friederike's Reviews
1109 recipes reviewed. Showing 51 to 100Sort by: Book Title 
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Tender: v. 1: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch
By Nigel Slater
Fourth Estate Ltd - 2009
We actually only made the celeriac mash to accompany the Coq au Vin, with flat beans as another side dish. It was very delicious, and a good choice as a side dish for a veryrustic poultry dish!
Served with Scallops with Ginger Sauce as a starter and Apple Pie with an Almond Crust and David Lebovitz' Vanilla Ice Cream as a dessert - an excellent menu for a sophisticated dinner!
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Tender: Volume II, A cook's guide to the fruit garden
By Nigel Slater
Fourth Estate - 2010
Soo delicious! The flavour of the quinces was pretty strong, too strong for the pork actually, which is why this recipe doesn't get 5 stars. However, this might have been due to the variety used, which looked and smelled slightly different from those I (think I) remember.
Also, I made the gravy slightly thicker than instructed to get a nice not-too-runny gravy. This of course meant that there was less gravy; next time I would make more gravy, and perhaps use more Marsala as I hardly tasted it.
The pork was wonderful, juicy and soft, just the crust could have been crunchier. 3 kg meat for 6 persons is too much, even including bones. We had 1,3 kg for 4 persons, and that was more than enough.
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Such a typical Slater-title, isn't it? This is a fairly simple, straight-forward crumble recipe. I liked that the amount of crumble was sufficient - often there is too little crumble for too much fruit. I would have wished that the apples had been just a bit sweeter and more caramelised, they were just a bit too sour for my taste.
We added blackberries, but they were hardly noticeable, unfortunately. We served the apple crumble with the cardamom cream from Roast Figs and Plums in Vodka with Cardamom Cream, a perfect match!
9 April 2013:
Apparently we used a larger dish this time, as there was too little crumble. Also, it turned out a bit dry.
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The panna cotta was nice, but not 'panna' (creamy) enough - I think that what I most disliked was the addition of Greek yoghurt - the change in consistency just wasn't worth the few calories saved. Also, I didn't taste any cinnamon in the panna cotta, though the vanilla was distinct and enjoyable. Next time I will probably use my basic Panna Cotta recipe.
The rhubarb was nice too, but far too much orangy! And I even only used a very small orange. I would suggest to use only haf an orange (both zest and juice) and see how that goes. I substituted the aniseed with fresh ground cardamom, which worked well. Again, the cinnamon (and the rhubarb!) was hardly noticeable.
I just tried to mix all ingredients together, but as the honey wasn't exactly very liquid I had a hard time. It would probably help dissolving the honey in the orange juice first (place in a jam glass and shake, always works perfect for me!).
If you're interested in more rhubarb-with-orange-recipes, it seems to be a combination favoured by Slater. See this article, Little Rhubarb Tarts and Rhubarb and Blood Orange Compote. Speaking of rhubarb, we made a very nice Apple Rhubarb Crumble last week, and I'll make a Rhubarb Crumble from this book tomorrow (to be reviewed on Sunday). Clearly, the rhubarb-season has started again!
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... hereforth known as 'Qumble' (or 'Quumble'?)...
This was a really nice dish. It's not a lot work, though peeling and cutting the quinces is always more than you'd expect it to be, but the best thing is that you can prep it so that all you need to do is just pop it in the oven (once the quinces are cooked you won't need to worry about them turning brown).
The recipe didn't mention whether or not you would need to cover the quinces while they cook; I believe they do need to be covered. I covered them partly, and found that they were close to being burnt after only 15 minutes. So close the lid, check regularly and perhaps add a little water (I also thought they tasted a little dry, which is no wonder when all the liquids had evaporated, but I was the only one at the table who thought that). The quinces might not need to cook the full 25 min anyway, but if you prepare them in advance, it's best to cook them till they are really soft, and add an extra 5 min baking time to warm them up.
I made these in a wide 32 cm pan, and I felt it could have used a little more crumble, but again, I was the only one at the table who thought so. Definitely serve with something on the side, ice cream or something like that.
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Website: Tasty
Surprisingly tasty, actually. There's one major flaw - the recipe only calculates half an aubergine per serving - that was what my one year old (12.5 months!) daughter ate in one sitting (admittedly, we think she's going through a growth spurt, but still...). My guess was that this was an trick to keep the calorie count down, so I was surprised that I didn't find any mention of calories at all (not that I would care).
Anyway, we roughly doubled the recipe and used five aubergines (we needed five servings instead of four), 500 g minced meat (a mix of beef and pork), one onion, four cloves of garlic, no garlic powder (why?!), about 450 g mozzarella, some parmesan and this Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter, and this worked out well.
Next time, I'd roast the aubergines a little longer; also, try to roast them immediately to prevent them fron turning brown (or add lemon juice). A melon ball spoon makes things much easier, and also allow your tomato-meat sauce to simmer longer and cook it until quite dry, as the aubergines will supply more liquid than you'd otherwise enjoy.
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Taste: A New Way to Cook
By Sybil Kapoor, David Loftus
Mitchell Beazley - 2003
Strip the watercress of its leaves and discard the stalks? Ms Kapoor, you’re not serious, what will left of the watercress? Hardly anything. I chose to ignore this direction and just used the watercress including the stalks (perhaps this is a misunderstanding, and she meant some tougher stalks that were already removed?). I used smoked salmon instead of bacon, and it was very delicious! Be careful with adding salt, though.
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Brilliant salad! A very nice balance between sweet (mango), creamy (avocado), sharp (red onion and mixed salad), tangy (lime juice), and, well, prawn.
I used about two thirds of a large red onion, and that was clearly too much; and I think the dressing could use just a tiny bit more lime juice. Remember to dry the prawn well before frying (stir-frying, actually) - I used frozen, defrosted ones, and they emitted a lot of liquid (though I'm not quite sure how much of that is due to the fact that they had been frozen).
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Website: Taste
Quite a simple recipe of which you should expect that there's nothing that really could go wrong. Well, the timing was very wrong. The salmon was done within the time given, while the tomatoes were nowhere near roasting. 20-30 minutes should do a much better job than 5 minutes.
Otherwise, using fresh herbs probably really makes a great difference in this dish, and if they tell you to keep the filo pastry covered with a wet cloth, do as you are being told.
Crosspost: This recipe was republished in the December 2010 issue of the Dutch version of Delicious.
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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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Tarte Tatin
By Jasmin Schults, Anaisa Bruchner
Uitgeverij J.H. Becht - 2007
Worked very well, in contrast to most other shortcrust pastries I've made until now. It didn't really taste spectacular, a little more salt and sugar wouldn't hurt I suppose, but it did a nice job. What else can you want?
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Hmm. It wasn't such an enourmous success as last week's Tarte Tatin. The main problem was probably that we'd let the apples simmer for too long on the stove - apparently, this produced apple juice, which then again turned into a kind of apple jelly. Also, by the time the pastry was just done, the apples were already slightly overcooked. Not what I had hoped for.
Oh, and be careful with the caramel. Melted sugar is really hot!
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Very delicious, but two problems: it didn't say how much sugar to use, and it didn't say that it was nothing more than an appetizer with two portions! Looks like I'm going to bed hungry tonight.
Tastewise, it was very delicious., but the flavours could have been slightly stronger. We guessed one tablespoon sugar, but it could have been more, along with some salt. Visually, I preferred it without the goat's cheese, but then it probably rather would have been dessert.
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Tapas. A Culinary Journey of Discovery
By Susanna Tee
Parragon - 2007
This was kind of a Gazpacho turned upside down - a bit of raw, puréed tomato with garlic, with large chunks of peppers and boiled eggs in it - which is nice, in principle, if this is what you expect. A nice refreshing salad with hardly any cooked ingredients, perfect for the heat of summer.
I got a little annoyed at the foto. I'm not usually a person who values it if the finished dish "looks just like the foto" - but in this case, they had clearly omitted an important part of the dish (the dressing) to make it look more appetizing (and consequently, once I added the dressing, it looked a lot less appetizing)! In the picture, I added only one third of the dressing though I didn't stir, just to give you an impression of how it might look, once everything is covered in red mush.
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Quite nice, but too much capers (nearly a whole glass!), and a lot of work in relation to the quantity of food you'll get; but I guess that's inherent to this type of food. I'd at least double the quantity to make the effort worth it.
My major point of critique however is more of a technical kind: you can't re-use bits and pieces of puff pastry by rolling it out again, you just can't. And guess what they're suggesting.... Not that it was necessary anyway, I got 30 empanadilla's out of 320g (7 sheets) of puff pastry, they suggest using (and re-using) 500g.
I fried the ham along with the onions - I'm not sure it made much of a difference, though I might have had if I had only used half the amount of capers.
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Tapas
By Susanna Tee
Parragon Publishing - 2005
Slightly disappointed. We had expected this salad to be good enough for a birthday party and only prepared it advance once to check if tinned artichokes would be good enough, and now I'm really glad we tested it. It's not much of a salad. You have large chunks of melon, of artichokes and especially (and far too many) of Chorizo, and that's it. The dressing has no effect whatsoever, and because the pieces are so large, and the three main ingredients so different from one another, it doesn't really "come together as a dish". I tried chopping them up slightly more and serving less Chorizo, which helped a bit but not enough. It's a pity...
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Sweet Paul Magazine
(Autumn, 2013)
I actually just cooked the corn the usual way, and served it with the chilli butter instead of normal butter and salt. DH loved it; for me it didn't do anything, I felt it made the corn taste less creamy. I didn't melt the butter but just mixed the chilli and salt with the butter at room temperature, then put back in the fridge. I could see us using the remains of the butter for steaks or chicken wings.
Served with Fig-Stuffed Roast Pork Loin with Fig and Balsamic Jam (reviews to follow) and leftover fennel - not the bests of all combinations, but the corn needed to be eaten...
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Sweet Paul Magazine
(Winter, 2011)
Very nice mousse, nice flavour, nice consistency and easy to make (which isn't always a given for a mousse), so a great recipe. The only reason we decided not to give a 5 star rating was that the flavour of the coffee was too overpowering. That might have been our fault as we used approximately a quarter cup / 60ml freshly brewed espresso instead of the teaspoon instant coffee powder required.
We had intended to serve this mousse together with the White Chocolate Ice Cream and the Sour Cherries in Syrup from The Perfect Scoop for DH's birthday dinner; I'm glad we tested both the ice cream and mousse recipes recipes beforehand. Not only was the white chocolate ice cream much too sweet, it also couldn't hold up against the mousse. I had the idea that the mousse definitely requires something fresh, and I'm lobbying to pair the mousse off with with the Orange and Szechuan Pepper Ice Cream or maybe the Chocolate-Tangerine Sorbet - we'll see what he'll decide.
Edited to add:
DH just clarified that he used 60ml espresso for a third of the recipe - no wonder the coffee was overpowering. I hope we'll make this again soon. Btw, we used Tia Maria instead of Kahlúa, shouldn't be that much of a difference
Edited 29 September 2013:
This time we used only 30ml espresso (2 tbsp), and it was a lot better! Not so strong that you would immediately recognize the coffee flavour, but enough to add a lot of depth to the chocolate flavour. Unfortunately we messed up the preparation this time, which made it less airy.
We served it together with Orange and Szechuan Pepper Ice Cream and Almond and Orange Florentines, which made a perfect combination! Other recipes we (re-)visited today: Lavender Lemonade, Apple Pie with an Almond Crust, Black Ravioli with Snapper and Prawn and Fig-Stuffed Roast Pork Loin with Fig and Balsamic Jam.
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A very nice and simple soup with a deep flavour. Roasting the cauliflower and the onions really helped enhance the flavour (I had DH guessing the ingredients, and he insisted that there still had to be something else).
My cauliflower took about 50 min to roast; the onions were already at about 35 min, so I carefully took them out. Alternatively, you can also just cut them into rings, that should help as well. Keep some extra stock at hand; I thought the soup was too thick, next time I would add some extra stock.
Toast the bread as much as possible, they will get soggy pretty quickly otherwise. You could also just toast them lightly, cut out the stars (or whichever other shape you prefer), and then finish toasting them in a pan with butter and salt for some extra flavour. We didn't add any extra salt to the soup; after all, I already seasoned the cauliflower before roasting, and I definitely wouldn't add any extra salt if you toast the bread in butter and salt.
Crosspost: website
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Website: Sweet Paul
A very nice and simple soup with a deep flavour. Roasting the cauliflower and the onions really helped enhance the flavour (I had DH guessing the ingredients, and he insisted that there still had to be something else).
My cauliflower took about 50 min to roast; the onions were already at about 35 min, so I carefully took them out. Alternatively, you can also just cut them into rings, that should help as well. Keep some extra stock at hand; I thought the soup was too thick, next time I would add some extra stock.
Toast the bread as much as possible, they will get soggy pretty quickly otherwise. You could also just toast them lightly, cut out the stars (or whichever other shape you prefer), and then finish toasting them in a pan with butter and salt for some extra flavour. We didn't add any extra salt to the soup; after all, I already seasoned the cauliflower before roasting, and I definitely wouldn't add any extra salt if you toast the bread in butter and salt.
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Website: Sweet Paul
Very nice. They retained their crispness for quite a long time, also due to the sugar coating (smart trick, will remember that), but as I already baked them beginning of December, and didn't bake other cookies until two weeks later, they didn't even make it to Christmas. :)
Due to the spices, they are distinctly Christmassy, though not necessarily so much that you couldn't eat them during the rest of the year - though that might depend on what you're used to as well.
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Website: Sweet Paul
Nice, but they're not balls at all! They're nice and crisp, and very chocolatey, but flat like any other cookie. I didn't have cocoa (at least that's what I thought at the time), so to compensate for texture, I added a little extra flour instead – I'm not sure this has affected the cookie in any important way, but I wouldn't think so.
Speaking of texture, they were pretty difficult to handle as the dough was really soft due to the high amount of melted chocolate and very little flour/cocoa/whatever. We refrigerated the dough for nearly an hour, and yet the dough was still too soft to really handle well. We then put them in the freezer for a while so we could roll them in icing sugar, but even then they quickly became soft again. Because of these texture problems, and because nowhere is mentioned when you have to add the chocolate, I'm wondering whether the melted chocolate was meant to appear in this recipe at all. It nearly seems as if it was a leftover from an early version of the recipe, which was later replaced by cocoa. That at least would make sense.
That said, they were very delicious, even though they were the ugliest cookie in the bundle. Rolling them in icing sugar might have helped with crunchiness, but certainly didn't improve their looks – next time I would roll them in cocoa, or nothing at all.
Regarding their taste, they were nice Christmas cookies, but you could just as well serve them any other time of the year.
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Sweet Indulgence: 100 Great Desserts
By Mandy Wagstaff
Kyle Cathie - 1996
In flavour, this clearly was a 5 star dessert. The rich custard that perfectly complemented the flavour of the rhubarb, the crunchy sugar - just brilliant.
The only problem was that the custard didn't get firm, and I'm not exactly sure, why. I might be that we didn't cook it long enough, though I thought we did. I noticed that other recipes such as the very similar one in Flavour First cook the custard au bain marie a second time once it has been filled into the ramekins. To be honest, if possible I would rather try to avoid this, I remember doing it once and thought that it was such a hassle, and with the shallow creme brulee ramekins it'll be an extra hassle. Instead, I was wondering if I could cheat next time by adding a little gelatine .
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I really loved the idea and had high expectations, but sadly, they were not fulfilled.
The most obvious was the yoghurt - baked, it turned into a kind of cream cheese with a displeasing dry texture. But the rhubarb wasn't as nice as expected either. Although I had drained it, the parcels still oozed out a lot of liquid, and with it apparently all sweetness the rhubarb had possessed. And I still don't like ginger with rhubarb, but that's a personal question - it really seems to be a classic, at least in the anglophone part of the world! The filo part though was really great.
My guess would be that you should definitely serve the yoghurt with the ready baked parcels, instead of filling them with yoghurt. You can mix the yoghurt with the rhubarb juice you've reserved to make the yoghurt sweeter and create a balance between the zingy rhubarb parcels and the sweet yoghurt; perhaps you can also add honey (or add honey instead). I'm also wondering if you shouldn't cut the rhubarb into smaller cubes and then just roast for 5 min - they will cook in the parcels anyway, and this way you might retain just a little more bite.
General tips for making these: Make sure that the rhubarb and the butter have cooled down as much, this decreases the chance that the filo will tear. Also, allow lots of time for the rhubarb to dry. Even when I thought it had completely drained and after I had squeezed out the last drop, it still somehow oozed liquid. Best to prepare the rhubarb the night before. Also, don't brush the butter but dabble it on the filo to minimize the chance of tearing. Last, make sure you have lots of space and have everything close by.
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The exotic version of Eton Mess...
A really, really nice dessert! It's also very easy, and can be prepared well in advance and then assembled at the last minute, but it does require a little planning in advance for the meringues. The acidity and the texture of passion fruit worked well to counterbalance the sweetness of the mango, meringue and cream. I was a little worried that the vinegar and the cornstarch would be noticeable, but luckily, they weren't.
There is only one thing that wasn't entirely right, and that was the amount of cream - 250 ml cream for 8 servings would have meant that there'd only be one or two spoonfuls of cream per serving - I used nearly double that amount, and it was great. I also used double the amount of passion fruit, equaling half a passion fruit per serving. Also, you're supposed to assemble the pavlova and then chill in the fridge for at least one hour - I didn't do that because it would only make the meringue soggy; instead I chose to assemble the pavlova right before serving.
I made half a recipe and made four smaller pavlovas instead of a large one serving four; each pavlova had an approximate diameter of 9 cm.
Edited 23 July 2014:
We made this again last night. For some reason, the meringues didn't turn out as beautiful as the last time. They were sticky on the bottom, and looked smaller than last time. Perhaps it was the humidity, perhaps my oven wasn't warm enough (80°C instead of the 120°C it could have been), perhaps it was both.
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Website: Sweet Happy Life
I really like the idea, but the execution wasn't really good, and I had several problems with the recipe.
First of all, cups. I know that it's just down to what you're used to, and I don't happen to be used to measuring food in volume while a lot people are, but sometimes I just don't get it. I mean, 1 cup flour is 1 cup flour, but how on earth should I know how many balls of mozzarella you need for 4.5 cup shredded mozzarella? Doesn't that depend too much on how finely you shred it? Isn't it easier and just as (im)precise to just say '3 large onions' instead of '3 cups chopped onions'?
Then, quantities. Quantity of dairy products, specifically. My estimate is that this recipe contains about 2 kg dairy products (anything from full fat milk to half a kilo of Mozzarella) in relation to 1 kg butternut squash. I never use skimmed products because I believe that natural is best, and I don't count calories either, but I thought that was a bit much. I reduced that by half, mainly by using only half of the ricotta and less than half of the mozzarella and Parmesan (though I did add a little grated Gouda on top). Next time, I would skip the ricotta entirely, the bechamel sauce plus cheese is all you need. That's the other thing: mozzarella and all the other dairy products are comparatively sweet, as is butternut squash. Either you need to add lots of salt to compensate, or you choose a cheese that is naturally salty by itself.
Then, texture. Unfortunately, everything was just a bit mushy, you nearly could have fed it to a baby (where it not for the fat and the salt). Next time I wouldn't cook the butternut squash as long so that it retains some bite, and I wouldn't puree it in the food processor either - half cm/quarter inch slices are just fine.
Last, I chose this recipe specifically because I wanted to use our balcony grown sage. Unfortunately, you didn't taste it at all, and it just had a tiny hint of thyme. Use more of both.
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Supersalades
By Jane Lawson
Uitgeverij Terra Lannoo - 2011
Really delicious salad! I hadn't really expected this as it is seems like such a weird mixture Northern European potatoes, dill, mustard, rocket with prawns and avocado. But it was really nice! I substituted the mustard powder and part of the oil with real mustard and it was fine.
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Quite delicious, but also quite expensive, especially given the result. DB complained that the ingredients 'didn't quite come together as a dish', one of his favourite criticisms since MasterChef. The salsa verde at least definitely didn't come together as a sauce, it needed a lot more oil (4-5 tbsp instead of one) to make that happen. I substituted part of the asparagus with haricots verts (runner beans) to cut the cost, which worked very well.
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DB had this as his lunch box salad. He thought it was slightly boring as none of the ingredients came forward as 'the star of the show', another Masterchef favourite quote. It's not a bad salad, it's just that we've had so many more salads that were a lot more interesting.
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A very nice salad, very quick to prepare, especially if you have the chicken ready. The chicken itself was slightly bland; I would suggest marinating it in a little soy sauce for a few hours before cooking, or using leftover chicken meat from another dish.
Edited 13 May 2013:
Really a very nice dish! We used chicken thighs this time to give it more flavour, and that worked really nicely. I can definitely see this becoming a standard for daily cooking.
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According to DB, this is a salad with with very strong flavours; some of them even too strong. The dressing was too salty (what can you expect with 4 tbsp fish sauce and no oil?). It probably would have been too sour too if I had added all of the lime juice required - I used the juice of one lime; 100ml would have been approximately the juice of three limes. And he thought the salad contained too many shallots, though I only used 2 of the 4 required! I also used a mix of rocket and other strong-flavoured leaves, which was a good choice as iceberg wouldn't have been able to hold up against the other flavours. I used only about 250g of meat instead of the 600g required, which was fine; you'll need to adjust the cooking time, of course, or skip placing it inthe oven altogether.
All in all, a nice salad if you like strong flavours, but the ratio of ingredients definitely needs to be tweaked. We added some oil to the dressing today, let's see how that goes.
Update:
Apparently the addition of some oil (lots of oil!) and a few less shallots is all that is needed to make this a really good salad.
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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.
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A nice salad and a brilliant way to use leftovers of chicken and rice. I was surprised, though, that this salad didn't contain a single vegetable; but then again, nor do most potato salads.
Serves 2 as a lunchbox/meal. You can also omit the chicken and use more cashews and raisins to serve as a fancy rice side dish. Or substitute with tofu or anything else for a vegetarian version.
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DB enjoyed this salad, but found two faults with it: there wasn't enough dressing (or it wasn't strong enough, either way), and the veggies were grilled too thoroughly. The latter was obviously my fault, but wouldn't have been as much of a problem if there had been other, not grilled ingredients and/or more dressing to keep the salad in balance.
Also, there was too much aubergine; more peppers would have been better, especially red and yellow ones.
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DB enjoyed this salad a lot, especially the combination of broad beans with mint and bacon. I found the addition of stripes of iceberg salad slightly strange (though I didn't try it, can't really tell) - it surely made mixing more difficult. All in all a nice salad.
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A nice salad, but not very remarkable. There wasn't quite enough sauce.
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The haloumi didn't really work. We cut it into 1cm thick slices, as instructed; yet by the time one side was grilled, the other had already cooled of. Needless to say, it was cold (and rubbery) within five minutes once we added it to the salad.
The salad itself was very delicious, very fresh and aromatic. I wonder whether it might be a good idea to substitute the haloumi with (salted, not grilled) mozzarella. I forgot to buy olives, but actually I didn't miss them.
Serves 4 as a side.
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I wasn't impressed. The salad contained capers, which I don't like; apart from that (trying to be objective here), I thought they were too sour for the salad and too strong a contrast, but without them, the salad was just bland. The spices gave a nice taste, but they didn't manage to make it interesting. DH suggests using harissa or something similar for more oomph; I think the idea of capers, as in a separate ingredient that you can chew on, works best, just not as sour as capers - soaked raisins maybe?
That said, it could work as a simple side dish, where it would work by complementing the main dish, not as a dish on its own.
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A nice, simple salad. Be careful not to add too much lemon juice.
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A very nice salad! Actually I only have two comments: one is that you need to make sure you have enough salad dressing, because without it, the salad gets boring quickly. The other is that it's an awful lot of work for a salad (though it might be apt to think of it as a cold served main dish anyway) - if possible, make a double version for four, instead of a single version for two.
Made me think of this Roasted Veg and Couscous Salad, just that that salad used harissa (this one didn't) and had a dip and not a dressing.
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Website: The Sugar Hit
The good news is: it tastes really nice. The bad news: the quantities don't work out at all.
I grated a medium sweet potato - that resulted in about a cup of grated sweet potato, definitely not two cups (luckily I was trying to get rid of two sweet potatoes anyway). So I made the rest of the recipe according to the instructions, but ended up with so little that it was hardly enough for two servings! We didn't eat them as burgers (ie. with buns), though, I guess that might make a difference. For two, I'd about double the quantities, for four, quadruple them.
I also made several smaller patties/pancakes instead of large patties.
I didn't make the tahini yoghurt but used the leftover of this dishes' mint yoghurt sauce, which worked quite well.
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Stoofpotten
By Florine Boucher, Anne Scheepmaker
Gottmer Uitgevers Groep - 2006
More a stew than a braise (which is what I had actually expected). It was okay, but nothing special. Unfortunately the pork was already slightly dry when the cooking time was up, while the potatoes weren't fully cooked yet.
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Website: Stoofperen.nl
As I still had some 'stoofperen' (cooking pears poached in red wine) leftover from yesterday, I decided to give them an upgrade with this crumble recipe.
I'll admit, I was sceptical right from the start. This recipe uses way more butter and sugar than my trusted go-to-recipe from Ottolenghi. I didn't add any water for that reason, as I figured the mixture would contain more than enough fat/liquid, and that turned out to be true - it didn't crumble nicely in my fingers, the dough actually immediately turned into large lumps which I then had to break up into smaller lumps to get anything resembling crumble. As soon as this mix hit the oven, the butter melted and the dough spread out, turning all my neatly separated crumbles into one big mass of dough. Not a crumble at all! And even worse, when I took them out of the oven again, they weren't even crunchy! Luckily, that changed again once they cooled down a bit, and they ended up being really crunchy, actually. Looking at how the dough behaved, I wouldn't be surprised at all if this recipe used the same ratio of butter, sugar and flour as a chocolate chip cookie recipe.
But alas, it was still a failure - it was way too salty!
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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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Stern Gourmet
(, 2010)
It was delicious, an interesting variation and certainly visually very attractive - but given that I had spent nearly 3 hours in the kitchen for this one dish only I was somewhat disappointed. I served it as a main dish but it's too monotonous for that - I'd rather serve it as a side dish, but only if it involves less work. We have about half of the filling left over, and I will try using ready made puff pastry instead of filo pastry - that should save about one hour's work. Alternatively, you can also just serve the red cabbage filling as is - it's a nice way to cook it with the sultanas, the nuts (I used hazelnuts) and the marmalade.
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What an odd dish! The combination of savoy cabbage and parmesan didn't work at all, the sauce was very liquid, and despite all the bacon and mushrooms (dried chantarelles in our case), it was just little more than boring cabbage. Absolutely not recommended. We had savoy cabbage stuffed with mince meat and chicken liver at my MIL's recently - the idea was similar, but tasted sooo much better (and looked really impressive, too)!
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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?
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Difficult to rate. The blood orange mayonnaise was excellent, though not entirely as it was supposed to be - apparently "... add salt, pepper and blood oranges and stir; the orange fillets should end up being small bits of fruit in the mayonnaise" implies stirring with a spoon not a kitchen machine. My bad. Then again you should have seen DB's face when he realised what I had done with his carefully filleted bits of orange.
Before that, the mayonnaise had a perfect consistency, thick and creamy. Afterwards, well... it was pretty liquid, you could just as well have added some orange juice. I added another egg yolk and 150ml oil but didn't manage to get back that consistency. Lessons learned: stir carefully; you might need to drain the orange fillets before adding them; alternatively, use more orange zest, less orange fillets. Lessons apparently not learned yet: read recipe carefully. All in all, though, the mayonnaise was extremely delicious and a great hit. It tasted especially nice with the roasted potatoes, which brings me on to the next issue, ...
... who ever decided that this dish was supposed to be served with store-bought (!) potato chips? You go through such troubles as making your own mayonnaise, only to serve it with chips? Don't get me wrong, I love chips, I have my own secret supply hidden in the kitchen, but I wouldn't ever dream to serve it with such a dish. The roasted poatoes, on the other hand, worked out perfectly.
Last, the prawns... While it was interesting to learn a new technique of how to prepare them, cooking them rendered them bland and tasteless, in contrast to frying them with salt, pepper and a garlic clove. Together with the other ingredients, I tasted everything but the prawns. What a waste of money!
The (blood) orange mayonnaise is definitely something to remember; I could imagine this working very well with e.g. grilled fish but also most kinds of grilled meats (pork? chicken? even beef!).
And just in case you wondered, the oranges were red on the outside, but somehow that didn't seem to translate to the inside colour. Either way worked well. And the second plate actually shows this dish as a main (2 servings) rather than an appetizer (6 servings).
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Website: Stasty
Very delicious cake! We used the Battenberg batter to make this (in concept actually very similar) Mondriaan Cake, and it worked very well. We made four times the basic batter and then split it up into different portions. We made two cakes, and have a lot of leftovers of the coloured pieces.
Because we used chocolate as glue and as coating, we opted for almond and vanilla instead of orange and lemon. I was also a little afraid that the colour of the cake would influence the perceived flavour (especially in the case of blue), but luckily, that wasn't the case. And believe me, everyone wanted a slice of this cake!
Regarding the workload, it was doable, but not something I would do again very quickly. Although, the rubik cube is really nice..
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Website: Springlane
Disgusting. I actually made this cake twice, because I had forgotten to add milk the first time around, which resulted in some kind of semi coconut omelette. The first was way better than the second.
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