I have finished the Basics etc. chapter, woohoo! Lots of good recipes in there - man, it makes me tired just reading through that huge list! I loved all of the Christmas recipes, the cakes, the pies, the crumbles! Nigella's pastry method is fantastic, as is her custard, both of which I can now make without the recipes.
8. Basic Roast Chicken
38. Basic Roast Chicken with garlic and shallots
329. Stock
356. Lettuce and Lovage Soup
64. Mayonnaise
375. Sauce Verte
357. Egg Mayonnaise
282. Hollandaise
283. Hollandaise with Saffron
360. Hollandaise sauce with Seville orange juice
303. Béarnaise Sauce
233. Meringues
281. Macaroons
133. Langue de chat
312. Béchamel
313. Cheese sauce
315. Parsley sauce
322. Parsley and ham patties
376. My mother’s white sauce
314. Vegetable Soup
24. Breadcrumbs
9. Plain Salad Dressing
21. Basic French Dressing
63. Victoria Sponge
307. Birthday Cake
301. Fancy Cake
47. Moorish Cake
359. Basic White Loaf
256. Lemon Curd
356. Passionfruit Curd
81. Real Custard
355. Quick Foolproof Custard
40. Basic Vanilla Ice-cream
119. The World’s Best Chocolate Ice-cream
43. Pancakes
285. American Breakfast Pancakes
62. Shortcrust Pastry
49. Rich Shortcrust Pastry
164. Sweet Pastry
268. Plain Apple Crumble
124. Rhubarb Crumble
59. Canard à l’orange
58. Scallops with Bitter Oranges
65. Seville Orange Marmalade
330. Elderflower Cream
311. Damson Fool
343. Mostarda di Venezia
211. Christmas Eve Goose
154. Lidgate’s Chestnut Stuffing
215. Lidgate’s Cranberry and Orange Stuffing
216. Turkey
217. Gravy
218. Potatoes
219. Brussels Sprouts and Chestnuts
220. Bread sauce
221. Cranberry Sauce
222. Brandy Butter
223. Iced Rum Sauce
213. Mini star-topped mince pies
214. Frangipane Mince Pies
224. Bubble and Squeak
225. Ed Victor’s Turkey Hash
367. Potatoes
372. Roasted Garlic and Shallots
366. Latkes
361. Panchphoran Aloo (Potatoes in whole spices)
122. Lentil and Chestnut Soup
272. Christmas Queen of Puddings
39. Clementine Cake
292. Mashed Potatoes, Truffle Oil and Warm Santa Barbara Shrimp
Showing posts with label Basics etc.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Basics etc.. Show all posts
Monday, May 29, 2006
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Quiet Sunday Afternoon
Both these recipes are in Basics etc., and are both variations on a basic recipe. I'm not really planning on eating them, but thought I'd better get through them while I had some time to myself at home.
385. Sauce Verte
This is a mayonnaise, with dijon mustard added at the start, as well as some chopped herbs, and blanched spinach. Nigella says you can add capers, gherkins and anchovies, treating it like a salsa verde, but with mayonnaise instead of oil as the binding agent. I like anchovies, I took this option.
sauce verte
386. My mother's white sauce
This one is, unsurprisingly, a variation on the white sauce recipe. In it, Nigella says to crumble a bit of a chicken stock cube with the flour at the start, to add a rounded salty savouriness to the sauce. My one turned out a bit brown, which I think is a combination of the stock cube, and the fact that I overcooked the flour at the start. It smelled pretty good though.
Nigella's mother's white sauce
385. Sauce Verte
This is a mayonnaise, with dijon mustard added at the start, as well as some chopped herbs, and blanched spinach. Nigella says you can add capers, gherkins and anchovies, treating it like a salsa verde, but with mayonnaise instead of oil as the binding agent. I like anchovies, I took this option.
sauce verte
386. My mother's white sauce
This one is, unsurprisingly, a variation on the white sauce recipe. In it, Nigella says to crumble a bit of a chicken stock cube with the flour at the start, to add a rounded salty savouriness to the sauce. My one turned out a bit brown, which I think is a combination of the stock cube, and the fact that I overcooked the flour at the start. It smelled pretty good though.
Nigella's mother's white sauce
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Potatoes, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways
Ok, so this is the 2nd of the 3 extra potato recipes I whined about the other day.
377. Potatoes (Basics etc.)
377. Potatoes (Basics etc.)
Again, this recipe is suggested as an accompaniment to leftover Christmas cold cuts. It's tiny cubes of potato, cooked in oil with thyme and garlic cloves in a hot oven for an hour.
potatoes
Mmm... delicious. I had these with that split pea soup I made on Tuesday night, which I indeed have thickened out with extra boiled split peas. The soup was pretty good, actually, and the addition of the extra split peas really balanced out the flavour and texture.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Hot Jewish Potato Pancakes
Here is what Mum and I had for lunch today.
374. Char Siu 1
375. Char Siu 2
376. Latkes (Basics etc.)
Nigella has 2 recipes for char siu (AKA glazed roast pork loin, Chinese style) in the Low Fat chapter. She suggests making up char siu in advance, slicing it, and stashing it in the freezer to use when you want to add some meat to your low-fat supper. (e.g. soup noodles etc). I made both char siu marinades last night, and let the pork loins marinate overnight.
The first marinade contains:
- soy sauce
- tomato ketchup
- hoisin sauce
- sweet sherry
- honey
- dark muscovado sugar
I had all these ingredients in my pantry.
Marinade ingredients (1)
The 2nd marinade seems to just be made up of random shit that Nigella had lying around her fridge. It contains:
- soy sauce
- prune juice
- mushroom ketchup (huh??)
- miso
- mirin
- sesame oil
- garlic
- light muscovado sugar
I used regular ketchup instead of mushroom ketchup, and coca cola for prune juice (it was a long shot, but I just wanted something sweet. And hey, it worked for the ham).
char siu marinade (1 on the left, 2 on the right)
Today, I put the loins in the oven (200C for 15 minutes, then 160C for 30 minutes), and got on with the latkes. I do realize the total inappropriateness of having latkes (i.e. a hot Jewish potato pancake) with roast pork… but I just really, really need to get through these recipes right now. Besides, a latke is a “hot Jewish potato pancake” – there is nothing I don’t like about that description. How could I resist?
So to make latkes, you need to grate up a few potatoes (using a processor, natch)…
grated potato
...then drain the potato pieces, and mix them with some chopped onion, flour (or matzah meal), egg and salt.
Then you just gotta fry the pancakes in hot oil for about 5 minutes a side. I love frying food, it is just so much fun.
I believe I can fry
Latkes!!
Here’s the char siu. Both marinades were pretty decent, even the weird one with the coke in it. I wouldn’t ever use them as a substitute for the real, red-glazed, deliciously greasy char siu that you find in Hong Kong BBQ shops, but for the purpose they were intended (addition of protein to low-fat meals), they are fine.
char siu
Ooh, but those latkes! They’re fantastic! So crispy and oily and totally compulsive.
Lunch
They’re good plain, but I also served the latkes with cream cheese and smoked salmon, which was brilliant. Cream cheese + fried potato and onion = the same flavour combo as in sour cream and onion flavoured chips. In other words, I was in flavour country. It’s a big country.
smoked salmon on latkes
Check it out, I folded the smoked salmon pieces just like I used to at my old job at the buffet restaurant. Man, I remember having to fold hundreds of pieces of salmon a night, and arranging them on huge expensive glass platters to feed the greedy greedy crowds. It was such a crap job.
But onto dessert - the lemon balm and Sauternes jelly which I made last night. After lunch, I unmoulded the jelly, and ate it with my mum. We drowned it in cream, and it was lovely. Very refreshing and light. However, it was unexpectedly alcoholic, which is why I think it didn’t set very hard. Maybe next time I’ll use more sugar syrup and less alcohol. Either way, it tasted good.
sauternes and lemon balm jelly
374. Char Siu 1
375. Char Siu 2
376. Latkes (Basics etc.)
Nigella has 2 recipes for char siu (AKA glazed roast pork loin, Chinese style) in the Low Fat chapter. She suggests making up char siu in advance, slicing it, and stashing it in the freezer to use when you want to add some meat to your low-fat supper. (e.g. soup noodles etc). I made both char siu marinades last night, and let the pork loins marinate overnight.
The first marinade contains:
- soy sauce
- tomato ketchup
- hoisin sauce
- sweet sherry
- honey
- dark muscovado sugar
I had all these ingredients in my pantry.
Marinade ingredients (1)
The 2nd marinade seems to just be made up of random shit that Nigella had lying around her fridge. It contains:
- soy sauce
- prune juice
- mushroom ketchup (huh??)
- miso
- mirin
- sesame oil
- garlic
- light muscovado sugar
I used regular ketchup instead of mushroom ketchup, and coca cola for prune juice (it was a long shot, but I just wanted something sweet. And hey, it worked for the ham).
char siu marinade (1 on the left, 2 on the right)
Today, I put the loins in the oven (200C for 15 minutes, then 160C for 30 minutes), and got on with the latkes. I do realize the total inappropriateness of having latkes (i.e. a hot Jewish potato pancake) with roast pork… but I just really, really need to get through these recipes right now. Besides, a latke is a “hot Jewish potato pancake” – there is nothing I don’t like about that description. How could I resist?
So to make latkes, you need to grate up a few potatoes (using a processor, natch)…
grated potato
...then drain the potato pieces, and mix them with some chopped onion, flour (or matzah meal), egg and salt.
Then you just gotta fry the pancakes in hot oil for about 5 minutes a side. I love frying food, it is just so much fun.
I believe I can fry
Latkes!!
Here’s the char siu. Both marinades were pretty decent, even the weird one with the coke in it. I wouldn’t ever use them as a substitute for the real, red-glazed, deliciously greasy char siu that you find in Hong Kong BBQ shops, but for the purpose they were intended (addition of protein to low-fat meals), they are fine.
char siu
Ooh, but those latkes! They’re fantastic! So crispy and oily and totally compulsive.
Lunch
They’re good plain, but I also served the latkes with cream cheese and smoked salmon, which was brilliant. Cream cheese + fried potato and onion = the same flavour combo as in sour cream and onion flavoured chips. In other words, I was in flavour country. It’s a big country.
smoked salmon on latkes
Check it out, I folded the smoked salmon pieces just like I used to at my old job at the buffet restaurant. Man, I remember having to fold hundreds of pieces of salmon a night, and arranging them on huge expensive glass platters to feed the greedy greedy crowds. It was such a crap job.
But onto dessert - the lemon balm and Sauternes jelly which I made last night. After lunch, I unmoulded the jelly, and ate it with my mum. We drowned it in cream, and it was lovely. Very refreshing and light. However, it was unexpectedly alcoholic, which is why I think it didn’t set very hard. Maybe next time I’ll use more sugar syrup and less alcohol. Either way, it tasted good.
sauternes and lemon balm jelly
Monday, May 22, 2006
Panchporan Aloo
371. Panchporan Aloo (Basics etc.)
This Indian recipe, for cubed potatoes fried in whole spices, appears in the Christmas section of the Basics etc. chapter, and is recommended as an accompaniment for any cold cuts remaining from the Christmas feast. It's been a while since Christmas, but I seem to have missed this recipe. Oh well.
I made it suprisingly quickly, in the 45 minutes between the time I arrived home from uni and the time Desperate Housewives started. In fact, upon reading the recipe it sounds like it would take ages, but the cooking is surprisingly fast, and the eating is disproportinately gratifying.
You cut some potatoes into small cubes (I cut them very small - figuring that the smaller they were cut, the faster they would cook), stir fry them in some oil, and then turn the heat down and cover them. Nigella says to leave them until they're "a little more than half done", which I guestimated would be about 8 minutes. At this point, you remove the lid and add turmeric and red chilli powder, followed by various whole spices. The seeds the recipe calls for are fenugreek, nigella, black mustard, white cumin and fennel. I didn't have fenugreek, so omitted it. I did have nigella (naturally) and fennel seeds, but no black mustard or white cumin seeds. I substituted ordinary mustard seeds and powdered cumin.
Once all the spices are added and stirred in, you have to put the lid back on and let the potato cubes cook through. This took, again, about 8 minutes. I love the way that the addition of tumeric (that's the way we spell it at home, none of this "turmeric" business) instantly dyes everything a vibrant golden yellow.
panchporan aloo
I ate the potatoes sprinkled with freshly chopped coriander, and served with leftover chicken, vegetables and hollandaise sauce from last night's dinner.
dinner
The potatoes are extremely delicious - crunchy and spicy and salty and golden, and so easy! I highly recommend them; they hardly take any time or effort to make, and they're just so good!
This Indian recipe, for cubed potatoes fried in whole spices, appears in the Christmas section of the Basics etc. chapter, and is recommended as an accompaniment for any cold cuts remaining from the Christmas feast. It's been a while since Christmas, but I seem to have missed this recipe. Oh well.
I made it suprisingly quickly, in the 45 minutes between the time I arrived home from uni and the time Desperate Housewives started. In fact, upon reading the recipe it sounds like it would take ages, but the cooking is surprisingly fast, and the eating is disproportinately gratifying.
You cut some potatoes into small cubes (I cut them very small - figuring that the smaller they were cut, the faster they would cook), stir fry them in some oil, and then turn the heat down and cover them. Nigella says to leave them until they're "a little more than half done", which I guestimated would be about 8 minutes. At this point, you remove the lid and add turmeric and red chilli powder, followed by various whole spices. The seeds the recipe calls for are fenugreek, nigella, black mustard, white cumin and fennel. I didn't have fenugreek, so omitted it. I did have nigella (naturally) and fennel seeds, but no black mustard or white cumin seeds. I substituted ordinary mustard seeds and powdered cumin.
Once all the spices are added and stirred in, you have to put the lid back on and let the potato cubes cook through. This took, again, about 8 minutes. I love the way that the addition of tumeric (that's the way we spell it at home, none of this "turmeric" business) instantly dyes everything a vibrant golden yellow.
panchporan aloo
I ate the potatoes sprinkled with freshly chopped coriander, and served with leftover chicken, vegetables and hollandaise sauce from last night's dinner.
dinner
The potatoes are extremely delicious - crunchy and spicy and salty and golden, and so easy! I highly recommend them; they hardly take any time or effort to make, and they're just so good!
Breakfast for a Sunny Day
As you know, I made passionfruit curd yesterday. And this morning, Mum surprised me by buying a couple of lattés, some croissants and a brioche to have with it for breakfast!
Yum yum yum... I daresay that this curd is better than the original lemon curd. Full of yellow passionfruit goodness!
Yum yum yum... I daresay that this curd is better than the original lemon curd. Full of yellow passionfruit goodness!
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Dinner
More recipes…
The way I’m picking the remaining recipes is by looking at my list (typed out, size 12 Times New Roman font), and just going for whatever I haven’t crossed out yet.
This was dinner tonight. It was just a casual meal, for the parentals and I, but it turned out to be quite nice and special.
368. Lentil and black olive crostini (Dinner)
369. Prawn and aubergine crostini (Dinner)
370. Hollandaise sauce with Seville orange juice (Basics etc.)
I started on the lentil and black olive crostini while I was cooking this afternoon, by cooking 30 grams of puy lentils until soft. You gotta process the lentils with some black olive paste / tapenade (available at any supermarket these days), a bit of water to bind, and a teaspoon of Cognac. (Once again I turned to my parents’ surprisingly handy stash of mini-bar bottles, collected over years and years of overseas travel). The mixture can be left in the fridge until needed.
The prawn crostini are pretty easy too – you bake an eggplant in the oven until soft, and cook some prawns in a pan with garlic and chilli. Then you process the eggplant flesh and the prawns together. Ba-da-bing ba-da-boom, second crostini topping.
I had some leftover slices of baguette, all bagged up and ready to roll. They just need to be toasted on each side in the oven, takes about 8 minutes a side from frozen. (See below for the photos).
Now, as for the hollandaise sauce, Nigella says it could be a treat as a “once-a-year accompaniment to plain, baked or grilled white fish and broccoli”, but to treat this deviation from the classical with caution. (Even though I don't really understand why, the result is pretty damn tasty).
In keeping with my use of the retro egg-slicer, I pulled out my mum’s super retro double boiler to make the hollandaise sauce in. I also had Rod Stewart’s Greatest Hits blaring, but that’s another story.
retro double boiler
It’s the usual deal, egg yolks over simmering water, into which you gradually whisk cubes of softened butter until it’s all emulsified and sauce-like. At the end, you add a squeeze of Seville orange juice instead of lemon juice. Pretty simple. Hilariously, I got distracted singing to Rod Stewart while using the retro double boiler, and curdled the stupid sauce! So I had to start again, and this time I used my usual bowl suspended over simmering water dealy, and concentrated properly. And that worked fine. I served grilled chicken breasts, and steamed asparagus and brocolli with the sauce.
So here are the crostini. The light ones are the prawn crostini, topped with chopped coriander. The dark, lentil crostini are garnished with a teeny slice of cherry tomato. (Nigella says to blanch, peel and de-seed the cherry tomatoes, but I said "stuff that" and just left them raw).
crostini
Both were quite delicious, but I loved the prawn one! Prawns! Chilli! Garlic! Eggplant! It's like all my favourite flavours conveniently spread on a single, easy-to-eat crostini.
sauce and vegetables
chicken
That is some tasty, tasty sauce. I did have to warn my parents that "this is a mega-fattening sauce", just so that we wouldn't immediately drown all our food in that deliciously buttery-rich sauce. I've liked all of Nigella's variations on hollandaise, and feel no qualms about deviating from the classical.
Wow, I'm amazed that this mish-mash of random recipes resulted in such an elegant dinner! Lucky me.
The way I’m picking the remaining recipes is by looking at my list (typed out, size 12 Times New Roman font), and just going for whatever I haven’t crossed out yet.
This was dinner tonight. It was just a casual meal, for the parentals and I, but it turned out to be quite nice and special.
368. Lentil and black olive crostini (Dinner)
369. Prawn and aubergine crostini (Dinner)
370. Hollandaise sauce with Seville orange juice (Basics etc.)
I started on the lentil and black olive crostini while I was cooking this afternoon, by cooking 30 grams of puy lentils until soft. You gotta process the lentils with some black olive paste / tapenade (available at any supermarket these days), a bit of water to bind, and a teaspoon of Cognac. (Once again I turned to my parents’ surprisingly handy stash of mini-bar bottles, collected over years and years of overseas travel). The mixture can be left in the fridge until needed.
The prawn crostini are pretty easy too – you bake an eggplant in the oven until soft, and cook some prawns in a pan with garlic and chilli. Then you process the eggplant flesh and the prawns together. Ba-da-bing ba-da-boom, second crostini topping.
I had some leftover slices of baguette, all bagged up and ready to roll. They just need to be toasted on each side in the oven, takes about 8 minutes a side from frozen. (See below for the photos).
Now, as for the hollandaise sauce, Nigella says it could be a treat as a “once-a-year accompaniment to plain, baked or grilled white fish and broccoli”, but to treat this deviation from the classical with caution. (Even though I don't really understand why, the result is pretty damn tasty).
In keeping with my use of the retro egg-slicer, I pulled out my mum’s super retro double boiler to make the hollandaise sauce in. I also had Rod Stewart’s Greatest Hits blaring, but that’s another story.
retro double boiler
It’s the usual deal, egg yolks over simmering water, into which you gradually whisk cubes of softened butter until it’s all emulsified and sauce-like. At the end, you add a squeeze of Seville orange juice instead of lemon juice. Pretty simple. Hilariously, I got distracted singing to Rod Stewart while using the retro double boiler, and curdled the stupid sauce! So I had to start again, and this time I used my usual bowl suspended over simmering water dealy, and concentrated properly. And that worked fine. I served grilled chicken breasts, and steamed asparagus and brocolli with the sauce.
So here are the crostini. The light ones are the prawn crostini, topped with chopped coriander. The dark, lentil crostini are garnished with a teeny slice of cherry tomato. (Nigella says to blanch, peel and de-seed the cherry tomatoes, but I said "stuff that" and just left them raw).
crostini
Both were quite delicious, but I loved the prawn one! Prawns! Chilli! Garlic! Eggplant! It's like all my favourite flavours conveniently spread on a single, easy-to-eat crostini.
sauce and vegetables
chicken
That is some tasty, tasty sauce. I did have to warn my parents that "this is a mega-fattening sauce", just so that we wouldn't immediately drown all our food in that deliciously buttery-rich sauce. I've liked all of Nigella's variations on hollandaise, and feel no qualms about deviating from the classical.
Wow, I'm amazed that this mish-mash of random recipes resulted in such an elegant dinner! Lucky me.
Ah the randonimity!
It's crunch time.
10 days to go.
Time for me to do all the random recipes. Ones that I have no idea when I'm going to eat, but just need to be made. I had a free afternoon and an empty house. Time to cook!
366. Passionfruit Curd (Basics etc.)
This is just like the lemon curd, but with passionfruit pulp in place of the lemon juice (unsurprisingly). So you stir eggs and egg yolks, sugar and butter with strained passionfruit pulp over a slow heat until thick and curd-like. At the end, you add one extra passionfruit (including seeds). I used one 170g tin of passionfruit pulp (don't hate me! Passionfruits are ridiculously expensive now... with fresh passionfruit, it would work out at more than $8 for one quantity of curd!)
Anyway, I made it, no hassles... and here's what it looks like.
passionfruit curd
Gorgeous! I tried some on toasted Turkish bread, which was delicious. I'm not sure what to do with the rest, but I suspect that we will get through it very quickly, just eating it for breakfast on toast.
passionfruit curd on toast
Next I thought I'd make egg mayonnaise.
367. Egg mayonnaise (Basics etc.)
10 days to go.
Time for me to do all the random recipes. Ones that I have no idea when I'm going to eat, but just need to be made. I had a free afternoon and an empty house. Time to cook!
366. Passionfruit Curd (Basics etc.)
This is just like the lemon curd, but with passionfruit pulp in place of the lemon juice (unsurprisingly). So you stir eggs and egg yolks, sugar and butter with strained passionfruit pulp over a slow heat until thick and curd-like. At the end, you add one extra passionfruit (including seeds). I used one 170g tin of passionfruit pulp (don't hate me! Passionfruits are ridiculously expensive now... with fresh passionfruit, it would work out at more than $8 for one quantity of curd!)
Anyway, I made it, no hassles... and here's what it looks like.
passionfruit curd
Gorgeous! I tried some on toasted Turkish bread, which was delicious. I'm not sure what to do with the rest, but I suspect that we will get through it very quickly, just eating it for breakfast on toast.
passionfruit curd on toast
Next I thought I'd make egg mayonnaise.
367. Egg mayonnaise (Basics etc.)
Egg mayonnaise is described very simply by Nigella, as "hard-boiled eggs, sliced and masked with light mayonnaise, with or withot a criss-crossing of anchovies on top". Easy!
So I boiled an egg, and pulled out my favourite kitchen gadget - the egg slicer! This one has lived in the 2nd drawer of the kitchen since before I was born, and I've always had a fixation with it. It's just so cool!
egg and slicer
egg in slicer
egg in slicer 3
Hmm... but for some reason, it didn't cut the egg cleanly! Perhaps I was too impatient, slicing the egg while it was still warm. Or maybe it's cos my egg slicer is older than I am.
squished!
sorta sliced
So I salvaged the egg pieces, and arranged them as best I could on a plate, spooned a bit of mayo (from a jar) on top, followed by some anchovies. How I love dem anchovies.
egg mayonnaise
It looks gross on the plate, but it tastes so good!! Eggs need salt, anchovies are salty! And mayo's just good, full stop. It's a no brainer. Mum and I ate this as a mid-afternoon snack.
Now I gotta cook dinner... more recipes coming...
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Pig’s bum and tuna
For lunch today, we had a lovely low-fat griddled tuna dish. Followed by a steamed pudding with lashings of custard. Ooh yeah.
364. Tataki of Tuna (Low Fat)
365. Quick Foolproof Custard (Basics etc)
I chose to reprise the pig's bum because I needed a pudding to go with the second custard recipe in the Basics etc. chapter, and I seem to have already completed all the other puddings and crumbles. The pig's bum is without a doubt my favourite pudding from the whole book.
Just in case you forgot…
The mixture for this steamed sponge is equal parts butter, sugar and flour, with 2 eggs, some baking powder, vanilla extract and milk (so just a normal sponge-cake mixture), with a rhubarb puree mixed through. And apart from the cooking of the rhubarb (which takes a scant 5 minutes), it’s all done in the processor.
pig's bum mixture
pudding in basin
Steamer
You have to put the lid on the pudding basin, and let it steam for 2.5 hours. And in the meantime, I made the custard.
The quick foolproof custard is good for the custard-o-phobes among us (aah.. I remember when I used to be one of them!) because it dispenses with that whole nerve-wracking “stirring over low heat” stage. What you do is whisk some egg yolks, sugar and cornflour in a bowl. In a pan, you heat cream with a vanilla pod, and “allow the cream to rise in the pan”, before pouring it over the eggs, and whisking for a good 10 minutes until thick. I had no idea what allowing “the cream to rise in the pan” meant, so I just let it bubble a teensy weensy bit before adding it to the eggs. The custard took about 10 minutes with a KitchenAid mixer on medium heat.
Upon reflection, I don’t know why I didn’t try this custard back in the days when I couldn’t make custard, as it would have saved a lot of bother. But in the end, I guess it’s good that I forced myself to learn how to make custard with old fashioned stirring. Because even though this custard tasted fab, it did have a lot of tiny little air bubbles in it from the whisking, so it didn’t have that lovely voluptuous gloop of real custard.
Nigella says to have cold custard with the pudding, so I set the custard aside while I made the main.
Tataki of tuna is ideally, a long round tail piece of tuna, seared on all sides, and sliced thinly. I had to substitute tuna steaks, as they were all I could find, but the result was still good. I dusted the sides with wasabi powder, and cooked them briefly on a high heat in a cast-iron frypan.
Nigella says to serve with thin slivers of spring onions and a sprinkling of coriander, as well as a side salad of cucumber slices. As for sauces, she suggests a paste made of wasabi powder mixed with soy, or a mixture of soy, sugar and lime juice. I made both, just to try each one.
I also served it with cold soba noodles, dressed with a mixture of all the Japanesey sauces from my pantry – mirin, soy, rice vinegar, and honey.
tuna and cucumber salad
Table
wasabi powder mixed with soy
one bowl
It was a fabulous lunch. The noodles, the tuna, the cucumber, the sauces – all lovely. After plowing through so much of the rich, meat-and-potato heavy food that Nigella favours, this was a refreshing contrast. Goodness, how I love soba noodles! It was so healthy and delicious, and not in that resignedly virtuous way – it actually tasted good, irrespective of its being low-fat.
Mmm… now check out the dessert. I think words are superfluous in this instance; just check out the photos…
Pudding
Custard
one delicious plate
Pig’s bum is totally the best.
364. Tataki of Tuna (Low Fat)
365. Quick Foolproof Custard (Basics etc)
I chose to reprise the pig's bum because I needed a pudding to go with the second custard recipe in the Basics etc. chapter, and I seem to have already completed all the other puddings and crumbles. The pig's bum is without a doubt my favourite pudding from the whole book.
Just in case you forgot…
The mixture for this steamed sponge is equal parts butter, sugar and flour, with 2 eggs, some baking powder, vanilla extract and milk (so just a normal sponge-cake mixture), with a rhubarb puree mixed through. And apart from the cooking of the rhubarb (which takes a scant 5 minutes), it’s all done in the processor.
pig's bum mixture
pudding in basin
Steamer
You have to put the lid on the pudding basin, and let it steam for 2.5 hours. And in the meantime, I made the custard.
The quick foolproof custard is good for the custard-o-phobes among us (aah.. I remember when I used to be one of them!) because it dispenses with that whole nerve-wracking “stirring over low heat” stage. What you do is whisk some egg yolks, sugar and cornflour in a bowl. In a pan, you heat cream with a vanilla pod, and “allow the cream to rise in the pan”, before pouring it over the eggs, and whisking for a good 10 minutes until thick. I had no idea what allowing “the cream to rise in the pan” meant, so I just let it bubble a teensy weensy bit before adding it to the eggs. The custard took about 10 minutes with a KitchenAid mixer on medium heat.
Upon reflection, I don’t know why I didn’t try this custard back in the days when I couldn’t make custard, as it would have saved a lot of bother. But in the end, I guess it’s good that I forced myself to learn how to make custard with old fashioned stirring. Because even though this custard tasted fab, it did have a lot of tiny little air bubbles in it from the whisking, so it didn’t have that lovely voluptuous gloop of real custard.
Nigella says to have cold custard with the pudding, so I set the custard aside while I made the main.
Tataki of tuna is ideally, a long round tail piece of tuna, seared on all sides, and sliced thinly. I had to substitute tuna steaks, as they were all I could find, but the result was still good. I dusted the sides with wasabi powder, and cooked them briefly on a high heat in a cast-iron frypan.
Nigella says to serve with thin slivers of spring onions and a sprinkling of coriander, as well as a side salad of cucumber slices. As for sauces, she suggests a paste made of wasabi powder mixed with soy, or a mixture of soy, sugar and lime juice. I made both, just to try each one.
I also served it with cold soba noodles, dressed with a mixture of all the Japanesey sauces from my pantry – mirin, soy, rice vinegar, and honey.
tuna and cucumber salad
Table
wasabi powder mixed with soy
one bowl
It was a fabulous lunch. The noodles, the tuna, the cucumber, the sauces – all lovely. After plowing through so much of the rich, meat-and-potato heavy food that Nigella favours, this was a refreshing contrast. Goodness, how I love soba noodles! It was so healthy and delicious, and not in that resignedly virtuous way – it actually tasted good, irrespective of its being low-fat.
Mmm… now check out the dessert. I think words are superfluous in this instance; just check out the photos…
Pudding
Custard
one delicious plate
Pig’s bum is totally the best.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
I love Bread
As I mentioned previously, yesterday I went in for a huge session of bread baking.
359. Basic White Loaf (Basics etc.)
I am, as a rule, scared of yeast cookery. There’s a reason why the basic white loaf is recipe number 359, and not, say, recipe number 8. In the past, when I’ve tried, I get hard lumps of inedible “bread”, which are more like instruments of torture than breakfast treats. The best I’ve done are Nigella’s soft white dinner rolls, which usually turn out really nicely. But a whole loaf has always eluded me.
But in actual fact, the only scary thing about this recipe was sourcing the fresh yeast. I went to Delicatess deli in Prahran Market yesterday morning and plucked up the courage to ask “do you sell fresh yeast?”. They did, and I got about 125 grams. You might only need 30 grams, but ask for anything less than 100grams and they’ll look at you funny. But don’t worry, it’s mega-cheap. I only paid, like, $1.50 for the piece I got. And trust me, once you start successfully baking with yeast, you won’t want to stop. (See How to be a Domestic Goddess for a massive expansion on this theme).
As I mentioned in my last post, I went the whole hog and made a cinnamon babka (a sweet yeasted Jewish twisty bread) at the same time – kneading the babka dough while the bread dough was proving, kneading the bread dough while the babka dough was proving and so on. It’s a fab upper-body workout.
Here’s Nigella’s method for white bread. It was longer and more tedious than I expected, but not too difficult. Just make sure that if you make it, you read all the timings correctly and leave yourself enough time for all the provings.
The first step is to tip flour onto a worktop, and add yeast, salt and sugar.
mound of flour
Then you slowly pour in tepid water with one hand, mixing it to a dough with the other.
ball of dough
Then you knead the dough for 10 (strenuous) minutes until it’s smooth and less sticky, before letting it sit, covered, for 30 minutes.
ball of dough, proved
Now it needs to be kneaded (hah!) for 3 minutes, before another 30-minute proving session. Once that’s done, you have to squish all the air out of the dough, then “Fold it in half, then in half again, and again, and keep folding the dough over itself until it feels as if you can fold no longer”. Then you need to let it prove for another 10 minutes.
At this stage, you shape the dough, and prove it for a final hour before baking it. By this stage, it was late and dark, I still had my cinnamon babka in the oven (pictures to come soon on Sarah Cooks), and Mum needed to use the oven to make dinner. So, I put the plain bread dough in the fridge and let it prove overnight, as Nigella says is perfectly possible (and often desirable) to do.
loaf of bread before final proving
She says that you may need more yeast if you choose the overnight proving option, but this dough seemed to rise without a problem.
risen in the morning
So, after I got up this morning, I baked the dough at 220C for 25 minutes, and the weird squishy white dough became a loaf of bread!
whole loaf - Yay! It looks like real bread!
sliced
With jam
It was great! It looked like real bread! It tasted like real bread! And it was warm and crusty and fresh! I was ecstatic, and my parents liked it too.
I definitely recommend this recipe, and the overnight proving method if you want a delightful breakfast treat.
359. Basic White Loaf (Basics etc.)
I am, as a rule, scared of yeast cookery. There’s a reason why the basic white loaf is recipe number 359, and not, say, recipe number 8. In the past, when I’ve tried, I get hard lumps of inedible “bread”, which are more like instruments of torture than breakfast treats. The best I’ve done are Nigella’s soft white dinner rolls, which usually turn out really nicely. But a whole loaf has always eluded me.
But in actual fact, the only scary thing about this recipe was sourcing the fresh yeast. I went to Delicatess deli in Prahran Market yesterday morning and plucked up the courage to ask “do you sell fresh yeast?”. They did, and I got about 125 grams. You might only need 30 grams, but ask for anything less than 100grams and they’ll look at you funny. But don’t worry, it’s mega-cheap. I only paid, like, $1.50 for the piece I got. And trust me, once you start successfully baking with yeast, you won’t want to stop. (See How to be a Domestic Goddess for a massive expansion on this theme).
As I mentioned in my last post, I went the whole hog and made a cinnamon babka (a sweet yeasted Jewish twisty bread) at the same time – kneading the babka dough while the bread dough was proving, kneading the bread dough while the babka dough was proving and so on. It’s a fab upper-body workout.
Here’s Nigella’s method for white bread. It was longer and more tedious than I expected, but not too difficult. Just make sure that if you make it, you read all the timings correctly and leave yourself enough time for all the provings.
The first step is to tip flour onto a worktop, and add yeast, salt and sugar.
mound of flour
Then you slowly pour in tepid water with one hand, mixing it to a dough with the other.
ball of dough
Then you knead the dough for 10 (strenuous) minutes until it’s smooth and less sticky, before letting it sit, covered, for 30 minutes.
ball of dough, proved
Now it needs to be kneaded (hah!) for 3 minutes, before another 30-minute proving session. Once that’s done, you have to squish all the air out of the dough, then “Fold it in half, then in half again, and again, and keep folding the dough over itself until it feels as if you can fold no longer”. Then you need to let it prove for another 10 minutes.
At this stage, you shape the dough, and prove it for a final hour before baking it. By this stage, it was late and dark, I still had my cinnamon babka in the oven (pictures to come soon on Sarah Cooks), and Mum needed to use the oven to make dinner. So, I put the plain bread dough in the fridge and let it prove overnight, as Nigella says is perfectly possible (and often desirable) to do.
loaf of bread before final proving
She says that you may need more yeast if you choose the overnight proving option, but this dough seemed to rise without a problem.
risen in the morning
So, after I got up this morning, I baked the dough at 220C for 25 minutes, and the weird squishy white dough became a loaf of bread!
whole loaf - Yay! It looks like real bread!
sliced
With jam
It was great! It looked like real bread! It tasted like real bread! And it was warm and crusty and fresh! I was ecstatic, and my parents liked it too.
I definitely recommend this recipe, and the overnight proving method if you want a delightful breakfast treat.
Monday, May 08, 2006
Being a cop is ok, but celery soup is pretty exciting too!
It's cold, it's dark, I'm tired, and all I want is takeaway. But there are only 23 days left of this project, and I really, really need to get through the random and obscure recipes.
356. Lettuce and Lovage Soup
357. Chicken strips marinated in yogurt and honey
Neither of these 2 recipes are too difficult, or contain weird ingredients. The only reason I left them so late is that I could never think of a time to eat them. The soup appears in the Basics etc. chapter, and is suggested as a way to make lovage (a celery-flavoured type of leaf, apparently) the star focus of a soup. As for the chicken, it's from the Feeding Babies and Small Children chapter. Nigella says that marinating chicken helps to make it less tough and fibrous for children to eat.
I decided to make these 2 recipes tonight to boost a dinner of leftovers. The leftovers were, if you're interested, fried rice with salt fish, diced chicken and beanshoots from Minh Xuong on Victoria Parade. Mmm... tasty! Mum also decided to blanch some gai laan (aka Chinese brocolli) to pad out the meal.
I marinated the chicken breast strips it in yogurt, milk and honey after coming home from uni, and then got on with the soup. You basically have to soften a whole lot of green leafy things with butter in a pot (spring onions, lovage, lettuce), then add stock, and let it simmer. If you don't have lovage (which I didn't), you can use celery leaves (which I did).
lettuce soup
Then you blend it, and it's soup!
blended
I have to be honest, I wasn't very keen on this soup. It just looks gross, and for some reason I thought it tasted like cigarettes. (I blame the celery leaves). But Dad didn't seem to mind it, and as he pointed out, significantly, "at least it's full of vegetables... it must be good for you".
The chicken was ok, nothing extraordinary. It wasn't dry or tough though, so I guess it fulfills its purpose of being soft enough for kids to eat.
chicken strips
chicken strips, gai laan, fried rice
So many vegetables! I feel so virtuous and healthy.
356. Lettuce and Lovage Soup
357. Chicken strips marinated in yogurt and honey
Neither of these 2 recipes are too difficult, or contain weird ingredients. The only reason I left them so late is that I could never think of a time to eat them. The soup appears in the Basics etc. chapter, and is suggested as a way to make lovage (a celery-flavoured type of leaf, apparently) the star focus of a soup. As for the chicken, it's from the Feeding Babies and Small Children chapter. Nigella says that marinating chicken helps to make it less tough and fibrous for children to eat.
I decided to make these 2 recipes tonight to boost a dinner of leftovers. The leftovers were, if you're interested, fried rice with salt fish, diced chicken and beanshoots from Minh Xuong on Victoria Parade. Mmm... tasty! Mum also decided to blanch some gai laan (aka Chinese brocolli) to pad out the meal.
I marinated the chicken breast strips it in yogurt, milk and honey after coming home from uni, and then got on with the soup. You basically have to soften a whole lot of green leafy things with butter in a pot (spring onions, lovage, lettuce), then add stock, and let it simmer. If you don't have lovage (which I didn't), you can use celery leaves (which I did).
lettuce soup
Then you blend it, and it's soup!
blended
I have to be honest, I wasn't very keen on this soup. It just looks gross, and for some reason I thought it tasted like cigarettes. (I blame the celery leaves). But Dad didn't seem to mind it, and as he pointed out, significantly, "at least it's full of vegetables... it must be good for you".
The chicken was ok, nothing extraordinary. It wasn't dry or tough though, so I guess it fulfills its purpose of being soft enough for kids to eat.
chicken strips
chicken strips, gai laan, fried rice
So many vegetables! I feel so virtuous and healthy.
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