friederike's Reviews
1109 recipes reviewed. Showing 51 to 100Sort by: Book Title | Date 
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BBC Good Food
(August, 2009)
Err... let’s call it a Risotto, shall we? 1 litre chicken stock was FAR too much for 300g rice. Besides that, the dish was pretty bland, so don’t even bother trying it...
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BBC Olive
(August, 2009)
This one was just okay. I wasn’t exactly wild about it (but then I’m not that much of a fan of fennel), and it didn’t help that the chicken ended up being a little dry.
Crosspost. I found out that the exact the same recipe was published online. I crossposted my review here.
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Just plain ugh. VERY strange combination of flavours. Too strange, actually, for my taste. The Pepperonata was far too sweet to combine well.
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Very sophisticated ten minute (ehm, okay, 15 minute) pizzas. I absolutely loved the taste, it was fresh, varied, and it definitely showed that you can combine mozzarella with more than tomato and basil.
Our naan-bread was quite soggy, though. I liked it, the same way I I like a Domino's pizza once in a while. But I can also imagine that some might prefer something more crunchy. Baked/grilled baguette might be the solution here, and also makes it possible to serve it as finger food at your next party.
Beware that the quantities of the ingredients aren't completely right – we used only one instead of two courgettes and had some courgette leftovers, while the mozzarella was just enough. So that's a four star rating instead of five...
Edited to add:
The recipe is available online here. You can also review it here.
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BBC Good Food
(June, 2009)
Nice dish, works both as a vegetarian main and as a side dish.
Edited to add:
The recipe is available online here. You can also review it here.
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Essen & Trinken
(May, 2008)
Very interesting variation of the usual panna cotta, and delicious as well. BF prefers the original dish, though.
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Essen & Trinken
(October, 2009)
Wonderful tartlets, as if straight from the confectioner! One caveat: my first batch ended up looking pretty burned, although I later discovered that they didn't taste burned at all. For the second batch I therefore reduced the baking time by 10 minutes and slightly lowered the baking temperature. They ended up looking marvellous, but tasting as if they weren't 100% cooked – nevertheless delicious, but I did prefer the burnt looking first batch.
While they are perfect as they are, it should also be possible to make smaller circles and heap a little pile of caramelised walnuts on them, and then bake them on a tray – saves you the effort of forming the cups of dough, and makes waist-friendlier bites...
Edited 27 January 2013:
We made these as cookies this time, making 4,5 cm circles with the help of a champagne glass. As it happens, this is exactly what you need for half a walnut, or even two halves stacked on each other. They looked beautiful and definitely were a lot, let's say, consumer-friendly. The only disadvantage I saw was that the caramel escaped during baking and most of it ended up on the baking tray instead of on the cookies. Still, they were sweet enough and very popular.
Served these with Goat's Cheese Canapées with Pears, Parmesan Cookies, Marinated Feta with Olives, Mini Tiramisu and Meringue Towers with Rose Cream
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BBC Good Food
(October, 2009)
This one was nice but tasted less of fish and more of other spices than my usual, very basic fish pie; also, it was definitely more work. I may repeat it, but chances are that I’ll rather hang on to the basic version...
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Wonderful dish! Easy to prepare, visually attractive and delicious in taste; and on top of that it falls into what BF calls the 'fire and forget'-category of dishes, giving you a whole hour to prepare other dishes and clean up before your guests arrive…
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Aufläufe, Gratins und Souffles.
By Cornelia Adam
Gräfe und Unzer Verlag - 1991
A perfectly fine casserole with an unorthodox combination of flavours (cabbage, mince meat and blue cheese, anyone?).
In the beginning I was a little sceptical about how the blue cheese would blend in, but I was pleasantly surprised. Nonetheless, the taste of the blue cheese was quite strong; I suppose it might not have turned out that way if we really had used a Roquefort and not a stronger (and cheaper) Danica Blue, so it’s definitely worth it to either choose a milder blue cheese, or mix the blue cheese with another mild and creamy cheese (BF’s suggestion is a goat’s cheese, but somehow that doesn’t really fit my definition of creamy mild cheese…)
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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’m afraid this one didn’t pass the test. It wasn’t really bad, it just wasn’t very good and had to compete against a superb family recipe. It was a bit too sweet, too complicated, and didn’t bring out the full flavour of the bananas. Roasting them was just an unnecessary step.
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Moroccan: A Culinary Journey of Discovery (Food Lovers Collection)
By Ghillie Basan
Parragon Inc - 2007
Very delicious side dish! Not sure what I think about the preserved lemons; I didn't really like their taste and am thinking about replacing them with lemon zest and juice, though BF correctly pointed out that it depends on how fine you cut them. And I think we used less than the specified amount of herbs, though I don't consider that to be a problem.
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Ich helf dir kochen: das erfolgreiche Universalkochbuch mit großem Backteil
By Hedwig Maria Stuber
- 2000
Delicious. It’s not a very quick recipe, unfortunately, but it definitely qualifies as comfort food.
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Great dish – you just place all ingredients in a pan, cook it for an hour and it’s done. I only wish the meat (a smoked and salted cut of pork, usually rib) were easier available locally.
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Muffins
Very delicious! You can also substitute the cherries with canned cherries in winter. The oat flakes add texture.
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Could use a little more chocolate. If you use a silicone muffin pans that are held in place by a frame, do not forget to hold the pans themselves, not the frame.
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Kürbis, Kraut & Co.
*3 stars*
Where did this go wrong? First of all, I didn't get why I was asked to separate the eggs and whisk the egg whites until foamy – I noticed a bit of a change in texture in comparison with other casseroles, but not necessarily in a positive way (then again, I'm not a fan of savoury soufflés anyway).
Then the liquid – 4 eggs, 100ml cream and 300ml milk – why wasn't I surprised that there was still lots of liquid after 30 minutes of baking? We had to bake the casserole for another 40 minutes with the cheese crust removed (lest it would have burned) until the liquid was set, the pumpkin was cooked, and the tortellini were slightly dry…
I'd love to repeat this dish as I love pumpkin and am slightly fed up with the 100th recipe for pumpkin soup, but I have my doubts about this recipe…
Edited the next day:
Reheat this on the stove with extra cream added, and you'll get creamy godliness, really nice comfort food. So basically, the dish is nice, it's the instructions and the quantities that messed it up...
Edited 3 February 2015:
Time for a revisit! This time I felt free to adhere only loosely to the recipe. Most importantly, I omitted the milk, and when I felt that perhaps that that looked like not enough liquid, I drizzled another ~80 ml cream over the casserole. The result, I'm afraid to say, was a Pumpkin Tortellini Omelette, not a casserole... but at least the pumpkin was nearly done within the recommended baking period (30 - 45 min)!
Other changes I made were not beating the egg whites seperately; using only 100 g parmesan (or rather 'grated cheese for pasta', if I'm honest) instead of the required 200 g; I also used 250 g spinach ravioli and 250 g tomato mozzarella tortellini (I would have used spinach tortellini if they had been available), and a normal onion, sliced, instead of two spring onions.
I didn't fry the pumpkin cubes before baking them - perhaps that would actually be a good idea, as they were only nearly done, but not quite, after 45 min. I also fried half of the onion and added the other half raw - I think that the flavour of the fried one was more intense, but honestly that wasn't enough to convince me that that extra step is worth it, unless your frying the pumpkin anyway.
I do have other issues with this recipe, especially the list of ingredients: ie. specifying that you'll need a block of parmesan, only to require you to grate the whole piece (why not just ask for parmesan, and let me decide whether I want to buy it grated or do the work myself?), or specifying that you'll need ten sage leaves - of which eight are for decoration!
Edited 13 September 2015:
Upgraded this recipe to 4 stars, as I made it again, adhering closer to the recipe, and actually it works quite well. I'm still not convinced that separating the eggs and whisking the egg whites is a good idea, so I'm not doing that; also, I'll usually add more sage to the eggmilk (used 6 leaves today). I did add the full amount of liquids (any less, and the pasta and pumpkin won't be covered sufficiently), and it cooks fine in 40 min time.
No idea why it didn't work when I made this the first time back in 2009 - I made it when I was still living in my tiny student appartment with only a microwave as an oven, but I never had the idea that the microwave/oven didn't work well for other dishes, so why whould it have failed me for this dish?
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An interesting variant to the usual pumpkin soup. It had a bright yellowish-orange colour and a slightly floury taste, but that’s probably rather due to the type of pumpkin used (Hokkaido, I think) than to anything else.
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Olive: 101 Quick-fix Dishes (Olive Magazine)
By Janine Ratcliffe
BBC Books - 2007
Mussels are always delicious, and I would probably find it hard not to award a 5 star rating to any mussel-dish that keeps it simple. This one is no exception. With coconut cream, fresh coriander and a hint of green curry, it's a welcome change to our usual dish of mussels in white wine.
I was careful with the green curry paste as I didn't want the sharpness to overpower the taste of the mussels, but that wasn't the case; using one teaspoon shouldn't be any problem. Also, we used coconut cream instead of coconut milk, which was a good move, but not enough, for my taste; I would have liked to have a thick sauce not unlike garlic sauce or mayonnaise for dipping. It might be worth it to either try to make an additional sauce based on coconut cream, or to add less white wine and use coconut milk for cooking instead.
You can serve this as a main for two persons, or as an appetizer for up to six people, I guess (the book suggests it is a main dish for six, but that's humbug).
This recipe is nearly identical to the Thai-spiced Steamed Mussels in the BBC Good Food magazine, Oct. 2009 edition.
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BBC Good Food
(May, 2009)
Very delicious, true comfort food! Of course, this recipe suffers from the same problems as every other lasagne recipe I’ve seen until now: not enough sauce and cheese. You can easily double the tomato sauce, and add some extra herbs eg. thyme, while you’re at it. You might want to make some extra ‘white sauce’ (why not call it Béchamel?), but it’s not really necessary, just remember to push down the lasagne sheets before adding another layer of sauce. Also, add lot’s of salt and oil to the aubergines.
Another downside is that any lasagne will take quite some time to assemble. But it's worth it, at least with this recipe. Serves 6 women, or 4 hungry men.
Do you want to prepare this dish? You'll find the recipe online here.
Variations? See my Salmon Lasagna, or my review of Delicious Magazine's Classic Moussaka.
Edited 2 September 2014:
Continues to be a classic. Regarding quantities, I made a tomato sauce as suggested, but using 2 cans of tomatoes, no wine, most ingredients finely chopped by hand, and no stop-over at the food processor. I made the bechamel with 50 g butter/flour and about 600-700 ml milk, and I substituted one aubergine for a courgette, as the latter happened to linger in my fridge.
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BBC Good Food
(October, 2009)
The good news: it's incredibly easy to prepare (just throw everything into a roasting tin and you're nearly done), it's beautiful and distinctly autumnal (it's the cover dish, for that matter), and BF and my guests last night loved it.
The bad news: I didn't. I was a bit disappointed because the flavours of the ingredients didn’t come together. What the sense of that? I thought cooking was the art of combining ingredients and creating something new. Instead, the chicken tasted like chicken (like a very tender chicken, though), the squash tasted like squash, the walnuts tasted like walnuts, and the sage, well, the sage was burnt and didn’t give off any flavour at all.
Edited to add:
The recipe is available online here. You can also review it here.
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Slow Cooker Cookbook: Over 220 No-fuss Delicious One-pot Recipes for Relaxed Preparation
By Catherine Atkinson
Lorenz Books - 2008
Theoretically, this dish was very delicious. Practically, I have no idea why the meat (brisket, I think?) didn't become tender although I stewed it at 90°C for a total of nine hours. It didn't help that the recipe instructions were silent on the specifics of stewing…
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Real Fast Food
By Nigel Slater
Penguin UK - 1993
Very delicious, even if you don't get completely right.
Because I couldn’t find trout, I bought two fillets of Catfish (Pangasius) instead, a fish that, as I found out, needed more cooking time than a trout (which might be down to the fact that catfish fillets are larger, apparently…).
Also, I didn’t really manage to get a crust, I probably used too much butter and/or lime juice (I never measure those things precisely; I must have used less lime juice anyway because I only had two in place of the required three). So, next time I’ll definitely reduce the amounts of liquids.
Be careful not to use too much parsley, as the taste of parsley is far stronger than that of dill, and beware of the intensity of the lime juice as well.
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Delicious
(November, 2009)
Definitely cute, and a nice dish for baked apples. Take care not to burn the nuts whil'e roasting.
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Ich helf dir kochen: das erfolgreiche Universalkochbuch mit großem Backteil
By Hedwig Maria Stuber
- 2000
Slightly less usable recipe than the one in Culinaria Germany. The main problem is that this one uses too little water, although I must admit the other recipe might use just a bit too much (still the more usable alternative). Furthermore, the other one also suggest the use of nutmeg which adds extra flavour.
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I don’t know. I think I prefer bought gnocchi. Granted, you could really taste the mashed potatoes in them, but that was about it; they weren’t light enough for my taste. BF liked them though. Remember to make them no larger than half walnuts.
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The Collection
By James Martin
Mitchell Beazley - 2008
Imagine this: James Martin in his early twenties. Comes home late. Hungry. Darn, empty cupboard, empty fridge. The only things left are some fillet of fish, some sprouts, a lonely lime, some sesame oil and some mango chutney. Never mind, he’s hungry, so he’ll just fry the fish, warm up the mango chutney to make it work as a kind of sauce and eat it with the sprouts.
That’s approximately how this dish must have developed – warm up some ingredients without combining them and see if you can eat the result together. To me, that's not cooking, that's warming up. Worse, the ingredients are a mismatch both in taste and in style – no, you can’t just pair off Indian mango chutney with rather Chinese sesame oil just because both are from Asia...
Sea bass is a very nice fish, but it was boring because nothing was done with it. The sprouts were okay – more about that in a moment. The warmed up (!) mango chutney was just blech – it might have been the warming up, it might have been the brand (or even the fact that it wasn’t home-made, but let’s not exaggerate).
I admit that I didn’t make the red pepper essence, as it seemed such a waste to me. Instead I cut the (mixed) peppers into cubes, grilled them shortly and added them to the sprouts, along with some toasted sesame seeds. The sprouts were in fact quite nice (apart from the fact that we had bought them too early and then froze and defrosted them), but they missed extra zing. Toasted sesame seeds were a good idea, but I’m also thinking about adding some grated ginger and perhaps some lemon grass next time (and then serve it as a side dish along with something completely different from this).
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The Best of Baking
By Annette Wolter, Teubner Christian
Peerage Books - 1991
Very nice orange cake. The only problem was that the cake didn’t soak up the juices very well, and I didn’t have a lot of patience to splash a little juice on in every so many minutes. It ended up being quite dry, though I am sure that if you succeed with soaking, it’ll be quite nice (I actually think I succeeded the first time I made this, some fifteen years ago, which is why I kept on returning to this recipe).
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101 Store-cupboard Suppers ("Good Food")
By Barney Desmazery
BBC Books - 2008
Just okay. It was quite bland, so the following day we doubled up the amount of ginger and garlic and marinated the tofu a little longer and yet it was somewhat bland. Roasting the sesames probably would have helped, too.
Crosspost. I found out that this recipe was published online. I crossposted my review here.
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The Chocolate and Coffee Bible: Over 300 Delicious, Easy-to-make Recipes for Total Indulgence, from Bakes to Desserts
By C Et Al Atkinson
Anness Publishing - 2009
Very dense, very intense, dark (coffee) flavours.
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BBC Good Food
(October, 2009)
This recipe is nearly identical to the Mussels with Coriander Cream, Thai Style in Olive 101 Quick Fix Dishes, which is why I will cross-post my review here:
Mussels are always delicious, and I would probably find it hard not to award a 5 star rating to any mussel-dish that keeps it simple. This one is no exception. With coconut cream, fresh coriander and a hint of green curry, it's a welcome change to our usual dish of mussels in white wine.
I was careful with the green curry paste as I didn't want the sharpness to overpower the taste of the mussels, but that wasn't the case; using one teaspoon shouldn't be any problem. Also, we used coconut cream instead of coconut milk, which was a good move, but not enough, for my taste; I would have liked to have a thick sauce not unlike garlic sauce or mayonnaise for dipping. It might be worth it to either try to make an additional sauce based on coconut cream, or to add less white wine and use coconut milk for cooking instead.
You can serve this as a main for two persons, or as an appetizer for up to 6, I guess (the book suggests it is a main dish for 6, but that's humbug).
*****
Thai-spiced Steamed Mussels uses red curry paste instead of green one, chicken stock instead of white wine, and spring onions instead of a red onions (we used normal onions anyway). Additionally, it uses a red chilli, less garlic (2 instead of 4 garlic cloves) and more coconut milk (400ml instead of 142ml). I suspect that these differences won’t make any difference, except for the quantity of coconut milk, which I suspect will be far too much – we probably used no more than 300ml liquid in total for Mussels with Coriander Cream, and even that was a bit too much in my opinion. Using a total of 700ml liquid you’ll end up cooking your mussels, not steaming them. Another slight difference is that you add the garlic and spring onions at the end of the cooking process, without frying them. This is probably a question of personal preference, but I love the taste of roasted onions.
Recipe originally published in Economy Gastronomy by Allegra McEvedy & Paul Merrett. Don’t buy this book, this dish is anything but economic (app. 6 Euros per serving; serves 2, not 4, see review above).
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BBC Good Food
(June, 2009)
Very nice, definitely a new dish for my growing repertoire! The chicken was juicy and tender, the couscous creamy and very aromatic. We had carrots sautéed in apple butter (a variation of the Glazed Sautéed Carrots in The Cook’s Book) as a side dish, which was delicious, but any other root vegetable would have worked just as well.
Quite similar to Chicken with Saffron, Raisins and Pine Nuts from the same magazine, same edition
Edited to add:
The recipe is available online here. You can also review it here.
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The Essential Seafood Cookbook
By Wendy Stephen
Thunder Bay Press - 2003
Very delicious, and low in fat. There’s no need to add extra lemon juice, on the contrary, you might consider adding only one or two instead of three lemon slices per portion. In fact, this dish was quite similar to Trout with Ginger and Coriander, but less intriguing in flavour.
Goes well with Bavarian Cabbage.
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BF prepared this a couple of months ago; I mention this because he usually is something of a ‘free spirit’ when it comes to cooking, largely ignoring the recipe instructions even when he has no idea what he’s doing (luckily he normally does). Anyway: As far as he remembered the soup was fine, but not as good as he had hoped, given the effort he had made and the money we had spent on fresh fish and seafood.
The recipe was accompanied by a recipe for Rouille which was really disappointing.
Next time I’d like to make Bouillabaisse I’ll definitely look for another source.
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Complete Vegetarian
By Nicola Graimes
Lorenz Books - 2006
Very delicious, very aromatic dish! Works just as well as a side dish and as a very simple main dish, if you serve it with some extra vegs.
Edited 30 March 2012 to add:
Very delicious. Contrary to what I thought I didn't have any sweetcorn in the cupboard, so I substituted it with more peas and carrot. I accidentally added 2 tsp whole cumin instead of 1/2 tsp, so I omitted the ground cumin at the end, but I added about a 1/8 tsp ground cardamom (which was a bad idea) and a 1/16 tsp cinnamon (which was good). The cashew nuts will be quite soft if you cook them along with the pilau - I would rather recommend roasting them in a seperate pan and adding them right at the very end.
Served 2 1/2 - 3 as a sole main course, so follow the advice above for an extra vegetable dish if it's supposed to be dinner.
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Stir-fry: Chop, Wok, Toss ("Australian Women's Weekly")
By Susan Tomnay
ACP Publishing Pty Ltd - 2006
I used half the amount of five-spice powder and meat, pork instead of beef, and broccoli instead of broccolino. The dish smelled strongly of anise so be careful if you don’t like that, but in the end you couldn’t taste it as much as you could smell it. You'll have to like the dish's sweetly taste as well - I was surprised at how sweet it was, the sweetness seemed to be intensified by the spices.
I liked the fact that it had more sauce than most stir-fries do, but as far as my meagre cooking knowledge goes, you shouldn't use as much liquid in a stir-fry – in any case, it would rather be cooking instead of frying. The meat ended up being slightly dry, something I blame on the fact that we were supposed to add the sauce, the completely raw broccoli/broccolino and the meat and stir-fry (cook) until the veggies were tender. This took at least 5 minutes, which is far too long for the meat. The sauce was already reduced at that point, but still too liquid for frying.
Rather, I’d add the veggies one step earlier while you’re reducing the sauce (doesn't really matter if the veggies are cooked or stir-fried), and add the meat at the last minute for brief reheating. That way you should end up with tender meat, cooked veggies and a sufficient amount of sauce.
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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
Very delicious!
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Autumn Cooking: Using the Season's Finest Ingredients (Seasonal Cooking)
By Bridget Jones
Lorenz Books - 2003
I made this more than a year ago, and to be honest, I don’t remember much, which, in a way, is a good sign: it must mean that it was nice, not excessively delicious, but nothing wrong with it either. It nearly exclusively uses store-cupboard staples and looks quite inexpensive, too. I’ll try it again soon.
useful (1)
BBC Good Food
(May, 2009)
Quite impossible to cover 4 chicken leg portions with just a little marinade and 125 ml water – you’d have to have a darn perfect fitting pan to manage that. As similar chicken dishes had ended up being slightly dry in the past, I was careful to cover the chicken. After all, the point about stewing is to cook something in lots of liquid. Needless to say, I ended up with a sauce that was far too thin, even though I reduced the sauce for an extra ten minutes.
Otherwise it’s a very nice dish. It’s not as tasty as it smells, which could be due to slightly too much of sour ingredients (lime, mainly), so try to cut them back.
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How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food
By Mark Bittman, Alan Witschonke
Wiley - 2007
A very nice and simple salad. Basically, it’s just your regular carrot salad with some extra zing. The flavour of the cumin is quite strong, though, so don’t prepare this too often unless you really like it. Goes well with Middle Eastern and South Asian dishes.
Edited 14 May 2014:
I made this today again and made the mistake to grate them using the coarse grater - carrot salad is considerably nicer if it's finely grated carrots. Also, I served it with Bus Station Kefta with Egg and Tomato, which is quite similar in taste, so the salad didn't have the punch I had hoped for.
useful (1)
All About Braising: The Art of Uncomplicated Cooking
By Molly Stevens
W.W. Norton & Co. - 2004
The chicken breasts were a little dry, but I suspect that was my fault (I possibly fried them for too long and/or the lid didn’t fit properly and/or the pan was too large and I forgot to reduce the space with parchment paper). Otherwise the flavour was nice. I would have preferred it to be a little creamier, and I might replace the yoghurt (I used thick unstrained Greek yoghurt, by the way) with coconut cream next time. Oh, and add some extra spices! We served this with rice and Carrot Salad with Cumin.
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How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food
By Mark Bittman, Alan Witschonke
Wiley - 2007
BF loved it, I found it just okay. The dressing was very nice, even ‘sophisticated’, but I disliked the fact that the rocket (or rather the lamb's lettuce we used instead of rocket) was prone to become limp due to the heat of the chickpeas.
Also, I felt it was a little dull due to the lack of interesting main ingredients - chickpeas and rocket (or lamb's lettuce) just isn't enough. I preferred the very similar Chickpea, Goat’s Cheese and Rocket Salad (with tomatoes) from Delicious Magazine (May 2009); perhaps I might make it with the Bittman-dressing next time.
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Ich helf dir kochen: das erfolgreiche Universalkochbuch mit großem Backteil
By Hedwig Maria Stuber
- 2000
Nice recipe. You won’t need to cook the cabbage for 45 min, 20 min is enough.
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All in One
By Parragon
Parragon Inc - 2007
BF’s comment: “Mmh, very interes – WHOA, this is HOT!” He continued to compare it to a piece of modern art: it’s easy to shock people, but is there any substance (or taste) below? I couldn’t have expressed it better. That said, I’ll award 3 stars for now, with the option to upgrade to a 4 star rating if it becomes better with less curry.
For the record: I used Vindaloo Curry Paste and 200 ml coconut milk instead of cubed coconut cream and chicken stock.
Serves 6 rather than 4.
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How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food
By Mark Bittman, Alan Witschonke
Wiley - 2007
I probably messed it up a little – I forgot to set a timer while roasting, and then remembered all of a sudden when things with the main dish were a little hectic, and just turned off the oven without testing the cauliflower. Principally, though, I very much liked the idea of this dish, although I would need to test it again. I would prefer softer raisins, so remember to soak them in hot water for a while before adding them. Adding (roasted) almond flakes might work well, too.
Edited 10 March 2012:
It's really good! It tasted partly roasted, partly steamed - maybe because it shared the oven with the Chicken with Caribbean Stuffing. I soaked the raisins in very little hot water so that they softer but not completely soft - actually, I think first soaked and then roasted for the last five minutes would be best, a little like in the Baked Vegetables with an Aubergine Sauce. And I used red wine vinegar this time because we were out of balsamic vinegar, but next time, balsamic will definitely be my vinegar of choice.
useful (2)
BBC Good Food
(January, 2010)
I passed this recipe on to my sister-in-law and asked her to tell me what she thought about it afterwards. She liked it a lot. She used rum instead of vodka and no water at all (must have been a fun evening). Crushing the cranberries was difficult, though, and you’ll end up with a lot of pulp and pits in the glasses; next time she’ll probably use a mortar to solve this problem (she pondered about using a blending machine and then sieving the juice but then figured that every mojito contains some pulp).
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Very delicious. In fact, the combination of flavours would have been worth a 5-star-rating if there hadn’t been so many smallish things to improve.
We cooked the Thai glutinous rice according to the package instructions, not according to the recipe, and it didn’t really work as it should have; there was too little water, and when the rice was finally cooked, it was more of a porridge with too little texture. Nothing of this is related to the recipe, of course, but if you do decide to make this dessert for guests, make sure that you know how to cook the rice. I might try normal dessert rice next time.
Furthermore, the rice was a little tasteless and watery. I would suggest cooking the rice in the coconut milk, perhaps adding the golden caster sugar half-way through the cooking process to prevent the sugar from becoming too caramelised. All in all, the rice could also have been sweeter; but if you decide to go for a sweet rice, serve only small portions of rice.
The sauce, then again, could easily have been a little more sour. The orange juice is superfluous, in my opinion, as it easily superimposes the taste of the mangoes; instead, liquidise the mango and add orange juice (or mango juice!) or water only when really necessary to reach the consistency of the sauce. Also add more lime juice – I think it’s just that contrast between a sweet, sticky, heavy rice and a fruity, light, and slightly sour sauce are rather desirable.
We left out the passion fruit and mint leaves entirely, but I’m sure they form a perfect addition.
PS: Curious? Check out the recipe here.
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Real Fast Food
By Nigel Slater
Penguin UK - 1993
Just not my taste. Quite salty.
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Kürbis
By Martin Kintrup, Stephanie Wenzel, Klaus-Maria Einwanger, Tanja Bischof, Harry Bischof, Jörn Rynio
Graefe Und Unzer Verlag - 2007
Okay, though definitely too sweet; why add honey when pumpkin, bell pepper and coconut milk are already way too sweet on their own? Try omitting the honey, consider adding some soy sauce and some decent curry spices other than a regular store bought mix, or go for a different recipe straight away.
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All About Braising: The Art of Uncomplicated Cooking
By Molly Stevens
W.W. Norton & Co. - 2004
It’s a huge piece of meat, so when she says, ‘rub with coarse salt’, use your own good judgement how much salt you use. I used far too much, and it showed, luckily only in the sauce.
Apart from that, it was extremely delicious – at least tastewise. The meat, unfortunately, ended up being pretty tough, and I have no idea why. As for now, I’m happy to blame the circumstances (tiny microwave oven instead of the proper thing, a clay pot with a mind of its own instead of our Le Creuset Dutch oven), but I do hope this will change once we find a new flat. BF at least was very happy with it, but then again, he’ll be happy with any large piece of meat.
We had this with the Roasted Garlic Mash from BBC Good Food, May 2009.
Amendment 12. Jan. 2010:
Instead of just plain re-heating, we braised some of the meat for dinner for another hour or so; this time in a pan on the stove. What a difference! For all but one small part the meat was much tenderer than it had been the night before. So it is very likely indeed that the braise failed due to the oven and the clay pot. But how could one hour have made such a difference?
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