Cookery book club - July - Hugh F-W Veg and curries by Madhur Jaffrey and the Hairy Bikers (vroom vroom)

[Curioustiger]

Come join the Mumsnet cookery bookclub! Each month we choose two cookery books - one popular, like Nigella / Jamie / Delia, so you probably already have it / can borrow it and one a bit more unusual. We cook a minimum of two recipes each - you choose the recipe, they just have to be ones you have never cooked before- which works out at four new recipes each month.Then we chat about them!

For June our books were:

• Mexican Food Made Easy by Thomasina Miers
• Thirty Minute Meals by Jamie Oliver

And we posted here

For July our books are:

• Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall Veg Every Day
• Madhur Jaffrey Ultimate Curry Bible AND / OR madhur Jaffrey's Curry Easy AND / OR Hairy Bikers' Great Curries

For August, our books will be:

• Fuchsia Dunlop Every Grain of Rice (chopsticks at the ready ladies)
• Dan Lepard Short and Sweet

We will always try to pick at least one book with recipes available on the Internet, and local libraries are great for cookbooks if you can order in advance. We pick books three months ahead so will be choosing September's books this month.

Think I'd add it to a stir fry with ginger, garlic and chilli as science suggested, maybe a bit of fish sauce to add depth. Thanks for the tip though, wont be trying that.
Will be making another carrot and broad bean risotto, our veg box had lots in, tonight. That one is definitely a hit here. :)

Looking at the recipe, I would blend it until really smooth and use it as the base of a thai soup, adding more spices as needed, and fish, meat, veg, noodles, whatever you like in your soup!

Well, I've cooked naught, but have received all the river cafe books. My favourite is easily green. Then blue. and finally yellow. I also bought Rick Steins coast to coast, which, IMO is lovely. I'm excited to cook from it, and in this heat, that's high praise.

Mmm, the Burmese chicken curry from MJ Ultimate is divine! Great depth of flavour, good tang and rich, complex spicing. Mmmmmm!

I made the summer veg frittata with goats cheese for a picnic this afternoon. it was very nice and certainly an improvement on jam sandwiches! I will make it again.

we then had the macaroni peas for tea. The dc loved this! And it took fifteen minutes start to finish! I enjoyed it, though it's a child's meal iykwim. I wouldn't make it for dh and me alone.

Oh yes glorious, the Burmese is one of my favourites!

Try the Kenyan chicken, it's great.

Thanks showtunes I will

Hello! I've been so rubbish this month but I'm going to try for the last week or two.
I'd like to make a dahl (is that a sp? I'm thinking of roald dahl now and I'm sure it must be wrong) Is there a consensus as to which is the best from this one?
Also any top recommendations for what to go with it? Not toooo hot. I've got the Madhur Jaffrey Curry Easy book, but I'm sure I can google x

Is it just me or is everyone melting in the heat and not cooking anything from the books?

Elr- I would usually have made twice as many recipes by now. The heat has dampened my cooking mojo. Add to the heat the first day of summer holidays today, I haven't even got the books from the shelf for the meal plan.

Made the Beef Rendang from HB. Suggested cooking time 3 1/2hrs - actual cooking time closer to 6hrs - was very good though, made a massive amount....enough for 14-16 people!!

Might try some Southern Indian cooking next, it's feel so much more appropriate for this weather, but mostly feeling like just eating salads, jerk chicken and ribs....finished with a big bowl of ice cream.

Not being doing much cooking here either. If it cools down a bit tomorrow I'm going to make saffron chicken from the HB. It has a lot of cardamom in which I'm not usually keen on, so I hope it's nice!

I'm toooooo hooootttttt ...

to cook. Sorry everyone. I'm afraid all my energy is devoted to sourcing different flavours of Magnum at the moment. I do actually love this weather, I am a real sun worshipper. But I can't turn on the oven or the hob!

Sorry I've been rubbish too although I've fine to HB curries.

I'm attempting to cook the RC carrot and broad bean risotto this week but the thought of standing there and stirring is not motivating.

I don't know what I was trying to say about curries sorry!

It's quite a bit cooler down here today so I might make the Marsala Potatoes for tea :)

Agree it's been too hot to cook much, plus I have that end-of-term feeling and a huge glut of redcurrants that I am turning into jelly, relish, cordial and curd... so with all factors combined we're having very low-effort teas these days. I did, however, make the HB Goan fish curry last Friday and it was utterly delicious! I was unsure about the vinegar, but it really added an addictive tang to it. DH was late home and I was worried there wouldn't actually be any left for him, as I ate half of the sauce while it was still cooking. Would wholeheartedly recommend + it went very well with their Aloo Gobi.
(Even though I'm not cooking much from this month's books I am still making notes of all the recommendations and tips and plan to work my way through them gradually.)

I'm also suffering from redcurrantitis, courtesy of my MIL and am turning the huge amount of soft fruit she keeps bringing round into cordials (redcurrant and rose is a firm hit with the DDs, I prefer the blackcurrant, lime and mint, whereas DH is a fan of the gooseberry and elderflower).

Have some HB curries earmarked for this week though.

Also very excited that Dan Lepard arrived at the weekend. What a beautiful book! I have already made the vanilla cupcakes (needed to make cakes for DD2's last day at nursery ), even though it isn't August yet.

I made the katsu curry from the hairy bikers book and was disappointed.

It had an overwhelming taste of curry powder and I actually put a bit less in than the recipe suggested. I've never made a curry which had curry powder in the ingredients before so maybe I'm not used to the taste but it wasn't very nice.

Ooh Science, what a lovely idea; we have some big, blowsy roses in the garden at the moment so am defo going to try that combination. I have only made raspberry + redcurrant cordial so far + haven't even started on the blackcurrants yet! (I have a v. good red onion + redcurrant relish recipe if you still have a surplus + can highly recommend raspberry and redcurrant jelly )

Science how many rose petals do you put in? I don't want to overdo it!

Science, do try the chocolate custard muffins, you will not be disappointed :)
Viva I have a feeling katsu curry is supposed to taste a bit artificial, bit curry powder-y.... from previous experience, anyway. Sure tiger will be along soon to put me right

Maniac, I use rosewater . I reckon you'd need a lot of rose petals to have the same effect.

But in a similar vein, has anyone on here cooked with lavender? I'm now thinking that blackcurrant and lavender could be a good combination, especially as I have a garden full of the stuff!

Science, I've not cooked with lavender, but have eaten both rice pudding and chocolate truffles with lavender in. The chocolate definitely worked better than the rice pudding, maybe because the richer taste of the chocolate stopped the lavender from overpowering. I really like the sound of it with blackcurrant.

I made the HB saffron chicken curry and thought it was delicious, dh didn't agree and couldn't finish his. He said it tasted of burnt plastic, would that be the saffron?

viva yeah katsu curry does taste like curry powder. I like it but it's a bit like HP sauce or baked beans ... Really distinctive slightly weird taste that doesn't crop up anywhere else. Despite having eaten it at least a hundred times (in Japan and in the UK) I actually had no idea what was in it and was quite surprised by the recipe!

Also I don't smother the plate with it as I would a normal curry (although some people do), I have a good dollop on the side to dip my chicken in, iyswim.

I'm sorry you didn't like it! What a shame!