hipcook's Reviews
260 recipes reviewed. Showing 1 to 50Sort by: Book Title | Date | Rating | Recipe Title 
Treasury Of Country Heritage M
By Cy Decosse Inc., Land O Lakes Staff
Random House Canada - 1995
A staple of our holiday table. Not that it's anything that special - just potatoes, carrots, and Brussels sprouts, boiled and served in a butter-mustard sauce - but it's tasty, it's hearty, and it manages to combine a vegetable dish with a starch dish - which, considering that we like sweet potatoes, white potatoes, _and_ stuffing, is no mean feat.
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Jane Brody's Good Food Book
By Jane Brody
W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. - 1980
I'm rating this because it says it's inspired by the version in the Moosewood Cookbook (but the Moosewood version is the one I made). The recipes are nearly identical, with the exception that Brody uses 2 tablespoons less butter for sauteeing the onions and apples. (I suspect that there's so much cheese in this recipe that it can lose the extra butter easily.)
Brody also does a major service by converting Katzen's more homey amounts (juice of one lemon, 2 apples chopped) into measurable ones (1/4 c. lemon juice, 3 cups chopped apples). I had some questions about the consistency of my filling (it seemed watery), and I think I wouldn't have if I followed these amounts.
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I'm Just Here for More Food: Food x Mixing + Heat = Baking
By Alton Brown
Stewart, Tabori & Chang - 2004
I am not a fan of whole wheat pancakes. Light, fluffy, regular white-flour pancakes are a special weekend treat, reminding me of my parents' love and the pleasures of youth. Whole wheat pancakes, dense and strangely nutty, are enforced moderation; a reminder of encroaching middle age and the fact that my cholesterol number is higher than my area code.
So now that you know where the bar is, these are actually pretty good for whole wheat pancakes. The flour I used does not have too much bran in it, so while not exactly "light and fluffy", the cakes were not dense. The nuttiness was on a par with whole wheat sandwich bread, which I eat all the time.
This recipe is exactly the same as Alton's regular buttermilk pancake recipe 2 pages earlier, so it seems that the issue is finding a flour I like. I still can't see myself choosing whole-wheat pancakes over white flour pancakes, but given I've still got over a pound of this flour to use, I probably will make these pancakes again.
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Website: The Kitchn
Worked pretty well, and made me less afraid of the time and effort needed for paella. Mine needed salt, and benefited from a drizzle of olive oil at the end. I also messed up by adding too many frozen peas, which sucked up a lot of the heat which was supposed to be cooking the shrimp, which led my "crunchy rice" into just burned territory. I might go ahead and pan-sear the shrimp next time, for more control over flavor and texture.
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The Bob's Burgers Burger Book: Real Recipes for Joke Burgers
By Loren Bouchard, Bob's Burgers, Cole Bowden
Universe - 2016
These were fantastic burgers. The shredded gruyere and caramelized onions made a fantastic rich creamy topping. Flavoring burgers with onion soup mix is kind of a throwback... but honestly, it still works.
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Website: Red Streetcar Line
It might be more fair to think of this as a Mint Watermelon Sorbet - the mint flavor was dominant, almost overpowering, in my attempt.
Two things come to mind on that point. First, I scaled the recipe up by three to try and use up a watermelon which was far larger than necessary for a small Fourth of July party. Maybe mint doesn't scale linearly. (Though since I also find it a little too sugary-sweet, I think that's not the whole problem.) Also, I was using chocolate mint from my garden, and though I aimed for younger leaves, certainly some more mature leaves got in there as well. I have no idea how to control for the strength of your mint crop, but I suspect that's an issue too. I'd love any tips people have (or any other experiences with this recipe).
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Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home
By Jeni Britton Bauer
Artisan - 2011
I've tried to make sorbets before, and consistently come out with a granita at best and a frozen block of flavored ice at worst. But the instruction earlier in the book is spot on - churn to the consistency of a thick smoothie. With this recipe and that instruction, I got a nice soft scoopable sorbet. And a delicious flavor - primarily watermelon with some refreshing lemon acidity.
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Website: The Food Network
The taste on this was fantastic - peanut butter and jelly plus a glass of warm, vanilla-scented milk, all at once.
But the pudding didn't come out right for me, I think because "half a loaf of challah" isn't a very clear measurement. I definitely should have added bread; I got something loose, more like pudding than bread. I also suspect I should have chosen a more rustic loaf of bread; the dense, soft loaf I used pretty much disintegrated at serving.
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Website: Simply Recipes
Good recipe for the Thanksgiving leftover classic. I think it needs garlic. I don't know how they think this fits into a 3 quart casserole dish - it looked it would overflow mine, so I made it in my crock pot insert. (Which led to a discussion about which vessel would have the best crunchy bread-crumb topping to creamy noodle ratio - we think it might be 2 lasagna pans.)
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Jane Brody's Good Food Book
By Jane Brody
W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. - 1980
Not a bad recipe. Not quite enough sauce for my taste, but that might be another case of needing to bake in a wider pan. Could use some additional herb and spice notes.
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Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook
By Beth Hensperger
Harvard Common Press - 2004
My stock pot may never be used for making stock again, between this recipe and the ones in the Fagor pressure cooker manual. Why spend all that time and energy on the stovetop?
The long simmer produces a beautifully clear amber stock. There's also very little liquid lost in the slow cooker - unlike to stovetop or pressure cooker, the yield is darn near the amount of water you add. The recipe is chock-full of onion, leek, and carrot, and the stock has a strong vegetal sweetness. (If you prefer meatier stocks, you might cut these back a hair.)
I do have a quibble - my printing says to cover the turkey carcass with "4 inches" of water. I just can't see how that's possible in my (large) slow cooker for any turkey worthy of the name. Admittedly, today I'm making stock from the remains of Birdzilla, and I just barely got it into the pot. Extrapolating out to a more moderate-sized turkey, I still think it's a misprint.
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Grits (Short Stack)
By Virginia Willis
Short Stack Editions - 2013
A little lackluster. Using some corn grits to give crunch to baked wings was a neat idea, and I liked the little bit of corn taste, but my family didn't care for it. I also got a slight raw flour taste; it could have used a little more time in the oven (or a hotter temperature?) but the chicken was about perfectly done.
I didn't make the sauce, which was a mistake. The cumin and pepper don't come through nearly as well as I hoped.
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New English Kitchen: Changing the Way You Shop, Cook and Eat
By Rose Prince
Fourth Estate Ltd - 2005
Simple base for a sandwich spread or dip. We used smoked salmon in place of "cooked" trout, and I suspect the lower moisture content is part of why we needed a lot more yogurt and sour cream to reach the texture we wanted.
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Website: Kevin Dundon
Exceptionally good technique for trout - perfectly done, wrapped in crispy bacon, and not a hint of sticking to the pan. I'll be returning to this many times. It also has a lovely mix of textures, with firm fish, crispy-chewy bacon, and shattering slivers of almonds.
The sauce didn't work perfectly for me. I think I misunderstood an instruction that the oil in the pan needed to be dumped and replaced with just butter, because mine came out very oily and perhaps not lemony enough. The flavors are there, but I didn't get them in the right balance.
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The Bob's Burgers Burger Book: Real Recipes for Joke Burgers
By Loren Bouchard, Bob's Burgers, Cole Bowden
Universe - 2016
The radish-cucumber sauce is a neat idea. I disagree with the recommendation to use a microplane grater; we wanted a slightly larger grate to give more texture. This would be a great condiment on a more flavorful burger (like a lamb burger, or something with more heat); on a standard ground beef burger it added freshness but not a lot of zing.
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Website: Irish Times
A very nice recipe for this Irish fruitcake. Personally, I'd like it to have a bit more depth - some whole wheat flour might be nice, or a touch of molasses or dark brown sugar. But on the whole, with a bit of butter, it's a delightful snack.
(I also think I might prefer the recipe for "fruity tea loaf", which has a little more dough and a little less fruit. I mentioned this to my wife, and she gave me a confused look, and explained slowly, as if to a child, that the ideal fruitcake should have just enough bread to keep the fruit together. Well, to each their own.)
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Good burger. Hit with my kid, so we'll be doing this again. I thought it was a little indistinct - the sweet potatoes and candied bacon are certainly nice, but they didn't exactly come together. Next time, I'll look at my sweet potato recipes to see if some kind of spice might help the pieces work as a whole. Even something like a piece of lettuce for texture would be good.
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Website: Cooks Illustrated
This is a very refined, light and custardy sweet potato pie. It has good sweet potato flavor, with a strong hit of bourbon and an eggy-milky sweetness which reminds me of egg nog. I'm partial to the rustic, dense version of sweet potato pie, but this uptown version is definitely a recipe I'll make again. A friend suggested it was lacking pecans, and we agree - a layer at the bottom of the pie would be a fantastic surprise.
(Disclaimer: this is not a review of the pie crust, because I used store-bought.)
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Website: Cooks Illustrated
Nice combination of flavors, straightforward stir-frying technique. I might increase the ginger next time.
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Alton Brown's Gear For Your Kitchen
By Alton Brown
Stewart, Tabori & Chang - 2008
Tater tots, bacon, blue cheese, cream of mushroom soup and meat. It seems ridiculous, but everyone I've served it to enjoyed it. And what's not to like? We usually substitute ground turkey for ground beef, and up the thyme and garlic a bit.
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The Bob's Burgers Burger Book: Real Recipes for Joke Burgers
By Loren Bouchard, Bob's Burgers, Cole Bowden
Universe - 2016
Didn't follow the recipe exactly, but come on, it's egg salad; make it the way you like. It added some pleasant creaminess and a hearty egg flavor to the burger, but on its own, I don't think I'd do it again.
However, I'd also made some sauteed spinach, inspired by the Is This Your Chard? or Sit And Spinach burgers. And together, they worked really well... the egg salad plays a role very similar to a rich mild cheese, while the greens bring the acidity and complexity. (And in my case the garlic and shallots.)
So I'm giving 3 stars for the recipe, but I'd rate the concept that egg salad can go on a burger 4 stars.
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The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern: Knockout Dishes with Down-Home Flavor
By Matt Lee, Ted Lee
Clarkson Potter - 2009
I enjoyed the flavor of these fritters. The sweet potato base works nicely with the vegetal okra and pungent onion. The technique was a trick though... the process was easy enough but I'm still not sure if I was trying to get more of a potato pancake thickness or a hush puppy. (Presumably the answer is "in between.") Obviously, this affects the texture and cooking time. I probably will try again to see if I can get a more consistent product.
The dipping sauce is just a mix of buttermilk, sour cream, and a microplaned clove of garlic. I don't know why this isn't on the table every night.
One kitchen note - you're going to purge liquid out of the sweet potato and chop okra. You will get wet on this ride.
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Original Thai Cookbook
By Jennifer Brennan
Perigee Trade - 1984
A delicious and complex treatment for pork. The mix of salt, sweet, and the acrid funkiness of fish sauce calls barbecue to mind. Brennan says this is the "Thai equivalent of ham" and I can easily see making a big roast of this and spreading it out over multiple dishes. (However, I used it as a treatment for pork chops, and while I'm afraid they came out a bit dry, they weren't at all tough and the flavor was delightful.)
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Mastering The Art of French Cooking, Volume One (1) (Vol 1)
By Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, Simone Beck, Sidonie Coryn
Alfred A. Knopf - 2001
Fun treatment for chicken. We didn't serve it with the brown butter sauce, but instead heated up a little tomato sauce and made an ersatz chicken parmigiana.
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Recipes: The Cooking of Italy (Foods of the World)
By Time-Life
Time-Life - 1968
A pleasant enough recipe for a crispy, hearty starch - almost like an Italianate hush puppy. The recipe makes a wealth of 2-bite balls, appropriate for appetizers or a side dish, not the baseball-size behemoths I've had on occasion.
I admit using leftover rice pilaf, not the called-for risotto, and my mixture was a wet mess almost impossible to work with. I added an additional half-cup or so of rice, which still didn't help; finally, I added bread crumbs to the mix (in addition to the bread crumb coating) and the mix started to hold together. I should try it with risotto instead of long-grain rice to see if it's a recipe problem or a changed-the-ingredients problem.
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Website: The New York Times
Pretty interesting concept. I didn't feel like I got a "bread pudding"; the egg layer and bread-and-zucchini layer were totally distinct. (And the zucchini layer was not nice to look at.) I feel like that might be a technique thing; if the bread wasn't totally beaten to mush, or the egg was mixed in to the squash better, it might have been nicer.
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Moosewood Cookbook
By Mollie Katzen
Ten Speed Press - 1992
I'm giving this a slightly higher rating than I think it deserves, because I suspect I made an important (and negative) change to the recipe by using ricotta cheese instead of cottage cheese. Truth is, I don't like stuffed squash very much, and this only seemed average to me. I am glad I used the optional handfuls of raisins and chopped pecans; they added good texture and flavor. (The recipe says walnuts, but as far as I'm concerned, every recipe which calls for walnuts is better with pecans.) All in all, not a bad way to make stuffed squash, just not exceptional.
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The New Chesapeake Kitchen
By John Shields, David W. Harp
Johns Hopkins University Press - 2018
Frankly, I still don't love rhubarb. But I do like the fact that the rhubarb puree mixes with the uncooked strawberries in a way that preserves the fresh taste and texture of both, and doesn't go gloppy or overly sweet. The shortcakes are definitely a hit.
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Website: The Food Network
OK, I took some liberties. Kind of a lot of liberties. It's still a good cake. I'm really impressed with the way the graham crackers don't go soggy (even after 2 days) but do soften into a cake-like texture.
I didn't have strawberry jam, so I used a mix of blueberry and a blackberry/raspberry preserve. These are delicious, but they were pretty substantial homemade preserves and I wonder if assembly would have been easier with a few teaspoons of water mixed in to loosen it up. Then again, free water might have made the cream collapse so maybe not.
I also didn't use the cream cheese icing, opting instead for whipped cream stabilized with gelatin, with a little vanilla and almond extract. (The process is described in the chocolate mocha refrigerator cake recipe from the same episode.) This worked just fine; I suspect it helps that the preserves were a little tart.
Would definitely make again!
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Website: Sous Vide Supreme
I've been making an ersatz Asian-ish salmon for a long time, with a doctored Hoisin/vaguely teriyaki-ish glaze. This recipe doesn't have that level of sweetness in it, but my family reports that's a good tradeoff. The meaty flavor of a nice piece of salmon can shine through the reduced sweetness, and since it's a sous vide preparation, the salmon is perfectly done. This is going in the frequent rotation.
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Essential Pepin: More Than 700 All-Time Favorites from My Life in Food
By Jacques Pepin
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - 2011
Straightforward to be sure, but a satisfying base for plenty of experiments. Alone, they'd work as a side dish. Pepin himself suggests that you could add sausage and chicken and call it cassoulet. Americans might be thinking of white bean chili. My wife added a quart of chicken stock and turned it to soup. I'm sure we'll be returning to this versatile base.
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Jane Brody's Good Food Book
By Jane Brody
W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. - 1980
A dead-simple preparation. Honestly, I can't think of a vegetable which isn't better with olive oil and garlic. You could punch this up with chiles, or go more Southern with onion and pork. As is, it's got a pleasant simplicity.
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Moosewood Cookbook
By Mollie Katzen
Ten Speed Press - 1992
As a main course, this was disappointing. Hearty to be sure, but bland. It's certainly in the "comfort food" genre, but didn't quite make it for me... it got boring before it got homey. I might make it again as a side dish for a potluck, but not as an entree.
A warning - use your biggest pot. 2 pounds of raw spinach is a lot, as is 4 cups of cooked rice.
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Website: The Food Network
These were a big hit at Thanksgiving dinner. The chipotle powder and garlic help cut through the richness. If you're looking for a spicy savory alternative to a sugary sweet potato dish, this works well.
We substituted a chopped chipotle and some adobo sauce for some of the ground chipotle powder, and our friend with the lowest tolerance for heat pronounced it "just right." We doubled the recipe and put it in a lasagna pan; this seemed to work well (though we didn't get the promised "crisp edges" on the potatoes, or think there was any chance of it with all that cream in the dish).
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Buttermilk
By Angie Mosier
All Day Press - 2013
Fresh buttermilk cheese is a wonderful thing - a very slight bit of effort for an appetizer which always impresses. I've tended to serve fresh cheese on the sweet side, but this goes spicy with ginger, jalapeno, and pepper. It was a big hit as both a dip and a topping for chili. We liked it with more ginger than originally called for.
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Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook
By Beth Hensperger
Harvard Common Press - 2004
Nothing to write home about, but a fair balance of effort to taste. Something in this hearty casserole reminded me of my youth - my mother must've had a similar "Spanish rice" recipe. As Alison points out, there's a base here for just about any protein you'd want to add; I used a non-spicy lamb bratwurst and it was fine.
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Website: Cooks Illustrated
I love cacio e pepe, and I'm pretty sure this is the first recipe for it I ever tried. It's worth hunting down the video on this - the tempo at the end is a combination of do all the steps in quick order, so you don't lose your heat, but you pour the pasta water into the cheese slowly (and the same is true of the sauce over the noodles).
If I owned a fine grater blade for my food processor, I'd make this more often. Grating 6 ounces of pecorino romano is a job.
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Website: The Takeout
My technique needs work, but I did enjoy making these and they were pretty tasty. Not having a spaetzle press, I opted for a tip from the comments to try piping the dough into the boiling water. I learned a couple of things, primarily to make the hole in the piping bag even smaller than I thought, and to allow it to drizzle into the water by gravity more than squeezing it out like icing. Also it makes a pretty big batch; I will definitely end up freezing some and seeing how it reheats.
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A pleasant preparation of slowly braised ribs in a sweet Asian sauce. Ours completely fell apart; it wouldn't have been much work to pull the bones out of the pot and serve it like pulled pork. My wife enjoyed the subtle flavors, as did my young son; I thought it was OK but was hoping for bolder flavors. ("Soulful" is in the eye of the beholder.) I might add five-spice powder and up the garlic in future, to bring it more in the direction of Chinese-restaurant ribs.
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Moosewood Cookbook
By Mollie Katzen
Ten Speed Press - 1992
I'm a fan of potatoes and cabbage, so this dish caught my eye. With cider vinegar and 3 forms of tart dairy (cottage cheese, yogurt, and sour cream), it's a very rich dish but with a refreshing zing.
I certainly enjoyed it, but my family thought it was only OK. They prefer colcannon, which has the benefit of being a little less work. But I think I'll be tinkering with my colcannon recipe to see if I can get a little acidity into it, thanks to this recipe.
This is the second recipe in Moosewood which I think could be simplified by making it in a large (very large!) oven-safe skillet, or doing the sauteeing in a dutch oven. No sense dirtying 3 pots when 2 would do!
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The Irish Cookbook
By Jp McMahon
Phaidon - 2020
Basically a soda bread griddle cake. I think my technique needs work (and maybe the recipe needs more specificity) - I made my first batch way too thick and ended up having to cut them in half to get the insides done. But it's a fun way to get something related to a biscuit in a fraction of the time.
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New English Kitchen: Changing the Way You Shop, Cook and Eat
By Rose Prince
Fourth Estate Ltd - 2005
Nice loaf of bread. Mixed up particularly wet, which was odd for our house and weather; ended up adding a lot of flour to make it workable and a longer bake time to get it fully cooked.
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Website: The Food Network
A hearty dish which comes together with a lot less work and time than I thought it would. It's almost a 4-star recipe, but I'm dinging it a bit because the gravy didn't thicken in the oven as much as I thought it would. (It's my fault, though, that I gave the sauce more time in the oven and the chops got tough.) I didn't have a Vidalia onion, so I used one medium-size white onion. The flavor worked, but it would have been more "smothered" if I'd gone for 2 onions.
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Website: Serious Eats
I used this as a marinade for beef, and it was a big hit. I agree with kaye16; it's a little too salty. (I fixed it by adding yogurt and lemon but next time I'll just use less salt.)
The only complaint my family had is that I didn't reserve any of the marinade to use as a sauce, which would have been really nice. (My wife pointed out that I should reserve before marinading rather than trust my ability to heat a yogurt-based sauce without it breaking... which points out that this is in "make again soon" territory.)
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Website: Firey Foods and Barbecue SuperSite
Thoroughly enjoyed this low and slow approach to lamb. The marinade gives wonderful onion, garlic, and paprika flavors to the lamb without overpowering. I wish I'd had even more rosemary sprigs on hand to smoke with - the smoke was delicious, but I think it was lost in the apple wood I used as well.
One point - the timing is for a grill-smoked leg of lamb. In my water smoker, the timing was more like 4 hours. I do expect the marinade would have become a very nice rub, but slow smoking gave me a delicate texture, rare but fully done, which was just to die for. Worth the wait.
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Website: Serious Eats
Lamb shoulder is rubbed, smoked, braised, and then shredded for tacos. The time is paid off perfectly with flavorful lamb which just falls apart.
A few tips:
The recipe says to reduce the braising liquid "skimming off any excess fat." I sent mine through our gravy separator and removed 2/3rds of a cup. Glad I wasn't trying to skim it off.
The recipe calls for tomatillo salsa. We also tried it with red salsa; tomatillo was distinctly better.
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I'm Just Here for the Food: Food + Heat = Cooking
By Alton Brown
Stewart, Tabori and Chang - 2002
Certainly tasty, but I'm not convinced it was worth the extra time and work. How close could I have gotten with a bottle of liquid smoke?
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Website: Lemon Blossoms
This was only OK. I felt like something was missing from the sauce - like the pungency of lime and garlic cooked down too much in the slow cooker. Still, it's low effort and worth more experiments.
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Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook
By Beth Hensperger
Harvard Common Press - 2004
A perfect crock pot recipe - peel and quarter the apples, add lemon juice and water, and forget it. I didn't even need to use the food mill on mine (though we do like applesauce just a bit chunky).
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Essential Pepin: More Than 700 All-Time Favorites from My Life in Food
By Jacques Pepin
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - 2011
A fast, basic preparation of sweet potatoes. Pepin treats it as a side dish, but you could also imagine it as a base for something like a hash.
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