friederike's Reviews
1109 recipes reviewed. Showing 851 to 900Sort by: Book Title 
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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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Meh. The mash was watery, and not at all creamy. We added some crème fraîche, which helped a bit but not enough. Next time I would do a combined celeriac and potato mash as in this recipe.
Also you're supposed to add a whole teaspoon freshly grated horseradish. We didn't have any fresh horseradish so I used horseradish cream from a glass - 1/4 teaspoon was absolutely enough, I'm glad I didn't naively add the whole teaspoon!
Served with grilled salmon and creamed leeks - a great way to get rid of leftover vegetables from making soup!
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Cook Like a Master Chef - Tips for Kitchen Novice
By Liu, Alvin
Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education - 2010
It was delicious, but not as perfect as I've tasted it a few times (yes, really!); additionally, I've had a few issues with the instructions.
My major problem was that three ingredients are listed for the marinade: salt, chicken broth powder and potato starch. Aside from the fact that in my opinion this doesn't constitute a marinade, the instructions read something like: mix pork with marinade, set aside for 15 minutes, then add egg yolk and coat lightly in potato starch. So, err, the potato starch wasn't part of the marinade after all? I'm still not yet really sure. I added (corn)starch to the marinade and later on coated it in yet more cornstarch and thought it could have a nicer crust, so maybe any cornstarch added is a good thing.
Then minor points - why make the (very simple) sauce first, and only then marinate the pork? Didn't that same book say somewhere you shouldn't add salt to meat before frying? It says 'Thicken with potato starch solution' at the very end of the recipe, but makes no mention of that in the list of ingredients (as the you'll need the potato starch listed there to coat the meat) - so how much potato starch solution will you need? etc.
In the end, however, it was very delicious, far better than anything you'll get in a restaurant outside of China, and the meat's crispness is definitely something we'll work on.
Fun fact: The first two characters mean pineapple, the last three combined translate as 'sweet and sour meat', though individually they mean things as 'verbose' and 'to mutter'. According to the dictionary there are 5 different ways of saying 'sweet and sour pork', though only 2 of them contain the words 'sweet' and 'sour' (or 'sugar' and 'vinegar', which I think is close enough).
Edited 17 October 2014:
This is a quirky little cookbook that is divided into many very short chapters, each devoted to one specific question and accompanied by an appropiate recipe. What makes it funny are the sometimes overly dramatic questions used as chapter titles. This specific one is titled: Sweet and Sour Sauce: The Life-Changing Factor for Deep-Fried Food?
As of last night, I am sorry to report that the sweet and sour sauce was actually the death of our food, although I'll have to put some of the blame on my own shoulders. As so often, I only prepared half a portion, but made the full amount of sauce because I intended to use half of it yesterday, and the other half tonight. That of course I had forgotten when I poured the sauce into the wok. Bummer.
But I also wasn't sure how much potato starch solution I needed to add (see criticsm above), so I added way too much. Last, I can only assume that I last time didn't 'marinate' the pork in the chicken bouillion powder - I added some this time, plus the salt, and it was way too salty.
I'll make it again tonight, and possibly also use less ketchup (DH can't stand it, though it's in most recipes I've seen), and we'll see how it goes then.
Edited later that day:
Much better. I omitted the chicken bouillion powder, made half the amount of sauce, with only 1 tbsp and a squirt of ketchup (instead of 2 tbsp), and added just a tiny amount of cornstarch solution. Actually, I thought it wasn't quite enough sauce this time, and I don't think that any cornstarch solution is necessary at all - maybe that's the reason why it isn't mentioned in the list of ingredients? Also, I cooked the pork for too long, it was golden brown but quite dry - next time I'll have to use more heat, definitely not just medium heat.
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A dish with potential, but boy it was salty!
We'll probably try again on Monday (if the clams survive the weekend), not use the stock cube and the salt, and replace the dark soy sauce with light soy sauce. We might also use more black beans as they didn't really come through; though that might be very different once less salt is added. We didn't use 10g of red chillis (which would probably be something like half a chilli - not nearly enough!) but two chillis.
Edited 9 January 2012:
We prepared the dish again with the amendments described above - still quite on the salty side, but at least edible. We had hardly any sauce, as DB didn't use the measuring spoons but normals spoon, not realizing that they are a lot smaller.
It might not have been as bad as there had been some sauce, but I wasn't very happy with the black beans in particular - you could only taste them when you actually ate one, and that then again wasn't necessarily pleasant. I remember this dish with a very dark, thick sauce, without any noticeable beans in it at all! I wonder if it had been better if we had soaked the black beans first. If all goes as planned, we'll test this version of the dish in a few weeks to see if it is any different.
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To my great surprise, the bok choi I was preparing worked out very well. To DH's great surprise, the Clear-steamed Sea Bass he prepared was even better.
One of the things I found slightly difficult was the vagueness in parts of the recipe. E.g. I didn't know at what temperature I had to cook the bok choi. I opted for high, until I noticed the garlic turning golden, at which point I turned the heat down again. To my surprise, the bok choi had just the right texture, cooked yet crisp.
The result was a fairly easy, very classic and tasty side dish.
The small print: I didn't have ginger juice, so I substituted with 1 1/2 tablespoons grated ginger and 1 tablespoon water - 1 tablespoon ginger and water each would have done the job well. I only used 1 instead of 2 tablespoons garlic as I thought that would be too much, but actually, 2 probably would have worked fine. I used 1/2 teaspoon salt and sugar each instead of the 2/3 teaspoons recommended, and it definitely could have been less.
Fun fact: the title translates as 'Crushed Garlic Stir-fry with Baby Bok Choi', or literally 'Bok Choi Sprouts'; there was one character in the middle I couldn't really put into context, meaning 'granule / hoarse / raspy / sand / powder'. Any ideas?
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Complete Vegetarian
By Nicola Graimes
Lorenz Books - 2006
Love this dish with its interesting flavours.
Ignore the poached egg and add rocket or watercress to make a lunch box salad.
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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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I substituted the yellow mustard seeds with coriander seeds, and used only two tomatoes instead of five, and less juice than instructed (half a lime instead of two).
It was very delicious, although it wasn't quite what was described. It had a tendency to burn, and I had to stir it every 10-15 minutes to prevent it from going wrong, and I had to add extra liquid. It didn't really need 2 1/2 hrs. for cooking, so we ate it after 1 1/2 hours (read the cooking instructions on the lentil packaging), and although we served it with a warm naan bread p.p., it was rather a light meal instead of the 'filling supper' that was promised.
Nevertheless, it was very delicious, and I'll surely make it again, either as a light vegetarian meal, or as side dish for Indian food. The coriander seeds were a good substitute, although I would crush them first before adding.
Crosspost. Exactly the same recipe also appears in The Slow Cooker Cookbook, only that the title differs slightly, it's Coconut, Tomato and Lentil Dhal with Roasted Almonds.
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A very simple soup, but surprisingly nice! The soup was a little sweet (which is what you get naturally when you pair fresh peas with cream), which I liked a lot because of the contrast with the salted, crunchy croutons. DB had to add more salt.
Serving the soup with a few leaves of fresh mint not only makes for decoration but also adds a wonderful fresh accent. Serves two as a very light meal.
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This soup had just the right level of spicyness. DB enjoyed it a lot and would haven given 4 stars, but there was something about the taste (other than the spicyness) that I didn't like, that somehow tasted too undefinable and mushy. Hard to explain. And it's not a feast for the eyes either, which is why there is no photo today.
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Quite nice, actually. DB thought it was too sour and missed the sweetness that is typical for red peppers, would have liked to taste the garlic a bit more, and thought it lacked the rich creaminess the Pumpkin Risotto with Sage and Parmesan possessed. I'm a bit wary of the risotto being much sweeter, as there is little that could counteract it (like the parmesan does in the above mentioned recipe), but I guess using real tomatoes instead of canned ones would take away some of the sourness. And other than that, as I said, I thought it was quite nice for a normal weekday dinner.
We didn't use 1 1/2 cans of tomatoes (what a silly idea!) but only one, which worked perfectly, and 400g risotto rice instead of 450g (again, 400g was one package, why use more than that?), with 1,5 l stock. We didn't grill the peppers and didn't have any problems with the skin, though I could imagine that grilling them adds a desirable smokey flavour. I was considering adding a little sweet pepper (powder), or alternatively some herbs (thyme, maybe?).
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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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Summary: A recipe with potential, but it definitely needs tweaking (it's too sweet!), and the badly written/edited recipe instructions nearly drove me mad.
Let's start with the recipe instructions. I had the idea that they were hastily written as there were several writing/editing mistakes; that combined with how the final dish would have tasted makes me wonder if it had been tested at all.
First, the shallots: I wasn't sure what to do with them. Use them whole, cut them into halves or rings? No instructions at all. In the end, I used some whole, some where cut in half, both turned out fine. I also had to use a lot more than the 350 g indicated; my ramekins were larger (11 cm instead of 7,5 cm), and my estimate is that I needed about 8 shallots resp. a bit more than 100 g per ramekin, if used whole.
Then, the "ovenproof pan": Why am I supposed to melt the sugar in a "clean nonstick ovenproof pan", if said pan will never actually meet the oven? Or was I supposed to melt the sugar in the oven, instead of on the stove top, before pouring it into the individual ramekins? That wouldn't make sense.
It seems obvious that the recipe was originally written to make a single large tarte tatin instead of using individual ramekins. Given that this is a fairly common recipe, I wouldn't even be surprised if it was copied from somewhere else, with the use of individual ramekins added as personal spin; it's a pity that the text wasn't altered accordingly.
And just in case that wasn't clear: my pans are always clean (before use), no need to specifically require a clean pan!
And another thing I found ludicrous: while the tarte tatins are baking in the oven, you're supposed to preheat the grill for the goat's cheese. Obviously a professional who forgot that that won't be possible in an amateur kitchen. Bad writing/editing again.
The main problem, however, were the proportions of the ingredients, or rather the amounts of sweet ingredients. You see, shallots are the sweet little sibling of onions. Roasting them slowly makes them even sweeter. Adding lots of sugar (2 tablespoons per person!) will make them even sweeter. And then serving that with a salad that has been dressed with nothing else but 8 tablespoons of honey and a hint of truffle oil - all the rocket leaves and goat's cheese in the whole world won't be able to save that.
I followed the recipe faithfully until the moment I had poured the caramel into the ramekins. Once I saw how much that would be per portion, I began doubting the recipe, but it was too late, as the caramel had immediately begun to set. I added the shallots and a good measure of salt and pepper (and thyme!), covered with puff pastry and sent them off to the oven, and then decided I would do something else for the salad. I ended up with a dressing made of 3 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp white wine vinegar (in retrospect, lemon juice might have been better but white wine vinegar worked as well) and some truffle oil. The truffle oil is by no means essential.
I also decided not to grill the goat's cheese as you would need to do that on top of the finished tarte tatins after they have been turned upside down, after which you would need to transfer them again to a serving dish - too much of a hassle for me, and this worked just as well.
In the end, the tarte tatins looked pretty and tasted nice, provided that you eat them together with a bit of goat's cheese and a few rocket leaves in the same mouthful. If not, it was definitely too sweet. I do believe this dish has some potential, hence the 4 star rating, but it does need tweaking.
For example, instead of making the caramel I might consider making a syrup of (a little!) sugar and balsamic vinegar, in which I would coat the shallots. Alternatively, you could just make less caramel (about half or even less), and add the few drops of balsamic vinegar before covering with puff pastry. Or, if you want to keep the honey in there somewhere, use honey instead of caramel. Use a fairly normal dressing for the rocket salad; if you're not using truffle oil, I would even suggest making a sharp marinade, e.g. with a spoonful of mustard. And: in the oven, make sure that you have an extra baking tray below the tarte tatins to catch any overflowing caramel.
A few years ago we made this very similar tarte tatin. I only remember it very vaguely, but apparently it faced more or less the same problems as this one, though this new recipe is saved by the addition of the rocket salad and goat's cheese; also, individual ramekins work better (crisper pastry!) than a single large tart.
Prepared on 22 July 2013 in honour of Pi Approximation Day (22/7).
Edited a few weeks later:
Downgraded on second thought. There was just too much wrong with this recipe to justify a 4 star rating.
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Coffee & Espresso
By Eva Abenstein, Edelgard Prinz-Korte, Kathrin Ullerich
Zabert Sandmann - 2005
It was nice, but it could have been a lot better. For some reason, it promised a lot, but in the end there just wasn't happening anything. Where was the oomph this cake so desperately needs?
I have several ideas about things I might change. Such as:
1. Ignore the gianduja, and add chunks of chocolate instead.
Actually, we hadn't even used gianduja in this cake. The recipe requires 'nougat', and I realized too late that German might be the only language in which that term refers to gianduja instead of turron (German actually distinguishes between 'dark' nougat, gianduja, and 'white' nougat, turron. If nothing is specified, expect it to mean gianduja). So instead, we used 2 tablespoons of Nutella and a teaspoon of cocoa to make up. I had the idea that it made the batter blander, in the sense that the spices weren't as present anymore. If you use chocolate chunks instead, you will have the best of both worlds - lovely spices and bits of chocolate melting in your mouth. Also, coating it with chocolate might be an option, too.
2. The batter was already pretty dry after I had mixed in the ground hazelnuts and spices. Adding 125g of flour didn't really make sense, and made it difficult to fold in the whipped egg whites without losing all the air again. I might be proved wrong in this instance, but I think it might be worth trying it.
We also omitted the anise. I had planned to substitute it with cardamom, but forgot. I might try that too, next time.
Edited the next day:
It seems to get better in time. Maybe you just need to prepare it a few days in advance.
Edited 13 September 2014:
Made this cake again, this time with the double amounts of spices (but again without anise), half the amount (75 g) of gianduja, 1 1/2 tbsp Nutella to make up for the rest, and 25 g chopped chocolate. I also coated it with chocolate.
I also added the flour, even though I considered not doing so when I wrote the original review; instead, I'm now wondering if it's actually worth it to beat the egg whites before they're added; because the batter is so compact, it seems so difficult to incorporate them that you can hardly still call that 'folding in'.
Tasting the batter, I thought I definitely wouldn't add any more spices than this, possibly slightly less (3/4 tsp each?), but once it was baked, the spices mellowed down a bit, and it was very nice, spicy and chocolatey at the same time. It actually made me think of Lebkuchen (photo), especially the end slices that were completely covered in chocolate. As the cake ended up being quite crumbly, it made me think whether or not I should actually use this recipe to make Lebkuchen instead.
Edited 21 September 2017:
Made this again with the modifications mentioned above (with exception of the addition of Nutella and pieces of chocolate, didn't read that far). Use a large baking tin.
Used this recipe for the chocolate glaze, or rather: you'll need about ~250 g chocolate glaze, I used 1 paket of 125 g store-bought chocolate glaze + 150 g homemade chocolate glaze.
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Website: Citron et Vanille
I'm not really sure whether I can actually review this recipe - I left out the mangos, and I used larger tapioca instead of small ones, which apparently makes a huge difference. The problem was that the tapioca pearls just wouldn't become transparent and cooked - and I'm not even mentioning the problem of how you should check if it's become cooked - read: transparent - if it's constantly covered by a thick coat of coconut milk. Our tapioca in any case didn't get cooked, no matter how long we let it bubble on the stove, and no matter how much extra milk and coconut milk we added to make up for the liquid that evaporated in the mean time. In the end we had some very dense coconut creme with half-raw tapioca pearls in it which made us feel sick.
If I try this again (and very likely I will, tapioca and mango and coconut is just a combination I can't take my hands off), I'll probably cook the tapioca seperately in water to be able to control the process, and possibly use small tapioca as well. Don't use the whole amount of sugar, coconut milk is pretty sweet on its own, and so is mango, if you're not very unlucky.
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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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Chinese Cuisine: Szechwan Style
By Lee Hwa Lin
Wei-Chuan Publishing Co Ltd ,U.S. - 1993
This recipe is very similar to Dry-fried Four Seasonal Beans in Yan-Kit's Classic Chinese Cook Book, and there's little wonder why - it's the same dish! I only realised this though when I tried to translate/find the transcription for the Chinese title, literally it says Dry Flat Four Seasonal Beans.
There are small differences though; Yan-Kit's version definitely involves more ingredients and more steps, and yet I had the idea that this version was more aromatic. This version does contain minced pork, but I didn't have the idea that added a lot. Be careful not to deep-fry the beans for too long, they get soft very quickly!
Both recipes require a kind of pickled vegetable. Yan-Kit describes it as 'Szechwan preserved vegetable', this book describes it as 'pickled heading mustard'. What ...? Again, I looked at the chinese characters and found out they probably meant hot pickled mustard tuber (or 榨菜 zhàcài, if you wish; image-google the English name to get pics of the packaging, and the Chinese characters to get images of how a mustard tuber apparently looks). In the end I just bought a random can of Chinese pickles. I look out for this next time I'm in Chinatown!
We served this dish together with Black Pepper Beef, a good match.
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Absolutely excellent, hot and salty and then that beautiful looking squid - really good! Remember that Chinese dishes are always supposed to be served as one of many, it's not really a serving for four on its own.
Regarding the Chinese characters: Sha Cha translates as Satay Sauce, though it's not what you would find as Satay Sauce (which would most probably be Indonesian or Malay); instead, it's most commonly sold as (Chinese) Barbecue Sauce. Hua Zhi means flowering branch, hua meaning flowers, blossom, zhi meaning branch, limb, to branch off. In combination, they can also mean both beautiful woman and octopus. I can get both associations, though on my own I would never have found that connection between beautiful woman and octopus.
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Really, really delicious. The two red peppers were somewhat hotter than I expected; next time I would probably use 1 or 1 1/2. The dish was relatively simple, with slightly less cutting work to do and fewer steps. We stir-fried the meat instead of deep-frying it, which worked perfectly well. The meat was especially delicious, very tender, though I couldn't figure out whether that was due to the marinade or the quality of the meat or anything else.
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Not so good. They were very salty, although that appears to be due to the hot bean paste, nothing we can influence - we didn't add any salt, at least. And the flavours in general are too strong, the coating too thick. I guess it would improve if you used less sauce in general, and especially less hot bean paste and ketchup.
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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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Quite nice, but not as exciting as the recipes we're used to. We made some changes, such as substituting sha cha sauce for hot bean paste, and omitting the minced pork, which might have influenced the taste in a negative way. Culpa nostra. We also decided midway not to deep-fry the aubergines but to fry the next batch in just a little oil - it was a vast difference in how much oil they took, but in the end, you didn't taste it at all.
Fun fact: The literal translation of this dish is 'fish-flavoured eggplant'. I can assure you that no fish has been used in this dish.
We served this with Braised Spare Ribs with Black Beans .
Edited the next day to add:
We prepared this dish again, and this time we used hot bean paste (sold by Lee Kum Kee as 'Chilli Bean Sauce') and minced pork, and it was such a difference! Much better! Upgraded to 4 stars as a result.
Edited 2 November 2013:
Server with Stir-Fried Squid with Garlic and Chilli, a very good combination!
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Slightly boring. I didn't taste any chicken at all. We only had half the bok choi needed, which isn't a problem as we we're planning to have the other half tomorrow anyway. Actually, this turned out to be in our favour, as I didn't see how I should have been able to boil the bok choi in just 3 cups of liquid. I skipped parboiling them and just boiled them in chicken broth for 3 minutes - DH thought this could even be a little shorter, while I thought I'd rather cook them a minute or so longer. We used goose fat instead of chicken fat, though I wouldn't expect this to be an issue.
We served this with Stir-fried Fillet of Beef with Mango , which was equally unimpressing.
Fun fact: I think this should have properly been translated as Chicken-flavoured Choy Sum instead of Bok Choi. I was surprised that none of the characters matched those of bok choi except for one: 菜, cài, meaning vegetables, dish, order, food. The first two were easy to find - 雞, jī, meaning chicken, and 油, yóu, meaning fat. The last character, 心, xīn, was easy because it's well known - it's the character for heart. It was only when I searched for the combination of cài and xīn that I found out that together, they mean choy sum.
As you may have noticed, the Chinese pronounciation of bok choi (白菜, báicài) and choy sum is fairly removed from what we call it in English. That is because the pronounciation I give here is Mandarin, while the names we know derives from the Cantonese pronounciation, baak coi and coi sam respectively.
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We made this dish last week, and to my surprise it was the first dish from this series of books that really was a disappointment.
The rice cakes were difficult to make. They didn't actually puff until the oil was quite hot, which I assume was at a higher temperature than 160°C. Once they did puff, it didn't take long until they were burnt. Those that turned out well were delicious, as long as you only ate a few, and tasted a little like popcorn.
The sauce was a disaster, just a tasteless mass thickened with lots of cornstarch. We didn't like it at all.
Also published in Rice: Traditional Chinese Cooking. There is a very similar dish in Rice: Chinese Home Cooking, with less cornstarch, no ketchup, but more ingredients overall, amongst which sea cucumber (hehe...). I'm not sure yet if we'll give it a try.
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The deep-fried fish was absolutely brilliant! I also liked the sauce; DH just isn't that much of a fan of sweet and sour and liked it somewhat less - but that's probably unrelated to this specific recipe.
I followed the recipe fairly precisely, with only two exceptions - I used only four instead of five tablespoons of ketchup, and I'm 100% sure that '1/2 C shredded ginger' must be a typo - that would be way too much! I assumed they meant '1/2 T shredded ginger', as in half a tablespoon, and that's what I used.
Also, though the fishmonger recommended one dorade per person, we decided that one would be enough for the two of us, and so it was. We deep-fried the other dorade the next day and had it with oven-baked fries, a fresh herb mayonnaise and oregano-baked courgette, but for some reason that wasn't nearly as nice as the sweet and sour fish (even DH ceded that).
Note that the Chinese name for Sweet and Sour Fish is actually completely different from the name for Sweet and Sour Pork (i.e. one is 咕咾蜜肉, gūlǎomìròu). Sweet and Sour Fish translates into the characters for sugar, vinegar, and fish, which seems logical enough; the one for pork I just mentioned translates into the characters for to mutter, a sound, and meat.
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Chinese Cuisine: Cantonese Style
By Wei-Chuan Publishing, Lee-Hwa Lin
Wei-Chuan Publishing - 1998
Very delicious, very healthy, and ready in 5 minutes! Just remember to dip the vegetables in hot water, don’t let them cook, really…
Edited 22 September 2012:
Hmm, I could have sworn I already added some comment yesterday. In any case: We made the gai lan again yesterday and today. While it's definitely not as salty as this version, it was still slightly too salty. Today, I used water instead of stock and didn't add salt - I think next time I would still further reduce the salt content by using only 1-1 1/2 tbsp oyster sauce.
I wasn't sure how long I needed to parboil the gai lan - yesterday I did one minute, today I did a little more than three (starting the moment I placed them in the water), and it still could have cooked a little longer. I'd say 4-5 minutes, depending on how thick the stalks are.
Served with Braised Fish Hunan-Szechwan Style, absolutely a keeper!
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Really delicious! We unfortunately forgot to add the sauce to the fish-cuttlefish mixture, which made baking a ‘pancake’ somewhat more difficult, but we succeeded, and the result was perfect! As the dish is cooked rapidly, it has little time to actually get warm, so keep an eye on that and don’t prepare the fish in advance as you’ll need the heat it looses.
Don’t be mislead by the portion sizes – I believe that they take into account that several dishes would be served to a party of six. We served this dish together with Black Pepper Beef, Chinese Broccoli with Oyster Sauce and plain rice to three, and I doubt we could have fed six with this dish alone.
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Very delicious, although you should keep an eye on the chilli peppers. We added little more than a tablespoon of red chillies, and no green chillies at all, and it was hot! But still delicious.
Don’t be mislead by the portion sizes – I believe that they take into account that several dishes would be served to a party of four. We served this dish together with Good Luck Fish Cake, Chinese Broccoli with Oyster Sauce and plain rice to three, and I doubt we could have fed four with this dish alone.
Edited 6 April 2011:
Upgraded to 5 stars - we returned to this recipe again and again because it's so good! Much depends on your stir-frying techniques - do not overcook the meat!
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Really nice. The flavours could have been bolder; next time I'd especially add a little more bean paste and more chili, and possibly more pickles, but then the real ones. We used only a red chili instead of a red and a green one; and a Dutch pickled gherkin instead of the Chinese mustard pickles (heresy!) - next time we will use the Chinese ginger pickles that are being sold around here.
We served it together with the Good Luck Fish Cake, and while I enjoyed both individually, I thought the aubergine/eggplant was too strong for the fish.
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It tasted boring and didn't contain a lot of flavour, and yet you're saddled with really bad breath afterwards... not worth the trouble.
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Dried out and not very strong in flavour. The recipes says you need to cook the shrimp for 5 minutes, which is too long and will result in overcooked shrimp. However, they didn't take up the flavour of the sauce in that time, so that doesn't seem to be long enough. Perhaps you need to marinate them in soy sauce first, then pat dry discard the marinade; stir-fry the shrimp on high heat for just 1-2 minutes until they're done and add a new sauce at the very last moment.
The title of the dish translates as 'shrimp roasted in the middle of soy sauce' (actually soy sauce - roast - in the middle - shrimp).
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Website: Chilli und Ciabatta
peho.typepad.com/chili_und_ciabatta
Speechless. This is a very classic German Christmas cookie (maybe even THE German Christmas cookie), they're notoriously difficult to get right, and these turned out just perfect. I would make them thinner than 1 cm, more like 0.5 cm, as they will rise when in the oven. Remember to add lots of icing.
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Website: Chefkoch.de
Brilliant recipe! At first I was worried, as the dough was quite greasy, but that changed quickly when I started to knead the dough properly. I managed to make 8 small easter breads; the dough was easy to handle, and rolled out nicely (one of the 8 easter breads I turned into a braid, with 3 braids of 50 cm each!).
I coloured the easter egg using all natural dies - turmeric for the yellow ones, and elderberry juice for the purple ones, with a splash of vinegar added to make the colour stick. Unfortunately, I also baked the eggs with the bread - looking back, that might not have been the wisest thing to do.
Edited 30 April 2017:
I recently started making this for our Sunday morning breakfast, though usually just half a recipe. So far, I made a four strand braid (in a circle as it was too long for the oven), and a six strand braid with a small one strand braid on the side. It's nicest with a little extra sugar (20 g extra for half a recipe), and the whole amount of salt given in the recipe (I mention this because I usually use less).
Edited 14 May 2017:
Also possible to make it with this nut filling - but to be honest, it's much better without.
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Website: Chefkoch.de
Very nice, though not quite as nice as the Brioche we made these past two weekends - or maybe we're just getting spoiled already?
The dough was really sticky, and judging by the weight of the dough when I started braiding, I probably added snother 200 g or so of flour during kneading. With one full recipe, I made a three braid loaf with raisins and four single-braid loaves without raisins. I used 75 g pre-soaked raisins (for half a recipe, I divided the dough by weight), and it definitely could have had more; I think maybe 110 g of raisins. My husband even suggests 150 g raisins, and I'm pretty sure my toddler agrees with him, even though - or maybe because - then you'd have raisins with bread instead of bread with raisins.
Unfortunately, though, we used too high temperatures for baking. My dear husband let me sleep in (bless him!), and because I hadn't printed the recipe for him and he has ample experience with sour dough bread and very little with challahs and the like, he coated the bread with egg instead of milk and preheated the oven to 250 C.
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Website: Chefkoch.de
The filling (intended to go with half a recipe of this recipe) tasted nice, but it didn't work with the yeast bread - it made the yeast bread dry. Also, it transformed it from a bread I'd eat for breakfast/brunch to something I'd eat with a cup of coffee sometime inbetween; but for such occasions, I think I'd much rather go for a Franzbrötchen, such as this one or this one (might make one of those next week).
Very reminiscent of this Cinnamon and Date Scone Bread. Funny, that bread, too, turned out a little dry, I wonder if it's the filling that dries it out.
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Website: Channel 4 Food
www.channel4.com/4food/recipes
DH tried to use this recipe (he actually used the video blog on Youtube) for the potato mash in Zander with Potato and Glasswort Mash. Unfortunately he managed to turn it into "DH's Perfectly Ruined Potato Mash" (the taste was nice, but the texture was very, very gluey), and we're still not entirely sure why.
He did two things differently: He didn't manage to keep the water at 72°C - it actually even came to a boil (whoops). And he started cooking too early, and therefore had to let the potatoes cool down after they were cooked the second time, and then reheated them with the butter; we suspect it was the latter that created the problem. Now if only Heston Blumenthal could also tell us why that happened...
Oh, and DH also omitted the lime jelly, not that that would have made any change in the texture of the mash.
Edited the next day:
We tried it again, managed to keep the temperature at roughly 72°C and didn't let the mash cool completely - and yet the mash turned gluey again. Not good. Next time we'll just do a plain old traditional mash again.
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Website: Channel 4 Food
www.channel4.com/4food/recipes
DH is fascinated by Heston Blumenthal's videos on Youtube and therefore decided to boil my egg for Sunday's breakfast Heston-style. When I opened the egg, it was hard boiled.
I think several things can go wrong. One of the reasons why I usually put my egg in boiling/simmering water instead of starting in cold water is that if you start with cold water, you will also have to factor how good your stove is, ie. how quickly you are able to raise the temperature from, say, 10°C to 100°C. I'm sure the old electrical stove in my student flat was way slower than Mr Blumenthal's professional one, which means that my eggs would stay longer in hot water than his. Also, judging from the comments on Youtube, several users weren't sure when exactly they had to remove the pan - when the water started to simmer? Once it had reached a full rolling boil?
He does have a point, though, in that boiling water may produce a rubbery egg white. My theory is that you can produce safer results if you place your egg in very softly simmering water - and keep it there for the time needed (4 minutes in my case). Unfortunately, though, we ran out of eggs to prove it. I might try next weekend.
Eggs-periment, take 2:
We made Broad Beans with Raw Ham, Soft Boiled Eggs and Sauce Bearnaise - partly because it's empty-the freezer-week and we needed to get rid of a few broad beans, but partly also because it gave me a chance to test my theories.
DH likes hard boiled eggs, so for him I made what he had done before: put the cold eggs in cold water, bring to a boil, then set aside for 6 minutes. I must admit that this way of cooking them had one great advantage: peeling them was as easy as pie.
I like my eggs runny, so I did two things: I placed one egg straight from the fridge in not even properly simmering water for 5 minutes and a bit - perfectly runny egg yolk, but the egg white could have been softer. The other egg I cooked according to Blumenthal's instructions, though setting the egg aside as soon as the water started to simmer, and then waiting only 5 minutes. That egg was definitely undercooked. To be continued...
Eggs-periment, take 3:
I cooked my eggs Heston-style, and let them rest for 6 resp. 7 minutes. Both were definitely overcooked. However, I also noticed that even 'simmering' is a really broad definition. Look at this image. I took my smallest pan (with a fitting cover) and heated the water on the gas stove as fast as possible. And yet I watched the water stay in the 'quiver'-phase (60-75°C/140-170°F) for at least four minutes, until I finally gave in and turned off the heat. The water hadn't even reached what the guys at Serious Eats call the 'sub-simmer'-phase (75-90°C/170-195°F) - keep in mind that Heston Blumenthal talks about 'bring to a boil', which equates to 100°C/212°F. And yet the eggs were overcooked. So if his theory that 'the residual heat does all the work' is true, then apparently the egg and the water take much longer in my kitchen to heat up, and to cool off afterwards than in his kitchen. Given that there are still quite a few other variables we haven't even discussed yet (such as the size of pan/amount of water and the temperature in my kitchen), how can I ever find out the perfect timing for my soft-boiled egg?
Oh, and also: I cooked two hard-boiled eggs for DH in the same pan, I just let them sit a few minutes longer. This time they weren't easy to peel at all, so that must have a different reason than I thought it would.
While writing this review I found an article on Serious Eats how to cook the perfect boiled egg - I'll try that next, hopefully tonight.
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Casa Moro: The Second Cookbook
By Sam Clark and Sam Clark, Samuel Clark
Ebury Press - 2004
Weird. We made the version with coarsely grated raw carrots, and the perfumery orange-blossom water just didn't go well with the naturally sweet carrots. DH thinks it tastes as if I had added a can of mouldy beer. I'll stick to a normal carrot salad, or the aromatic Carrot Salad with Cumin in the future.
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Quite nice, and very simple. It did take a lot longer than expected, though, because frying the garlic and the chicken took longer than I thought it would, and the chicken needed to braise a little longer than indicated as well. We used 4 chicken legs instead of one whole chicken, which meant we didn't need to worry about the chicken breasts. We used sherry, and I served it with toasted almond flakes scattered on top of the dish, instead of pine nuts in the dish.
Although the flavours weren't really strong, DH especially enjoyed that they really permeated the chicken. It was a slightly sweet sauce, though it might not have been if I hadn't forgotten to add salt and pepper (and it was even quite good without them, if you don't mind the sweetness). As a whole bulb of garlic (yes, that much) went into this dish, I would have expected the garlic flavour to dominate, but it didn't, probably because they were well roasted,
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Brilliant! A very easy recipe that only needs a little prep (mainly peeling and cutting), then no work at all; in addition, it doesn't use any spices and is still very delicious, which makes it the ideal dish to make while traveling.
It didn't quite work out as expected though; as I'm only cooking for the two of us, I only made half the recipe, and I'm very glad I did. In order for the recipe to work and the potatoes to get crispy, it's important that they are spread out well, and the layer of vegetables isn't too thick; therefore you'll need at least one baking tray for every two servings, and not one for the whole recipe.
I've made it twice, once with a dorade per person (left whole, but head chopped of for making a fish stock), and once using cod steaks that were only added for the last 15 min - both were really nice.
Picture taken before baking.
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Quite bland, I'm afraid. It didn't help that this paella only contains prawns and chicken, which is quite meagre for a paella - I chose this recipe specifically because I'm pregnant and would rather not eat mussels, but why not add some fish? Either way, it needs way more spices as well. Also, we used peas instead of runner beans (though I don't think that really made a difference).
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Caribbean Cooking ("Australian Women's Weekly")
By Susan Tomnay
ACP Publishing Pty Ltd - 2006
Delicious, though the ingredients used didn't really have that much of an effect ont the chicken. Yet, it was very nice, and another way to serve chicken.
Our chicken was slightly smaller than required (roughly 1,2kg instead of 1,5kg) and yet we had to cook it for at least 1 hour and 25 min - next time I would recommend to start checking at 1 hour 15 min. Also, check if the chicken is really done before you flambée. There was too much stuffing, but as with most roast chicken recipes, you can add during the last half hour or so, and it doesn't do any harm to make extra stuffing.
We served it with Roasted Cauliflower with Raisins and Vinaigrette - while not ideal, it wasn't a bad match either (the cauliflower needed to be finished).
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Delicious and quick, but too undecided, too flavourless. It could definitely have used more punch - fresh coriander? Lime zest? Salt?
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It smelled wonderful when we put the pork chops in the pan, but unfortunately, very little of that smell translated into flavour. I tasted some garlic, but barely any herbs at all. I guess it might have been a god idea to let the pork chops marinate a while in the herb-mix, or alternatively you could serve some of the sauce (minus the garlic, in that case) along with the chops, but then uncooked.
Be careful with following the cooking time indicated; we must have had other pork chops than they, as ours were already dry after only half the cooking time.
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Very simple, very delicious. I used only one large mango for the two of us, and ended up using 2tsp each of brown sugar and dark rum, just right. Because the cheeks were very large, I cut each into two 2cm/1inch thick slices.
If you really want to have the cheeks well grilled, you should remember to cut the cheeks straight of the seed, and not follow it's contour; if you don't the cut side of the cheek will be round and won't grill well. It sounds like such a simple thing, but of course I didn't realize it until I was grilling them :)
I didn't have any passion fruit pulp (of course not, it wasn't in the list of ingredients and I never read a recipe when making my shopping list), but I could see this going very well with normal vanilla ice cream or with creamy coconut ice cream, and possibly a few roasted coconut slivers... mmmh... I could even imagine flambeing this, though that would mean that you can only add the dark rum at the very end.
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Buitenlandse gerechten voor fijnproevers
By J.W.F. Werumeus Buning
Zomer & Keuning Boeken B.V. - 1958
Not impressed. You fry almond slivers and raisins together until they are caramelized, you make a tomato sauce that is slightly sweet as well, and you bake the fish separately with only pepper and salt. The result is a bland, slightly salted fish with a mainly sweet and crunchy topping - it just doesn't work. DH thought it wasn't that bad, though.
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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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Brigitte - Unsere besten Menüs
By Burgunde Uhlig
Mosaik - 2002
Very cool idea! Additionally, these muffins feature considerably less whipped cream than the original, which is good (you can serve whipped cream on the side, if you want to). Only disadvantage: they have a slight taste of baking soda.
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Just like the Potato-Pear-Gratin from Die Echte Jeden-Tag-Küche: Very sophisticated and just the perfect side course for any festive autumnal meal. Love it!
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Very delicious, very easy, and fairly quick - really recommended. I preferred this version to the one in The Essential Christmas Cookbook, but may be that was only because I made this version first.
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