Weekly new recipe thread part 2

[toastofthetown]

Continuing one of my favourite threads on MN. I've tagged everyone who's been on the thread this year, but it's not an exclusive club - the more the merrier!

@AnnieKenney @CandiedPrincess @Conqueeftador @DizzyWaltzer @MrsLargeEmbodied@mumofoneAlonebutokay @myrtleWilson @OMGitsnotgood @PineappleChicken @Pompoms88 @Robin60 @SummaLuvin @Wildernesstips

Beef short rib in red wine - though I based my recipe loosely on this. I personally felt it would (?) be improved by a base of mirepoix. With that addition this was absolutely delicious and I would definitely make again. I did cook for a lot longer and made it the day before - mainly for convenience but in the knowledge the flavours would mature overnight,

Creme Brûlée Cheesecake - this was one recipe I hadn’t intended to tweak! After making the cheesecake I found my blowtorch wasn’t working and it was too late to order another. As I had some blackcurrants I cooked the with a little vanilla sugar to serve on the side. The cheesecake was really tasty,

Had beetroot, apple and feta fritters for lunch with a (grated) carrot salad with a tahini sauce dressing

Also made Cauliflower & chestnut soup for tomorrow - I roasted both the cauliflower and (fresh) chestnuts. It was a bit bland so I added some lime juice and transformed it to something very yummy.

Pear Bar, Nicola Lamb, Kitchen Projects
A perfect autumn bake. I'm always much more in the mood to bake as the weather gets cooler, this feels like mid-range effort and well worth it - though I could be tempted to have the spiced shortbread by itself if I was feeling lazy.

Tried orzo for the first time with this dish, although used halloumi rather than mozzarella which worked well:

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/baked-tomato-mozzarella-orzo

Sticky Toffee Thumbprints, Sophie Bamford
Firmly back in my baking era, these were utterly delicious, a big hit.

Honey, soy and garlic marinade - Marion’s Kitchen
Subbed honey for maple because I was sharing with the baby. This was fine, but I’ve preferred other soy based marinades so probably won’t make again

Everyday cake - Benjamin’s Ebuehi
I forgot I wanted to bake for friends coming over until the morning so this was perfect. I used mixed spice instead of lemon because it felt more autumnal to me and I really liked it. The suggestion to fry slices in butter and serve with honey was delightful.

Roast sprout and halloumi rice salad - Emily on Toast
Simple but really good. Any kind of rice bowl dish with roasted sprout is going to work for me!

Roast carrot with herby bean dip - Feel Good, Melissa Hemsley
Like everything in the book it was simple enough to make, but delicious to eat and makes me feel good eating it. Ive been in a bit of rut food-wise and this is one of the books which always helps snap me out of it.

Passion fruit creme brûlée by Nicola Lamb. I made this and to be honest it was the first time I’ve been disappointed by a recipe from Nicola L. It’s possible it’s something I didn’t do quite right but the brûlées didn’t set properly. In my defence (?) the cooking instructions were pretty vague. Once in the oven which was pretty low at 120*C fan, it said “start checking after 10 minutes then every 5 minutes after that”. It didn’t state approximately how long they would take, I gave mine 25 minutes but they were still very liquid but fortunately they had great flavour. Im not convinced I would follow this recipe again but find another recipe for the flavour profile. I served it with small shortbread biscuits which was a wise choice.

Chicken thigh and honey gochujang instant noodles, Justin Tsang, Long Day? Cook This.
The accompanying salsa didn’t really work for me here - but the chicken and noodles were perfect without, I loved Buldak vibes.

Toffee Apple Pie, Nicola Lamb, The Guardian
Gorgeous and fairly easy, an autumnal take on banoffee. It was quite soft and hard to serve on day 1, but the next day it seemed to have set up much more and cut into clean slices far better - so maybe one to make a day ahead.

One Pot Urfa Chilli Chicken
Made this last night - didn't have urfa chilli so used some hot chilli flakes which actually had some maroon colouring to them so maybe they were some urfa in there! (Have now amazoned urfa) Was delicious - went counter cultural and used some baguette to dip into the delicious sauce rather than suggested flat breads. Beyond easy to do and will be on rotation!

Two more from me
Green Mac n Cheese
From @5oclockapron on insta. Love her account and have made many of her dishes. Green Mac N Cheese involves blanching and blitzing some cavolo nero to add to bechamel and pasta and cheese for the aforementioned Green Mac n Cheese - Delicious!

Hake, Anchovy, Cabbage
Georgia Hayden recipe - delicious and so simple. Shred vegetables, stick in tray, add fish,top with anchovy butter (also includes garlic, chives, lemon capers), roast, eat . Job done

Well, I just noticed Asda have whole ducks on sale for £7.5 so I'm going to grab one for the freezer and my New Years resolution will be to learn how to cook duck as I've never done it before 🤣 I think I will use the same recipe I use for roast chicken but adjust slightly cooking times (Samin Nosrats buttermilk brined chicken)

Duck dries out a lot quicker than chicken and it can be hard to roast it evenly when cooking it whole so do look at tips for how to do this - I found the BBC and Nigella most useful.

If you roast whole - this is a Persian dish made for banquets: Roast duck fesenjan

OR spatchcock it Cranberry-glazed spatchcocked duck (includes a link to spatchcocking instructions)

OR cut it into pieces and cook separately.

My two favourite duck recipes:

Nigel Slater's Duck with Figs and Barolo

Duck Ragu

OR cook it whole another way: I love this recipe which also gives you litres of lovely duck stock for making soups: Portuguese Duck Rice

Silky squash risotto with sage, parmesan & pine nuts, Hannah Wilding
It’s been yonks since I’ve had risotto, this was so lovely and warming and wintery.

Couve and Orange Salad, Ixta Belfrage, Fusao
My contribution to a fuddle was to provide the fresh/crunchy/vibrant element to the spread, so my first dip into Fusao was this salad. Pretty easy and pretty basic ingredients. This was lovely, but I think segmenting the oranges would have been a nicer texture when eating.

Easy No Fold Soup Dumpling Hack, TikTok
I don’t know who to credit with this as I’ve seen a number of creators share their take on it and supposedly it went viral in Japan first. I did layers of a pork dumpling filling, cabbage, and wonton wrappers. Both DH and I loved this for a quick warming lunch - though we both had the same criticism that it would have been better with the cabbage shredded.

Blistered tomato & harissa bean stew with herby lemon yogurt
Super simple and proper comfort food. I had it with seeded sourdough because that’s what we had in but I imagine it would be great with any carb.

Saffron pasta with chipotle shallots and pickled chillies - Ottolenghi
Found this recipe looking for ways to use up tagliatelle so I didn’t make the pasta but this was cracking anyway. I didn’t halve the shallots to serve two and that was a great decision as they were delicious.

Japanese curry rice with soy marinated egg yolk - Meera Sodha
I don’t think I was ever not going to like this and I very predictably did. I think I’d prefer the sweetness of peas over green beans next time though.

Aubergine, green bean and Thai holy basil stir-fry, Meera Sodha, The Guardian
As a non-vegan and tofu skeptic I skipped the tofu and added a fried egg. Really solid weekday meal.

Blistered tomato & harissa bean stew with herby lemon yogurt, Hannah Wilding
Thanks for the recommendation @toastofthetown. Really quick, very tasty, and so hearty. I served with bulgar wheat and reduced the amount of yogurt by about two thirds as a few dollops each is all we wanted.

Mont Blanc Iced Gems, Nicola Lamb
I added blackcurrant jam at the same tine as the chestnut spread for a little acidity. I’m glad I did as I feel this mede them more balanced, these were gorgeous and looked fabulously festive. Next time I would be tempted to make them in the smaller size.

Maple Butter Glazed Loaf Cake, Benjamina Ebuehi
I adore Benjaminas cake recipes, this hit just like I expected. I didn’t make the custard, and while it was lovely without, I am keen to try it with soon!

Flour Tortillas, Ethan Chlebowski
I only bothered with making own tortillas as I wanted burrito size ones which I can never find in the supermarket. However, these were so easy and so good (soft, pliable, flavourful…) that I can see myself doing this more regularly given I try to keep half an eye to UPF consumption. Note: he recommends 80g for breakfast burrito size, I reckon for dinner burrito size 100-120g would be better as I found these a little small.

Choconut Tart, Nicola Lamb, Sift
I always find the process of dispersing and pressing the crust across the bottom and into the sides of the tin quite difficult to do evenly, this was no different, the corners were especially thick!!! However, this was a delightful and quite easy dessert, I just have room to improve.

Crumpets
These were amazing and shockingly easy, perhaps they will become my dangerous new obsession.

Deep Green Pasta - Julius Roberts
Desperate for something healthy post Christmas this hit the spot. I expect it would be better with ricotta or mozzarella per the recipe in the book but I just went with Parmesan as that’s what I had in. Very very quick to pull together and incredibly delicious. The green is so vibrant.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C4bLqzaNS5J/?igsh=MW92cGRyYXRzYjg2aw==

Potato and Leek Gratin - By the Forkful
I was woo’ed by this on Instagram and based my Christmas dinner around it. Incredibly decadent - there’s a lot of cream!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSNrR3biLRT/?igsh=anRmZmMxd3RlOXNn

I’ve missed this thread. Not sure how I lost it. The Sally’s baking pizza dough is already proving and I have my eye on the Indian butter chickpeas for tomorrow

Placemarking - love the cookery thread !

Fancy iced gems - Nicola Lamb, Kitchen Projects
https://kitchenprojects.substack.com/p/kitchen-project-192-christmas-biscuit
Surpising easy and really good. I added peppermint extra to the meringue for half of them and that was really delicious. I wanted to find crushed candy canes to add to the biscuits for those ones but I couldn’t find them! I didn’t roll them out thin enough which Id try to next time

Gingerbread matchsticks - Nicola Lamb, Kitchen Projects
Same link, and this was really fun. I made the bigger size. As someone who’s not a ginger lover, the white pepper really gave the biscuits a great kick, while the flavours were balanced for me. Really cute, I should have been bolder with the red though. And super robust! I accidentally left them with the lid off for the last three days and they were still great!

Green Chicken Curry - Nigel Slater's Real Food
Omitted the mushrooms and only had red chillies (so does this actually make it a red curry?), but the flavour was amazing.

Potage Bonne Femme - Lucy Brazier, Christmas at River Cottage
There must be a mistake in the ingredients because 250ml stock and 250ml milk/cream is not enough to make a soup. I added more stock, and it was really lovely and somehow much more comforting than a leek and potato soup (I think the only difference is carrots).

Roast Cod with Sizzled Ginger & Chilli Sauce - January Sainsbury's Mag
Really liked the sauce, but would definitely serve with rice instead of noodles. The sauce was to drizzle over the noodles and cod at the end but I think it would have been better making more sauce and marinating the cod in it.

I made Milky Bar Basque Cheesecake by Alexina Anatole from Sweet as one of my desserts for Christmas Day, this was absolutely sublime. I made it 24 hours ahead and it was still good more than 72 hours later. I wouldn’t change a thing.

i also made Swedish Almond Cake, for Christmas Day whilst this was very good and full of delicious toasted almond flavour it didn’t fill me with as much joy as the above cheesecake.

My other contribution would be making a hot buttered rum, I butchered a couple of recipes and came up with my own which I must admit was very good and definitely a winter warmer. Yiu can use this as a base and tweak spices to suit your personal taste.
Hot Buttered Rum

Serves 4
100g butter
85g maple syrup
1tsp ginger
1tsp cinnamon
400ml boiling water

160ml spiced rum

Place the first five ingredients into a blender with approx 150ml boiling water, blend until all smooth then add remaining water (add more to taste if required).