In which I discuss Mexican cooking classes with my sister, and I mention three cookbooks and a TV show.
Palomar: the book, and the food.
The other books I mention are Pulse and Monday Morning Cooking Club.
The cooking school my sister attended.
Contact me at actsofkitchen @ gmail dot com – or leave a review on iTunes!
This book was sent to me by the publisher. Go here for discussion of the physical product.
There’s some nice basics in here: harissa, watercress pesto (which I used to make snow pea pesto, and it was quite good), labneh and tapenade. I have prepared the cured lemons – one thing I do not lack is lemons – which the book promises will eliminate a “bleach-y taste” they claim preserved lemons carry. I haven’t noticed. I haven’t turned them into cured lemon paste, yet, but I definitely plan to. These things are in “The meal before the meal,” along with other dips and felafel and such.
The next section is “Raw beginnings” and I haven’t made anything from this section… and I’m not likely to. I’m allergic to scallops so that’s a few recipes gone, and I’m just not the sort of person who will ever come to steak tartare. There are one or two salads that might get a look at.
I have mostly cooked from “The main act.” The book has two shakshuka recipes; I’ve made the “New style” one with cauliflower, zucchini, garlic and chilli and coriander – then eggs cracked over. It was ok – I was perfectly happy to eat it – but not completely brilliant. It was one I had altered, taking out the eggplant because my beloved isn’t a huge fan… but since the recipe has a section called “Variations,” telling you to “reinvent” it every time, this shouldn’t have been a problem. I am intrigued with making it with chorizo and/or olives, feta… or, they promise, “any old stew or cooked vegetable you have as leftovers from yesterday’s main meal.” So I’m not quite giving up on this.
Polenta Jerusalem style: I admit I used instant polenta, which the author of the book would abhor, but that’s what I have. This involves making polenta; putting “mushroom ragout” on top (mushrooms cooked in butter), and then blanched asparagus. Garnish with Parmesan. I mean yes, it was tasty, but it’s not all that miraculous. Maybe ‘real’ polenta makes a huge difference?
Aubergine and feta boureka: ok these were quite cool. Bourekas are made by cutting butter puff pastry into four triangles, then brushing with egg, sprinkling with sesame seeds and cooking for about 18 minutes at 200C. Then you halve them and throw stuff on top – again, I omitted the eggplant, but the swiss chard stew with bacon and feta was really good. (This recipe also looks awesome.)
Papi’s spinach gnocchi: was a disaster. I’ll wear this one because I didn’t want to simmer them in goat’s yoghurt (too hard), so I simmered them in water instead. They just fell apart. I didn’t drain the spinach enough? Who knows.
Right in the middle there’s a series of pictures showing octopus – both cut up and not cut up. It’s my least favourite part of the book.
Cod chraymeh: I didn’t use cod, because that’s too hard in Australia; I think I used ling. This was … well, not flavourless, but really not worth the effort. It has red capsicum, garlic, spices, harissa… I was surprised how much it didn’t work.
Chicken thighs in green olive and tomato sauce: this was quite nice – the chicken with the olives worked really well.
Labneh kreplach tortellini: probably my favourite recipe to date. Kreplach are “the Ashkenazi Jewish version of Italian ravioli, Chinese wonton or Russian pelmeni.” Palomar suggests making 
them like choux (choux? I can totes make choux) – flour into boiling water, into the processor to add more flour and egg yolks (which means making meringues later), then leaving the dough til the next day to roll and fill. As the name suggests, these were filled with labneh (yes, homemade) mixed with za’atar. I then simmered them in borscht (made with some of my own beetroots, EAT YOUR HEART OUT Katering Show). It was awesome. (I’m interested that a number of online recipes, like this one, call for whole eggs – no meringues! – but very excited that it points out that like dumplings, kreplach can of course by frozen. EXCELLENT.)
Verdict: I’m not sad to have experimented with it, but I wouldn’t be rushing out to buy it for all my friends. Possibly I’m spoiled by Jerusalem plus my two Sabrina Ghayour books, and The Saffron Tales, which basically cover these sorts of recipes – the ones I’ve enjoyed anyway. That said, I am looking forward to trying the date roulade, and their version of pitta bread.
This book was sent to me by the publisher, Hachette, at no cost. It was published in August; RRP $39.99.
Palomar is apparently one of the hottest restaurants in London at the moment: it seats 34 people and the waiting list is up to six months, I’m told (I hadn’t heard of it – because Australian, and because not really up on my Famous Restaurants Trivia). I’ve been a bit conflicted about the cookbook.
But I’m ready to call it now. Sadly, this book has not become one of my favourites.
What it is:
What it isn’t:
That inspiring.
Some of the recipes I’ve made have been flops, and they have mostly been my fault, so I’m wearing that and definitely not blaming the book. But others… they’ve worked, but they just haven’t been super exciting. I haven’t made any dessert yet, and some of them do look intriguing, so maybe that’s where I’ll find the lurve.
I’ll discuss the recipes in detail in tomorrow’s post.
So we went camping for about ten days recently, and we managed to make dinner on the fire every night. Which was ace. We’d done a lot of prep beforehand, which stood us in good stead.
We did a few pretty normal things: eye fillet and lamb backstrap on the grill. A whole lot of roast potatoes. We’d marinated some lamb with onion, garlic, and ginger and then vac-sealed it; we cooked that with a tin of peas and it was quite good! We took many tins of vegetables – easier to transport, especially when our trip involved running the quarantine regulations of travel between Victoria and South Australia. We had some that were just boiled, and they were just… average. So I decided to change it up by warming them in a pan with some butter and herbs. Herbs were courtesy of a Gewurzhaus gift from a friend and they really lifted the veg.
In terms of dessert, we did two experiments. One, I discovered that you can buy packet mug cake! Which is so wrong but so awesome. And we decided to make them in the sandwich maker and they worked brilliantly. Two, we decided to try and make a proper cake too. My beloved was convinced that we could do it in a cast-iron cauldron. I thought we should put alfoil in the bottom. And… well, the bottom burnt, which was sad, but probably not a surprise. We still ate the cake, and it was ok – I mean, it was cake in the middle of the Flinders Ranges – but it did have a burnt tang. Which was sad. Next time we might try a pot-inside-a-pot… or just take a cake tin with us. Or, easiest, just rely on mug cake packets.
Breakfast was mostly pancakes and bacon and egg wraps. There was also a lot of tea and aeropress coffee. Lunch was wraps, or occasionally using the sandwich maker for its actual purpose.
My mother has Foxtel and whenever I’m there I watch food programmes, of course. When I’m really lucky, there are episodes of Ace of Cakes to watch.
I adore Ace of Cakes.
So imagine my joy at discovering that in SBS’ baking October, they’re showing a new show with Duff Goldman: Duff til Dawn. I don’t really do cooking challenge shows, but Duff has managed to make this feel less like competition than I feared. Maybe because it’s just two groups competing, maybe because it’s happening overnight so they’re all a bit mad, maybe it’s because they’re not always referencing the clock, maybe I’m willing to put up with elements that I otherwise wouldn’t when there’s awesome cake-decorating skillz on display.
Could be all of the above.
Anyway, the premise is just what I’ve outlined: two teams of cake-decorators come in and, overnight, in Charmed City Cakes, they design and decorate a cake.
No biggie. Except that Duff always throws in a curveball at about the four hour mark – an additional element that must be included. And of course cakes break and fondant cracks and you’re doing this at three AM. In fact at 3am you have about another 3 hours to go. Because that’s not going to make anyone nuts.
They’re judged on design and taste, which makes me very happy since half the time those decorated cakes I’ve seen on other shows just seem like they’re all fluff and no substance. (The one I just watched had a Baileys Irish Cream creme brûlée buttercream. WOAH.)
I’ll be watching the heck out of this show, and dreaming of being one of the judges.
In Australia, it’s on SBS’ Food Network; episodes are available on their catch up service until the end of October as far as I can tell.
When camping, the most important questions to ask are: what’s for dinner, and what’s for breakfast?
Two recipes from Taste
Banana, date and apricot oat bars:
Yeh nah. I liked the theory – and hey, healthy! But… they’re just a bit bland. I even added a bit of extra cinnamon, and replaced some oats with coconut as one of the commenters suggested. I’ll eat the ones I made, but I won’t be making this again.
Oh yes. These were excellent and I will be making these again – and I’ll be making variations too. This one calls for sun-dried tomatoes and chives, and calls to be served with bacon. This was excellent. However, these would also be excellent as sweet fritters – cinnamon and dehydrated apple maybe? Chocolate chips would be amazing…. And next time, I would be more sensible in the cooking: I made them way too thick this first time, trying to use my crumpet rings. The width was good, the depth too great, so they got a little browner than was best
In which there are tarts, of the baked good variety. Andrew shares his tips for perfect pastry and admits he doesn’t write down his recipes for perfect fillings.
Meanwhile, I didn’t feel inspired about cooking but still managed to freeze a bunch of stuff for Future Me, so she better appreciate it.
Tart:
In which I discuss CAKE and Gillian discusses cooking for the masses.
The first cake mentioned (sponge)
The second cake mentioned.
The third cake (chocolate and beetroot) is similar to this one. I made the version in Annabel Crabb’s Special Delivery.
The fourth cake (I call them mandarines, Nigella calls them clementines…)
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I’ve had several chicken carcasses in the freezer for ages, so I decided today was the day for making stock. This included the chicken from our first ill-fated attempt at spit-roasting said bird, which meant that it was a particularly meaty stock. Most of the birds had some sort of seasoning on them, from memory, and there was at least one lemon inside, and I don’t have any carrots or celery as recommended by Nigella. So I just added some parsley and thyme and simmered it all together for something more than three hours. It looks like it’s made a pretty good amount of good-smelling stock, so I’m letting it sit in the fridge for a while – I’ll skim it tomorrow and then freeze it…
Today I also made pesto. Initially I thought I might have invented a New Pesto, but on checking the internet no, of course I haven’t. This pesto was inspired by the delivery of a bunch of snow pea shoots in my fruit and veg box. I checked online and the suggestions were stir-fry (not a fave of my darling) or salad. OR, I thought, pesto! Yum! And this time I will freeze some! So garlic and walnuts and parmesan and snow pea shoots. I had some for lunch with avo on toast; delightful.
Duff till Dawn
Acts of Kitchen 