A British classic - custard tart
"This is not a dessert that can be rushed, either in the execution or the enjoyment." Felicity Cloake This is sort of a postscript to my look at Delia classics. As I was flipping through her books I came across this in book one of Delia's How to Cook, which she calls Old-fashioned English custard tart. I had such a rush of nostalgia when I saw this picture for we sometimes had them at home. I say 'them' because, of course, you can get individual ones as well as large ones
7 days ago
Confused by trends
“Like dogs, foodies wag their tails at the slightest sniff of new and exciting. Then bark at each other on social media. Food is fashion. If you’re into that stuff, it matters.” Perry Haydon-Taylor/The Guardian I was going to call this post two trends in one - illustrated by this Coles recipe for Fluffy Cheesecake with matcha icing sugar from their Food Director, Sarah Hobbs - the two trends being Japanese cheesecake and matcha desserts. The trends were based on the list pu
Jul 29
Tonight's dinner? - some kind of pumpkin tart
It's Friday, which is generally quiche night, but David has been loyally eating the remains of last week's quiche for his dinner when I was fasting, and so my thoughts turned to a galette - and specifically a pumpkin galette because I have some pumpkin that needs using. My thoughts immediately turned to Ottolenghi's (maybe Ixta Belfrage's too since the recipe is from their book Flavour) Butternut and sage galette with orange caramel which I have made a couple of times before
Jul 17
Yes there is such a thing as grape pie - but ...
"Rarely do grapes make it to the cooker, the majority being eaten straight from the vine." Nigel Slater" It was just a throway line at the end of yesterday's post - are there grape pies? - but then today I thought I should find out if there are. And yes there are. Well there seems to be just the one really - Concord grape pie - the Dish 'n' the Kitchen shown here, which is a speciality of the west of New York state centred around the town of Naples. At first I thought Con
Jul 6
From the big bang to apple pie
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” Carl Sagan Somewhere on this website there is the above quote with a note from me - "which is intriguing but I'm not quite sure I understand it." Well today I found the answer and castigated myself for being so dense and not seeing what was meant. I mean it's pretty obvious if you think about it. The answer came from Yotam Ottolenghi of all people - well he does have a degree in philosoph
Jul 5
Breadsticks or grissini - maybe ficelles?
"Bread - the founding food of civilisation ... the two plus two equals five of culinary evolution" Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall Not that breadsticks are what we first think of when we think of bread. But then as he goes on to say - bread has many forms: "Bread is also like humanity itself. We come in many different shapes and sizes colours and guises, yet underneath the skin/crust, we're all made of the same stuff. And the trick of achieving happiness and harmony is surely
Jun 13
Lardy cakes
Lardy cake isn’t lardy cake if you hold back." Kimberley Killebrew/Daring Gourmet The lardy cake above is my inspiration today - it's Tom Hunt's version of this traditional British cake from The Guardian - and now having searched the net for variants - one of the best I think. It came from a link in Felicity Cloake's Guardian Feast newsletter, in which she was bemoaning the loss, or at least scarcity of traditional British bakery treats such as this. Potentially unhealthy,
Jun 12
Reflections on a small piece of quiche
"When we eat, we travel." Mina Holland This was my lunch today. A small piece of leftover quiche, so being otherwise clueless - partly because I have not been writing of late - otherwise occupied - and partly because it's an interesting exercise to do every now and then I decided to consider in a more analytical way than usual what my lunchtime quiche. As you know by now I make quiche a lot. It usually begins with some kind of leftover which might well offend the purists,
Jun 10
Nice - a word and a place
"By 1926, nice was said to be "too great a favorite with the ladies, who have charmed out of it all its individuality and converted it into a mere diffuser of vague and mild agreeableness." [Fowler]/Etymonline I have no idea now where my inspiration for this post came from, but I think it began with the word rather than the place - very different things - and yet, maybe that quote is indeed apt. for both of them. We shall see. Above is my very last sight of la belle France,
May 27
No pastry? Try potatoes, rice ...
"Very Easy and very cheesy" Erin Jeanne McDowell/Food 52 Today's Happy Foodie newsletter featured a whole lot of quiche recipes, which was sort of coincidental because of yesterday's galette. So I checked them out - there were ten of them and two of them were unusual in the sense that their pastry enclosure was - well I guess you would say - 'not normal'. I was intrigued and started rambling the net to find other ways of making a case for your quiche - or your tart. Now I
May 23
Friday pastry fun
"There is never enough crust." Nigel Slater Somehow or other it is now almost a tradition that Friday is for pastry - usually a quiche. It is also true that by Friday I am using up leftovers, or even leftovers of leftovers. Like today. Pastry and leftovers offer an infinity of possibilities, and a fun challenge. Behold today's challenge. What absolutely has to be used is the tiny bit of leftover vegetable toad-in-the-hole in the front. Actually the vegetables only cons
May 22
I changed my mind
"When in doubt, choose." Lily Leung I'm a bit late for this post because it's about a dinner at home with friends on Saturday. Not so much about what we actually ate, in terms of what it was like - besides I, of course, took no photographs, but more about the selection process. And I know I have written this kind of thing before, but never mind. At least it's a way of introducing a few dishes you might like to try. So - steps one and two which were simultaneous. Two of m
May 13
Yum - but when would I eat this?
"If you wanted to be really rogue you could dump every single ingredient into the loaf pan itself, mix, bake and eat." Sarah Kate Gillingham/Kitchn The above Badass smoky chilli cheese bear bread was one of the recipes I found when I was writing about yesterday's website Saucy Gander. It looked so decadently scrumptious that I saved the photograph for another post. And here it is, because I have less time today and this is probably going to be one of those - a list of reci
May 6
A farewell with finger sandwiches and dainty teacups
Two days ago I went to a funeral of this lovely lady here. Her name is Shell and she was a member of my 'old ladies book group'. I hope they do not mind the name but we are indeed all old. Shell was one of the oldest - she was I think 94 when she died. This is her on her ninetieth birthday I believe. This is the book group I joined, maybe a year after we arrived in Australia, maybe 1970 - before children for us all. Of course the members have changed over the years. She
Apr 29
Torta Pasqualina - an Easter tradition
"The quintessential spring dish." Stefano Arturi I have now been trawling the net for examples of this Italian - no - Ligurian - Easter dish - a pie filled with cheese and greens and eggs. I now have a large number of examples and a few things to say about it but didn't know which example to use as my header picture - so in the end I decided to go for the very first one I looked at from a website called Marcella in Cucina - after all, she's Italian and it looks pretty goo
Apr 10
Marmalade and cake
"In my book, a cake stands or falls by how moist it is. Dry cake is fit only for trifle." Nigel Slater I don't really know why I'm writing about marmalade cake. Our marmalade stocks are low, so I don't think I shall be wasting it on cake - well David would see it as wasting. Or bread and butter pudding, mousse, soufflé, tart - or indeed any other dessert that involves marmalade. But this particular version - Breton butter cake with marmalade from Helen Goh in The Guardia
Mar 19
Still a demon dish
They almost look alright don't they as they sit on our dinner table ready to be eaten last night? Even almost pretty good. But reader - alas - I failed yet again. Pizza is still my demon dish - perhaps I should say top demon dish - I have others. They look almost as good as the Smitten Kitchen version but obviously a long way away from the real deal on the right. But then I was never expecting to reach those heights. And actually, now that I look at all three, I'm wond
Mar 10
Demon dishes - mine is pizza
"Raise your hand if you never get pizza right when you make it at home" Deb Perelman/Smitten Kitchen Those words began one of Deb Perelman's recipes on her website Smitten Kitchen - a recipe for Lazy pizza dough and favourite Margherita pizza . She had me hooked right there, because that's me. On the left is her finished Margherita for that post, above is a world-beating pizza from Anatica Pizzeria Port'Alba in Naples, so I don't think many of us are going to taste that
Mar 8
Fish finger sandwiches
"the UK equivalent of Mexican fish tacos or West African fish rolls" Felicity Cloake/The Guardian Although this particular post began with Rick Stein - possibly the British king of fish - at least in a commercial way - I'm beginning with Jamie Oliver, who has said of the fish finger sandwich - a peculiarly British institution: "As a chef I always feel I shouldn't be eating something like a fish finger buttie – but you know what, I think that makes it taste even better." T
Mar 3
Quiet satisfaction
"Cooking at home, you don't need to hit the bull's-eye, you just need to hit the target." David Chang This is last night's dinner. We thought it looked impressive enough to photograph and also because it illustrated for me some of what I was saying in yesterday's post - and elsewhere in the past - about how important it seems to be that things look good. In every aspect of life really - beginning with ourselves, and leading to just about every choice we make in life. We a
Feb 16