Cornflower

Cookbook of the week - 'Classic Mediterranean'

    Sarah Woodward's The Classic Mediterranean Cookbook has been on our shelves for years and gets an airing every so often. This week it has done us proud, beginning with Djej Emshmel, a Moroccan tagine of chicken with lemons and olives, which we had with Roz bi Saffran, saffron rice mixed with pine kernels, hazelnuts, dried apricots and raisins.

    The leftover rice was used in a 'deconstructed kedgeree' - i.e. alongside smoked haddock and poached eggs - for breakfast next day, while the broth in which the chicken was cooked became Avgolemono Soupa, a frothy, savoury egg and lemon soup. All of these dishes were good enough to want to repeat soon.

Cookbook of the week - week 10, part 2

    Poached Pears with Ginger Sabayon Sauce, a light but luxurious pudding from Claire Macdonald's Sweet Things (and by the way, I made another batch of the raisin and walnut slice yesterday as the first lot disappeared very quickly - I caught the main culprit in the act of late-night snacking).

Cookbook of the week - Sweet Things

    It may seem perversely counter-intuitive to follow yesterday's rather health-conscious post with one today about cake, but all things in moderation ...

    This week's cookbook is Sweet Things by Claire Macdonald, bought some years ago when we were staying in Skye and dined at the Macdonalds' lovely Kinloch Lodge, paw-printed by one of Lady M's dogs, (as you can just see here) and used often since.

    I've made a batch of Raisin and Walnut Slices, and really there's nothing to them - you cream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs, fold in flour and baking powder, then add a lot of chopped walnuts and raisins and a very generous amount of brandy (I soaked the raisins for a wee while beforehand to make them plumply tipsy, but you can just put the brandy in by itself, or use orange juice if you'd rather). Baked for about 25 minutes, the results are quite delicious, very moist and moreish and satisfying - just one piece with tea or coffee fills a gap nicely.

Cookbook of the week - An Omelette and a Glass of Wine

 

    It says much for Elizabeth David's An Omelette and a Glass of Wine that we shelve it in the food section of our general book collection rather than with the recipe books which live in the kitchen. It's a book to read, not just refer to, and it's one I recommend thoroughly, its short articles (it's a collection of her writings) being elegant, witty, informative pieces which entertain the reader as much as they inspire a desire to cook.

    'Cookbook of the week' is of course a practical project so I have to do more than just enjoy the prose and must use the book to cook from, too, and so we chose an omelette, "a confection which demands the most straightforward approach", as our point of entry.

    Elizabeth David talks of the famous omelette of Madame Poulard on Mont St. Michel, but she gives a recipe for Omelette Molière, something altogether more substantial and delicious,  and as I've now eaten both I can tell you that 'Molière' knocks Mme P.'s into a cocked hat. From a small restaurant in Avignon where it was the house speciality comes this simple recipe which involves adding finely grated Parmesan to the beaten eggs, then when the mixture is in the pan you scatter on some diced Gruyère and add a tablespoon of thick fresh cream, and the instant the eggs are set and the cheese melted, you serve it. Rich, certainly, but with some good bread and salad, you need nothing more.

Cookbook of the week - Kitchen Secrets

    This week we are cooking from Raymond Blanc's Kitchen Secrets - the book which has already given us a superb crumble, excellent tapenade and a tomato salad we've made again and again and again. From the 'Autumn and Winter Vegetables' section comes this warm salad of leeks, Jerusalem artichokes and winter leaves, known in France as salade du pauvre because the artichokes were usually eaten only by livestock.

    The warm vegetables (you steam them) are combined with winter leaves such as mâche or frisée and dressed with a herby, Dijon mustard-flavoured vinaigrette (the balance of which was just right). A simple dish and a very successful one.

Cookbook of the week - week 7, part 2

    Harriet spotted the recipe for carrot and apple flapjacks in Maria Elia's Full of Flavour: Create . . . How to Think Like a Chef, she made them, and very toothsome they were - if somewhat crumbly.

    We decided to make that friability work by gently 'encouraging' it, then toasting the crumbs and serving them as a granola-like accompaniment to rhubarb and mascarpone and as a topping for natural yogurt. Recommended.

Cookbook of the week - Full of Flavour

    This week's cookbook has been Maria Elia's Full of Flavour: Create . . . How to Think Like a Chef which encourages the home cook to think about how ingredients work together and to experiment with flavour combinations; where space permits, Maria gives variations on each recipe, and there are lots of blank pages at the back of the book for you to note down your own versions, thoughts and ideas.

    Our first dish from the book was Italian sausage, red wine, chestnut and cabbage risotto, a great success as far as the grown-ups were concerned, slightly less popular with the younger members of the family (apologies for the lack of pictures of the actual food but they weren't good enough to post).

    Grilled sardines and cherry tomatoes on toasted ciabatta went down well, the tomatoes mixed with olive oil, basil, garlic and some Parmesan cheese, and then while I was eating train food on my way home from London on Thursday, the home team had Greek beans on (sourdough) toast with feta and tomatoes, which they all enjoyed.

    The book has lots to tempt me, for example, ginger beer and tangerine glazed ham, orange and rosemary biscotti, cinnamon chocolate cakes with sherry-soaked raisins and sherry-spiked crème fraîche .... they'll have to wait for another day.

Cookbook of the week - week 6, part 2

            Potato soup with soured cream and chive, another recipe from The Good Cook, but varied slightly to make it suitable for vegetarians: soften a chopped onion in butter, add a bayleaf and vegetable stock (we seem to make gallons of it for soups and risotto) and simmer the potato until cooked, then blend or put through a mouli-légumes and serve with a dollop of soured cream and a sprinkling of chives. It couldn't be easier, though without the bacon which the recipe specifies and which Simon Hopkinson says "imparts a lovely flavour, a nuance if you like ...", it does rely on the quality of the stock.

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            Six weeks into our cookbook of the week 'project', how is it going? Very successfully - I'm glad I've started it. All it is is making a point of using a greater variety of recipes, but just doing that helps to avoid falling into culinary ruts. Family members are now asking eagerly which book is to be featured next and there's healthy debate about what to cook, what to repeat and what not to - the tandoori chicken in The Good Cook left something to be desired, but I suspect that was because I wasn't using the same spice mix as Simon H. does, and as for the buttered rice with mozzarella, garlic and basil, it divided us - G. and I love it, our children can't abide it!

Cookbook of the week - The Good Cook

    Simon Hopkinson's The Good Cook has had a deal of use since I got it (you may remember this fancy sandwich, a good pud, and a satisfying supper dish, while the cotechino sausage with lentils and mustard fruits is a particular favourite), and I've returned to it this week for some hearty dishes for cold days.

    This is breast of lamb baked with onions (and apologies for the picture, but food photography is not easy when you have a subject that's not especially photogenic to start with, artificial light and a hungry family wanting to eat while the food is hot), but however it looks, it's inexpensive and it tastes wonderful.

    Inspired by an Elizabeth David recipe - beef and onions braised in the ovens of barges chugging up and down the Rhône - this is a similarly long, slow dish, the lamb cooked with lots of onions, then seasoned with a little vinegar and anchovy essence, before being finished with parsley and served with mashed potato.

Cookbook of the week - week 5, part 2

    This is Curly Kale and Almond Soup, simmering away gently for a few minutes before being semi-blended to look like this:

It's another excellent result from Sarah Raven's Food for Friends and Family and a great way to use kale if you feel it's a bit too earnest just as a simple vegetable accompaniment.

    The soup is very quick and simply involves softening red onions, garlic and celery in olive oil, adding a tin of chickpeas and half a litre of vegetable stock, then the roughly chopped kale and 40g of ground almonds. Let this cook for 5 minutes before blending (the recipe suggest puréeing half and combining that with the coarser-textured remainder) and serve with grated Cheddar cheese on top.

    To go with the soup we made Soda Bread with Sunflower and Pumpkin Seeds (also from the book) - half and half white and wholemeal flour, the seeds dry-fried for extra nuttiness.

My favourite soda bread remains Nigella's, but this one was very good indeed and along with the soup made a warming and filling lunch on a cold day.

Cookbook of the week - Food for Friends and Family

    Cookbook of the week this week is Sarah Raven's Food for Friends and Family, a collection of four hundred recipes arranged according to season, and illustrated with the most marvellous photographs by Jonathan Buckley (visit his site for pulse-quickeningly beautiful images of flowers).

    From the winter section - and bear in mind this alone runs from snacks and canapés through soups and accompaniments, salads, vegetarian dishes, fish, meat and vegetable side dishes to puddings, cakes and biscuits, preserves, drinks and Christmas dishes, so pretty comprehensive - we've begun with the celeriac salad with apple, pine nuts and prosciutto.

    "A dense, filling salad," the book says, and so it is, but the flavours more than match its heartiness, the celeriac and apple cut into matchsticks and dressed with a herby mayonnaise, then tossed with some toasted pine nuts and flat leaf parsley and topped with the prosciutto.

Glorious technicolour

    The third outing this week for How To Be A Domestic Goddess was to make Supper Onion Pie:

"This is just what I want to eat for supper when it's dark early and I'm tired", says Nigella. "It is a pie, yes, but not one with pastry that needs rolling out: you just make a cheese-scone dough and then press it over some onions, already softened and aromatic, in the pan."

    While those red onions are cooking down slowly on the hob, you could do as I did and go and take a picture of the technicolour sunset which matches the pinks of the food -

then mix up your dough, lay it over the onions (we did the whole thing in a Le Creuset gratin dish so no faffing about and minimal washing up) and bake for around 25 minutes.

    Turn out and serve. Even our cheese-hater liked this enough to ask for it again, while for those who didn't have to be persuaded, the savouriness of thyme and the jolt of mustard in the dough balanced the sweetness of the onions. V.g.

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    Before it's been and gone, I must just mention Farmhouse Breakfast Week and the wealth of breakfast ideas and recipes on its site. There's something for everyone there from the traditional to the less well-kent (porridge with Nutella, anyone?).

Cookbook of the week - How to be a Domestic Goddess

    I'm a bit late with 'Cookbook of the Week' - though in fact we had a little taste of it with Saturday's cake - but what could be better for this time of year and for anyone feeling a bit below par than Nigella's tome on "baking and the art of comfort cooking", How To Be A Domestic Goddess.

    I've made the garlic and parsley hearthbreads, combining a marvellously cushiony dough - the texture was just perfect - with a sweet and nutty topping made by roasting several heads of garlic and then puréeing the softened cloves with chopped parsley and olive oil. The quantities given are said to serve four generously, and generously is the word; we had the breads with pepperonata and some good sausages for the carnivores, and there's plenty left to be reheated for lunch today.

    One point to note if you make these, the recipe specifies a tablespoon of salt for the dough itself; I felt that was too much and used considerably less (unhelpfully, I just judged it in the hand) and it turned out fine.

Cookbook of the week & some more recommendations

    If you happen to have a copy of The Moro Cookbook then do try the tuna with oloroso (p.198 in my edition) because it's an excellent combination of flavours and makes a delicious and substantial dish.

    You need very fresh, quite thick tuna steaks, and you rub them with garlic crushed to a paste, then leave them to marinate in medium-dry oloroso sherry. Slowly cook some onions and finish them off with yet more sherry to make a sweet, fragrant sauce with a tang to it. Fry or griddle the tuna briefly and serve with the onions and a sprinkle of parsley - we had a salad and Hasselback potatoes, too.

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    A couple of recommendations from other books you may have to hand: the bolognese sauce from Pasta by Julia della Croce - I've used that recipe for years and have yet to find one better, and the tomato and mozzarella risotto from River Cottage Veg Every Day, discovered just this week and, by popular request, down to be made again at the weekend.

Cookbook of the week - Moro

    On a visit to London a few years ago we ate at Moro, and it was superb. I would go back like a shot, but no matter how good the food, I doubt any future visit would quite measure up to that first one as we happened to meet Michael Palin there and he was absolutely charming. Still, happy memories, and ones brought back whenever I open Sam and Sam Clark's first book The Moro Cookbook, as I did yesterday to make soup and flatbread for lunch.

    First, the bread: wonderful! Very quick - only 45 minutes rising - and with a sprinkling of sea salt, a good brush of olive oil and some sesame seeds, extremely moreish.

    The soup is pea and ham, or rather Sopa de guisantes, a mixture of petits pois and jamón serrano blended with onion, carrot and good stock, flavoured with garlic, bay and mint. Leftovers did lunch today - I took a break from the editing to make another batch of flatbreads - and I wish there were some left for tomorrow.