Weekly new recipe thread

[SarahJessicaParkin]

I've decided to try out a brand new recipe every week this year. I seem to make the same things on rotation all the time, so hope this will drag me out of my recipe rut and improve my not great cooking skills!

Would anyone like to join me?

Last night, I made the Ottolenghi Confit leeks and lentils that others have referenced. I really enjoyed these - yes as PP said there is a lot of leek cream but as i was making roast potatoes as the side, I was happy to use up almost all of the cream as it went so well with the potatoes. As an unexpected bonus, I put the potatoes in during the leeks second 35 mins at the lower oven temp (rather than heat the other oven) which meant the potatoes did a mini confit of their own, before increasing the heat and getting all lovely and crispy - my best roast potatoes in a while!

Pork with Romesco sauce - this was so tasty. The first night I used thinner pork cutlet as my MIL was eating with us and struggles with cutting a thicker piece of meat. However, the following night (as there was plenty of sauce) I used a thicker pork cutlet and it was much nicer as it retained the meat juices.

I also made Chicken Parm with Marinara sauce, this was from Nathan Anthony and was absolutely delicious. I will definitely make again despite using so many dishes in the prep ! I did leave it under the grill for more than the two minutes recommended as I like the cheese well me,ted and slightly coloured.

I love romesco sauce @Robin60 I need to remind myself to make it more often!

Cauliflower with black bean sauce - Marion’s Kitchen
Delicious, and uses up some leftover back beans I don’t have a use for and my neglected mushroom stir fry sauce. Even though I definitely ended up overcooking the black bean mixture, it still tasted great. I should really use more Marion’s Kitchen recipes because I always enjoy them.

Leek and beans romesco - Meera Sodha
Adding to the romesco love!! Great minds think alike Robin! Perfect weeknight meal. I’d planned to make some crusty rolls with it but I had some leftover sourdough, which toasted was goods with it, especially since mine ended up fairly soupy though I’m looking forward to having it with a crust roll which I think would be perfect. This will definitely be on the meal rotation, and it’s one of those recipe that will probably adapt to any kind of bean beautifully.

Perfect carrot and coriander soup, Felicity Cloake, The Guardian
I keep revisiting carrot and coriander soup as I should love it. But it’s just so mid-tier to me, even this version pepped up with the coriander citrus oil.

Pomme Anna, Peckham Kitchen
This would have been much easier if I had a mandoline, I don’t so hand sliced which will have made my slices for more irregular. I lost count of my layers, but pretty sure I didn’t get to 15, I think I got around 10? I used around 1kg of potatoes (before peeling) and a 10x3” loaf pan, after cooking compressing and chilling I sliced into 6 portions which felt right. Really liked this, and while it was a fair bit of effort in advance, on the day of serving it was very easy and looked impressive.

Upside down pear and toasted milk cake, Sirup House
Stupendous! One of my favourite bakes for a while. I now have a load of toasted milk powder, so I welcome recipe recommendations using it.

Creamy saffron orzo with roast butternut and scotch bonnet, Ixta Belfrage, The Guardian
Lots of parallels to the miso butter butternut gnocchi from Mezcla which I love. Not sure how food writers get butternut squash cooked and caramelised in less than 35 minutes, so I added extra oven time. This was super delicous, exactly what expected when I read the recipe.

I won't lie - this was a bit of a faff in the sense of lots of steps but there isn't a lot of 'hands-on' cooking time.
I thought the quantities were all wrong - I had crumb and egg leftover and would reduce both (crumb by about a third, eggs by half) next time) and there was a lot of the marie rose sauce left too BUT it was absolutely delicious and a definite addition to veggie-dishes-to-impress list. Much of it can be made in advance too making it ideal for dinner parties.

We had guests this weekend and I went all out! So lots of new recipes.

Gem and herb salad with maple, lime and sesame dressing, Ixta Belfrage, Mezcla
A really delicious bright crunchy salad. Two guests said it was their standout dish (almost disappointing since it’s just the salad) and one of them said it was the best salad they had ever had. Pretty minimal work too.

Charred savoy cabbage with cranberries + walnuts, Alexina Anatole, Bitter
This was brilliant and balanced with lovely varying textures. Next time I will sub the cider vinegar for lemon juice since I don’t always get on with vinegar flavour and it was more pronounced than my ideal here.

Roasted garlic potato tatin, Nicola Lamb
Double carbs and roasted garlic, hard to believe I haven’t noticed this recipe before. I really enjoyed the process of making my own puff pastry, as I work from home it was easy to fit the turns in which take less time than making a cup of tea. It looked so pretty and tasted amazing, and since most elements can be prepped in advance it was little effort on the night.

Cacio e Pepe croutons, Nicola Lamb
Made using the scraps from the puff pastry from above, very little extra work transformed the leftovers into a very useable format. I served with soup and these were the star of the show.

Festive Pistachio Wreath, Nicola Lamb
Rather than a big centre piece choux, I adapted this to be individual Paris-Brest and used raspberries as my ‘red fruit’. I was so pleased with how these turned out, they looked and tasted like they were from a patisserie. I could do all the work before guests arrived too, so when dessert came around I just popped these on a plate!

Frangipane toast, Benjamina Ebuehi
I will be making this again for sure. I’m a sucker for an almond croissant and these really had that vibe, not too much work for a sweet brunch dish that seemed special. I served with some leftover raspberries from the pud which worked really well.

Crème Brulee Cheesecake - this was so good and a very traditional baked cheesecake. I would happily make again and again.
Hot Cross Buns - whilst these were very good I would add extra spices, nutmeg and cinnamon. In addition, as it makes 16 and even I can’t eat all those on the same day I would freeze straight away and fully enjoy them day by day.

Peanut butter ramen, Meera Sodha, The Guardian
Did my usual switch from peanut butter to tahini. I really liked this, but as far as noodle soups go I have others I prefer so can’t see myself revisiting this

Kale, taleggio and hot honey pizza - Ottolenghi
I didn't make this pizza dough, and switched taleggio for mozzarella. Really nice flavours, although it felt healthy ish, and I don't know if I want that from a pizza hah. Will do onions like this again on the griddle pan.

Tikka Daal - Mob 6
This was fine, but I don't think I'll make it again. I've had better daals. I didn't have tikka paste but did have some madras paste which I used instead - I'd picked it up ages ago thinking I'd use it for a quick tea but this was the first time I'd used it. Something else I don't think I'd bother with again.

Winter Tabbouleh with Blood Orange Dressing - Falastin
I've never had blood oranges before so picked a bunch up and kept an eye out for a recipe. This was incredibly good and I would definitely make again. Thankfully we liked it, it made 8 portions....That said, looking forward to something else for lunch next week 😅

Leek and mushroom gyoza
Needed to use up some leeks, and I had some gyoza wrappers in the freezer, so this was perfect. Really good, and I have gyozas in the freezer for another time as well.

Halloumi with muhammara and herby brown rice
Great mid week meal, full of flavour. I didn’t have any burger wheat in, so used brown rice instead, which worked perfectly.

Harissa lentil ragù with herby feta mash
The effort to output of this really worked for me. The ragù was predictably delicious because of the harissa and I could eat the herby feta mash every day.

cardamom chai shortbread, Alexina Anatole, Bitter
I added 2tbsp of my toasted milk powder. These were so tasty, and a great way to use up a spare egg white too. I think next time I will slice them thinner, my shortbread preference, it also means I get more!!

coffee + walnut baklava, Alexina Anatole, Bitter
I had a nightmare with this. They looked great and I left them (as advised) to rest in the fridge overnight. The next day portioning them was trying - the bottom layer (filo) seemed far too saturated and wet, the middle layer (nuts) was crumbly and falling to bits, the top layer (filo) didn’t want to be friends with the rest and kept toppling off. I salvaged about 2/3 and the remainder was put into a ziplock bag where it can be a fancy ice-cream topping. They tasted good (according to the coffee drinkers) but I was a bit disappointed.

pomegranate + campari granita, Alexina Anatole, Bitter
This gave me a chance to try out my kitchenaid shaved ice attachment, so I simply mixed the ingredients and froze into the little pucks then shaved. Really loved, it was a great palate cleanser, even for Campari sceptics like me.

Fried bread to go with just about anything, Ixta Belfrage, Mezcla
I cheated and brushed these liberally with oil then pan fried, great, though no doubt would have been better deep fried.

Limey cucumber salad with charred spring onion salsa, Ixta Belfrage, Mezcla
Solid salad. I’m not more enthusiastic only because it doesn’t quite meet the heights of the Mezcla herby gem salad I tried a few weeks ago.

Confit tandoori chickpeas, OTK Shelf Love
I’ve eaten this before so had zero doubts about it, it was easy to prep, and looked and tasted marvellous.

Sticky miso bananas with lime and toasted rice, OTK Shelf Love
I can see myself retuning to this time and time again, it was fairly simple and absolutely delicious, the textures and balance of flavours were perfect. The toasted rice powder looked like a dusting of gold.

Sunny dry weather (even if its only 11°C) called for a barbecue, especially because rained most of last summer!
Beautiful burger buns - King Arthur Baking
Really easy, and worked beautifully, Would definitely make these again.

Black bean burgers - Serious Eats
I loved the taste and texture of these. Roasting the black beans was a real game changer. They did fall apart on the barbecue though (which wasn’t a total surprise as I’d read some reviews where that happened). I have two more which I’ll freeze and pan fry later, to see what happens to the structure there. Might just be that leaving it overnight so the breadcrumbs can fully hydrate would help, or maybe it needs a more fundamental change. I don’t know enough about bean burger structures to know for sure though.

Limoncello and Berry lemon cake - whilst this was totally delicious and a show stopper. The recipe advised on using a loaf tin but it would have needed two loaf tins!! Instead I used an 8” deep cake tin with a sturdy tin foil collar, which was definitely needed. It was so deep, I would love to have had another box of sponge fingers to make more layers. This would be particularly good in the summer.

Spiced Chicken Traybake - I made this today and it was so tasty. As I love the combined flavours of potato and cauliflower i added cauliflower to the mix. Next time I might add some chilli. So lovely and an easy, great comfort food.

The limoncello cake looks lovely - and very Easter appropriate somehow. I've had a few new recipe disasters. But these two were nice:

Spring Vegetable Pie Food Urchin (Great British Chefs)
I did, reluctantly add lardons to it, because DH was rolling his eyes a bit at all the vegetables. The made a nice addition, but they were really required. Makes a huge pie - I halved the recipe and there is easily enough for 4.

Chicken, Bacon and Leek Cottage Pie , Tesco recipe
Really easy and so comforting. I didn't go with the instant mash, but for a family short on time, this would be ideal.

Birria Tacos
I've been craving tacos and because i'm influenced by my tik tok algorithm specifically I wanted to make birria tacos. I used two recipes as reference points
https://www.mob.co.uk/recipes/birria-tacos and

Making the birria sauce was super easy - it takes a while to cook down the meat, but thats what Sundays are for, right?

On Sunday night, I had a disaster making the tacos. All recipes say to dunk/drag the tortilla in the consommé but this just made my tacos very wet. I think for some reason the fat hadnt floated to the top in an even way, so I got more 'sauce' than fat. I was stressed AF! They were still nice but not right.

Tonight, with leftovers (and a change of pan) I brushed each tortilla with olive oil before popping in the pan, I also got portions of the meat out of the scant bits of sauce to keep it moist and drained it over the warmed up pan - so eliminating more excess moisture.

Tonight was a dream - tacos crisped up (they didn't have the red birria tinge but meh!) and the meat and mozarella did their thang and dippage into a pot of birria sauce was delicious!

Bought enough meat for 4 (according to MOB) - have made 6 meals and still have probably 2 portions of meat left over for jacket potatoes...

Potato slab pie - Yotam Ottolenghi, OTK: Extra Good Things
Predictably excellent. It’s pastry, potatoes, cheese, and herbs, so really can’t go too wrong. I found pouring the custard on after packing the potatoes a challenge, as the custard was thick and there wasn’t much space for it to go as the potatoes were so tightly packed so some just ran off. That didn't seem to affect the dish though.

Brown butter butter beans with spring onion pesto - Yotam Ottolenghi, OTK: Extra Good Things
I made a few changes to this: skipped the anchovies, and reduced the butter in the brown butter component (seemed a huge amount without something like bread to soak up and was serving as a spread with the asparagus with labneh, brown butter and burnt lemon so not like we were lacking for brown butter). I loved this one. The texture of the roasted beans was great (though I admit I didn’t flip each bean individually), and the pesto was delicious, and brown butter is always a good thing!

Asparagus with labneh, brown butter and burnt lemon- Yotam Ottolenghi, OTK: Extra Good Things
Another cracker. The burnt lemon was simple enough to make and a great flavour. The whole dish just worked, and the leftover yogurt and butter from the plate was delicious on toast.

Cucumber, za’atar and chopped lemon salad- Yotam Ottolenghi, Flavour
The recipe intro really sums this one up perfectly. It’s simple and refreshing and happily sits alongside anything. I can see myself making this one again for a side dish, because it’s a salad which is tasty in it’ own right, without just being a token nod to the five a day, but not dominating either. Surprisingly, this held in the fridge fairly well to be brought out a second day.

Rice pudding with roast rhubarb and thyme - Yotam Ottolenghi, Sweet
Switched to thyme rather than tarragon, as I don’t love anisey flavours in general, and I already had a lot of herbs in for the recipes above and thought the thyme would be delicious. In the end, though the rhubarb smelt really strongly of thyme when it finished cooking, the taste didn’t carry through, and the dominant flavour was of the bay in the rice pudding, which I loved and was surprised by. I served the rhubarb hot nd thought the temperature contrast was extra delicious.

Taylor Swift’s chai sugar cookies - Joy the Baker
I’ve seen a few people from this thread on Taylor threads around MN before, and this is so worth making. The recipe Taylor shared had a chai teabag, but I don’t have any chai teabags in so liked that this recipe just used spices (though I might add some finely ground tea leaves next time for the tea flavour). Loved them as did my Swiftie friend who was visiting, and will probably end up having them again for Eras.

Hot cross custard buns - Nicola Lamb
A really great recipe for brunch for guests as the dough is best left overnight, so all the hard work is done already. Loved these, and they carried the essence of a hot cross bun but in a different form factor. There were a couple left over for the next day, and they were still deliciously soft. Though the hot cross bundt she posted this year looks amazing.

Spiced Saffron & Date Croissant Pudding, Benjamina Ebuehi
A happy accident with the shopping list meant we ended up with a pot of double cream with no purpose. This had been in my bookmarks for a while so I made it and whacked it in the freezer ready for guests. Ate it this week and it was really lovely and didn't seem to suffer at all for being frozen.

Cashew Chicken, Joshua Weissman
Pretty good, no complaints, not my favourite, but think that’s a personal preference thing rather than a problem with the recipe.

A very beige Instagram feed but a very tasty soup - Roasted Cauliflower and Cheddar Soup. Subbed the cream for milk and it was delicious! Would definitely make again, I love cauliflower cheese don't know why I'd not considered it in soup form before.

Smoky Chickpeas and Tofu - this was brilliant weeknight meal, it comes together so fast and tasted great. I've not had smoked tofu before and would definitely pick it up again. If you don't follow this Instagram I'd recommend, every recipe I've made from it has been delicious.

Wholemeal Multiseed Bloomer - this was super tasty and really easy to bring together. I love Jack's book Bread Everyday, I really need to play with it more.

Sichuan Chilli Pork Belly Stir-Fry, Marion’s Kitchen
Yet another great recipe from Marion, I’ve found I especially vibe with her spicy stir-fry dishes.

Ram-don Noodles with Black Garlic, Leek, and Tenderstem, Meera Sodha
As a meat-eating tofu sceptic I decided to substitute the tofu for thinly sliced beef and this meal really worked for me.

Prawn Lasagne with Habanero Oil, Ixta Belfrage, Mezcla
This has been a long time coming. Really really tasty and it looked amazing too, her advice to leave to stand for 10 minutes is a game changer for lasagne presentation! It is rich though, I served with a light side salad and still felt the portion was a touch too big.

Pecan, miso & honey sable, Nicola Lamb
Made these for friends and they went down really well.

Creamed corn-stuffed peppers with pickled jalapeño - Yotam Ottolenghi
Found this when searching for recipes to use up double cream. Very good, though when served as suggested with roast potatoes and greens, if didn't feel like a light lunch! It's definitely high on the list of recipes to use up leftover cream though, as especially with the roast potatoes, it's a good Sunday recipe.

Tikka Halloumi and Curried Lentils - mob
This was fine. Nothing more than that. Used the rest of my madras paste for the halloumi vs making the marinade suggested. It was perfectly nice but I wouldn't rush to have it again. Very easy to pull together.

Crispy Potato and Salmon Bake - Emily English
This on the other hand I will definitely make again, delicious comfort food that was full of flavour thanks to the mustard and smoked cheese. I'm tempted to pre-order her new cookbook.

Yesterday was vegan macaroni cheese with roasted broccoli, crispy chilli breadcrumbs and an entirely unvegan addition of some Parmesan.

Today was a Spice Tailor curry sauce with butternut squash and chickpeas.

Tomorrow is courgette pasta and Thursday is a vegetable risotto.

Will go out either Friday or Saturday and have something simple on the other night, such as jacket potatoes or a quiche and salad.

Only just discovered this thread. Would love to join. Placemarking for now.

Just realised that I posted on the wrong thread.