bunyip's Reviews
225 recipes reviewed. Showing 1 to 50Sort by: Book Title | Date 
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A Year of Good Eating: The Kitchen Diaries III
By Nigel Slater
Fourth Estate - 2015
Simple but delicious. Poaching the fish in 600 ml of cream (that's two bottles), which is then poured over the fish and pasta, sounds richer than it is. This is partly due to the dill in the crumb topping.
I served with a salad of asparagus and tomato for a light Sunday night meal.
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Smoked mackerel, like elderflower cordial, appears frequently in British cookbooks but is not readily available in this country. I substituted poached smoked cod with a satisfactory result.
The quantity is supposed to be enough for 2, but does not specify that they should both be men with hearty appetites. No matter, our dogs are used to gourmet leftovers!
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Dill, bacon and pasta? It works a treat.
Results in something like carbonara, but thickened with cream and quite a lot of parmesan instead of eggs. Would be a good substitute dish for anyone who can't eat eggs, so long as you don't use egg pasta as I did.
I did the usual thing of adding a little of the cooking water, without which I think the sauce might have been too thick.
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As Nigel says, you don't have to use focaccia so long as you have something to soak up the pan juices. I used polenta.
Very tasty although my juniper berries were rather ancient. I have bought a fresh packet and will definitely make it again.
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As often happens with Nigel Slater, his recipe does not need to be followed slavishly. Thus I used small porterhouse steaks, and frozen spinach (Jamie Oliver has convinced me that frozen is better value and less faffing around).
The final result was very a very good complete meal. Next time i will do it with chump chops.
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I do like freekeh, it tastes better than either burghul or brown rice. I cook it in the microwave as if it were brown rice.
Used this dish as a side this time, but it would do well as a light lunch. It's quite colourful with yellow peppers and green herbs.
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Asparagus and blue cheese - who would have thought?
Thin asparagus seemed more suitable, and of course I used Charmain Solomon's no-roll pastry, which doesn't need blind baking. Very rich!
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Quick and easy, provided you've got fresh shiitake mushrooms and Chinese sausage.
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You can have too much cooking lamb shanks in tomato. Using wheat beer makes a change. I ran into trouble with the pan boiling dry - and of course hubby had drunk the left over beer. Rescued with water, the final sauce was good.
I will make this again, but adapt it to the pressure cooker which should get the meat tender without losing too much liquid.
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Bitter: A Taste of the World's Most Dangerous Flavour
By Jennifer McLagan
Jacqui Small LLP - 2015
The worst part of this was sourcing blackcurrant jam. Thank goodness for Google!
It sounds straight forward, but takes a while because there's a lot of turning up the heat and reducing; you start with 250ml of coffee and 250ml of chicken stock and are supposed to eventually wind up with about 75ml of syrupy sauce. However, it was delicious.
Still not sure about the most suitable accompaniments - I went for plain boiled new potatoes and peas for want of any better ideas.
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McLagan insists that you use dried chickpeas, soaked overnight. She's right, they taste so much better to the tinned ones.
You have to use a really hot pan and not be afraid of properly charring the sprouts - I was a bit too cautious the first time.
Good as a side, but also makes a delicious light meal on its own.
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The Cook's Companion
By Stephanie Alexander
Viking Australia - 1998
Too easy! Just so long as you chop the cauliflower in the food processor - it takes much too long doing it by hand.
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Cooking on the Bone: Recipes, History and Lore
By Jennifer McLagan
Grub Street - 2006
The sauce includes, among other things, soy sauce, ginger, star anise and orange juice. I would never have thought of using it for beef, but it was absolutely delicious. A complete change from the usual tomato based sauce.
As usual with oxtail you do the main cooking a day in advance.
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You can't get Madeira round here for love nor money, it seems, so substituted dry sherry. Pan frying followed by finishing in the oven is definitely the way to go with veal chops.
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Tender
By Nigel Slater
Fourth Estate - 2011
I used dried apricots and cooked it in a moderate oven with a piece of baking paper over the top (under the lid). Served with rice. Could have done with a larger quantity of carrot, I think.
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Grains
By Molly Brown
Hardie Grant Books - 2014
Why is this dish described as Breton? Who knows. But it is a wonderful no fuss substitute for macaroni cheese. I mean, tinned tuna in a sauce of pureed tinned beans onion and garlic (and a little cream and milk).
What's not to like?
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Never mind the duck, the point of the recipe is the freekeh, which would go equally well with lamb or chicken.
The dried figs turned out to be nicer than expected.
BTW, I cook freekeh in my microwave rice cooker, timing it as for brown rice. Quicker than boiling it.
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Substituted 1/4 cup dark muscovado sugar for the molasses. The result was OK, but just a bit sweet for our taste.
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I bought black lentils to see what they were like. They are smaller than regular brown lentils but don't hold shape quite as well as puy lentils.
The recipe assumes you are familiar with cooking quinoa, doesn't mention the need to rinse well beforehand. The end result looks really pretty and is quite filling.
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Eat - The Little Book of Fast Food
By Nigel Slater
Fourth Estate - 2013
Hardly a recipe at all, in the finest Slater tradition. I used 350g diced chicken thigh meat for two people and 1 teaspoon paprika. Bear in mind that the mushrooms will shrink - better to use what looks like too many.
Fast and delicious. I serve with rice, which takes longer to cook than the chicken!
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Website: Guardian Recipes
www.guardian.co.uk/tone/recipes
Definitely hearty winter food. Needed extra liquid. Quite tasty in an earthy sort of way but not very exciting.
I used pearl barley.
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Cooking on the Bone: Recipes, History and Lore
By Jennifer McLagan
Grub Street - 2006
Oxtail is always a bit of a bother because of the fat, but the method for this makes it easy to deal with. After an initial slow braise in wine and stock, remove the meat and discard the aromatics. You can then deal easily with the fat - I've got one of those nifty pouring jugs, but it will solidify in the refrigerator.
Next day simmer the jellied sauce with more red wine, pour over the meat, scatter blanched veggies on top and give it another hour uncovered in a moderate oven.
I was only making half quantity of the meat and veggies, but I have frozen the surplus sauce for use with steak or roast beef.
Absolutely delicious!
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The Seasonal Kitchen
By Beverley Sutherland Smith
Hardie Grant Books - 2001
I wanted a moist veggie to go with roast lamb, and this certainly would go with most roasts or grills.
It's not as rich as you expect. Beverley says to peel the zucchini, but I didn't - I'm sure the pale green colour was much more appetising looking than the beige shade it would have been otherwise.
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Eat - The Little Book of Fast Food
By Nigel Slater
Fourth Estate - 2013
Sort of a slow stir fry. Pan fry the steak briefly then set it aside while you get the halved salad onions browned, ad the halved tomatoes and cook covered until soft. Thickly slice steak and return to pan for a few minutes.
That's all. I served it with polenta for lack of any better ideas, crusty bread would have gone well. And I was using a very tender piece of steak.
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I will definitely make this again. It used up the offcuts of lasagne sheets that were in the freezer (what I buy is too long for my dish) and cherry tomatoes and snags that I happened to have handy. As usual with Slater's recipes I varied the quantities of ingredients without any ill effects.
Needs to be covered with tinfoil for at least half the cooking time so the top doesn't burn.
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I originally used pearl barley because spelt was unobtainable and I substituted some brussels sprouts for the cabbage leaves. Well, Nigel is always encouraging you to tinker with his recipes, isn't he?
I have now made it with spelt. Still delicious, but a lot more expensive.
Delicious no-fuss Friday night food. Definitely going into the repertoire.
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Website: Guardian Recipes
www.guardian.co.uk/tone/recipes
More interesting than your regular cheese scone since they contain rolled oats. Not heavy, but not exactly light either on account of the oats and the considerable quantity of cheese. Dan specifies a large bunch of parsley but I managed very well with half a small bunch.
Made 12 standard scones. The finished product looks and smells very appetising and tastes delicious.
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The Cook's Companion
By Stephanie Alexander
Viking Australia - 1998
Gave this a try with a couple of pieces of porterhouse (hubby was craving man food). Marinated the meat in a zip-lock bag for about two hours and served with Jill Dupleix's crash hot potatoes and buttered spinach. Not bad at all.
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Website: Guardian Recipes
www.guardian.co.uk/tone/recipes
A Dan Lepard recipe. Actually it was the pastry I was keen to try. Strong white flour and spelt flour, butter, cream cheese, egg and grated cheddar. I had to work the cream cheese into the flour and butter by hand - the quantity (450g of flour) is too much for a standard food processor.
However, after much effort (very therapeutic as I had just had a phone call from somebody I loathe) the pastry turned out very well. Ideal for pasties, easy to handle producing a crisp but not crumbly crust.
I made four pasties (only needed two sausages) and froze the remaining half of the pastry. It would work well with any savoury filling.
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River Cottage Veg Every Day! (River Cottage Every Day)
By Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC - 2011
Uses orzo or risoni, that tiny rice-shaped pasta, and does indeed result in something very like risotto. It lacked the creaminess of true risotto, but was very tasty.
With risotto you've got to get the hang of knowing when the rice is done - with this it's the mushrooms which need to be fried but not stewed.
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Tender
By Nigel Slater
Fourth Estate - 2011
The method was (to me anyway) a bit unusual. Melt the butter with the sugar, honey and golden syrup - I know, but it's not as sweet as you expect - and mix into the flour. Then add the milk and egg and stir till you get a sloppy batter.
It all just fitted in my lamington pan, and the batter rose magnificently over the plums. The result was slightly sticky like gingerbread. "Is it a cake or a dessert?" asks hubby. As the title suggests, it's both.
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Website: Guardian Recipes
www.guardian.co.uk/tone/recipes
This is one of those recipes that is very adaptable. I don't much like chorizo but find that a couple of teaspoons of smoked paprika gives the same flavour. Likewise I substitute a shake of tabasco for the chiili.
Too easy, and only one pot to wash!
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Website: Guardian Recipes
www.guardian.co.uk/tone/recipes
Really easy, the sauce cooks while you boil the spuds. Then add a firm fleshed white fish for just two minutes. The whole thing is ready in less than half an hour.
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Website: Guardian Recipes
www.guardian.co.uk/tone/recipes
This would do as a vegetarian dish in its own right. It also includes red capsicums, black olives, mushrooms and onion. We had it with roast lamb and there was no need for any other vegetable.
The recipe is very vague about quantities, but next time I'll have a clear idea of how much mushrooms I need. Whatever, you do need a deep baking dish to accommodate the layers.
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River Cottage Veg Every Day! (River Cottage Every Day)
By Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC - 2011
The filing was delicious. However I was not impressed with the pastry which was hard to handle and made assembly difficult. I gave up on triangles and made cigars.
In future I might try making a pie, either with filo or Maggie Beer's sour cream pastry. And I think that frozen spinach would be perfectly OK
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I made this for lunch, but it's quite substantial and would serve as a main course if you had dessert to follow, or soup to begin.
Dead easy, no technique involved so long as you've got veggies of the right size and shape. And feta - I forgot to buy the ordinary kind and had to use marinated Meredith goats' cheese, so probably could have omitted the pesto, but I'd remembered to buy that!
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Ridiculously easy, so long as you've got a lime handy. I only had 650g of sweet potato, but it worked perfectly with a full quantity of the other ingredients (except the chilli flakes which I reduced as a matter of personal taste).
We had it as a side dish with roast lamb, and I will heat up the leftovers for lunch with a salad.
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The Kitchen Diaries II
By Nigel Slater
Fourth Estate - 2012
The pastry is unusual - very short, very sweet, it could stand alone as biscuits/cookies. Rolled between sheets of baking parchment (as I always do) it handled easily enough, but it's not something for a hot day.
My oven is hot, and thirty minutes was quite long enough.
I think the success of the filling might depend on the variety of peaches you use. The recipe specifies 6, but 4 were quite sufficient. I think it needed more sugar and I wonder whether orange flower water might produce a better result than orange zest.
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River Cottage Veg Every Day! (River Cottage Every Day)
By Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC - 2011
More a suggestion for using up what's to hand than a recipe! I used kipfler potatoes, butternut squash, shallots, garlic and carrots, cooked in my Spanish terracotta dish. Very tasty result.
It takes longer than a regular frittata but certainly makes a satisfying meatless meal of roast veggies. However I question Hugh's claim that it would feed 4 to 6 people unless it was only an entree - the two of us demolished the lot.
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The Flavour Thesaurus
By Niki Segnit
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC - 2010
You can't rush the cooking of this. I have made this with a tin of cherry tomatoes as per the recipe, and with a tin of chopped tomatoes. I prefer the latter, the resulting stew is thicker.
Anything to use some rosemary, the one herb we really grow successfully!
NB I cannot give the page number, I'm using the Kindle edition.
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Hugh's Three Good Things
By Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Bloomsbury Publishing - 2012
Easy and quick. While frying the sausages cook the pasta. Add the shredded cabbage to the pasta pot for the final three minutes. Cut the snags into bite sized chunks, fry some more to crisp up, then combine the lot and season to taste. Hardly qualifies as cooking at all!
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I had some zucchini and a buffalo mozzarella ball that needed to be used. It's not exactly quick, the zucchini really does take about half an hour to get satisfactorily mushy. Saved bother by using garlic infused EVO.
He's right, it's comfort food.
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The Kitchen Diaries II
By Nigel Slater
Fourth Estate - 2012
Slater says that when he demonstrated this on TV it trended on Twitter. I'm not surprised. It's light, moist and not as sweet as you expect.
You have to use really ripe, black bananas. He doesn't specify what sort of muscovado sugar to use - I used light, which creamed with the butter to the required pale coffee colour. I didn't chop up chocolate, just used (Belgian) chocolate buttons.
I don't do a lot of baking, but I found it ridiculously easy. Hubby felt the need of a second slice before confirming that it was delicious.
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Website: Guardian Recipes
www.guardian.co.uk/tone/recipes
This tasted fine, in the manner of old-fashioned vinegar cakes, but it didn't rise much and was a bit soggy. I'm wondering if the quantity of flour given is insufficient.
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Website: Taste
This is really a sort of risotto. I used it to stretch two pork sausages and the result was hearty and tasty but not palate challenging. Would probably appeal to kids.
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Website: Guardian Recipes
www.guardian.co.uk/tone/recipes
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall must be the world's leading exponent of cooking with cider! Being very fond of parsnips I thought I'd give it a try, especially since it's ridiculously easy.
I used a fairly dry cider. The apple flavour sits on the back of the palate - a sweeter cider might make it more dominant. Don't think the optional cream is necessary.
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Hugh's Three Good Things
By Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Bloomsbury Publishing - 2012
This is a version of baked beans, only it's simmered on the stove. If you choose the tinned beans option as I did, it's ready in less than an hour!
The flavour is quite different from what I'm used to (being Stephanie's recipe). There is a sweetness from the apple juice, but it's light and balanced by the mustard - a whole tablespoon of English mustard, but it works.
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The Cook's Companion: The Complete Book of Ingredients and Recipes for the Australian Kitchen
By Stephanie Alexander
Penguin Global - 2004
Being very fond of parsnips I was intrigued by what amounts to a parsnip quiche.
You must use a deep quiche tin, as there is rather a lot of filling. It's very rich - 600ml of cream, 3 eggs and 2 egg yolks. Didn't have any chervil, but I think the recipe needs tweaking anyway. I used 2 parsnips as per the recipe, but they were not particularly large and perhaps I should have used three, and a wee bit more nutmeg.
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Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion
By Stephanie Alexander
Lantern Books - 2009
This is the master recipe, followed by suggestions about further uses for the result. I make a gratin with breadcrumbs and parmesan on top. Always delicious, we usually have it with plain grilled chops or steak.
Stephanie's invaluable advice is that whatever you're doing with fennel, you should par-boil it first. I do this in the microwave.
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Tender
By Nigel Slater
Fourth Estate - 2011
This is another of Slater's basically uncomplicated recipes, but you've got to have confidence in your pastry-handling abilities! The pastry is very, very short and needs to be rolled out between two sheets of baking paper.
I used little pie tins, not having small enough tins with removable bottoms. The pies turned out of the tins without any problems, notwiithstanding the anticipated breakout of juice from the filling.
That said, the pies were delicious and well worth the effort.
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