Home cooking

      The last few posts, as you may have seen, have been inspired in the main by Monty and Sarah Don's new cookbook. What drew me to it in the first place was the sense it gives of straightforward, homely cooking being a mainstay of daily life, summed up in these words:

"This is simple, enjoyable food, which will you set you up in the morning and restore you at the end of a long day; it will lift your spirits in summer and offer comfort in winter."

    Who needs more than that?

    There is nothing fancy in the book, nothing faddy or fashionable, just honest, familiar, mostly British dishes, uncomplicated and good. I've given a taste of them in this week's posts and could quote a few more to give you the gist: chicken and leek pie, coffee and walnut cake, smoked fish tart, pea and ham soup, and so on. I could also have shown you the mushroom savoury we had for supper - delicious but beware the quantity of grainy mustard given in the recipe as I feel sure it's a mis-print; we cut back on it drastically and still felt there was too much!

      By the way, Jenn asked about the lavender shortbread in the comments yesterday - the book gives two shortbread recipes, and while you can leave them 'plain', flavouring suggestions such as the finely grated zest of a lemon or 1 1/2 teaspoons of finely chopped rose geranium leaves are also given. I used two heads of dried lavender, pounded in a mortar, and mixed into 150g. flour/100g. butter/50g. caster sugar.  

     I like this book, I find it comfortable; while it's fun to try new recipes, new ingredients, new combinations, there is something about the old favourites, the old-fashioned and traditional - often the things we remember from childhood - which makes them well worth revisiting.

Comments

[Rebecca]

I love your cookbook reviews Karen, so thorough and informative. I shall have to seek this book out now as I am tempted by the content and not just my deep seated attraction to Monty Don.

[Rhona]

Another lovely variation on shortbread is to add 1 tsp ground ginger and a couple of pieces from a jar of ginger in syrup, chopped into small dice. This is particuarly nice when you have a cold, or eaten after a long, autumnal woodland walk, with a cup of steaming tea, just as it is beginning to get dark,

Rhona

[Margaret Powling]

I once had a delicious sponge flavoured with lavender at the Snowshill Lavender Farm, near Snowshill Manor (home to eccentric owner, Charles Paget Wade and now owned by the National Trust.) There was just a hint of lavender in both the sponge and the butter icing.
Margaret P