Sovay's Profile

From: Northern England,

Joined: October 7th, 2012

About me: I've embarked on a mission to cook something new from every cookery book I own - currently 260 - and am planning to use my account here to keep track (thanks to rfb from Librarything for tipping me off to the existence of this site). I've made a couple of rules for myself: to cook the recipe as given, with no substitution or variation unless suggested by the author; and to try to pick a genuinely new dish from each book - in other words, as I've cooked many Leek and Potato Soups in my time, I don't get to count Leek and Potato Soup as a new dish just because I haven't used this specific recipe before (unless it has really significant differences from the usual versions).

Hodge Podge from Mrs Beeton's Cookery Book

Beef and vegetable soup with beer - turned out disappointingly bland. The recipe had no seasoning other than salt and pepper - having tried it, I added a stock cube and some Worcester sauce, which helped... read more >

recipe reviews (241)
book reviews (5)
useful review votes (43)

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Sovay's Reviews

4 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 4Sort by: Title | Date | Rating

The Hairy Dieters Eat for Life: How to Love Food, Lose Weight and Keep it Off for Good! (Hairy Bikers)

By Hairy Bikers, Si King, Dave Myers
W&N - 2013

Tasted good and was pretty substantial - in fact although the recipe suggests an accompaniment of mashed potato (which I regarded as giving me carte blanche to replace it with a moderate-sized potato roasted in wedges) I think the chorizo and breadcrumb crust makes additional starch unnecessary. There was quite a lot of the crust mixture and from past experience with similar recipes I suspected I wouldn't be able to get it to sit neatly on top if I put the fish on a baking tray, so instead I used a small oblong enamel pie dish which contained it nicely.

Next time I shall roast some courgettes, tomatoes and peppers as an alternative accompaniment.

useful (0)  

The lamb was very good, but the overall star rating is lower because the oil-free tabbouleh didn't work for me. Olive oil, even in small amounts, adds such a lot of flavour and also makes the tabbouleh look more attractive (and keep better to the following day if required).

useful (1)  

Good burgers though I prefer to use turkey thigh mince - turkey breast is a little too bland, however healthy it may be. I brush them with a little oil and fry them rather than baking, deglazing the pan with a little water and lemon juice, though a tablespoonful or two of white wine might be even better. I plan to try some different favouring in future batches -cardamom and extra lemon zest or mustard and dill should work ...

Important note: the grated courgette contains a lot of moisture, and the softened leek also produces some, and none of this is good for the burgers. The courgette needs to be wrung out firmly in a cloth or a sheet of strong kitchen paper, and the juices need to be pressed out of the leek (I saved the latter to braise some celery and beans as a side dish).

useful (0)  

These came out well - not dry, which is the usual Curse of the Bean Burger, and the flavour was pleasant though a little chilli would be an improvement. I used a tin of mixed pulses which were on the firm side so I had to add a small amount of water to get the mixture to cohere. The uncooked burgers were a bit fragile - they need to be handled carefully with a fish slice. I fried mine rather than using the oven.

I don't like mango chutney so flavoured my yoghurt sauce with lime pickle, finely chopped, but a spicy tomato sauce would also be good with these.

useful (0)