friederike's Reviews
1109 recipes reviewed. Showing 51 to 100Sort by: Book Title | Date | Rating | Recipe Title 
BBC Olive
(October, 2009)
Very delicious! I used caster sugar instead of white sugar (actually, nothing specific was suggested which made me think they meant white one), and it really made it taste like Caipirinha while at the same time you could definitely taste the berries. It tasted slightly watery, which might have been due to my poor ice-crushing techniques (a few large chunks with lots of 'snow'); and at the same time, the alcohol tasted pretty strong, although that passed quickly :)
You might try cheating by adding some berry juice or sirup to get more flavour, though if you choose sirup don't forget to omit the sugar.
useful (1)
Website: Smitten Kitchen
This might have been nice if it didn't contain avocado, which made the whole thing mushy and diverted from the clear, crisp flavours of the other ingredients.
I did use a lot of substitutes - normal sesame oil instead of toasted sesame oil, a small amount of miso soup powder (sieved) instead of miso paste, only toasted white sesame seeds instead of white and black sesame seeds; but actually I don't think any of these substitutions really had a large impact (not even the miso soup powder!).
useful (0)
Schnelle Gerichte
Quite a disaster. However, I must admit that maybe (just maybe) the problem was that the avocado wasn't ripe enough...
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How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food
By Mark Bittman, Alan Witschonke
Wiley - 2007
To begin with, I'll issue a warning. Yes, this is only a simple salad, but still, you need to expect some 1-2 hrs preparation time. You might need noticeably less, though.
I became quite annoyed at the cooking instructions of this recipe. You are instructed to cook the vinegar with sugar and ginger, "as the dressing bubbles gently and thickens, about 5 minutes". After 5 minutes, this dressing is nowhere even near thickening. The recipe continues, "When it gets noticeably syrupy, remove from the heat, cool, ..." It took 40 min for the dressing to become syrupy, and when it finally did, I cooled it au bain marie, and it became hard and sticky. Whoops. I had to add 2 large tablespoons of water and reheat and recool it to get the consistency I wanted.
The bottom line was that once you've made the salad, it's actually quite nice, provided that you don't eat too much of it. It's not well suited to be served as a whole meal, but's it's nice, and something rather unusal as a side.
useful (1)
Supersalades
By Jane Lawson
Uitgeverij Terra Lannoo - 2011
A very nice salad, though not as exotic as, say, the Thai Beef Salad. What I did find a bit of a problem is that they suggested using avocado in a lunch box salad for two portions (two days you would think) without adding any dressing that would keep it from turning black. Not a good idea.
useful (0)
Spanish Food and Cooking (Food & Drink)
By Pepita Aris
Lorenz Books - 2003
Nice, but I wasn't particularly impressed. Oranges in a salad are always a great idea, but the rest just was a bit boring. We used an expensive olive oil as we thought it would really make a difference in a salad - not in this one. I guess we'll reserve it for simple green salads in the future, and for simple tomato dishes.
useful (0)
The Baby-led Weaning Cookbook: Over 130 delicious recipes for the whole family to enjoy
By Gill Rapley, Tracey Murkett
Vermilion - 2010
I love this dish! One garlic clove is probably too much, as is the juice of a whole lemon, but other than that I really liked it, even without salt. Next time though I would probably make at least triple the quantity - one for kiddo, one to freeze, and one for me.
useful (0)
Olive: 101 Quick-fix Dishes (Olive Magazine)
By Janine Ratcliffe
BBC Books - 2007
A very easy, nice salad slightly leaning on the substantial. Reminded me of Gary Rhodes' Egg and Bacon Salad, though this one had fried or poached eggs instead of hardboiled ones and is stronger in taste (mustard and spinach instead of regular lettuce, mainly). Use baby spinach if you can - normal spinach is an option too, but can be a little strong. So is the marinade, be sure you hussle the salad well.
The fish with the pomegranate seeds you can see on the photo is Pan-fried Sea Bream with Green Tahini and Pomegranate Seeds - not a good match, but recommended on it's own! And I forgot to add (or rather, err, make) the marinade when I took the photo, so it looked slightly different in the end...
useful (0)
Essen & Trinken
(October, 2009)
It was slightly remiscent of a Waldorf salad, with the grated celeriac, the nuts and the apples/pears in it; however, to use an old frase, it didn't quite come together as a dish. DB complained that the bacon was too salty in comparison to the rest (which I thought was part of the idea), but he had a point that it was quite difficult to get pear, bacon, celeriac and lamb's lettuce on your fork in one go. I missed a dressing, and I think this might have the whole insular-ingredient-issue.
The recipe indicates using bacon, but the picture looked much more like a smoked or cured ham, so that's what I used. Bacon probably would have worked just as well.
We served this as a starter with the Pumpkin Risotto with Sage and Parmesan as a main and Lemon Moussse as dessert - a wonderful seasonal and easy to prepare menu, although the season just didn't behave accordingly.
useful (2)
Flavour First
By John Burton Race
Quadrille Publishing Ltd - 2008
Very delicious! DB thought that they could have cooked a little longer, especially for the filling, though I actually enjoyed their firm texture and slightly zingy flavour. I wasn't sure about the plums, whether they should be fresh or dried (I guessed dried) - however, this could also have been the translator's mistake. DB also thought that the caramel wasn't really necessary; again, I don't entirely agree, but I guess that also depends on the meat dish you serve. Absolutely recommended in any case!
Served alongside Roast Loin of Pork with a Cider Sauce with potatoes and salad, with Shallot Tarte Tatin as a starter and Gingerbread Soufflé with Cranberry Sauce as dessert.
useful (1)
The Cook's Book: Techniques and Tips from the World's Master Chefs
By Jill Norman
DK Publishing (Dorling Kindersley) - 2005
This recipe is so simple you can hardly review it, but I'm going to do so anyway, because it shows you how to gat a beetroot baked - but the beetroot wasn't exiting at all. Pretty boring, actually. Use this as a base and experiment with adding herbs or spices to the beetroot, and see were that brings you - except, of course, if you really need a very simple, slightly boring side dish as to not divert the attention from a spectacular main dish.
useful (0)
Real Fast Food
By Nigel Slater
Penguin UK - 1993
Very nice in taste, but more complicated than really necessary, and I don't really see this qualify as 'Real Fast Food'.
It took me at least 45 min to get the food on the table. Half of this might have been my fault, as I thought it would be fastest to first boil the potatoes, then in the meantime prepare the runner beans before looking at the fish. I ended up having to keep the side dishes warm until the fish was finally done. But actually, I would have expected the fish to be done much faster, or at least that the recipe would give an indication of how much time you'd need.
Also, I had a problem with the quantity and the required size of the baking dish. The recipe requires 'one glass of white wine' - but how much is that? I would expect something like 125 ml, but I know that in some places, you'll be served a glass full to the rim with wine, which is about 250 ml. The recipe does give a clue, albeit a vague one: at the very end, after baking and then reducing, you should end up with approximately 8 tbsp (=120 ml) of sauce. At that point, the sauce should have been reduced by two thirds, which means that originally it should have been 360 ml of sauce; this includes the 50 g butter (~ 50 ml) you added in the very beginning (for the ease of calculating, I'll ignore the fact that some liquid will have evaporated during the 15 min spent in the oven). So, for the purposes of the recipe, expect one glass of wine to be 310 ml, if not more. Wow.
The problem I had with the size of the baking dish is that I didn't realize immediately how much wine was needed. The recipe requires 'a shallow baking dish', so I chose a shallow baking dish which fit the fish snuggly, and added what I thought was a good amount of wine - the wine covered the fish completely. This set me off thinking, as the fish would have cooked in the wine, instead of baked, and it was only then that I realized that I was supposed to add even more wine (see above), and that the point wasn't necessarily to use a shallow baking dish, but one that was large enough that the fish wasn't covered by the wine. Geez, why didn't you say so?
So no wonder it took me so long to get this dish done!
In the end, there is a much faster way to do it, even if not quite as sophisticated. According to the recipe, after you've baked the fish in the sauce of white wine and butter for about 15 min, you'll take out the fish, keep it warm (try doing that without lettng the fish get either cold or dry!), reduce the sauce by two thirds, and then add more butter to give it a better consistency. It would be much faster to fry the fish in butter (or, if you really must, bake it in a very small dish, with just a little butter and white wine), while you make the butter sauce in a separate pan on the stove at the same time. Don't forget to scrape the fish juices into the sauce at the very end! This is what we did on the second day, and it was just as nice.
I will admit that the sauce was just very slightly acidic, which is most likely because I used a bottle we've probably had in the fridge since Christmas (this sounds bad, but it was a good wine and had actually kept quite well) - with a newer bottle, you probably won't have that problem. And it it's actually nice enough to serve it to guests!
I also really liked the combination with boiled potatoes and runner beans; the sauce probably works just as well with salmon, leeks and boiled potatoes.
useful (1)
Das neue Kochbuch durchs Jahr.
Nice side dish, though I doubt that it is really necessary to both fry and bake them; one of both should be enough.
useful (0)
Sophie Grigson's Country Kitchen: 120 Seasonal Recipes
By Sophie Grigson
Headline Book Publishing - 2003
I made this with a few small changes - I used an onion instead of leeks or spring onions, and I omitted the smoked salmon and added a few drops of truffle oil. The onion was definitely too strong in taste, leek or spring onion will probably work better. The truffle oil was very nice, but be careful not to use too much, should be just a few drops. And be careful with salt as well.
My main problem was that I accidentally used too much cream, so after 12 minutes, I still had a lot of liquid cream covering the egg; it was only because I poked around I knew that the egg had set. Unfortunately, the egg yolk had been covered by the cream as well, and wasn't quite as runny as I had hoped.
useful (0)
No Time to Cook
By Donna Hay
Harpercollins Canada - 2009
I've been waiting to make this recipe ever since I first leafed through this book, and I finally did it. This is one of those recipes were your dish is only as good as your ingredients - notably, the peaches. Peaches often tend to taste mealy, and baking them won't make them any better - you'll need really nice, ripe, non-mealy peaches here.
Other than that, this is not much of a recipe. I used golden sugar instead of, well, actually she doesn't specify any sugar. I also took my freedom with the sauce; instead of mixing the rose water with vanilla-yoghurt, I used mascarpone instead - I didn't see any good come from artifical vanilla flavouring, and I didn't expect the typical yoghurt-flavour to go well with the airy rose water. I actually found that I needed way more rose water than suggested.
I also made a second sauce - part mascarpone, part quark, a little lemon juice and a little orange flower essence - I actually preferred this sauce of the other one!
I also didn't have any pistachios, so I fried almond slivers, coconut sliver and chopped hazelnuts (all separately) in a dry pan - I honestly couldn't tell you which I liked most, all of them worked well.
useful (0)
Stern Gourmet
(, 2010)
So-so. I think what I disliked most was the effect the baking in the aluminium foil had on the quinces - they became slightly dry with a strange side flavour, not to speak of that burnt part on the bottom. The clove was only noticeable the moment you actually took a bite off that part of the quince. And last, it was just very difficult to eat, and not elegant to serve.
I did enoy the honeyed yoghurt, though of that there would have been too little - we shared one quince (this season's last one!), and of course I forgot and made the whole quantity of yoghurt instead of just a quarter (I always do).
Compared to the Poached Quinces with Rose Water Syrup from two weeks ago, the latter was definitely better. It might be an idea to give this recipe another try and just poach the quinces instead of baking them. Or what about blanching and grilling the quinces?
useful (1)
Website: Essen & Trinken
The idea was quite nice, the execution was not. The main problem was the brittle - even before we used it on the quinces, it was quite soft and not as crunchy as it should have been; but the real problems started when we served the warm quinces with the brittle on top – the brittle just melted away and became really chewy in our mouths – yuck! I would expect the maple syrup to be the culprit, as it's the only unusual ingredient for a brittle, and because it's liquid and chewy and sticky at room temperature, while the other ingredients are not.
But even then – the quinces were overpowered by the spices and the syrup in which they were braised; in addition, they were overbaked and didn't have a nice texture. The latter might have been our fault as we were still at the main course when they were done, so we just turned off the oven but let them stay in there.
useful (0)
The Baby-led Weaning Cookbook: Over 130 delicious recipes for the whole family to enjoy
By Gill Rapley, Tracey Murkett
Vermilion - 2010
We had the cod-and-herbs variant for dinner yesterday, and it was quite nice, similar to the Salmon en Papillote with Watercress Sauce we had recently. Unfortunately, though, the cooking time isn't correct - we only cooked the cod for 13 instead of 15 minutes, and it still was horribly overcooked. Also, it's a bit simple; I added a shallot, but even then it may have a little something extra for adults - a sauce, maybe? But then again this just may be me; maybe this book is written for people who are perfectly happy for a recipe as simple as this one.
useful (0)
Pure Simple Cooking: Effortless Meals Every Day
By Diana Henry
Ten Speed Press - 2009
Quite nice and extremely simple, but also too sweet for my taste! I would definitely add some lemon juice next time and maybe also reduce the amount of honey used. The sauce is reminiscent of the Sweet Mustard Sauce usually served with Gravlax, but sweeter than that (or at least not countered by lemon juice from other places such as the gravlax salmon).
useful (0)
Caribbean Cooking ("Australian Women's Weekly")
By Susan Tomnay
ACP Publishing Pty Ltd - 2006
Delicious and quick, but too undecided, too flavourless. It could definitely have used more punch - fresh coriander? Lime zest? Salt?
useful (1)
BBC Good Food
(July, 2010)
The potatoes were undercooked, the herbs and spices hardly noticeable, and the whole thing just didn't combine together well. A very ill conceived recipe.
Let's start with the potatoes. I was aware that this could happen, and sliced them very very thinly - ca. 2mm. Additionally, I boiled them for several minutes instead of draining them immedeately. You can probably cook them for 8-10 minutes without worrying. However, even if they had been cooked well, it would have been a shame that they were wet, being covered in white wine. I would have wished them to become crisp chips, baked in olive with sea salt and rosemary!
Then the spices. As I said, you hardly tasted them. A tiny bit of garlic here, one bite with a hint of saffron there... not what I would have expected. But had they been stronger it probably wouldn't have helped as the combination of flavours was just too much. Fish with white wine and saffron - yes, I get that. Fish with lime and coriander - good idea too. Tomatoes with saffron, fish/seafood and, err, rice - Paella. But fish with all of the above? And then I'm not yet even mentioning the pine nuts (which I omitted anyway). And if this weren't bad enough - even if the ingredients would have worked together, if they had been strong enough to be tasted then the sheer mass of them would have eliminated any taste of fish.
The fish in itself was fairly nice (though slightly bland if a fish can ever be bland), but I'm afraid that was a happy coincidence.
PS: Oh, and the pancetta... white wine, coriander, tomatoes, saffron, pancetta, lime, pine nuts... hmm...
useful (1)
Healing Foods (Dk Living)
By Miriam Polunin
Dk Pub (T) - 1997
It's hard to come to a fair judgement. There's nothing in this recipe you couldn't have thought of yourself, and the quality of the resulting dish certainly does not depend on the recipe but on the quality of tomatoes used (which, to be honest, weren't the best, but then it's winter, too).
On the other hand, I tend to forget most side dishes and then focus on the few I can remember, so I should be glad for a little reminder. Just remember to use good quality tomatoes!
I did wonder how it would effect the tomatoes if you baked them on a slightly lower temperature for a few hours instead of 20 minutes.. my guess would be a huge improvement (again, only with good tomatoes)...
We served this with Flambéed Pepper Steaks, a good combination.
useful (1)
Spanish Food and Cooking (Food & Drink)
By Pepita Aris
Lorenz Books - 2003
While I was preparing the dish, I was actually quite positive - it seemed like a nice dish, and it involved little more than a few easy steps of prepping making it an ideal dish to prepare a day in advance. Unfortunately, the time needed for baking was far off - we had two small trouts of 200g instead of 500g, and had to bake them at least 10 min longer than indicated. But even worse, the filling tasted dull, and the flavours of the filling and of the earthy-tasting trout didn't combine at all. Additionally, though I really liked the idea of chopped nuts, I never knew whether I was chewing on chopped nuts or grates, so I wouldn't recommend that again for a hard-to-grate fish. We'll probably use the rest of the filling tomorrow for a bell pepper.
Edited a day later:
Not recommended for bell peppers either. I think the problem with the filling is that it combines so many so very different flavours - tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, rice, nuts, even ginger - what's that doing in there? - that it doesn't have a 'direction' to go to.
useful (0)
Tender: v. 1: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch
By Nigel Slater
Fourth Estate Ltd - 2009
Extremely tasty! Full of flavour and very delicious! I had some issues with the preparation, however.
First of all: take your time. Making the aubergine cream will take a while, and if you don't have a large oven that fit's two trays of veggies, such as me, you will have to prepare one after the other. That is not necessarily a problem; just be aware of it. You can easily prepare the aubergine cream a day in advance, then all you'll need to do is chop the veggies, throw them into a baking dish, off into the oven and you're done.
Slater didn't give an indicator how long the aubergines would need to become soft. Some of my aubergines were quite soft after 10-15 min, others weren't. I guess it helps making really deep, regular cuts and using lots of oil, at least I suspect that that was the difference between my different aubergines. All in all I think they spent at least 25-30 minutes in the oven, perhaps even longer.
Then the baking time for the other veggies: He estimates 45-60 minutes, we baked our veggies for at least 1 hr 15 min, and even then some of the courgettes weren't really soft. Some of the peppers and onions, and especially the raisins lying on top (15 min) were burnt. Possibly this was partly due to the fact that the baking dish was stuffed full with veggies - but actually I was glad that at least half of the dishes' veggies actually fit into my 23x30cm baking dish (and that didn't need to feed 4 but only 2 today). So, if you have a larger baking dish (or even two of them), go for it. You might also want to consider to chop more and bake shorter.
Because I forgot that I had only used half of the veggies I added all of the cumin, homemade harissa (from Modern Moroccan), raisins and pine kernels/almond flakes, but that was a very useful mistake as it gave some extra flavour. The courgettes actually fell away a bit, tastewise, but had a nice texture, and all in all it was great. Great mediterranean side dish, great vegetarian main dish.
Edited the next day:
Making the aubergine cream a day in advance really is a good idea. Yesterday the mint was hardly noticeable - today it made the cream taste very fresh!
Edited 30 December 2012:
Definitely try to make the aubergine cream at least a few hours in advance so that you can chill it - makes a great contrast to the hot and spicy vegetables. You might need to puree the cream.
Edited 7 December 2017:
For 5-6 pers we used 3 aubergines, 2 red and 2 green peppers, 2 onions, 2 enormous zucchinis and maybe 4 tomatoes?
useful (3)
Website: Socialphy
Honduran tortilla wraps
I'm going to focus on the combination of ingredients in this review - as I unfortunately didn't have the time to make the tortillas myself, there is little else here what would really qualify as cooking.
I liked all the ingredients separately, but everything combined was too mushy for my taste. It didn't help that even the feta I got at the Turkish greengrocer's turned out to be a creamy variant, creamier than what I would have gotten in the supermarket.
We served these with Honduran Mango Avocado Salsa, which provided some much needed texture and freshness.
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Einfach Hausgemacht
(Autumn, 2017)
The idea is very nice, the execution - just awful! So many details are wrong with this recipe, nearly all of them a question of quantity and proportion.
First of all, the marinade for the salmon consists of 2 tbsp lime juice, 1 tsp honey and 3 (!!) tbsp soy sauce. The salt content of a good brand of soy sauce is about 16-17 g per 100 ml; my generic German supermarket brand contains 21.8 g/100 ml! That's 9.8 g salt in the marinade, or 2.5 g per serving!! I used 1 tbsp, and that was just right, shouldn't have been more.
Then, the lentils: onions, carrots and celery is a nice addition and is, as mirepoix, indeed the foundation for plenty of dishes, but 4 onions, carrots and celery stalks each for a recipe with 4 servings? A bit much. Last, for the 300 g lentils and aforementioned veg you're supposed to make a dressing consisting of 4-5 tbsp balsamic vinegar and 2-3 tbsp honey - I added less than half, and I already thought it was awful, esp. awfully sweet. I threw the lentils out; I might make them again without dressing (or in any case without that dressing), or just plain rice and a veg.
The recipe also calls for parsnip to be cooked with the lentils; I omitted them outright as that didn't really seem to match the elegance of the rest of the recipe. However, River Cottage has a surprisingly similar recipe with puy lentils and parsnips (up to including a honey dressing!).
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Smoothies, Blends and Shakes
By Suzannah Olivier, Joanna Farrow
Southwater - 2005
Very nice milkshake. It's obviously very easy to make and is very delicious; as DB put it, it begins with banana and ends with raspberry.
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The Baby-led Weaning Cookbook: Over 130 delicious recipes for the whole family to enjoy
By Gill Rapley, Tracey Murkett
Vermilion - 2010
The cake is not too bad, actually. Of course, it's sugarfree, and therefore not (very) sweet, and I'd definitely be disappointed with it as my birthday cake, but what does my son know? (I don't think it'll pass with his three-year old niece. I guess we'll have to give her a piece of the adult's cake).
It didn't really rise, though, and I'm not sure why. Lack of sugar shouldn't have anything to do with it, should it? I used 2 tsp of baking powder for just two handsful of batter! Will probably make cupcakes on the big day, as the cake looks pityfully flat even in our smallest cake dish.
Edited 25 March 2016:
I forgot to comment on the baking process. This is another baking recipe, similar to this one, where I suspect that the author had little idea of what she was doing. First you are instructed to mix flour, spices and baking powder; then to add the butter and rub it between your fingers until the mixture looks like fine bread crumbs - this latter step is a technique for making shortcrust pastry (hint: banana cake does not contain a shortcrust pastry. Not even this particular recipe.). Then you are instructed to mix the mashed bananas and the egg (= the wet ingredients) in a separate bowl, and at the very end, fold them into the flour mixture - classical muffin making technique, with the exception that butter is a wet ingredient and was supposed to go into the second bowl.
To make matters worse, the raisins go in one bowl, the walnuts into another - that doesn't make sense. Also, the walnuts are optional and can be added either finely chopped or ground - but if ground, they would change the ratio of dry vs. wet ingredients, the same way you can often substitute part of the flour with ground nuts of your choice.
Sometimes I think it's too bad Ms Rapley didn't ask a cook or a nutrionist (or both!) to help her write this book.
useful (0)
No Time to Cook
By Donna Hay
Harpercollins Canada - 2009
Extremely easy, extremely quick, and very delicious! It's like an instant banana bread, but then in individual portions, and a very light version. I didn't really taste any maple, but then again we didn't serve it with maple syrup. Ice cream would look like a natural pairing with banana bread (at least for me, but then again, nearly everything sweet goes with ice cream), but in this case I don't think I would do that; the banana puddings seem too fluffy and not crunchy enough for that purpose. I'm not quite sure what I'd do instead, though.
Serves two.
Edited 20 October 2017:
The irony of it! I didn't want to use maple syrup (even my cheap maple-flavoured syrup is too good to be wasted like this!), so I used (a quite flavourful) honey instead - and this time, the flavour was overpowering! Also, 2.5 bananas yielded only about 1 cup, but that didn't turn out to be a problem. I actually used this recipe as I couldn't find the photocopy I had made of the original.
useful (1)
The Baby-led Weaning Cookbook: Over 130 delicious recipes for the whole family to enjoy
By Gill Rapley, Tracey Murkett
Vermilion - 2010
I baked them for quite a while longer, and yet they never seemed to be done; I'm pretty sure the reason is that I had loads of mashed bananas - our bananas were quite large. Why did they ask for 'four bananas, mashed' in this recipe, but '200 g bananas, mashed' in the banana cake recipe just two pages later?
Also, I baked them early in the morning to have them ready for breakfast, which was definitely a mistake - I used normal flour and forgot to add baking powder, so the first few muffins came out really flat...
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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 delicious, moist, nice in flavour. A bit on the fluffy side, while I would have preferred a dense cake, but I won't complain, finally a banana bread recipe that works (somehow I've never been that lucky until now).
Next time I might add in the spices Deb from Smitten Kitchen uses in her recipe.
useful (0)
Website: Smitten Kitchen
Nice, but not much more than the sum of it's ingredients: mashed banana, nutella and a hint of cinnamon (we didn't add the pistachios). Still, enjoyable enough, and healthy enough to trick you into thinking you can have more than one portion...
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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.
useful (1)
Website: Taste
Schnitzel meets Burger meets fish - welcome to the melting pot Australia!
The dish was quite nice, though a little heavy on the oils - the avocado probably just wasn't really necessary. I used humble pangasius in lieu of barramundi, and unfortunately didn't have any watercress, which would have added a welcome sharpness. I discovered quickly that eating it as a burger is not such a great idea, because it makes the coating of the fish turn soggy before you can finish your first bite. I was, however, really impressed by how crunchy the coating was at first', and I'm sure that's due to the fact that the fish had to rest for 30 min after being coated - definitely something I will try with Wiener Schnitzels next time!
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The Art of Pasta
By Lucio Galletto
Lantern - 2011
A few things were vague about the recipe, such as when to add the salt, or if you had to point the dough in a specific direction when rolling it out for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th time, but all in all, it worked! And it tasted quite nice. We had our pasta with the Classic Bolognese Sauce and were very happy with it.
useful (0)
Quiches and Pastries: Le Cordon Bleu : Home Collection
What a disaster! The pastry was hard as if it were pasta dough; it was less than suggested (not a double recipe but just a single one), and when it was finally baking, the pastry actually shrunk, leaving behind gaping holes and hardly any border at all. I haven't tasted it yet so I can't say anything about its taste, but I'm not going to make this recipe again anyway, so what's the point?
We were supposed to use the pastry for this Seafood Quiche - luckily we still had a small frozen pastry, and we ate the rest as an omelette...
useful (2)
Website: BBC Good Food
Good basic recipe.
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Culinaria Germany
By Konemann
Ullmann Publishing - 2006
See Spätzle as a kind of German pasta. In fact, the main ingredients (1 egg per 100 g flour) are exactly the same! This basic recipe is easy to whip up and works very well. Just remember to put the cooked Spätzle in sauce or butter right away when they are cooked, without letting them cool - just as with pasta, they will soak up sauces and flavours better while they are hot.
We served these with Mixed Mushrooms in Cream Sauce, which worked well enough.
useful (0)
Pure Simple Cooking: Effortless Meals Every Day
By Diana Henry
Ten Speed Press - 2009
Quite nice, but only because I used about half the amount of butter for the whole amount of basil and tomatoes since the Black Olive Butter I made a few weeks ago wasn't strong enough at all.
That said, I actually don't know how much basil I used, but the leaves on our not-yet-quite-dead basil where tiny anyway; and I used slightly more dried tomato (4 pieces were 26 g, and I added one extra at the last moment), so in reality I probably just used double the amount of tomatoes, or more. I was wondering whether I should have used air-dried tomatoes or dried tomatoes in oil (which is what I did); in the former case, 25 g air-dried tomatoes to 75 g butter might actually work.
Served with salmon, rice (pasta would have been better), and tomato and red bell pepper salad, with strawberries as dessert - quite a red menu by pure coincidence!
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Werken met vis
By Bart van Olphen
Amsterdam Carrera - 2012
Very nice! The batter was very thin, which I enjoyed; DH mentioned he wouldn't mind if the batter had been a bit thicker. Be careful, though: the quantities for fish and batter are given as per person. This has to be a mistake, as we used a single portion of batter for 4 portions of fish, and still had enough leftover to have pancakes for dessert (I'd recommend pouring a bit of batter on a deep plate for the fish, and keeping the rest separate). My guess is that the line stating 'per person' only applies to the amount of fish, but that's far from clear.
The pancakes were nice, too, though it could have used another egg and possibly some extra milk.
Edited 17 May 2014:
We usually fry instead of deep-frying; in that case, remember to keep the temperature high to get a crunchy fish.
The next morning we had pancakes for breakfast - this time I really liked them the way they were.
Edited 20 June 2014:
I used this recipe to make Fish 'n Chips with mashed peas for the FIFA 2014 challenge, to represent England.
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Ich helf dir kochen: das erfolgreiche Universalkochbuch mit großem Backteil
By Hedwig Maria Stuber
- 2000
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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The Baby-led Weaning Cookbook: Over 130 delicious recipes for the whole family to enjoy
By Gill Rapley, Tracey Murkett
Vermilion - 2010
Luckily, I only added one out of the two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar - I'm glad I didn't add more, as even one tbsp seemed more than enough. The same applies to the onion - I only added half a shallot instead of a whole onion, and it probably could have used less. In fact, after adding the vinegar and the shallots, I could hardly taste the beans and the carrots at all. It didn't help of course that normally I would have added a little salt. So definitely cut back the onion/shallot and the vinegar.
I also only realized afterwards that it would have been a really good idea to add lemon juice instead of vinegar - lemon juice is of course a good source of vitamin C, which you'll need to absorb iron from non-haem iron sources like legumes.
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Pie
By Angela Boggiano
Cassell Illustrated - 2006
We thought we'd start with a very classic pie - Beef and Ale Pie. Though I'm not a big fan of Ale (tastes like watery beer, and then I'm not even a fan of beer), the filling was really delicious! The meat was very tender and the flavour was just great! The carrots were too soft for my liking; next time I would fry them so that the sauce can take on some flavour of the carrots, and then take them out and add them shortly before the whole thing goes into the oven.
I also didn't feel that the pastry topping was really necessary, but then it wouldn't really be a pie, would it? It was slightly dry, and I'm wondering whether that had anything to do with the coating of egg (I normally use milk).
All in all, I'd definitely make it again, though I'd change the way I cook the carrots and the top layer of the dough.
Edited 7 August 2015:
Made one of these for the freezer, but unfortunately the pastry didn't survive its excursion to the North Pole. Therefore I decided to serve the filling with potato dumplings (store bought) and Red Cabbage with Appels and Red Wine instead, and actually this worked really, really well - so well that I'm actually considering to stick with the potato dumplings and red cabbage in the future!
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Website: BBC Good Food
I made this a couple of weeks ago and never really had the time to review it properly, so my memory is a little hazy. I think I omitted the stock cube, as tomato purée and Worcestershire sauce already contains more than enough salt, and added a few more carrots and celery sticks - though next time I'd only add more carrots, not also celery sticks (other additional root vegetables might work well, though). The result was fine, although you should remember to stir it once a while to make sure everything is evenly covered.
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Website: BBC Good Food
Just saw that I've never reviewed this recipe! Nice dish, though we've never made the celeriac mash, just the braised beef.
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marie claire - Snacks & Drinks.
By Michele Cranston
Komet Verlag GmbH - 2004
Nice, but: The canapé was larger than bite-size, and the roast beef was difficult to bite off, so that we all just had a huge mouthful of roast beef and then a piece of baguette to follow - try to score or cut the beef into smaller pieces to prevent this from happening (you could also just cut the baguette and roast beef into smaller pieces and then serve those). Also, I missed a little crunch - next time I would toast the sliced baguette in the oven with a bit of (herb or garlic) butter. DB didn't like the tomatoes on top. I didn't mind them, but I agree that they could have been more exiting. All in all, though, it was still quite a nice dish, definitely one of the better parts of the buffet.
Served as part of a buffet for eight, together with Smoked Trout and Cucumber Canapés, Nectarines with Ricotta and Parma Ham, Aubergines with Sweet Harissa, Papaya Salad and Roquefort in Belgian Endive Leaves.
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Essen & Trinken
(, 2011)
Quite a lot of work, and while I think you can make something nice, the recipe instructions were pretty wrong. In fact, we nearly hadn't made these as we couldn't imagine that tender meat such as a steak should be braised for 2 hours - that just wouldn't work. In the end, and after much consultation with various female family members, we decided to reduced that time to one hour, and yet that still too much. We will very likely try this again and cook it no longer than half an hour, possibly even less.
Tastewise, it was very nice! As I mentioned before, it was quite a lot of work, though, and I think it might be worth to cut a few steps and ingredients, while retaining a lot of the flavour.
We served it with Potato Dumplings and Red Cabbage with Apples and Red Wine, a very classic combination.
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Chinese Cuisine: Szechwan Style
By Lee Hwa Lin
Wei-Chuan Publishing Co Ltd ,U.S. - 1993
I really enjoyed this dish, while DB thought it lacked flavour - probably only in comparison to other Chinese dishes. To be true, you wouldn't expect it to contain 2 red chilli peppers, though that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Served two with a bowl of rice each.
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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 and very quick! Recommended!
Be careful not to cook the meat for too long. You might want to add more cream to get more sauce. Today (10 Sept 2011) we used oyster mushrooms which I felt were not strong enough for the overall taste.
Serve for example with potatoes and Glazed Sautéed Carrots for a quick and satisfying dinner.
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They were very delicious, BUT... it took ages until the puff pastry was done and golden brown - so long that the steaks had already begun to dry out. Actually, it only once we set the temperature to 200°C that anything seemed to happen. Next time I would start at 200°C right away. It probably also helps it the steaks are perfectly round and even shaped. For my taste, it was much too much meat, but then 150g per person isn't shockingly much. I could have seen this without the steak, or perhaps with a filling of minced meat - though then again, it wouldn't have been Beef Wellingtons.
Minor points: When making the pancakes, remember to do a test first - ours ended up being slight too small, we could have better used the larger pan. And we used butter, which worked better than without.
All in all, well worth all the extra effort, but keep an eye on the temperature.
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