Tried and tested: Cheap and fast chili beans

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

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

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 (celery root) salad

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 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, 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 roasting 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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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 flour, 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 dough 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

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

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)

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

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

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)

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)

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Sample recipe from Small dishes…: Sweetbreads

It is slaughter season in Iceland, but while I know I can get all the liver, hearts, kidneys and tripe I want, I don’t remember ever seeing sweetbreads in an Icelandic meat counter. I would like to try them, though, so even if I don’t choose this as the recipe of the week, I think I will see if I can have them specially ordered for me.

150 g sweetbreads (it doesn’t say from what animal, but veal is probably what the original authors had in mind)
1 tbs flour
Salt and pepper
1/2 to 1 tbs butter
50 g fresh mushrooms
1/4 can of asparagus
100 ml Hollandaise-sauce

Wash and trim the sweetbread(s). Slice and roll in a mixture of flour and salt/pepper. Set aside for a while to let the slices dry a bit.

Wash and trim the mushrooms. Melt part of the butter in a frying pan and fry the mushrooms at low temperature. Warm the asparagus according to instructions on the can (?). Make the sauce according to instructions on the packet (if I were to make this, I think I would like to try my hand at making the sauce from scratch).

Fry the sweetbread slices at medium temperature until well browned.

Arrange on a plate with the mushrooms, asparagus and some poached potatoes sprinkled with parsley and serve the sauce on the side.

Sample recipe from Small dishes…: Little nibbles

One thing I haven’t mentioned about these books is that wherever possible, there are two version of the recipes: a 4 serving recipe and a 1-2 serving recipe. Since this is party food, I am offering the larger recipes here, but for meal dishes I give the smaller recipe.

This is actually a combination of two recipes: the banana wraps, and everything else. I decided to “serve” them together because they are all nice, or at least interesting, nibbles wrapped in bacon, and the preparation is similar for them all.

Banana wraps:

Servings: 4.
Time: 15 minutes.

4 bananas
150 g bacon
1 tbs butter
Chilli powder

Cut each banana into 3-4 pieces. Roll a rasher of bacon around each piece and arrange the pieces in an oven-proof dish, tightly together. Sprinkle with chilli powder. Bake at 200°C for 5-10 minutes. Serve with cooked rice with raisins and iceberg leaves.

(I suggest treating the bananas exactly like the other little nibbles and serving them on cocktail sticks, but they would have to be firm enough to hold up to frying).


Mixed wraps:

8 cocktail sausages
20 mussels (mussels are also good)
8 sardines, canned, in oil
18 rashers of bacon.

Divide each bacon rasher in half crosswise and wrap a half rasher around each of the sausages, mussels and sardines and secure with cocktail sticks. Brown in a frying pan and serve with bread and tomatoes or cucumber (or plain as nibbles).

Sample recipe from Small dishes…: Leek quiche

I sometimes order quiche when I want a light meal in a café, but the closest I have come to making one is a baked omelet, which is similar but crustless.

Servings: 6.
Time: 90 minutes.

Crust:
175 g margarine
350 ml flour
2 tbs cold water

Mix margarine, flour and water into a smooth dough. Refrigerate for 1 hour at least.

Filling:
About 800 g (5-6) leeks
100 g grated cheese
100 g smoked bacon
1 egg
100 ml cream
Salt and pepper

Wash and trim the leeks and cut into approximately 3 cm long pieces. Cook in lightly salted water for 5-6 minutes. Drain well.

Roll out the dough and line an ungreased pie dish with it. Sprinkle with about half the grated cheese and top with the leeks. Chop the bacon and sprinkle it on top of the leeks.

Whisk together egg and cream and add salt and pepper to taste. Pour over the pie filling and bake at 200°C for about 35 minutes. Remove from the oven and sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top. Serve hot.

Does anyone else think that one egg seems like one or two eggs too little?

Sample recipe from Small dishes…: Blini…

…or Russian pancakes as the book calls them.

Servings: 4.
Time: 105 minutes.

10-15 g dry yeast
150 ml milk
1 egg, separated
100 ml flour
100 ml buckwheat flour
2 dashes salt
1 tbs melted butter

Heat half the milk to about lukewarm and dissolve the yeast in it. Add the egg yolk and the remaining milk and mix well. Stir in the flour, buckwheat and salt and blend into a smooth batter. Let it stand for about 1 hour.

Add the butter to the dough and finally the stiff-whipped egg white. Make large pancakes from the dough. Serve them with sour cream and finely chopped onion, or butter, chopped hard-boiled eggs and chives.

Cookbook of the week #10:Small dishes for every palate

This is the second book in this series I review. Whereas the previous one focused on quick dishes, this one is all about small dishes: finger food, nibbles, appetizers and light snacks, although some of the dishes actually seem to be full meals.



Here are some recipes that seem interesting:

Cheese soufflé
Baked omelet with mushroom sauce
Spring rolls Mai Tang
Russian pancakes (blini)
Leek pie (quiche)
Bacon-rolled bananas
Reindeer stew with mushrooms

Recipe of the week from Moroccan Cooking: Moroccan cigars

These cigar-like savoury pastry rolls are known as Bourek in Morocco. This is a popular restaurant dish.

Servings: 20
Time: 40 minutes prep time, 25-30 minutes cooking.

1 medium onion, finely chopped
1/3 cup olive oil
705 g lean minced beef or lamb
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp ground ginger
Ground pepper
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
5 eggs
500 g filo pastry
180 g butter, melted

Filling:
Sauté the onion in the olive oil until it is soft. Add the minced meat, stirring and breaking it well apart during the cooking. Add cinnamon, allspice, ginger and pepper and cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the meat is well cooked and lump free. Add parsley. Lightly beat the eggs in a bowl and pour over the meat. Cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly, until egg mixture takes on a creamy consistency. Adjust taste if necessary. Cool.

Pastry:
Preheat oven to 150°C.
Cut each sheet of filo into three equal-sized rectangles. Stack up and cover with a damp cloth until filling is ready. Brush the top rectangle with melted butter and place a teaspoon of filling along one of the short edges. Fold in the long edges and near end of pastry around the filling and roll up into a cigar shape. Repeat until all the pastry squares are filled.

Place the cigars side by side on a greased baking tray and brush with melted butter. Bake for 25-30 minutes until the cigars are golden. Serve hot.



Notes and review:
As usual, I only made half a recipe. I forgot to buy parsley, so I had to leave it out. I don’t think it mattered much, perhaps a note of veggie freshness that was missing. Another time I would like to try cilantro. The meat I used was beef.

The filo sheets I got can’t have been the same size as those available in Australia (where the book was published) – they must have been bigger, because when divided in three, each rectangle of dough was enough for a tablespoon of filling, rather than the stated teaspoon. With a teaspoon of filling the rolls would have been cigarette slender and I would have run out of dough before half the filling was used up. I got 14 rolls out of 6 whole sheets of dough (270 grams) – it should have been more but the outermost sheet of filo was too torn up to use, and I only got 2 rolls out of the second sheet. When the dough was used up I still had enough filling left for at least six more rolls.

The preparation and cooking went well, apart from one minor burn due to working too close to a hot stove (my first kitchen injury since I started this recipe challenge). There is quite a bit of work involved in rolling up the “cigars”, but it’s worth it.

The filling is good on its own and I think with the addition of cream and Parmigiano-Reggiano it would make a very good pasta sauce. With added tomatoes it could be made into a fairly authentic meat sauce for moussaka.

The amount of spices given in the recipe gives the mince a mild flavour and can safely be increased. I recommend adjusting the flavour after the beaten eggs have been added. I also recommend adding some salt.

This is a great party dish, perfect finger food that's small enough for nibbling on. It can be prepared ahead and frozen once the rolls are all rolled, before the second cooking stage. I think it would be nice served with a sweet dip of some sort, perhaps sweet chilli sauce, sweet and sour sauce or even redcurrant jelly.

While I did like these meat-filled bourek, I kept thinking how delicious they would be filled with cheese, perhaps feta, fresh goat’s cheese or even Roquefort, and as a matter of fact they often are made with a cheese filling. Next time, I think I will try just that.

Recipe from Moroccan Cooking: Tagine of lamb with quinces

Servings: 6.
Time: 30 minutes prep + 1 hour cooking.

1 kg shoulder of lamb cut in 2 cm pieces
2 large onions, chopped in 1 cm cubes (keep them separate)
Ground pepper
1/2 tsp ground mildly hot paprika (or use sweet and mix in a little ground cayenne or chili pepper)
water
1 bunch fresh cilantro, finely chopped
1/4 tsp ground saffron
1/2 tsp ground ginger
500 g quinces, cored, halved and peeled
60 g butter
1 cup pitted prunes, pre-soaked

Put lamb pieces and one chopped onion in a heavy-bottomed cooking pot. Season to taste with pepper and paprika and cover with water. Add cilantro, saffron and ginger and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for about 1 hour or until lamb is tender.

While lamb cooks, cut the quinces into pieces roughly the same size as the meat pieces. Melt butter in a frying pan and cook the quinces and the second onion together until lightly golden. When the lamb has been cooking for about 30 minutes, add the fried quinces and onion, along with the prunes. Finish cooking and serve warm, with rice.

The book suggests that dates may be used instead of prunes and pears instead of quinces.

More Moroccan recipes

Here are links to some collections of Moroccan recipes. I only picked a few that looked good, but if you have a link to other good websites with Moroccan recipes, including blogs, please post it in a comment to this post.

The first collection is an extract from Bea Sandler’s The African Cookbook. There are only 6 recipes, but there is also a description of a Moroccan dinner and suggestions as to how to serve Moroccan food authentically. Check out the other extracts from the book as well.

Maroque Moroccan recipes. This is mainly an online shopping site with Moroccan goods, but there are a number of yummy recipes as well.

A large collection from various cookbooks: World Health Circle of International Cooking

Moroccan food at AllRecipes

One more:
Riddled with advertising. Probably has pop-up ads as well. Astray recipes

Recipe from Moroccan Cooking: Orange salad

It isn’t clear from the book whether this is supposed to be a side dish, an entrée or a dessert, but I can imagine it being good as any of those. I can even imagine eating it, well chilled, for refreshment on a hot afternoon instead of ice cream.

I was unable to find the Moroccan name for this salad, but I did find information saying it is good served with lamb dishes.

Serves: 6.
Time: 15 minutes.

6 ripe oranges
8 dates, chopped
1/4 cup blanched almonds, slivered
Orange flower water
1 tbs mint leaves, chopped
Ground cinnamon

Peel oranges, removing all pith, and slice crossways. Put in a shallow dish with dates and almonds and flavour to taste with orange flower water. Sprinkle lightly with mint and cinnamon and serve.

Recipe from Moroccan Cooking: Fried Moroccan bread with cinnamon

…otherwise known as Cinnamon French Toast. But who am I to argue with the authors? If they want to call it Moroccan, they can. (BTW, French toast isn’t necessarily French, the dish being a logical invention in any culture where bread is baked, as a way of using up a stale loaf. Therefore it could have arisen independently in Morocco, but it is more likely that it was brought over by the French).

When I was a child and my mother was undecided as to what to serve for lunch or dinner, I would often suggest French toast – only we called it “Poor Knights” and ate it with rhubarb jam and sometimes whipped cream as well. I make it occasionally myself as a brunch dish (without jam or cream), but I have never tried the cinnamon variety.

Servings: 4-6.
Time: 15 minutes to prepare, 10 minutes to cook.

1/2 white baguette (French stick, French loaf)
1-2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence (it says “imitation vanilla” in the book – I don’t see why I can’t use the real thing if I have it)
Butter
1/4 cup caster sugar
1 tbs ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

Cut baguette diagonally into 2 cm thick slices. In a bowl, beat the eggs until well mixed and then mix in milk and vanilla. In a shallow bowl (I suggest a soup dish), mix sugar and spices. Melt some butter in a frying pan. Dip slices of bread into egg/milk mixture and fry until crisp and golden on both sides. Place for a moment on absorbent paper to drain and while it is still hot, dip into the sugar/spice mixture. Keep adding butter to the pan as needed.

The book suggests coffee as a good accompaniment.

Recipe from Moroccan Cooking: Khobz (wholemeal flat bread)

Servings: 16.
Time: 60 minutes preparation, 12 minutes cooking.

2 ½ cups wholemeal flour
1 tsp caster sugar
1 tsp salt
7 g dry yeast
1 1/4 cup tepid water
1/2 tsp ground sweet paprika
1/3 cup corn meal
1 tbs oil
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 tbs sesame seeds

Combine 1/2 cup of flour, the sugar, salt yeast and water in a bowl. Stand covered in a warm place until foaming. Sift the remaining flour, the paprika and corn meal into the bowl and add the oil. Knead until smooth. Stand covered in a warm place for 20 minutes.

Divide into 16 parts, roll into balls and flatten into rounds. Place on a greased baking tray and brush with egg, sprinkle with sesame seeds. Stand, covered, until puffy. Bake for 12 minutes.

Recipe from Moroccan Cooking: Eggplant purée

One thing I am unhappy with about this book is that it gives the Moroccan names only for a couple of dishes. This I intend to rectify by discovering what those names are, if possible, and including them with the recipes.

This eggplant purée is called Zahluk or Zaalouk in Morocco, and is known all over North Africa and in Turkey and probably other countries of the Near East. More vegetables are used in some versions, such as zucchini and tomatoes.

To serve 4.
Time: 40 minutes preparation, 20 minutes cooking.

1 kg eggplants, peeled and cut into 2 cm cubes
1/3 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
Ground pepper
1 tsp ground sweet paprika
3 pitta breads
1 egg white, lightly beaten
2 tbs cumin seeds

To prepare eggplant:
Steam eggplant cubes in a colander or bamboo steamer over boiling water for 30 minutes. Heat oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add eggplant cubes, garlic, pepper and paprika. Lower the temperature a little. Fry and stir constantly for about 10 minutes, or until the eggplant is very soft. Serve hot with the toasted pitta bread.

To prepare the bread:
Split each pitta bread into two rounds. Brush with egg white, sprinkle with cumin seeds and bake at 180°C for 20 minutes, or until crisp. Break into pieces before serving.

Serve as a starter or as part of a meal of several small dishes.