The Ducks Guts' Reviews
154 recipes reviewed. Showing 1 to 50Sort by: Book Title 
| Date | Rating | Recipe Title
Vegetables (The Good Cook Techniques & Recipes Series)
By Time-Life Books
Time-Life Books - 1979
Lovely light soup. The lemon juice is essential and the chicken stock must be real - no stock cubes. Use a gentle heat or the microwave to re-heat.
useful (1)
Vefa's Kitchen
By Vefa Alexiadou
Phaidon Press Inc. - 2009
Good, despite having a 1/3 teaspoon of smoked paprika added in by mistake, as well as the allspice (bottles look identical to each other). Took 3 hours at 80 C (trying out the low temperature cooking method). Quinces are scary to core, so cooked them in the microwave first for a couple of minutes so that the knife wouldn't slip on the hard flesh.
Forgot to say that I also added in the quinces as the same time as the meat. From past experience, quinces can take longer then you expect. I also used ghee instead of butter - butter tends to burn when browning meat, I find, but that is probably the cook.
useful (1)
The Top One Hundred Pasta Sauces
By Diane Seed, Robert Budwig
Ten Speed Press - 2004
Another good recipe for ingredients that will keep a while (helps if you only want to shop once a week or fortnight). I only use 1 onion instead of the 2 cups of chopped onion and often only use ordinary strong chedder for the cheese, but it still works. I also change the method around a bit, cooking the peas and bacon seperately to the pasta and then mixing it all together just before serving. I find cooking the pasta with the peas and bacon as she recommends makes it very slightly gluggy, but that is a personal preference.
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Yes, a very good pantry recipe. We leave out the parsley (not being parsley eaters). The variation with the anchovy and chilli works well. I do find 'tho, that the sauce really only makes enough for 2 or 3 servings, but that could be just greed.
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Comfort food, easily made in emergencies, and cheering to eat. This is the type of recipe you only have to make once, and after that you can make it from memory with subsitutions. I always brown the sausages first, just because we prefer them that way and certainly don't skin them.
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Delicious, easy and quick to make. I make this recipe as it is, no substitutions or change in the method - it really is a good recipe.
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Thai Food
By David Thompson, Earl Carter
Pavilion Books - 2002
Delicious and very rich. Paste smells almost unpleasent whilst it is cooking, hence the instructions to cook it at least 5 minutes, but once it is cooked,and the palm sugar and fish sauce added, it all comes together.
I must confess to doubling the amount of chicken as Thai curries can be hours of work, and I wanted SOME leftovers for the next day. However, re-heating it in the microwave wasn't a success. The chicken toughened and the sauce flavour flattened to a dull, almost boiled taste. No idea why.
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The best description of this sauce is "woofy", so you may not want to give it to guests, although I did have one guest thoroughly enjoying it, mixed equal amounts with another sauce,
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The best chicken curry EVER. It takes hours to make it tho', so perhaps make it the day before you plan to serve it. It is not a recipe you can leave to cook by itself.
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Doesn't make a very large salad, but it is good.
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Website: Tess's Japanese Kitchen
I made these with self-raising flour, instead of plain plus baking powder, and it worked fine. These are really very good crackers. A bit time consuming to roll out, but I am not sure if the pasta machine method would work on the dough. Also, rice flour can set like cement, and I don't want to ruin my pasta machine for a batch of biscuits. I was careful to wash up as soon as I had finished rolling out the dough.
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Taste of the Middle East (Creative Cooking Library)
By Soheila Kimberley
Lorenz Books - 2000
This was good, and reasonably simple to make. In the first half of the cooking (which I did in the pressure cooker) I was concerned about the strong cinnamon scent, but once the lemon juice and parsley was added, it settled down and blended in. Tired from Christmas shopping, I added in frozen peas in the last 5 minutes to make it a one-pot meal (2, if you include the rice-cooker for the rice).
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The other half liked it, but I found it a little bland, and even a bit odd. Think crunchy lettuce baked custard. The saffron didn't come through at all, but it was perhaps too old. However, if it gets the non-vegetable-eating member of the house to willingly eat vegetables, I'll make it again. We had it with rice, not the suggested yogurt and pita bread.
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Tacos
By Mark Miller
Ten Speed Press - 2009
Wonderful and fresh. I simmered the sauce down to 1 cup to make a thicker sauce (for nachos), which took about 15 to 20 minutes as I had used ordinary supermarket tomatoes, not Roma.
Also the dry-roasing and rehydration didn't seem to work on my dry chillies (which were from China) so had to throw those out and resort to a spoonful of sambal oelek. Still delicous but probably not authentic Mexican. And the oregano - had to use a handful of fresh ordinary oregano from the garden.
Still, after all that it was a big hit which says something for the recipe.
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Very good. I substituted spring onions for the red onion and it worked.
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Stylish Indian in Minutes: Over 140 Inspirational Recipes
By Monisha Bharadwaj
Kyle Cathie - 2002
Worked well, despite my initial doubts about the sugar and yoghurt. You cannot taste the sugar, and the meat did sort of brown in the yogurt. I didn't have any garam masala, and resorted to a bought curry powder but fortunately it didn't end up tasting like curried egg sandwich, which is what it first smelt like.
Cooked in the pressure cooker, 12 minutes on high with natural release and 250 ml water (more then the recipe). There was no sauce, so I only just scraped it in with the water.
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South East Asian Food (Penguin handbook)
By Rosemary Brissenden
Penguin Books Ltd - 1970
A nice mild soup. Added noodles to make it a light dinner and used a lot more chicken stock then the amount listed, about 2 litres.
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The Songs of Sapa: Stories and Recipes from Vietnam
By Luke Nguyen
Murdoch Books - 2009
Good if you like lily flowers. I used chicken stock instead of water, as soups made with water can be a bit flavourless I find. Also didn't do the knot tying after the first 5 or 6. It does look better if the lily flowers are tied in knots, but I was running out of time.
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Wonderful and easy to make. The stock was made in the pressure cooker, and was just the Christmas turkey with a few other roast chicken bones from the freezer, and some carrots and onions. It was a double stock, as the first batch was a little weak, so I put it back into the pressure cooker with the last of the turkey and the extra bones.
I didn't have some of the ingredients, the pork meats, the bean sprouts and the Vietnamese mint, but included the remnants of turkey meat, and a teaspoon of block shrimp paste. What really made this dish was the fresh mint, which was what we needed, after the last few days. You need a strong stock for this dish as well.
The recipe says serves 4 to 6, but it only does 3, or possibly 2, for a 1 dish meal, no desserts.
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Small Food: Snack-sized Bites to Share with Friends (Cookery)
By *
Murdoch Books - 2002
Very rich, so better with fresh vegetables, rather than the crackers recommended.
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Really quite nasty and wouldn't crisp up, no matter how long they were left in the oven.
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Horrible. Too bland to be edible, just a vegetable mush.
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There are better guacamole recipes out there. This one didn't seem to come together well.
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Savour the Pacific: A Discovery of Taste
By Annabel Langbein, Kieran Scott
Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company - 2002
A welcome change from the usual pumpkin soup recipe. Half a 200g block of creamed coconut worked fine instead of the tin of cocount milk.
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The Red Cross Recipe Book, 9th Edition
By The Longreach Branch, Queensland Division
As above - 1993
Only fair, but I think that it is the cook more than the recipe. The biscuits needed to be rolled thinner than I managed, and I forgot the salt. Also, I used liberal amounts of flour to stop them sticking, which resulted in a floury after-taste when cooked. Next time I will try the log chilling method, slicing the raw dough into thin discs when it is cold. Worth a try.
useful (1)
Recipes From World Vision
By World Vision of Australia - Shepparton Branch
World Vision of Australia - Shepparton Branch - 1981
Listed as "Australasian", but it can't be really. This recipe must have kept students and first-time-away-from-home alive for years all over the planet. A can of tuna, a can of sweet corn etc etc served with rice - better then instant noodles (probably more expensive tho).
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Very good recipe - this is the glace fruit type of fruitcake, with minimal flour.
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Good and freezes well.
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The Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accessories
By David Lebovitz
Ten Speed Press,U.S. - 2007
Good, but not as good as I expected. The recipe doesn't specify what type of banana (probably a good thing as I only know two) but perhaps he was using a better cooking banana then I was.
Still, a delicious icecream.
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Everybody liked this one. The mixture was too thick for my Sunbeam ice-cream maker to churn, so next time I will try substituting the half and half with full-cream milk instead.
useful (2)
Definately one to remake, but perhaps with a little less brown sugar.
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A great hit with the only person who took milk in her coffee. Fun to make.
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This is a good recipe, but as written in the book, you must let it soften a bit before serving. I use 3 whole eggs instead of the 5 egg yolks, and for my oven 150 C for about 3 / 4 hours is fine for the rice pudding. Pureeing half the mixture really does make a big difference to the final icecream.
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Pasta
By Julia Della Croce
Convent Garden Books - 2000
I chickened out, and only used 1/2 teaspoon of sambal oelek, instead of the 1 tsp crushed dried chillies, so the bite was very mild. It has been a long time since I made pasta, and I didn't leave it quite long enough to dry before putting it through the cutting rollers, but it was only one of the sheets that stuck together. The instructions in this book are good, with plenty of pictures illustrating how to use a hand-cranked italian pasta machine.
I was interested to read that fredireike (sp? Sorry!) found the servings a bit small in a gnocchi recipe. I found that the serving size recommended here, I batch serves 4, was way off. Two of us ate it all in one sitting, but one of us is a big chap who is a good trencherman. Stlll, that only makes 3 ordinary servings, only just enough for a 1 course, 1 dish meal.
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Website: One Page Cookbooks - For the first time cook
Combined Base 7 (roasted chana dal) with flavoring 2 (mustard & asafetida). Quintupled the recipe to make what I would consider 3 lunches, along with grits (trying to use them up) and stir-fried spinach.
A nice curry, very mild. Dry roasting the legumes gives them a nice nutty flavor.
The only concern I had was pressure cooking the legumes. My pressure cooker instructions are a bit wary of cooking beans as apparently they can froth up, and can block the vent. So, I didn't use the sites method, but followed my manual and nothing blew up.
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One Hundred Famous Chinese Foods (Eng-Chin Ed.)
By
Chongqing Publishing House,China - 1999
Not really very nice. Just OK.
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The Moosewood Cookbook
By Mollie Katzen
Ten Speed Press - 1977
Good, despite not having butter, buttermilk, yoghurt or fetta cheese. The oil, vintage chedder and milk with vinegar worked fine. Used half a standard sized pumpkin. Will definately make this one again.
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A Month in Marrakesh
By Andy Harris
Hardie Grant Books - 2011
A good plain soup which made a large potful. I made it with water, not stock, and it still worked, which is always a good sign.
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The Middle Eastern Kitchen: A Book of Essential Ingredients with Over 150 Authentic Recipes
By Ghillie Basan
Kyle Cathie - 2001
OK, but didn't get rave reviews. Next time I would try sauteing the spinach first in oil or butter to try and keep the spinach a brighter green. and use fresher prunes. Despite soaking, the ones I used were still bit old and dry.
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Madhur Jaffrey Cookbook
By Madhur Jaffrey
Tiger Book - 1992
If I can't find fresh gluten at the asian shops, or gluten flour in the supermarket, I use this recipe to make it out of ordinary bread or white flour. Good detailed instructions. I always bake them or simmer in meat stock, rather then deep-fry, just to minimise the calories. I've seen it in other books as seitan.
Just a warning, if you do simmer it, it expands to an astonishing degree.
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OK, but nothing to rave over, even substituting chicken stock for the vegetable stock.
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Disappointing. Possibly if I hadn't read the paragraph at the start of the recipe, I wouldn't have expected so much, but I certainly wouldn't sneak out of the house for this. I used tinned chickpeas, and had to double the cooking time to get them close to the mushy stage that I prefer, but that is the cook, not the recipe.
I might try the recipe again, but will be prepared to tweak it substantially. Also, 5 tablespoons of oil is way too much for frying the onions. Possibly the recipe is just showing its age / era.
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Lord Krishna's Cuisine: The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking
By Yamuna Devi
Bhaktivedanta Book Trust - 1987
I really didn't like this, but to be fair, I had forgotten to add the chili, so when I took it to work for lunch the next day, it was so bland as to be inedible. I don't think I will try this again, but it might work as a side dish to a spicier mains.
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Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking
By Fuchsia Dunlop
W.W. Norton & Co. - 2003
Good, not too dry as some dumpling receipes can be.
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A good way to serve cauliflower, and very easy to make. This time I tried blanching the cauliflower as suggested, as I was trying to get as many dishes on the table at once as i could, and it did work. I also used supermarket stock powder, which made it a little salty, combined with the bacon.
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I am not sure about this one. It took at least 8 minuets of vigorous stir-frying to get the potato's cooked to what I would consider edible, and even then, they certainly didn't look enticing. The recipe calls for them to be al dente, but we all agreed that potatoes were one vegetable that needs to be cooked " to mush". At the very least, a garnish of spring onion or coriander is neded against the mass of white slivers. Also, the Chinese may consider potatoes as a rice accompaniment, but I felt like I was serving carbs with carbs.
However, we did like the flavor of the sichuan peppers and chillies with the potatoes, and maybe I would consider this dish in another way, such as frying up the pepper mix to sprinkle over bought Fish and Chip shop chips, which are the golden, crunchy chips we prefer.
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Website: King Arthur Flour
After reading lemonadesandwich's review, I had to try them, and they were excellent. Very easy to make, and the batter really did bubble up in an hour (I find yeast has a very poor concept of recipe time, as I usually let it rise without any heat source). No messy beating of eggs. We had them at dinner, with ice-cream and home grown raspberries and tayberries. Wonderful!
useful (1)
Ken Hom's Chinese Kitchen: With a Consumer's Guide to Essential Ingredients
By Ken Hom
Anova Books - 1996
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.
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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.
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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.
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