friederike's Reviews
1109 recipes reviewed. Showing 1 to 50Sort by: Book Title | Date 
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Real Fast Food
By Nigel Slater
Penguin UK - 1993
I've loved Spinach with Blue Cheese and Pasta since my early student days when I was a regular consumer of ready made meals. Timing is crucial for this recipe, as you won't want the sauce to cook for too long until the pasta is ready. I used 300ml single cream, as stated, which proved to be too much. This made it turn into somewhat of a soup, but what the heck - I love the dish, and this recipe is one of the easiest and most straightforward I have ever found. Just remember to adjust the quantity of single cream.
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BBC Good Food
(June, 2009)
A lovely dish from one of my favourite regions, though I replaced the pine nuts with equally suitable almonds.
One caveat: make sure that all pieces of meat are covered with liquid while cooking, otherwise you'll end up with small bits of the meat being dry. If this hadn't happened, I might even have given a 5-star rating.
Serve with rice or couscous. You could add extra liquid to prevent the chicken from drying out, and then cook couscous in some of that liquid, just as done in Chicken and Couscous One-pot.
Edited to add:
The recipe is available online here. You can also review it here.
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A wonderful and sophisticated vegetarian tart, ideal for picnics and the like.
Edited to add:
The recipe is available online here. You can also review it here.
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A healthy, delicious, and extremely easy dish - just put everything in a baking tray, bake, add some extra ingredients and you're done!
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Delicious
(May, 2009)
Delicious and nourishing salad. Go easy on the lemon juice, though.
Edited to add:
The recipe is available online here. You can also review it here.
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BBC Good Food
(May, 2009)
Very delicious, though quite heavy and a slightly standard combination of ingredients. Use Homemade Pesto, if possible.
Edited to add:
The recipe is available online here. You can also review it here.
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Easy, quick and delicious.
Use for e.g. Creamy Pesto Chicken with Roasted Tomatoes.
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Spanish Food and Cooking (Food & Drink)
By Pepita Aris
Lorenz Books - 2003
Simple, delicious and low-fat, what more can I ask?
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Delicious side dish. As it consists of meat and beans, it doesn't really count as a vegetable dish, so make sure you get your 5-a-day somewhere else.
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Tasty, although the chicken seemed to be prone to dry out – be careful not to let that happen by frying the chicken as little as possible.
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Complete Vegetarian
By Nicola Graimes
Lorenz Books - 2006
Love this dish with its interesting flavours.
Ignore the poached egg and add rocket or watercress to make a lunch box salad.
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Ice Cream: The Perfect Weekend Treat
By Susanna Tee
Parragon Inc - 2004
Never in my life have I had a better ice cream. Make this ice cream if you want to teach your children the difference between natural flavours and artificial flavouring - I can't imagine they would ever prefer the latter again.
If you don't have an ice cream maker don't despair - I simply used my kitchen machine and then transferred the ice cream to a tupperware box for freezing (and back again for stirring).
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101 One-pot Dishes: Tried-and-tested Recipes (Good Food 101)
By B.B.C. "Good Food Magazine"
BBC Books - 2006
I’m not yet really sure whether I should award this recipe a three or four star rating – I guess the problem is mainly that it tastes too much like typical kids’ food. Don’t shy away from this dish because of this comment, the food is tasty, and anyway, it’s ideal for kids…(*)
It will be crucial for this recipe that you end up having nicely boiled potatoes without having flabby overcooked carrots. Try not to chop too fine chunks of carrots but make an effort with the potatoes.
(*) I actually meant kids' food in the sense that if I had to cook for a kid I didn't know, I might choose this dish as it's slightly sweet, and resembles Spaghetti Bolognese. Then again, I once cooked Spaghetti Bolognese for my then 7 year old niece and her friend, and guess what happened...
Smoked paprika sounds like an excellent idea!
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100 15-Minute Fuss-Free Recipes: Time-Saving Techniques And Shortcuts To Superb Meals In Minutes, Including Breakfasts, Snacks, Main Course Meat, Fish ... Dishes, Plus Dazzlingly Simple Desserts
By Jenni Fleetwood
Southwater - 2007
Easy, quick and delicious for a hot summer's day. You might want to add some extra spices or vegetables for extra flavour - we tried lemon juice and pepper (don't ask me, pepper wasn't my choice), which was good, yet simple.
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101 One-pot Dishes: Tried-and-tested Recipes (Good Food 101)
By B.B.C. "Good Food Magazine"
BBC Books - 2006
Although not one of my favourites, it's interesting for its combination of flavours, though you need to take care not to add too much mustard. Extra credit for it as a one-pot dish and supposedly low-fat (though I would serve it with boiled potatoes, not with rice as suggested).
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Die echte Jeden-Tag-Küche: Gut kochen und essen Tag für Tag
By Cornelia Schinharl
Graefe Und Unzer Verlag - 2007
BF and I have made Paellas on several occasions, using two different recipes from two different books (The Essential Seafood Cookbook being the other one). Now, if only I could remember which one was which. But may be that doesn't matter at all: both were excellent, and judging from the recipe the main difference is that this one contains poultry, shrimp and mussels while the other one contains only fish and seafood.
Making a Paella can be a lot of work because of the various ingredients involved; the good news, though, is that you can prepare a lot (basically, everything you need to do before adding the rice), and once your guests have arrived, you only need to warm your pan, boil the rice and add all other ingredients.
Edited 16 december 2012:
I'm not so sure anymore we ever prepared this recipe. Maybe we only did the other one? Either that, or our standards have risen enormously, now that we have a lot more experience :)
We made this dish yesterday, and a lot of things didn't work out properly. The rice was slightly undercooked; the chicken thighs was very obviously undercooked (and one of our guests was pregnant, eek!), the peppers weren't exactly an exciting addition, and the whole dish overall just didn't look very appetizing. We'll have to see if we manage to prepare the other recipe soon to compare.
One thing to note: this recipe is for 6-8 persons. Don't even think about using only one pan, unless it's really enormous. We have a 4.1 litre Le Creuset pan, and that was definitely too small. I had to use a wok as well.
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The Essential Seafood Cookbook
By Wendy Stephen
Thunder Bay Press - 2003
BF and I have made Paellas on several occasions, using two different recipes from two different books (Die echte Jeden-Tag-Küche being the other one). Now, if only I could remember which one was which. But may be that doesn't matter at all: both were excellent, and judging from the recipe the main difference is that this one contains only fish and seafood while the other one also contains poultry and no fish.
Making a Paella can be a lot of work because of the various ingredients involved; the good news, though, is that you can prepare a lot (basically, everything you need to do before adding the rice), and once your guests have arrived, you only need to warm your pan, boil the rice and add all other ingredients.
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Good Housekeeping: Step-by-step Cookbook: Over 650 Easy-to-follow Techniques and Triple-tested Recipes (Good Housekeeping)
Loved this. Simple, quick and healthy. Works with rice too.
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101 Healthy Eats ("Good Food")
By Jane Hornby
BBC Books - 2008
I made this with selfmade gnocchi today, and it was perfect - even BF, who isn't really wild on squash, enjoyed it a lot. The combination of flavours was great, the timing was just right, only the proportions were a little off - I'd suggest more goat's cheese and perhaps more squash. Furthermore, it were rather 3 servings than 4 so remember to add a little more of everything.
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Good Housekeeping: Step-by-step Cookbook: Over 650 Easy-to-follow Techniques and Triple-tested Recipes (Good Housekeeping)
Terribly sweet! That is not to say they weren't yummy, but only if you had not more than a crumble per day...
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The Essential Seafood Cookbook
By Wendy Stephen
Thunder Bay Press - 2003
I loved this one. It's easy to make, and extremely delicious: the fish was moist and literally melted on our tongues - just the right thing for a hot summer's day, and just the right thing to serve to impress your guests. Just leave out the syrup; you won't need it, you'll have enough juices coming along with the fish.
Edited 8 December 2015:
I have no idea which fish we used last time, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't trout - trout just doesn't work with these flavours, it's too earthy and too strong. The lime and the ginger barely had any chance, and anything they could add to the trout's earthiness was acidity and pungency, neither of which would work well. But I could see this working well with cod, I might try that.
Rating downgraded from 5 to 3 stars.
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All in One
By Parragon
Parragon Inc - 2007
I made this one quite a while ago, and I remember that it tasted like a modified version of Beef Stroganoff – and it was very delicious and easy to make.
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101 One-pot Dishes: Tried-and-tested Recipes (Good Food 101)
By B.B.C. "Good Food Magazine"
BBC Books - 2006
This dish was perfectly okay, just not very exciting. It did bother me a little that they cheated: anyone can make a one-pot pasta-dish with pre-cooked penne (especially if you assume, like they did, that the pasta won't need reheating)!
Crosspost. I found out that this recipe was published online. I crossposted my review here.
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Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cookery Techniques: With over 200 Basic Recipes from the World's Most Famous Culinary School
By Jeni Wright, Eric Treuille, Julia Alcock, David Murray
Cassell Illustrated - 2002
If you’ve never boned a quail (or any other bird, in fact), reckon with several hours of preparation for this one. Unfortunately, we didn’t, and ended up having our Christmas Dinner at midnight. What was worse was that we had screwed up these delicate birds so much that we had to stitch them up with needle and thread to keep the filling where it should be – not something described in the recipe. Luckily, it didn’t impair the taste at all – it was heavenly!
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The Essential Christmas Cookbook
By Wendy Stephen
Thunder Bay Press (CA) - 2003
Oh my, this was delicious. Of course you shouldn’t make this on the day you’re planning to serve it. And I was surprised how little chicken livers cost me.
Edited to add:
Try to use a bowl or container not higher than a 3-4 cm, otherwise you'll end up with too little surface area to spread out the oranges and jelly.
When I fried the livers they lost a lot of juices. I tried to catch the juices so that the liver would continue to fry, not cook, and kept the juices to add them later again. Don't worry that the pate could become too moist/liquid if you add all the juices, it won't - I added only half of the juices and the pate could have been slightly softer/moister.
Served on Christmas Day 2006 and Easter Sunday 2011
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Easy and quick side dish you could serve any time of the year.
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Easy and delicious side dish you could serve any time of the year.
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2 tbsp gravy wasn’t enough to produce a smooth mixture with the flour, and 560ml of broth was far too much liquid to add (of wine there can never be enough). These difficulties aside, it was a lovely sauce, that seems to go well with nearly anything.
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The Cook's Book: Techniques and Tips from the World's Master Chefs
By Jill Norman
DK Publishing (Dorling Kindersley) - 2005
Wonderful, typical fruit dessert from the north of Germany, Hamburg and surroundings. Light, healthy and yet sweet and puddinglishly. Serve hot or cold, with vanilla ice cream or Crème Anglaise (vanilla sauce), or, classically, with cream (not whipped).
Edited 26 December 2015:
We usually use less water and sugar. This last time I used a total of 215 ml water (instead of 300 ml) and 125 g sugar (instead of 150 g) - 200 ml water and maybe 110 g sugar probably would have been better, although of course that also always depends on the fruit you use. We usually use frozen berries, which is probably part of the reason we not only use less sugar but also less water.
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Very elegant cookies to be served with tea. If I remember well, though, they don’t retain their crispness very long, so don’t let them lie around for too long (shouldn’t be too difficult).
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Delicious and easy. Nowadays one of our standard side dishes.
If you like your carrots soft, I would recommend to parboil them. If you prefer them relatively crunchy, you can also just cut them into small slices/cubes and use them directly, though you might have to cook them a bit longer to get them at least slightly cooked.
I often substitute the sugar with honey and add other ingredients such as onions and parsley or rosemary. Very delicious!
Serve e.g. with potatoes and Beef Stroganoff for a quick and satisfying dinner.
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I made this for a brunch, but left out the dates, and it was a real hit! When I placed the bread in the oven I still had a lot of sauce left (which was supposed to be spread on the bread before forming the loaf), and yet the bread ended up being just a hint too dry. Either serve the sauce with the bread (and then possibly omit the alcohol), or try to roll out the dough even thinner than specified in the recipe, if you can. Nonetheless, this has found its way onto my list of classics.
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Die echte Jeden-Tag-Küche: Gut kochen und essen Tag für Tag
By Cornelia Schinharl
Graefe Und Unzer Verlag - 2007
Perfect dish for guests, you can put it in the oven for hours, and even when they’re late it doesn’t matter at all. Plus it’s extremely delicious.
Edited 28 October 2012:
We made this again. It was jaw-dropping. It tasted great, and the meat was so tender it literally melted into pieces. Unfortunately, it was quite expensive too, so it's something for very special occasions (and small dinners).
Served with fried chantarelles, mashed potatoes and a salad of rocket, walnuts, gorgonzola with a sweet fig vinegar dressing as side dishes.
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Culinaria Germany
By Konemann
Ullmann Publishing - 2006
I absolutely loved this! BF and I still talk about it after more than 2 years. Living in Hamburg at the time and standing up at 4am to go to the traditional ‘Fischmarkt’ to get the eel when it was freezing cold may have been part of the charme, though...
Amendment 6. Nov. 2009:
I’ve made this dish again, albeit with modifications: I used app. 450g smoked eel instead of 800g fresh eel, and roughly half of the amount of vegetables and other filling, omitting the asparagus and substituting it with the other vegetables. For the other ingredients (meat, broth, etc.) I used the amounts given. Enough for 3-4 persons.
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The veal was expensive, and the result did not match the cost. I suspect the fault rather lies with me than with them, though I couldn’t put my finger on it...
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Very delicious! I rather liked that the proportions of ingredients could were easily re-scalable (think 1 egg per 100g flour etc) but I'd rather add a few more onions (roughly one per 100g flour).
Luckily I had a Spätzle-maker (very fancy, but very simple, too), so I didn't need to cut the Spätzle; but there's definitely no need to reheat the Spätzle in a pan or in the oven, just layer them in a bowl with cheese and onions and cover with a lid until you're ready.
Serve with a salad (lamb's lettuce would be a very typical Swiss choice) or vegetables and enjoy!
Edited 1 July 2014:
I made a portion using 3 eggs, serving two as a main dish; also used 2 large onions and 150g cheese. This was well-balanced, but a bit too much for the two of us. For two, you can better use 2 eggs, and serve it with a salad and (perhaps) a small dessert.
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Good Housekeeping: Step-by-step Cookbook: Over 650 Easy-to-follow Techniques and Triple-tested Recipes (Good Housekeeping)
Loved this, too. Not that different from the Pork and Noodle Stir-fry in the same book, after all. I wonder why they provided two stir-fry recipes instead of just providing one ‘master-recipe’ including possible modifications.
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The Essential Christmas Cookbook
By Wendy Stephen
Thunder Bay Press (CA) - 2003
Proportions didn’t work properly here. You could easily double the amount of stuffing (after all, that’s what a roasted bird is all about, isn’t it?), and we needed to roast it considerably longer than indicated, as a consequence of which the bacon strips dried out – either replace them after a while or brush the chicken with gravy to prevent the chicken breast from drying out. Nevertheless, it was a delicious meal and a cheap alternative to the other recipes, making it an ideal dish for regular Sunday lunches.
We made Red Wine Sauce to go with it.
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Falling Cloudberries: A World of Family Recipes
By Tessa Kiros
Murdoch Books - 2004
The first time I made these, the meatballs completely fell apart. I think the recipe uses too much milk (though I never let the bread soak for very long, so perhaps that might be the mistake), and the frying temperature given is definitely too high: you need to fry them on a low temperature, otherwise they’ll end up burned outside and raw inside (if they haven’t fallen apart before because you’ve been stirring too much).
Edited 14 October 2017:
We've had very good success with a trick I've learned in another recipe: allow the meatballs to chill in the fridge for 30 min or more before frying them. Unfortunately, this time our sauce became way too liquid, and we hadn't even used the whole amount of water. Cranberry sauce is a must, really enhances this dish. We served it with these roasted carrots and parsnips.
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The Kitchen Diaries: A Year in the Kitchen
By Nigel Slater
Fourth Estate Ltd - 2007
Delicious, just the right thing for an evening in front of the TV. We had to turn on the grill to make them really crispy though. According to the recipe, this dish serves two; but with some fries and vegetables (yes, vegetables) and three extra chicken wings it was more than enough for three.
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Ice Cream: The Perfect Weekend Treat
By Susanna Tee
Parragon Inc - 2004
Delicious! Very sophisticated taste...
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Culinaria Germany
By Konemann
Ullmann Publishing - 2006
I suppose that it was like it was meant to be (after all, Sauerbraten literally means sour roast, although the meat is braised rather than roasted), but I found it rather sour. Not necessarily a bad thing, just rather unexpected - I had previously read that the acid is used to tenderise the meat.
If you use one big piece of meat make sure that you turn it once in a while in the marinade, otherwise the marinade won’t reach all areas. Also, make sure that the meat indeed IS dry before you fry it.
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Delicious
(June, 2009)
Dessert? Check. Finger food? Check. Delicious? Double check. In other words, this is the perfect dessert for any fingerfoodish occasion – buffet, picnic, secret midnight munching at the fridge or otherwise, and they’re really delicious, too!
Made 15 mini cakes, with some leftover cream cheese.
Edited to add:
Aaah, see, that's what you get if you post too early. I was so enthusiastic about this recipe that I didn't even wait until I had tried them. However, I hardly managed to take the paper cups out of the muffin tin without squishing the cheesecakes, and the crust was slightly soggy. Minus points in the finger food category! They were delicious nonetheless.
Basically, you can do the same with any cheesecake recipe: just use a muffin tin instead of your usual baking tin; proportions of crust and filling may change, though.
Earlier published in Feed me now! by Bill Granger
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Good Housekeeping: Step-by-step Cookbook: Over 650 Easy-to-follow Techniques and Triple-tested Recipes (Good Housekeeping)
This is hot, really. And very delicious, with coconut milk and lime and coriander.
I used Vindaloo Curry Paste instead of Thai Red Curry Paste, but I don’t think that made a difference. Use 2 tbsp. of curry paste instead of 3 if you want it less hot. Make sure that you know how much work cutting 3 carrots into juliennes is before you decline any offers of help. And cut the broccoli into small florets, otherwise you’ll have to cook the curry longer.
And did I already mention that it was hot?
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The Essential Baking Cookbook (Essential Cookbooks Series)
By Wendy Stephen
Thunder Bay Press (CA) - 2003
They were easy and (relatively) tasty, though you will have to work quickly as soon as you take them out of the oven and have your bits of papers prepared – never make more than 8 or so per tray. And they break easily, but make a fun set for parties, especially New Year’s parties.
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Ich helf dir kochen: das erfolgreiche Universalkochbuch mit großem Backteil
By Hedwig Maria Stuber
- 2000
A classic recipe, worked well when we made it.
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Easy, quick and healthy dessert; also, you can flambé any other fruit as well. I once made flambéed halved grapes, which ended up looking like contact lenses – very funny, but unfortunately not child-safe due to the alcohol.
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These taste fine, but they’re not very special. The dough tears easily, the finished cookies break easily – I wouldn’t do them again.
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Perfect accompaniment for braised meat or Schupfnudeln.
You can easily halve both the cooking liquid and the amount of cabbage (who will eat 1kg of cabbage in one go?), and reduce the cooking time to 10-15 min, at least for pointed cabbage.
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Slow Cooker Cookbook: Over 220 No-fuss Delicious One-pot Recipes for Relaxed Preparation
By Catherine Atkinson
Lorenz Books - 2008
MAJOR fail. My cooking, that is, not the recipe. I made this with my brand new Colombian black clay pot slow cooker. Apparently, this clay pot allows quite some steam to escape, and unluckily it only appeared to me to check the amount of liquid after, uhm, six hours or so, shortly before dinner time. By then, the chicken was completely dry and distinctly dark brown, while the bed of onions was only covered halfway with cider. And it didn’t help that I was busy playing a game while cooking the potatoes, and only found out about the ‘pause’-button afterwards. Oops.
On the other hand, I’ve rarely laughed so much during dinner, and do you know what? In spite of everything, this was really delicious! Good enough to earn a 4 star rating. I’m definitely going to do it again, albeit in a different pot/pan (or with more liquid), slightly shorter cooking time (four to five hours, as recommended), and perhaps a slightly lower temperature (100°C in the oven, or on the stove).
I served this with Bavarian Cabbage (white cabbage with caraway, from Ich helf Dir kochen), and it went along really well.
Edited 5 November 2018:
I thought I'd give this another try, now that I have a proper slow cooker. Terrible! The chicken was dry, the sauce runny and sour - no wonder, it contains cider and sour cream , and it won't thicken if you add the sour cream immediately after taking out the chicken, and before you have the chance to reduce the sauce; also, cooking 30 min on high in slow cooker modus doesn't help, at least not in my Instant Pot.
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