As 10 CC once said: “Life is a minestrone wrapped up in Parma ham/cheese. Death is an old D’Artagnan, suspenders in deep freeze”. Or something like that. Preparation time: 25 minutes Cooking time: 1 hour Skill level: easy Ingredients 1 onion – finely chopped 2 medium waxy potatoes – peeled and diced 2 carrots – finely diced 2 courgettes – …
A broken cumana The following (lengthy) request came from the archaeologist sister of Blogger D, we’ll call her Potkicker T: ‘Ok, here’s the culinary challenge … for my lecture in September I wish to distract the audience as much as possible with nonsense and pretty pictures. So, to make it a bit more lively I want not just to talk …
This weekend’s planned camping trip to Whitstable had to be cancelled because of the shitty and weirdly biblical weather we are having this summer. So I found myself on a Sunday afternoon at the beginning of August wanting nothing more than to curl up on the sofa in a dressing gown and eat comforting wintery food as outside it rained …
To distract herself from the terror of the flight back from Madrid, Blogger D bought a Spanish food magazine called ‘Cocina Viva’. This dish was cobbled together/expertly assembled via a combination of close scrutiny of the photograph and a bad translation of one of the recipes. Despite this, it turned out to be a triumph. Serve with an Antony Worrall …
Guest contributer JW of Madrid via Clapham writes: This is an Italian dish that I have been curious about for a number of years, and what prompted me to try it out was seeing a well-known TV chef preparing it in such a way that I’ve been obsessed with making it ever since. Madrid, which is nowhere near the coast, …
I came across this Loyd Grossman recipe whilst driving my decrepit G4 along the Information Super Highway. Obviously Mr Grossman recommends we use one of his jars of special authentic Italian-style tomato pasta sauces, but (equally obviously) if you’re taking the time and trouble to cook a meal from scratch, what’s the point?
Another recipe from the mighty Yotam Ottolenghi. Perfect for an anniversary meal. x
We’ve gone cold soup crazy this month. This particular variety is based on the classic Ajo Blanco but with the cheeky addition of cucumber and watercress. Preparation time: 15 minutes plus a few hours for chilling (the soup) Cooking time: 10 minutes Skill level: Easy Serves: 4 starters, 2 mains Ingredients 2 1/2 cucumbers – cut into 1″ dice – …
This recipe involved the dazzling debut of our latest item of kitchen equipment – a Black Iron Omelette Pan bought for the bargain price of £7.60. It came from Dentons Catering Equipment Ltd – a magnificent shop crammed with professional quality cooking gear and definitely worth a pilgrimage – providing you can tolerate the multitude of cityboy urban tossers infesting …
What could herald the arrival of summer more than a big bowl of cold soup. Wasps perhaps. Or possibly sharing the big bowl of cold soup with a wasp. A wasp in shorts. Anyway, if you’ve bothered to read the posts below, you’ll know I am intimately familiar with the red, tomato-based gazpacho, however, up until now have never tried …
Summer reluctantly and briefly visited the UK this weekend, and so as a gesture of thanks to the mighty sun god Ra we held up this delicious offering – the first gazpacho of the cold soup season. Preparation time: 10 minutes Cooking time: none (although you’ll need to allow a few hours for chilling) Skill level: Easy Serves: 2 main …
This is traditionally a humble peasant dish designed to use up stale bread and lovelorn broken bits of pasta and was ironically published in the current edition of Waitrose Food Magazine. Considering the imminent global economic melt down it is of course prescient as we’ll all be peasants soon … or at least those who have a bit of land …
There were scenes of mild peril when I got my squid tubes home and discovered they were not, as I had assumed, empty, but in fact contained tentacles and all sorts of other body parts. Blogger-D had to step in and perform some deft and discrete fishmongery to remove the offending bits of cephalopod. Pathetic I know. Preparation time: 20 …
I can see every red-blooded carnivore spitting derision at the idea of a tofu ‘steak’, and to be honest when I came across this recipe in the excellent ‘Harumi’s Japanese Cooking’ I was dubious myself. OK, so this isn’t a real steak such as you’d get in a Harvester “Have you used a knife and fork before?” Bar and Grill, …
I got this recipe from Simply Recipes – an excellent foodblog by Elise Bauer. Other essential reading on the web this week was this article on Guardian Unlimited, which in turn leads to the very informative and equally disturbing ‘Wolf at the Door‘ website by Paul Thompson. Enjoy avocados while you can and don’t say you weren’t warned. I’m not …
The front page of Ken Livingstone’s campaign website is frozen in pre-election time with the simple message ‘Don’t vote for a joke. Vote for London’. Shamefully, it seems Londoners (or at least the 45% who could be bothered to get off their arses to vote) fancied a bit of a laugh. Anyway, this depressing result left us in need of …
Regrettably the dodgy photograph below does not do this recipe any justice. Even the desperate and clumsy application of random photoshop filters has failed to give an impression of the deliciousness of this dish.
For those of you not in the know and unwilling to look it up on Wikipedia, paneer is a cottage cheese used in South Asian cooking. It can either be crumbly or in block form, doesn’t contain rennet and so is completely vegetarian, and refuses to melt when heated. It has a good texture but its flavour is the mild …
This is an interesting recipe from ‘The Crank’s Bible’ which would make a great vegetarian option for Sunday roast or even Christmas dinner. Be warned though, it’s fairly involved and time-consuming and probably scores 8.75 on the International Scale of Faff … but it is worth the effort. Preparation time: 30 – 40 minutes Cooking time: About 1½ hours Skill …
This morning my co-blogger expressed a desire for asparagus with a supplementary fancy of chilli. Combine this with a lunchtime purchase of parsley, a basil plant wilting on the windowsill, and the recent gift of a superb slab of Parmesan from Parma, and you get the recipe below:
If you look carefully you might be able to make out the face of our Blessed Virgin Mary crying a garlic tear. It seems every house I visit these days has a copy of ‘Jamie at Home‘ lurking in or around the kitchen. Personally I am not a great fan of the ‘celebrity chef’ cookbook, although truth be told this …
The weekend started with a nostalgic ‘The Only Ones‘ gig at Koko, and ended with a boozy tapas extravaganza of which this was the main attraction. Between the two the sun shone on Bethnal Green, a traveler returned and Thunderbirds Were Go. Preparation time: 10 minutes Cooking time: 5 minutes Skill level: Easy/Medium Ingredients For the aioli 2 egg yolks …
In the U.S. the sweet potato is incorrectly referred to as a yam. But there again it’s the land where they call aubergines – eggplants, courgettes – zucchini, biscuits – cookies, jam – jelly, jelly – jello, and torture – water boarding. That said, it’s not technically a potato either. It’s sweet though. Preparation time: 20 minutes Cooking time: 40 …
WARNING: In order to prepare this dish you’ll have to master the subtle art of crumbling feta cheese. But don’t worry, if you find this daunting and would like guidance, there is a website to help you. If you need help with grating the courgette or holding a spoon then I’m afraid you’re on your own.
Cauliflowers are very much in at the moment. Plus, like snow flakes, crystals, mountain ranges, lightning, river networks, pulmonary vessels and broccoli, they are a fine example of fractal geometry in nature. So when you’re cooking this remember to keep in mind D = Log N(L) divided by the log of 1 over L. Enjoy. Preparation time: 15 minutes Cooking …
My fellow blogger recently bought me ‘Roast Chicken and Other Stories’ by Simon Hopkinson. Voted the ‘most useful cookbook of all time’ by somebody or other, it’s a superb book which is not only packed with inspirational recipes, but also makes excellent bedtime reading. It doesn’t have any photographs (usually a prerequisite for any cookbook), but it doesn’t seem to …
This recipe (as well as the three side dishes posted below) were in the current issue of the Observer Food Monthly. Looks good in the photograph doesn’t it? A succulent pan-fried fillet of bass sitting on a vibrant dish of coconut curry and scattered with various decorative bits of shrubbery not mentioned in the list of ingredients. If you cook …
Be Proud. ‘Onions are an essential, healthy food for the modern consumer. And because of our ideal climate and the expertise of British Onion growers, packers and processors, British Onions are the world’s finest!’. So says the British Onions website. Be triply proud. This recipe uses THREE different types of onions. Preparation time: 5 minutes Cooking time: 30 minutes Skill …
And talking of the end of the world, ‘Enjoy life while you can’ is an interesting and alarming article about James ‘Gaia’ Lovelock and his thoughts on climate change. Subsequent meandering research on Mr Lovelock somehow lead to this great ranting podcast by Bill Oddie. ‘Spring Watch’ will never be the same.
Inspired by The Observer Food Monthly we cooked up an Indian spectacular at the weekend. This is the third and final side-dish of a meal still waiting to be written up.
I have to be in the mood for mussels and that mood strikes about twice a year. Even when I’m in the mood I still find them slightly revolting and try to avoid looking too close at what I’m eating. I think that’s part of the pleasure.
I’ve made two exciting discoveries recently. One is the existance of a Waitrose only ten minutes walk from where I work, and the other is the cheapness of calamari. The two are connected as the former sells the latter. In fact this Waitrose is off Whitecross Street which has an excellent food market … a third exciting discovery.
Among other things in the fridge there was half a cabbage and six eggs. Not ordinary eggs you understand, but eggs generously laid by Dolores, Fifi, Jolene and Daphne. Perfect fresh eggs with deep yellow yolks and firm whites – the likes of which you’ll not find in any supermarket. The cabbage in contrast was ordinary.
I intended to use sole for this recipe but when I saw the £26 a kilo price tag I nearly bolted in panic. Fortunately my fellow blogger calmed me down, took control of the situation and purchased two splendid (and considerably cheaper) fillets of plaice instead.
On 14th February I became the privileged owner of this ‘Imperia Raviolamp 12’ ravioli mould. It’s made from lightweight anodised aluminium with an enameled steel base and stands on four non-slip rubber feet. It comes complete with a miniaturised rolling pin turned from the finest Italian beechwood. This weekend was it’s inaugural outing.
For this recipe you’ll have to invest in a bottle of Mirin which after extensive research, I discover to be a sweet alcoholic seasoning made from rice and yeast. You’ll also be needing some salmon – a member of the Salmonidae family of fishes, distinguished by its pale pink flesh and popular among humans. Salmon are of course anadromous.
This is a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe with a few minor tweaks. Out with the smoked paprika because we don’t have any, and in with a little honey for sweetness. Half a glass of Sherry is required so we had to go out and buy some specially. We opted for Tudor Rose ‘We can’t legally call it Sherry’ Cream which at …
A naked Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on the cover and a long and unnecessary interview with David ‘Call me Dave’ Cameron on the inside. This month’s Observer Food Monthly had one cock too many. Preparation time: 5 minutes Cooking time: 30 minutes Skill level: Easy Serves: 4 Ingredients red lentils – 300g 1 onion – chopped vegetable stock – 1 litre chopped …
Every Saturday the Guardian magazine publishes a column by Yotam Ottolenghi called ‘The New Vegetarian’. His recipes are invariably interesting, often unusual, and judging by the ones we have tried, always delicious. This one caught my eye as it is a new way of cooking sprouts, which like dogs, are for life not just Christmas.
Find a Yo! Sushi…walk through door…sit down…grab nearest thing on conveyor belt…shove in mouth – what could be quicker? Certainly not making your own. However…
