of geese, if necessary."

A fat brown goose lay at one end of the table and at the other end, on a bed of creased paper strewn with sprigs of parsley, lay a great ham, stripped of its outer skin and peppered over with crust crumbs, a neat paper frill round its shin and beside this was a round of spiced beef. Between these rival ends ran parallel lines of side-dishes: two little minsters of jelly, red and yellow; a shallow dish full of blocks of blancmange and red jam, a large green leaf-shaped dish with a stalk-shaped handle, on which lay bunches of purple raisins and peeled almonds, a companion dish on which lay a solid rectangle of Smyrna figs, a dish of custard topped with grated nutmeg, a small bowl full of chocolates and sweets wrapped in gold and silver papers and a glass vase in which stood some tall celery stalks. In the centre of the table there stood, as sentries to a fruit-stand which upheld a pyramid of oranges and American apples, two squat old-fashioned decanters of cut glass, one containing port and the other dark sherry. On the closed square piano a pudding in a huge yellow dish lay in waiting and behind it were three squads of bottles of stout and ale and minerals, drawn up according to the colours of their uniforms, the first two black, with brown and red labels, the third and smallest squad white, with transverse green sashes.

Gabriel took his seat boldly at the head of the table and, having looked to the edge of the carver, plunged his fork firmly into the goose. He felt quite at ease now for he was an expert carver and liked nothing better than to find himself at the head of a well-laden table.

"Miss Furlong, what shall I send you?" he asked. "A wing or a slice of the breast?"

"Just a small slice of the breast."

"Miss Higgins, what for you?"

"O, anything at all, Mr. Conroy."

While Gabriel and Miss Daly exchanged plates of goose and plates of ham and spiced beef Lily went from guest to guest with a dish of hot floury potatoes wrapped in a white napkin. This was Mary Jane's idea and she had also suggested apple sauce for the goose but Aunt Kate had said that plain roast goose without any apple sauce had always been good enough for her and she hoped she might never eat worse. Mary Jane waited on her pupils and saw that they got the best slices and Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia opened and carried across from the piano bottles of stout and ale for the gentlemen and bottles of minerals for the ladies. There was a great deal of confusion and laughter and noise, the noise of orders and counter-orders, of knives and forks, of corks and glass-stoppers. Gabriel began to carve second helpings as soon as he had finished the first round without serving himself. Everyone protested loudly so that he compromised by taking a long draught of stout for he had found the carving hot work. Mary Jane settled down quietly to her supper but Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia were still toddling round the table, walking on each other's heels, getting in each other's way and giving each other unheeded orders. Mr. Browne begged of them to sit down and eat their suppers and so did Gabriel but they said there was time enough, so that, at last, Freddy Malins stood up and, capturing Aunt Kate, plumped her down on her chair amid general laughter.

From "The Dead" by James Joyce

What a lovely picnic!

2010-09-28T13:42:00.000Z

... he got out the luncheon-basket and packed a simple meal, in which, remembering the stranger's origin and preferences, he took care to include a yard of long French bread, a sausage out of which the garlic sang, some cheese which lay down and cried, and a long-necked straw-covered flask wherein lay bottled sunshine shed and garnered on far Southern slopes. Thus laden, he returned with all speed, and blushed for pleasure at the old seaman's commendations of his taste and judgment, as together they unpacked the basket and laid out the contents on the grass by the roadside.

From The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

2010-08-17T21:00:00.017Z

I read Onions in the Stew by Betty MacDonald some time last year and noted down some food quotations from the book to post on my book blog, but then I though they would be better suited to this blog. Here are some of her hilarious descriptions of 1940s party food. I can’t imagine any of it being good. Edibility may have been an optional extra in some cases.

…I looked and looked at my salad trying to guess what it was. When it could not be avoided any longer I took a bite and it was tuna fish and marshmallows and walnuts and pimento (just for the pretty colour, our hostess explained later when she was giving up the recipe) and chunks of pure white lettuce and boiled dressing. I almost gagged, both Anne and Joan nudged me and giggled, but most of the other ladies shrieked ‘delicious!’ ‘heavenly!’ and ‘so different!’ (‘different’ was quite right) and so the beaming hostess gave us the recipe…

It was at another baby shower that I first encountered a ring mould of mushroom soup, hardboiled eggs, canned shrimps (that special brand that taste like Lysol) and lime Jello, the centre heaped with chopped sweet pickles, the whole topped with a mustardy-sweet salad dressing.

An evening party during elections produced casual refreshments of large, cold, slightly sweet hamburger buns spread with relish, sweet salad dressing, dried beef and cheese, then whisked under the broiler just long enough to make the cheese gummy and the relish warm.

At another shower (wedding I believe) we were served tuna fish chow mein with rancid noodles. A garden club meeting, creamed tuna fish and peanuts over canned asparagus. A hospital group dredged up a salad of elbow macaroni, pineapple chunks, Spanish peanuts, chopped cabbage, chopped marshmallows, ripe olives and salad dressing.

I could go on and on ad nauseam and not even scratch the surface of the desserts which veer towards you ‘just take a devil’s food cake, make a filling of whipped cream, peanut brittle, chocolate chips and custard … and freeze’. I don’t know what is happening to the women of America but it ought to be stopped.

This sounds like a sauce I'd like to try:

2010-08-10T21:04:00.004Z

"His specialty, Meyer's Superior Cocktail Dip, is made with dry Chinese mustard moistened to the proper consistency with Tabasco sauce. The unsuspecting have been known to leap four feet straight up into the air after scooping up a tiny portion on a potato chip. Strong men have come down running and gone right through the wall when they missed the open doorway."

Travis McGee, speaking of his friend Meyer, from The Dreadful Lemon Sky by John D. MacDonald.

Julie & Julia

2010-06-10T22:49:00.004Z

Last night I rented and watched the movie Julie & Julia. For those not familiar with it, it is a biographical film of cookbook author and TV cook Julia Child, and of blogger Julie Powell, who rose to fame in the blogging world when she cooked every single recipe from Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and wrote a deservedly popular blog about it.

Unfortunately the two biographies were not created equal. Julia Child’s life in France and the writing of the cookbook she co-authored and that made her famous is contrasted with Julie Powell’s life in New York in the naughties and her struggle to find herself. It is possible to make an ordinary life interesting, but the film manages to make Powell’s story so utterly dull and uninteresting by comparison with Child's that I wanted to shout every time the film cut from Child to Powell.

Why couldn’t they just have made a biopic about Julia Child? Lord knows she deserves a full 2 hours to herself. With her war-time career, the romance with her husband, interesting characters, plenty of food porn, an interesting setting and era and Meryl Streep in the lead role it could and probably would, have been a hit. As it stands, the only way I will watch it again is with my finger on the fast forward button to get past the Julia Powell scenes.
--

P.S. Look for the occasional foodie movie review on this blog in the future.

Hungarian goulash

2010-03-26T23:04:00.002Z

I first tasted real goulash at a restaurant in the Czech capital, Prague (we have something called gúllas in Iceland, but it's really more like a version of ragout). My parents, with whom I was travelling, ordered something safe and generic (fried chicken if I recall rightly), but I was feeling adventurous and ordered the goulash. I was rewarded by a big smile from the waiter who was clearly delighted that the tourist had ordered something unexpected. The stew was excellent, and the dumplings were good, but lay heavy in my belly afterwards. Goulash may have originated in Hungary, but the Czechs have made it their own.

Flash forward several years:

One weekend not so long ago stewing beef was on discount at a local supermarket and I brought home a tray of it. I decided I wanted to make goulash, but for various reasons, mostly to do with unobtainable ingredients and/or the sheer number of ingredients in the recipes, I chose not to use one from Hungarian Cuisine, but instead went for one of my big mixed-cuisine cookbooks, namely The Spice Cookbook, which I have already reviewed and posted several recipes from. In it I found this excellent and simple recipe for goulash, (which I have altered a little bit):

Round 1:
1 kg. (2 lbs) stewing beef
2 tbs. shortening (an absolutely authentic recipe would use lard)
2 medium-sized yellow onions, thinly sliced

Round 2:
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp. Hungarian paprika powder
1/8 tsp. cayenne-pepper
1 cup water

Round 3:
3 average-sized potatoes, cut into eights
1/3 cup green capsicum (bell pepper), chopped into small pieces (about 1 cm, 2/5 inch)

Round 4.
1 tsp. Hungarian paprika powder

Trim any fat off the meat and cut it into even-sized cubes, about 2,5 cm (1 inch) square. Melt half the shortening in a deep frying pan or saucepan and brown the meat on all sides. Remove from the pan, add the remaining shortening and gently fry the onions over low heat until golden. Return the meat to the pan and add the Round 2 ingredients.

Simmer under a lid for 90 minutes or until the meat is almost tender enough to eat (will take less time if you use a nice, tender cut). Add the Round 3 ingredients and continue simmering under a lid for 30 minutes more, or until the potatoes are cooked through. Add the remaining paprika. Adjust flavour with salt and pepper if necessary.

Serve warm with rice or Hungarian bread dumplings, and a salad.

Notes:

Good enough that I wrote it into my recipe notebook where I put recipes I have tested that have turned out good enough for me to make them again.
Works with lamb as well, but not as flavourful. I would use lamb or mutton shanks rather than cutlet meat if I try it again with lamb.

Holiday notice

2009-10-25T09:00:00.000Z

I am off to India for the next 5 weeks. I will not be posting anything during that time.

Hungarian ox-tail stew

2009-09-22T19:03:00.002Z

Some years ago I acquired a Hungarian cookbook, Hungarian Cuisine: A complete cookery book by József Venesz. Like many of my cookbooks it is second hand, but judging from its appearance, which is more shelf-worn than kitchen-worn, it hasn't been used much. There is a lovely bit of calligraphy on the fly-leaf, indicating that is was probably a birthday present, so it makes me wonder why the previous owner let it go. Perhaps she decided it was time it went to someone who might use it more?

Whatever the reason, I am glad I acquired it, and now that I have tried one recipe from it, I will definitely be trying more. Here is the recipe, with my comments in square brackets:

Ox-tail with sour cream (Tejfölös ököruszály)
Ingredients:

2 kg (4 lb.) ox-tail
150 g (5 oz.) mixed vegetables (carrots, turnips, celeriac)
100 g (4 oz.) lard [my only substitution – I used butter because you can not get lard for love or money around here unless you personally know a butcher (which I do, but he lives on the other end of the country)]
A pinch of black pepper
A pinch of thyme
2 bay leaves
60g (2 1/2 oz.) onions
100 ml (4 fl.oz.) white wine
1/2 lemon (both zest and juice)
300 ml (1/2 pt) sour cream
50 g (1 oz.) flour
30 g (1 oz.) mustard [it doesn‘t say what kind, so I used Dijon as I didn‘t have the dry type. It turned out really good]
20 g (3/4 oz.) sugar
1 tsp salt

If it is whole, wash the ox-tail thoroughly in warm water, and then cold water, pat dry and cut into pieces 2-3 cm (1 – 1 1/2 inch) thick. Salt.

Cut the vegetables into thick slices and coarsely chop the onion. Melt the lard in an oven-proof dish and add the vegetables, onion, pepper, bay leaves and thyme. Add the ox-tail pieces and roast in the oven, stirring from time to time.

When nicely browned, put everything in a saucepan, add the wine, the thinly pared lemon zest [you can grate it if you want to, but it doesn't really matter, as it will not be served with the finished dish] and a little stock or water. Cover and simmer slowly for 2-3 hours [or however long it takes for the ox-tail meat to become tender]. Add a little water from time to time.

[At this point you will have a richly flavoured stew that could easily be served as it is. The next step will turn it into something delicious].

When the meat is tender, mix together the sour cream and flour into a smooth paste and add to the stew, along with the mustard, sugar and lemon juice. Cook for another 10 minutes. Remove the meat pieces from the stew and put into another saucepan, straining the gravy over the meat. Bring to the boil, remove from the heat and serve hot with bread dumplings or macaroni.
[The gravy will be very thick. The butter floated up on top, but I'm guessing that the lard might stay mixed in??].

P.S. The stuff that remains in the strainer is way too tasty not to eat it ...

Greek roasted leg of lamb

2009-08-11T09:00:00.000Z

I tried this with a rack of lamb, and it was delicious. I expect that a leg would be even better, because more of it would be actually cooked in the wine.

To serve 8 (or 5-6 hungry Icelanders)

1 leg of lamb, about 3 kilos
4 cloves garlic, slivered
2 tbs olive oil
1 tbs dried oregano
1 tbs coarsely ground black pepper
1 cup dry white wine

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Cut small, deep slits all over the leg of lamb and insert the garlic slivers. Brush the meat with olive oil. Mix together the oregano and pepper and rub all over the meat.

Put into a roasting pan and pour in the wine. Put in the oven and reduce the heat to 175°C and roast for about 90 minutes (for rare meat), basting occasionally. If you use a meat thermometer, rare meat should read 60°C. If you prefer it better done, follow the instructions that should have come with the thermometer, or give the meat 30 minutes more.

Let the meat rest for 10 minutes before serving. Strain the pan juices, skim off the fat and serve the juices with the meat.

The recipe originally came from Sheila Lukins' (of Silver Palate fame) All Around the World Cookbook, a hefty volume that another BookMooch member was kind enough to ship to me from Canada.

Thai grilled chicken

2009-08-04T19:11:00.003Z

This is a refreshingly fresh, medium hot marinade for chicken that I tried recently:

To serve 4:

4 fresh red chili peppers, sliced, stem and seeds removed
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
5 shallots, thinly sliced
2 tsp crumbled palm sugar
150 ml coconut cream (not cream of coconut!)
2 tsp fish sauce
1 tbs tamarind water (see recipe below)
4 chicken breasts, boneless and skinless

Pulp the chili pepper, garlic and shallots using a mortar and pestle or food processor. Add the palm sugar, coconut cream, fish sauce and tamarind water.

Cut 4 shallow slits in each chicken breast with a sharp knife. Put the chicken breasts on a shallow dish and pour the marinade over them. Turn over in the marinade to coat well. Cover the dish and set aside for an hour or so.

Preheat the grill. Put the marinated chicken breasts on aluminium foil and put under the grill for 4 minutes, turn over and grill the other side for 4 minutes as well (the breasts I used needed 7 minutes on each side), brushing occasionally with the marinade. Garnish with basil or cilantro leaves.

Serve with rice.

Recipe for tamarind water:
Pour 60 ml boiling water over 5 g tamarind pulp. Soak for a few minutes, break up with a spoon and let soak for 30 minutes. Pour the liquid through a strainer and press as much of the pulp through it as possible. Discard the remaining pulp.

Kitchen mishap

2009-02-16T15:58:00.002Z

Sometimes I could just cry. Instead of a relaxing Sunday lunch I had to deal with a messy kitchen trauma yesterday.

For lunch on Sunday I cooked a duck breast in red wine and plum sauce. At the end of the meal I had half a duck breast and some sauce left over. I put the duck on a plate and poured the sauce from the pan into a glass bowl and set both duck and sauce on the counter to cool before putting them in the refrigerator.

Then I needed something from the cupboard directly above where I had put the bowl of sauce and the meat. I opened the cupboard door and BAM! a jar jumped out and landed right on top of the sauce bowl. The jar remained whole, but the bowl exploded. For a moment I just stood there, staring in shock at a pool of sauce with evil-looking pieces of broken glass in it and splats of crimson sauce everywhere. Strangely enough, none of it got on me, but there were few other places in the kitchen that escaped (except I didn’t find anything on the ceiling). Luckily, my kitchen is nearly stain proof, so the sauce wasn’t the worst part. The glass was. Heat-resistant glass doesn't break like regular glass. Besides the expected pieces of all sizes and shapes it also breaks into tiny fragments, almost like sand, and these were in all the places the sauce was, plus a few more, making it very difficult to mop up the sauce without risking some cuts. And of course I was standing right in the middle of the area with the most glass – and my feet were bare.

My first act was to take a standing jump away from the glass, to go and get myself some shoes. After I had finished wiping, mopping and vacuuming up the sauce and glass and the adrenaline started to wear off, my big toe started to throb. I hobbled into the bathroom and took off my sandal and found I was bleeding. A pressure test indicated that a shard of glass was lodged in my toe, but no amount of probing with the tweezers could dislodge it, so I ended up by bandaging the toe and hoping the damn thing will work itself out soon. Meanwhile, I have to be careful not to wear shoes that put pressure on the wound.

The worst casualty, however, was the duck breast. It had been sitting right next to the bowl when the accident happened, and was decorated with tiny glittering pieces of glass. I am not a risk taker, so instead of trying to wash off the glass, I threw it in the trash. Bye, bye dinner!

Thai chicken in massaman curry

2009-02-15T10:52:00.003Z

I learned to cook this dish and several others during a short Thai cooking course I took recently. This is the only dish I learned about there that I have cooked at home so far. This curry is richly flavoured but not hot. The sauce is not very thick - in fact if you take the chicken pieces and cut the meat off the bones and add it to the sauce you could serve it as a soup.

500 g chicken pieces on the bone (about 1/2 chicken). Skinless and boneless chicken may be used but the sauce will not be as richly flavoured
1 tbs massaman curry paste
1 1/2 cups coconut milk
4 cups coconut milk
1 cup water
1/2 cup fish sauce – the Thai chef recommended the Squid brand
1/2 cup palm sugar
1 1/2 cup peanuts, whole (almonds or cashews may be used instead)
1/2 cup peanuts, finely chopped or ground (almonds or cashews may be used instead)
1/2 cup tamarind juice*
2 cups chopped onions (about 2 medium yellow onions)
12 small potatoes, cooked, cooled and peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces
3-4 bay leaves

*To make tamarind juice, pour 1/2 cup boiling water over 25 g of tamarind paste and steep for 5-10 minutes, break up with a spoon, take the tamarind pulp and squeeze the juice from it. Discard the pulp and strain the juice before using. According to the Thai chef, the bottled stuff does not give the right flavour to this dish.

Cook 1 1/2 cup coconut milk over medium heat in a deep pan or wide-bottomed pot until it separates and the oil floats on top. Add the curry paste, stir well and cook for 3-4 minutes. Turn up the heat, add the chicken pieces and stir-fry for 2-3 minutes. Add the remaining 4 cups of coconut milk and the water and mix well. Allow to boil, then add the peanuts, palm sugar, fish sauce, tamarind juice and bay leaves and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Then add the potatoes and onions and simmer gently for 5-10 minutes (the onion pieces should still have a little crunch in them when the curry is served). 2 tbs of palm sugar may be added near the end of cooking if the curry isn‘t sweet enough.
Serve with jasmine rice and a fresh salad.

By the way, „massaman“ curry is sometimes spelled „matsaman“ – for example on the jar of curry paste I bought before cooking this dish. Apparently "massaman" means "Muslim" in Thai.

I'm back

2008-11-19T11:32:00.003Z

After my last post I decided to take a break from the cooking challenge. It was getting to be an onerous task to be finished rather than a pleasure, so I took a long break. However, I have continued using my cookbooks more than I did before I started the challenge, which of course was the point of the exercise.

Now I am ready to start blogging about my excursions into new cooking territory again, but I am no longer going to do it as a weekly challenge. Instead I will simply write about whatever new recipes or foods I have tried. This means my blogging will be sporadic, but that can't be helped.

Canapés

2008-04-07T15:13:00.004Z

Sushi: Smoked salmon rolls

More sushi rolls

Laden tray

Proscuitto with melon and cheese on lettuce and toast

Garlic shrimp

Puff pastry with gravlax and mustard-dill sauce

Cod roe (I think) and chutney, on lettuce and toast

Sweets: Strawberries and choux buns with vanilla cream

Cider sorbet

2008-03-24T14:14:00.001Z

I love ice cream and I also love flavoured water ices, like sorbet and granita. The problem about making flavoured ice at home is that you either need an ice cream machine or several hours of work to get the ice as smooth as the commercial stuff. When I made this experiment I was not lucky enough to have an ice cream machine (this has since changed), but I had read up on the old method of making dessert ice and decided to test it. I didn't have all of the ingredients for custard ice on hand, so I decided to make sorbet instead. I also did not have access to enough ice to make a salt/ice mixture for freezing, so I used the freezer compartment of my refrigerator.

I cooked up some simple sugar syrup, made from an equal volume of white sugar and water (in this case 200 ml of each). This I dumped into a saucepan and cooked until the sugar was melted. I then quickly cooled the syrup by putting the saucepan into the sink with some cold water. When the syrup was cool, I measured out 200 ml of syrup into a freezer safe bowl (the rest I bottled for later use). To this I added 150 ml of non-alcoholic pear cider and mixed it well. I then put a lid on the bowl and stuck it in the freezer.

After 90 minutes or so I took it out – the mixture had started freezing – and gave it a good stir to break up the forming ice crystals. I then returned it to the freezer. For the next three hours I would go back every 30 minutes and give it another good stir, and every time the mixture was thicker. Finally, when it had got hard to stir and was thick and felt very cold on the tongue, I spooned it into dessert glasses with lids and allowed it to freeze completely. When I taste tested it the texture was a little coarser than that of commercial sorbet, but it was very good, with a rich flavour much better than any commercial sorbet I had tasted. I decided that next time I had guests for dinner I would serve them home-made sorbet. The ice cream machine will make it much easier and less time-consuming.

If you want to try making sorbet, follow the description above and if you want a different flavour, any fruit juice or even fizzy drink works well in these proportions. For pure lemon or lime juice, you need to use less juice or the mixture will be too sour. Lemon sorbet, BTW, is a very good palate cleanser that is sometimes served between the courses of a meal to clear away the taste of the precious dish before a new one is served.

If you have an ice cream maker, made the sorbet mix and follow the instructions for freezing sorbet.

Recipe of the week from Sweet Food: Saffron Spice Cake

2008-03-17T20:24:00.002Z

I chose this recipe because my mother recently came back from the Canary Islands and brought me more saffron than I use in about 5 years of cooking, plus I already had some.

Serves 8.

250 ml (1 cup) freshly squeezed orange juice
1 tbs finely grated orange zest
1/4 tsp saffron threads
3 eggs
155 g (1 1/4 cups) icing sugar
250 g (2 cups) self-rising flour (or 2 cups plain flour plus 3 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt)
370 g (3 2/3 cups) ground almonds (almond flour)
125 g unsalted butter, melted
Icing sugar, extra, to dust
Thick (double) cream, to serve

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F), or 160°C if you have a convection oven (or as indicated by manufacturer or your experience).

Lightly grease a 22 cm round cake pan and line the base with baking paper. Mix orange juice, zest and saffron in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Lower the temperature and simmer for 1 minute. Remove from heat and let cool.

Beat the eggs and icing sugar until light and creamy. Fold in the sifted flour, almonds, orange juice mixture and butter until barely mixed and smooth. Spoon into the cake pan.

Bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 15 minutes and turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Before serving, dust with a little icing sugar and serve with whipped cream.

Recipe review:

I started by making the ground almonds since I could not find any in any supermarket. I used my handy little electric coffee grinder and ground a little at a time and sifted it to get an even size of almond granules.

There was more dough than I thought there would be, and I ended up using two baking pans, one 20 cm and another 18 cm in diameter, and got two luscious cakes. The baking time was about 45 minutes at 160°C in my convection oven. That temperature was a too hot, as evidenced by the cakes rising a bit too much in the middle.

The cake itself is a lovely pale saffron colour, with a dense texture and a nice orage flavour with undertones of saffron, which is good because too much saffron in food tastes somewhat medicinal to me.

Book verdict:

If you enjoy food porn and great desserts, buy it. It is full of all sorts of desserts, and the three I made during the week were all good.

Sample recipe from Sweet Food: Pineapple Upside-down Cake

2008-03-13T20:39:00.003Z

Serves 6-8.

20 g unsalted butter, melted
2 tbs firmly packed soft brown sugar
440 g can pineapple rings in natural juice
90 g unsalted butter, softened
125 g (1/2 cup) caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla essence
125 g (1 cup) self-rising flour (= 1 cup plain flour + 1 1/2 tsp baking powder + 1/2 tsp salt)

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Grease a 20 cm (8 inch) ring pan and pour in the melted butter to coat the base. Sprinkle in the brown sugar. Drain the pineapple and reserve 80 ml (1/3 cup) of the juice. Cut the pineapple rings in half and arrange them on the base.

Beat the softened butter and the sugar together until light and creamy. Gradually add the eggs, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla essence and mix well. fold in the flour alternating with the pineapple juice (the recipe recommends using a metal spoon, but I use the beater on my mixer at the slowest speed). Spoon or pour the batter evenly over the pineapple and smooth the surface. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Leave in the pan for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.

Review:
I made this cake on Sunday, and it’s very good: moist but still light as a cloud and tastes great. Although there is pineapple juice in the batter, the cake doesn’t have a pineapple flavour. This may be due to me having used cheap canned pineapple with less flavourful juice than the more expensive stuff. Whatever the reason, the cake is still good. Another time I might use condensed pineapple juice.

I don’t have a ring pan, so I used a regular cake pan and baked the cake a little longer than the recipe suggests. I only needed 5 1/2 pineapple rings to cover the base.

Sample recipe from Sweet Food: Cinnamon Gelato

2008-03-12T19:21:00.004Z

I bet this is good – and since I have an ice-cream maker, it would be easy work to make.

Serves 8.

1 vanilla bean
550 ml (2 1/4 cups) thick cream (double cream)
550 ml (2 1/4 cups) milk
2 cinnamon sticks
6 egg yolks
100 g (1/2 cup) caster sugar

Split the vanilla bean down the middle and put it in a saucepan with the cream, milk and cinnamon sticks. Bring to the boil, remove immediately from the heat and leave to infuse for 1 hour.

Whisk the egg yolks and sugar in a large bowl until light and creamy. Pour the milk/cream mixture into the egg yolk mixture and whisk quickly to mix. Pour the custard into the saucepan and cook over very low heat (barely simmering) until it begins to thicken, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon. Do not let it boil! To test for thickness, dip the spoon into the custard, then draw a line on the back of the spoon. When the line stays and the custard does not run into it, it is ready.

Scrape the seeds out of the vanilla pod and mix into the custard. Strain the custard into a bowl, remove the vanilla pod and cinnamon stick and leave to cool.

To freeze, either churn in an ice-cream maker according to instructions, or pour into a freezer-proof bowl and freeze, whisking every 30 minutes, until the ice-cream is too stiff to stir. The whisking will give the ice cream a creamy texture. Once the ice cream is set, keep in the freezer until ready to serve.

Sample recipe from Sweet Food: Chocolate Mud Cake

2008-03-10T21:30:00.003Z

I love a good chocolate cake, and this one looks promising:

Serves 12.

125 g (1 cup) plain flour
125 g (1 cup) self-rising flour (= 1 cup flour + 1 1/2 tsp baking powder + 1/2 tsp salt)
60 g (1/2 cup) dark cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
625 g (2 3/4 cups) sugar
450 g dark chocolate, chopped
459 g unsalted butter
125 ml (1/2 cup) buttermilk
2 tbs oil
2 tbs instant espresso coffee granules or powder
4 eggs

Preheat oven to 160°C (315°F) or a lower temperature as instructed for a convection oven.

Brush a deep 23 cm (8 1/2 inch) square cake pan with melted butter or oil. Line the pan with baking paper, extending at least 2 cm (4/5 inch) above the rim.

Sift the flours, cocoa and baking soda into a large bowl. Mix in the sugar and make a well in the centre. Put 250 g chocolate and 250 g butter and 185 ml (3/4 cup) water in a saucepan and melt over low heat, stirring constantly. Gradually stir this mixture into the dry ingredients using a large spoon.

Whisk together the buttermilk, oil, coffee and eggs and add to the mixture, stirring until smooth. Pour into the pan and bake for 1 hour 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool in the pan, the turn out onto a serving dish, upside down.

Combine the remaining chocolate and butter in a small pan and melt over low heat, stirring constantly until smooth. Cool to room temperature, stirring often, until it is thick enough to spread. Spread the icing over the cake. Allow the icing to set slightly before serving.

Cookbook of the week #22 : Sweet Food, including a recipe for Almond, orange and cardamom biscotti

2008-03-09T11:24:00.002Z

I’m back. I have had a lot going on in my life since I last posted, but now I am ready to pick up where I left off.

This week’s cookbook was published by Murdoch Books, part of a series of themed books that are in equal measure recipe collections and unabashed food porn. There is a photo of every dish, each one designed to make the reader hungry. The book is divided into chapters for baked goods, desserts and pies & tarts, and other than the chapter divisions, there is no rhyme or reason to the way the recipes are collected, so that for example, the 5 cheesecake recipes in the book are to be found in two chapters and none of them on adjacent pages. This makes for interesting browsing. I have found that I can open this book at random and be almost certain to find something I want to try. I have had to eliminate several recipes I would have liked to try because of hard-to-find ingredients.

Note: The tbs called for are 20 ml tbs, rather than 15 ml ones.

The first recipe I chose is Almond, orange and cardamom biscotti

In Italian “biscotti” means “twice baked”, but according to Wikipedia, in Italy the term is used for any type of cookie. In North-America it refers to twice-baked pastries like the ones in this recipe, which in Italy are called “biscotti di Prato”, “cantoucchi” or “cantoucchini”.

I would like to imagine that when J.R.R. Tolkien wrote about lembas, he had something like biscotti in mind.

Makes about 40.

2 eggs
155 g (2/3 cup) firmly packed soft brown sugar
125 g (1 cup) self-rising flour (if you don’t have self-rising flour, use 1 cup plain flour and add 1 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt)
90 g (3/4 cup) plain flour
125 g (1 1/4 cups) almonds
1 tbs finely grated orange zest
1/4 tsp ground cardamom

Preheat the oven to 160°C (315°F), or lower temperature as indicated for convection ovens. Line a baking tray with baking paper.

Beat the eggs and sugar until light and creamy. Sift the flours into the bowl, add the almonds, zest and cardamom and mix to a soft dough.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, divide in two and shape into two loaves, about 5 x 20 cm (2 x 8 inches) in size.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until lightly golden. Cool on a wire rack. When cool, cut the loaves into 1 cm (2/5 inch) slices with a serrated bread knife. The biscotti will be crumbly on the edges, so work slowly and if you can, hold the sides of the loaves as you cut.

Arrange the slices on baking trays in one layer and return to the oven for 10 minutes on each side. If the slices look like they are not completely dry when removed from the oven, don’t worry – they will become crisp when they cool. Allow to cool before serving.

Great with coffee.

Edit:

Recipe review:
I made this recipe yesterday after I posted it. The dough was EXTREMELY sticky, so sticky that I ended up just forming it into one rough loaf and then I went to scrape a thick layer of gluey dough off my hands. Next time I will wet my hands before handling the dough. The raw loaf looked like a misshapen lump of lava, but it baked up smooth and when I sliced it it looked like biscotti should. In the instructions it says to cool the loaf – I would just let it cool for about 10 minutes and then slice it, because fully cooled it was hard to cut because the crust was so hard. The biscotti are very good, with a mild orangey flavour and just a hint of cardamom.

Recipe of the week from The Cooking of the Middle-East: Challah bread

2008-02-10T19:42:00.000Z

I apologise for not including recipes from all the chapters, but to tell the truth, all the really interesting ones are quite long and involved and I am simply too lazy to type them up (but not to cook them…).
--
Challah is a type of braided white bread, traditional to the Jewish people. There have been some long and interesting discussions on Challah-making on my favourite food discussion forum, which made me curious, so I chose Challah as recipe of the week. In the book, the recipe and detailed instructions take up a whole page, obviously so that an inexperienced baker can make the recipe. I am going to assume some expertise on behalf of my readers, and have therefore abbreviated the instructions somewhat, and mixed them with instructions gleaned from other challah recipes and my own experience in bread-making.

A baked loaf of challah. The egg wash gives it a dark, shiny crust

3/8 pint (12 tbs) lukewarm water
2 oz. (ca. 55 g) fresh yeast or 1 oz. (2 tbs + 2 tsp) dried
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 lb. (565 g to 680 g) plain flour
1 tbs sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 eggs
2 oz. (3 tbs) + 1 scant tsp vegetable cooking fat
1 egg yolk mixed with 1 1/2 tbs water

Put half the lukewarm water into a small bowl and sprinkle in the yeast. Let stand for a coupe of minutes, then stir to dissolve the yeast completely. Set aside in a warm place for about 5 minutes, until the mixture has almost doubled in volume.

Put 1 lb. (450 g) of the flour in a large bowl with the sugar and salt and mix well. Make a well in the centre, add the yeast, the remaining water, eggs, and 2 tbs of fat.

Stir well together until all the flour is absorbed, then add up to 1/2 lb (225 g) flour, a little at a time, to form a dough that holds its shape as a soft ball.

Turn out unto a floured surface and knead for about 15 minutes, or as long as it takes to form a smooth, elastic dough.

Shape into a ball and put into a large, lightly greased bowl. Cover with a towel and set in a warm place to rise, until doubled in size (about 45 minutes).

The dough, risen and unrisen

Punch down the dough and knead for a few minutes, then set aside for 10 minutes.

Grease a large baking sheet with the remaining tsp of fat. Divide the dough into as many equally sized pieces as you want in the braid (recipe calls for 4, but I used 3). Roll out into long sausage shapes, a bit longer than you intend the baked bread to be, narrowing at the ends.

The strands of dough

The braided loaf

Press one end of each of the strands together and braid tightly (don’t pull on the strands!), pressing together the other ends and tucking the ends under the loaf. Carefully place the loaf on the greased baking sheet and cover it with a cloth. Let it rise in a warm place for about 30 minutes.

The risen loaf with egg wash applied.
At this stage the loaf had risen to "oh, my goodness! This is going to take over the oven!" proportions.

Heat the oven to 400°F (about 200°C, 190°C if you have a convection oven). Mix together the egg yolk and water and brush the top of the loaf with it. Bake in the centre of the oven for about 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 375°F (190°C, 180°C for convection ovens) and bake for about 45 minutes longer, until the challah is golden brown and crusty. Cook on a wire rack.

Note the difference between the areas where the wash was applied and the ones where it was not

Notes and review:
I made the bread exactly as instructed, except I used oil instead of fat. The outcome was a gorgeous-looking loaf, which was fluffy and rather dry. I don’t know if challah is supposed to be this way, or if I perhaps over- or under-kneaded it or baked it for too long, but the texture is consistent with other leavened breads I have eaten that include eggs in the recipe (such as panettone). It was not very flavourful but tasted good with butter, cheese and/or jam on top. I took some to friends of mine who liked it and their kids loved it.

Cookbook review:
I got this book at the local flea market last Sunday and since I wanted to read it right away I decided to make it cookbook of the week. It is not just a cookbook, but an attempt to describe the cuisines and culinary traditions of the region, with a short chapter on food history added for good measure. It’s part of a series from Time-Life, published in the 1960s and 70s. All the books originally consisted of a large-format book about the food of the chosen country or region and a small spiral-bound recipe booklet, kept together in a slipcase. I have the set of slipcase and two books for Scandinavia, but in this case I only got the large-format book, which only has a few recipes.

The style of the writing reminds me strongly of certain old National Geographic articles, as the author chattily describes his and his wife’s journey through the region in search of dining experiences and recipes.

Verdict: A very satisfying read. I think I will be on the lookout, not only for more books in the series, but also for a copy of the missing booklet.

Sample recipe from The Cooking of the Middle-East: Baba ghannoj (cold aubergine purée with lemon juice)

2008-02-07T20:36:00.000Z

I love the sound of the name for this dish, just as I love aubergines.

First, however, is the recipe for Taratoor, a sesame sauce that is used in this Baba Ghannooj recipe:

3 medium-sized garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
1 cup tahini (sesame paste)
3/4 to 1 cup cold water
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
1 scant tsp salt

Mash the garlic to a paste with a pestle or wooden spoon. Stir in the tahini. Beat in 1/2 cup of water, the lemon juice and the sale with a whisk or spoon. Still beating, gradually add more water until the sauce has the consistency of thick mayonnaise and holds its shape almost solidly in a spoon.

Baba ghannooj:

1 medium aubergine (about 1 lb./450 g)
3 tbs fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 tbs taratoor sauce
1 large garlic clove, peeled and finely chopped
1 scant tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp olive oil
2 oz. (ca. 55 g) finely chopped onions
1 tbs finely chopped parsley, preferably flat-leaved

First, roast the aubergine: prick it in 3-4 places with the prongs of a long-handled fork, then impale it in the fork and turn over a gas flame until the skin chars and begins to split, OR pierce the aubergine, place it on a baking sheet and grill about 4 inches (10 cm) from the heat for 20 minutes, turning it to char evenly all over [alternatively, use a crème brûlée torch].

When the aubergine is cool enough to handle, skin it, cutting away any badly charred spots of flesh. Cut it in half lengthways and chop finely. Then mash it into a smooth purée, beat in the lemon juice, taratoor, garlic and salt. Adjust taste if necessary.

Serve in a bowl, garnished with olive oil, chopped onions and parsley.

To eat, scoop up with pieces of khobz (Arab bread) or pitta bread [or eat with a spoon].

Sample recipe from The Cooking of the Middle-East: Kadin Göbeği (“Lady’s Navel” fritters)

2008-02-06T19:49:00.000Z

Here is a Turkish dish with an unusual name. I usually find sweets that are steeped in syrup too sweet, but the cream should alleviate that.

Syrup:
1 lb. (ca. 450 g) sugar
3/4 pint (425 ml) water
1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice

Put the sugar, water and lemon juice into a small saucepan and bring to the boil over moderate heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Increase the heat and cook, uncovered, until the syrup reaches 220°F (105 °C). Set aside and let it cool to room temperature.

Fritters:
5/8 pint (355 ml) water
1 1/2 oz. (40 g) butter
1/8 tsp salt
8 oz. (225 g) sifted plain flour
3 eggs
Vegetable oil for deep frying
1/2 tsp almond essence
3 tbs chilled double cream, stiffly whipped

Put the water, butter and salt in a saucepan and bing to the boil at high heat, stirring until the butter melts. Add the flour all at once and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon until well mixed into a smooth mass. Make a well in the center of the dough and add one egg. Beat well until well mixed. Repeat with the remaining eggs. The dough should be thick, smooth and shiny.

Heat 3-4 inches (7,5 to 10 cm) of oil in a large deep-fat frying pan or electric deep-fryer, to a temperature of 360°F (180°C). To prepare the fritters, pinch off about 1 1/2 tbs of dough and roll into a ball 2 inches (5 cm) in diameter. Dip your thumb into the almond essence and press it into each ball to make a “navel” 1/2 inch (ca. 1 cm) deep. Deep fry, 5 at a time (or as many as will fit into your pan/frier with good space for turning), for about 10 minutes, turning them for even browning. Remove with a slotted spoon, drain briefly, and dip into the syrup to steep for 5 minutes. Transfer to a dish and let cool to room temperature. Just before serving, drop a teaspoon of whipped cream into the “navel” of each fritter.

Sample recipe from The Cooking of the Middle-East: Dolmates Yemistes me Rizi (baked tomatoes stuffed with rice)

2008-02-05T20:10:00.000Z

This looks like a great starter:

1/2 pint (285 ml) water
3.5 oz. (100g) uncooked rice (long or medium grain)
6 firm ripe tomatoes, each about 3 inches (7,5 cm) in diameter
1 1/2 tsp salt
5 tbs olive oil
2 oz. (55 g) finely chopped onions
3 x 2 1/4 oz. (ca. 65 g) cans tomato purée (6.75 oz. or 190 g or 9 tbs)
6 tbs finely chopped parsley, preferably flat-leaf
5 tbs finely cut fresh mint or 2 1/2 tsp dried
1 1/2 tsp finely chopped garlic
1/4 tsp oregano, crumbled (how much is that in fresh?)
Freshly ground black pepper

Bring 3/8 pint (about 210 ml) to the boil in a small saucepan over high heat. Add the rice, stir a couple of times and cook the rice for about 8 minutes, or until softened but still firm (i.e. not fully quite cooked). Drain and set aside.

Cut a 1/4 inch (1/5 cm) slices off the stem end of the tomatoes and set aside. Hollow out the tomatoes, remove the inner pulp and discard the seeds. Chop the pulp and set aside. Sprinkle the tomatoes with 1 scant tsp of salt and drain them, upside down, on kitchen paper.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). while it is heating, make the stuffing: heat the oil in a large frying pan over moderate heat and cook the onions for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until they are soft and transparent but not brown. Add the rice, tomato pulp, 6 tbs of the tomato purée, the parsley, mint, garlic, oregano, the remaining salt and a few grindings of pepper. Stir fry until the mixture is almost dry (the mixture holds its shape almost solidly in the spoon).

Arrange the tomatoes, hollow side up, in a baking dish. Fill with the stuffing, packing it in firmly and put the reserved slices on top. Mix together the remaining 3 tbs of tomato purée and 3 tbs of water and pour around the tomatoes. Bake uncovered in the of the oven for 20 minutes, basting once or twice. Cool and serve directly from the baking dish.

Cookbook of the week # 21: Foods of the World: The Cooking of the Middle-East

2008-02-04T19:47:00.000Z

This book is part of a series of gorgeous Time-Life books about the foods of different regions and countries of the world. This is more than just a cookbook: it describes the foods and food history and offers various food related tidbits and photographs of the foods, people and landscapes of the 9 countries the author visited. The countries were Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Iran. As I have mentioned before, I love North-African and Middle-Eastern food, so this will be an interesting read. Unfortunately the recipe booklet that came with the book has been lost, so I only have the recipes included in the book to choose from.

Recipe of the week from Hollt og gott: Banana bread

2008-02-03T22:34:00.000Z

It may seem a bit mundane to choose banana bread, but I have been looking for a good recipe for it for years. The recipes I have tried have either been too sweet, not sweet enough, too crumbly or didn’t have enough banana flavour.

3 ripe bananas
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup chopped nuts (may be left out)

Mix together flour, sugar, salt and baking soda. Peel and mash the bananas thoroughly. Lightly whip the eggs until well mixed and just beginning to froth. Mix in the mashed bananas and then the dry mix, little by little until well mixed. Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake at medium temperature (I used about 160°C but 175°C would be suitable for a non-convection oven). Ready in about 1 hour. When a pin inserted into the thickest part of the loaf comes out clean or only slightly sticky, the loaf is fully baked.

Notes and review:

I made the recipe exactly as instructed. For nuts I used walnuts, but pecans would also be good and possibly hazelnuts.

The bread/cake has just the right amount of sweetness and a nice, tasty banana flavour. It is nicely moist, but not too much, and tastes great either plain or slathered with butter. I think I may finally have found the right banana bread recipe for me.

The cookbook itself has maybe about a dozen recipes I would like to try. I will probably end up culling this book, but will copy down the interesting recipes first.

Sample recipe from Hollt og gott: Pancit Bijon

2008-01-30T19:49:00.000Z

According to the book this is a Phillipine recipe, but I don’t know how authentic it is.

2 eggs, scrambled
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup mushrooms, sliced
1 cup celery, sliced
1/2 cup finely grated carrots
1 cup grated white cabbage
1/2 tsp salt
4-5 tbs soy sauce
3/4 cup warm water
1 cup rice (raw)
1 cup bean sprouts

Cook the rice according to packet instructions.

Fry the eggs in 3 tbs. of the oil. Set aside. Cook the onion, celery, bean sprouts and mushrooms for 2 minutes in the oil. Add the carrots and cook for 2 minutes. Add the cabbage, soy sauce and water. Then add the rice and simmer until the vegetables are tender. Add the eggs. Serve.

Notice

2008-01-26T15:05:00.000Z

The challenge for this week is cancelled due to a stomach bug. I will pick up where I left off when I am better.

Sample recipe from Hollt og gott: Vegetarian lasagna

2008-01-25T16:58:00.000Z

Lasagna noodles, enough for two layers in the pan you intend to use.
Cook the lasagna until al dente and drain.

1 to 1 1/2 cup grated cheese
1 can mushrooms (it doesn’t say which size, but I think it’s probably a small one), drained and the liquid set aside for the sauce

Cheese and egg mixture:
1 1/2 cup cottage cheese
3 eggs

Stir the eggs well and mix with the cottage cheese.

Sauce:
1 can tomato purée (1 small can, about 142 g)
1 mushroom can of water plus the mushroom liquid
1 can tomatoes with juice (again, no size given, but probably a standard can)
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp onion salt
1 cup fine soy mince

Dump into a saucepan and cook together for 5-10 minutes.

Heat the oven to 200°C. Arrange the ingredients in the lasagna pan as follows:

Lasagna noodles (I'm no lasagna expert, but isn't the sauce usually on the bottom?)
Cottage cheese and egg mixture
Sauce
Mushrooms
Grated cheese

Repeat once. Bake for 1 hour. Let stand for 15 minutes before serving.

If I make this recipe, I would use fresh mushrooms instead of canned: sliced, lightly fried and simmered in water for 2-3 minutes to make mushroom broth to use in the lasagna.

Cookbook of the week # 20 : Hollt og gott (Healthy and tasty), and the first sample recipe: Lentil soup

2008-01-24T10:09:00.000Z

This is one of the self-published cookbooks in my collection. In this case the publisher was a religious group, the Adventists. This spiral-bound cookbook is full of meatless recipes (some vegan, others ovo-lacto vegetarian), many of which have the contributor’s name beside it. It came from my mother’s collection, and I think she got it from my aunt who in turn got it from one of her in-laws, who has a number of recipes in the book.

Since I am a little late in posting this, here is the first recipe:

Lentil soup:

1 1/2 cups lentils (it doesn’t say which kind, so I am assuming any type can be used)
2 large tomatoes, chopped
2 carrots, finely chopped
3/4 cup chopped parsley
3/4 cup white cabbage, torn into pieces
2 litres vegetable broth/bouillon
3 celery stalks, finely chopped
2 tbs soup herbs (this is a mixture of dried herbs and vegetables that is sold in shops here. I don’t know if it is available in other countries, but you can replace it with chopped kale)
1 bay leaf
The juice of 1 lemon

Cook the lentils in the veggie broth until soft. Add the rest and cook until the vegetables are tender.

Recipe of the week from The Book of Thai Cooking: Fried bread

2008-01-20T21:21:00.000Z

I would love to know what all these recipes are called in Thai, but all that is given are strictly descriptive names for them. The recipe I chose as recipe of the week is a variation of an international recipe, that for fried bread:

175 g lean pork mince
55 g cooked shrimps, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tbs chopped chilantro
1 1/2 spring onions, finely chopped
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tsp fish sauce
Freshly ground black pepper
4 slices of day-old bread
1 tbs coconut milk
Vegetable oil for deep-frying
Whole chilantro leaves, narrow rings of fresh red chilli pepper, and cucumber slices, to garnish

Mix together the pork mince and shrimp in a bowl, using a fork. Then add garlic, chilantro, spring onions, 1/4 of the egg mixture, fish sauce and pepper and mix well. cut the crusts off the bread and divide the meat mixture between the slices, spreading it to cover the whole top of each slice. Mix the remaining egg and coconut milk and brush over the meat mixture. Cut each bread slice in four parts.

Heat the oil to 190°C in a wok. Put 3-4 bread pieces into it ant once, mince side down, and fry for 3-4 minutes or until crunchy, turning once about halfway through the process. Remove from the oil with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper, and then keep them warm in the oven. Check the temperature of the oil between rounds of frying to make sure it isn’t too low. Serve the bread hot, garnished with chilantro, chilli pepper rings and cucumber slices.

Notes:
I made the recipe exactly as given, except the red chilli pepper got lost on the way from the shop (probably left behind at the check-out counter), and I shortened the frying time. The bread was crisp and golden brown after only 1 minute in the oil, and the filling was cooked through after 90 seconds. I found that about 2 minutes at about 175-180°C was enough to cook it through. At that time and temperature the bread turned out crisp and the meat mixture was cooked though and juicy.

Recipe review:
The dish tasted somewhat as if the pork mixture used in home-made English breakfast sausages had been smeared on bread and then fried. Only the sage was missing and instead there was a lovely flavour of shrimp and a hint of chilantro mingled with the pork flavour. It was quite good. I think this would make good finger food, cut into even smaller pieces, as it can be eaten either hot or cold. Another time I might leave out the bread and make meatballs out of the stuffing.

Book review:
The book has just over 100 recipes. Since I have not experienced Thai food in Thailand I can’t really tell if they are a representative sample of the entirety of Thai cuisine, or if they mostly come for one region or if they are possibly westernised. What characterises the recipes above all else is their freshness and how quickly they can be put together and cooked. Thanks to the Thai expat community in Iceland the ingredients for these recipes are, if not exactly readily, then at least not impossibly, found here, some exclusively in Asian markets and others in regular supermarkets.

I feel it is a sad omission not to have included the Thai names of the dishes, but other than that, in the absence of expert advice, I think this is an interesting insight into Thai cuisine, and I look forward to comparing it with my other two Thai cookbooks and the chapters on Thai food in some of my mixed-cuisine cookbooks.

Sample recipe from: The Book of Thai Cooking: Stuffed aubergine

2008-01-18T17:29:00.000Z

I really like aubergines, and this looks like a tasty recipe.

Serves 4.

2 aubergines (eggplants), each weighing about 225 g
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 stalks lemon grass, chopped
2 tbs vegetable oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
175 g chicken breast meat, finely chopped
2 tsp fish sauce
25 leaves of Thai basil (holy basil)
Freshly ground black pepper
Thai basil leave for garnish

Preheat the grill in your oven. Grill the whole aubergines for about 20 minutes, turning frequently, until they are evenly charred all over.

While the aubergines are cooking, grind the garlic and lemon grass together in a mortar. Set aside. Heat the oil in a wok, add the onion and fry, stirring occasionally, until golden. Add the garlic/lemon grass paste, fry for 1-2 minutes, then add the chicken. Stir fry for 2 minutes. Add the fish sauce and basil and plenty of pepper.

Cut each aubergine in half lengthwise. Carefully scrape most of the the flesh from inside the skins and put in a bowl. Keep the skins hot. Cut the flesh into pieces with scissors. Put in the hot wok and stir-fry with the chicken mixture for about 1 minute. Put the aubergine skins on a hot serving platter and divide the chicken mixture between them. Garnish with basil leaves.

Sample recipe from: The Book of Thai Cooking: Spicy fried rice

2008-01-17T16:36:00.000Z

There are several fried rice recipes in the book, all of them worth trying, so I made a random choice.

First, here is a basic recipe for a spice paste that the rice recipe calls for:

Red curry paste:
1 tbs coriander seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp black peppercorns
4 garlic cloves, chopped
3 coriander roots, chipped (or use stalks if roots are not available)
8 dried red chillies, deseeded and chopped
2 stalks lemon grass, chopped
Grated zest of 1/2 kaffir lime
3 cm piece galangal, chopped
2 tsp shrimp paste

Heat a wok and roast the coriander and cumin seeds until they begin releasing their scent. Grind in a mortar or food processor with the pepper.

Add the remaining ingredients and grind into a smooth paste. Keeps for 4 weeks in an air-tight container stored in a refrigerator.

Enough to make 4 tablespoons.

Spicy fried rice:

175 g long grain (fragrant) white rice
2 tbs vegetable oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
2 fresh green chilli peppers, deseeded and finely chopped
2 tbs red curry paste (see recipe above)
55 g lean pork, very finely chopped
3 eggs, lightly whipped to mix yolks and whites
1 tbs fish sauce
55 g cooked shrimps

For garnish: finely julienned red chilli pepper, torn chilantro leaves and “feathered” spring onions (cut leaves in half where they start to turn green. Cut into fine strips, about halfway down the stalk, using scissors. Put the leaves into a bowl of cold water to make the strips curl up (a few seconds)).

Steam the rice according to instructions on the packet. Heat the oil in a wok, add onion, garlic and chilli pepper and fry until the onion is softened, stirring occasionally. Add the curry paste and stir-fry for 3-4 minutes. Add the pork and stir-fry for 2-3 minutes. Then add the rice and stir to coat in the other ingredients. Push the rice aside in the pan and pour the egg mixture into the center of the pan. When the mixture begins to cook, stir it into the rice to coat and immediately add fish sauce. Stir in the shrimps. Put on a heated serving platter and decorate with the red chilli, chilantro and spring onion “feathers”.

Sample recipe from: The Book of Thai Cooking: Chicken with lemon grass

2008-01-16T22:34:00.000Z

Serves 4-6.

1 chicken, about 1,5 kg, split into 8 parts
4 thick stalks of lemon grass
4 spring onions, chopped
4 black peppercorns, crushed
2 tbs vegetable oil
1 fresh green chilli pepper, deseeded and finely sliced
4 tbs water
2 tsp fish sauce
1 fresh red chilli pepper,cut into narrow strips, for garnish

Make a couple of shallow cuts into each chicken piece with a sharp knife. Arrange the pieces in one layer in a shallow dish.

Bruise the top part of the lemon grass stalks and set aside. Chop the lower halves and then grind them in a mortar with the spring onions and peppercorns. Spread over the chicken pieces and into the cuts. Cover and let stand for 2 hours.

Heat the oil in a wok, add the chicken pieces and cook for about 5 minutes or until lightly browned, stirring occasionally. Add the green chilli, the bruised lemon grass pieces and the water. Put a lid on the wok and simmer slowly for about 25-30 minutes, until cooked. Stir in the fish sauce. Put the chicken pieces on a heated serving platter and sprinkle the red chilli strips on top.

Sample recipe from: The Book of Thai Cooking: Fish with coconut and galangal

2008-01-15T17:24:00.000Z

4 tbs vegetable oil
1 shallot, chopped
4 cm piece of galangal, finely chopped
2 stalks lemon grass, finely chopped
1 small fresh chilli pepper, seeded and chopped
125 ml coconut milk
2 tsp fish sauce (nam pla)
5 chilantro (leaf coriander) twigs
About 350 g fish fillets, for example from a small flounder or sole or other flatfish
1 small onion, sliced
Freshly ground black pepper

Heat 1 tbs oil in a wok and add shallot, galangal, lemon grass and chilli. Stir-fry for about 3 minutes, until the stuff begins to brown slightly. Put into a food processor, add coconut milk, fish sauce and the stalks from the chilantro and blend (purée?) well. Put the fish into a heat-proof, shallow bowl that fits into the mouth of a saucepan, and pour the sauce over it. Cover the bowl, put on top of a saucepan with boiling water, and steam for 8-10 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the remaining oil in the wok at medium heat. Add the onion and fry, stirring occasionally, until browned. Remove from the wok with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper. Put the chilantro leaves in the wok and fry for a few seconds. Remove like the onion and drain on kitchen paper. Serve the fish with the chilantro leaves and onion sprinkled on top and plenty of ground black pepper on top of that.

Sample recipe from: The Book of Thai Cooking: Chicken and mushroom soup

2008-01-14T16:49:00.000Z

Many Asian soups are brilliantly simple and fresh, with a multitude of flavours. Some of my acquaintances claim they don’t like Asian (by which they mean “Chinese”) soups, because they are, to quote one of them “just flavoured water”, i.e. they are nothing like the thick, stew-like soups and the creamy French-style concoctions they are used to, but of course these soups are not meant to be meals in themselves, but merely appetizers. I must admit that I have eaten Chinese soups that were basically stock with some egg in them, but this looks like a slightly more filling soup.

It has three ingredients I have never used before: Chinese mushrooms, fish sauce and spring onions. I have eaten all three, but never used them in cooking.

Serves 4.

2 garlic cloves, crushed
4 chilantro (fresh coriander) stalks (with leaves)
1 1/2 tsp black peppercorns, ground
1 tbs vegetable oil
1 litre chicken stock
5 dried black Chinese mushrooms, soaked on cold water for 20 minutes, drained and coarsely chopped
1 tbs fish sauce (nam pla)
116 g chicken, cut into strips
55 g spring onions, finely sliced
Some coriander stalks with leaves for garnish

Purée the garlic, chilantro (stems and leaves) and pepper in a food processor or grind with a mortar and pestle. Heat the oil in a wok, add the purée and stir fry for 1 minute. Add stock, mushrooms and fish sauce and simmer for 5 minutes.

Add the chicken strips, lower the temperature so the liquid is barely simmering and simmer gently for 5 minutes. Sprinkle the spring onion slices on top and garnish with chilantro.

Cookbook of the week # 19: The Book of Thai Cooking by Hilaire Walden

2008-01-13T17:47:00.000Z

There are a number of Thai restaurants in Reykjavík and I occasionally treat myself to some Thai food. This book, which is part of a series of ethnic cookbooks, is illustrated with photographs and most of the recipes seem to be simple and easy, although some of the ingredients must have been hard to come by back when it was first published in Iceland in 1993. Since then, at least three Asian markets have opened in Reykjavík, and one of the supermarket chains has added many oriental ingredients to its shelves, so it should not be hard to get galangal, lemon grass or fish sauce or most of the other unfamiliar ingredients.

More cookbooks

2008-01-13T11:44:00.000Z

I have acquired some more cookbooks since I started the challenge. They came from various sources: bought on sale, from the charity shop, through BookMooch, and one was a Christmas present. I was going to wait to publish another list until I had 10 more cookbooks, but I chose one of them as cookbook of the week, so here they are.

Here are the new additions:

The Book of Thai Cooking by Hilaire Walden. Yet another Thai cookbook. Probably the last Thai cookbook I buy. I think three is probably enough.

Italia: The recipes and customs of the regions by Antonio Carluccio.

Ítalskir réttir Hagkaupa. One of a series of cookbooks published by a local supermarket, one book a year. This one is about Italian cooking, written by Leifur Kolbeinsson, an Icelandic chef who runs one of Iceland’s finest Italian restaurants. Full of mouth-watering recipes.

A Little Taste of Tailand by Oi Cheepchaiissara. My first Thai cookbook.

Malaysian Favorites by The Australian Women’s Weekly.

Modern Spanish Cooking by Sam & Eddie Hart.

Oriental Dinner Party Cookbook by The Australian Women’s Weekly. This book has recipes from China, India, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Sheila Lukins All Around the World Cookbook, by Sheila Lukins of Silver Palate fame. A trip around the world in recipes. I got this lovely, heavy cookbook from a BookMooch member in Canada who had to pay so much postage to send it to me that I felt really bad about mooching it when I saw the postal sticker on the package.

Step-by-step Thai Cooking. A beautifully illustrated Thai cookbook.

Tested recipe: Coconut-cashew lamb curry

2008-01-07T17:10:00.000Z

I have returned from my long holiday and an unintentional absence from blogging. The challenge will resume next weekend, but until then, here is a recipe I tried yesterday:
A slightly altered version of Kid Josh: Curried lamb with cashews and coconut milk, from a cookbook I have already reviewed: Charmaine Solomon's Indian Cookbook.

This is originally a Maharashtran Parsi recipe. I have written it down as I prepared it, i.e. with half the meat of the original and a nearly full recipe of sauce. The original serves six, but this should make a nice meal for 2-3 persons. The original is very hot, using 10 green chillies, but all I could get was a large green chilli that turned out to have hardly any heat at all, and as I didn’t feel like running all over town in search of hotter chillies, I used that and added some cayenne powder.

The recipe:

3 tsp chopped fresh ginger
5 tsp chopped garlic (about 5 average cloves)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground loves
1/4 tsp powdered cayenne pepper
1 1/2 tsp salt (or more, to taste)
500 g meat from a leg of lamb, fat trimmed off and cut into large cubes

4 tbs oil
1 1/2 cups water

200 g raw cashew nut kernels, finely ground
1 1/2 cups coconut milk

4 large potatoes, quartered and fried
100 ml uncooked rice for each person

Purée the ginger, garlic and chillies in a blender. Add the spices and salt and mix briefly. Divide this mixture in two and marinate the lamb in one half for about 30 minutes. Set the other half aside.

Heat 2 tbs oil in a large saucepan and brown the meat in it. Add the water, cover and simmer on low until the meat is tender and the stock has been reduced to about 2/3 cup. In this case the meat had been in the fridge since Thursday, so it was nice and tender to begin with. Getting it fully cooked and to nearly the “melt-in-your-mouth” stage only took about 40 minutes, but it took another 15 or so minutes of rapid cooking in an uncovered pan to reduce the stock. Separate the meat and stock and set both aside.

Now is a good time to start cooking the rice and frying the potatoes. No instructions are given, as I assume no-one would tackle this recipe unless they knew the basics first.

In a saucepan, heat the remaining 2 tbs of oil to medium heat and fry the other half of the spice purée until it changes colour and starts to stick slightly at the base of the pan. Add the coconut milk, stock and ground cashews, mix well and simmer, stirring, for a few minutes. Add the meat, mix well and let it simmer without stirring until oil rises to the top. (Note: this has to happen at low heat, as the sauce is so thick that it will burn at higher temperatures). Do not cover the pan. Taste and add salt if necessary.

Serve hot with the fried potatoes and hot rice.

Notes:
Another time I would not serve the potatoes, as the rice is starchy enough by itself.

This is a nice dish with a lovely mingling of flavours and since I made it mild, I could taste both the coconut milk and the cashews in it. However, I would never, ever serve it to guests. Why? Well, it doesn’t look very good, even for a curry. In fact it looks like brownish lumpy porridge (and I am being charitable by likening it to another kind of food). This is why there is no photo.

Lamb with apricots and sweet potatoes

2007-12-20T14:18:00.000Z

This recipe comes from an Icelandic website of lamb recipes. It appears to be of Middle-Eastern or North-African extraction. I have never had success in cooking sweet potatoes, but this looks fool-proof, and it has lamb, which is my favourite meat.

Serves 4.

800 g lamb, fat trimmed off and cut into bite-size cubes
3 tbs flour
Freshly ground pepper
salt
4 tbs olive oil
2 onions, chopped
2-3 celery stalks, chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp coriander seeds, ground
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp chili-pepper, or to taste
2 bay leaves
150 g apricots (presumably dried)
water
800 g sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
Some parsley, chopped

Mix together flour, pepper and salt and coat the cubed meat in it (put everything together in a plastic bag and shake).

Heat the oil in a large thick-bottomed pot and sautée the meat at high temperature until browned. Remove and set aside.

Lower the temperature to medium and put the onions, celery and garlic in the pot and let simmer for about 5 minutes. Add the spices and simmer for 2-3 minutes more. Return the meat to the pot, add the bay leaves and apricots with enough water to barely cover the contents of the pot. Bring to the boil and simmer slowly, covered, for about 40 minutes.

Add the sweet potatoes and simmer for 20 minutes more.

Taste the gravy and adjust flavour as needed. If it is very thin, remove the lid and turn up the temperature for a few minutes at the end to reduce and thicken the sauce.

Garnish with chopped parsley.

Good served with couscous.

Recipe I would like to try: Smoked herring patê

2007-12-18T19:35:00.000Z

Most of my recipe booklets live in folders and boxes that I rarely open, but most of them contain at least one recipe I would like to try. Here is one of them:

Patê brisée:
200 g flour
100 g butter
1 egg yolk
3 tbs water

Sauce:
200 g sour cream
100 g mayonnaise
4 tbs lemon juice
60 g chives
Salt and pepper

Patê:
500 g kippered (salted and smoked) herring
100 g onions
1 egg white
Salt and pepper
A dash of vinegar

Brisée pastry:
Mix flour, sugar and butter until the mixture forms fine crumbs. Add water and egg yolk and knead into a solid smooth mass. Refriegerate for several hours. Roll out and line a patê dish or other deep oven-proof dish with it.

Sauce:
Mix mayonnaise and sour cream until smooth. add finely chopped chives and lemon juice, salt and pepper.

Patê:
Grind together the herring and onion, either by running through a food grinder twice, or by processing on a food processor (use the blades). Mix in the egg white, spices and vinegar. Put into the brisée-clad dish and bake at 100°C for 60 to 90 minutes. Increase the temperature to 190°C for about 5-6 minutes at the end of the cooking time.

Taking a break

2007-12-18T08:06:00.000Z

This week and the next are going to be very busy for me, so I am putting the cookbook of the week challenge on the back-burner until after the new year. I will try to post a recipe here every day, some of the tried and tested variety, others from my collection of recipe booklets and newspaper clippings.

Soft golden syrup spice cookies

2007-12-17T11:07:00.000Z

This is an adaptation of a recipe for molasses cookies from The Silver Palate Cookbook. I tried it yesterday and the cookies are delicious, soft and chewy. Using golden syrup was an emergency measure, since I couldn’t get molasses anywhere (not even treacle, which is the same thing, only in British English), but it worked out fine. I will make them again when I manage to find some molasses/treacle and report on the difference. I think they would also be great made with honey.

170 g (12 tbs or 1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup Lyle’s Golden Syrup or molasses/treacle
1 egg
1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 175°C/350°F (165°C/330°F if you have a convection oven).

Melt the butter and add the sugar and molasses. Mix throughly. Lightly beat egg and add to butter mixture; blend well.

Sift the flour with the spices, salt and baking soda, and add to butter mixture mixture; mix. Batter will be wet.

Lay a sheet of foil or baking paper on a cookie sheet. Drop tablespoons of cookie batter on foil, leaving 3 inches between the cookies. They will spread during baking.

Bake until cookies start to darken, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from oven will still soft. Let cool on foil.

Recipe of the week from Cheap and Tasty: Spanish rice

2007-12-16T22:50:00.000Z

I chose this dish as recipe of the week because I love rice and I like trying new rice dishes and there were none in my repertory that contain tomatoes.

To serve 4.
Prep and cooking time: 45 minutes

400 g meat (I used mutton, but beef could also be used)
1 1/2 tsp butter/margarine
2 onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 green bell pepper (capsicum), sliced
1/2 tsp paprika powder
2 tsp salt
1 knife-tip (=small pinch) of saffron or turmeric (I used turmeric)
1 can (400 g) tomatoes
250 ml water
1/2 to 1 cube meat bouillon
200 ml rice

Cut the meat into cubes and brown in the butter/margarine. Add the onion, crushed garlic and bell pepper and let simmer together for a while. Add spices, salt, tomatoes, water, bouillon cube and rice. Cook, covered, for 18-25 minutes, depending on the type of rice. Make sure it doesn’t get too dry by adding a little water if needed.

Serve with iceberg salad leaves.

Review and notes:
I followed the recipe almost to the letter, except about halfway through the cooking process I added more garlic and then I ground about half a teaspoon of black pepper into it a few minutes before serving. While I did follow the instructions and serve iceberg lettuce with it, I think some wedges of fresh tomato and perhaps a piece of crusty bread would have been better.

The meat I used was soup grade mutton which imparted a nice flavour but was tough and would have needed about an hour and a half of slow stewing to become tender, so I spent quite some time after the meal picking it out of my teeth. If I had decided earlier that this was what I would be cooking, I would have let the meat tenderise in the refrigerator for 3-4 days beforehand.

The flavour of the dish is rich rather than strong, with paprika and tomato dominating and undertones of garlic, onion, green bell pepper and meat. I think beans would make a nice addition to the dish, and I can imagine it being even better made with beef than with mutton.

There are no photos this time because when cooked this is simply not a photogenic dish. It looks mushy and unattractive in the photos I took, so I decided against posting any.

Sample recipe from: Cheap and tasty: Chinese stew

2007-12-14T16:48:00.000Z

Judging from some of the ingredients this seems to be a sort of sweet-and-sour dish.

4 servings.
Time: 1 hour.

300 g hearts (presumably either sheep, pig or beef hearts are suitable)
2 tbs butter/margarine
1 1/2 tbs vinegar
2 tsp sugar
1 cube meat bouillon
200 ml pineapple juice (from the can that’s lower down on the list) and water (if there isn’t enough juice)
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 tbs Chinese soy sauce
75 g celery stalk, chopped
1 can (400 g) bamboo shoots
1 can (225 g) pineapple in pineapple juice
1 tsp potato flour or cornstarch, optional

Cut the hearts onto strips and brown in the hot butter. Add vinegar, sugar, bouillon cube, water and pineapple juice and cook, covered, for 20 minutes.

Add the celery and continue cooking for 15 minutes.

Add the babboo shoots and pineapple pieces and heat through. If you want a thicker sauce, thicken it with potato flour*.

Serve with steamed rice.

*Take a little bit of sauce and stir the flour into it to make a smooth paste, then stir into the stew to thicken.

Sample recipe from: Cheap and tasty: Julia’s fish au gratin

2007-12-13T18:19:00.000Z

Serves 4.
Time: 40 minutes.

400 g fish fillets
1 slice (about 200 g) white cabbage)
1 onion
1 carrot
Water
Salt and pepper
Butter/margerine
1 sachet bernaise-sauce powder
Grated cheese (optional)
Chopped parsley (optional)

Cut the fish into about 2 cm thick slices.

Wash and trim cabbage, onion and carrot and chop (or grate) very finely – the pieces should be no thicker than a toothpick. Sautée quickly in the butter – the veggies should not change colour. Put veggies into a greased oven-proof deep dish. Make a hole in the center of the veggies and put the fish pieces into it. Flavour with salt and pepper. Bake, covered, at 200°C until the fish is cooked through.

Make the bernaise sauce according to the instructions on the sachet and pour immediately over the fish and serve. Optionally, sprinkle the cheese over the wole thing, put back in the oven until the cheese is bubbly and golden, sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Sample recipe from: Cheap and tasty: Tasty fish soup

2007-12-12T17:14:00.000Z

4 servings
Time: 30 minutes

1 leek
2 tbs butter or margarine
100 ml rice
1.2 litres fish stock
1/2 tsp thyme
300 g fish fillet or 1 can (300 g) fish balls in cooking liquid
100 ml chopped dill
400 ml deep-frozen peas

Wash and slice the leek.

Melt the butter in a cooking pot and sautée the leek slices and rice. Add the stock and thyme. Cook for about 15 minutes.

Cut the fish fillet into cubes, about 2 cm (1 inch) or if you’re using fish balls, quarter them. Add to the soup and cook for about 5 minutes.

Add the peas and dill just before serving.

Cookbook of the week #18: Ódýrt og gott (Cheap and tasty)

2007-12-11T17:22:00.001Z

Here is yet another of those Swedish cookbooks. This one is about how to cook on the cheap, with ingredients common in Scandinavian supermarkets, ca. the 1980s. This means it’s heavy on root vegetables, potatoes, herring and ground meat. There are a number of recipes in it that I would like to try.

Musings: Things to wrap in bacon

2007-12-10T15:35:00.000Z

Have you noticed the variation of foods that taste great when wrapped in bacon?

Wieners in bacon are an old standby cocktail snack, but a lot of other foodstuffs can be treated in this way. Here are some samples. A couple are from previous posts on this blog, others from other cooking websites, and down at the bottom are some suggestions from me:

Devils on Horseback

Banana wraps; Cocktail sausage, mussel and sardine wraps

Parmesan-stuffed dates

Chicken livers

Scallops

Wieners with a difference

Jalapeno peppers

Shrimp

Asparagus

More shrimp

Water chestnuts

Cherry tomatoes

Any kind of firm white fish

Figs

Dates again, this time stuffed with almonds

Meatballs

Salmon

Smoked oysters

Over the weekend I tried several variations on this theme. The banana is something I would not try again, not because it was bad, but because it was so mushy that it squirted out of the bacon wrapping when I bit into it. I suppose it would be ok if made in bite-sized pieces. The mozarella cheese was a bit too chewy for this kind of food, and the dried apple was... interesting. The two best were dates filled with herbed cream cheese, which were very nice, but it was the dates filled with peanut butter that won the contest. They were excellent.

I think I’ll stop here – this is making me hungry.

---
Of course, you can make the merely delicious into something heavenly by using proscuitto di Parma or Jamón serrano. The classic filling is melon (cantaloupe or honeydew), but olives, asparagus, strong cheese or freshly baked bread are delicious too. And there is no need to cook anything.

Recipe of the week from Cookies: Raspberry Almond Shortbread Thumbprints

2007-12-09T18:40:00.000Z

Due to unforeseen circumstances I have been unable to test more than one recipe from the book as i had planned, so this stands as recipe of the week.

Prep time: 45 minutes
Chilling time: 60 minutes
Baking time: 14 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes

Makes about 42 cookies.

The cookies:
1 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup raspberry jam

The glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar (icing sugar, confectioner’s sugar)
1 1/2 tsp almond extract
2-3 tsp water

Beat butter, sugar and almond extract together in a large mixer bowl at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until creamy (2-3 minutes). Reduce the speed to low and add the flour, beating until well mixed (2-3 minutes). Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Heat the oven to 175°C (350°F). Shape the dough into balls, about 2,5 cm (1 inch) across. Put the balls on ungreased cookies sheets, about 2 inches apart. Make an indentation in the centre of each cookies with your thumb (don’t worry if the edges of the indentations crack slightly). Fill each indentation with about 1/4 tsp of raspberry jam.

Bake for 14 to 18 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are lightly browned. Remove from the oven and let stand for 1 minute, then place on a wire rack to cook. Let cool completely before glazing.

To glaze, stir together the glaze ingredients with a whisk until smooth. Drizzle over the cooled cookies.

Notes and review:

These cookies (or pastries), even when only halfway well-made like mine, are real showstoppers because it is obvious how much work went into making them. In my case the glazing went a bit wild, and no wonder because I used a spoon to dribble it onto the cookies. Next time I will use my Wilton decorating bag and the tiniest piping tip I can find.

It is obvious to anyone who compares their own final product with the lovely perfection of the photo in the book that the jam was added to the cookies after they were baked – another secret of food photography revealed:

I made the cookies as instructed in the book, even down to making the balls an inch across, but I still only got about 30 cookies out of the recipe. The only reason I can guess is that the flour I use must be different from what they use in the Land O‘Lakes test kitchen so the dough turned out denser, or perhaps I beat it for too long? It‘s hard to tell with shortbread, because it is so dense anyway.

The cookies are every bit as good as they look. They are dense and a bit crumbly and have a slightly sandy texture. The cookies themselves have only a mild almond flavour, but the glazing has a lot more that is prevented from becoming overbearing by the fruity flavour of the raspberry jam.

Sample recipe from Cookies: Butterscotch Crisps

2007-12-03T19:15:00.000Z

This looks interesting. I will have to see if I can find the butterscotch-chips. I have seen them in some supermarket, but I can't remember which one.

Prep time: 45 minutes
Chilling time: 2 hours
Baking time: 5 minutes

Makes about 72 cookies.

1 cup butterscotch-flavoured baking chips
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup chopped pecan nuts

Melt butterscotch chips in a 1 litre (1 quart) saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, until melted (3-5 minutes).

Put the butterscotch mixture in a large mixer bowl and add the remaining ingredients EXCEPT the pecans. Beat at low speed, scraping bowl often, until well mixed (1-2 minutes). Fold in the pecans by hand.

Divide the dough in half. Shape each half into a 20 by 3 cm (8 by 1 1/2 inch) roll. Wrap the roll in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm – at least 2 hours.

Heat the oven to 200°C (400°F). Using a sharp knife, cut rolls into 3 mm (1/8 inch) slices and place on ungreased cookie sheets about 2,5 cm (1 inch) apart, and bake for 5-7 minutes or until set. Cool for 1 minute and remove cookies from the sheets.

Cookbook of the week #17: Cookies: Favorite recipes from the Land O’Lakes Test Kitchens, and a recipe for Cashew Butter Cookies

2007-12-02T22:26:00.001Z

Following on from the recipe of the week, I decided to go for one of my two cookie books. Christmas is coming in just over three weeks, and one of the things Christmas means to me is cookies. My mother didn’t generally make cookies from scratch when I was growing up, being more of a cake person, but she always baked cookies for Christmas. When I was a child the staples she would make were cornflake mounds, air cookies, vanilla rings and vanilla sandwich cookies, crisp chocolate chip and nut cookies, coconut cookies, meringue drops, pepper cookies and gingersnap sandwich cookies, not to mention the experiments that were never repeated or that she made a for a few years and then stopped making, like oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies. (She would also make brown cake, dream cake and devil’s cake, but that’s another story).

The number of types of cookies has dropped down to four now, plus the one type I always make which are more like confections than cookies. My appetite for these lovely little nibbles has not diminished (although I have to be careful now how many I eat in one session), and therefore I am looking forward to testing some of the recipes in this book. I will probably make at least a couple of the sample recipes, perhaps more, and review them as I go along, rather than post one review at the end of the week.

Land O’Lakes is a dairy company based in Minnesota in the USA and the book is a promotional publication to push their products, especially butter and sour cream. Neither is imported to Iceland, so I will be using Icelandic products instead. In addition to recipes, the book has plenty of useful advice about how to get the best results when making the various different kinds of cookies.

The first sample recipe is for Cashew Butter Cookies:

The recipe is supposed to make 54 cookies.

3/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup honey
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 cup chopped salted cashew nuts

Salted cashew halves for decorating

Heat oven to 190°C (375°F).

Mix together the flour, baking soda and baking powder in a bowl.

Combine butter, sugar, honey and egg in a mixing bowl and beat at medium speed, scraping the bowl often, until creamy (2-3 minutes). Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture. beat until well mixed (1-2 minutes). Fold in the chopped cashew nuts by hand.

Using two teaspoons, drop rounded teaspoonfuls of dough onto ungreased cookie sheets, about 2 inches apart. Top each cookie with a cashew half. Bake for 6-9 minutes or until golden brown.

Recipe of the week from The Big Ready Steady Cook Book: Snappy Ginger Biscuits

2007-12-02T17:34:00.000Z

I had a very busy day yesterday and today is a let's-eat-leftovers day, so I decided to make something simple and easy: ginger biscuits (cookies to Americans).

Creator: Thane Prince
Found on page 177
Makes 20

100 g (4 oz) unsalted butter
100 g (4 oz) caster sugar (I used regular)
1/2 tsp ground ginger
175 g (6 oz) self-raising flour ()
Juice of 1/2 orange

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Put butter, sugar, ginger and flour in a food processor and blend until crumbly. With the motor running, pour in enough orange juice to make a soft dough.

Put teaspoonfuls of the dough onto a baking sheet with about 5 cm (2 inches) between balls of dough. Wet a fork and flatted each ball with it. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown, remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

Review and notes:

First of all: substitutions. I used regular sugar instead of caster sugar, and regular flour, baking powder and salt instead of self-rising flour (1 1/4 cup flour + 1 3/4 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt). It took the juice of one whole (admittedly rather small) orange to make the kind of dough needed, so if you make this recipe, keep more on hand just in case.

The cookies are quick, extremely easy to make and nice warm with cold milk. There is a slight bitter flavour to them that suggests I could safely cut down on the baking powder in my self-rising flour recipe. Another time I would use more ginger and perhaps a 1/4 tsp of orange essence to get a stronger flavour of both. as it is, the cookies are mild and nice with milk, and probably great with tea. They go hard around the edges but stay soft in the center when cooled.

Sample recipe from The Big Ready Steady Cook Book: Chocolate roulade with cherry sauce

2007-11-30T16:25:00.000Z

Creator: Lesley Waters
Found on page 185

Serves 6-8

3 eggs
100 g (4 oz) caster sugar
50 g (2 oz) plain flour
25 g (1 oz) cocoa
300 ml (10 fl.oz) double cream (whipping cream)
4 tbs Kirsch
100 g (4 oz) good quality plain chocolate, melted
425 g tin (can) stoned black cherries, drained and juice reserved
Fresh mint sprigs and icing sugar, to decorate

Heat oven to 200°C (400°F). Whip together the eggs and sugar until pale and fluffy. Sift together the flour and cocoa and gently fold into the egg/sugar mixture with a metal tablespoon. Pour the batter into a lined Swiss roll tin (jelly roll tin) and bake for 8-10 minutes until risen and just firm to the touch. Cool in the tin for a few minutes and turn out onto a wire rack.

Whip the cream until thick enough to for soft peaks, then stir in half the Kirsch.

Melt the chocolate over a water-bath and spoon a tablespoon of it into a greaseproof paper piping bag (you can make one from rolled-up baking paper) and pipe swirls of chocolate onto a sheet of greaseproof paper. Place in the refrigerator to set.

Mix the remaining chocolate and Kirsch along with 2 tbs of cherry juice. Pour into a jug and keep warm.

Spread the cake with the whipped cream mixture. Spoon the cherries over the cream and then roll up the cake lengthways, peeling away the paper as you go. Transfer to a serving plate, decorate with the icing sugar, mint leaves and chocolate shapes and serve with the warm sauce.

Sample recipe from The Big Ready Steady Cook Book: Lamburgers with ratatouille

2007-11-29T20:17:00.001Z

Creator: Richard Cawley
Found on page 146.

Serves 4.

50 g (3 oz) fresh white breadcrumbs
450 g (minced lamb)
1onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
Grated rind of 1 lemon
1 tbs chopped fresh rosemary
1 egg, beaten
3 tbs olive oil
1 red pepper (bell pepper), seeded and cut into 1 cm (1/2 inch) pieces
5 baby courgettes, diced
3 tbs white wine
75 g (3 oz) pine nuts
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Notes in brackets are mine.

To make the burgers:
Put the breadcrumbs, lamb mince, half the onion, the garlic, lemon rind rosemary and plenty of salt and pepper and mix well (use your hands). Stir in the beaten egg. Shape the mixture into four even-sized patties.

Heat 2 tbs olive oil in a frying-pan and cook the burgers for 5-6 minutes on each side until golden brown.

To make the ratatouille:
Meanwhile, heat the rest of the oil in a pan and cook the other half of the onion, the red pepper and courgettes for 5 minutes until softened. Stir in the wine, cover and cook for 3-4 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Finishing:
Heat a small non-stick pan and gently roast the pine nuts for 1-2 minutes, until golden brown.

To serve, spoon the ratatouille onto plates, top with the burgers and sprinkle the pine nuts on top. Serve hot.

Sample recipe from The Big Ready Steady Cook Book: Chicken with pineapple salsa

2007-11-28T07:49:00.000Z

That salsa sounds good. I imagine it would also be good with flavourful fish, for example halibut.

Creator: Richard Cawley
Found on page 89

Serves 2.

4 chicken thighs
400 ml (14 fl.oz) water
1 chicken stock cube
225 g (8 oz) easy-cook rice
Zest and juice of 1 orange
1 bunch of spring onions, finely chopped
1 red chili, seeded and finely chopped
1 green pepper (bell pepper), seeded and chopped
220 g tin (can) pineapple rings in natural juice, drained and roughly chopped
Juice of 1 lime
2 tbs cornflour
1 tsp ground mixed spice (??)
Vegetable oil for deep frying
2 fresh thyme sprigs
2 fresh basil leaves
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Skin the chicken pieces and discard the skin. Cut the flesh away from the bones, reserve the bones and cut the flesh into 1 cm (1/2 inch) strips. Set aside.

Put the water in a large pan/pot and add the stock cube, chicken bones and rice and bring to the boil. Stir in the orange zest and half the following ingredients: orange juice, spring onions, chilli and green pepper. Cook for 10 minutes or according to instructions for cooking the rice, until tender. Adjust taste with salt and pepper.

To make the salsa: stir together the pineapple, lime juice and the remaining spring onions, chilli, green pepper and orange juice. Season with salt and pepper and transfer to a serving bowl.

In a small bowl, mix the cornflour and mixed spice. Coat the chicken pieces with this mixture, shake off any excess and deep-fry in batches for 4-5 minutes or until cooked through and golden brown. Drain on absorbent paper.

Deep fry the thyme sprigs and basil leaves for 30 seconds. Drain on absorbent paper.

Remove the chicken bones from the rice and discard them. Spoon the rice onto plates and and arrange the fried chicken on top. Garnish with the deep-fried herbs and serve with the salsa.

Sample recipe from The Big Ready Steady Cook Book: Oven-baked haddock with potatoes and tomato-herb sauce

2007-11-27T07:43:00.001Z

Haddock is my favourite every-day fish, but I usually just poach it with a little bit of salt and lemon juice. When you can get fish as fresh as it is here in Iceland, the simple method is often the best way of enjoying the fresh flavour, but I do like a change every now and then.

Creator: Alastair Little
Found on page 69

Serves 4.

450 g (12 oz) haddock fillets
225 g (8 oz) potatoes, thinly sliced
50 g (2 oz) butter
225 g (8 oz) frozen peas
100 ml (3 1/2 fl.oz) white wine
1 onion, chopped
300 ml (10 fl.oz) double cream (whipping cream)
2 tomatoes, skinned, seeded and finely chopped
2 tbs chopped fresh parsley
1 tbs chopped fresh dill
2 tbs snipped fresh chives
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Lemon wedges, to serve

Put the haddock on a greased baking sheet and season with salt and pepper. Arrange the potato slices on top of the fish so that they overlap slightly. Dot with half the butter and season with a little salt and pepper. Bake at 200°C (400°F) for 12-15 minutes, or until tender and golden.

Cook the peas in salted boiling water for 3 minutes until tender. Drain well. Set aside.

Put the wine and chopped onion in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Simmer for 5 minutes or until the onion is tender. Add the peas, cream, chopped tomatoes and the rest of the butter and gently warm through. Add the chopped herbs and season with salt and pepper.

To serve, put the fish in the centre of a large plate and spoon the sauce around it. Garnish with lemon wedges.

Sample recipe from The Big Ready Steady Cook Book: Gnocchi with spicy tomato sauce

2007-11-26T07:32:00.000Z

I chose this recipe because I have neither made nor eaten gnocchi before and I would like to. This is from the vegetarian chapter.

Creator: Kevin Woodford
Found on page 16.

Serves 2.

450 ml (15 fl.oz) milk
75 g (3 oz) semolina (pasta flour)
1 egg yolk
25 g (1 0z) butter
1 tbs double cream (whipping cream)
75 g (3 oz) Parmesan, grated
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

Sauce:
25 g (1/2 oz) butter
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1/2 red pepper (bell pepper), seeded and sliced
1/2 leek, sliced
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tbs chopped fresh coriander
1 tbs chopped fresh parsley
400 g can of chopped tomatoes
1 few drops of Tabasco sauce
4 tbs tomato purée
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

To make the gnocchi: heat the milk to boiling and add the semolina. Stir constantly until the mixture thickens. Beat in the egg yolk, butter, cream and half the Parmesan. Then add the nutmeg, salt and pepper. Smooth the semolina mixture into a small oven-proof dish and allow to cool.

To make the sauce: melt the butter in a pan and cook the onion, pepper, leek, garlic and herbs for about 5 minutes or until softened. Add the tomatoes, Tabasco and tomato purée. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Adjust taste with salt and pepper.

Turn the semolina mixture out on a worktable and cut out rounds using a 5 cm (2 inch) pastry (cookie) cutter. Arrange the gnocchi circles in the same dish in one layer, sprinkling with the remaining Parmesan. Put under a hot grill/broiler for 4-5 minutes or until the cheese has melted and turned golden brown.

To serve, transfer the gnocchi to plates and spoon the sauce around it.

Cookbook of the week #16: The Big Ready Steady Cook Book

2007-11-25T18:54:00.001Z

When I have access to BBC Prime I always try to catch Ready Steady Cook. As a rule I don’t particularly like cookery shows, especially the kind with a cook/chef making one or several dishes and telling the audience how easy it all is and how wonderful it tastes, etc. Jamie Oliver’s chirpiness gets on my nerves, Delia Smith’s voice annoys me and I think I have developed an allergy to Giada De Laurentiis and motormouth Rachel Ray (in Giada’s case after one episode). I can just about watch an episode of Nigella Lawson’s show every now and then, but I try to avoid it because it makes me hungry, even right after a meal – something none of the other abovementioned cooks/chefs have managed to do. But shows like Ready Steady Cook and Can’t Cook, Won’t Cook interest me, because they are mostly unscripted and because they show people who are not food professionals cooking and interacting with chefs.

This cookbook was first published (by the BBC) in 1997 and seems to have been quite popular, going through two editions and 7 reprints up to the one I have. The recipes do not seem to be ones that were created on the show, but rather a showcase of the creative talents of the chefs.

I decided to choose one recipe from each of the 5 chapters, and one of them or one more as recipe of the week. As those who regularly watch the show know, the recipes often have original punning titles, and some of the recipes in the book do too. For copyright reasons I can’t publish those recipes under their original artistic titles, but I will include the page number and name of the creator so they can be easily found in the book.

I found a number of recipes in the book that I would like to make, but unusually for me, the dessert recipes were the least interesting of the lot. The most difficult to choose from were the meat recipes, as this is the first of my cookbooks of the week that has a really good choice of tempting recipes that feature lamb. I have not yet chosen the recipe of the week, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it will be one for lamb, but I will have a very busy weekend, so I may end up making a dessert. I usually don’t know my choice until Friday.

Most of the recipes have a long list of ingredients, but do not seem to be fiddly to put together.

Tried and tested: Potato omelet

2007-11-23T12:37:00.000Z

This makes a full meal for one or a light meal for 2.

1 baking potato (about 200 g), thinly sliced (only peel it if the peel looks ugly)
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 to 1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 tbs cooking oil
Salt and pepper to taste
A dash of Aromat (or Accent)
Other herbs/spices you like with eggs or potatoes

Lightly beat the eggs with the seasonings and chopped onion.

Heat the oil in an omelet pan and fry the potato slices over medium heat until cooked through but not browned. When the edges begin to brown, pour the egg mixture over the potatoes. Let cook for about 30 seconds, and then, using a spatula, lift the potato slices and cooked edges of the omelet from the pan to let the raw egg mix flow under the potato slices. When the surface of the omelet is no longer runny, slide the omelet onto a plate. If you like omelets to be lightly cooked, eat as it is.
Otherwise, turn the pan upside down, lay on top of the plate and turn over quickly and return to the heat to cook the other side of the omelet (it can also be finished in the oven if the pan has a metal handle).

I sometimes make this with cubed, cooked potatoes that go directly into the egg mixture prior to frying.

Tried and tested: Cheap and fast chili beans

2007-11-21T09:12:00.000Z

I cooked this dish quite often during a period in my life when I couldn’t get any work that suited my education because I had no previous experience with the work I wanted, only my degree. While I was looking for an office job, I took a job with the city social services, cleaning houses for pensioners, which was half-cleaning, half-social work, and very badly paid. This dish, made from some very cheap ingredients, provided energy and a long-lasting feeling of fullness and didn't put too much of a strain on my budget. I had always planned to try making it from scratch with dried beans and fresh tomatoes, but never got round to it.

1 can plain kidney beans or chili kidney beans
1 medium onion, cut into thin slices
2 or more garlic cloves, chopped or crushed
1 small bell pepper (red or green), cut into small pieces
100 g bacon pieces (or equivalent in rashers cut into small squares)
ketchup or tomato paste to taste
Pepper and salt
Chopped fresh red chili peppers to taste (this may not be necessary of the chili beans are particularly hot)

Optional:
Sausages, chopped, or
Ground beef, browned

Put everything except the salt, pepper and chillies into a saucepan or cooking pot and heat to boiling. When the mixture boils, add salt and spices to taste. Simmer on low, uncovered, until the sauce is thickened.

Topped with cheese this makes a nice filling for tortillas.

Tried and tested: Chocolate brownies

2007-11-20T10:55:00.000Z

This recipe originally came from the 1943 edition of The Good Housekeeping Cookbook. I have used it often and it never fails to receive the thumbs up from anyone who likes brownies.

1/2 cup (100 g) unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
60 g baking chocolate (the darker, the better), melted and lightly cooled
3/4 cup flour, sifted
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup chopped nuts or whole raisins (I have used both walnuts and hazelnuts with good results and I think macadamias or pecans would be good too. 50/50 nuts and white chocolate chips would be good too)

Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt.

Beat the butter until it is light and creamy. Gradually add the sugar. Add the eggs and melted chocolate and mix well. gradually add the flour mixture. Fold in the nuts/raisins. Pour batter into a small, greased oven pan and bake at 170°C for 30-35 minutes, or until the cake feels firm when the middle is pressed lightly with a finger.

Remove from the oven and immediately cut into serving-size squares.

Icing sugar may be sprinkled over the squares for an extra touch of sweetness.

Moussaka

2007-11-19T13:10:00.000Z

I am taking a break from the challenge for one week, but will publish one tried and tested recipe from my collection daily until next Sunday when the challenge will continue.

I first encountered Moussaka on a holiday in Greece. The high tourist season was over and some of the little family restaurants were closing for the winter. I was looking for a place to eat, but every place that had been open the day before seemed to have closed. It was dark already when discovered a tiny, open-air corner restaurant, where I ordered moussaka, the first time I ever tried it.

I can still remember the taste, smooth and soft with a slight hint of cinnamon. Try as I may, I have never been able to reproduce a moussaka the way I remember it from that first time, but here is a very good recipe that I sometimes use. The original recipe I based it on came from some women's magazine, but it has changed in accordance with my tastes and the availability of ingredients.

Serves 4
1 large (about 300 g) eggplant, or substitute with potatoes if eggplant is not available
About 225 g potatoes, or 525 g if eggplant is not available
350 g minced lamb or mutton, lightly browned (beef may be substituted but lamb is better)
6 tbs olive oil
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
225 g ripe tomatoes, peeled and deseeded, or 1 standard can
1 tbs tomato purée
4 tbs lamb or vegetable stock
1 tbs fresh parsley, chopped (optional)
salt & ground black pepper to taste
1-2 tbs olive oil
A pinch of cinnamon (optional)
100 g Parmesan cheese, grated
2 eggs
300 ml Greek yogurt (I use skyr, which is of similar consistency and flavour)

Trim the eggplant and cut into slices, about 5 mm. thick. Sprinkle salt on the slices and leave to drain in a colander for about 30 minutes. Rinse with cold water and pat dry.
Peel the potatoes and cut into slices, same thickness as the eggplant. Heat 1-2 tbs. olive oil in a frying pan and lightly brown the lamb mince. Remove from the pan.

Heat the oven to 190°C while you prepare the meat sauce:
Heat half the olive oil in a frying pan and fry the eggplant slices for 3-4 minutes on each side, or until soft. Remove from the pan and drain on kitchen paper. Add the remaining oil to the pan and fry the potato slices for 2-3 minutes on each side. Remove from the pan and drain. Add onion and garlic to the pan and cook for about 5 minutes, or until soft. Remove the pan from the stove, and add the pre-cooked lamb mince. Stir to mix. Add the chopped tomatoes, tomato purée, stock and parsley, if using. Season with cinnamon, salt and pepper and mix well.

Arrange the eggplant slices (or half the potatoes if you're not using eggplant) on the bottom and around the sides of an oven-proof casserole dish (must take at least 1200 ml). Put half the meat sauce on top. Top with potato slices, and cover with the rest of the meat sauce.

Beat together the Greek yogurt, eggs and Parmesan cheese, add a pinch of salt and pour over the top. Bake for about 35 minutes, until the mixture is bubbling hot and the topping is golden.

Grated cheese, such as Gouda, may be sprinkled on top for a more cheesy flavour.
Serve with Greek salad and crusty bread.

I usually make a full recipe, put half in a casserole dish for cooking immediately, and the other half I divide between one portion freezer- and oven proof aluminium food containers which I pop in the freezer. This dish keeps well frozen.

Simple Greek salad:
Chop some fresh tomatoes and cucumber into coarse pieces. Mix in a bowl. Add thin slices of red onion along with some black olives and pieces of feta cheese. Grind some black pepper over the salad and add some salt to taste. Pour a little olive oil over the salad and stir to coat (if the feta came in spiced oil, use that). Chill for 10-15 minutes before serving.

Recipe of the week from Salads: American celeriac salad

2007-11-18T09:49:00.000Z

This was going to be the dish of the week. I chose it because I have never (knowingly) eaten celeriac, and because it is recommended as good with ham, which is what I had decided to have for Sunday dinner. Unfortunately, availability intervened. For months I have been noticing celeriac roots when I have gone shopping, and thought “this I’ll have to try”, but then when I was going to buy one, it wasn’t available. I tried three supermarkets and found nothing, so I thought I would have to fall back on my second choice, a potato salad.

4-6 servings.

1/2 celeriac root (about 250 g)
2 apples
50 g shelled walnuts

Dressing:
150 ml (150 g) mayonnaise
100 ml whipping cream
2-3 tsp lemon juice

Peel and julienne the celeriac and cook for a few minutes in lightly salted water. Drain and cool. Peel the apples and cut into cubes. Coarsely chop the walnuts, reserving a few whole kernels to use for garnish. Mix together celeriac, apple pieces and walnuts.

Mix together the cream, mayonnaise and lemon juice. Pour over the salad and stir to mix. Garnish with walnut kernels.

Once I have tried the salad with walnuts I will replace the photo with one that has walnuts in it.

Edit:

I went to a supermarket (a different one from the ones I visited yesterday) to get some ingredients for the potato salad after I posted the recipe, and guess what I found? Celeriac. So I decided to make this salad after all as dish of the week.

This was not the end of my ingredient problems. The ham was in the oven, getting the final glaze and the potato wedges were being roasted when I began assembling the salad. The julienned celeriac was cooked and cooled, I had a nice sweet-tart apple all chopped up, the sauce was smooth and nice – and then I opened the packet of walnut kernels to discover they were rancid, a good couple of months before the sell-by date. I had no choice but to make a run to the small after-hours supermarket that is conveniently situated about 5 minutes from where I live. They had no walnuts, so I had to improvise and bought pecan nuts instead. They have a flavour reminiscent of walnuts, although they are sweeter and not as flavourful or as crunchy.

And now for the Review:

This salad is actually a variation on the classic Waldorf salad, using a slightly more elaborate sauce and cooked celeriac instead of raw celery, so the flavour is milder and the salad is not as crunchy as the original. I served it on the side with slices of smoked ham that I glazed with a mixture of ketchup and brown sugar.

The salad had a nice texture, it was mild with bursts of stronger flavour from the nuts and celeriac, but I should have used a tart apple to get more flavour. It went down well with the ham and garlic-flavoured potato wedges.

Sample recipe from Salads: Fruity chicken salad

2007-11-16T16:47:00.000Z

This lunch salad sounds good, except I would either serve it without the dressing or use crème fraiche instead.

4 servings.

1 whole grilled or broiled chicken
1/2 head of white cabbage
300 g green grapes
3-4 red apples
1 lemon (optional)

Dressing:
3 tbs lemon juice
Salt and pepper
5 tbs salad oil

Remove the bones from the chicken and cut the meat into bite-sized pieces.

Chop the cabbage (the photo shows thin cabbage strips). Cut the grapes in half and remove the seeds. Wash and core the apples and cut them into large pieces.

Put the cabbage in the bottom of a salad bowl and put the remaining ingredients (except the dressing) on top.

Stir together the lemon juice, salt, pepper and oil to make the dressing. Pour over the salad. It can also be served with yogurt for dressing.

Sample recipe from Salads: Hot orange salad

2007-11-15T17:16:00.000Z

It doesn’t say what this salad is supposed to be served with, but since the dressing includes both sugar and spice I rather think it’s meant to be a dessert. I can also imagine it as being good with roast pork, duck and chicken.

Serves 1-2.

1-2 oranges

Dressing:
75 ml water
1 tbs sugar
1 tbs vinegar
3-5 cloves

Peel the orange(s) and cut into thin slices (the photo shows the orange with the rind cut off, making pentagonal slices).
Mix together sugar, water, vinegar and cloves in a saucepan. Heat and let it simmer for a few minutes (i.e. cook until the sugar is melted). Pour over the orange slices and serve immediately.

Sample recipe from Salads: French tuna salad

2007-11-14T11:56:00.000Z

Serves 1-2.

1 leaf iceberg lettuce
1/2 can tuna in water
2-3 whole olives (black, according to the photo)
1 sliced hard boiled egg
1 tomato

Dressing:
2 tsp vinegar
1/2 clove garlic, pressed
Salt and pepper
1 1/2 tbs salad oil

Mix the sauce and let stand for a while to let the flavours meld. Chop the salad leaf and put on a plate or plates. Add chunks of tuna, olives, egg slices and tomato wedges.

Pour the dressing over the salad or serve on the side.

Sample recipe from Salads: Potato salad with mayonnaise and cream

2007-11-13T09:20:00.000Z

This looks like a simple and easy potato salad of the side-dish type.

Serves 1-2.

2-4 cooked potatoes
1 tsp capers
1-2 tsp chopped onion

Dressing:
2 tbs whipping cream
2 tbs mayonnaise
Salt and pepper

Garnish:
3-4 radishes

Cube the potatoes and mix with onion and capers. Mix together cream and mayonnaise and adjust taste with salt and pepper. Put the potato mixture into the sauce and stir to coat. Cool until ready to serve.
Sprinkle sliced radishes on top for a flavourful garnish.

Sample recipe from Salads: French farmer’s salad

2007-11-12T18:53:00.000Z

This is a light salad that might make a nice light meal or an entrée to a bigger meal.

1-2 servings:

1-2 eggs
1/4 head of iceberg lettuce
1/4 head of lettuce (the photo shows some kind of curly lettuce that looks like the decorative kind I sometimes grow on my balcony. I don't think the type is really that important)
75 g salted bacon
1 slice white (French) bread

Dressing:
Salt and pepper
1/2 clove garlic, pressed
2 tsp vinegar
1 tbs oil (I would use olive oil)

Mix all dressing ingredients together and refrigerate for a while.

Cook the eggs (in the accompanying photo they are medium well done, i.e. the white is cooked, but the yolk is soft). Trim and wash the lettuce and tear into pieces. Cut the bacon into cubes and fry until almost crisp, then cut the bread into cubes and brown in the bacon fat.

Pour a little of the sauce onto each plate. Put the lettuce on top, then the bacon, then the eggs (cut in half, according to the photo), and top with bread cubes.

The recipe suggests adding ham to the salad to make it more hearty.

Edit:

I made this salad for dinner. For the second lettuce I used a type called “Lambhagasalat” after the place where it’s grown, and the vinegar was white wine vinegar, as I thought regular white vinegar would be too sharp for the vinaigrette.

Following the instructions and the photograph in the book, I tore the salad up coarsely, but it really should be torn into small pieces, as cramming large pieces into your mouth will leave your lips and cheeks smeared with vinaigrette. I fried fatty bacon to get plenty of fat to fry the bread cubes in.

The salad was an interesting collection of flavours and textures: the bland smoothness of the egg, the oily crunchiness of croutons, the salty, chewy bacon, then the fresh, crisp lettuce and the tart, pungent flavour of the vinaigrette.

These flavours do not blend well enough when the salad is made according to instructions. Another time I would tear the lettuce leaves up into small pieces and toss with the vinaigrette, then toss the bread and bacon, add to the salad and top with the egg. And I would serve beer with it.

Cookbook of the week #15: Salatréttir (Salads)

2007-11-11T15:31:00.000Z

It’s time for another one of those series books.

The book is just what the title says: a collection of salads, as starters, sides or main dishes.

I am not very adventurous where salads are concerned, usually preferring them plain rather than dressed, and when dressed, with mayonnaise- or sour cream-based salad sauces rather than oil- or vinegar-based dressings. This is a chance for me to expand my horizons a bit.

Recipe of the week: Genuine Howondaland Curry

2007-11-10T21:59:00.000Z

I chose this as recipe of the week because I love curries and I liked the look of this one even more than Mrs. Colon’s Klatchian Curry. The recipe is presented here in the proportions I used, which is approximately equal to half a recipe from the book, with some tweaks. I have put my notes on alterations and some comments into the recipe and instructions.

Attributed to: Ponce da Quirm.

Serves 2.

2 chicken breasts, skinless and cut into small bite-sized cubes
100 ml plain yogurt
1 tbs grated fresh ginger root (the recipes calls for a 1 cm piece, but this can mean 1/4 tsp or 1 tbs, all depending on how thick the root is. I obviously chose the larger size)
8 cloves of garlic (this is as much as a whole recipe calls for, but in my opinion it is impossible to have too much garlic in a dish)
Large dash of olive oil, enough to thinly coat the bottom of my frying pan
1/2 a large onion, coarsely chopped
1 fresh green chilli pepper, seeded and finely chopped (this is half of what it should be, but I thought it would be enough as I don’t like the heat of chillies to overpower all other flavours in a dish. It wasn’t enough, but the supermarket down the street doesn’t sell fresh chillies and I didn’t want to drive to another market just for one pepper. I also completely forgot that I have some powdered cayenne pepper)

Here is where things began to go wrong. I misread the instructions in the book as 1/2 teaspoon each of cumin and coriander, when in fact it was 1/2 tablespoon, which is equal to 1 1/2 teaspoon. On with the recipe:

1/4 tsp ground cumin (should have been 3/4 tsp)
1/4 tsp ground coriander (ditto)
1/2 tsp turmeric
200 ml coconut milk
150 ml water (I will reduce this to 100 ml if I make this dish again)
Salt to taste
Fresh coriander leaves

The recipe suggests that a can of tomatoes or some liquidised cashew nuts could be used instead of the coconut milk. It also allows the addition of lemon juice and a pinch of sugar when the chicken is added to the sauce. I did none of these things.

Put the chicken cubes in a bowl with the yogurt, half the ginger and half the garlic, stir to coat and let marinade for a minimum of 30 minutes, preferably overnight (I compromised and marinated it for 3 hours).

In a large pan, heat the oil and fry the chopped onion for about 10 minutes over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until it is browned (this means caramelised, not burned). Add half the chopped chilli pepper and the remaining ginger, plus the cumin, coriander and turmeric. You should now have a paste (how a paste is possible with crushed garlic (not to mention the onions which should have been finely chopped) is beyond me, but I trudged on and simply mashed everything together with the cooking spatula when the sauce was cooked). Add the coconut milk, blend well and cook for about 8-10 minutes over medium-low heat, or until you have a thick sauce. (If it gets very thick and dry looking and the oil starts to separate from the sauce, you have either cooked it for too long or at too high a temperature. I didn’t).

Add the chicken and yogurt mix, the water and some salt and mix well. Simmer very slowly (this means just enough heat to keep it simmering but not boiling). Cook for 15-20 minutes (I cooked it for 30 minutes).

Here is where the next thing went wrong:
I am informed that if cooked at such a low temperature, the yogurt should not curdle and a creamy, thick sauce should form, but I have never been able to cook a yogurt sauce without having it curdle. I know I am not cooking it at too high a temperature because the sauce was just barely simmering, so I must assume the yogurt I use is different from the yogurt you’re supposed to use in these sauces. (I’ll try home-made next time). I got the usual curdled sauce*, which, when it was reduced to the right thickness for a curry, would separate into curds and broth as soon as I had finished stirring it together.

When about 5 minutes remain of the cooking time, add the other half of the chilli pepper.

When the curry is on the plates, sprinkle some fresh chopped cilantro (coriander leaves) on top (I used frozen) before serving.

Serve with nan bread.
I think spicy chutney and a fresh yogurt-based raita would go down nicely with it as well.

* Just because a yogurt sauce curdles, that is no reason not to eat it. It tastes just as good. The texture is just not as creamy as it should be and it looks a bit soggy with the broth separating from the curds. The trick is to reduce it enough that there is little or no broth left. However, in my case I used too much water by about a third, and as I didn’t want the chicken to go dry from overcooking, I didn’t reduce the sauce that much, as may be seen in the accompanying photos. I definitely would not have got good marks for presentation in a cooking contest.

Review:
As I used too little chilli, cumin and coriander, the sauce was very mild, so mild in fact that I ended up adding some powdered garlic and a little bit of Aromat flavour enhancer to pep up the taste. Somehow it never occurred to me to add more cumin and coriander or some cayenne powder (a sure case of “out of sight, out of mind”), but I will try it with the leftovers tomorrow. In spite of too little spice, the sauce was good, and as it was so mild, I could actually taste the coconut. I think it could definitely be made better by the addition of cashew nuts as suggested in the original recipe, not to replace the coconut milk but to complement it.

Sample recipe from cookbook of the week: Englebert’s Enhancer

2007-11-09T16:40:00.000Z

This is a non-magical version of a devastatingly effective hangover remedy that features in Hogfather. It is included here merely as a curiosity, since the only ingredient I can easily get is the fizzy vitamin tablets.

175 ml raspberry drinking yogurt
175 ml cream soda
2 blackcurrant effervescent (fizzy) vitamin C tablets (follow dosage instructions).

Mix the yogurt and cream soda well and pour into a half-liter (pint) beer glass or mug. Add the tablets, stand back and watch. When it settles, drink it.

Hopefully you will enjoy it.

A little taste of Nanny Ogg’s Cookbook

2007-11-08T09:51:00.000Z

I found this extract (2 scanned pages) from the book and am linking to it so that those who are interested can sample the real flavour of the book:

extract from Nanny Ogg’s Cookbook

The first is the simplest recipe in the book, the second the preface to a recipe.

Sample recipe from cookbook of the week: Jammy Devils

2007-11-07T12:55:00.000Z

These look simple and easy and I’m sure kids would love to make them:

100 g unsalted butter
75 g caster sugar
1 egg, beaten
200 g flour
3-4 large tbs jam

Heat the oven to 180°C while you prepare the dough:

Cream together butter and sugar and add the egg, a little at a time, mixing well in between. Add the dough, little by little, until you have a soft dough. Stir in a generous tablespoon of jam to make a ripple effect.

Put about a dessertspoonful (2 tsp) of the jam into small muffin cups or muffin tray. Pat down gently and place a dollop of jam on top of each devil.

Bake in the top part of the oven for 25-30 minutes or until golden on top.

Attributed to Nobby Nobbs’ mom.

Sample recipe from cookbook of the week: Mrs Colon’s Genyooin Klatchian Curry

2007-11-06T19:50:00.000Z

Without consulting the Discworld books, I think this dish is mentioned in Jingo. In the book it is a take on the horrible western interpretation of Roundworld Indian curry, the kind that often involves béchamel sauce, soggy vegetables and mild curry powder, only this isn’t really anything of the sort – the authors did, after all, want to publish recipes people would actually want to use. I hear it’s actually rather nice, and apart from the raisins and rutabagas, it looks good. (Have I mentioned I hate cooked raisins? I also don’t particularly like cooked rutabagas. I think they are necessary to get the flavour of some dishes just right (particularly Icelandic lamb soup), but I have never liked the texture of cooked rutabagas).

2 tbs sunflower oil
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
225 g broccoli florets
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
350 g rutabaga (swede), chopped and par-boiled until just tender
225 g peas
50 g raisins
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp curry powder (optional)
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
175 ml coconut milk
250 ml vegetable stock
Tomato purée to thicken (if needed)
2 tsp brown mustard seeds
Salt and black pepper

Heat the oven to 180°C while you prepare the dish. Hea the oil in a large frying pan, add the onion, garlic, broccoli and peppers and fry until the onion starts to soften. Add the rutabaga, peas and raisins and cook over low heat for about 5 minutes. Add all the spices except the mustard seeds, also the coconut milk and about half the stock and cook for about 10 minutes. Add more stock if the mixture gets too thick. If it becomes too runny, add a bit of tomato purée to thicken it.

Put the mixture into a casserole dish, adjust flavouring with spices, skrinkle the mustard seeds over it and cook, covered, for about 45 minutes. Serve with rice or nan bread.

Cookbook of the week #14: Nanny Ogg's Cookbook

2007-11-05T09:12:00.000Z

Nanny Ogg's Cookbook is more than just a cookbook, as may be seen from the subtitle: A useful and improving Almanack of Information including Astonishing Recipes from Terry Pratchett's Discworld. The authors are Terry Pratchett and Stephen Briggs, Paul Kidby made the illustrations and Tina Hannan and Stephen Briggs compiled the recipes. The publisher is Doubleday.

For those familiar with the Discworld books no explanations are needed, but for the uninitiated, they are a series of humorous (and sometimes just laugh out loud funny) literary fantasy novels that take place on a world that is as flat as a pizza and is carried on the backs of four cosmic elephants that stand on the back of a gargantuan space turtle who swims slowly through space towards some unknown destination. Nanny Ogg is one of the olives, or possibly anchovies, on the pizza: an old but frisky witch with a very earthy sense of humour and a vast knowledge of aphrodisiac cooking. Unfortunately her magnum opus, The Joye of Snacks, has been banned and no copies have ever found their way onto Roundworld (which is what Discworld wizards call our Earth), but a few edited versions made it into this book, as did recipes from several other denizens of the Disc.

The sample recipes do not give any idea of the humour of the book, as I have only copied the uncopyrightable portions, i.e. the ingredient lists, and I have rewritten the instructions to leave out the copyrighted portions that refer to the Discworld. The recipes are attributed to different characters, and most of them are mentioned in one or other of the books. They are merely a part of the book and are really just a way for fans to get to know the characters better and for non-fans to develop an interest in getting to know them better, but I know the recipes were all tested before being published, and fans who have made them have generally been happy with the results.

I have been longing to try several of the recipes ever since I got the book, and I think 8 years is enough waiting time, so now I am really going to cook one or perhaps more recipes from the book.

Recipe of the week from Mexican Cooking: Sopa de Ajo (garlic soup)

2007-11-04T16:05:00.000Z

I chose the garlic soup, Sopa de Ajo, as the recipe of the week, because I really wanted to try it and because I had so far not made a soup as recipe of the week. I also wanted to make Chiles Rellenos, either the recipe I posted on Tuesday, or the Spanish-style filled peppers which are also in the book, but I ran into problems with both recipes.

With the deep-fried Chiles Rellenos it was unavailability of ingredients that stopped me. While I found both Monterey Jack and Cheddar cheese for the filling, I could not find Anaheim or Poblano peppers – indeed the only fresh hot peppers I did find were Cayennes, which are much too hot for this recipe, plus you can only get very little cheese into them. In this case I plan to wait until next spring, then get me some seeds and grow some Anaheims along with my usual crop of Cayennes. Check back for a report on deep-fried chillies in August of 2008.

In the case of the other Chiles Rellenos recipe, there was a translation problem. The Danish translator interpreted “Mexican rice” as “rice grown in Mexico” and not as the dish of the same name, which is not included in this version of the book (it’s a shorter version of a book of the same name). Just by looking at the recipe I could see that the “Mexican rice” was indeed the side dish of that name, but there are very different versions of it to be found on the net (some mild, some hot, some with tomatoes, some without, etc.) and I wanted to review the recipe made as closely as I could to the one given in the book, so it was no go, and I ended up making just the soup.

--
The Sopa de Ajo:

Recipe originally posted on Wednesday, October 31, 2008.

I love garlic and have a tendency to always use of it more than is stated in recipes. This recipe looks like it could satisfy even the most demanding garlic lover.

This appears to be an originally Spanish dish. Most of the Spanish recipes I have seen for it include ham and use sweet paprika powder instead of hot sauce.

To make 4 small portions:

10 garlic cloves
1 tsp flour
2 tbs butter
1 litre beef- or chicken bouillon
Hot pepper sauce, for example Tabasco
Salt and pepper
4 eggs
Croutons or toast cut in small cubes (may be left out)
2 tbs grated cheese for decoration
1 tbs chopped parsley for decoration (and to prevent garlic breath)

Chop the garlic as finely as you can and then crush it. Mix with the flour and fry at low temperature in the butter until transparent. Add the bouillon and bring to the boil. Cook for 15 minutes. Strain through a fine sieve, adjust flavour with salt and pepper and a few drops of pepper sauce.

Return to the heat and bring to a gentle boil. Break the eggs and drop them into the soup and poach them for a couple of minutes, or until they are cooked (this presumably means the whites – I think the yolk is supposed to be runny). The soup is now ready.

Add croutons or toast cubes, sprinkle with cheese and top with parsley before serving.

Another suggestion is to put the soup in small warmed soup bowls, add the egg yolks and let stand for about 2 minutes. Decorate with croutons, cheese and parsley and serve.

Notes:
The soup was delicious, and I will definitely make it again. It turned out richly flavoured but not overpoweringly garlicky, and the cheese, egg and croutons gave it a nice blend of tastes and textures.

I made half a recipe and the only thing I changed was that I omitted the parsley because I didn't have any on hand. The garlic made me weep copiously while I was frying it, and there is now a pungent smell of garlic, not only in my apartment, but probably in the whole stairwell of my apartment building as well. I used a commercial beef bouillon cube to make the stock, and it was salty enough that no extra salt was needed. I added a little pepper and dribbled hot pepper sauce (Tabasco-style) into it until I could just taste it in the soup. The recipe didn’t say whether the egg was supposed to be fully cooked or just poached enough for a firm white and runny yolk, but I chose the second and let it cook just 3 minutes. For the cheese I sprinkled some grated Mozzarella over the soup and also put in a slice of another cheese, mild and rich. I think the next time I make it I will use stronger flavoured cheese. I used cubes of toasted Italian bread instead of croutons. They softened very quickly, so next time I will use genuine croutons.

--

A note on the book:
I don’t know who to blame: the author, the Danish translator or the Danish editor who shortened the book, but some of the recipes are not easy to follow, simply because they are not detailed enough. A beginner home cook would definitely be stumped by some of them. The instructions sometimes don’t say how to prep the ingredients before cooking (for example whether to chop or slice an onion and how finely/roughly), or important parts of the instructions are left out and the cook is expected to just wing it. Not good, but I will persevere, since there are a number of promising recipes in it.

More Mexican recipes

2007-11-03T20:21:00.001Z

I have had a long day today and don’t feel like cooking, so I’m doing the challenge recipe tomorrow.

Until then, here are a couple of other websites with more Mexican recipes:

GourmetSleuth.com. A great collection of recipes.

Recipezaar claims to have over 7000 Mexican recipes. If you make one recipe per day, that’s enough for many years of cooking.

Sample recipe from Mexican Cooking: Plantanos

2007-11-02T14:20:00.000Z

In the foreword to the recipe the author mentions that the genuine dish is made with plantains and that lard is popular for frying them in. The recipe as given, however, calls for bananas, butter and baking. It looks quite good, and should I choose to make it the recipe of the week, I think I would try both options. The lard might be a problem, but I know I can get plantains.

4 servings:

4 bananas (should ideally be still green at the ends so they will retain some firmness when cooked)
60 g sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
4 tbs butter

This is obviously an intuitive recipe: the only instructions given are to bake the above ingredients at 160°C for 15 minutes. However, there is a photo which gives clues, so by playing Sherlock I have arrived at the following recipe: peel the bananas and cut in half, crosswise and again lengthwise. Arrange tightly together in an oven pan or casserole dish, cut side up. Dot with butter and bake as instructed above. Remove from oven, and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon before serving.

An examination of similar recipes suggests that the sugar and cinnamon should be sprinkled on before baking, which I completely agree with.

Other suggestions include serving warm with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, using them to make a banana split, or flambéing in strong rum.

Alternatively, fry them in the butter until they are soft, sprinkle on the sugar and cinnamon near the end of the frying time and let the sugar caramelise slightly before serving warm.

Sample recipe from Mexican Cooking: Calabacitas con Carne de Puerco (pork with courgettes)

2007-11-01T21:24:00.000Z

4 servings:

1 kg pork rib roast
6 courgettes (zucchini), sliced
1 medium onion, sliced
2 green California chili peppers or 1 red capsicum (bell pepper)
450 ml meat bouillon
1 tbs soy sauce
Fat for frying
Salt and pepper

According to the recipe an increasing number of traditional Mexican recipes have been adapted to the use of soy sauce.

Separate the ribs and cut the rib pieces into cubes. Brown in a pan and add the spices. Pour off excess fat. Put all the ingredients into a pot, cover and cook over low heat for 1-2 hours. Serve with arroz cacero rojo: rice cooked with a little pasilla chili pepper for flavour and colour. Also good with plain cooked or mashed potatoes and whole cooked ears of maize (corn on the cob).

Sample recipe from Mexican Cooking: Chiles rellenos (filled chilli peppers)

2007-10-30T09:40:00.000Z

I love deep-fried filled jalapeño peppers, but have never been able to convince my less chilli-loving friends or family to even taste them, but this looks like a recipe I might be able to get them to try, since it involves milder peppers.

Words in brackets are mine, and I have changed some things around to make the recipe more logical.

To make 4 servings:

12 fresh Anaheim or Poblano peppers
450 g cheddar or Monterey jack cheese (other recipes I have seen state it must be grated, finely sliced or cut into straws)
100 g flour
6 eggs
Oil or deep-frying fat

To peel the peppers, roast them until the skin is black all over (over hot coals, under the grill, or dry-sautéed in a pan). Remove from the heat and put immediately into a plastic bag, close the bag and leave the peppers for 20 minutes. The condensation will loosen the skin. Peel the peppers, cut a slit in the side of each pepper and remove the pith and seeds (retain the stems). Take care not to make additional holes in the peppers. Stuff the peppers with cheese and coat with flour.

Start heating the oil/fat. It should be deeper than 3 cm (so that the peppers can be completely immersed in the oil. I would use a deep fryer).

Separate the eggs and whip the yolks and whites separately. The whites must be quite stiff. Gently fold the whites into the yolks.

Dip the peppers in the egg mixture to coat completely (except the stem, use that to hold onto the peppers while you dip them in the egg). Fry the peppers in the hot oil (2-3 at a time, until golden all over, drain briefly on absorbent paper and) keep warm in a hot oven until all the peppers are ready to serve.

Serve with refried beans and spicy rice.

Sample recipe from Mexican Cooking: Pork and chicken in mole verde

2007-10-29T09:40:00.000Z

Mole verde: (green sauce)
1 can (300 g) tomatillos
5 large, fresh chili peppers (Anaheim or poblano)
60 g chopped onions
6 corn tortillas, torn into small pieces
1-4 cloves garlic
100 g spinach, fresh or frozen (can be left out)
750 ml chicken bouillon

To peel the chillies, roast them until the skin is black all over (over hot coals, under the grill, or dry-sautéed in a pan). Remove from the heat and put immediately into a plastic bag, close the bag and leave the chillies for 20 minutes. The condensation will loosen the skin. Peel the chillies and remove seeds, stems and pith and chop them coarsely.

Drain the tomatillos. Put tomatillos and all the other ingredients, except the bouillon, in a blender and purée. Stir the purée into the bouillon, bring to the boil and simmer for about 1 hour. Adjust taste with spices and add more bouillon if the sauce is too thick. (It would be nice to know just exactly how thick the sauce should be, but the recipe doesn’t say).

Pork and chicken in mole verde:
4-6 servings.

1 1/2 kg lean pork
1 kg chicken thighs
Mole verde sauce

If using boneless pork, cut into cubes, about 5 cm square. The recipe recommends using rib roast, in which case divide into chunks of single ribs with meat.

Cook the meat (presumably this means in water, although the recipe doesn’t say), until it is really tender, from 1 to 2 hours. If using rib roast, the meat should be about to slide off the bones. Drain and brown quickly in hot oil (a purely cosmetic step, according to the author). Put the meat in a casserole dish and pour mole verde over it. Bake at about 100°C for 1 hour or more as needed. The meat should be heated through but the sauce must not burn.

There is no suggestion as to what to serve with this dish, but I think it would make a nutritionally balanced meal if served with rice and a fresh salad (perhaps with avocado to give it a Mexican spin).

Cookbook of the week #13: Mexican Cooking (Mexikanske specialiteter)

2007-10-28T10:53:00.002Z

It’s time to go ethnic again. This little book was written by Roger Hicks and the Danish edition that I have was published by Könemann. It is a gorgeous little book, full of photographs, not only of the dishes, but also of the people and landscapes of Mexico. It includes a short chapter on the cuisine of Mexico, along with chapters on common ingredients, preparation methods and dining culture.

My experience of Mexican food is mostly with tex-mex fast food, a hybrid cuisine that is only partly Mexican, and I love Spanish cuisine, which contributed to Mexico’s culinary tradition, but I don’t have much experience with authentic Mexican cooking, so I can’t judge how genuine the recipes in the book are. All I can say is that many of them look very tempting.

Recipe of the week from Entertaining: Orange spare ribs

2007-10-27T17:21:00.000Z

I had some ribs in my freezer and this looked like an interesting way to cook them, so I chose this as the recipe of the week.

1,5 kg (3 lbs) pork spare ribs

2 tbs clear honey
1 tbs lemon juice
1 tbs Worchestershire sauce
1 tsp soy sauce
2 oranges
Salt and pepper

Cut the spare ribs into serving pieces (single ribs). Put honey, lemon juice, Worchestershire sauce and soy sauce in a small saucepan and add the grated zest of one orange and the juice from both oranges. Add salt and pepper to taste and heat gently, stirring occasionally. Leave to cool, then pour over the meat. Leave to marinate overnight.

Drain, reserving the marinade.

Place the ribs in a roasting pan and cook in a preheated oven at 180°C (350°F), for 60 minutes.

Meanwhile, fire up the grill. Grill the ribs, turning and basting frequently with the marinate, until crisp (about 15 minutes).

Makes 8 servings.

Notes:
I marinated some ribs, just enough to feed one hungry person, using a full recipe of marinade. The marinade was thin and had a mild orange flavour. I marinated the ribs for about 20 hours, turning them a couple of times. Since the weather wasn’t suitable for grilling outdoors, I used the grill in the oven instead. I don’t know if the author used smaller ribs, or merely better trimmed ones, but it took 35 minutes to get the rib pieces cooked through, at about the same distance from the grill as they were supposed to be from the coals in the recipe.

Review:
The meat was juicy and pulled easily off the bones, but was not as melt-in-the-mouth soft as I like rib meat to be. I think maybe cooking the ribs in the marinate for 10-20 minutes before grilling would make the meat softer. The flavour of the meat had a mild flavour of oranges, and the edges of the pieces and the membranes were well braised and crisp and there was some caramelisation. It was a nice flavour but nothing special. Another time, I would like to use a thick basting sauce, one that would coat the meat better and create a more all-over caramelisation, and I would like a more intense orange flavour and slightly more sweetness. Perhaps I could use orange marmalade instead of juice?

Sample recipe from Entertaining: Boston baked beans

2007-10-26T10:22:00.000Z

I have eaten many kilos of baked beans throughout my life, but while I have made other kinds of bean dishes, I have never tried making baked beans. This is a variation of a classic American recipe.

500 g (1 lb) haricot beans (navy beans)
350 g (12 oz) streaky bacon, chopped
3 onions, chopped
2 tsp mustard powder
1 tbs brown sugar
2 tbs black treacle
1 142 g (5 oz) can tomato purée
Salt and pepper

Rinse the beans, cover with cold water and soak overnight. Drain, cover with fresh cold water and bring to the boil. Cook rapidly for 10 minutes, the drain. (This looks like an attempt to degas the beans).

Put beans, bacon and onion in a casserole dish and add water to cover. Stir in the remaining ingredients and season with 2 tsp salt, and pepper to taste.
Cover and cook on the oven at 150°C (300°F) for 5-6 hours, stirring occasionally and adding more water if necessary.

The books claims this makes 20 servings.

Sample recipe from Entertaining: Veal blanquette

2007-10-25T08:30:00.000Z

This is a classic French dish. Blanquette refers to its colour, which is white (or whiteish). The sauce is béchamel or white sauce, one of the French "mother sauces".

1 kg (2 lbs) pie veal (whatever than is), cut into 2,5 cm (1 inch) cubes
2 onions, chopped
2 carrots, sliced
1 tbs lemon juice
2 bay leaves
Salt and pepper
50 g (2 oz) butter
50 g (2 oz) plain flour
3 tbs single cream (cooking cream)

Garnish:
6 rashers streaky bacon
1 lemon, cut into wedges
Parsley sprigs

Put the veal into a saucepan with the vegetables, lemon juice and bay leaves. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add enough water to cover and simmer, covered, for 90 minutes. Remove the meat and vegetables from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside. Discard the bay leaf. Strain the stock, reserving 600 ml (1 pint).
Melt the butter in a saucepan and stir in the flour. Gradually add the stock and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and stir in the cream. Adjust seasoning if needed and put in the meat and vegetables. Heat gently until warmed through.
Roll up the bacon rashers tightly and thread onto a skewer. Place under a preheated hot grill until crisp.
Transfer the veal to a warmed serving dish and garnish with the bacon rolls, lemon wedges and parsley.

Makes 6 servings.

Sample recipe from Entertaining: Mushrooms à la Grècque

2007-10-24T09:27:00.000Z

According to my culinary dictionary, the title of this recipe, “Mushrooms in the Greek style” refers to dishes of Greek origin (no surprise there), but also to dishes cooked in the Mediterranean style, using olive oil, lemon and spices. Whichever it is, it seems an interesting dish, especially if you love mushrooms as much as I do.

2 tbs olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
500 g (1 lb) small, whole button mushrooms
150 ml (1/4 pint) dry white wine
2 tbs tomato purée
1 tsp sugar
1 bouquet garni
Salt and pepper
Chopped parsley for garnishing

Heat the oil in a pan and fry the onion and garlic in it over low heat until translucent. Add the mushrooms and the remaining ingredients and adjust taste with salt and pepper. Cook uncovered for about 20 minutes. Cool, then remove the bouquet garni. Chill.
Serve cold with warm bread and garnish with parsley. (I think it would be great on toast).

Makes 6 servings.

Sample recipe from Entertaining: Devils on horseback

2007-10-23T07:49:00.001Z

I love to see original names for dishes, like Poor Knights of Windsor (sounds better than French toast, doesn’t it?), Bubble and Squeak, Pigs in Blankets, and so on, even if they sometimes turn out to be disappointments when I get to taste them. Therefore I was delighted to discover this recipe for stuffed prunes wrapped in bacon, although I don’t quite see how it got the name. While the combination may sound disgusting, in my experience a lot of things taste just fine when wrapped in bacon.

25 g butter
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tsp dried sage
50 g fresh breadcrumbs
250 g prunes, pitted
10 streaky bacon rashers, rindless

Melt the butter in a pan and fry the onion over low heat until soft. Mix in sage and breadcrumbs. Stuff the prunes with this mixture.

Stretch the bacon with the back of a knife (presumably to make it wrap itself more tightly around the prunes). Cut each rasher in half (presumably crosswise) and wrap each prune with half a rasher and secure with a wooden cocktail stick. Grill for 4-5 minutes on each side, or until the bacon is crisp.

Cookbook of the week #12: The Kitchen Library: Entertaining

2007-10-22T16:28:00.001Z

This small book, which appears to be part of a series, was published in 1982, but the edition I have is from 1989, so it appears to have gone through at least these two editions. The publisher is Octopus Books, UK. The author is Wendy Godfrey.

I have used one recipe in the book, that for satay sauce, but the first time I made it I changed it so much that I don’t think the author would recognise if she saw it. This is not to say that it’s a bad recipe, but I prefer satay sauce to be smooth while the recipe calls for chunky peanut butter, and I made some other tweaks to fit it to my tastebuds.

The aim with the book is to present recipes and ideas for entertaining guests at different kinds of gatherings: cocktail parties, dinner parties, barbecues, buffet lunches and suppers. Therefore there are all kinds of recipes in it: for hot and cold dishes, entrées/nibbles, small dishes, main courses, drinks, soups and desserts. I might end up cooking a three course meal, or I might make several small dishes to make up a meal, or perhaps just make one dish. We shall see.

Recipe of the week from The Spice Cookbook: Pear and Apple Betty

2007-10-21T10:50:00.000Z

This may not be a very original choice, but I am posting from my parents’ house where I'm spending the weekend. I needed to find a dish my mother could eat. She requested a dessert, but she’s on a low oxalate diet which means she’s not allowed, among other things, to eat citrus zest or anything with orange juice in it, and it seems most of the dessert recipes in the book contain some (this one does too, but in such a small amount that it will be okay to leave it out). It also needed to be something that was fairly quick and easy to assemble, so I chose this.

3 firm ripe fresh pears
3 tart fresh apples

1 cup lightly crumbed corn flakes
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp lemon zest (I will either leave it out or substitute with a dash of lemon juice)
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbs butter

Wash, pare and slice the fruit. Arrange 1/4 of the slices in a buttered 1 litre (1 quart) baking dish. Combine the remaining ingredients - except the butter - and sprinkle 1/4 of this over the fruit slices. Dot with 1/2 tbs butter. Repeat until you have 4 layers.

Bake at 175°C (350°F) for 60 to 90 minutes or until fruit is tender.

Serve with whipped cream, sour cream or hard sauce*.

*Brandy hard sauce:
We will be having whipped cream with the Betty, but since hard sauce is suggested, I decided to include a recipe.

There are 3 recipes for hard sauce in the book – I have chosen to show the one I would serve to my mother, taking into account that she’s not supposed to eat citrus zest, which is an ingredient in the other two recipes.

2/3 cup (1 1/3 sticks) butter
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
2 cups sifted confectioner’s sugar
2 tbs brandy
Ground nutmeg

Mix butter and nutmeg together and add alternating dashes of brandy and sugar, stirring well in between, until all the brandy and sugar has been added. Mix until fluffy and serve over plum puddings or warm fruit desserts. Garnish with additional nutmeg.

--
Edit:

Alterations:
Just looking at the three average apples and three large pears I bought made it clear that using all those fruit would be enough dessert for 8-10 persons, so I cut the recipe down by half. The apples were very tart, like lemons in fact, so that did away with the need for the lemon zest that I wasn’t going to use anyway.
Since the apples were so tart, I used one apple and two pears. If I had been able to get tart yellow apples, which are not as mouth-puckering as green ones, I would have used 1 1/2 of each.

Half the recipe of crumble mix didn’t look like enough, so I made a full recipe, which turned out to be just right. A full recipe of butter was clearly too little, so I used a bit more, perhaps 3-4 tbs.

One problem I had was that the pear slices were almost overcooked when the apple slices were still too hard, so it is necessary to make sure that the fruit are at about the same stage of ripeness.

Review and notes:
Apple Betty is a classic dessert, and for a good reason. It is delicious and a beginner cook would find it difficult to mess up. Making it with the addition of pears is a lovely variation on the classic recipe. The different flavours of the very tart apples and sweet pears I used gave the dessert an extra flavour dimension and ensured that it didn’t become oversweet like it could easily have been with just pears or the with mildly tart cooking apples that are so often used in apple desserts. The fruit flavour was rich and not overly sweet. It was good with whipped cream, would have been better with crème fraiche, and very good with vanilla sauce or vanilla ice cream. It is good warm, but better cold.

This turned out to be one of those dishes with recipes that are not only very easy to change with good results, but you actually only need to follow the recipe the first time you make them. I know that the next time I make this (and I will, having got the parental seal of approval) I will not follow a recipe, I will just throw the ingredients together, in the sure knowledge that it will turn out good.

Another time I will:
- cut the fruit into smaller pieces
- not mix the cornflakes into the sugar and other flavourings but sprinkle them separately, as they simply separate from the sugar and if you’re not careful, some layers will have more sugar and some more cornflakes
- use twice as much nutmeg, as I could barely taste it.

I would also like to see how it tastes with demerara or light brown sugar instead of white sugar.

Sample recipe from The Spice Cookbook: Spiced pumpkin casserole

2007-10-19T09:50:00.000Z

It was only a few years ago that the big orange pumpkins one associates with Halloween started becoming available in Icelandic supermarkets (mostly those of one chain) and only at this time of the year. If I ever do try cooking with pumpkin, I will have to have several recipes at hand, because these things are so big that one looks like it could feed a dozen people.

Servings: 6.

4 cups cooked, mashed, fresh pumpkin
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp orange zest
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, melted

Combine all ingredients and turn into a buttered 1 litre (1 quart) casserole. Bake at 175°C (350°F) for 1 hour or until hot and the top is lightly flecked with brown. Serve as a side dish.

Sample recipe from The Spice Cookbook: Malai korma

2007-10-18T09:52:00.000Z

Have I mentioned I love Indian food? This looks like a fairly authentic recipe for a korma, a type of mild, creamy curry in the North-Indian Mughal style. Kormas can be made with all sorts of meat, and also with potatoes and/or vegetables.

This Wikipedia article has information on the cooking of kormas that I recommend reading before making this recipe.

Ingredients:
1 kg (2 lbs.) lean leg of lamb

Marinade:
1 cup chopped onion
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 cup yogurt

Trim the meat and discard excess fat. Cut into cubes, about 2,5 cm (1 inch). Add onion, ginger, turmeric and yogurt, mix well and refrigerate overnight.

Sauce:
1 cup chopped onion
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 cup yogurt
3 tbs butter or margarine
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup blanched almonds
1/2 cup heavy cream, undiluted evaporated milk, or, if you want some South-Indian influence you can use coconut milk
1/4 tsp cayenne
1 tsp salt

To cook, sauté chopped onion in 1 tbs of the butter until golden. Add the lamb and cook, stirring often, for about 10 minutes or until meat is dry. Add the yogurt and bay leaves and cook another 10 minutes, uncovered, or until meat is dry. Add the water and again cook until the meat is dry. Put the almonds through a food processor, making sure not to mince them very finely - they should be in small pieces rather than powdered (recipe suggests using a food chopper with a medium blade). Add to lamb, followed by the remaining ingredients, and cook slowly for 10-12 minutes. Do not boil or the cream will curdle.

Serve with hot, plain cooked rice.

--

This would have been my choice for the recipe of the week, but I will be visiting my parents over the weekend and my father doesn't like this kind of food, so I am choosing something else. I do have every intention of testing and reviewing this recipe at some point in the future.

Herb and spice links

2007-10-17T15:21:00.000Z

There is a lot of information to be found about herbs and spices. Here are some websites with useful, or at least interesting, information:

Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages features extensive botanical and etymological information about spices, including the chemicals that give spices their flavours, and the names of spices in different languages.

Wikipedia of course has a list with information about herbs and spices.

And here are some links to spice mix recipes from About.com.

Sample recipe from The Spice Cookbook: Baked fillet of haddock with sesame seed crumbs

2007-10-17T08:45:00.000Z

This book, while it is full of tempting recipes, is unfortunately of the type that assumes that can and packet sizes are the same everywhere and at every time.

This is a fallacy. An envelope of dry yeast is not the same size in Europe as it is in the USA, and the USA envelope sizes may have changed since the book was published (can sizes may have done so too), yet the book is touted in the introduction as a future heirloom. Additionally, there are shortcuts in the book using ingredients that may not be available to everyone, such as onion flakes. This is an annoying, but not insurmountable, problem for a foreign cook using the book four decades after it was first published.

Rant over. Let’s turn back to the recipe. Sesame seed with fish sounds faintly oriental, except no glazing or exotic spices are involved, just baking under a layer of crumbs.

700 g (1 1/2 lbs.) fillet of haddock
A dash of salt
6 pats of butter or margarine
3 cups soft bread crumbs
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
2 tbs toasted sesame seeds*
1/3 cup butter or margarine, melted

*To toast sesame seeds, place them in a shallow baking pan and heat in a preheated oven at about 175°C (350°F) for 20 to 22 minutes, stirring 2-3 times to ensure even toasting.

Cut fish into 6 even-sized pieces and arrange in a buttered 23 cm (9 inch) square baking pan. Rub a dash of salt lightly over each piece and dot each with a pat of butter.

Combine the remaining ingredients and cover the fish lightly with the mixture. Bake at 175°C (350°F) for 25-30 minutes or until bread crumbs are browned. Serve hot.

Sample recipe from The Spice Cookbook: Old-fashioned coriander cookies

2007-10-16T08:45:00.000Z

I am used to coriander as a spice for soups, eggs, meat and vegetable dishes, but definitely not in baking, so this seems an interesting recipe.

1/2 cup shortening
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
5 tsp ground coriander seed
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 cup buttermilk or sour milk

Cream together shortening, salt, baking soda and coriander. Add the sugar gradually. Beat in the egg. Add flour and milk in small dozes, alternating each until everything is used up. Mix well.
drop dollops of dough from a teaspoon onto a greased cookie sheet, about 5 cm apart. Try to keep the blobs round and equally sized. Bake at 190°C (375°F) for 15 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges. Cool on a wire rack.
Store in an airtight container.

Sample recipe from The Spice Cookbook: Saffron-lemon tea bread

2007-10-15T09:28:00.000Z

There are so many mouthwatering recipes in this book that it is going to be hard to narrow my choices down.

I have used saffron to flavour rice, in paellas and most recently in mashed potatoes, but never in baking. This looks like an interesting recipe.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup shortening
1/4 tsp soda
1/8 tsp saffron, powdered
2 tsp lemon zest
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs (large)
3/4 cup water
2 tbs fresh lemon juice

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, mix shortening, baking soda, saffron and lemon zest. Add sugar, a little at a time, stirring well to mix. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Mix water and lemon juice and add gradually to the batter, alternating with the flour mixture, beginning and ending with flour. Beat batter for 30 seconds after all the ingredients are in.

Pour batter into a well greased loaf pan, 23 by 13 by 7 cm (9 by 5 by 3 inches) and bake for 1 hour at 175°C (350° F). Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes, then remove the loaf from the pan and cool on a wire rack.

Serve with softened cream cheese or butter for spreading.

Cookbook of the week #11: The Spice Cookbook

2007-10-14T12:14:00.001Z

Since I just finished reading Spice: The history of a temptation by Jack Turner, I decided to review one of the three spice cookbooks in my collection. I chose the one I find the most interesting. I came across it at the charity shop where I have acquired many of my books, and knew I had to have it. It was published in 1964 and the authors are Lillie Stuckey and Avanelle Day. The illustrations are by Jo Spier. The book appears to have become collectible, but I doubt my copy would fetch a high price, since the dust cover is missing and there are food stains on the cover. The image below is of the title page and will give you an idea of the wonderful and quirky artwork scattered throughout the book.

This is one of those big, ambitious cookbooks that make one wonder if it is meant for the kitchen or to be kept on a lectern somewhere to have recipes copied from for use. It doesn’t help that it is necessary to turn a page to finish reading some of the recipes, which is always a disadvantage with cookbooks since it causes stains and eventual tattering of pages with much-used recipes. The book is in a large format and weighs a whooping 1600 grams (over 3 lbs.). I certainly can’t see myself standing by the stove, stirring a sauce with one hand and holding the book in the other.

As we know, few recipes are totally free of some sort of added flavouring (imagine such a recipe, free even of salt – a terrible thought, isn’t it?), and many recipes feature at least one herb or spice, but this book seems to be an attempt to give examples of the typical use of spices and herbs in recipes from around the world. There are also short chapters outlining the history of the spice trade, profiling the spices and herbs featured in the book, one on how to cook with spices, a spice and herb chart outlining the sorts of food the spice/herb is good in, followed by over 1400 recipes for all sorts of foods from entrées to desserts. Since I am one of those people who get hungry from reading cookbooks, I really don’t think it would be good for my waist-line to read the book from cover to cover, so I intend to skim over it, stopping to read recipes that sound interesting, and choose a few at random to give as samples. I only wish I could show some more of the wonderful artwork that decorates the book, but I think it’s still copyrighted.

Recipe of the week from Small dishes…: Cheese soufflé with celery butter

2007-10-13T17:05:00.000Z

Originally posted on October 9, 2007, as a sample recipe from the book.

Servings: 4
Time: 90 minutes.

2 tbs butter
4 tbs flour
300 ml milk
4 eggs
300 ml cheese, grated
Salt, sweet paprika
2 tsp cornflour

Celery butter:
75 g butter
Salt
50 ml chopped celery

To make soufflé:
Melt the butter. Stir in the flour and then add the milk, little by little, stirring in between to mix well. Cook gently for a few minutes, stirring constantly. Separate the eggs. Break the yolks and add them and the cheese to the flour mixture. Adjust flavour with salt and paprika. Let the cheese melt completely into the batter and stir in the cornflour. Whip the egg whites until stiff and fold carefully into the batter. Pour the batter into a greased oven-proof soufflé dish that takes bout 1,2 litres.

Bake the soufflé on the bottom rung of the oven for about 40 minutes.

It is best to serve the soufflé immediately, but it can stand for 5-10 minutes in the closed oven after the heat is turned off.

Serve with the celery butter.

To prepare celery butter:
Prepare while the soufflé bakes. Butter should be at room temperature. Stir until it is smooth and add salt and celery. Refrigerate until it is needed.

Notes and review:
As usual I made only half a recipe. I couldn’t have made a full recipe anyway, as I have no soufflé dish or casserole dish big enough. I made no changes other than halving everything.

Although it doesn’t say in the recipe, I assumed the celery had to be finely chopped.

It doesn’t say what kind of cheese to use, so I ended up using a mixture of Mozzarella and Gouda that is sold pre-grated as “gratin cheese”, and added a bit of a more flavourful local cheese that I love on toast. I think a touch of Parmesan would be good too.

Soufflés are reputed to be temperamental food that will, at the least provocation (such as opening the oven at the wrong moment), subside into an unappetising blob, and it is true that a soufflé will fall shortly after being removed from the oven, so it needs to be served immediately.

The first time I made a soufflé, it was an apple-almond dessert soufflé, but this is a more robust kind that can be eaten as an appetizer or a small meal. I was interested in seeing how a soufflé would do in a convection oven, which is why I chose this as recipe of the week.

I had a bad moment when the dough was ready, when I realised I had forgotten to turn on the oven, but I was able to heat it quickly by turning on the grill for 5 minutes and put the dough into a slightly underheated oven. When it had not begun to rise after 15 minutes I got worried, but then decided not to let it bother me, and started reading a book. After 30 minutes of baking I took a peek, and the soufflé had risen beautifully (see first photo). I gave it another 5 minutes to develop a nice brown crust, and then took it out of the oven, photographed it quickly and then ate most of it.

The soufflé was light and fluffy and the taste mild. The texture was ever so slightly grainy. I don’t know if cheese soufflé is supposed to be that way, or if it was the types of cheese I used, but it didn’t matter. Another time I would use more flavourful cheese.

The celery butter added an interesting flavour to the soufflé, but as I mentioned above, I think another time I would purée it to give the butter more flavour kick.

Verdict: Quite good, but not something I’m interested in making again.