Tag: cookbooks

Julie Goodwin’s Essential Cookbook: the food

Julie Goodwin's Essential CookbookThis book was sent to me by the publisher, Hachette, at no cost. It’s out now; RRP $39.99.

Yesterday I talked about the book as an object; today I will discuss some of the recipes I’ve followed.

Because this is aiming to be an ‘essential’ for the Australian family, I thought I should make some things that I was already pretty familiar with, to be able to see how these compare with things I’ve already made.

Savouries

Osso bucco. I don’t always – in fact, never – brown the meat before throwing in the slow-cooker, but I did this time. The recipe isn’t specifically for a slow cooker but it is suggested as an option at the top of the recipe.

Cheesy meatballs: stuff a piece of mozzarella inside straightforward meatballs (3/4 pork, 1/4 beef) that already have parmesan in them too? Oh heck yes I am there for that. These were great, and easy.

Chicken and chorizo paella: very tasty, very easy. Not Goodwin’s fault that I kept itching to stir it because I have way more experience with cooking risotto.

Cannelloni: stuffed with ricotta and peas and pine nuts, wrapped in fresh lasagne, baked with a tomato sauce. These were fantastic; I’ve not used fresh lasagne sheets before and it’s a great idea (cut in three, width-ways).

Sweet

IMG_1431.JPGScones! I have made scones before, and have recently discovered that the point is to mix them very lightly. Goodwin makes this point strongly. They weren’t perfect but that’s my fault: I didn’t turn the oven on early enough so it wasn’t as hot as it should have been, and my guest was arriving soon… so I had to cook them for longer than prescribed. Nonetheless they were quite tasty, and as light in texture as I had hoped. I am intrigued by the notion of adding lemon zest; I didn’t add as much zest as suggested (three lemons’ worth) partly because I wasn’t going to make the curd (next time, Gadget) and partly because I didn’t want the lemon to overwhelm the jam I was going to use (it was Kate’s jam, so you know… gotta let stars have their moments). The zest was definitely an excellent addition and I’ll be adding it from now on.

Apple crumble slice: I had to leave out the almonds because I was taking them to a nut-free venue, but nonetheless this was very tasty and successful. They kinda tasted like blondies, so I’m tempted to add white chocolate next time; I would also add more apple, as “three Granny Smiths” is not specific enough.

Overview

The recipes are easy to follow and those I’ve tried are great. This falls under what I guess would be “modern Australian” cooking: Beef Wellington, apple crumble, Victoria sponge and lamb sausage rolls; Greek chicken tray bake, coq au vin, Vietnamese fish curry, and Lebanese chicken… I have no hesitation in recommending this to someone just starting out in cooking, or someone who wants a good all-round home cooking book because they have plenty of speciality books already.

Julie Goodwin’s Essential Cookbook: the book

Julie Goodwin's Essential CookbookThis book was sent to me by the publisher, Hachette, at no cost. RRP $39.99; out now.

This is an overview of the book as an object; I’ll discuss some of the recipes tomorrow.

The cover makes this seem like it’s going to be all about baking; it most definitely is not. In fact, baking and dessert are a relatively small portion of the book.

In her introduction, Goodwin says this is “a collection of everything I think is important to know in order to be able to nourish yourself and the people you love”. It’s home cooking, not Palomar. So it’s much more my sort of thing.

The book is divided into sensible but also intriguing chapters: Eggs; Meat; Poultry; Seafood; Sauces, soups, and dips; Vegetables and Preserves; Baking; and Desserts. In that order. They largely make sense, although sauces, soups, and dips isn’t intuitive to me. What I do like is that each chapter has differently coloured page numbers, and they progress down the side of the page so all teal Egg pages are grouped, and so on. Easy to flick to the chapter you want just by looking at the edge of the book.

The meat section is divided into beef, pork, and lamb, while poultry is chicken, duck, turkey and quail. Seafood is shellfish, fish, squid and octopus. The vegetable chapter is mains, sides, salads, dressings, pickles and preserves. Each chapter has a short introduction to the chapter. This is fairly extensive for the meat chapters, with information about how to cook different cuts.

Not all of the recipes fit onto one page, which could be a bit annoying if you need to flick back for ingredients. I think this is partly because not every recipe has a picture, so you’re getting more recipes into the book (only 310 pages including index etc) than you otherwise might. It just means you need to take that into consideration. The recipe pages themselves are set out with nice wide margins, and nice spaces between each step, so it’s straightforward to figure out where you’re up to (and add notes if necessary); the headings for each recipe are easy to find and the ingredients are a different colour from the method, which I really like. What photos there are are generally indicative of the finished product, and don’t come across as TOO highly workshopped. The index seems quite thorough.

As an object, this is a nice book. It’s got perfect binding and the flop is surprisingly good. The paper is thick enough that splatters aren’t going to ruin it and I’ll be able to write on them without going through to the page behind.  The front and back covers have half-flaps, which I personally like to use as bookmarks.

A couple of nit-picks: in the Cook’s Note, Goodwin says that for her, shallots are “the long green onions that are sometimes called spring onions”. I found this quite surprising since I don’t remember coming across an Australian author who didn’t just use spring onions! And in the baking section, there’s an instruction to whip eggs and sugar until there’s a ribbon… and in the next recipe, there’s an explanation of what “a ribbon” actually looks like. I can only assume that the recipes were originally in a different order.

I got to interview Julie briefly, too.

Acts of Kitchen: Jo runs a cafe

AoK_logo_v2In which I make hot cross buns and cook from Julie Goodwin’s new cookbook (my interview with Julie), and chat to the wonderful Jo, who runs John Gorilla. (You really want to follow their Instagram account, too.)

My Patreon: recipes and postcards and even food!

Hot cross buns! From Bake Class.

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Interview: Julie Goodwin

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Julie Goodwin was Australia’s first MasterChef. You can find her online, where there’s a bunch of great recipes as well as information about classes that Julie runs.

Tell me how you came to cooking. Is it something you’ve been doing since childhood, or came to later?

I have some great memories of cooking with Mum as a kid, but it was really only when I had my own kitchen to mess up that I really got started. Part of that was coming to the realisation that if I was going to eat nice food, I would have to work out how to cook nice food!

 Who are your inspirations when it comes to cooking?

My food philosophy of sharing meals and entertaining comes from my mum. Other cooks who I greatly admire are Margaret Fulton, Stephanie Alexander, Maggie Beer and Nigella Lawson.

Do you have a favourite ingredient? 

It’s hard to pick one favourite ingredient but I get nervous if I don’t have eggs, lemons and garlic in the house.

Are there ingredients or techniques that scare you?

I’ll give anything a go, I’m not scared because I’m not scared of failing. I reckon if you’re not having a kitchen disaster every now and then you’re probably spending too much time inside your comfort zone!

Cooking is one thing; compiling a cookbook is something quite different! You’ve got a number of books under your belt now; what inspires you about creating them? 

I find food inspiration everywhere – when I visit friends, or travel, read books or magazines or talk with other food lovers. My latest book was really inspired by the fact that my three sons are now all young adults, and I wanted a book for them that would teach them what they needed to know – the building blocks of cooking, along with the recipes we have enjoyed over the years.

In ten years’ time, what would you like to have achieved or changed?

Julie Goodwin's Essential CookbookGosh, considering what the past ten years has held I can barely even begin to speculate where the next ten years will take me. I’ll work hard, keep my eyes open for opportunities, and who knows what the next ten years will bring!


Julie Goodwin’s Essential Cookbook ($39.99), published by Hachette Australia, is out today. 

 

Istanbul Cult Recipes: the recipes

unknownWhat I thought of the book itself.

Now, the recipes!

Things I’ve made:

“Lady’s thighs” – these are kofte (uh, not softie, autocorrect) that are apparently meant to be shaped like lady’s thighs? Or something. Anyway, steak and rice and some spices – very simple, very tasty.

Beef dumplings – ‘manti’, “the unmissable little Armenian dumplings”. Simple dough (flour and oil and a little water); a spoonful of minced beef and onion into the middle of 6cm squares, fold them up into boats and bake in the oven with some broth around it. SO good. I plan to experiment with spices… and they freeze brilliantly.

Zucchini fritters – zucchini, eggs, dill, parsley, feta. Fry. Delight.

Lentil balls – my one failure so far. They tasted fine… but they didn’t become balls. They wouldn’t stick together, so I used it as a basis for meatballs. Still: lentils and burgh and garlic and chilli paste and parsley and spring onions…

Shortbread – actually the first thing I made, for a church fete. They got a good rap because, as someone said, they’re not toosweet. They’ve got flour and almond meal (the ground walnut option is intriguing), and only 80g caster sugar for 500g other dried ingredients. Easy to make, easy to eat.

Things I want to make:

Milk buns with feta kneaded through… :O

Lentil soup – so easy! red lentils and tomato…

Stuffed vine leaves – I’ve always been dubious of my ability to make these, but you can use silverbeet! instead of vine leaves! and somehow that seems more accessible.

Borek – filo (although given where I leave I might be able to access yufka pastry…) with feta… sounds awesome.

Almond helva – although making my own helva could be a deeply dangerous thing to do HOW GOOD WOULD THAT BE?!

Things I won’t make:

I can’t come at tripe. Uh, no. I also don’t think I can access mutton so I guess I’ll try some stuff with lamb instead…

Istanbul Cult Recipes

This is the book I haven’t been able to mention on the podcast! And now I can!

This was sent to me by the publisher, Murdoch Books, at no cost. It’s available now; RRP $49.99.

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The book itself…

is a lovely object. My copy is a hardback and the image on the front is delightful; the bits that look yellow in the pic to the left are actually gold. It’s a hefty tome, with about 250pp of recipes and good thick covers.

The book is divided into several sections: At the Kahvalti Salon (breakfast); The Meyhane Table (meze and fish); Lokanta, Kofteci, Kebabci (soups, meats and rice); At Home (family recipes); Street Food; and Turkish Delights (sweet things). It’s an intriguing division, especially that central set of chapters, because they don’t correspond to meal times as other books often do. Instead it’s more about the style of food, which I quite like, once you’ve got your head around how to look for particular sorts of food.

The other intriguing aspect of the book is that it’s not just recipes. It’s not even just recipes plus stories about the people. No; Larmoyer is toying with the reader/cook and may be in cahoots with the Turkish tourism board because each chapter also has a double spread on where to go in Istanbul in order to eat. There’s a map and a list of the best places to go for different specialities. Which… seems a bit cruel, really. But at least the book provides recipes to help those of us who can’t up and run to Istanbul at a moment’s notice.

The book is replete with pictures of both the food mentioned and the places where it’s bought and made. The recipes are laid out across a single page, with a story or tip for each one; pretty much all have at least one photo accompanying the recipe. A lot of these photos look quite domestic – I’m sure a lot of thought went into styling them to get the effect, but I do find it reassuring to see a photo, when flicking through the book, that doesn’t look too enormously different from what would be possible in my own kitchen! (Except for the pictures of producing epic quantities of baklava. EPIC.) The ingredients are listed in bold type, which I like, and so far they seem straightforward to follow.

As a book, this is a very attractive object. Find out tomorrow what I thought of the recipes! (… eh, spoiler: they’re good.)

Acts of Kitchen 11: Mexican cooking class

AoK_logo_v2In 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.

unknownDuff till Dawn.

The cooking school my sister attended.

Contact me at actsofkitchen @ gmail dot com – or leave a review on iTunes!

 

 

Palomar: the food

This book was sent to me by the publisher. Go here for discussion of the physical product.

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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.

IMG_1293.JPGLabneh 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 IMG_1294.JPGthem 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.)

IMG_1295.JPGVerdict: 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.

Palomar

This book was sent to me by the publisher, Hachette, at no cost. It was published in August; RRP $39.99.

4The-Palomar.jpgPalomar 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:

  1. Beautifully presented. I mean, that cover is elegant and alluring, and under the slip cover is a glorious blue hard cover with a gold pattern such that I am agonising over whether to keep the cover or not. The inside is beautifully presented as well. The photography is delightful – a mix of shots in the restaurant, shots of the people, and shots of the food. The recipes themselves are well laid-out, with the ingredients in a black-lined box, and clear steps to follow for each recipe (although sometimes the small type isn’t great). Each recipe also has a little story in italics at the start; the stories are sometimes funny, sometimes nostalgic, sometimes practical. And there’s a little insert of cocktail recipes too.
  2. Largely accessible. Like Indian Made Easy and The Saffron Tales it has a section called “What’s in the cupboard?” which has clearly become The Thing You Must Do When Talking About “Ethnic” Food. This section has info about everything rom freekah to date syrup and information about spices and nuts. Most of the recipes I’ve looked at have ingredients that, today, in a multicultural city or with access to the internet a home cook would have access to. The final mini-bio, of Yossi ‘Papi’ Elad, instructs the reader not to consider “recipes as sacrosanct – they are creations of human beings, so use your imagination” – a blessing that I really appreciate, since I don’t always have the right things to hand. Some of the recipes do, of course, require time and skills – but not all.

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.

 

Lunch in Paris, and chouquettes

Unknown.jpegI’ve had this book on my shelf for a very long time, and I’m not sure why I haven’t got around to reading it; I guess I just haven’t been in the mood for a twenty-something-in-love-in-Paris memoir with recipes.

I’ve finally read it. Turns out this might be a Thing. To the point where I’m tempted to go look at Amazon and check out If you like this, you might like…

Elizabeth Bard is a romantic, preferring museums over night clubs and dreaming of living in the past. She begins her story with “I slept with my French husband halfway through our first date” and goes from there, describing weekends in his French flat and exploring the city, the food, and their developing relationship. It’s definitely nice to know that they do end up together; it makes it a more comforting read, to know the ending.
The story is basically an analysis of an intercultural relationship, as well as the somewhat difficult* road she took to get from innocent-arrogant-American thinking she can do anything to eventually writing this book. She had a lot of ‘who am I and what am I’ moments that struck a chord with me. It’s a nice story overall, and the memoir aspect is touching – her remembrances of her mentally ill father, the difficulty of making friends in France, negotiating with her own and his parents: it’s well written, with appropriate pathos but no eye-roll-y over-the-top woe-is-me wailing. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would; I was at the hankering-to-keep-reading stage at 11pm.

And every chapter has recipes at the end.

I’ve never been especially keen to try French cooking. For a long time I harboured a deep-seated desire to make croissants, until I saw a video about the endless folding, and then voila! I was cured. Anyway, I suspect that this somewhat American take on French cooking IMG_1205.JPGis likely to be a bit easier for me. And when I saw the recipe for chouquettes, I thought – really? that easy? So I tried, and I made them, and they worked, and now I can make chouquettes. I AM VERY EXCITED. This might be a new thing for me.

Available from Fishpond.

*yes, the difficulty is all within the context of white privilege; she admits that she isn’t exactly in the hardest place in the world, but I think we all know that when nothing is going our way it feels like the worst thing ever.