Tomato couscous

Recipe:
158. Tomato couscous

Source: Feast

Weird ingredients and substitutes: No garlic-infused oil, so just used regular extra-virgin olive oil.

Preparation: Halve tomatoes.

Cooking process: Cook tomatoes, add couscous and spices, boil water and leave for 5 minutes. That is too easy.

End result: I had made it for dinner to go with some leftover Thai chicken wraps (not regarded as Chinese food), but when we got to it, we found that the chicken wraps were sufficient, so all I managed to do was spoon out a bit for the photo display and then we had the couscous for lunch the next day.

I'm not sure if it was the sitting around, but when we ate it for lunch the next day, I found it to be quite bland, and added a lot of Tabasco sauce to mine.

Repeatability: No

Cost: I doubled the amounts to ensure that it would serve both of us. $4.

Mess: The saucepan just needed a soak to get all of the couscous off.

Special utensils: Nil.

Just call us chopstick masters

So, we went away to China for 12 days. We visited Beijing, Xi'an, Suzhou, Shanghai, and Hong Kong.

In terms of meals, from Beijing to Shanghai we travelled with Intrepid which had a group of 12 plus the tour leader. So most nights were group banquets.

Food highlights included the Mongolian hotpot and Peking duck. To my knowledge, I didn't eat dog, unless our tour leader ordered it secretly (he has a wicked sense of humour).

We were sick by the time we reached Hong Kong, so all those plans of yum-chaing over town went out the window. Okay, okay, I'll admit that we had Macca's (hangs head in shame). But we only did it once.

One thing that struck us was how cheap the meals were when eating out. The most expensive meal that we had was the Mongolian hotpot, which set us back Y130, or AUD$22 for both of us, including drinks, and Hubby had beer. Cheapest was a dumpling dinner, where we ate until we were stuffed, and paid Y54 or AUD$9 for both of us, including drinks, including Hubby's beer. Oh, and we did have a traditional breakfast for Y8 one day (AUD$1.30), just across from the hotel. We did enjoy eating out, but when we came home, Hubby said "No Asian food for a week, okay?"

Lentil soup

The last of the pre-trip meals...

Recipe:
157. Lentil soup

Source: Feast. From the Funeral chapter. Not that we were having a funeral or anything, it's just that I had all of the ingredients on hand.

Weird ingredients and substitutes: This was made in half-quantities. Puy lentils were sourced from the Queen Vic market ($3 for 250g, if I remember rightly), substituted Dijon mustard for wholegrain mustard, and used up the last of the chopped tomatoes which were leftover from the pizza.

Preparation: All vegies are pleasingly chopped up with the food processor.

Cooking process: The vegies are then cooked until soft. Then add the lentils, mustard, tomatoes and water, and leave for an hour. From memory (and this is why you should not leave blogposts for when you come back from your holiday), I had to keep topping up with water, I also believe I added stock powder after tasting it.

End result: The soup was okay. Nothing exciting, and I would have preferred if the lentils had softened into the soup. I suppose the opposite reason is why Nigella specified Puy lentils, because they don't melt, but this was the first time I had tried them.


Repeatability: Nah...

Cost: $7 for a half-quantity. Not sure how many servings it had, as I believe I had to chuck the rest out, given that we were going on holidays.

Mess: Nothing too bad.

Special utensils: Food processor, I love it.

Mozzarella in carrozza

This was also made before we left.

Recipe:
156. Mozzarella in carrozza

Source: Nigella Bites

Weird ingredients and substitutes: If I can remember rightly, I substituted the specified plastic white bread for Helga's sunflower, honey and oats bread. I still had mozzarella leftover from the pizza.



Preparation: Make a cheese sandwich, wodge the edges together and hope it stays. Dip the sandwich into milk, then flour, then beaten egg.

Cooking process: And quickly fry both sides. I had to do some careful maneuvering to make sure it didn't come apart - I guess Helga's bread doesn't stick together like plastic bread does.

End result: It was pleasingly crunchy, although bland, and I agree that next time it would be better served with chilli sauce.

Repeatability: As above, will serve with sauce next time.

Cost: $4 to serve two.

Mess: A little, depending on how far away your dunking bowls are from the frying pan.

Special utensils: Nil.

Sake steak

I'm baaaaack! Did you miss me?

We came back a few days ago, and I've been banned from cooking Asian food for the next week, as we had an overdose while we were overseas. All the better for getting through some more Nigella recipes.

This meal was cooked before we went. (You'll also need to scroll below for black sapote, as I only just published it, but it published to the original drafting date).

Recipe:
155. Sake steak and rice

Source: Feast

Weird ingredients and substitutes: I substituted Dijon mustard for the specified English mustard.

Preparation: Marinade steaks. Although normally I am not this prepared, I remember making the marinade the night before, and leaving the steaks to marinade all of the next day.

Cooking process: Rice-cooker rice, adding cardamom pods. Fry steaks for a couple minutes each side. I didn't bother foil wrapping them. Boil sake and make sauce. Then carve meat and lay on top of rice.

End result: Served with wok-fried bok choy, with an oyster and sesame oil sauce. Mmmmm. This was a lovely meal. I love my steak.

Repeatability: Yes, although I will need to buy more sake before I can make it again, as I used up the last of my bottle.

Cost: $12 for 3 servings.

Mess: Only when you cut up the steak, and the juices run everywhere.

Special utensils: A rice cooker makes things easy.

Tasting: Black sapote

I went for a walk to the Queen Victoria market one Friday a few weeks ago with one of my workmates. And when you see something labelled 'Chocolate pudding fruit' for only $1, one has to try it, yes?

I chose a hard one, but the grocer told me it needed to be soft and squishy and starting to go black on the outside. So I swapped for one that was so squishy, it left an indent on the side when I squeezed.


So here's the assessment:
Smell: No distinguishable smell. I was hoping for a chocolate hit.
Cut: Given it is so soft when it is ripe, it is very easy to cut, and inside there are 4 or 5 pips about the size of an almond. And here is a photo of the inside:


Mouthfeel: Soft like mousse.
Taste: I can distinguish the tiniest amount of vanilla, which I enhanced with vanilla essence, yoghurt, and melted icecream.

I'll save you from the picture of the 'mousse', it looks like the inside of a baby's nappy.

Overall: It's not very exciting, I wouldn't buy it again.

Signing off for a little while...

The Next Nigella is off on an overseas trip, so will be unable to blog for a little while. She has three meals that she has experienced, but has yet to write about; she has comments that she has not responded to (sorry people); and needs to urgently finish packing. Good intentions, but unfortunately time was against her - please check back here again at the end of September.

Bye bye for now, and thanks for visiting!

Lemon roast chicken with lazy mash

This was last night's dinner.

Recipe:
152. Lemon roast chicken
153. Lazy mash
154. Petits pois a la francaise

Source: Feast

Weird ingredients and substitutes: I had run out of garlic oil, so used olive oil.

Preparation: Shove half a lemon into the chicken, and then massage the chicken with butter (which I had melted a little in the microwave) and then oil.

Cooking process: Put chicken in oven while you prick a few potatoes, which are then added to the oven. Then you have free time for an hour!

I then decided to use up my cauliflower cheese packet from the Good Food and Wine Show a few months ago, and prepared that. At the same time, I made the petits pois which was just spring onions, lettuce and potatoes braised in some stock. Then ding! the chicken was ready, so I made the gravy. My potatoes were also ready by that stage (in fact, their skins were getting very brown) and were ready to be turned into lazy mash. You need to be very careful - the potatoes are very hot. I used a fork and knife to get the potato out of the skin without burning myself.

End result: Another great meal. I must say that the chicken meals are very popular in our household. The chicken was perfect, although the gravy was a little oily. I might have added too much nutmeg to the mash, but it was fine. The peas were good, probably more effort than what I would normally do. I must also admit that the cauliflower cheese was amazing (even though it came out of a packet).


Repeatability: Yes to all, including the cauliflower cheese...

Cost: $11 and it would have served 4.

Mess: There did seem to be quite a few dishes in the sink at the end, but 10 minutes of scrubbing and back to a shiny sink!

Special utensils: Citrus reamer, and a non-stick roasting tin.

Aloo gobi

This was Thursday night's dinner. I had bought some chicken breasts that were already marinaded in tandoori sauce, so thought that this dish would go well with the chicken.

Recipe:
151. Aloo gobi

Source: Feast

Weird ingredients and substitutes: I only had ground cumin instead of cumin seeds, so used that.

Preparation: Peel and boil potatoes. Cut up spring onions and cauliflower. Measure out the spices so they are ready to go.

Cooking process: Waiting, waiting for the potatoes to boil. Cook the seeds, it didn't take very long until they started to pop. Then add spring onions and cauliflower, and leave for 10 minutes. Then add all other ingredients, cook for another 5 or so minutes, and voila!

End result: I didn't think it was too bad, you certainly notice the lemon juice in the meal, and it goes well with the chicken.


Unfortunately Mr Fussy didn't like it, and found it too bland.

Repeatability: No

Cost: $7. It makes a lot.

Mess: Nothing too bad.

Special utensils: A citrus reamer.

(Un)exceptional salmon

This was Wednesday night's dinner. I suppose I've already given away in the title what we thought of this dish.

Recipe:
150. Exceptional salmon

Source: How to Eat

Weird ingredients and substitutes: Nil.

Preparation: Cube bacon, wash lettuce leaves (I used a mixed bag), and peel and slice tomatoes. I am now an expert in tomato-peeling.

Cooking process: Fry bacon, then cook salmon. This was a bit messy, as the oil was spluttering everywhere. Boil eggs. Yes, I added all recommendations to the salad. Then squeeze lemon juice into the frypan and pour on top.

End result:...Well, the bacon and eggs were nice.

Hubby was saying while it was cooking, "It smells very fishy!" and you will of course remember his dislike of seafood. He obediently tried some, but when he got to the raw inside of the salmon, he couldn't handle it. I've been banned from making seafood again.

Repeatability: No

Cost: $15 down the drain.

Mess: And the frypan splutters and there is oil everywhere and some of the salmon skin stuck to the frying pan...

Special utensils: A citrus reamer for the lemon juice.

Soup and patties

This was Tuesday night's dinner. Given that I had ham, parsley sauce, and potatoes leftover from Monday night, what else could I make but...

Recipe:
148. Parsley and ham patties
149. Pea soup

Source: Both recipes are from How to Eat.

Weird ingredients and substitutes: This was a really quick dinner, which helped to make up for the night before.

Preparation: All done the night before...mash potatoes, cut up ham, cut up gherkin.

Cooking process: For the soup, heat some stock, cook some peas in the stock, and then puree in the food processor. Too easy. Grate some parmesan for the top.

For the patties, combine all ingredients, then form into patty shapes and fry in the frypan. I must admit that my patties didn't hold together very well, so I added an egg hoping that this would bind all ingredients together, but they still fell apart. Oh well, it would still taste the same.

End result: The soup was much much better than what I thought (considering what simple ingredients were put together). Earlier that day, I had been talking to a work colleague who asked, "What's for dinner?", and when I told him pea soup, he started going "Ewww. My mum used to make pea soup and it was disgusting." While I laughed it off, I did get a bit worried. But really, I had nothing to worry about. Here 'tis.


As for the patties, they did fall apart in the pan, so if you look at the photo, you probably won't be able to distinguish one patty from another, but it still tasted fine. There were some bits where I should have left it cooking a bit longer so that it could go brown and crunchy...mmmm. It was okay, very filling, but nothing special.

Repeatability: Yes to the pea soup, no to the patties.

Cost: Soup $2, patties $4.

Mess: The darn patties ALSO stuck to the pan, which required quite a bit of soaking to get off. I don't care even if they were nice, they are NOT a repeatable.

Special utensils: Food processor to puree the soup and a micro-grater for the cheese.

Toffee apple

This was dessert on Monday night.

Recipe:
147. Buttered apples
Source: How to Eat

Weird ingredients and substitutes: I had a lone red apple in the fruit bowl, so this was as close to a cox as I was going to get.

Preparation: Peel lone apple, and cut up into pieces.

Cooking process: Melt some butter and fry the apple. Then add some sugar, which turns into a delightful caramelly toffee, and hardens around the apple.

End result: This was better than what I thought it would be.


And the next night, Hubby asks hopefully, "Are there any more apples left?" (Er, that was a no, but glad that you enjoyed it!)

Repeatability: Yes - I've bought apples today especially to keep Hubby happy.

Cost: About $1 for two servings.

Mess: Not too much, but make sure you clean the pan immediately after cooking, and that way the toffee won't harden.

Special utensils: Nil.

Parsley sauce and a rabbit

This was Monday night's dinner. And it was a lot more trouble than I expected.

Recipe:
145. Parsley sauce (variation of bechamel sauce)
146. Somerset rabbit. Ha. This is the closest that I'll get to eating a rabbit, thanks.

Source: Parsley sauce is from How to Eat, Somerset rabbit from Feast.

Weird ingredients and substitutes: I hope that by cider, that Nigella means apple juice. Because that is what I used. Do you think that she meant an alcoholic cider, like Strongbow?

Preparation: My first step was to peel and boil some potatoes. Then I infused the parsley stalks in some milk. I chopped the parsley leaves, then grated the cheddar (with my micro-grater) and chopped up the ham.

Cooking process: I then made the bechamel sauce and added the parsley leaves, toasted the muffins, made the cheese mixture which was yet another bechamel sauce, and then grilled the cheese on muffins. While the cheese was grilling, I fried the ham, and tea was ready!

End result: Hmm, the somerset rabbit seemed a lot of trouble just for melted cheese on muffins. Nice, but wouldn't it be easier to toast the muffins, slice a piece of cheese, and spread with a bit of mustard? Or is that just lazy me talking? The parsley sauce wasn't anything special either.

Repeatability: No to both.

Cost: $4 for the muffins, $3 for the parsley sauce.

Mess: Yes, I used a lot of saucepans to make this dinner.

Special utensils: Micro-grater, toaster, grill.

Pizza!

You probably don't want to hear this, but the raw onion in the coleslaw blogged below had some ah, unwanted after-effects - I was puffing like a choo-choo train the rest of the day. Or maybe it was the raw garlic.

Anyway, onto a cleaner topic. Sunday night's dinner.

Recipe:
144. Pizza casareccia

Source: Domestic Goddess

Weird ingredients and substitutes: I had Italian 00 flour from previous! Yay! I could only find a 400g tin of chopped tomatoes, and I still have half of it leftover in the fridge, don't know what to do with it. I left off the anchovies. I was tempted by the ready-shaven mozzarella but in the end bought the block of mozzarella, after all, I have to put my micro-graters to good use, you know!

Preparation: As usual, I took the easy way out, which was to mix all of the dough ingredients in the breadmaker, and leave the breadmaker to it. While mixing, the breadmaker was making funny noises, I think the belt was coming off. Lucky for me, the breadmaker is still under warranty, but unlucky for me, I bought it from the city, so on one of these commutes I will need to lug a large breadmaker around with me. Maybe on a day when it's not raining. Chop up ham, gherkin, and grate cheese.

Cooking process: Roll out dough, add tomatoes and then put it into the oven for about 20 minutes. I tried tapping the dough when I took it out, I guess it made some sort of noise, I suppose it may have been a knock but not ultra-confident. Oh well. Add ham, gherkin and cheese, and put back into the oven for the cheese to melt. Hubby walks in and says, "Gherkin on a pizza????"

End result: The pizza was fantastic. The base was nice and crunchy, and the toppings were less than what I would normally put on (I'm a super supreme girl), but very tasty for all of its subtleness.



Repeatability: Yes

Cost: $5. Better than a deal from a fast-food franchise!

Mess: A bit. As you know, I always make a floury mess when rolling out dough.

Special utensils: Rolling pin, breadmaker, micro-grater

Vietnamese coleslaw

We had this for lunch today.

Recipe:
143. Vietnamese chicken and mint salad

Source: Nigella Bites

Weird ingredients and substitutes: I bought sunflower oil in the supermarket today, because from memory that's the oil I need to make mayonnaise with? At least I hope so. So I substituted that for the specified vegetable oil. The chicken was leftover from last night's roast chicken. Flukily, it weighed exactly 200g.

Preparation: Make dressing, which is a matter of cutting up a chilli and some onion, mincing garlic, and adding to sugar, vinegar, lime juice, fish sauce, oil and pepper. This is then left to infuse for 30 minutes. During this time I cut up the cabbage, mint and carrot by hand, and shredded the chicken. Mix all ingredients together.

Cooking process: No cooking required. That's it.

End result: This was so tasty. Absolutely delicious. I was expecting Hubby to complain about the hotness of the chilli, but even he enjoyed it. Yum.


And just as proof about how delicious it was, I'd estimate that it made 3 servings, we had 2 at lunch, and then in the afternoon we picked at and finished off the rest - it barely lasted 4 hours in our house.

Repeatability: YES.

Cost: If I count 1/2 of the chicken, $6 total cost. Mint came from our garden.

Mess: A bit, but I think that's because my bowl when mixing the salad and dressing was too small. I kept dropping bits onto the bench. However, I didn't want to use my larger metallic bowl, given the lime juice and vingegar in the dressing - didn't want it to react, you see.

Special utensils: I didn't use my food processor for this, given that I relaxedly cut up the vegies by hand. A citrus reamer to get the lime juice out. A garlic crusher.

Cookies!

I made this last night while roasting a chicken for dinner.

Recipe:
142. Cut-out cookies

Source: Feast

Weird ingredients and substitutes: I didn't want to use food colouring, so I bought hundreds and thousands instead. Did anyone else go to those birthday parties during their childhood, where the highlight was the fairy sandwiches?

Preparation: Mix wet, then separately mix dry ingredients, and add together. This then gets put into the fridge for an hour. I did find when mixing it that my mixture seemed to be quite dry - maybe my egg was not big enough? Nigella does suggest flour if the mixture is too wet, but doesn't mention what to do if it's the other way around. I thought, "oh well", and hoped the mixture would adhere well in the fridge.

Then it's a matter of bringing out the cookie cutters. This was lots of fun. I didn't even need to dip the cutter into flour - it didn't stick.

Cooking process: Pop into the oven for about 12 minutes or so - I found that my biscuits needed the longer time period to brown. All my biscuits fit onto one tray. Then let the biscuits cool on a wire rack, and decorate as you wish.

End result: I decorated mine with plain icing and hundreds and thousands. Ta-da! Because I am impatient, I didn't bother covering the whole biscuit with icing, but instead dabbed and trickled in a freeform way. I forgot that I had an icing bag too, so I just used a spoon. Still looks good, methinks.


As for the taste, it's quite a pleasant biscuit.

Repeatability: While fun to make and nice to eat, it's not amazing enough to warrant a repeatable. There's lots more cookie recipes to come.

Cost: About $3 for about 20 biscuits.

Mess: Yes, a bit, what with the dough-rolling and cookie-cutting and decorating. I'm still finding an occasional hundred and thousand on the floor.

Special utensils: Roller, cookie cutters, and a baking tray or two.

August 2006 assessment

Number of recipes made this month: 31. Which is alright, but not as good as the blitzing July.

Assessment by book:

• How to Eat - last month at 66, now at 80 (14 recipes this month)
  
• Domestic Goddess - last month at 7, now at 9 (2 recipes this month)
  
• Forever Summer - last month at 4, now still at 4
  
• Feast - last month at 22, now at 32 (10 recipes this month)
  
• Nigella Bites - last month at 11, now at 16 (5 recipes this month).

Size of repertoire: From 74 to 88 repeatable recipes. We were quite fussy this month (the successful recipes had a hit rate of <50%).

Cost: For 31 dishes, $285.

New toys: Nil this month, I behaved.

Cooking skills/experiences: Cooking lamb shanks, cooking with black beans (never again), and if I remember rightly, tagliata/carpaccio, which have been the highlight meals of the month.

New ingredients: Dried porcini, lamb shanks, black beans, almond essence, Italian 00 flour, saffron threads.

The best photo: Cambodian hot and sour beef salad

Best savoury dish: Tagliata with rosemary and garlic potatoes

Best sweet dish: As I hadn't made a huge number of sweet dishes, I have to choose the apple crumble by default.

I do admit that during August, I did go back and repeat a few of the repeatables, which I haven't counted again. Sadly, I already know that there will not be a high number of September recipes, due to planned travels.