Recipe review club

[GlumyGloomer]

I love trying out new recipes, and thought it would be fun to have a thread where we try stuff out and report back. Source must be cited and link provided if online. Photos encouraged.

Tonight I'll be making asian aubergine wedges, from Nadiya Hussain's Time to Eat book.
I like the taste of aubergine but have grave doubts about the texture. Still, I'm being brave and giving this a go.
Worth noting that I leave the chilli out of everything so that the dd's can eat it (I add at the table).

Anyone fancy joining me? (Waits for tumbleweed...)

Back to Nadiya's Time to Eat, and I'm working my way through the flavours of homemade microwave porridge. The cocoa hazelnut was lovely (oats broken down a bit in the food processor, cocoa powder, chopped roasted hazelnuts), now I'm on mango and coconut. It smelled wonderful, but the texture is a bit gritty due to the dessicated coconut, and it has fennel seeds in it which I found a bit strong, would only use half if I made it again.

Just wondering what everyone's go to cook books/chefs are?

I don't know why I wrote fish sauce, I meant oyster sauce.
I'd be wary about nam pla, it's much fishier & saltier than oyster sauce, so I'd use just a small amount if you haven't got oyster sauce.

I made this the other day.

thehappyfoodie.co.uk/recipes/peanut-chicken-satay-ramen

Really lovely, I probably doubled the corriander because we're huge corriander lovers. This is probably my most used website for recipes.

Hi @Lonelynow, that looks like a good website, I'll have to take a look around it later.

The rye bread did not rise as much as it probably should, but was still quite nice. Less good than the carrot and oat rolls from the same book though. I've ordered some barley flour so further attempts at Finnish baking in the future.

I don't really use cook books that much. Mainly for baking, and my favourites are nigella and the leiths baking bible.

Today I made grape and chilli jelly... had to make it up so I could use up my greenhouse grapes and chillies! Quite spicy, nor sure yet how it will set... took ages!

Nice thread.

I don't often follow recipes but can vouch for the following:

In Fresh India - the butter paneer / the baked onion hajis (but use more oil than it says) / the chickpea and potato chaat

In Dishoom - the bhel (I could eat it every day and never get tired of it)

From Nigella - can't remember specific books:

the chocolate Guinness cake
the veggie chilli (although my one is better!)
the baked plums with Barbados cream (I now do a much simpler plum recipe though)

From Jamie Oliver:
Hamilton squash
a stir fry in his vegetarian book (he uses peaches, but I change it to pineapple)

@GlumyGloomer How was the sea bass?

Looks like the sauce could liven up any white fish, but was it too acidic?

I don't bake any more, but I like watching N.H.

Today I reboiled my chilli jelly with more pectin... still not set so my fingers are crossed a night in the fridge might work.

I also made a boiled fruit cake from leiths baking bible, which is pretty good and was really easy to make.

And we have finally made it to the end of the vat of chilli!

ha - bhajis not hajis! My 'B' is playing up!

Hi everyone, and welcome @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie. Thanks for the recommendations
@Georgyporky the bass was nice, and yes the dressing would work fine with any white fish. The acidity was fine but I think it was a mistake to use frozen parsley (made it once before with fresh and it was much nicer).

@Imicola the chilli jelly looks great. Hopefully it sets this time but otherwise it can be chilli sauce?

Well, I've been really disorganized but decided to crack on with the peanut chicken despite a number of substitutions. It's in the slow cooker now, on auto, so I'll report back later.
I used chicken thighs, smooth peanut butter, 2 tsp nam pla instead of 2 tbsp oyster sauce, 1 1/2 lemons instead of 2 limes, and no chilli to be DC friendly. Will also be using chopped frozen spinach. Fingers crossed...

I've just remembered this site :-

www.gourmetsleuth.com/

It's great for suggesting substitutes when you've run out of something.

@Georgyporky oh that looks handy, I pretty much never have all the ingredients! It always makes me chuckle when folk complain on bbc good food about comments where the commenter made changes to the recipe.

I always had a plan to write a non cookbook book for confident cooks. An inspiration guide giving info about different ingredients and how to use them, what they work with etc.

Update on the jelly... not quite jelly, but a very respectable chilli jam in the end.

Well, the peanut chicken was very tasty, but quite salty.

@Georgyporky that looks really useful, thanks

@Imicola sounds like an interesting concept for a book. Dh once suggested I write a book about my longtime quest to test the hypothesis that all food is improved by smoking (disproved by smoked rapeseed oil fyi). It would be part review, part autobiography

@GlumyGloomer
I've got this mental image of you stirring a pot of something with a fag hanging out of your mouth!

I tried smoking chicken breasts once - never again. The house filled with smoke & set off all the alarms.

I think the book would be very tricky to market for that exact reason
I've never tried smoking anything myself, so I'm impressed you gave it a go.
My starting point was of course smoked cheese. I once went into a cheesemongers at Borough market and asked if they had any smoked cheeses. I was told rather sternly that no they did not, as it might contaminate the other cheese. The response I thought of much later, and will always wish I'd said, was "you mean improve the other cheses".

I've heard so much about Borough Market, I'd love to visit.
I'm originally from East not Sarf London.

I bought some scamorza in Italy recently & used it instead of parmesan in a pasta bake - really good.

It's filed as 4Ps - penne, pancetta, porcini, parmesan - I'll rename it !

@Georgyporky I didn’t express myself well.I do see the pictures on BBC Food website, it’s just that not every recipe comes with a picture and that’s what I miss.
I have quite a few cookery books and I love the older ones for no-nonsense approach and no fancy cooking ingredients but miss seeing the pictures of finished meal 🙁

The new ones on the other hand- fancy pics very much appealing to your taste buds and imagination but some ingredients are a bit too much for me.
I’m not talking about spices and condiments that last a while and will get used up in relatively short time but very specific things new to me that I haven’t got a clue what else to use it for (and hence going to waste which I hate)

Hello, it's been a difficult week (dd's have colds, dd2 not sleeping as a result), so I've not really done much of note (it's Glumy Gloomer btw).
Last night though we finally fired up the raclette grill we got as an engagement present 7 years ago). Couldn't get hold of any actual raclette but it was good fun even so. We had potatoes, steak, peppers, eggs, cheddar, brie and smoked Bavarian. I now have about a hundred little pans to wash (ok it's 8).
@Georgyporky I've been to Borough market a few times, it certainly used to be worth the trip as you could get some great stuff there. Salt marsh lamb is something I haven't been able to find since. Goodness knows what it's like now, with social distancing etc.

I had to Google raclette grill, new one on me.

7 years ! I can beat that. I was given a canteen of cutlery for my first wedding (cough,cough years ago) - it didn't get used for 20 years. Nothing posh, I was just saving it for "best".

Hope DDs are on the mend. I know how dangerous CV can be, but I wish more effort was put into finding a cure/vaccine for coryza

@FrenchBoule

My pet hates are recipe books with pictures of (insert name here, e.g Jamie, Nigella, Hairies, Gordon etc) staring out to sea or at a plate of food.

I've got nearly 80 cookery books, but I still search the web for interesting things to cook.

I've got a subscription to eatyourbooks.com. It's wonderful for finding recipes either on your own bookshelf or on the WWW.

e.g. finding something that uses that jar of pomegranate molasses that lurks in the back of a cupboard, or ras-el-hanout that you can't remember why you brought it back from Morocco.

There is a free version - worth taking a look.

@Georgyporky 80? I have 14, including one which technically belongs to dd1.
Even then I feel like there are so many recipes I want to try and don't have enough time. All the beautiful cake recipes are the worst. The damn pictures look so good, but I absolutely should not make cakes every week. I'm trying to funnel my love of baking into bread at the moment, because although it's still carbs it is at least less sugar.

I got rid of quite a lot of cookbooks and only kept my favourites, probably about 20 of them. I also have binders full of recipes cut out of magazines!

Today I made aubergine kasundi from this recipe in the guardian www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/food/2020/sep/27/eastern-inspired-brunch-recipes-towpath-cafe-eggs-bhurji-aubergine-kasundi-armenian-spice-cake-lamb-meatballs-harissa I didn't have nigella seeds so used kalonji seeds instead, and I baked the aubergine in the often until soft rather than frying. It was really tasty, but a bit too spicy for DD. We had it with rice, peas, yogurt and feta.. kind of random, but the feta was the recipes suggestion, and it worked well!

80 was left after I had a clear-out !!

I don't know where some of the discards came from - I certainly didn't buy The Joys of Corned Beef or whatever.

One I could not throw away is "The Something Went Wrong What Do I Do Now Cookbook". A birthday present from a school friend. I used to practise my skills on her when I fled the parental nest. Full of tips to remedy/disguise disasters.

DH used to buy me the book tie-in for every TV chef series . I've now stopped him and he pays for the eatyourbooks sub - much more useful.

Oh, the something went wrong book sounds handy! I do quite like the eatyourbooks idea, I might look into it as a Christmas present request!