kaye16's Reviews
1460 recipes reviewed. Showing 51 to 100Sort by: Book Title | Date | Rating 
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Website: Vegetarian Times
Quite good -- kind of a samosa pot pie -- but underspiced and oversweetened the way things frequently are at VegTimes, I think.
- Didn't use whole wheat flour in the pastry; used ghee for the fat.
- Doubled curry powder and red pepper flakes.
- Omitted the agave syrup.
- Served with raita and mango chutney.
Serves 6? Dainty eaters with other courses perhaps. We'll get 4 one-dish meal servings out of it.
- Next time I will finely mince some ginger root and add with the garlic.
- Could use other veg or odd bits of frozen or cooked veggies.
Wish I could manage a pretty pie crust. Tasty, I manage, but pretty not.
useful (1)
Website: The Leftover Queen
This was not bad at all and quite easy to make if you have access to soba noodles. I don't, so I made buckwheat noodles beforehand, which adds a bit of time to the preparation.
The sauce itself is a snap. Soak some dried mushrooms (I used the end of a jar of mélange forestière and some shiitakes.) Sauté them, adding a bit of leek and garlic along the way. Mix with sour cream and parmesan and you're done.
There's no point in browning the butter for the sauce in a small saucepan and then moving everything to a skillet. Just use a pan everything will fit into easily.
The sauce needed lots of salt at the table. I think it would be good to add a bit with the leeks.
Soft goat cheese instead of sour cream might be really nice.
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Slow Cooker Ready & Waiting: 160 Sumptuous Meals That Cook Themselves
By Rick Rodgers
William Morrow Cookbooks - 1998
I've made this with pork and with lamb. It's not bad for a slow cooker version, very simple to assemble.
- I found 1 cup water much too much to add. Probably only 1/2 cup would be sufficient.
- Second time I toasted and ground coriander and cumin seeds, rather than using already ground.
- Needed salt at the table, but that's OK if you're serving an Indian pickle, which is usually salty.
- 1/4 tsp cayenne doesn't begin to make it hot. I used 1 tsp the second time, and it was hottish, but not in any sense challenging.
For an easy vindaloo, Pork or lamb vindaloo from Madhur Jaffery's Quick & Easy Indian Cooking is better.
For a more authentic version, Goan-style hot and sour pork (Vindaloo) from Jaffrey's Indian Cooking is excellent.
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The Greens Cookbook: Extraordinary Vegetarian Cuisine From The Celebrated Restaurant
By Deborah Madison, Edward Espe Brown
Bantam - 1987
This was good enough, but should be better.
- We found it very buttery. Think I might cook the onions in olive oil, rather than butter. I did reduce the amount of butter here, but not enough.
- If I do this again, I don't think I'd cook the sorrel at all. I like the sour taste of fresh sorrel. (It goes well with an eggy-creamy mixture. Try some sliced sorrel wrapped in an omelet.) After it's cooked down, not much of the sparkly flavor remains.
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Made in Texas; H-E-B's 100th Anniversary Cookbook
By H-E-B Grocery Co.
H-E-B Grocery Co. - 2005
Pretty good. We both thought this was too salty/soy-y. Otherwise not bad. Lacking a microwave, I sautéed the shrooms in oil with the soy sauce. Also added some red pepper flakes for a bit of zing. Thought the cooking time for the salmon was a bit on the long side.
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Marcella Cucina
By Marcella Hazan
William Morrow Cookbooks - 1997
Not my favorite from this book. Good, but nothing special. Made a half recipe with home-made fettucine.
useful (1)
Website: Cooking Light
Well, it seemed like a good idea, but lots of problems with this recipe.
- Parboiling the broc for only 1min, then shocking, is simply not enough to get cooked enough to be done in 8min in the oven. (My broc bit looked no bigger than the picture.)
- 8min in the oven is too much for the shrimp. (The recipe says 9 shrimp per serving, which was about what I had, so the size was okay.)
If I were to do this again, I'd parboil the broc much longer and do the shrimp&broc only 4-5min in the oven.
Even with this though, the flavor lacked something. Garlic would be a nice addition.
A lot of sriracha at the table helped it all.
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The Best 125 Meatless Pasta Dishes
By Susann Geiskopf-Hadler, Mindy Toomay
Prima Lifestyles - 1991
A good idea for a recipe. Some problems as printed, and I made one major-ish change.
- The recipe says it yields 8 main-course servings. It must be only 4. Plus, other recipes in the book are generally either 4 main-course servings or 8 side-dish servings. I suspect this is an error that didn't get caught in the editing.
- In halving the recipe for 2, I used somewhat more peas than asked, no reason to be skimpy. This was nice.
- I started with a short 1 cup of milk (1-1/2 cups for the whole recipe), and had to add more milk at the end to thin the sauce a bit. I suspect 1-1/2 cups would have been fine for the half recipe.
- The whole recipe called for 1 tablespoon of curry powder. I used 1 tablespoon for my half recipe; might have gotten by on 2 teaspoons, but certainly 1-1/2 teaspoons would be too little. At least for our tastes.
- Used 6-ish ounces tagliatelle for two, rather than 8 oz.
- Instead of hard-boiling the eggs (one per person), I poached them in the simmering sauce. Then removed each to one of the little dishes I'd used for the chopped onion and the flour/curry addition. Then warmed the peas in the sauce and mixed the sauce with the pasta. Served the pasta into two dishes, topping each with a poached egg.
- Some chopped chives or even parsley on top would have been pretty.
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Cinagro Farm, Family Favorites from the Farm and beyond...
By Carol Engan Borrelli, Morris Press Cookbooks, Sharon France
Morris Press Cookbooks - 2008
First recipe made from this book. So-so muffins; weak instructions.
Recipe calls for 1-1/2 TABLEspoons baking powder, which seems like an awful lot. A quick look at other muffin-y recipes showed no more than 1 tablespoon, so I cut this back. The muffins rose quite high anyway.
I forgot to add the topping, sprinkled it on for the last 10 minutes of baking (not very successful), but can't say it was missed. We don't like our sweets over-sweet.
Muffins were good enough, but probably not a recipe I'll make again.
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Antonio Carluccio Cooks Pasta (TV Cooks)
By Antonio Carluccio
BBC Books - 1999
Well, it sounded like a good idea.
The recipe says it serves 4. Those would be mighty hefty servings. I cut the recipe in half and we had much more we needed. I think 6 servings for the whole recipe would be closer.
Cut in half, the recipe looks much like Hazan's recipe from Classic Italian Cooking that I use most of the times I made fresh pasta, but with cocoa and sugar added. Those extra ingredients with no extra liquid made a mightily stiff dough. I added quite a bit of water just to get it workable and I'm sure it was still too dry. Rolling it to 5 was a bit tricky. It's a good thing I'd intended to stop there, because that was as thin as it was getting.
Rather than serving the pasta drizzled with honey and sprinkled with chopped pistachios, I served it drizzled with crème anglaise (store-bought, sorry) and sprinkled with chopped pistachios. Walnuts or other nuts would work as well, I'm sure.
Impressive on the plate, and a bit astonishing if you've never thought about the idea. Glad I made it. But don't think I need to make it again.
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The Roasted Vegetable
By Andrea Chesman
Harvard Common Press - 2002
Butternut squash is really not my favorite, but I inherited a sackful this summer, so I'm trying to use them up. Especially in a soup, I don't like the texture and I don't like the sweet taste. That said, this really wasn't a bad soup at all. And it's really simple to make using a staff mixer rather than a blender.
My squash was a bit small, but I used all the ingredients (for flavor) and a lot more of the broth (for a slightly thinner consistency). Unfortunately there's been no cilantro in the stores for a while now (it *is* out of season, of course), so I omitted that; that would have been a nice touch for the final result.
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The Food Of Morocco
By Paula Wolfert
Ecco - 2011
Rating based on instructions. This is the second time I've made preserved lemons. I found the instructions in Wolfert's earlier book Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco to be clearer. Also, the earlier book offers an optional spice mixture to be added to the lemons as they're "brewing".
The newer instructions also say to refrigerate the lemons for up to a year. The older ones say that they will keep a year. Period. I can't imagine that such an acidic condiment needs to be refrigerated. At any rate, we've survived the last jar sitting on its unrefrigerated shelf.
I'd suggest using smallish lemons for this. It takes a lot of effort to jam five bigger lemons into a one-liter jar. And have lots of extra lemons on hand for the juice to cover. Both times it's taken much more than 1/2 cup.
I'm still not sure if I should use coarse- or fine-grained salt. I used coarse this time, but I see there's still quite a bit undissolved on the bottom of the jar. I can't remember if the first batch was like this with the finer salt.
(Ha, I've just noticed that the single lemon remaining in my older jar has the same kind of grayish tint that the jarred ones in the shop have. Not really gray, but the color is less vividly lemon yellow. I wonder when this happened that I didn't notice.)
I have the feeling that a "recipe" for preserved lemons is a bit of an overstatement. It's really more like a technique; probably easier to see someone do it in person. Quantities are all approximate.
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Verdura: Vegetables Italian Style
By Viana La Place, Ann Field
Cookbooks - 1998
A good soup. A bit long in cooking, so not for weeknights (unless made ahead and reheated).
Maybe because it was puréed to smoothness, it didn't seem like a dinner soup. We thought it would be better in a mug, accompanying a sandwich.
Looking forward to the leftovers.
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The Kitchen Diaries: A Year in the Kitchen
By Nigel Slater
Fourth Estate Ltd - 2007
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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The Spice of Vegetarian Cooking: Ethnic Recipes from India, China, Mexico, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe
By Martha Rose Shulman
Healing Arts Press - 1986
Not too bad this. I made a half-ish recipe of rice and broccoli, with all the spices; otherwise it would have been woefully underspice. (Didn't do the orange garnish since I forgot to buy one today.)
It's a fast dinner. One-third cup basmati cooked while I prepared the other ingredients and started cooking.
I think this would make a good vegetarian one-dish main sort of thing. (It's not clear, but I suspect it's intended as a side.) A whole recipe would serve 3, maybe 4, as a main; my half recipe would have been a bit short if it hadn't been accompanied by leftover samosas.
Would be could as a side dish as part of an assembled plate, not necessarily vegetarian.
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How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food
By Mark Bittman, Alan Witschonke
Wiley - 2007
This may be the first time I've made a vegetable purée that didn't involve potatoes. Along with thorough instructions, Bittman includes a chart that includes variations for 14 vegetables. I had a broccoli needing to be used, so this was it.
It was easy enough to make. I used a food mill, but think the blender method would be easier, and less clean-up. We both thought it was OK, but would prefer steamed or boiled broccoli.
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The Very Best Of Recipes for Health: 250 Recipes and More from the Popular Feature on NYTimes.com
By Martha Rose Shulman
Rodale Books - 2010
Made a halfish recipe of this, served over plain basmati rice as the main course. (Discovered that a medium-size European head of cauliflower weighs about 75% more than an American one, according to the weight given here.)
Interesting that it was such a dry dish, there's no sauce at all. Altogether, especially with a nice Indian pickle on the side, it was pretty good. I used 2 chiles for my half recipe and it was nicely tingly.
Easy and quick to make. You could do the cauliflower ahead and prep the rest, then finish off the dish while the rice rests.
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Website: Eating Well
Well, the pancake itself was delicious. I made a half recipe for 2, a light dinner with a salad. The accompanying sauce, reduced balsamic and honey, was horrible. Reduced to the approximately proper amount, it was still more in volume that the instructions you have you believe and it set like caramel on the plate, and didn't have an appealing taste either. I'd make the "pancake" again, but don't see the need for a sauce. Would made a nice luncheon dish.
The red onion and goat cheese combination was nice, but I bet this would be a nice way to use up odd bits of veg that are hanging around.
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The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century
By Amanda Hesser
W. W. Norton & Company - 2010
The result of this recipe was quite good, but there are problems with the recipe itself. I had about 300g of salmon, about 2/3 of what was required, and made about a half recipe. When all was mixed, the result was soup. I had to add a lot more fresh bread crumbs to to get to a consistency that would make patties. I suspect something is wrong with the mayonnaise measure (1 cups seems like an awful lot), so I would consider adding that by the tablespoonful at the end of mixing until a good consistency is reached. On the other hand, my husband thought the patties were perfect as they were, and thinks I should just add the extra bread (probably three times again what was asked, but I didn't really measure this). So ... which approach is right?
I put the patties on parchment paper, with no grease, oil, spray, etc. They didn't stick at all.
The sauce asks for "1 or 2 canned chipotle chiles, depending on the heat desired, seeded". For my half recipe I used 1 chili, not seeded. The sauce was not at all hot. I will increase this next time.
My extra-bread version made 7 main-course patties.
All in all very tasty, but frustrating that the recipe didn't work as advertised.
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I made a half recipe with all the spices -- still pretty lightly spiced according to the way we like things.
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Website: Nigella.com
An interesting meal. And fast.
- The recipe makes a huge amount of the pea purée. I'd guess only 400g would be needed, a reduction of 20%.
- Too much fat is asked. Just the oil would probably be enough.
After draining the peas, I put them back into the same pan and used my immersion blender to blend it all together. Much easier than the real blender and less clean-up.
I served with rice, and everything mushed together quite tastily. The picture at the site shows only the peas and scallops on the plate.
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Indian Regional Classics: Fast, Fresh, and Healthy Home Cooking
By Julie Sahni
Ten Speed Press - 2004
Good, but I think I prefer the similar-ish recipe in Madhur Jaffrey's Spice Kitchen, Tangy green beans with ajwain and ginger.
Sahni's recipe adds lemon juice at the end, while Jaffrey's adds amchoor. Since amchoor is not even mentioned in the Glossary or the Indian Pantry sections, I wonder if Sahni has substituted.
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A fairly standard pilaf with peas.
An unusual (for me) cooking technique for the rice, first simmered lid ajar, then cooked very slowly covered. Worked fine.
The recipe calls for 1-1/2 cups raw rice to serve 4. I cook 1/2 cup rice for 2 when it will be the basis of the meal (under a stir-fry, etc.). For an ordinary side dish, I'd use 1/4 to 1/3 cup depending on how much I want. I think this recipe serves 6-8 as a side dish, not 4!
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The Very Best Of Recipes for Health: 250 Recipes and More from the Popular Feature on NYTimes.com
By Martha Rose Shulman
Rodale Books - 2010
A bit disappointing. A good idea, but didn't work as well as I expected.
It might be nicer to prepare this in individual dishes, because it's difficult to serve up scoops of lentils and keep the nice rounds of softened goat cheese looking nice on top. Individual casseroles topped with cheese could be popped in the oven for the cheese to melt.
Somehow the warm lentils with vinaigrette seemed a bit odd. I really wanted them to be tepid or cooler, but then it would be difficult to arrange for the melted cheese.
The flavors were nice enough, but it wasn't very attractive served.
I made a long half recipe (had a jar with 9oz lentils left); this amply served two as a main course.
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Lorenza's Pasta: 200 Recipes for Family and Friends
By Lorenza De'Medici
Pavilion Books - 1997
3.5, perhaps. Not bad. A very simple sauce with fennel, tomatoes, butter, S&P. Neither of us are big fennel fans, but this worked okay. I didn't enjoy the smell while it was cooking, but served and topped with smoked salmon it wasn't bad at all. Half recipe was dinner for two. I ran out of time today, so served over dried tagliatelle rather than fresh, as intended.
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The Very Best Of Recipes for Health: 250 Recipes and More from the Popular Feature on NYTimes.com
By Martha Rose Shulman
Rodale Books - 2010
Pretty blah. Last week I cook salmon in the same way and it was quite good. This time it was dry and tasteless. Not sure if it was the salmon itself (on special today) or if it was slightly overcook?
But the lentils, usually a favorite, stood out in their blah-ness. Since they were fairly shortly out of the box (into a jar), I thought they might be overcooked; instead they were undercooked. And they really lacked flavor. Put those lardons back in. Or maybe cook in chicken stock instead of water.
The center of a definitely so-so dinner.
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Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India
By Madhur Jaffrey
Ebury Press - 2005
Actually, 4.5-5 for flavor and ease of prep, but the instructions are pretty poor.
- The recipe calls for 100g/2oz of sugar to sweeten 2 cups of milk. My scale was set for grams, so I weighed out 100g and marveled at the amount of sugar for this amount of milk. Of course, 100g is 3.5oz of sugar, which would have made it almost inedible, I expect. I used the 2oz (56g), and might cut it back a bit further (50g perhaps), since neither of us cares for really sweet tastes.
- The recipe is supposed to serve 4, but 2 cups of milk reduces quite a bit and we had only two servings from this.
- We both thought it would be nice to toast the chopped pistachios a bit next time.
But it was very tasty and easy to make, so I expect it will get made again.
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Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure
By Lorna J Sass
Cookbooks - 1994
Well, it's bean soup, what can I say? The tarragon was a nice touch and went surprisingly well with the tabasco that we both used to spice things up.
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Website: Nigella.com
Good enough, but a bit blander than expected.
The recipe calls for 8 dried figs, being 150g. I used 12 for 125g; this was too much.
Just noticed that I forgot to add the few drops of worcestershire at the end. That might have helped the blandness.
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Website: Chow
Ok, 3.5. It was tasty but ...
- I still haven't mastered making gnocchi that are fluffy in any sense. They were a bit lump-like although not the worst I've made.
- I didn't do the ricotta-through-the-sieve bit. I put all the gnocchi ingredients into the food processor and buzzed.
- I only used 1tsp of sugar (instead of 2tsp).
- The 1-1/2 cups of flour asked for the gnocchi did not give anything approximating "dough", even the soft dough that's specified. It was probably another cup that I added to get something that could be rolled and cut. And this could be why they were heavier than they should have been.
- The recipe says it serves 2 to 4. I cannot imagine two people eating all of this. I put half into the freezer and we still had a substantial meal.
- The gnocchi were tasty, but I can't say they tasted strongly of pumpkin.
- Makes a pretty dish.
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The Very Best Of Recipes for Health: 250 Recipes and More from the Popular Feature on NYTimes.com
By Martha Rose Shulman
Rodale Books - 2010
Good enough, but nothing special.
I didn't make the sauce, and I didn't use the cherry tomatoes.
The bell pepper bits didn't get quite done in the time it took the chicken to get done.
The marinating time (1-3 hours) is too long to make this a week-night dinner, and too short to prep in the morning or the night before.
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A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen: Easy Seasonal Dishes for Family and Friends
By Jack Bishop
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - 2004
Mushrooms and barley is a combination made in taste heaven. I was curious about the barley risotto business in this recipe, but I can't say it added that much of interest for the work involved.
Half a recipe serving four served two *very* generously. If you were to use this as a side dish, this amount would feed four of even six.
I used dried thyme, since I didn't want to go out in the dark and rain to pick the fresh stuff.
Having no ruby port in the house, I used marsala instead. I think a regular red wine would be fine.
Kind of so-so about this one. I've got similar recipes that are less work and taste just as good.
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Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian: More Than 650 Meatless Recipes from Around the World
By Madhur Jaffrey
Clarkson Potter - 2002
I'd give this a 4 for the food, but the instructions have a big omission, i.e., you sauté some onions and garlic and set it aside but are never told what to do with it! (I added them to the potatoes with the eggs.)
Easy to make, the most successful fritatta-like thing that I've made. Tasty and nice texture.
The recipe calls for a lot of fat (olive oil, olive oil and butter, or ghee), and I expect the amount for sautéing the onions could be cut by half, and the amount for cooking the kookoo could be cut by at least a third.
Can be eaten warm, room temp, or cold. Thin wedges would make a good starter. Eggs&potatoes could be a nice brunch dish also.
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This dish was surprisingly bitter. We had trouble locating the source of this, but it seemed like while most of the eggplant in the dish was fine, some bits were nasty. I had bought two eggplants to make up the weight, thinking to use one and a half for this recipe and the rest for something later in the week. One of them, although it looked lovely on the outside, had a brown bit down through the middle from the stem-end. I discarded this, plus a bit extra, and sliced the rest. My guess is that even though I had discarded the part that looked bad and the rest looked fine, a nasty taste pervaded the entire eggplant. A dose of mango chutney mitigated this somewhat.
The recipe calls for 1/2 teaspoon cayenne. In the recipe prologue, Jaffrey says that the original recipe called for 2 teaspoons. Since we tend to like things hot, I used that amount. First bite, seconds of nothing, then wham! Good stuff! But only if you like it hot.
I poured the 1 tablespoon of oil for coating the eggplant slices into a little dish and used my fingers to anoint the slices. There was lots left here, so I used that plus just a dab more to finish the dish.
Two of us ate all of this dish, advertised as serving 3-4. Three maybe, four not, unless it were part of a larger meal.
I will try this again when eggplants are in season, since it seems like it should be a good meal. It's easy and fast, would make a fine one-dish (with rice) weeknight vegetarian dinner.
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The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century
By Amanda Hesser
W. W. Norton & Company - 2010
Not as tasty as I expected for some reason.
- I didn't brine the meat, nevertheless the thighs were quite good, tender and tasty. They, and the whole recipe, needed salt, since there was no other source of it. (My chicken stock was homemade and I usually don't add salt.)
- I thought the onions had a sweet taste that didn't blend well. Maybe browning them a bit first would help?
- Without the brining, pretty easy to do, and done well within an hour.
- Think I would halve the olives next time, making an easier bite.
This must be pretty lowfat as written, since there's not added fat.
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Website: Eating Well
3.5 really. I liked this, my DH thought it was just OK.
It's easy and fast and, I thought, tasty.
Portion size was rather small.
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Website: Cooking Light
Made a halfish version of this. Forgot to buy a blue cheese last week, so went to our small local grocery this morning to get some. They had only roquefort, which both of us find a bit strong, and a bleu de Bresse, which turned out to be seriously wimpy. The winter squash we've got growing were, I thought, supposed to have orange flesh, but they're kind of pale green, so the dish was not as colorful as it could have been. And we're out of eggs (none to be found at local grocery) so the sauce wasn't as rich as it should have been. The recipe calls for 8 oz cavatappi for four, which seems a bit light, so I used 6 oz for the two of us. Which was a bit much for the sauce. The walnuts were a good touch. Might do again with a proper cheese and a prettier squash.
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The French Market Cookbook: Vegetarian Recipes from My Parisian Kitchen
By Clotilde Dusoulier
Clarkson Potter - 2013
And shocking pink it is!
- Used cavatappi because there was not enough linguine and no bucatini or spaghetti. No problem with this.
- I used the staff mixer, but should have gotten out the proper blender since I didn't manage to get it as smooth as it ought to be. (Although the pic in the book shows it pretty gritty, we didn't like that texture.)
- Served as a main course (half recipe for two).
This was interesting, but not a favorite. I could see serving this as a starter or a side course when you wanted something very colorful on the plate.
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The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century
By Amanda Hesser
W. W. Norton & Company - 2010
Pretty so-so. I made a half recipe. My halibut did not have its skin, which I think only meant that it was tending to fall apart in moving from the broiler rack to the plate.
We thought this was OK but nothing I'd want to do again. But maybe my miso isn't the "mellow white" kind and wasn't the right flavor.
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Website: Nigella.com
Definitely so-so. The meat was good but the sauce was forgettable. I used tawny port instead of ruby, but that shouldn't make it sweeter. Maybe with some nice red wine it would be better. Nice idea, but ...
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Website: Eating Well
Seemed like a good idea, but didn't seem to work to our minds. the sauce was too fat and was fairly boring in spite of the green peppercorns.
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Website: Serious Eats
Flavors are nice, but the texture didn't work.
We both usually like quinoa, but in this case, it felt gritty against the shrimp, cuke, and chickpeas. I think rice might be better (if longer cooking), or even omit and serve over linguine.
The taste was very good though.
Made a more-or-less 2/3 recipe to serve two. (Whole recipe advertised as serving 3-4.)
Used frozen cooked shrimp. Might cut them in half to make pieces somewhat smaller.
The touch of lemon and cilantro at the end are not to be missed.
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Real Fast Food: 350 Recipes Ready-to-Eat in 30 Minutes
By Nigel Slater
Overlook Hardcover - 1996
- The recipe says it serves 4 as a side. I made a half recipe for 2 and we found it still too much. Think you'd get 6 servings from a whole recipe.
- The recipe has you fry whole spices till fragrant, along with ground turmeric. My turmeric was burnt before the whole spices were nicely fragrant. I dumped out the pan and wiped it out with a paper towel then started again, stirring the turmeric in when the rice was added later. The resulting dish was a bit oddly flavored. I'm not sure if there was still a residue from the burnt turmeric or if the turmeric missed being fried a bit. Will see how it goes another time.
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The 30-minute Cook
By Nigel Slater
Penguin Books Ltd - 2006
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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Recipes: A Quintet Of Cuisines
By Editors of Time-Life Books
Time-Life Books - 1970
Some disagreement on this one. I liked it, but Ed thought the bacon was too strong a flavor to go with the white fish. I used Parmesan rather than Gouda. (Don't much like the import Gouda in France.)
Don't be tempted to put a bit of the bacon inside the folded fish: reportedly it comes out soggy and unappetizing; it's the crispy bit on top that's appealing.
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A Tunisian salad. I liked, Ed didn't so much.
The instructions for roasting the bell peppers are better for the Eggplant and Pepper Spread recipe on p104.
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Recipes: The Cooking of Spain and Portugal
Used smoked paprika instead of plain. Made too many potatoes, trying to use up the stash. (Steamed green beans went well with the tomato sauce.)
We liked it, but thought it nothing special.
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This is a one-dish meal, simple to make and quite tasty, if not highly spiced.
- Used one kilo of chicken thighs rather than cutting up a chicken, since we like thighs. There were only seven thighs, five biggish ones and two smallish ones. If you used a whole chicken, it would be best to cut it into eight smaller pieces rather than four big ones.
- Used olive oil rather than lard.
- Used 100g lardons instead of 4 ounces of salt pork.
I used lardons nature (rather than fumé) and regular paprika (rather than the hot or smoked kind). I think I might try smoked lardons and paprika when I make this again.
My post on the recipe: http://inkayeskitchen.blogspot.fr/2014/03/the-cooking-of-spain-and-portugal-arroz.html
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Real Cooking
By Nigel Slater
Penguin Books - 1999
Good idea for a tasty risottto, but ...
- Serves 2 very generously; three would do.
- Way too much butter. I used about 1tbl olive oil for the pancetta and onion and didn't add the extra butter with the cheese.
- Too much blue cheese, too, even the blue cheese lovers thought so. (Used Fourme d'Ambert, which is middle strong sort of blue cheese. That was good. Stronger would be too much. Slater suggests Gorgonzola.)
- Did the regular sort of risotto making, adding stock ladle by ladle rather than by thirds.
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Recipes: Chinese Cooking (Foods of the World)
By Time-Life
Time-Life - 1973
OK.
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