What is your favourite Nigella recipe? And what's your worst?

[TuttiFrutti]

I love her style of writing, but I find the recipes are very hit and miss. Some work brilliantly, but I've also had some spectacular failures. So I'd really like to save myself some time by finding out what has worked for other people, and what hasn't.

OK, I'll go first: I love the curry-in-a-hurry from Nigella Express, the quesadillas from the same book, and from Domestic Goddess the basic victoria sponge and fairy cakes are good, so is the banana bread and dense chocolate loaf cake. I have had failures with the flapjacks, snickerdoodles and macaroons from Domestic Goddess, and the cheese stars from How to Eat. I also find that baking times are often way too short, for cakes and meat dishes.

Anyone else?

I' ve never had a failure. Cooking times will vary with ovens. Her cinnamon buns are a favourite in this house. Your mistake is doing them in the breadmaker - it's not a breadmaker recipe and there is too much flour and yeast for them (it does need more flour than she says, I'll grant you that).

Brownies good, but Nigel Slater's are better. Cheesecake OK, but Diner Desserts is better. Onion scone thing is fab. Think I have made the vast majority of things from all of her books (except How To Eat, which I don't like at all). No difficulty with any of them. Some of them are a bit "meh" - like risotto bolognese from "Kitchen" for example. But on the whole they are easy to follow and work well. I do cook a lot, and don't follow recipes slavishly - so it might not work so well if you are the sort of person who weighs onions, but if you make bread/yeasted cakes regularly, then you can see if you need more flour and add it, rather than binning it all and saying "well that didn't work."

I like 'how to eat' .

Off the top of my head:

Domestic Goddess- Good:
Banana bread
Snickerdoodles (love these)
Christmas cake
American pancakes
Frangipane mince pies

Bad:
Banana muffins

Express- Good:
Buttermilk chicken+New Orleans coleslaw
Breakfast bars
Mexican scrambled eggs

Can't think of any disasters from Express but haven't cooked loads from it.

I think I partly like it because it gives recipes for things like cheese sauce which you don't know if you are forrin.

Best is Banana Loaf from Feast.

Worst are various meat dishes from the latest book that involve the addition of lots of sugar for reasons I can't fathom. Vile.

MI - my only complaint with How To Eat is how it is set out. I cannot find what I am looking for and it makes me unnecessarily cross.

I think Nigella Bites and Forever Summer are my favourites. I introduced Liptauer, which was one of my childhood foods to the rest of my family.

Those who had flapjack failures take heart - there was an error in that recipe. There is meant to be 150g of golden syrup not 50g. I tried to make them three times before I thought to look on her website for errata.

Generally though, I find her recipes reliable - I do tend to have to increase cooking times a bit for brownies.

I would always trust a Nigella recipe if I were having people round. Unlike Jamie Oliver whose recipes are distinctly hit or miss for me. Including tonight's disastrous lemon pudding with no sauce.

I do think she puts too much liquid into mince and stews but that is probably down to personal taste.

I'm pleased to see this thread, as I have cooked very little from the two Nigella books that I own, as nothing ever really "leaps out" at me.

In fact, the only one that springs to mind is the Chocolate Pots recipe from Nigella Bites - one of my fail-safe puds, incredibly quick and yummy.

Actually, I think I used her Millionaires Shortbread recipe from Domestic Goddess, mind you, it's hard to get that one wrong.

Ham in coke & Pollo alla Cacciatora were the last two I did that got scoffed by family.

lamb tagine with pomegranate, and a red onion and pomegranate relish - from Christmas - yum yum yum yum

Thought of a few more:

Good:
Beef Anchovy and Thyme Stew from How to Eat
One Pan Sage and Onion Chicken and Sausages from Feast
Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake from Feast
Pink Grapefruit Marmalade from DG
MIL's Madeira Cake from DG

Average:
Cinnamon Buns from DG - they were okay but not good enough for the time invested
Madeleines - ditto
Coca Cola Cake - very average

Loads and loads ... off the top of my head:

Supper onion pie (so that'll be a date with tassisssss and waswondering then )
Courgette/chickpea/filo pie thing
Madeira loaf
Snickerdoodles
Breakfast pancakes
Storecupboard cake (ds1 makes this)
Brownies
Buttermilk birthday cake
Flora's famous courgette cake
Baked cheesecake

(these are all goddess)

Pea and pesto soup
Thingy with pork chops and gnocci
Buttermilk chicken
Chocolate pear pudding (staple emergency pudding here)
Pollo alla cacciatore
Chilli (but using proper veg and tomatoes rather than jar)
Chocolate sauce

(all Express)

Loads from Christmas too - esp Spruced up vanilla cake, gingerbread stuffing, brined turkey, maple cheesecake etc

Only real disaster was the beetroot cake in Christmas - a step too far in the vegetables in cake genre (though PILs liked it)

HA, IMO there are MUCH nicer brownies out there. I might even share my "Ultimate Brownie" recipe...it's from Good Food years ago, but not on their website.

I could never get the flapjacks to work either - chewytoffeeemum thanks! I had tried adding more golden syrup but hadn't quite added enough.

Flapjacks are tricky. My friend and I make the same Rachel Allan recipe...hers are AMAZING and mine are either so soft they fall apart or brick hard. I'm going to make this a 2011 resolution.

flapjacks are simple if you have a reasonable recipe

haven't made anything from her new book as yet
off the top of my head these all work for me
lemon syrup loaf cake
basic cupcakes
ham in cherry coke
yorkie puds
new york cheesecake
mince pies
choc espresso cake with the espresso cream
raspberry plate trifle
prawn cocktail

the banana muffins are truly rank
lovebuns were iffy too but i think that's to do with the extreme amount of icing that she seems to like!
that triple choc loaf with the tin lined with cling film that takes an age to cook and always has bits of film still stuck to it

Good

Nigella Bites for cupcakes, also choc fudge icing, choc pots ( are they from there?) southern fried chicken - YUMMMMMM! a thai chicken salad thingie.

Feast - the custard powder birthday cake.
the meringue and sponge cake.

How to Eat - the kids meatballs were good, like a bready ball myself. Greek lamb, with pasta cooked in at the end.

Goddess - apple and walnut cake, excellent but a lot of walnut oil, so expensive.

Summer - the zatar chicken is good, the icecream basic recipe is also good.

Express - white choc and mint mousse - YUMMMMMMMMMM!

Bad

How to Eat - buttermilk chicken with roast pots.

Can't think of anything else bad.

I don't know why anyone would want to make banana muffins anyway - bleurgh.

pmsl i did as had a glut of v ripe bananas to use up and ds1 needed cakes for a sale at school
oh just thought of two other foolproof pleasers- the scones from DG and the choc raspberry meringue which is from 'forever summer' iirc
has anybody made the sweet n sour chicken from 'kitchen' yet?
was going to make it then realised that i have loaned the book out!

Chocolate chestnut pots in Christmas is fab (and v v easy).