friederike's Reviews
1109 recipes reviewed. Showing 1 to 50Sort by: Book Title | Date | Rating | Recipe Title 
Website: BBC Good Food
It wasn't too bad, but it wasn't particularly impressive either. And what else can you expect of pasta, a can of tomatoes and some flavouring?
I didn't dare cook the pasta in the sauce directly - I cannot see how that would work, as you'd need to add a whole litre of stock to the sauce - and then you'll end up with what, tomato soup? So I omitted the stock and cooked the pasta seperately.
Fine for a weekday dinner in a really busy week, but otherwise I wouldn't bother.
useful (1)
Website: JamieOliver.com
Be warned: it's a lot. I made half a recipe, and half of that (= a quarter recipe) was enough for the four of us to be served with spaghetti on two nights, so enough for 8 servings.
It tasted very nice, and both of my children enjoyed it a lot. It reminded me a bit of a Bolognese sauce, probably bacause of the carrot and celery sticks; I didn't have leeks on hand, so I didn't use any. I guess you could also add in other vegetables (cauliflower? broccoli?) as long as they are cooked, which probably will happen anyway. It tasted well-seasoned while in the pan, though once served with spaghetti it needed a lot of salt (and yes, I cook the spaghetti in salted water).
If you want to go down the use-this-as-a-tomato-sauce-substittution-road, remember to freeze the sauce in small quantities.
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The Kitchen Diaries: A Year in the Kitchen
By Nigel Slater
Fourth Estate Ltd - 2007
Not particularly impressive, not bad either. Actually, the whole sauce didn't really do anything for me. Be careful not to cook the sauce too long lest it become some sort of caramel (happened to us when we tried to recycle the sauce on the third day).
Meant to be served with the Thai Fish Cakes, but you could probably use it for any other dish you want to serve with an Asian-inspired sauce.
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Tender: Volume II, A cook's guide to the fruit garden
By Nigel Slater
Fourth Estate - 2010
Such a typical Slater-title, isn't it? This is a fairly simple, straight-forward crumble recipe. I liked that the amount of crumble was sufficient - often there is too little crumble for too much fruit. I would have wished that the apples had been just a bit sweeter and more caramelised, they were just a bit too sour for my taste.
We added blackberries, but they were hardly noticeable, unfortunately. We served the apple crumble with the cardamom cream from Roast Figs and Plums in Vodka with Cardamom Cream, a perfect match!
9 April 2013:
Apparently we used a larger dish this time, as there was too little crumble. Also, it turned out a bit dry.
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Tender: v. 1: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch
By Nigel Slater
Fourth Estate Ltd - 2009
Slightly disappointing. To be honest, I'm not that much of a fan of celery, but still..
First of all, for such an easy dish it took ages to make, and then the resulting dish just tasted like.. well, celery. As if we had spent hours doing nothing!
The sauce in itself was quite delicious, but it didn't have any flavour of its own (duh, it was a Béchamel made with the cooking water from the celery), which meant that it couldn't stand up to the overwhelming flavour of the celery. A better dish would have balanced its flavour, I believe!
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We actually only made the celeriac mash to accompany the Coq au Vin, with flat beans as another side dish. It was very delicious, and a good choice as a side dish for a veryrustic poultry dish!
Served with Scallops with Ginger Sauce as a starter and Apple Pie with an Almond Crust and David Lebovitz' Vanilla Ice Cream as a dessert - an excellent menu for a sophisticated dinner!
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Quite nice. We chose this recipe as it was quick to prepare and we could let it simmer while painting our bedroom - by the time we had finished painting, it was the perfect meal you would want to eat after a day of hard work. I'm not a big fan of beer, but after hours of braising you couldn't taste any anyway.
In my opinion, though, the apple sauce was quite superfluous. It was too much - I had used only three (albeit large) apples instead of the 5-6 required, and ended up with lots of apple sauce after I had finished my meal - with a scoop of ice cream it would have made it the perfect two-in-one dish!. And to be honest, I just preferred a dollop of cranberry sauce with the stew.
As accompaniment I would suggest something crunchy, as the meat is already extremely soft. Think rosemary roasted potatoes, think a gratin (think Potato Pear Gratin, another reason to omit the apple sauce!), and perhaps a salad to go with it to add a light component too.
Edited 7 January 2014:
This has become one of our standard dishes. It's really easy to make, and very delicious! You can also adapt it easily by using other herbs (or even spices), or adding other ingredients (ie. apple slices or raisins).
We used trappist beer until now and never had any issues, but today it somehow smelled strange and tasted bitter. Either the beer changed (though highly unlikely) or it is something we just never noticed before. In any case, you can just as well use other types of beer - Guinness would be particularly suitable, as would be cider.
We made Rösti today to go with it, which was a really nice combination, the Rösti was crunchy, and just as rustic as the stew.
Edited 6 July 2014:
We made this using a Belgian brown beer (Leffe bruin), and it was very nice, and no bitter flavours at all. Very nice! Also decided to upgrade this dish from 4 to 5 stars, because we've made it so often.
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A classic combination, though this one turns out more like a cauliflower-scented, slightly liquid fondue - not necessarily a bad thing, though...
Edited to add:
The flavours get stronger on the second day - I can really recommend to prepare it a day in advance!
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Werken met vis
By Bart van Olphen
Amsterdam Carrera - 2012
Hard to rate. We started out whisking it with a fork; unfortunately, the sauce started to curdle. As we didn't have any eggs leftover, we added a spoon of mayonnaise in an attempt to rescue the sauce. Also, we switched to an electric handmixer. It looked good ad first, but later on it curdled again and made an enormous oily mess on our plates. Also, 1 tsp of salt is much too much - add half and then taste first (actually I do this all the time, but apparently DH doesn't).
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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
A lot better than our last attempt at Aïoli. I'm not quite sure why; it's probably just a detail we overlooked, such as too cold eggs, or not whisking quick enough in relation to how quick we add the oil - that topic is really covered well in this book. The only issue I have with this recipe is that it contains too much garlic - 2 or perhaps 3 cloves should be enough.
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Soepkalender
By Anya van der Wetering
Uitgeverij Snor - 2011
I liked it; DH complained that the recipes used too much Roux, making the soup very heavy. Also, and I have to admint he is right here, it tasted slightly sour, which I think it due to the mustard; we had added an extra tablespoon of mustard to make the flavour more pronounced, but maybe we shouldn't have done that.
Other than that, we decided to fry the leeks instead of adding them raw, used slightly less flour, and skipped cooking the soup for ten minutes - it seemed thick enough.
As you're not adding an ingredient that is a very obvious flavour-giving main ingredient, remember to use a good quality stock, you will notice the difference. Also don't add too much salt until you have added the bacon.
As all of the recipes so far, this one was simple, and very easy to prepare. I think it has potential to develop into a refined soup if you tweak it here and there - less roux, perhaps more cream, less leeks and bacon, and possibly replace some mustard with mustard powder?
Fun fact:
The title is a slightly silly pun on a Dutch expression: "to know where Abraham gets/buys mustard" (weten waar Abraham de mosterd haalt) is a common way of saying that that person is an expert in a specific area.
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The All New Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook: Over 1,250 of Our Best Recipes (Southern Living (Hardcover Oxmoor))
By Editors of Southern Living Magazine
Oxmoor House - 2006
Very nice. We actually left out the salsa and only made the grilled pork, and made tacos with the pork, guacamole and fresh vegetables (tomatoes, corn and cucumber). Very delicious! More specifically, the pork had a great smoky flavour and just the right amount of spicyness. Recommended.
Edited 17 April 2013:
We made this again and kept strictly to the recipe - actually, it was too little, especially too little vegetables. Next time, we'll either make the double amount of salsa, or just add a few extra vegetables.
Edited 26 May 2014:
I must have made the salsa last time as well, without reviewing it here! I really enjoyed the salsa as well, it's nice and fresh, and love the radish in there (though it's a pain to grate or chop).
Served as a vegetarian dish this time with corn, salsa fresca, guacamole and sour cream.
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The Geometry of Pasta
By Caz Hildebrand, Jacob Kenedy
Quirk Books - 2010
Well.. it's very easy and very quick. Similar (or rather identical) to the Nutty Butter Sauce with Sage, the sage came through very little, and I guess infusing some butter with sage in advance is the clue - after all, refrigerated, it keeps for ages. Also, it'll need a a lot of salt. Other than that, I liked it, but then again it's hard not to if you like sage and butter.
PS: In the photo, the pasta is green, not the sauce. Hadn't expected green food to be so difficult to photograph. In my student flat we had dark green plates - green pasta looked great on those!
A few other things you could do with (leftover) sage butter: Nigel Slater's Pork Steaks with Lemon and Sage and Ottolenghi's Aubergine-wrapped Ricotta Gnocchi with Sage Butter.
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Mediterranean Seafood: A Comprehensive Guide with Recipes
By Alan Davidson
Ten Speed Press - 2002
A very delicious soup, very easy to prepare (just place all ingedients in a pan with boiling water and cook 'till done) and, added bonus for anyone who hasn't got the time to go to a fishmonger: you won't need any special ingredients either. It was very unfortunate that BF oversalted the soup, so beware, it can happen easily, and the soup probably doesn't need much salt anyway.
We served it with Rouille recommended, and it was really delicious.
Edited 15 May 2015:
One thing that's important for this dish is that the fish and the potatoes are cooked at just the same moment, meaning that you need to think how long the fish will need to be cooked, and then estimate how thick you need to cook the potato slices to make it work. We uses filets of cod, pangasius and tilapia instead of the small white fish, so we also cut those into chunks (about 2.5 cm/1 inch cubes), and cut the potatoes in about 3/4 cm / 1/4 inch slices.
It's a pity that you really need the Rouille to make this recipe work, as otherwise it would be an ideal dish to make while travelling - you need very few ingredients and no complicated tools to make the soup, but you might not have a pounder or small kitchen machine to make the Rouille.
Edited 25 January 2018:
Actually, you can skip the rouille if you add black olives to the soup (which is a good idea anyway). And also, pre-cook the soup, and only add the fish at the very end; this way, the soup will get a nice consistency and the fish won't overcook. As a bonus, this will turn the soup into a dish you can prepare in advance and then serve with minimal last-minute-effort.
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Ottolenghi: The Cookbook
By Yotam Ottolenghi, Sami Tamimi
Ebury Press - 2010
Quite nice, but chewy, which I didn't like (and hadn't anticipated). Other actually liked it a lot, or at least they said so (DH's aunt actually exclaimed "Oh, that chewyness, it's just perfect!", causing quite some laughter - the word she used in Dutch - taaiheid - usually has rather negative connotations).
That said, they were really easy to make and complemented our dessert of Kahlúa Chocolate Mousse and Orange and Szechuan Pepper Ice Cream perfectly. Other recipes we (re-)visited today: Lavender Lemonade, Apple Pie with an Almond Crust, Black Ravioli with Snapper and Prawn and Fig-Stuffed Roast Pork Loin with Fig and Balsamic Jam.
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Schnell - Rezepte mit Tempo
By Sebastian Dickhaut
GU - 2000
Quite nice, pretty quick, nothing special. We prepared this with Dover sole, and of course you cannot go wrong with that - though it wasn't as good as Dover sole with Marsala.
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Ice Cream Handbook
By Vicky Smallwood
D&S Books - 2005
Hard to rate, as we changed quite a bit of things. Most important of all, I didn't like the idea of Greek yoghurt in my ice cream, so I substituted that for an extra 100ml cream, which I cooked together with the rest of the cream. Actually that meant just making a custard-based vanilla ice cream with almond praline chunks in it.
I didn't like the idea of vanilla essence either so I used half a vanilla bean, scratching the content into the milk/cream mixture and letting the bean soak in it until it reached a boil.
I made a mistake with the almond praline as I thought I could be lazy and let the MagiMix kitchen machine do the work for me - bad idea. Most of the almonds turned into a fine powder, with a few big chunks in between. I guess next time I can better just chop or crush them myself.
One other thing: I think I only used 100ml water instead of 150ml - I guess I shouldn't have bothered at all. I didn't have the idea that the sugar caramelised as long as there was any water around, so why not just heat sugar and prepare for some action?
The almond pralines were wonderful, by the way, just right, and can easily be served in their own right. The ice cream was a tad too sweet; you might consider adding a little salt or lemon juice (I wonder how that might taste). I only used about two thirds of the almonds, trying to get mainly the largers chunks, as there was plenty, and I was afraid they would make the ice cream even sweeter.
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The Olive and the Caper: Adventures in Greek Cooking
By Susanna Hoffman
Workman Publishing Company - 2004
A bit bland; tastes like chicken (or rather pork) soup without the soup. Even though completely un-Greek, it was better served with couscous than with rice, probably because couscous has a bit more of a flavour of it's own. The meat was wonderfully tender, though.
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Website: All Recipes
Well, no, it wasn't (isn't) amazingly good. I actually found it quite sweet and a little bland. And not really boozy, actually. Also, don't follow the recipe without thinking - you'll end up with HUGE quantities (unless you're about to throw a Christmas party, of course). I made a quarter recipe, and ended up having about 600 ml / 2.5 cups eggnog. For the time being, I'l lkeep it in my fridge - eggnog is supposed to improve over time - and see if that helps.
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Buddhist Peace Recipes (Roli Books)
By Pushpesh Pant, Dheeraj Paul
Roli Books - 2004
Quite nice, though a bit heavy on the ginger. It was pretty similar to this rice salad, and I think I preferred that one, also because it had more ingredients and felt more like a meal on it's own. Also, it's not even a real fried rice - the rice isn't fried at all. For a proper fried rice, I'll always turn to this recipe.
Some of the steps were a little vague; for example, it's up to you to decide whether or not to add the dressing to the hot rice, or wait until it's cooled down (my advice: let it cool down, otherwise it'll turn soggy). Also, I cooked my rice according to the instructions in the recipe, but the rice turned out completely overcooked and only useful for congee (yuck), so I had to start over.
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Website: Marions Kochbuch
I made a couple of Apple Jellies recently, and based them loosely on this recipe. I cooked the apples longer than 15 min (more 30-45 min), though I'm not quite sure what kind of effect that had - in any case I ended up with a lot more juice than she did, but that might also have been due to the type of apple used. And I added one extra ingredient per jelly, namely rosemary, thyme, Earl Grey or Lapsang Souchong.
More specifically, I used:
895g juice from Rode Goudreinette apples
450g 2:1 preserving sugar
110ml strong Earl Grey (steeped no longer than 3 min, added at the very end)
777g juice from Rode Goudreinette apples
350g 2:1 preserving sugar
110ml strong Lapsang Souchong
1190g juice from Jonagold apples
540g 2:1 preserving sugar
3 twigs of very fresh rosemary (added during the last 10 min)
(I forgot to take notes for the Apple Thyme Jelly).
The Earl Grey, thyme and rosemary jellies turned out very, very nicely (the rosemary jelly is perhaps a bit too strong).
As it happens, Apple Lapsang Souchong Jelly isn't going to be made again; while I was making it, DH remarked it's smoky flavour reminded him of bacon, and I do get why he thought so. Now that the jelly has cooled down, I don't get the bacon flavour, but it's still not a favourite.
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Backen macht Freude - Reprint 1952
By Dr. Oetker
Dr. Oetker Verlag - 2015
I made this cake once, about twelve years ago - I definitely wasn't as demanding culinarywise then as I am now, it appears. The cake is fine but a little boring. It features a fairly standard sponge, a few apples on top, then topped off by (the only interesting feature!) a nice crunchy crumble.
I actually forgot the cake in the oven - I baked it 1 hour and 15 min instead of the required 45 min, but that didn't seem to do any harm.
I think you could spruce it up, a little, by making the sponge layer thinner and adding in some spices - I'm thinking cardamom, but maybe also some chili?
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Website: Allrecipes.co.uk
Very nice! Next time I would skip the step cooking the apples in advance - they probably cook enough during the 45 minutes in the oven.
I had too little bread (I used slices of leftover sourdough, very delicious), so I made only one layer of apple instead of two, using bread on the bottom and on top; additionally, I stuffed the holes in the top layer with a few ladyfingers I had leftover from the Hot Coffee Creams we had in the weekend. I also used a few crumbs of the cantuccini I used in the same dessert - almond flakes would also work very nicely. Mixing the raisins with the sugar and cinnamon turned out to be very unpractical when I had to scatter it on the layer of bread - nearly all the raisins ended up on the bottom layer, and almost all the sugar on top. DH thought it was slightly too eggy - I'm not sure what to do about that. More bread would probably help, but maybe also more cinnamon.
All in all, I think this was the nicest leftover dish we ever had.
Edited 22 February:
Made this again, this time using 4-5 slices of toast and 4 small apples. This yielded 3 layers of bread and 2 of apple, and I needed a very deep dish to accommodate everything.
I didn't cook the apples, just added them raw, and they turned out fine. I was worried that this time I'd have too much bread/apples in relation to the egg/milk mixture as well as the sugar/cinnamon, but that wasn't a problem at all. I also mixed up the order of the layers: I only remembered adding the first half of the cinnamon/sugar after I had added the first layer of apple, and I forgot buttering the bread, so I just added a few small lumps of butter on the top apple layer (and buttered the top layer of bread, of course, which is vital to get them crunchy). None of this turned out to be a problem.
What I would do differently next time is that no matter how much bread and apples there are, I would try to make flat with just 2 layers of bread and one of apple, as the crust is really really great, and you'll have too little crust in relation to too much pudding otherwise.
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Appeltaart
By Janneke Philippi
Karakter Uitgevers - 2011
Similar to the crumble cake recipes I reviewed a while ago (I wrote this review, the rest were family recipes). What was different about this cake is that all the recipes back then used a one batter for the base and a another one for the crumble. This recipe tries to use a single batter for both... and fails. The base is very wet, and I can't tell if that is liquid from the blueberries or if the cake hasn't cooked through properly, while the crumble isn't crisp at all.
I had a look at the ratio of ingredients. Compared to other base batters (it's neither a pound nor a sponge nor a butter cake - in German you'd call all of these batters rather generically 'Rührteig', batter that is stirred), it contains very few eggs - other recipes contain up to 6 eggs for roughly the same amounts of flour, butter and sugar while this one uses only one. For the crumble, it just the other way around, none of my crumble recipes uses an egg, while this one does.
My guess is that the author tried to make this recipe easy, but sometimes, it's just worth it to walk the extra mile.
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Amazing! The crust (made with 30g ground almonds and 30g ground hazelnuts because our almond supply was up) and the almond crust were extremely delicious, though the apples were pretty much uncooked. For really perfect results, perhaps you'd have to pre-cook them for 10 min or so?
As usual, I had my difficulties with the dough, this time because it was quite crumbly due to the addition of the ground nuts, but that was solved with the use of a springform pan.
It all looked very pretty, though shortly after cutting the pie, it all fell into pieces. We served it with David Lebovitz' Vanilla Ice Cream, and the combination was great.
Edited 29 September 2013:
I had a different problem this time: the dough was too wet! I made it in the food processor this time, and didn't do that last year, so that might be one difference; I also thought that perhaps I didn't use the 2 tbsp milk last time, though now that I read that I complained that the dough was crumbly, I cannot imagine that I didn't add them. In any case, the dough was difficult to handle because it was too wet and kept tearing and sticking, so I added more flour and ground hazelnuts and almonds, and made sure it was really cold.
Unfortunately the almond crust (on top) wouldn't turn gold, so I had to bake it about 10-15 min. longer. That didn't really result in a very crunchy cake though. I served it the next morning (within 12 hours of baking), and it completely fell apart or stuck to the pan. DH liked that it was moist, but actually both the almond topping and the dough/crust should have been crunchy. I guess I'll have something to practice...
Edited 17 September 2015:
Yes, it's nearly that time of the year again. No, not autumn - hubby's birthday!
This year I decided to test the cake before making it for another birthday party; I wanted to know why the pastry had gone so wrong last time - was it because I used a kitchen machine? Or did I maybe omit the milk the first time, but not the second? I decided to make two smaller cakes to find out.
I didn't have any ground almonds (or at least I couldn't find them), so I used ground hazelnuts exclusively, and I made both pastries with a handheld kitchen machine, adding the flour at the very end and using my hands to mix it. The recipe, by the way, makes no mention of the fact that you should add the flour at the very end and handle it gently, without kneading too much.
I made one pastry without milk, the other with 1 tbsp milk; I let both of them rest in the fridge and made the milk-less one the next morning, the other one only three days later (yikes) - but that actually turned out well, because while felt was too wet the first day, but it was less so on day three.
With these pastries, I was able to bake two beautiful pie crusts. It were the following few steps were everything went wrong. You're instructed to blind-bake the pastry for 15 min, then bake another 10 min without the weights - this means that the edges, if they are not covered by the weights, will get much darker than the bottom of the crust - I'm mentioning this because I would probably need at least 1 kg of beans to achieve this for only half a recipe of pastry!. Also, it means that the bottom will be considerably less crunchy than the edges.
Unfortunately, though, my biggest problem was linked to this, as the apples (Granny Smith in both cases - not sure what I used in previous years, quite likely Granny Smith) emitted lots of juices and drenched the bottom of the pie - there was a very narrow time window, if at all, where the pie was cooled down and the bottom of the crust was still crunchy.
Also, I baked both pies for an additional 10 min to let the almond crust turn golden - it hardly did, though, and it never really got very crunchy. I probably should have placed it under the grill, or maybe a slightly higher temperature would have helped.
In a way, I was lucky that this cake turned out so well the first time, or else I never would have made it again. It does need a lot of tweaking, though. For this year's party I might resort to this cake, and continue my experiments at another time.
useful (1)
Marie Claire Comfort
By Michele Cranston
Murdoch Books - 2006
A nice recipe with interesting tweaks (brown sugar and coconut). The crust was wonderfully crunchy. I also liked that there was no pre-cooking necessary - just cut the apples and rhubarb into pieces, crumble on top and off into the oven. In comparison, Nigel Slater's Deeply Appley Apple Crumble I made last week needed that extra step - but it was much more intense in flavour, too.
For an alternative rhubarb crumble, see Deb's (from Smitten Kitchen) Strawberry-Rhubarb Crumble.
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My Favorite Ingredients
By Skye Gyngell
Ten Speed Press - 2010
A very nice salad. "Nearly Ottolenghi" is what DB thought (that's a compliment). He had this salad for lunch this week and though it's a little light for a complete meal, I wouldn't be afraid to serve it as a side for a dinner party. It slightly lacked a heart note, but the general combination of ingredients was very good, and he enjoyed eating a few of the lesser used vegetables such as fennel and kohlrabi. Also, the veggies needed to be cut much finer and it could have needed more bacon (he used smoked Schwarzwälder ham - to me it wasn't really cleary whether she actually meant a smoked or cured ham or the frying type of bacon. It says Speck in the title but then she requests Parma Ham - in German there's a clear distinction between the two, with bacon being what you fry with your eggs (breakfast) and potatoes (dinner), and Schinken being ham, usually smoked or dried).
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Essentials of Roasting: Recipes and Techniques for Delicious Oven-Cooked Meals (Williams-Sonoma Essentials)
By Chuck Williams, Noel Barnhurst
Oxmoor House - 2004
I never would have guessed that this is a butternut squash soup. I quite liked it, though DB thought it played out the sweet-and-sour theme too much. It was relatively easy to prepare.
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Modern Moroccan
By Ghillie Bhasan
Hermes House - 2003
I had a few problems with the execution of this dessert, though I will be the first to admit that my old and slightly dry sheets of filo didn't really help, either.
First of all, there's too much marzipan (that's what you're actually making if you mix ground almonds, sugar and rose water; although it'll end up being much coarser than the commercial version). My balls of marzipan turned out nearly the size of the apricots! To be able to fill them, I needed only about a third of the marzipan, making balls of about the size of a largish hazelnut (instead of a large walnut). So I still have a lot of marzipan in the fridge. Be careful, the marzipan is prone to drying out; make sure you cover it well.
Then the filo. I gathered from the instructions that you supposed to have 12 squares with 3-4 sheets each - not cut 3 or 4 sheets into 12 squares in total. As my filo pastry was a little old, it tore terribly, but that was to be expected. I somehow managed to get several flecks of pastry large enough to pack my parcels. I was a bit astonished that you weren't supposed to layer them with melted butter - it certainly would have helped in shaping the parcels!
In the end, they turned out beautifully, though I thought the filo pastry tasted dry (as in, could have used a little bit of butter, though it's age might have contributed to the dryness as well). DH loved them; I especially loved the baked apricots, making me think of Marillenknödel - I really should try to find a recipe for those!
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Preserve: Over 100 Delicious Recipes (Cookery)
Absolutely brilliant! Quick to assemble, great in taste and really versatile! We've already had it as a drink, and as a dessert (leftover bit of walnut ice cream served with apricots, almonds and a little ratafia as sauce); I can also see me making this in jam jars to get smaller portions you give as presents.
I did my best to use only ripe apricots in a good shape. I've spotted a few apricots where one half was darker than the other and I'm not really sure what the cause of this could be - have they just taken on some of the dark colour of the brandy, or were they a little overripe? I'll report back in a few days/weeks should that be the cause.
Of course I didn't have a wide-necked screw-topped 1.2 litre bottle, though I had a 1 litre one; I just used all of the apricots, nearly all of the almonds and sugar, and approximately 500ml brandy.
Variations: Definitely add a handful of raisins! I could also imagine a few spices, if you like, something like cinnamon or clover. You might want to consider halved almonds (in length) instead of almond slivers, but I guess that's a question of personal preference.
Edited 22nd March 2012:
We still have a little Ratafia left - I once nearly threw it away because all the apricots turned brown, but actually, that's down to the brandy - they're still perfectly edible, and when I served some Ratafia during a dinner recently, our guest was very glad to go home with the recipe.
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Plenty: Vibrant Recipes from London's Ottolenghi
By Yotam Ottolenghi, Jonathan Lovekin
Chronicle Books - 2011
Such a shame of the artichokes! We used fresh ones, and it really wasn't worth it. The technique for cleaning them described in the book didn't work, especially the part cutting the hair. In the end, we tried a few other techniques we found on the internet. Whichever technique you use, you end up not using the leaves, which I think is a shame if you've already paid to get fresh artichokes. But the worst was that with all the work involved, you could hardly taste the artichokes. If you really want to give this recipe a try, use frozen artichokes (if you can get them), or try canned ones, and eat fresh ones the classical way.
I'm not a big fan of the ricotta lumps - I'm not a big fan of ricotta anyway, but blobs of ricotta throughout my dish is not what I expect.
useful (2)
World Food Spain (World Food Series)
By Beverly Leblanc
Thunder Bay Press (CA) - 2003
Not too bad. It was a bit of a shame that what you tasted most were the artichokes, or rather: the fact that they came from a tin. Pity. For this dish its definitely worth it to use fresh artichoke hears, regardless of what the authors uses. You might also consider using more (fresh!) artichoke hearts to give them a dominant position within the dish.
We used broad beans as well instead of peas as we didn't have enough of the latter; peas work better in this dish.
Served with Sherry Rice and Turkey Schnitzel with an Almond Crust (family recipe).
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Foodie
(November, 2010)
This was so close, so nearly a 4 star rating, because basically the tart was very nice, with a wonderful crisp shortcrust and a very rustic filling - if hadn't been too sour. I believe that the problem is that you shouldn't mix artichoke hearts with olives, especially green olives. Next time that we'll make this tart we will replace the green olives with sweet butternut squash but leave in the black olives and red onions - I think that the result could be charming!
Edited 16 October 2011:
I made this tart/quiche again, this using a different pastry and the filling as described above (butternut squash, black olives, red onions). I cut the squash into relatively fine slices and sautéed them, being inspired by this Butternut Squash and Parmesan Tart. Forget that part about not sautéing the squash - I was too afraid the squash wouldn't be done otherwise. And I had intended to add parmesan, but forgot.
And do you know what? I was really happy with the results!
I guess you could easily skip the sautéing if the squash is cut thin enough - which you will have to do anyway if you make tartelets, and it's worth the effort, however frustrating. Remember to add lots of salt and pepper, the tart will need it as the squash is sweet by itself, and so are black olives.
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101 Healthy Eats ("Good Food")
By Jane Hornby
BBC Books - 2008
Basically it was pretty nice - if there had not been the lemon. BF and I were sceptic from the start, not because we do not like the taste of lemons, but because the juice of a whole lemon seemed like far too much for that little bit of other ingredients. We started with the juice of only half a lemon - and oh boy, we tasted nothing but lemon in the end! Even worse: the combination of the saltiness and texture of the parmesan invoked some extremely unpleasant associations.
Nevertheless, I believe this recipe has potential and could even reach a 4 star rating - just limit the lemon juice to a few drops only, or even omit it completely. If necessary, you can replace it by oil and/or cooking water, both should be fine. Most of the lemon flavour should come from the zest, which has a stronger lemon taste anyway with the added benefit of not being sour.
Also, we used half the amount of pasta and shared the sauce between the two of us - just about enough. If you want to serve this dish to four persons, remember to double all ingredients except for the amount of pasta.
Crosspost. I found that the exact the same recipe was published online. I crossposted my review here.
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Website: BBC Good Food
Basically it was pretty nice - if there had not been the lemon. BF and I were sceptic from the start, not because we do not like the taste of lemons, but because the juice of a whole lemon seemed like far too much for that little bit of other ingredients. We started with the juice of only half a lemon - and oh boy, we tasted nothing but lemon in the end! Even worse: the combination of the saltiness and texture of the parmesan invoked some extremely unpleasant associations.
Nevertheless, I believe this recipe has potential and could even reach a 4 star rating - just limit the lemon juice to a few drops only, or even omit it completely. If necessary, you can replace it by oil and/or cooking water, both should be fine. Most of the lemon flavour should come from the zest, which has a stronger lemon taste anyway with the added benefit of not being sour.
Also, we used half the amount of pasta and shared the sauce between the two of us - just about enough. If you want to serve this dish to four persons, remember to double all ingredients except for the amount of pasta.
Crosspost. Exact the same recipe was also published in the BBC Good Food series cookbook, 101 Healthy Eats.
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vegetarian
By alice hart
- 2000
The combination in itself was very nice, but I found it very difficult to season well. I used a lot of salt, which was a good thing, but I also used too much lemon juice, even though I didn't even use the full amount. It could have used more lemon zest and more pecorino (grana padano, in our case). Also, we used one tin of artichoke hearts, and I think using more, and possibly better quality (not tinned) ones would have helped. I was very pleased, however, with how incredibly quickly this salad came together.
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Grown in Britain Cookbook
By Carolyn Humphries, Donna Air
Dorling Kindersley - 2009
Hmm, not really. With only 175g flour to 90g butter/lard, the pastry was too dry (again! Although it wasn't quite the disaster this shortcrust pastry was), and the filling was clearly too heavy and too cheesy/salty to let the asparagus unfold its flavour. The asparagus could have been cooked just slightly longer but was still within limits. What a shame, this could have been such a great dish. We might try the very similar Asparagus Tart with Wild Garlic from Spargel.
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Dutch Food and Cooking: Traditions, Ingredients, Tastes, Techniques and Over 75 Classic Recipes
By Janny de Moor
Aquamarine - 2007
It's very difficult to rate this recipe as the dish consists of a couple of a few ingredients cooked seperately (if at all) and then served together - anyone can do, possibly even without instructions. You definitely won't win Masterchef with it, and yet it is so delicious that every year I know that this will be one of the best dishes in that year.
But perhaps it's a good way of illuminating a few cultural differences across Europe. Asparagus in Britain, and in most other English-speaking countries, I assume, is normally the green kind. In Holland and Germany, the slightly thicker white kind is standard. It's usually eaten with either melted, clarified butter or sauce hollandaise, smoked (Germany) or cooked (Holland) ham, new potatoes, and sometimes an egg (hard-boiled, poached, omelette, whatever; mainly Holland, I believe). And honestly, what else do you need? You won't need the parsley and nutmeg De Moor recommends. You could do smoked fish, eg. smoked salmon or smoked herring, although that is a less classic combination.
We got the timing slightly wrong - our asparagus was too soft; I'm not sure whether the fault lies with the cooking instructions or that it just took too long to bring the water to a boil (I anticipated that point slightly too early). Remember to take the ham out of the fridge early enough to bring it to room temperature. Other than that, I believe there is little that can go wrong.
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Flavour First
By John Burton Race
Quadrille Publishing Ltd - 2008
Very delicious, and a true spring/early summer dish!
Cooking all the vegetables first took a lot longer than I had expected, so make sure you plan enough time. We often eat them with pods, but for this dish make sure you remove it. The rice took a lot longer to cook, until I finally figured that there is a point where the stock will evaporate, but is not hot enough to cook the rice - it's about a mm difference in the setting of my gas stove. Also, be sure you reheat the veggies properly again, that may take longer than you expect.
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The Moro Cookbook
By Samantha Clark, Samuel Clark, Pia Tryde
Ebury Press - 2003
This can be a very nice dish, especially if you take care 1. not to burn the rice while cooking (which, to be honest, is quite difficult without stirring), and 2. not to add too much liquid and overcook the whole thing. Tastewise it's a wonderful side dish.
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Aufläufe & Gratins
Very delicious, but... very very cheesy. I don't dislike cheese, on the contrary, I love cheese (and especially when melted), but here it's loads of cream cheese mixed with oil and herbs. Just not something of which you could eat more than a few bites. That shouldn't prevent you from serving this dish as finger food on a buffet (especially as it really looks great!), as long as you provide a suffient number of other dishes. Also, the dish could improve if you use about half the amount of filling.
PS: I chose Breakfast/Brunch as a course type as it's probably the closest thing to finger food...
PPS: DB just read this review and strongly disagrees - he didn't mind the cheesyness as much and would definitely give a 4-star rating...
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Smart cooking met de magimix
By Julius Jaspers
- 2005
Very delicious. The only issue we had is that we added the juice of only half a lime instead of the whole one required, and even that was nearly too much.
To be served tomorrow together with carrots and Spundekäs' as another dip, Spiced Nuts, Deviled Eggs, Chocolate Brownie and Mondriaan Cake.
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No Time to Cook
By Donna Hay
Harpercollins Canada - 2009
Nice in taste, but not suitable as a full meal as it is meant to be. The problem is that both the haloumi and the aubergine are too fat and heavy, making you feel like you're having a stone in your stomach even before you have finished your plate.
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Website: The New Vegetarian - Ottolenghi (Guardian)
www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/series/thenewvegetarian
Very delicous, a great midweek supper, but just a little too simple for 5 stars. We didn't have any pomegranate seeds - visually this made a huge (though not really important) difference, flavourwise probably too. We didn't use any buttermilk either but just made our own yoghurt-concoction - don't use more than a small garlic clove (or use more yoghurt), as otherwise the garlic will overpower everything.
A note aside: This dish seems to be the cover dish of the American edition of Plenty.
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Plenty
By Yotam Ottolenghi, Jonathan Lovekin
Ebury Press - 2010
Very delicous, a simple but great midweek supper, but just a little too simple for 5 stars. We didn't have any pomegranate seeds - visually this made a huge (though not really important) difference, flavourwise probably too. We didn't use any buttermilk either but just made our own yoghurt-concoction - don't use more than a small garlic clove (or use more yoghurt), as otherwise the garlic will overpower everything.
A note aside: This dish seems to be the cover dish of the American edition of Plenty. It's available online here.
Crosspost. I've already reviewed this recipe here.
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marie claire - Snacks & Drinks.
By Michele Cranston
Komet Verlag GmbH - 2004
I quite liked these, but frying the aubergines was a bit of a pain, and of course we didn't get small, long aubergines but just the normal sized ones - definitely not bite-sized, but not a problem. I would have enjoyed some crunch, perhaps a few roasted nuts, but that's just a preference, not a necessity.
Served as part of a buffet for eight, together with Nectarines with Parma Ham and Ricotta, Papaya Salad, Trout and Cucumber Canapés, Beef Canapés and Roquefort in Belgian Endive Leaves.
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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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Ottolenghi: The Cookbook
By Yotam Ottolenghi, Sami Tamimi
Ebury Press - 2010
Hello, calories!
Let me make this clear - although the recipe says 'Serves 4 as a starter, or 2 as a main', you do not want to serve this as a main course.
That being said, it did actually have some interesting aspects to it. The main problem was that nearly every single step (and there were many of them, problematic in more than one sense) involved the generous use of oil or butter. And aubergines being aubergines, it's not like the oil will disappear again.
The gnocchi were very interesting, but far too large. I replaced the pine nuts with roasted crushed hazelnuts - definitely use either, they add much-needed crunch. What is more, the gnocchi are very cheesy by themselves and I definitely wouldn't serve them with oil-soaked aubergines - though I could imagine that they work well with something crunchy, low-fat and possibly slightly salty. Perhaps a roasted baguette? And smaller portions! Make it finger food! The gnocchi are served with a sage butter sauce - a really nice addition, in spite of the butter. Even more reason to cut out the aubergine.
All in all, this dish reminded me much of the Aubergine and Zucchini Rolls with Cream Cheese I made last year - same story, too much cheese, too much fat, too large portions. The sage butter reappears in the Nutty Butter Sauce with Sage, Pork Steaks with Lemon and Sage and Agnolotti dal Plin with Butter and Sage.
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The Moro Cookbook
By Samantha Clark, Samuel Clark, Pia Tryde
Ebury Press - 2003
Very, very delicious, and could have been great if there hadn't been this excessive use of oil.
According to the recipe, you're supposed to fry the aubergines in 750ml of sunflower oil. That's deep-frying rather than frying, is my impression. I tried to use more oil than my instincts would allow me, and I estimate that I used about 200-300ml of oil. I didn't serve the dish until the following evening, by which time I had to drain the aubergines from an enourmous amount of oil three times. Seriously - next time just brush them with a little oil as you're used to and you'll be fine. Similarly, I didn't get why they specified 5 tablespoons of olive oil for frying a mere three garlic cloves. You'd suspect they have friends in the oil business.
Other than that, it was a really delicious and intriguing dish. It reminded of the Courgette, Chilli and Mint Pizzas I made a while ago (and I could have sworn they were made with aubergine instead of courgette!). Serves several as a part of a Mezze table, serves two as a Vegetarian main dish (in the latter case, you might consider serving it with some yoghurt; in the former case I assume your Mezze table will feature something yoghurty anyway).
And don't eat this before going on a date. Or dancing class. Or conducting salary negotiations. Well, you get the point...
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Foodie
(August, 2013)
Quite nice in flavour, but oh so oily! As aubergines already require a lot of oil while frying, adding extra oil (and garlic) afterwards to let it marinate is just superfluous! Skip the oil and just add the garlic. Also, the yoghurt might have been a bit more liquid to my taste. I liked the nuts, spices etc., so those were good additions.
Served with Spicy chicken with harissa and pilav from the same magazine.
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