kaye16's Reviews
8 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 8Sort by: Title | Date | Rating
The 30-minute Cook
By Nigel Slater
Penguin Books Ltd - 2006
Carrots with Mustard Seeds : page 47
Slater says this is a hot version of Madhur Jaffrey's Gujerati Carrot Salad. Personally I think Jaffery's version is better, and I'm not sure why a hot version is needed.
Slater has you frying thickly sliced carrots for 10-15min till they are tender. Maybe my "thick" was too thick, but they weren't really thinking of being finished after 15min, so I added a bit of water and cooked covered for a while, then cooked a bit more to get rid of the water before adding the mustard seeds.
Good enough, but I'd rather have Jaffrey's cold salad. Less work and it's quickly done.
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Herbed Salmon with Garlic Cream Sauce : page 118
Very good and very easy. Chop up some herbs and press into strips of salmon. Sauté till this fish is almost ready, stir in something creamy (crème fraîche, cream, etc.), add a squeeze of lemon and bob's your uncle, as they say.
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Hot Aubergine and Cheese Sandwiches : page 35
Interesting and versatile recipe. A vegetarian main, although it could easily accommodate meat.
I used some blue cheese with the mozzarella. Although the mozza melts nice and stringy, we both liked the taste of the blue with the eggplant, so might skip the mozzarella next time.
We thought a thin slice of tomato or maybe roasted red bell pepper might be nice. A thin slice of a dried ham might be good.
Next time I might skip the flour and just wipe a bit of oil on the eggplant and cook the sandwiches on a grill pan, rather than frying them.
Good as made, and lots of ideas go on with.
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Lamb Hash : page 179
A really nice and easy way to use up odds and ends or leftover cooked lamb. Seasoned with nothing but salt and pepper -- delicious!
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Lamb in a Spiced Gravy : page 179
Use up cooked lamb slices in an Indian-ish creamy tomato sauce. Not really sure why the lamb needs to be slices, shreds or chunks would work just as well. There was lots and lots of sauce (I've frozen extra to use for something). Good stuff though.
1may16: Made this again with less water/stock and less meat. This was fine. Very good.
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Red Lentils with Turmeric and Mustard Seeds : page 232
Pretty tasty. Easy. Fast.
Recipe says it serves 2. Of course, when it asks for a pound of lentils, you have to wonder about that. I expect we'll get two meals for two out of this, served over rice.
I expect the final simmering should be covered, at least partly. My lentils were pretty dry when done.
The dish wanted lots of salt (I added only a bit) but some nice lime pickle easy took care of that.
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Spiced Fried FIsh : page 120
Very nice. Fish strips tossed with lime, spices, and besan, then deep fried. Yum.
I used swordfish, which was on sale today. Was a nice choice since it's a firm fish.
Definitely a do-again.
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Thai Chicken Salad : page 98
A main dish for two. Quite tasty, easy, and fast.
- I thought this was a trifle salty; Ed thought it was almost uneatably salty. This is odd, since he's usually the one adding salt at the table. There was too much sauce, so it might to do reduce the soy and fish sauces a bit.
- I used aiguillettes of duck, the small narrow muscle behind the breast proper, from the freezer, no skin involved. Worked fine. The somewhat stronger taste of duck compared to chicken breast is probably better.
- Oops, no carrots in the house! I peeled some broccoli stems for the crunch. They worked fine, but we missed the color.
- It's December and there's mint growing outside. Wonder if we'll have winter this year.
All in all, we liked this even though it was salty. A satisfying meal.
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