The Ducks Guts' Reviews
154 recipes reviewed. Showing 51 to 100Sort by: Book Title | Date | Rating | Recipe Title 
The Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accessories
By David Lebovitz
Ten Speed Press,U.S. - 2007
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.
useful (1)
Iris Country Fare
By Lyndall Muellar and Robyn Boyce
Winifred West Schools - 2002
Very good robust cake. Good for picnics. The "1 carton" of sour cream is 300 ml.
useful (0)
Chinese Vegetable and Vegetarian Cooking
By Kenneth Lo
Faber & Faber - 1995
Very salty but nice.
useful (0)
Ken Hom's Chinese Kitchen: With a Consumer's Guide to Essential Ingredients
By Ken Hom
Anova Books - 1996
Winter fare. Very good, but I only put a litre of water in at the most. Works well with gravy/stewing beef if you don't feel like oxtail.
useful (0)
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.
useful (1)
Delicioso! The Regional Cooking of Spain
By Penelope Casas
Knopf - 1996
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.
useful (0)
The Art of Persian Cooking (Hippocrene International Cookbook Classics)
By Forough Hekmat
Hippocrene Books - 1998
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.
useful (1)
The Good Cook: Soups
By Time-Life Books
Time Life Education - 1980
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.
useful (2)
The Cook's Companion
By Stephanie Alexander
Viking Australia - 1998
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.
useful (2)
Ken Hom's Chinese Kitchen: With a Consumer's Guide to Essential Ingredients
By Ken Hom
Anova Books - 1996
Very good and easy to make. I use Carnation Evaporated Milk instead of the coconut milk, but that is just a family tradition from the in-laws.
useful (0)
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.
useful (0)
The Food of China: Authentic Recipes from the Middle Kingdom
By Periplus Editions
Tuttle - 1997
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.
useful (0)
The Hungarian Cookbook
By Susan Derecskey
William Morrow Cookbooks - 1987
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.
useful (1)
The Complete Bread Machine Book
By Marjie Lambert
- 2000
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.
useful (0)
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.
useful (0)
Digby Law's Pickle & Chutney Cookbook
By Digby Law
Hachette Livre NZ Ltd - 2006
No matter how tempting, do NOT cook the vegetables. Just follow the recipe (note to self).
Very good family pickles.
useful (0)
Buddhist Peace Recipes (Roli Books)
By Pushpesh Pant, Dheeraj Paul
Roli Books - 2004
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.
useful (1)
Cooking The Indonesian Way
By Alec Robeau
A.H. & A.W. Reed Pty Ltd - 1970
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.
useful (0)
Thai Food
By David Thompson, Earl Carter
Pavilion Books - 2002
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.
useful (0)
Chinese Vegetable and Vegetarian Cooking
By Kenneth Lo
Faber & Faber - 1995
Nothing special.
useful (0)
Cooking The Indonesian Way
By Alec Robeau
A.H. & A.W. Reed Pty Ltd - 1970
Take about 35 minutes to cook if shallow-fried.
useful (0)
Italian Family Cooking: Like Mamma Used to Make
By Anne Casale
Ballantine Books - 1984
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.
useful (0)
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.
useful (0)
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.
useful (0)
Chinese Cooking: Cantonese (International Gourment)
By Margaret Leeming
Ward Lock Ltd - 1993
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.
useful (2)
The French Kitchen
By Diane Hokuigue
Methuen (Australia) - 1983
Excellent light potato dish, not at all heavy. I don't add the cream, but I do use full cream milk.
useful (1)
Bourke Street Bakery
By Paul Allam, David McGuinness
Murdoch Books - 2009
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.
useful (0)
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.
useful (0)
The Complete Middle East Cookbook
By Tess Mallos
Lansdowne Publishing Pty Ltd - 2005
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.
useful (0)
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.
useful (1)
The Food of China: Authentic Recipes from the Middle Kingdom
By Periplus Editions
Tuttle - 1997
Missing something. There are better recipes elsewhere.
useful (0)
Good, although I don't add in the radish and Sichuan pepper oil and only 1/2 tablespoon of vinegar.
useful (0)
Bento Boxes: Japanese Meals on the Go
By Naomi Kijima, Laura Driussi
Japan Publications Trading - 2001
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.
useful (0)
Website: Delia Online
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.
useful (0)
The Complete Middle East Cookbook
By Tess Mallos
Lansdowne Publishing Pty Ltd - 2005
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.
useful (0)
Dim Sum: Chinese Hors d'Oeuvres and Light Meals
By Margaret Leeming, May Huang Man-hui
TBS The Book Service Ltd - 1985
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.
useful (1)
Cooking at the Kasbah: Recipes from My Moroccan Kitchen
By Kitty Morse
Chronicle Books - 1998
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.
useful (0)
The Songs of Sapa: Stories and Recipes from Vietnam
By Luke Nguyen
Murdoch Books - 2009
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.
useful (1)
The Complete Middle East Cookbook
By Tess Mallos
Lansdowne Publishing Pty Ltd - 2005
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.
useful (0)
Small Food: Snack-sized Bites to Share with Friends (Cookery)
By *
Murdoch Books - 2002
There are better guacamole recipes out there. This one didn't seem to come together well.
useful (0)
The Italian Baker
By Carol Field
William Morrow Cookbooks - 1985
useful (0)
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.
useful (0)
The Food of China: Authentic Recipes from the Middle Kingdom
By Periplus Editions
Tuttle - 1997
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.
useful (0)
Recipes From World Vision
By World Vision of Australia - Shepparton Branch
World Vision of Australia - Shepparton Branch - 1981
Very good recipe - this is the glace fruit type of fruitcake, with minimal flour.
useful (0)
Ken Hom's Chinese Kitchen: With a Consumer's Guide to Essential Ingredients
By Ken Hom
Anova Books - 1996
A good dish. Works fine without the meat and with other vegetables.
useful (0)
Italian Family Cooking: Like Mamma Used to Make
By Anne Casale
Ballantine Books - 1984
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.
useful (0)
Chinese Cooking: Cantonese (International Gourment)
By Margaret Leeming
Ward Lock Ltd - 1993
Fiddly to make. Quite nice to eat.
useful (0)
Cooking The Indonesian Way
By Alec Robeau
A.H. & A.W. Reed Pty Ltd - 1970
Good.
useful (0)
Cookery the Australian Way
By Shirley; Suzanne Russell; Winifred Williams CAMERON
Macmillan - 1993
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.
useful (2)
Website: Best Recipes
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.
useful (0)