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

2 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 2Sort by: Title | Date | Rating

GOOD THINGS

By Jane Grigson
Grub Street Cookery - 2008

This tasted fine but the method of cooking the beans didn't work for me. They were to be boiled (after soaking) uncovered in just enough water to reach the top of the beans, so that when cooked most of the water would be gone, but I found they simply did not soften enough. I had to top up the water several times and after an hour and a half of this they were still distinctly crunchy (though cooked). Since the contrast between the crisp celery and soft beans is an important characteristic of the dish this is clearly not what's supposed to happen.

useful (0)  

Not my favourite vegetable but this worked well and was a good accompaniment to plainly-cooked chicken.

One comment though - who on earth has a frying pan big enough to accommodate 12 heads of chicory, halved and the halves arranged in a single layer (or for that matter, a stove big enough to accommodate such a pan)? My medium-sized pan was just big enough for my two heads.

useful (0)