Cookery book club - August - Short and Sweet by Dan Lepard and Every Grain of Rice by Fuchsia Dunlop

[Wearytiger]

Welcome to the Mumsnet cookery bookclub! Each month we choose two cookery books. 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 July our books were:

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

And we posted here.

For August, our books are:

• Fuchsia Dunlop Every Grain of Rice
• Dan Lepard Short and Sweet

For September our books will be:

• Tessa Kiros Falling Cloudberries
• any book from the River Cafe books

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 October's books this month.

[Forgetfulmog]

Greensnail - that's strange, I made that cake yesterday & dry it certainly was not! Did you pour all of the syrup over?

[ELR]

Hi just back from a few weeks in the alps so have done no cooking, baking or stir frying at all!!
Read through the thread and looks like there are a few good recipes to try so going to give it my best shot! Kids are going to grandparents today so will just be me and DH so am planning to try a few things from EGoR and then maybe a bread recipe from DL.

[Cocochops]

Made Egor twice cooked pork belly and pak choi with sizzling oil both delicious. I am really enjoying the food from this book. The only thing is that you normally need to do a couple of dishes and then I get a bit stressed following 2 new recipes and getting them ready at the same time.

glorious am also in SE London will keep my eyes peeled for Chinese shops selling wontons!
The sea bream looks lovely want to try that next.

DL chic custard muffins cooling as I type. I wanted to bake with dd but they prob weren't the best choice as had to do some of the recipe on the stove then ds woke from his nap so they are a bit rushed.

When do we start talking books again ? I would be keen for a Thai or Vietnamese one if anyone has any good suggestions.

[glorious]

coco this was on Lee High Road, the Lewisham end, just in case that's accessible for you. It's yellow. And 'chic custard', was it particularly sophisticated? !

I've just made marmalade flapjacks for a friend. I had to test one of course and unfortunately a badly timed feed means they're slightly too hard and not as good as last time. Oh well. I'll also be making pizza for her as she has a newborn. So that's another DL planned.

I've also done DL tortillas as we're having TM steak burritos tonight. Like those of you who made TM tortillas I was surprised how easy they were. Wriggling 6mo on my back didn't much help though and they're a bit wonky. Hope they're nice.

[greensnail]

Forgetfulmog - having sampled a few more pieces of the cake I've had some lovely moist lemony pieces and some that are dry so I think the problem definitely is not enough holes. I did use all the syrup but it's obviously not distributed thorough the cake enough.

Gong bao chicken this evening from egor. Was absolutely delicious, despite a slightly dramatic kitchen accident where I managed to send the wok and its contents flying across the kitchen. Very glad there were no small people in the kitchen at the time. It was so yummy, will definitely make it again, in fact I'd love to eat it again right now!

[glorious]

Mmmm tortillas are amazing! Never buying one again, they're always vile anyway.

[maniacbug]

Chopstickable! My new favourite word. Haven't managed to cook anything from EGoR yet for various reasons, but have read it cover to cover and am planning on carrying it over to Sept as there are so many things I want to try.
More productive on the Dan Lepard front: the spelt & ginger cookies were delicious and looked exactly like the photo, which is always gratifying. I have tried various pizza doughs over the years and had settled on Jamie's (from Happy Days, I think?), but will be switching to Dan's in future. It was extremely easy (10 second kneadings, now that's my kind of bread), forgiveable (I left it more like 25 mins between kneadings), incredibly light at the final stage and deliciously crispy. Blueberry & almond bars were lovely but a bit of a faff and IMHO more of a pudding than a cake due to uber-sticky topping. Would have been nice warm with cream (I found the base a bit dry, but it did improve after 1-2 days). Away walking now for a few days but keen to try more of his savoury things when we get back.

[glorious]

Agree with bug on the pizza dough, incredibly easy and very tasty. Pizzas went down very well yesterday.

[Cantdothisagain]

I tried the pizza dough yesterday- agree its good! Though I actually found the ten minute interval kneading could actually be more work than just one off kneading and leaving- it would depend on what you had planned for the day, I think.
I fancy trying the bran muffins or the Weetabix ones- anyone made these?

[Bumblebeefliesanyway]

Made the semolina and date bar things yesterday. They look like a dog's breakfast but tasted amazing! They also used up some of my vast stores of rose water. More rose water recipes, anyone?
I am loving egor so much that I have now bought Sichuan cookery as well. It is the first good chinese cookbook ive had. Noticed my Tesco seem to have stopped selling chiankiang vinegar though, and I'm running low!

[Forgetfulmog]

Can'tdo - I've made the Wheetabix muffins - very tasty & filling

[Cantdothisagain]

Thanks Mog. Have read through the thread - cant see any big failures- the marmalade flapjack sounds great and the lemon cake!

[ELR]

Finally made something! Marmalade flapjacks in the oven! The mixture was delicious so can't wait for baked version.....
Dinner planned tonight is the chicken and peanut thing from EGoR , off to wing yip in a minute to stock up any recommendations?

[ELR]

bumblebeef like the sound of semolina and date bars but can't find the recipe anywhere have the kindle version so maybe different but what page is it on?

[LovingKent]

Hello. Great idea for a thread . Could do some new recipes! Managed to find EGoR in the library. DH in heaven (he is Malaysian Chinese so recognises a lot of the dishes). So far we have done the red braised pork (lovely, just melt in the mouth), pipa tofu (we both really liked this) and spinach and fermented tofu (accidentally used choi sum instead but it worked with this too). DS was less impressed but is often a bit wary of new food. This weekend we are planning tuzi slow cooked ribs, hangzhou aubergine and sweet and sour courgette. Haven't tried any Dan Lepard yet because unfortunately for him I managed to get a copy of the Pink Whisk guide to cake making also out of the library and have become somewhat obsessed baking my way through it. I will try the marmalade flapjacks though as they sound delicious and I could do with more flapjack recipes (mine usually end up either hard or falling apart)
Look forward to hearing what is chosen for October. Our library is closing for refurb for 2 months so will be finding recipes online.

[ELR]

Hello the gong bao chicken with peanuts was really good DH objected to the whole schichen peppers and the ginger slices but other than that really good. Also subbed the vinegar for balsamic and the wine for port!
The marmalade flapjacks were good but slightly undercooked them so a little crumbly.

[HuevosRancheros]

ELR, they are not in S&S, but think they may have been in the Guardian recently, recipe here

[UptoapointLordCopper]

Hello! Back from one week of no baking! Going to do the garlic and herb roti to accompany curry for lunch. But there seems to be misprints in the recipe - hence on here to look for online version to check.

[HuevosRancheros]

Out of nosey interest, UpTo, what are the misprints? Just had a look through mine, looks fine, but maybe missing something

[UptoapointLordCopper]

Mine had two lots of strong white flour - one lot of 375g and one lot of 200g. Odd. The internet version only had one lot of 250g.

[HuevosRancheros]

In my book, it's 200g wholemeal and 325g strong white.

[Cantdothisagain]

Weird! My book has 200gwholemeal flour and then 325g strong white flour and then again 250g strong white flour...

[UptoapointLordCopper]

So roti made and eaten! They are nice, but I used only 275g whole meal and under
200g strong white. Something is weird about the ingredient list!

We will do the cinnamon cake with blackberry next week.

[madamecake]

Made the blackbean and chilli tofu from EGoR this weekend, and it was delicious, will definitely make again. I couldn't get any of the blackbean paste in time though, so had to use a blackbean stir fry sauce instead!
Think I'll make the twice cooked pork next.

[pregnantpause]

I have already sung the praises of this, but I made the gung boa chicken again yesterday, and it really is lovely