| Only used 2 chillies, Thai chillies, and used pressure-cooked dried chickpeas instead of tinned. We had it just with plain rice, and it really needed another dish, preferably containing yoghurt. Easy to make, but make sure you have everything ready, as once you start cooking, it is a quick process, just like a stir-fry. |
| I would give this a six star, if I could. Much to our astonishment, it worked. The next batch of bananas are already chopped up in the freezer, as I write. Smaller pieces this time, the food processor rattled a bit at the start.
Also, I know that this is actually a TheKichn.com recipe, but I did like the article, especially the little girls comments. Haven't we all gazed sadly at a recipe in progress and said "it's not going to work"? |
| Made this with pumpkin instead of cauliflower, and it worked quite well. The method seemed a bit odd, and I ended up cooking the chicken and pumpkin together, and for quite a bit longer then the stated 10 minutes. It was cooked after 10 minutes, but it hadn't developed a "stewy" aspect. A poor way of putting it, but I can't think of a better. This recipe (or, rather, the book), had no recipe for the fulful bhar spice mix other than a vague description, so I ended up googling baharat spice recipe (a suggested alternative) and using the one on http://www.gourmetfoodsource.net/baharat.htm. Rather annoying. Also next time I would double the spices but I like spicy food. |
| Mild in flavour, but it might have been better if I had chosen one of the other additional ingredients, rather then potatoes, such as the sour cherries or quinces suggested. |
| Very good,usable sauce. We had it on baked snapper one night, and the leftovers with a (bought) charcoal chicken the next. Certainly jazzed up two plain dishes, rice and salad.
It was made in a about 10 minutes, and I quadrupled it, for four people. However, I didn't add as much sugar as recipe, cutting it down by about a third. |
| A cheats review, as this is really one of my sister's recipes, but over the years it has turned up at many a family picnic. Good to eat, easily assembled out of a cooler, and the dressing travels well in a jam jar. |
| The recipe looked wonderful but the end result was too bitter for one member of the family to eat. I remembered afterwards reading somewhere not to use undiluted wine in stews & casseroles as it would make the dish bitter, and they are right. In "The French Kitchen" the author states that wine is normally broken down with water or stock since it is highly acidic. Also, I cooked it in the oven covered, and I am sure the alcohol didn't totally burn off. Took the leftovers to work the next day for my lunch and spent the next half hour feeling slighly intoxicated. |
| I halve the sugar as otherwise it is very sweet. Also, half the recipe makes enough for 3 servings. |
| Too salty, but that could be the brand of soy sauce I used. |
| We didn't like it, but I think this is personal taste, not the recipe. |
| A little dry. They needed a dipping sauce. |
| Really nice. Comfort food in a lunch box. |
| Delicious, although I must confess to adding a dash of oyster sauce. Don't leave the noodles draining in the colander for too long - they solidify into a solid lump, impossible to stir fry. |
| I substitute a 85g tin of flavoured tuna (lemon pepper or other) for the horse mackerel and mint for the shiso leaves. Its a good recipe. |
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| From: Best Recipes (reviewed 27th April 2012)With husband retiring, and going back to work full-time myself, he has taken on cooking dinner at night. So, not so many reviews from the Ducks Guts in the future. However, he doesn't bake, and I have discovered I can't always face breakfast, or I am running late, so I needed something I could have in the freezer, didn't have too many fats or sugars and I could eat politely and quickly at my desk. This cake fits all the requirements, except possibly the sugar. It has a lot of natural sugar from the dried fruit, so it is still too sweet, but I"ll work on that. Very quickly made in the food processor, and bakes quicker then the suggested times, about 1/2 to 3/4 hour at 150 C, but my oven is a quick oven so I always drop the recommended temperature.
It is more like a pudding, but still manageable in slices. I don't like sultanas so I use mostly prunes, which meant I could cut out the oil, except for a genorous dollop to oil the tin. Generously fills a 20cm ring tin, or a small square slice tin. Freezes well. |
| This was the recipe I was looking for, in an attempt to make water crackers. They were very plain and crunchy, most suitable for cheese.
The pasta maker was a necessary piece of equipment in making them, as otherwise a lot of time would have been spent rolling and re-rolling the mixture. The instructions said to fold and roll 8 or 9 times, just like puff pastry, but instead the pasta machine did the trick, just putting it through like pasta dough until it was smooth.
The first batch I rolled to the second thinnest setting on my machine, and they were perfect. Then I read the instructions, and the biscuits were suppose to be 5mm thick, so I made the next batch on the thickest setting, with the end result that they puffed up like little balloons. Interesting, but tricky to keep the cheese on. |
| Sausage rolls a little bit different, and very good to eat. I must confess to using Pampus Puff Pastry (6 sheets) as I am not a good baker. Baked for 18 minutes at 200 C as that was the Pampus instructions for THEIR sausage rolls. |
| Suprisingly nice soup. Very light and easy to make. Use the vegetable stock recipe in the book if you can, and I substitute fresh ginger for the galangal if there is none of the latter around. |
| From: Canapes (reviewed 3rd April 2010)Nice rich little biscuits (savoury cookies for Americans, I think). VERY easy to burn so keep an eye on them in the oven. |
| From: Canapes (reviewed 3rd April 2010)Very good dip. I halve the amount of fegta and cream cheese, and put only 2 tablespoons of mint in.
Excellant on toast the morning after the dinner party, if you didn't put all of it out for the guests. |
| From: Canapes (reviewed 3rd April 2010)Horrible. Perhaps peanut butter just doesn't work as a dip. |
| From: Canapes (reviewed 3rd April 2010)Very good dip. I use 16 tomato halves and halve the amount of vinegar. |
| From: Canapes (reviewed 3rd April 2010)Lovely light refreshing dIip and a great colour. I halve the number of spring onions and always check the chilli strength before adding them in case they are extra hot. |
| From: Canapes (reviewed 3rd April 2010)Excellent little savoury shortbreads that you can make weeks in advance for a party. Recipe says it makes 40, but I find it only makes half that, so you may want to double the mixture. |
| From: Canapes (reviewed 3rd April 2010)Lovely looking appetiser and is good to eat as well. Can be pretty much made in advance except for the final assembling in the last hour or so. |
| Good stock recipe. If you were wanting to make a noodle or dumplings soup, it would be best to double stock it as the author suggests.
Note to self 15 minutes in pressure cooker and leave out the peppercorns in case they block the valve. Remember to brown vegetables in wok including chook bits. |
| Good recipe. Works well with chicken. I cut the sesame oil down to a dash and if roasting chicken breasts, cut the time down to 15 minutes. Don't double the marinade if doubling the meat - doesn't need it. |
| A very popular dish with the pork eaters in the family. I just brown the spareribs as per usual, rather then deep fry them and use about a third of the sugar. I also add more water as it does tend to stick. |
| Too bland. There are much better Soy Chicken recipes about. |
| Wonderful for dinner parties as you can cook it the day before and gently reheat on the day. It also tastes MUCH better if you can use Chinese red vinegar rather then the black vinegar used in the book. I leave the cornflour out of the marinade, and stir-fry the wings rather then deep-fry them. |
| A bit unusual, but nice once you get use to the idea. This recipe is very similar to the Portugese Chicken recipe found in some chinese cook books. |
| A good version of this well-known dish. |
| Not sure about this one. It's a bit ususual. Only one person liked the stir-fried cucumber and I never made it again after that. |
| Fiddly to make. Quite nice to eat. |
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| A good family dish. Served with another dish, it will do two for dinner. |
| Good, but it is important to use a home-made stock. All the supermarket stocks left a noticable after-taste. A specialist stock might work. |
| A thinly-sliced chicken breast substitutes fine for the giblets if you can't face them. |
| A good family dish, even when made with tinned bamboo shoots. I leave out the MSG and fry it in oil, not "cooked lard", delicious tho' it sounds. |
| OK, this recipe isn't actually a soup recipe, but I make these balls to put in soup. They are a little bland - good comfort food. Make them small for soup. Quick and easy to make with a food processor. |
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| Works well with a strong chicken stock. Small cubes of Spiced Tofu (bought) add body. |
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| Makes a very large quantity. Stir-frying the broccoli first fixes its green colour better. A tablespoon of Szchewan pickle works well as a substitute for the pickled amaranth. |
| Good cake. A bit of a disaster initially, as I had substituted frozen blueberries for the strawberries which made for a much longer cooking time. Pulled it out at 40 minutes and most of the cake was still raw. However another 40 minutes at 160 C and it was fine. Definately the cook's fault.
The book ONLY uses American measurements, so a bit of time was spent Googling the conversions. There is a Table Of Equivelents in the back of the book, but it doesn't have the dreaded stick of butter which is so hard to remember if you don't bake often. |
| Didn't have any wholewheat or bread flour, so used plain white flour, but the pitta breads were still quite good. We were using them as wraps with left-over roast chicken, salad, pineapple , coriander and fish sauce, so the suggested size was a little too small. Instead of making 8 breads from the large loaf size dough we made 6. Also, the recipe was right about the dough not puffing up if too much flour was used in rolling it out. |
| Not very spicy, but we like spicy food. I browned the meat, adding the baharat spice mix in the last batch, rather then follow the instructions exactly. The last time I didn't fry the spices, the family said the spices tasted "raw" in the finished dish.
Made it with beef, as lamb would have been too expensive. |
| I cheated and cooked the chickpeas in the pressure cooker, after soaking them overnight, for 14 minutes with natural release, then used the cold water shock treatment described at http://www.alwaharestaurant.com/recipes.htm. It worked well at getting the skins off, although I don't know if next time I would worry so much about them. Then, pureed everything in the food processor. Quick and easy, and tastes pretty good. |
| Nice, but we both agreed that it was "missing something". Strange, considering the ingredients. We had it on falafels, which were a bit spicy, but not very. Also, the jelly coating never formed, but I've since read in Roden's Jewish Food that the fenugreek needs to be ground first. |
| This is how we cook our roasts now (beef and lamb - I don't think I would do it with pork and maybe not fowl. I don't roast chicken any way as the charcoal chicken shop down the road does a better job). The meat becomes incredibly tender and even if you over cook it, it just falls off the bone, still moist and tender.
Potatoes are a little tricky though. My husband is happy to eat his roast with rice, but it still seems wrong to me. Will just have to figure something out.
This TV show went off air a while ago, after years of production, but the website is still up, |
| Great recipe, very quick and easy to make and always popular with guests. The reason I have only given it 4 stars is becuase I have never made it with the rump steak & bok choy. I always make it with chicken ribs and it's cooked on the BBQ. |
| THE potato salad in our house, made so often I am starting to look around for another hot-day potato recipe, just to make a change. Easy and delicious. Usually double it for a dinner party. |
| Good instructions, easy to follow for cooking your first tongue. Works well with just water (no stock). She doesn't use a tongue press, so it isn't neccessary to have one. No idea why, but ox tongue tastes exactly like very soft roast lamb. |
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| Ordinary chedder worked fine instead of the parmesan. |
| Feels very odd, reviewing this recipe, bit like reviewing one's mother. Anyway, it is excellent for guests that turn up without warning, even when made with powdered milk. Today I added a chopped up very ripe banana, which received a tick from all. Usually I serve it with jam, or lemon and sugar, or even just plain butter. Also known as pikelets in other cookbooks. |
| Simple but good, mostly due to the use of fresh parsley and lemon thyme. The recipe only specifies thyme, but I was getting tired and didn't want to defrost a lemon so cheated. It didn't have any egg, just a little butter and milk, so it was safe to make it the night before cooking the turkey, and leave it in a sealed container in the fridge (not in the turkey!)
Doubled the amount for a small turkey.
And it's not seasoning, it's stuffing. Had to update the books index again. |
| Really more a note to myself to try this one again, as I made a lot of sustitutions, so it is not a true review. Substituted beans with dried beancurd sticks (they were getting close to their use-by date), lamb shoulder chops with left-over roast lamb, water with vegetable stock, tomatoes with bottled tomatoes, and left out the parsley, cilantro and lentils. Also, this is a good one for the pressure cooker, browning the meat and onions then adding all the rest, except for the orzo, and cooking on high pressure for 10 minutes. Then I added the soup pasta and cooked for another 10 minutes un-pressurized.
Husband thought that there was a little too much cinnamon, so next time will only use 1/2 teaspoon.
The lemon wedges are definately needed. |
| Delicious and a good light meal if you only want to cook one dish. Recipe uses pork, or beef mince but any leftover meat will do. I never use the 7 chillies - just one or two does fine. |
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| Take about 35 minutes to cook if shallow-fried. |
| Surprisingly good, as there is no meat stock in it. Used the sharp cheddar cheese alternative (Jindi cheddar) suggested by the author and a cup of milk instead of the creme fraiche ( not something I would ever have on hand). A good family soup, perhaps a little plain for guests. |
| From: Delia Online (reviewed 1st January 2012)The instructions were good, and the method simple, but the sauce didn't thicken. I think the problem was the cook, as I was nervous about pouring hot liquids into my 20+ year food processor, and didn't heat the vinegar and butter until it was foaming, as the recipe stated. It still tasted wonderful on steak. |
| This was surprisingly nice, and very easy to make. Putting the carrots through the food processor only took a couple of minutes, and the onions, although taking longer then I expected, only need minimal attention on the stove. However, my onions didn't drain easily, to the extent that in the end I had to squeeze the flavoured oil out with my hands. It isn't the prettiest of salads, and needs some decorating, a sprig or two of mint perhaps, or edible flowers. No tweaking was needed, which is a nice change. |
| Good, not as good as the sour cream and bacon version I usually make, but we really needed a change. Again, it was very easy to make. I didn't have any shallots or chives, so used a quarter very finly chopped brown onion and two spring onions. Also, the potatoes were from a sack a friend had given as a gift (he lives in the country), so I have no idea what they were. They fell apart a bit, but still tasted good. |
| Made this with weak beef stock instead of white wine, and it was thought good by the rest of the household. If I make it again will tweak the paprika a bit. Also, I wouldn't make this without the pressure cooker. |
| No matter how tempting, do NOT cook the vegetables. Just follow the recipe (note to self).
Very good family pickles. |
| A very good beef and black bean sauce recipe. I used mince steak this time, as we had a large amount of mince in the freezer, and it worked well. Also, I use the black bean garlic sauce in the jar, not the fermented black beans, even though the author says not to, but I have cooked with it for years and it works for me. Served it on stir-fried greens, not rice noodles, as I already had two white dishes, and it saved cooking a separate dish for the greens. |
| The other half thought this was wonderful, and worth doing again. Made it with beef, as I don't eat pork, and used a spoonful of homemade sambal oelek instead of the chiles (South American ingredients aren't that easy to find in Melbourne). The cooking method is unusual, simmering the meat first, and then browning it, but it did work. I would have doubled the Mexican oregano and cumin next time, but husband said definitely not.
Pressure cooker 12 mins on high, natural release, 1 cup of water was enough in my pc.
At the end there was a little too much liquid for our liking, so I threw in the frozen peas that I was going to serve with it, and that worked. |
| Looked and smelt wonderful whilst cooking, but the end result was very bland. 3 basil leaves does not flavour a stew serving 4. It needed more aromatics - one of the guests suggested lemon zest and more black pepper. It was edible but next time I will try another recipe. |
| Actually, we didn't have a bottle of red wine on hand, and I certainly wouldn't have used the whole bottle as suggested by the recipe. Not after the last time I used a whole bottle and the stew was so acidic as to be almost inedible. However, the stew was very good with just the herbs and spices, and a bottle of tomatoes. It is still too early here for good tomatoes. Halved the amount of allspice, as 1 1/2 tablespoons ground allspice seemed a lot.
Just used my standard method of browning everything, quick (very) browning of the spices with the last batch of meat and the add the liquids. Finished it in the pressure cooker, 15 minutes. |
| Very bland when made with water as per the recipe (no flavour at all) but much better made with chicken stock. |
| Missing something. There are better recipes elsewhere. |
| Good, although I don't add in the radish and Sichuan pepper oil and only 1/2 tablespoon of vinegar. |
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| Instead of commerical sweet and sour saouce, Chinese red vinegar works fine. I don't put the dried prawns in, although it probably would taste better with them. |
| The smoking oil burns the spring onion and ginger into the fish. A very little sesame oil (1/2 teaspoon?) added in is even better. The fish only takes a few minutes to cook. |
| I've never had the lobster for the second half of this dish (too much of a coward), but the chicken is good. |
| Excellant recipe with detailed instructions at the start of the section on how make a good French ragout. This book is a teaching book, not just a collection of recipes. |
| Excellent recipe, but as with the casserole recipe, its the instructions at the start of the section that tell you how to make a good creamed vegetable soup with ANY vegetable that are worth their weight in gold |
| Very good soup. Its the pesto that makes it. |
| Excellent light potato dish, not at all heavy. I don't add the cream, but I do use full cream milk. |
| Quite possibly the most boring soup I have every eaten. It might have worked if I had used the beef stock instead of the bean water (both recommended in the recipe) but I will not bother unless I get a glut of pumpkins and probably not even then. There are much better pumpkin soup recipes out there. |
| Terrible. Far too sweet. Only one member of the family could eat it. |
| Even substituting the suet with smoked pork, it was still a very very ordinary dish. However, I will be making it again -why? To add to spaghetti bolognaise. Seriously, only a tiny amount was eaten, so the husband-cook mixed what was left in the pot into the sauce he was making, and it was a definate improvement. The beans add an extra rich smoothness to the sauce, and being already tomato & smoked meat flavoured themselves, not too plain beany in taste. |
| Better as a snack. They are a lot of work, but they are worth it. Use the smaller European plums, a little bigger then cherry plums, and don't overbrown the breadcrumbs. |
| If you cut the amount of water to 3 cups and use stock instead, this makes a very good soup, warming in cold weather. Quick and easy to make. |
| Very good robust cake. Good for picnics. The "1 carton" of sour cream is 300 ml. |
| Contributor: Geoff Janz. Very good family recipe. I don't like drumsticks, so a couple of breasts get thrown in as well. Reheats well. |
| From: The Italian Baker (reviewed 6th September 2011) |
| From: The Italian Baker (reviewed 12th September 2011) |
| Excellent, very detailed instructions on how to make your own pasta. She gives methods for either making it fully by hand, or else by using a food processor and a hand-crank pasta machine. I use a Kitchen Aid now to make the dough, but have used the food processor instructions in the past and still use them as a guide whenever I make pasta (not as often as I should) and always use the pasta machine instructions, rather then the ones that came with the machine. |
| If you make your own pasta, this is an excellent means of getting the family to eat leafy greens without complaining. The spinach colours the pasta, but doesn't flavour it greatly. |
| This is the recipe that I always use for pesto. Wonderful and freezes well. Be very careful browning the pine nuts as they burn if you walk away from the stove, even if just for a minute. |
| No. But, realistically, a family that doesn't like vegetables is not going to go "oh, yum, broccoli and pasta, my favorite". It's back to stirfying it with beef and oyster sauce. |
| Used only about half the spring onion, and added nettles, recommended as a variation. Will definitely make it again. |
| Delicious. A family favorite, always requested. I soak the lily-buds , wood ears and black mushrooms (Shiitake), especially the last, before cutting up and use the Shiitake soaking water with a chicken stock cube instead of Chicken Stock. Reheats very well for dinner parties. |
| Nice, but not worth the effort. It's a good dish to make once, just for the history, but I haven't made it again. |
| Fabulous way of cooking chicken in hot weather. Easy and the chicken is always moist and tender. Cook it in the cooler part of the day and leave in the fridge for a meal that night when it is too hot to cook and you don't want to heat the house up any further.
The Cantonese-Style Dipping Sauce on page 131 is the favorite to go with it, but I usually do a couple of others as well, Thai or European. I have served it with home-made mayonnaise, but that was a little bland.
This recipe (or method, really, I suppose) is sometimes known as Velvet Chicken. |