kaye16's Reviews
10 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 10Sort by: Title 
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The Kitchen Diaries: A Year in the Kitchen
By Nigel Slater
Fourth Estate Ltd - 2007
A Radish, Mint and Feta Salad : page 195
We really enjoyed this, a nice combination of flavors and texture. Typical Slater there's not much in the way of quanties. I supposed about equal amounts volume-wise of cuke and radishes is good. "Some" feta, mint, parsley, etc. Very tasty.
I used a shallot instead of a spring onion, since spring onions are not to be found in the French countryside.
useful (2)
Chicken and Rice Salad : page 187
Liked this a lot.
It's a vaguely southeast Asian salad, but nothing that would truly offend non-adventurous eaters.
My grocery didn't have sprouts (they rarely do), so I used snow peas (which they also rarely have, but did on this shopping day) instead. Cut them in half, boiled them till done but slightly crunchy still, then drained and rinsed with cold water.
Made a nice salad. Would be good for a picnic, buffet, or potluck, since there's nothing to go off in it.
There was *lots* of rice. Might use slightly less, maybe 175g instead of 200g. Orzo might also be nice.
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The picture of the chicken patties looks more like chicken meatballs, and it has a red tinge as if tomato sauce or paste or even paprika were present in the chicken stock.
In spite of being baked in broth, the patties (mine looked more like patties) were dry and needed the sauce to moisten them. (After baking the patties, I thickened the broth with a bit of potato starch.) Chopped up and sauced, they were tasty, but still not as juicy as you'd like.
Lacking access to ground chicken, I chopped some chicken breasts in the cuisinart. Maybe leg/thigh meat would be better for this.
Nice tastes, but not so nice in the mouth.
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Chickpeas with Harissa, Basil and Ham : page 153
A tasty, satisfying one-dish meal. Not at all a fussy recipe. Could be used as a salad to accompany something like grilled meat.
- Aside from the fact that the veggies (tomatoes and eggplant/aubergine) have to roast for an hour, this is actually quite quick to assemble.
- I used home-cooked chickpeas from the freezer rather than canned.
- The dressing had a nice tingle from the harissa, but nothing challenging.
- Could easily do without the ham and make it vegetarian. I cut my proscuitto into squarish bits instead of leaving the slices whole.
useful (1)
Grilled Chicken with Harissa and Mint : page 203
We liked this pretty well. I didn't follow the recipe all that closely, but Slater's recipes aren't really for following closely, I think.
I used smallish thighs rather than legs and didn't feel like boning them - just skinned them.
My sauce/paste did not look at all curdled as he describes and I can't think why it would (yogurt, harissa, olive oil).
Cooked the thighs under the overhead gas grill. (Ran out of gas in the middle, so don't know exact timing; was something like 10min per side.)
If you have time, it might be interesting to let the meat marinate for an hour or so in the paste, although we thought it was fine without. Oh the other hand, this is a quick dish, and marinating would take away from that.
Don't really see the need of mint leaves scattered on the cooked meat. I did this, but ended up with most of them in the salad (Zucchini and Feta Cheese Salad) and the rice.
A do-again.
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Mustard Chops : page 129
Easy and very tasty. My chops didn't marinate for the full one hour, but that would only make them better.
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Easy and good.
Lots of typical Slater vagueness as it's written. Just how much is a "small, bushy bunch" of mint anyhow?
He has you boil the shucked favas for 7-10 minutes. I think they'd be mush after that amount of time. I do mine (following instructions I found elsewhere) for 30-60 seconds. I sort out the
biggish ones and put those in for 30secs, then add the smaller ones for another 30secs. Works fine.
I added a bit of pasta water to the sauce, since it seemed a bit dry. Could have used a bit more probably. Didn't add the extra olive oil at the end.
Ssh, don't tell. I used another pasta shape, not orecchiette.
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Peach and Blueberry Soured Cream Cobbler : page 230
Really a super recipe, and easy to do.
Slater has you use fresh peaches and blueberries, but I'm pretty sure frozen fruit would work fine, and in other combinations.
I'm not sure why you couldn't use the food processor (already out and in use) to pulse the soured cream into the dough, rather than using a separate bowl.
Definitely a keeper.
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Salmon and Dill Fishcakes : page 161
Pretty good patties. Nice texture, nice taste of salmon, but otherwise a bit dull.
- Had only 250g of salmon fillets; this served 2 adequately.
- Chop/mixed all in the cuisinart.
- Formed patties (there were 4) and pressed in some panko. Cooled in the fridge while other kitchen things happened.
Liked the idea; might think of something to give more taste.
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Slow-Roast Lamb with Chickpea Mash : page 62
Wow, this is a fantastic roast leg of lamb. Tasty and the meat was wonderfully tender. A bit of wristwork with the mortar and pestle is required, but othewise this is really simple to put together. Once the leg is in the oven, all you have to do is baste occasionally. The juices are also tasty. Yum yum. (I made roast potatoes instead of the chickpea mash.)
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