Duchess potatoes - posh or humble?
"a rather precious way of serving mashed potatoes." Elise Bauer/Simply Recipes I think the above version of Duchess potatoes are as served on the Orient Express from a recipe by Escoffier no less on a website called Tasting History with Max Miller. I'm featuring it first because it's the polar opposite of the Duchess potatoes I remember my mother making in her tiny kitchen in a 50s gas-fired oven as a treat for us kids. Or maybe it was a way of getting us to eat mashed pot
5 hours ago
Poffertjes, puff-puffs, doughnuts ...
"the yeasted drop doughnuts that many different food cultures seem to have a beloved version of." Jimi Famurewa/The Guardian I marked this page in the latest Coles Magazine because of (a) its reference to Dutch poffertjes and (b) its mention of 'trending brekkie bites' as well as the fact that Coles has decided on this as a product to develop. I thought there might be something to investigate. And indeed there is - well too much really. If you look up poffertjes in Wikiped
5 days ago
Putty in their hands
"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy." Marcel Proust This is a first recipe and the book is Toast: the story of a boy's hunger, by Nigel Slater - his memoir about his childhood and youth. So not really a recipe book, but rather than disregard it I checked the first short piece - it is really a collection of chronologically arranged pieces - and I thought it was so wonderful really that I would go with it. The piece is called Toast 1 and it's about burnt toast an
6 days ago
Anna's potatoes - who was Anna and are you up to this?
"the supreme potato dish of all time" Julia Child and Simone Beck I have no idea now how Potatoes Anna, crept into my Ideas list. I thought it might have been a Felicity Cloake 'perfect' dish but no. Never mind I decided I really had to tackle some of these long ago 'Ideas' so here I am with Pommes - or more correctly Pommes de terre - Anna. The picture is from my rather wonderful, but basically ignored by the internet The Cooking of France - published by Bay Books with r
Aug 24
A recipe, Coles and Curtis Stone - this and that
The recipe in question is from Curtis Stone, in the current Coles Magazine - Lemon-garlic fettucine with crisp chickpeas. I started out today thinking I would do a whole post on crisp chickpeas as they seem to be turning up everywhere I look these days, so when they turned up in the Coles Magazine in this very tempting recipe, from a professional chef, such as Curtis Stone - well he does have at least one Michelin star - I'm not sure how many - I thought I might look closely
Aug 23
The joy of the galette
"flat, round and quintessentially French." Great British Chefs This not terribly prepossessing photograph is the remains of last night's dinner - cold from the fridge. I should have taken a photograph last night but didn't. Anyway it was a dish that gave me great joy and satisfaction for a number of different reasons. Perhaps the main reason, was because in complete contrast to my previous night's dinner - the very disappointing pasta and romanesco dish - this was really,
Aug 22
Abundance - a challenge
abundunce - "the situation in which there is more than enough of something" or "the quality of having what you want in life" Cambridge English Dictionary Yesterday we lunched with our friends with the superabundant garden. We over indulged in the most delicious food and wine, which has led to me feeling marginally poorly - mild alcohol poisoning to be blunt. On top of the wonderful food - the best lamb shank tagine I have ever tasted, and some orangey poached pears, not to
Aug 20
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
Aug 4
Lees
"lees: the substance that is left at the bottom of a container of liquid, especially a container of wine or beer" Cambridge English Dictionary I think this is going to be one of those bits and pieces posts - in this case the little things that have been lurking in my various ideas list waiting to be turned into gold. However, since lees is a food - well drink related thing - maybe it will turn into a mini treatise on lees. We'll see. This is a photograph of champagne restin
Jul 27
Vegetarian skewers - some thoughts
"I'm not sure a tomato belongs on a kebab anyway. They refuse to turn when the kebab is rotated on the grill, burst and collapse into a red mush. Pointless." Nigel Slater Now having a vegetarian granddaughter and some vegetarian friends, every now and then I have to think of some kind of skewer dish for them if the food I am cooking everybody else is for a BBQ or is the family's favourite kebabs. So when Yotam Ottolenghi's topic for his last week's newsletter was vegetarian
Jul 22
Those gifts and impulse buys
"You shouldn't have anything in your pantry that you wouldn't want to cook with." Alison Roman I have two lovely daughters-in-law and two lovely sons, who, because of my love of food and cooking, often give me foodie gifts and hampers. This year for my birthday I was given this glorious Italian 'hamper' - which also included a Graham Swift novel in Italian that the local library had serendipitously been throwing out, and a bottle of Italian pinot grigio - but my husband go
Jun 30
Nigel's fry ups
"The fry-up has always appealed to me, in particular the bits that stay put at the bottom of the pan, the crusty scrapings that brown rather too much." Nigel Slater Uninspired as usual of late, I did my own kind of lucky dip by just picking a page from Nigel Slater's Tender volume 1 - and came up with A fry-up of pumpkin and apple to accompany a meaty supper - well why not I thought. Another enticing recipe title that sets a scene. I thought he might have some more fry-up
Jun 22
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
Dutch babies - neither Dutch nor babies
"dramatic, rumpled crepe-like pancakes will always be more exciting than undramatic, unrumpled crepes" Deb Perelman/Smitten Kitchen This really began with an Ottolenghi newsletter but since I started with a quote from Deb Perelman, I thought I might as well start with her recipe Extra billowy dutch baby pancake - because it's just the basic recipe. And in a way that's all you need to know about this. It's a sort of a cross between a crêpe and a Yorkshire pudding, in that i
May 31
Really look
"The silent chat between the cook and the cooked." Thom Eagle This quote from Rachel Roddy was my starting point today: “I have been reminded of the second-most important advice in cooking (and life): just look, really look.” I chose this painting, because this lady is not really looking is she? Now I'm sure she knows what she is doing and the flames are completely under control - indeed required - but nevertheless it highlights the dangers of not looking at what you are doi
May 28
Raw fish from the sea
"It turns out that sushi made with hot mustard tastes mostly of raw fish and hot mustard. Who could have predicted that?" Chris Worfolk's Blog Raw fish - very expensive if you do as they say and only buy sashimi grade - and also probably not what most of us would nominate as a favourite food. Japanese sushi lovers apart I guess. But one thing that bothered me slightly as I was researching this post was what is the difference between sashimi and sushi? Well this picture show
May 25
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
Getting going
"The morning steals upon the night, Melting the darkness." William Shakespeare The quote and the painting were featured on my art desk calendar this morning, which sort of coincided with the thoughts I had been previously been having about the routines we go through in the morning, so I thought I would begin with it. The painting is by Charles-François Daubigny and it's called Morning by the Lake painted in 1858. I am dimly aware of the artist's name, but do not know this p
May 21
What am I to do with David Chang?
Today is the day I finish with this book which has been sitting on my desktop for a long time now, with lots of yellow stickers pointing out of it. Only two remain, and so it's decision time after a last post. Do I keep it, pass it on to my daughter-in-law who may find a use for it or put it in the street library? I think I'll eliminate that last option. It's too good for that. Because really my indecision comes down to just two things. First - I confess I am not hugely i
May 16