andrew's Reviews
6 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 6Sort by: Title 
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Website: New York Times - Dining and Wine
www.nytimes.com/pages/dining/index.html
This was a nice, heart-warming vegetarian stew, edging towards veggie chilli with its combination of beans and tomatoes. It was fairly simple to prepare and would be nice on its own, with some fresh bread, or even on top of noodles or rice.
It gets three stars from me because it seemed to be a little muted in flavour - it was not bland, but it wasn't very peppy either. I'd be curious to try this with a little more spice. As it is, it only has paprika, salt and pepper. It does make quite a few servings, so I'll mix in some hot sauce or some harissa with it tomorrow and see how that goes.
useful (0)
Argh! I wish I'd read the previous review before spending a couple of hours tonight making this soup. I too was excited to see a crop of interesting looking cabbage recipes, as we're trying to eat more winter vegetables, and have had some great cabbage soups already.
I was a little suspicious as I made the soup; it did seem to have a lot of tomato paste, and the ketchup too seemed a bit odd, but I forged on, trusting the Times. But unless you're a fan of the canned Campbells Cream of Mushroom soup, which I find unforgivably sweet, you'll also find this soup unpalatable.
It's overly sweet and the taste of tomato paste overpowers everything else. The cabbage may as well be noodles, or newspaper - the only taste is tomato. Too much tomato. We were weighing ways to rescue this soup (it says 8 servings on the recipe, but honestly it's more like 16) but as I just said to my wife, it would be throwing good food after bad. Tomorrow it's going in the compost.
useful (1)
My wife suggested we try these when she saw them in the Times, so we just had them for lunch today with some guests. I was a little skeptical, since there isn't much too this recipe - just black beans, goat cheese and roasted pepper in corn tortillas; no seasoning at all. But the taste of the goat cheese mixed with the sweetness of the peppers added a lot to the beans and tortillas.
We did jazz a couple up with some chipotle sauce we got from a local Mexican restaurant, and served them with salsa and sour cream, all of which added to the taste, but they are just fine by themselves.
useful (4)
This was a very interesting tart. I'd maybe give a little more than 3 stars to it, but not quite 4. I'm always a fan of tarts with onion and gruyere, and this one follows in a grand tradition. I did find, however, that the cabbage (we used a savoy) was a little sour tasting compared to the sweetness of the onion and the creamy, slightly nutty gruyere.
I wonder if a different type of cabbage would improve it - or even a different cooking style. I've had lovely braised red cabbage, which took as long as good caramelized onions to cook, and I bet would be excellent in this. As it is, the cabbage is only cooked for 15 minutes or so, and keeps the cabbage flavour I find a little off-putting. Though I'm also not a brussels sprout fan, so this could be quite a personal taste.
The yeasted tart crust was okay, but I'd prefer my default tart crust, which is a rich, crumbly butter crust. This one got a little bready underneath, and softened so that leftovers were a bit chewy.
It is worth a little experimentation, though. It has promise.
useful (4)
Simple and quite tasty indeed. The Times had a big article on the resurgence of coconut oil as a cooking fat, and this is one of the recipes listed. We were intrigued, picked up some extra virgin coconut oil and gave it a try.
There was a subtle coconut flavour, quite subtle - as my wife said, if it was too strong, they'd have tasted like dessert. I think the brown sugar is likely redundant; any time I've roasted sweet potatoes in the past they have been plenty sweet without adding sugar. When I do this again I'll leave it out. Finally, I roasted them at 375 instead of 350 but even then I think they would have benefited from a bit more heat. Normally I roast veggies at 400 at least, sometimes 425, and they get nice and caramelized.
We had them hot with a chicken pot pie (Thomas Kellers) and they went nicely together. I can see them also being nice as a room temperature side dish, sort of a sweet potato salad.
useful (3)
Simple recipe for slightly buttery, light burger buns. Although they're called brioche, with only 2 1/2 tablespoons of butter, and one egg, they're not really in the league of real brioche - more of an enriched dough.
However, they are quite nice, though perhaps a little dry, and made a good holder for some cheeseburgers for dinner. I made them in about 3 1/2 hours, with rising included.
useful (3)