Vietnamese Pancake

Bánh xèo

from Plenty, Yotam Ottolenghi, Ebury Press, 2010

Just from the name I had no idea what this was. It turned out to be a Vietnamese pancake.

I’m still trying to become more familiar with Asian cooking. It is so different from my usual style, but I do enjoy the food so want to succeed with cooking it for myself. So, since I have learnt to be comfortable with Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipes, I saw this as a chance to improve my repertoire.

The ingredients included mooli which I had never come across before. A bit of googling showed it to be the white radish I knew as daikon. No trouble here.

The three elements of the recipe (pancake mixture, sauce and filling) all proved easy to make.

The pancakes were easy to cook although I believe mine turned out to be a little thicker than they should be.

Asian sauces have usually been my downfall but I felt that with this one I had got closer than I had 

before.

All in all it was a tasty dish: crisp, crunchy vegetables wrapped in a rice pancake and flavoured with a tangy sauce.

This is one I’ll go back to.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

A Rich Garlic Tart

Caramelised Garlic Tart

from Plenty, Yotam Ottolenghi, Ebury Press, 2010

When I first looked at this recipe I hesitated a little over it. It had three heads of garlic in the one tart. That seemed somewhat excessive. But above the recipe was a quote from someone who claimed it as the most delicious recipe in the world.

I looked again. It contained double cream and crème fraîche—and two kinds of goat cheese, hard and soft. It was going to be pretty rich.

I have full confidence in recipes from this particular cookery book as all I have made from it so far have turned out well. The instructions are clearly set out. The ingredients are all arranged in sequence. And there turned out to be no problems in the preparing and cooking.

It was delicious. The best in the world? I’m not so sure on that but I certainly enjoyed it. 

Too much garlic? Definitely not. 

Too rich? Could you cut me another slice, please.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

A Cauliflower Salad

Cauliflower, Feta & Preserved Lemon Salad

from The Country Cookbook, Belinda Jeffery, Lantern, 2010.

The ingredients of this salad all sounded as though it was going to be delicious: cauliflower, feta, olives, rocket, preserved lemon rind and a tasty lemon flavoured dressing.

The instructions, as always in this book, are clear and easy to follow. I have complete confidence when using the book, gained from the style of the writing, which is friendly and generous in its information, and from the successful results from previous recipes tried.

Consequently the salad turned out as I had anticipated. I served it still slightly warm but, oddly, the lemon flavour had a tang to it that was not as pleasant as it should have been. Possibly it was the lemon pressed olive oil which I was using. There was quite a bit of salad left over. This was placed in the refrigerator.

Next day at lunchtime I took it out and took a few pieces out of the bowl to try. They were delicious and I kept going back to the bowl to have a little more. It was a reasonably large bowl but I finished it off by myself in two days of picking at odd moments. I suspect that much of the dressing had sunk to the bottom of the bowl and the oil had set and so its flavour had diminished.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

Dunkin' Doughnuts

Dunkin’ Doughnuts

from Terre à Terre: The Vegetarian Cookbook, Amanda Powley with Philip Taylor, Absolute Press, 2009

I had this book for some time before I felt game enough to try one of the recipes. It was bought because I was intrigued by the photographs of the finished food that looked completely different from any I had previously seen. And then there were also the oddball names of the dishes that only gave hints of what to expect in the meal: Turtle and Tostones, Skinny Melinki, Between the Sheets, and Yuba Juba Beefy Tea. Often, as you can see, they hinted at meaty meals.

When I looked at the recipes they looked as though they were somewhat difficult and complicated. However, since I had the book and a bit of free time came up I thought I had to give it a go.

It was far easier than I had imagined. The recipes are conveniently organised into different elements some of which can be done and put aside while the other sections are completed. There is a final section which explains how to put the various elements together.

The Dunkin’ Doughnuts looked oddly like the sweets course but it was savoury. What seemed to be a glass of hot coffee or chocolate was a chestnut soup. The doughnuts were savoury, flavoured with parmesan cheese and dusted with a mixture of parmesan and dried porcini mushrooms. On the side was a little tower of shaved frozen pear.

While my effort didn’t look exactly the same as the photograph it wasn’t too bad—and it was enjoyed by everyone—which counts in the end.

I had the oil a little too hot for the doughnuts and they were slightly burnt though not too bad to eat.

I really must go back to this book and try another recipe. The one I tried was a lot of fun to make and equally so to eat.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

Conchiglie with Gorgonzola and Pistachios

Conchiglie with Gorgonzola and Pistachios

from The Silver Spoon: Pasta, Phaidon Press, 2009.

Found some conchiglie at the local shop so was keen to try out a recipe that included it. Naturally I found one in The Silver Spoon that covers a great range of different types of pastas.

The most difficult part of this recipe was peeling the pistachios. They had to be soaked a short while in hot water before the peel was rubbed off — all a little time consuming and not too exciting to do. I think I’d leave the skins on if I did it a second time. The blanching softened the pistachios a little so they lost their crunch. The different texture would have been a good addition to the pasta.

The remainder of the cooking was very easy. The result was okay though not one I’d go back to—enjoyable but not over special.

Taste: ✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

Tagine of Artichokes, Potatoes, Peas and Saffron

Tagine of Artichokes, Potatoes, Peas and Saffron

from Tagines & Couscous, Ghillie Başan, Ryland Peters and Small, 2010.

I’ve been on a bit of a Moroccan cuisine phase lately and fascinated with cooking in the tagine. It’s not that easy to find recipes for meatless tagines so I was pleased to find this book that was based purely around tagines and couscous, although the meat-based recipes far outnumber the meatless.

This particular tagine states in the title that saffron is part of it. However, there is no saffron in the list of ingredients nor mention of it in the recipe itself. Lately I seem to be coming across books with recipes that have errors in them. It is disappointing because you depend upon the editors taking more care.

One other cookery book with errors,  quite a few in fact, is Vegetarian by Pippa Cuthbert and Lindsay Cameron Wilson. I did take the trouble of writing to the publishers, New Holland Publishers, to point out the errors but they didn’t even have the courtesy to acknowledge my mail. I guess they have no interest in what the purchasers of their books think. A poor attitude really because it does tend to work the other way as well. When I am purchasing cookery books in future the ones published by New Holland Publishers won't feature very high on my list.

The error in Ghillie Başan’s book is not a bad one. The recipe worked perfectly well without the saffron. There was turmeric in the dish so there was plenty of colour.

I had chosen this particular tagine because we were expecting a guest who disliked fruits in savoury dishes. This one did not have fruits but it did have preserved lemon. The meal turned out to be richly flavoured with spices and wonderful sudden hits of flavour when you bit into a piece of the preserved lemon.

It was also my first attempt at cooking with fresh artichokes. This part of the meal was not so successful as I don’t think I had prepared them totally correctly and we ended up having to use our fingers to pull off the leaves and drag them through our teeth. I don’t think this was the result intended. Nevertheless we enjoyed it all.

I'm sure I'll soon be back into this book to try out another tagine.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

Red Lentil Soup with Minted Eggplant

Red Lentil Soup with Minted Eggplant

from Turkey: Recipes and tales from the road, Leanne Kitchen, Murdoch Books, 2011.

After making the Middle Eastern Double Lentil Soup from Belinda Jeffery’s The Country Cookbook and finding it such a wonderfully tasty soup I have been keen to try other lentil soups. This Red Lentil Soup I found in Turkey turned out to be a rich, thick and flavoursome one. It was purely red lentils cooked in a stock until ready. Then lemon juice was added and salt and pepper. The result was amazingly tasty.

To it was added at serving time some eggplant cooked with dried mint, paprika and garlic. The texture of the eggplant was very soft and melded with the soup. While the eggplant was tasty I think I would prefer to have the addition of something with a different texture to the dish. Even just chopped fresh mint would have been sufficient.

I am glad I found a soup from this book that pleased everyone because previously I had tried a Yoghurt and Barley Soup that I enjoyed but not others.

This is a good book for browsing through the photographs and information about Turkey and its cuisine. When looking for something to cook you find yourself dipping into more than just the recipes. While making the soup I discovered that lentil soup was often a breakfast staple eaten with bread. While it said that Turkish soups were often light and simple, this lentil soup was certainly simple but turned out to be pretty substantial.

I’m looking forward to sampling more recipes.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

Sun-Blush Niçoise

Sun-Blush Niçoise

from The Accidental Vegetarian, Simon Rimmer, Mitchell Beazley, 2010.

I really like this cookbook. The author, a carnivore (to go part way to explaining the title), has a way of combining items in a way that is just that little bit different so you find you have a familiar recipe enlivened.

This is an ordinary salad but it has a special touch: cooked chat potatoes, green beans with capers for an added bit of flavour, added to the usual greens. Then add the tomatoes and green olives. Top it all off with a great dressing (although following the proportions for the dressing I would have had enough for several salads).

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

Grown-up Mac and Five Cheese

Grown-up Mac and Five Cheese

from Vegetarian, Pippa Cuthbert & Lindsay Cameron Wilson, New Holland Publishers, 2010.

You always want a cookbook to give you confidence to go ahead and make a recipe from it, with some sort of assurance that what you make will be close to what you have chosen to make. After I had purchased this book I browsed through it to look at what it contained and my confidence dropped considerably. I was looking at a recipe for Mushroom & Tarragon Wellington and noticed that there were oddly no mushrooms in the list of ingredients. A closer look showed that this was not the recipe that headed the page at all. From the ingredient list I could see that it was items that would make some sort of pasta with broccoli. It did not take too long to find the same recipe under the heading Broccoli, Chilli & Almond Penne. Not a good start. Looks like a poor bit of editing.

Naturally I began to look a little closer—not too much closer—and began to find that this was not the only problem. For example, in one recipe I noticed there is a subheading ‘For the tomato sauce’ in the list of ingredients but you never see where the sauce ingredients end and the other ingredients begin. It looks as though the whole recipe is just the tomato sauce. More editing blunders.

I’d spent my good money purchasing the book so I was determined that I’d give it a go despite the feeling that it might just be better to forget it. So I chose the first recipe in the book, a macaroni cheese. Surely you couldn’t go wrong with that old family favourite. How wrong could I be.

The ingredients list mentions Worcestershire sauce. This is a vegetarian cookbook. Don’t they know that Worcestershire sauce has anchovies in it?

Also the ingredient list says two teaspoons of salt. The first mention of salt in the recipe itself says to add one tablespoon of salt. Later on it actual says to add the remaining salt. I presume that the ingredients list should have been tablespoons, but even if this is the case there is no way I would add one tablespoon of salt to the macaroni cheese with all the salty cheese mixes already in it.  Proofreading failure?

Anyway, not to be beaten by a poorly edited book I went ahead with the macaroni cheese, but making substitutions along the way. It turned out to be quite a reasonable dish. I’m not that convinced that all of the different cheeses make that much difference to the flavour. It was a little stronger than you usually find but that doesn’t really make up for the difference in cost to what is basically a family meal. I usually toss in all the bits of cheese left in the fridge and add some Dijon mustard to the mix to add some bite. I did like the addition of sundried tomatoes. They worked well.

Whether I’ll go ahead with making other items from the book remains to be seen. For the moment I’ll put it aside; there’s plenty of other recipe books.

When you find so many errors from a brief look you feel sure that there are going to be more. It all seems a pity because one of the authors is a food journalist and the other a food writer and stylist. To have such an apparently careless piece of publishing attributed to them is not good. My impression is that New Holland Publishers have an editor who is not a cook, or possibly a poor proofreader.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

My Favourite Chilli

My Favourite Chilli

from The Gourmet Vegetarian Slow Cooker, Lynn Alley, Ten Speed Press, 2010.

After some hesitation over the idea of slow cooking vegetarian meals—especially gourmet—I made a dish of curried chickpeas with ginger and coriander. It turned out to be quite flavoursome and great to be able to put a meal on cooking before I left home for work and then return to find, with just a few small additions, everything was ready. So I thought it was worthwhile giving this book another try.

I chose a bean-based recipe; I am not quite ready to use the slow cooker for just vegetables. I have a suspicion that they will overcook. I’m waiting until I have more experience with the cooker before I try them.

It was a matter of cooking the beans and spices for 6 hours to begin with. Then some more ingredients are added to cook for a further 2 hours. One of these was cocoa which had me wondering a little though I was aware that Mexican cooking sometimes used chocolate. Half an hour before the time was up some more ingredients were added, basically to warm through and cook slightly so they still retain a certain amount of crispness.

I had a few tastes and added seasonings to suit my palate and, though I had some doubt at the first few tastes, it was a very satisfying chilli. It may not classify as ‘my favourite chilli’ for me but it was eminently edible.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

Mr Cutlack's Tomato Pie

Mr Cutlack’s Tomato Pie

from Mrs Harvey’s Sister-in-Law and other tasty dishes, Margaret Dunn, Murdoch Books Australia, 2008.

Last time I looked at this book I was excited to find a recipe for cheese biscuits that seemed to be the same as the one my grandmother used to make. And when I tried it out it tasted just right.

Turning over the pages I located this tomato pie, credited here to Mr Cutlack. It also sounded just like something that my grandmother made. The book says that it is actually made in America at Christmas time when tomatoes are scarce and expensive. It thus becomes a special dish for the occasion.

When I was leaving work I mentioned that I was going home to make tomato pie. I described it my workmate who expressed delight that it was one of her favourite dishes.

I just love the way this particular recipe book seems to be a stimulus for raising memories. So I made my tomato pie with great anticipation.

It turned out to be just like Gran’s but perhaps my memories had overburdened the anticipation. I enjoyed it, but it didn’t quite come up to what I had expected. When I cook it again I might be in a better mind set to appreciate it without the heightened expectation.

The recipe doesn’t stipulate what onions to use so I used the common brown onion. I think that next time I might used white onions. The brown onion tended to be a little too strong.

When tomatoes are more plentiful and less expensive I’ll give it another go.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

Winter Vegetable Gratin

Winter Vegetable Gratin

from Market Vegetarian, Ross Dobson, Ryland Peters and Small, 2008.

Ross Dobson likes market shopping. He feels strongly that the supermarket and the global market have deprived us of some of the tastier varieties of foods. At the local market you have the possibility of escaping from the shopping trolley, the plastic and the check out queues and finding those foods that are rapidly vanishing from the shop shelves. You find fresh, variety and growers who can give advice about the goods you are buying.

His winter vegetable gratin is an easy and satisfying dish. It’s only a matter of pre-boiling the selection of root vegetables, adding the sauce to them and putting them in the oven to cook. The mustard in the sauce adds a nice tang to the dish.

This was a successful effort for me; it was difficult really to go wrong with it. It's a recipe I could now easily adapt to use whatever is in the pantry.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

Zucchini Pesto Soup

Zucchini Pesto Soup

from Commonsense Vegetarian, Murdoch Books, 2011.

‘Commonsense’ is the correct name for this cookbook. The recipes are good options for the home cook. There’s a wide selection to choose from mostly being quite easy to make, but with some other options for the cooks whose wishes to try something a little more challenging.

I was after a reasonably quick soup recipe so turned to this book to find one. The zucchini pesto soup looked interesting—and there was basil growing in the backyard.

The zucchini part was very easy; the pesto slightly more work but I often make pesto spag so could manage it without much thinking.

The soup was a pleasant one, though the flavour of the zucchinis was somewhat overtaken by that of the pesto. The zucchinis served to make the base and give it a slightly thick smoothness to which the pesto added its strong tang.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

Rossini at the Quay

Rossini at the Quay

I previously wrote about Rossini at the Quay and mentioned that things had changed. But I also said that I would still go there. Another visit has changed my opinion totally.

Last night we went to the restaurant. At the door is a sign asking you to wait until seated. I had not realised that the emphasis is really on the waiting not the seating. For we waited — and waited — and waited.

We were actually standing beside the waiter at the door who had been writing something down. He knew we were there. He had looked at us. And then another waiter joined him and they began talking. Along came another waiter to join the group. No one paid us any heed. So we left. And we won’t go back.

There were many empty tables there. We know why.

Apricot Soufflé

Apricot Soufflé

from Gourmet Cooking without Meat, Paul Southey, Marshall Cavendish Editions, 1980.

As you can tell from the publishing date this book has been on the shelf at home for some time. Occasionally something has been made from it but it has not had overmuch use. When you look through it today you can see that the recipes have dated somewhat. However, a good recipe does not really age; some of the best meals today are those that have shown themselves to be worth holding on to and repeating.

I am not too sure that this Apricot Soufflé is one of them. It’s okay but I felt that there was really something missing. There’s a certain amount of preparation before you begin cooking: the apricots have to be soaked over night. So, if you want to make this, you must prepare ahead.

The preparation and cooking, apart from the soaking, were quite easy. The dish looked reasonable when it came from the oven and tasted acceptably. What it did lack was a strong flavour of apricot. This was very light on.

When I was making the soufflé I had some of the mixture over so I put it in a small ramekin and cooked it at the same time. I ate it the next day from the  fridge, a sunken cold soufflé. And I enjoyed this small deflated offering much much more than the previous night’s one. The apricot flavour came through quite well. Odd that cold and a night old this gave out considerably more flavour.

As some of these books may be out of print if anyone would like a particular recipe, email me (alfcooksvege@ozemail.com.au) and I’ll send an abbreviated version. Of course, the whole book would be better; it’s loaded with other goodies.

Taste: ✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

Roasted Chilli Pepper Nuts

Roasted Chilli Pepper Nuts

from Red Hot and Green, Janet Hazen, Chronicle Books, 1996.

I read the name of this dish and wanted it straightaway. The book it comes from has lots of interesting items in it all nicely hot to taste. I previously had made peppery cheddar cheese crisps from it and they were delicious. So I looked forward to tasting these chillied nuts.

A look at the ingredient list gave me pause. There were five different chillies in it: ancho, chiltepe, cascabel, guajillo and chipotle. These dried chillies are not readily available here, but I did manage to get hold of the last two. I added dried chillies to these and decided that would have to be it.

After that it was a matter of grinding up all the dried ingredients to make a powder, mixing this with the nuts and adding olive oil and melted butter. Then it went in the oven.

It all turned out to be very tasty, however, if I made it again I would possibly change the way I cooked it. I think the macadamia nuts needed less roasting time that the other nuts so would cook them separately and then mix them in with the others later. They came out a little overcooked. Or I could choose a different nut to add to the mix.

Oddly, with all the chillies in the recipe it was not overly hot, just chilli tasty. And as you picked up the nuts your fingers were coated with the same mixture as the nuts, so obviously you had to lick your fingers.

As some of these books may be out of print if anyone would like a particular recipe, email me (alfcooksvege@ozemail.com.au) and I’ll send an abbreviated version. Of course, the whole book would be better; it’s loaded with other goodies.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

Aubergine Butty with Pesto

Aubergine Butty with Pesto

from The Accidental Vegetarian, Simon Rimmer, Mitchell Beazley, 2010.

I rather like this book. It is written by a carnivore who bought a vegetarian restaurant before he really even knew how to cook. He just wanted to own a restaurant and, as he puts it, swan around talking to the customers while everyone else does the work. Of course, it didn’t work that way at all and he soon found himself battling with having to cook the meals himself.

As an untrained chef he had to make his own way, experimenting with different ingredients. He makes what he calls a ‘magpie cuisine’ stealing ideas from everywhere. The results look as tasty as they are fun to make.

Having read the title of this recipe I was intrigued to know what an aubergine butty was. I knew butties as a form of sandwich, usually with chips. This one turned out to be not so much a sandwich but a tower with the layers using aubergine as well as ciabatta to separate the layers. Fun to make and fun to eat—especially with a peppery rocket salad on the side.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

Parsnip Soup with Roasted Pecans and Persian Feta

Parsnip Soup with Roasted Pecans and Persian Feta

from The Country Cookbook, Belinda Jeffery, Lantern, 2010.

Parsnips are one of those root vegetables that don’t always appeal to me. Sometimes, when the mood hits me, I just love them and can’t imagine why I haven’t been eating them more often. Other times the thought of them is really negative. So I hesitated when I looked at this recipe, but whenever I have used one of Belinda Jeffery’s recipes I have always been well pleased.

This book is proving to be one that I turn to much more frequently than others. The recipes are generally moderately difficult but the resulting flavours usually well repay the effort. I seem to be trying at least one recipe each month from each month’s selection. I do enjoy cookbooks arranged under a seasonal pattern so that you know what produce should be fresh at the time you are cooking.

While the recipe called for chicken stock I substituted it with a vegetarian one. Otherwise the instructions were followed as laid down.

The parsnip soup turned out to be wonderfully smooth and subtly flavoured. Parsnip has an odd taste to me, difficult to describe. In this soup it was not overly strong but it was there holding its own. Every so often you caught a burst of flavour from the Persian feta. I had never tried this particular type of feta before but it has a real zing to it. And then there were the pecans adding a pleasant bit of crunch. Or else you caught a little piece of olive to chew on. Good stuff.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

Inge's Cheese Biscuits

Inge’s Cheese Biscuits

from Mrs Harvey’s Sister-in-Law and other tasty dishes, Margaret Dunn, Murdoch Books Australia, 2008.

I was attracted to this book by its unusual title and its old-fashioned appearance. When I began to read it I found that both the name and the look were highly appropriate for this is a collection of recipes garnered from family and friends, many of them passed down over several generations.

The recipes and sections of the book are padded with entertaining reminiscences of family life, like ‘As I grew up I also was allowed a  glass of dry sherry. (Sweet sherry, my father said, frowning on my youthful preference, is for cooking.)’ An entertaining book which brings back many memories. It’s easy to get waylaid into spending lots of time on the background stories as you cook.

And the recipes include lots of old and unusual items like onion sandwiches or Mrs Oodnadatts Jones’cream puffs. I can browse in here for longer than I have time to.

Inge’s Cheese Biscuits apparently came from Inge who came to South Australia from Austria during the war. When I followed the recipe I found that they were very like the ones my grandmother used to make occasionally and she came from Britain.

The biscuit mixture was easy to make. It was no more difficult than mixing the ingredients, rolling them out, and then cutting them into biscuit shapes. The writer says that she always used her father’s jigger to cut them out, so I got hold of ours and did the same—for some of the biscuits. But the instructions also say that grandmother said to cut them into fingers. Hence some of mine were cut into fingers. (This was also how my grandmother made them.) There is a further comment to say that Inge said there should be caraway seeds in them. So some of mine had caraway seeds.

The result was some extremely short, savoury biscuits that did not last long before they were all eaten.

As some of these books may be out of print if anyone would like a particular recipe, email me (alfcooksvege@ozemail.com.au) and I’ll send an abbreviated version. Of course, the whole book would be better; it’s loaded with other goodies.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔