Zosia's Reviews
13 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 13Sort by: Title 
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Sara Moulton Cooks at Home
By Sara Moulton
Broadway - 2002
Ants in a Tree : page 171
Easy, quick and delicious….a great stir fry to make when you’re pressed for time.
The recipe calls for relatively basic pantry ingredients and turns out well even with substitutions: spaghetti for the cellophane noodles, any ground meat for the pork, grocery store coleslaw salad mix for shredded napa cabbage (I double the quantity for a more balanced meal), hot pepper flakes for the chile paste and I’ve even used ground ginger for fresh.
One of the family favourites.
useful (1)
Biscuit Sticky Buns : page 303
A quick and easy version of a decadent bake-shop treat that’s done in 40 minutes!
Though there are a few components, each one takes only a few minutes to make. The sticky topping is a melted blend of brown sugar, butter and honey; the bun portion is a cream biscuit dough with a sprinkling of cinnamon/brown sugar filling (I omitted the currants). The buns were in the oven in 15 minutes!
The biscuit portion was tender and the filling and topping sweet, but not excessively so. The topping was not as gooey as some, which is probably why the recipe calls for a final glaze of warm honey, which I omitted, but I didn’t mind this. What I would do differently though, is use a different baking pan: I used a layer cake pan which I know does not brown very well……. perfect for layer cakes, but not for when you want a browned bottom! Because of lack of browning, some of the topping was absorbed by the biscuit dough.
I will definitely make these again, in a different pan, either as is or as cinnamon buns, omitting the topping portion and drizzling the baked buns with a cream cheese glaze instead.
useful (0)
Black-Eyed Pea Cakes with Salsa Mayonnaise : page 184
These are crispy, cornmeal-crusted, little cakes with a creamy centre, flavoured with sautéed onion, garlic, red pepper and jalapeño.
In the introduction to the recipe, the author suggests a few shortcuts – using canned peas and replacing the salsa mayo with store-bought salsa. I had dried peas on hand so cooked some for this recipe but I did use a different salsa, though it was homemade, mainly because I couldn’t bring myself to serve 1 cup of mayo to 4 people!!
The cakes were very easy to make and held together quite well during cooking after a brief chill in the fridge (though you could just as easily make and chill these the night before).
The flavour of the cake was quite good but a little sweet…..black eyed peas are inherently sweet and the sautéed vegetables just added to that….. so what it really needed was something bright and acidic…..a fresh tomato salsa and a squeeze of lime were the perfect complements.
useful (2)
Blackened Fish : page 136
Tasty? Yes. Blackened? No.
The recipe calls for you to dredge thin fish fillets in a blend of flour and either purchased or homemade Creole spice mix, after pre-soaking in milk, and fry in smoking oil.
A few of these steps seemed odd to me: pre-soaking the fish in milk….my mother used to do it claiming it made the fish taste and smell less “fishy”, but the author offers no explanation; I’ve never seen flour used to make blackened fish. I found that it diluted the intensity of the spice blend (I used the recipe from the book) and interfered with the caramelization of the fish. I think the use of oil instead of butter also prevented good crust formation.
However, this ended up being a very kid-friendly dish – the fish didn’t taste or smell fishy at all (so maybe my mother was right!) but was flavourful and not too spicy.
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Creole Spice Mix : page 348
A versatile spice blend that packs a little bit of heat and lots of flavour that’s easy to toss together using common ingredients from the spice rack: hot paprika, cayenne, garlic and onion powders, oregano, thyme, salt and pepper.
I used it in 2 recipes from the book (blackened fish and turkey burgers) and also to season grilled chicken and shrimp. I had a little trouble gauging how much additional salt a recipe required when using this mix, so next time I make it, I’ll omit the salt altogether.
A great blend to have on hand.
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Moist filet of sole topped with a delicious blend of celery, leeks and carrots.
This recipe avoids the common problem of cooking en papillote, where some components in the pouch end up either over- or under-cooked, by having you first sauté the vegetables until softened. The 10 minutes in the oven merely re-heats them but cooks the fish to perfection and allows enough time for a wonderful sauce to form from the fish and vegetable juices and the added lemon juice and truffle oil.
Very quick to make - especially if you do a small dice on the vegetables - and quick to cook. Great for a family meal but company-worthy also.
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Jean Anderson's Oven-Fried Chicken : page 72
Really delicious chicken dish but not one I would make often.
I tried to cut back on the fat a little, preparing only (!!!) ½ cup garlic butter and discarding the unused portion rather than drizzling it on the breaded chicken. The dish didn’t seem to suffer as the fresh breadcrumb-parmesan coating became very crisp during baking as did the chicken skin. (I wonder if it would work as well on skinned chicken?). I didn’t make any other changes except to reduce the salt in the breading to 1 tsp.
The chicken was moist and flavourful and a huge hit.
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Michelle's Trinidadian Tonic : page 333
A lightly spiced beverage to cure everything that ails you! But delicious enough to want to drink at any time.
Served hot, it reminded me of a soothing ginger tea; served cold over ice, it was quite refreshing and again, it was the heat of the ginger that came through the most. Next time I make it to serve chilled, I’ll let the spices (cinnamon, cloves, ginger) steep for a longer period of time to concentrate the flavour as it was quickly diluted by the ice.
A nice way to beat the summer heat.
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Pasta Pizza : page 169
I loved the idea of this – who wouldn’t want pizza with a crust made of browned-til-crisp spaghetti?
Unfortunately, the method needs some adjustments.
First, you must prepare your crust: cooked angel hair pasta (I used whole wheat spaghetti) is spread in a lightly oiled non-stick pan and cooked, covered, for 25 minutes over medium heat until the pasta is brown and crispy. The pasta is then inverted and further cooked before the toppings are added. I know that pans and stove tops behave differently but my pasta was starting to burn after 7 minutes. I inverted it and continued to cook it over low heat instead. This is the heat setting I should have used at the start as my pasta crisped nicely on this side in about 15 minutes.
The toppings are then added and the “pizza” is cooked, covered until the cheese is melted and the toppings heated through, 3-5 minutes. In essence, this is steaming cheese…….not my preferred method of cooking it. (I was tempted to put it under the broiler!) Also, for this to work, all of your toppings, apart from the tomato sauce and cheese, must be pre-cooked. Though topping suggestions are given, the author encourages you to use what you like, which I did, using homemade tomato sauce, provolone cheese, leftover roasted peppers and broccoli.
In the end, I don’t know if the consistency of my crust was what it should have been. Top and bottom were crispy with a chewy centre, but the crust wasn’t really firm enough to support the toppings so knife and fork were required to enjoy it.
All of that aside, my family really liked it and would like a repeat. In fact, it was noted that I had leftover cooked pasta in the fridge and “wouldn’t it make a nice lunch for Father’s Day with bacon and pepperoni instead of vegetables”…….
I’ve included a link to the recipe from the author’s website.
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Roasted Asparagus Bruschetta : page 2
A simple recipe for grilled bread topped with parmesan cheese and roasted asparagus.
It gets high marks because it tastes good, it’s very easy to prepare (all components can be made in advance and assembly takes no time at all) and it provides me with another use for my truffle oil!
It made for a great starter to a Father’s Day meal. I’ve included a link to the recipe on the author’s website.
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Sofrito Clams or Mussels with Prosciutto : page 151
Easy, tasty and elegant enough to serve to company, it was on the table in less than 30 minutes!
The cooking liquid for the clams or mussels (I used beautiful PEI mussels), which consists of cubed prosciutto, sofrito (a puree of aromatics, tomato and cilantro) and some white wine, was very easy to put together. The mussels steamed in this mixture and helped to create a delicious, flavourful broth.
Though I loved the dish, I did find that the prosciutto, which is first sautéed in olive oil, was a little tough and chewy. Its flavour is important to the finished broth so I wouldn’t want to omit it…perhaps skipping the sauté step would help.
I used the author’s suggestion and served it with crusty bread and a salad…….a perfect meal for a hot (almost) summer’s day!
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This recipe deserves a 5-star rating for the crust alone! But it doesn’t hurt that the 3-cheese and tomato filling is fabulous also.
The crust is a very basic short crust pastry with cooked pancetta added. I omitted the salt from the recipe as the pancetta seemed to have more than enough. I left the bacon pieces a little too large (the recipe calls for finely chopped) so the pastry cracked in a few places but it was easily patched. Apart from that, the dough was very easy to work with but did require a little chilling time before it was rolled and again before baking. I re-rolled the trimmings and baked them as savoury “cookies” – I would make the dough just for this purpose – they would be excellent served with cocktails!
The filling is a blend of ricotta, mozzarella, Parmesan and basil layered with fresh tomato slices, salted to extract water then patted dry before using. I added salt to taste (~1/4 tsp) before adding the eggs instead or using the amount listed in the recipe.
The tart looked good and tasted wonderful. The tomatoes remained juicy and fresh tasting and though mine were pretty good, they weren’t stellar….I can just imagine how much better this tart will be when tomatoes are at their peak.
useful (2)
Turkey Burgers with Tomato Corn Salsa : page 86
These were really very good, lean, yet juicy burgers.
The extra lean ground turkey is simply seasoned with a creole seasoning blend (either purchased or made from the recipe given in the book) and sautéed onion and sweet peppers. The cooked burgers are then topped with an easy tomato-corn salsa. I was concerned that the burgers wouldn’t stay together as there was no binder in the recipe…..it turns out that small amount of oil used to sauté the vegetables, and the vegetables themselves act as a binder and add moisture to the burger.
Though really flavourful and quite delicious, I found the recipe to be too salty. I used the creole seasoning recipe, p348, which includes salt but the burgers required extra which, in hindsight, I should have omitted. The salsa also called for a specific amount of salt, which I added, and again, was too much. Going forward with recipes from this book, I’ll just ignore the quantities provided and add salt to taste.
This is definitely a recipe to repeat.
useful (2)