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

Broccoli coconut curry soup - Melissa Hemsley, Feel Good
Not much to say other than this was a really good soup. I’ll confess to using shop bought curry paste instead of making it. One tablespoon of Mae Ploy was enough - I was cautious because I didn’t want to terrify the baby with spice, and it worked out really well.

Sri Lankan style curried crab vol au vent, Helen Graves, Kitchen Projects
I axed the potato and increased the crab as I didn’t want extra carbs in these vol au vents. I choose the make my own puff pastry, but had I not these would have been really quite quick and easy, they were insanely tasty. Inspired by one of the best dishes I’ve had a fancy restaurant we had the leftover crab served on crumpets the next day.

Chestnut Bûche de Nöel, Nicola Lamb, Kitchen Projects
By far the most involved bake I’ve done in a long time which I found it really enjoyable. It looked really impressive and tasted amazing.

Quick squash lasagne - Anna Jones, One:Pot Pan Planet
This was really good, though with the squash being grated it was really lost in the dish. I added in an old sauce I had in the freezer from the Ottolenghi parmigiana pie instead of pure passata, and that really came through and the warming spices were really delicious with the squash and lentils. I wondered if I’d miss the creamy sauce between each layer but (maybe because I served the cheese topping generously to me) I actually didn’t. I was glad I had a food processor to tackle grating the squash!

Duck with Guava Sauce and Charred Spring Onion Salsa, Ixta Belfrage
I did quite a few substitutions for the sauce - mango chutney for guava jam, passionfruit juice for guava juice, harissa paste for Calabrian chilli - but regardless, this was absolutely wonderful, perfect for a celebratory centrepiece. We saved the leftover sauce and served with white fish the next day, which it worked really well with.

Clotted Cream Roast Potatoes
I’ve seen these doing the rounds online and they were fabulous, though not sure they beat my usual fat of Trex. Maybe I need to do a side by side comparison.

Corn Tarts, Nicola Lamb, Kitchen Projects
Super easy, all ingredients I always have in, and they were really tasty and custardy. I served with blackcurrant jam and leftover clotted cream.

Hi all.
I've been on this thread in the past, though not for quite a while.
Last night I cooked
Bengali Fish Curry from 30 min Mowgli.
An interesting one because it uses mustard & mustard oil instead of garlic & ginger. It was certainly different to any other curry I've ever had before - tangy & punchy & really grew on me.
Tamarind Salmon from 30 min Mowgli.
Absolutely delicious.
Chicken korma from 30 min Mowgli.
Predictably great.
Cardamom Rice from 30 min Mowgli.
Just the best rice ever.

Working my way through one of my Christmas presents: Lugma This sesame beets with charred spring onions was delicious.

Could you share the tamarind salmon recipe please? I love tamarind.

French Onion Meatballs with Orzo - Sainsbury's Magazine
This was an absolute winner. You have the lovely sweet savouriness of the caramelised onions but turned into a much more substantial dish, and the addition of the cheesy brioche croutons was sublime.

Of course @Rummikub.
As attached .

Thank you so much @Cantonet

Feel like I've a been a bit MIA on this thread and to my detriment!

Tonight I made a pasta dish from 5oclockapron on insta (hard recomend if you don't already follow her)

Shallots, fried and then roasted till sweet, add sage leaves and crushed walnuts, add red wine vinegar (and more olive oil) for the agrodolce flavours. Meanwhile, cook and drain pasta, add shallot mix, ricotta and grate parm. So delicious - will make again very often!

Still from Lugma: Allspice Chicken with Herby Bulgur-stuffed Tomatoes If using this recipe, read through carefully as some ingredients (eg oil) are used at different stages. Also this recipe forgets to tell you to add the herbs to the cooked bulgur wheat. I loved all of this but the stuffed tomatoes were amazingly tasty.

I also tried Baked Mushroom Rice from Lugma but this recipe isn't online. The rice is flavoured with cinnamon and allspice and the mushrooms are roasted with thick slices of onion first before adding the rice and stock and baking. At the end it is topped with a combination of lightly toasted slices of garlic, almonds and pine nuts (I substituted pistachios because who can afford pine nuts these days?!) and parsley. Really delicious.

I made the black daal from mowgli this week. It was fine but next time I’ll probably halve the lentils as ot made an extraordinary amount and I’m a spice fan so would happily up that a bit

Pecorino and parsnip stuffing, Yotam Ottolenghi, The Guardian
Delicious, but unless this is being served as the main the serving size is way off, it could easily serve 8-12 people as a side dish.

Sausage & Greens Cheat's Lasagne, Sophie Wyburd, mob
I followed this mostly, but layered it up like a proper lasagne using blobs of mascarpone and parmesan in place of a cheesey béchamel. This was absolutely wonderful and felt like such as treat as a midweek meal.

Stir-fried watercress with garlic & chilli, Ixta Belfrage, Fusao
Ridiculously simple, a great fresh vegetable side dish. I’ve never had stir-fried watercress before, but absolutely would again.

Sweet potato gnocchi with spiced aubergine ragout, Ixta Belfrage, Fusao
I didn’t bother making my own gnocchi, I’ve done it before and felt it wasn’t worth the effort, so I just bought pumpkin gnocchi from the supermarket. The ragout was fantastic and was the perfect balance of rich and vibrant.

Picadinho & sweet potato bake, Ixta Belfrage, Fusao
This was like a Brazilian, cheat cottage pie, the flavours worked perfectly for me and I love how low effort it was. I made an effort to cook from Fusao this week and loved everything I had, so I really do need to delve into it more.

Spring Onion Babka, Nicola Lamb, Sift
I’ve never made milk bread, mostly because tangzhong has scared me a bit, I found it really quite straight forward in reality and this bread was phenomenal. I love a sweet treat, but the handful of savoury bakes I have made from this book have all be standouts.

Leek and potato pie - Borough Chef
Not sure leeks, cheese butterbeans and potatoes could be anything other than wonderful and this was. I wish the potato had been crispier, if I’d had been more patient I might have grilled it, but I wasn’t!

Alternate mince pies - Nicola Lamb, Kitchen Projects
I’d had these on my to make list since they were published and for some reason I had it built up as a really complex bake but it was simple and delicious.

On the recommendation from my DD I made a Basil & White chocolate Tiramisu by Ruby Bhogal, this went down a real treat and the basil came through beautifully. My DD had mentioned that in her opinion the basil was a little too subtle, so I infused the sugar syrup with the basil stalks and this was just enough.
Spicy Pasta Bake from Falastin, whilst I liked this I didn’t love it. I think the pasta bake element (without the topping) would be a great way of getting veggies into children (or maybe some adults!). In my head I felt it was going to become a regular but definitely not.
Cod with Coriander Crust from Falastin, this was really tasty and a different way of serving cod. I would absolutely make again, feels like a lovely midweek treat.

Chocolate Guinness Cake, Nigella Lawson
In celebration of Nigella being cast as a bake-off judge I finally made her famous Guinness Chocolate cake. It is lovely - rich and dense, though if storing in the fridge I think it’s better to bring to room temperature before eating.

Mushroom egg foo yung over buttered rice - Meera Sodha
Predictably really good, but also maybe cheating at a new recipe given it’s a mushroom omelette!

Belgian waffles - BBC food
I’m the proud new owner of a waffle/toastie machine, and tried these waffles because I’d heard that folding in whisked egg white is better than all in one. These were delicious and fluffy. I’ve actually made them twice this week and reduced the sugar second time around to 1 tsp.

Snickerdoodles - Nicola Lamb, Kitchen Projects
Really quick and simple bake, and really delicious too. The sugar/cinnamon mix was at at least twice as much as needed though so next time I’d halve that and make more if I need it

Pittas - Jack Sturgess
I’ve never made pittas before and they came out so well and puffy. I put half the batch in the freezer so hopefully they’ll defrost well

DH makes Delia Smith guiness cake - Chocolate Beer Cake , it is absolutely my favourite

Spinach and Herb Dumplings, Ixta Belfrage, Mezcla
I really liked these in principle and want to make them again, but I didn’t thicken the polenta mixture quite enough and the resultant dumplings were really quite soft.

Burnt spring onion dip, Ottolenghi
Solid dip, though I found the flavour more herb forward than allium which wasn’t exactly what I wanted from it. I might make again but play around with proportions.

Sausage, Leek & Potato Pithivier, Nicola Lamb, Kitchen Projects
Surprisingly easy and unsurprisingly delicious. It tasted great and as a fabulous centrepiece.

Baba Au Rhum, Nicola Lamb, Kitchen Projects

I’d always presumed these were deviously tricky to make, but they are just an enriched bread soaked in syrup and served with rum and cream. I could be very tempted to try her maple, whiskey, and pecan variation next time.

Apple Tart - this was from Brutto, an easy to put together pastry free apple tart that’s delicious particularly served warm as recommended.

From Dinner Tonight by Meliz Berg I made both Nutty, herby brown rice and lentils served with Juicy kofte and spinach stew. No surprise but this pairing worked so well together and bang full of flavours. I’ve never been disappointed with a recipe from Meliz, unfortunately there are no links to the recipes online but can PM a photo you should you be interested. It does state that it serves between 4-6, I would say it’s definitely much closer to six.

@Robin60 have you made any of Meliz's jute mallow recipes. My local international food store has it in the freezer section and I think I'd like it but haven't bought any yet!

I've not really ever been much of a soup fan but winter 25/26 has seen me embrace soup and cheee toasties. Last week I made Julius Robert's curried lentil soup with green chilli and spring onion cheese toasties. Both delicious and you can watch on his insta (think it was a November-ish post)

I've also made Justin Tsangs Garlic Oil Haianese Chicken Rice which is on Mob premium. Really good but quite a bit of 'bits' to do. Have bought his book Long Day? Cook this, so will try a few more recipes

This weekend I've made Claire Thomson's Miso Mustard Butter Chicken and Cabbage traybake am a devotee of a chicken traybake, am also a lover of roasted cabbage and a fan of miso, so what was not to love here! Delicious and hassle free!

I appreciate the new tag and thread. Due to a number of continuing family health issues, I haven't been very good at uploading recipes on a regular basis. Nevertheless, I've appreciated seeing all the incredible foods that people have shared. This time, I want to add more myself!

This isn't exactly mine, but my neighbor prepared it for us last night, and it was delicious. My neighbor is often really taste-conscious when it comes to spices and flavors. Soon, I will undoubtedly make it myself, but since I like the flavor better, I'll probably use chicken thighs instead of breast.

there is a real science behind creating new dishes, but great chefs use it more like a compass than a rulebook. They think in terms of flavor balance (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami), contrast (crunchy vs soft, fresh vs rich), and aroma, then build around a main idea an ingredient, a memory, or a technique. Many also rely on flavor-pairing science (ingredients that share aroma compounds tend to work well together), popularized by people like Heston Blumenthal and Harold McGee.