to think that Nigella doesn't taste half the horrible food in her cookbooks?

[GetOrfMoiLand]

Bless her, I love her an all but some of her food is rank.

I tried those gnocchi roast potatoes and they were inedible - spongy and foamy tasting as well as rock hard on the outside.

Marmite pasta - well bloody hell it tasted like the devil's own excreta. Anne del Conte my arse.

DD made the sweet and sour from Kitchen - vile.

I think she has lost it slightly. Compared to How to Eat (food in the real world) I don't think her latest recipes come up to scratch at all.

I do love the way she writes but I think her recipes are so hit and miss it is not worth attempting any more.

oh yes on that note edwardcullen, her fairy cakes etc never stretch to the numbers that they say they will, while biscuits go wildly over.

did ham in cherry coke over christmas, and used the liquid for the red cabbage.

was lovely, although I couldn't get my cherry jam to go sticky - meant to reduce in saucepan, along with the paprika, before glazing. It just kept getting runnier and runnier

would have been better off slapping it on ot of the jar
I love Nigella Summer - we make the fritters too, with various different veg, and the peanut/carrot salad always goes down well (mind you, we like weird salads in our house - spinach/strawberry is another favourite)

oh, and we think the clementine cake is marvellous too.

mind you, I often need to bake gluten and dairy free, and it cuts out the hassle of trying to bake with gf flour, which is hit and miss at best...

Gary Rhodes did an orange cake in one of his books a few years ago - recipe is very similar - usually Nigella does say where she copied got the inspiration / basis from.

Her cake receipes are quite good.

Is the coca cola ham really ok?

Never had the guts to try it

I would love to see the detroit ghetto thread
That Georgian feast is AMAZING.

You have to try that georgian relish with melon, it is really brilliant (and any leftovers are great with chicken and in sandwiches).

The hachapuri (sp?) bread is wonderful. I absolutely love it.

It is very easy to do as well, not much pissarsing around.

I urge you all to try the Tunisian Stew in Feast (but use more rose harissa than Nige says, she says a spoonful, I shove the whole pot in)

i think it's the clementines themselves which are the problem. orange and lemon with the same ingredients is perfectly pleasant (although personally i would always rather have a sponge).

her lemon drizzle cake is great, for example. but the clemmie cake is all claggy.

Yes - it gives it a subtle sort of BBQ type flavour more than anything and depending on how you glaze the ham after can make that more intense.

I once made her slowcooked lamb recipe from back in the day when she was food writer for Vogue

Was in oven for weeks, and the smell got into my laundry cupboard (is still there in fact), and then when we finally ate it lamb was a real letdown

I have pencilled notes all over her cookbooks (fewest on How to Eat and Dom God) saying things like 'use half quantities' or 'utterly disastrous'

GOML - see you really are a fan - OK a few things you don't like but you seem to find more amazing stuff now than things you don't like.

Silver - re the cherry jam, the trick is to boil it furiously (more than you would think was safe) and then take it off the heat after 5 mins leave it for 5 mins to thivken a bit, then throw the whole lot over the ham. You will get a bit of runoff, however you don't want it too thick and gloopy otherwise it won't coat the whole ham. Also you need to put vinegar in it (I just splosh some in out of a pickled onion jar).

Cheeky mare! She probably didn't stole that Venetian chicken recipe from Claudia Roden! here, published 1996

Anyway, the person complaining you can't serve it to a black man is an ignorant douchebag - the Ghetto refers to the original Ghetto in Venice, established 1516.

I think you're right, aitch, to a degree.

my uncle (admittdlynot famed fo rhis baking, but can follow a recipe easily, and honestly, what can you do wrong with the clementine cake?!) had this problem, but I never have.

I've never had that issue (maybe I'm just lucky?) but agree that after a few days it is claggy if there is any left

Nigella - yes i am a fan, bit of her older books really.

I think she writes so beautifully - I like her personal history of food for instance.

In fact, I've been making that chicken recipe since 2004. She probably stole it from me

lol at Abs.

Yes, I cannot believe the stupidity of the person on Aitch's therad. Aitch you myst have thought you were on a Mumsnet parallel universe (we have ALL been on threads like that)

Some of the instructions are scientifically disastrous: do NOT, if making lemon iced gingerbread tray bake from 'Goddess' mix boiling water with the bicarb befofre adding, because guess what? yes, the fizz goes off before it is even mixed into the cake. result: Devil's Own Backyard paving Slabs.
Dito her instruction at some popint to boil the choc and cream for ganache - result: Devil's Own Gravel.
Timings are often way off, too.

GOML - I had it on the hot burner on the aga for ages (couldn't give a stuff about my pans emoticon)

just kept getting runnier

did chuck vinegar in, too.

was fine, just had a bit too much run-off, but we spooned some back over after 10 mins or so in the oven...

re: cementine cake, my uncle has made it just with lemons, an he said not as good.

dh always wants to do an orange/lemon mix. I quite fancy trying lemon/lime tbh.

Ah yes, the parallel universe threads

The chocolate chip cookies in Kitchen are the only cookies that I have ever got to be properly soft chewy cookies - but you need to cook them faster and hotter than she says.

oh GOD I would have loved to have been on that thread.

Mind you the very first thread I ever ventured on in 2006 was something like 'AIBU to think that you shouldn't let your child piss in supermarket carrier bags in the supermarket'

I knew then that i had found my spiritual home.

The Baileys Tiramisu is nice too - can't remember which book that is from though.

I did almoset our entire xmas dinner from Feast this year. We had the mashed potato stuffed goose and the red cabbage and the roast potatoes (not so much a recipe as a BLINDINGLY AMAZING SUGGESTION) and and and.

Hence the diet

So really really ham in coke? Isn't that a waste of coke?

It was awesome. I was subtly encouraging people from other threads to go over and look. The OP was getting all snotty and het up about MNers being "judgy" over her reasons for the name.

It was a thing of beauty.