Tag: cookbooks

Indian Made Easy: the recipes

9781743368565On the book itself.

The introduction proclaims this as a book “about discovering a casual attitude towards Indian cookery”, and that some of the recipes have been “distilled and pared back for busy modern cooks.” I would say that this is a book for a fairly experienced cook – that is, someone who won’t be put off by making their own simmer sauce or following a few steps – but who has never cooked much Indian food. Which pretty much means me.

The recipes

Paneer: yes, ok, I made paneer. I had a litre of milk nearing its use-by and I didn’t want to waste it, so I thought I’d experiment, ok? I don’t imagine I’ll be doing this every time I want paneer but it’s nice to know I COULD. It was easy, and the instructions (except for that confusing ‘do I turn off the heat when it’s 80C or after I’ve added the acid??’ question) were easy to follow.

Charred Broccoli with Chilli and Fennel: the fennel is fennel seeds, and the garnish is what really makes this – toasted coconut, pomegranate seed and coriander! Broccoli and coconut is amazing! Also the mustard and fennel seeds were nice with it too.  Continue reading “Indian Made Easy: the recipes” →

Indian Made Easy: the book itself

9781743368565.jpgTrue story: a few weeks ago we ordered Indian takeaway and it was dire. My beloved, frustrated, announced “we must learn to cook good Indian!”

Two days later, Indian Made Easy appeared on our doorstep, courtesy of Murdoch Books (published July 2016, RRP $39.99).

It’s not like we’ve never cooked Indian food before. I love the cookbook Bowl Food and it has a few excellent curries in it, complete with long list of spices to make your own pastes etc. But it was exciting to to get an actual Indian cookbook when I’d been thinking about it for a while.

The book

A paperback, but still A4 in size. I do wonder whether the cover will crack off the spine at some point – not that it shows any sign of doing so yet, but I’ve seen it happen before. It hasn’t shown any sign of the spine cracking yet, though, which is excellent. I like the cover art – although conflicted with rice being the universal signifier of Indian food, or something – and the fact that the inside cover has the proportion and position of rice/black background reversed.  Continue reading “Indian Made Easy: the book itself” →

The Saffron Tales #2

Yesterday I talked about the book itself; today, it’s the recipes.

UnknownThey, too, are great.

Sweets

Sour cherry and dark chocolate biscuits: the first time I made these I couldn’t find sour cherries; that has since been rectified. That first time I used dried blueberries, and they were ok. I really like them with sour cherries – these are some new favourites.

Persian love cake: even though I had no rose water, so I used orange blossom water, this was fantastic. And as Khan herself notes, the cake keeps quite well – I think we ate it over about five days and it didn’t go stale just under plastic wrap in the fridge.

Mains Continue reading “The Saffron Tales #2” →

The Saffron Tales

This was sent to me by Bloomsbury at no cost. It appears to already be out overseas, but the Bloomsbury website says it’s out in mid July in Australia. RRP $33.99.

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The book

I love a cookbook with a ribbon.

This is a lovely book. I got a hardback version; as you can see, the front cover is gorgeous. I’m a bit torn because the inside cover is also gorgeous, blue with gold writing.

There are photos throughout, not quite of every recipe but close. While I know all of them are staged, they’re not so pretentious as to make me depressed. Each recipe is presented with a little story or explanation in italics to the side, and the recipes are all straightforward to follow.

As well as recipes, Khan presents stories about Iran itself, and some of the people she met during her travels. These are geographical, with sections of Tehran, Isfahan and Shiraz, and Tabriz, for example. Khan doesn’t take the current fashion for Persian food for granted, with an introduction that talks a bit about Iranian culture (she alternates between Persian and Iranian, and explains why at the start of the book) and – admittedly generic – attitudes to food. Plus, and this is something that I really like, there’s an opening discussion of the “The Persian store cupboard”. She given an alphabetical run-down of everything from barberries to yoghurt, explaining their taste and their uses (I’d never heard of golpar before and it’s proving difficult to find). I ALSO really like that she ends this section with the recommendation to “do as the Iranians do and use your taste buds and your eyes to determine which direction a dish should go.” The direction to “just enjoy the process of cooking something new” makes her my new cooking BFF.

Finally, the book ends with a section called Planning a meal (ok, there is also an index, but whatever). Iranian New Year? Persian Picnic? Vegan Feast? Easy weekday suppers? Got you covered.

So, yes, I think it’s clear that this book is a winner. Stay tuned tomorrow for discussion of the actual recipes.

There’s a website!  And the book is available from Fishpond. 

Acts of Kitchen: episode 2: cooking for shearers

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The second episode is here! In which I talk to my dear Aunty Rena about what it’s like to cook for shearers. Also, there’s poetry. You can listen here or subscribe at iTunes.

Recipes:

Shepherds pie, roasts, chops… meat and three veg…

How do you store new recipes?

“Always picking up new recipes. I have a book for them, I put some loosely in a cookbook, I put some in the pantry so I know where they are and then I loose the lot and ask Mr Google to find more for me. He is fantastic – I couldn’t live without him!”

Feedback gratefully received: you can email actsofkitchen at gmail dot com

Wholefood from the ground up

This book was sent to me by the publisher, Allen&Unwin, at no cost. The RRP is $39.99 and it’s available 9781743365373.jpgfrom today (May 25).

Recipes I’ve tried

Potato and celery salad with celery leaf pesto

My darling isn’t a huge fan of basil pesto, as a rule, so I was curious to see how he felt about this one. It’s made with the inner celery leaves (the yellowy ones), parsley, capers, pine nuts and pecorino (I used parmesan) plus the other normal pesto bits. And the answer was that he really liked it – as did I. It’s a lot subtler than basil pesto (which I do love), but still very tasty. This recipe puts the pesto with boiled potatoes and inner celery stems. I served it with those and chicken, and ate the leftover chicken with leftover pesto the next day. Very nice.

Baked spicy cauliflower, chickpeas and fresh dates

First change: no fresh dates, so used dried ones. Anyway – cauliflower with cumin and coriander and garam masala, baked; always lovely. Cook onion and add chickpeas, then throw those on top of the cauli and add the tahini which you’ve mixed with orange juice and zest and a bit of sweet. I served this by itself but would definitely make it again to serve with other salads. Very tasty and I enjoyed the mouthfeel of cauli with tahini. I suspect this may become a favourite pairing.

Pocket pie: moroccan-spiced pumpkin, silver beet and goat’s cheese

Look, it’s fair to say that this recipe caused some anguish. This is probably largely on me, because Blereau’s recipe calls for shortcrust pastry to be made from spelt and barley flour, but the two places I tried – the supermarket (I live in a hipster and immigrant area, so it’s not that ridiculous) and a bulk-food place – did not have barley flour. So I subbed in ordinary flour. I did not do the research into whether or how barley flour deals differently with butter compared with ordinary flour. The pastry was very short and I found it very difficult to deal with. There might have been some shouting. Still, with the soothing hands of my beloved we did end up making them, and they were tasty enough; it seemed like a lot of butter, because they went very crispy. The filling was ok – roasted pumpkin with coriander, cumin, and fennel.

Split pea, fennel and winter vegetable soup

Again, neither of the places I checked had green split peas. The supermarket had a spot for them, but they were out of stock. So I used a normal soup mix. This is a very nice soup but it’s not anything out of the ordinary.

Creamy fresh corn polenta with refried black beans

I think I’ve made polenta maybe once, and that was to cut it up into squares and bake it (which was nice). This recipe recommends cooking the polenta in a fatty stock, and I realised that I had a lamb ‘stock’ in the freezer from ages ago – I think it was liquid I drained off some dish and couldn’t bear to throw. So I used that to cook the polenta, and it was delicious. The refried black beans were also really nice, with capsicum and coriander and a little too much chilli for my tastes (c/ beloved being a little heavy handed). We didn’t add the corn to this because we’re not huge fans; I didn’t think the dish suffered for its lack.

I ignored most of the section on ‘basics’, like using kefir grains in… stuff… and preparing and cooking beans, lentils, and grains.

The book itself

It’s a well presented book, as you’d expect from Allen&Unwin; it’s one of those big cookbooks, with what feels like a solid spine, and generally appetising photos throughout. Each recipe has dietary info about whether it’s dairy or gluten free, vego or vegan, and other allergy stuff. However the recipes, while nicely set out on the page, sacrifice font size in favour of white space, which makes reading from a distance something of a struggle – not great from the other side of the stove.

I have two main issues with the book. One is perhaps obvious from comments above: there are ingredients in here that were not easy for me to find. I do not know what kombucha or kefir grains are, nor where to find them. I live near the city, in a hipster area. Probably I could find these things, and I know I could find them online, but the point remains that this is not an easy, automatic book to cook from – and that’s not acknowledged anywhere, as far as I could find. Connected to this is the reality that this is not a book for the economically poor, nor the time poor. This is not necessarily a problem, if you’re buying for yourself and willing to put in the time and money, but it is something that should be acknowledged. Blereau is all in for pre-soaking beans and grains and then cooking for however long, so you need to be prepared for that if you want to follow the recipes precisely. And of course being prepared for the time it takes to make cultured cream and so on with your kefir grains.

And then there’s the wholefoods thing. I am not on the wholefoods bandwagon. I am all in favour of cooking food from scratch if you have the time, I understand some of the issues with overly processed stuff, and so on. But when I read the introduction to this book, I ended up getting out a pencil and making annotations in the margins because I got annoyed with it. For instance, there’s the suggestion that industrialisation of food in Australia started in the 1960s and 1970s, and grossly generalised statements about ‘traditional cultures’ that enjoy ‘good health and happiness’ all understanding that our physical bodies are ‘formed of and governed by the forces of nature’… whatever that means. And then there’s her suggestion that she grew up with a ‘strong, intact food culture’ and that many people today are ‘without a strong grasp of food culture.’ Maybe ‘food culture’ means something really specific that I’m not aware of, but I think that is bordering on offensive. (Do not get me started on the idea that herbicides and fungicides are ‘derivative of nerve gases left over after the early wars’ – my note in the margin says “what, Persians? Assyrians?”)

In the end, I think that this book has some interesting recipes in it, but if you’re not completely on board with wholefoods you might find it more annoying than not. That said, if you ARE into wholefoods (which is totally fine I would just rather have a more scientific discussion about it), this may well be the book for you, especially if you’re just starting out and are interested in exploring different sorts of grains and how to actually use them in meals.

It’s available from Fishpond. 

What’s for Dinner?

This book was provided by Allen&Unwin at no cost. Available from April 2016; RRP $34.99.

Unknown.jpeg The book itself

This is a book produced out of recipes from the website My Food Bag, which I hadn’t come across before receiving the book – so it is kinda one big ad. Despite that, I have come down in favour of the book.

The recipes are all designed for weeknight cooking, so there’s generally a minimum of fuss involved. The recipes come from a range of cuisines (harissa to haloumi to coconut rice to steak); there’s a variety of meat, seafood and vego dishes; they’re divided into seasons to help you figure out fruit and veg availability. Every recipe comes with a little circle indicating whether it will take less, medium, or more time, and also whether the recipe is gluten and/or dairy free (or how to make it so; the index also lists all dishes that are GF or DF, as a distinct category). Plus, each recipe also lists the amount of energy, carb, protein and fat in it (… if you follow the recipe…).

Each double page is nicely laid out with the recipe on one side and a picture of the dish on the other. The pictures aren’t too overwhelming – they’re mostly trying to look like they’re on the dinner table – although mine tended not to look like the perfectly plated dishes. Of course. Each dish that I have made was straightforward; I didn’t have to puzzle out any instructions.

One quibble: although this is an Australian book, it refers to kumara (sweet potato) and courgettes (zucchini). I find this really bizarre.

To be honest, this isn’t the sort of book that I buy any more; I’ve become more of a fan of the single-cuisine cookbook that I fall pretty hard for. That said,  I know exactly the sort of person I would give it to: someone who is straight out of home, and/or someone who is just starting to cook for themselves. The recipes aren’t intimidating and they do offer a variety of tastes, spices, and skill levels. If you know someone in that category, or want to revamp your own weekday cooking, this could be a good addition to your repertoire of recipes.

The recipes 

I treat this sort of cookbook a bit cavalierly. Sometimes I will follow a recipe to the letter, other times I will pick and choose bits to go together.

Thai pork patties with coconut rice: friends, I have now boiled rice FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE. I followed the instructions in the book about how to do it with coconut milk (3/4 coconut and 3/4 water to 1 cup water), valiantly resisted the urge to lift the lid, and it was excellent. These pork patties (with ginger, sesame oil, fish sauce, kaffir lime leaves and coriander) are also very tasty.

Herb-crusted lamb: unexpectedly good, and I didn’t even have the Dijon mustard to act as the initial layer.

Tomato and bean salad: meant to go with steak but I used it with something else; toss cherry tomatoes for a minute or so in a pan, add cannellini beans and add some chimchurri – or, if you’re me, a handful of herbs. DELISH.

Open lasagne of courgette (!), artichokes, goat’s cheese and pesto: OMG. This is green and fresh and so, so tasty. If you were intimidated by the idea of trying to stack everything you could easily just use pasta and use this as a stir-through sauce. Will be making again.

Haloumi in filo: where have you been all my life turns out there is something else you can do with haloumi HALOUMI IN FILO.

Overall I was pleasantly surprised and am happy to have this on my shelf.

It’s available from Fishpond. 

 

Guest post!

UnknownPreviously, on BakeClass…

This post is brought to you today by my sister. She’s craftier than me – she even has an Etsy shop , how cool is that – and image4as she’s gluten intolerant she was very interested in the flourless recipes in BakeClass… like this hazelnut chocolate one.

image5I have a bad habit of not following recipes, including when baking. For some reason I seem to think I know better than the recipe writer. The good thing about gluten free baking is there seems to be more leeway for minor adjustments than non-GF. But for once, I actually did what I was told. The only change I made was using rum instead of brandy – I thought I had enough, but sadly not. All measures were by weight, I find it to be a more accurate option.

My only real quandary came when I had melted the image2chocolate – do I leave it to cool for a few minutes while I whip the egg whites or do I risk scrambled yolks? I went with the former. It worked perfectly.

image1My oven can be a bit temperamental, so I only cooked it for 40 minutes and it came out perfectly.

It’s rich and delicious; a small piece is enough to satisfy even this chocolate fiend. It’s an easy recipe to follow and I’ll be making this again in future.

image3I can only presume that this last picture was taken before she licked the bowl. The spoon used to belong to our mother; I know this because when I properly moved out of home I managed to wheedle one out of her myself, and at that very moment my sister basically wrote her name on another one to make sure it didn’t end up… somewhere else. I don’t know where else, since our brother was unlikely to want it, but there was no way she was letting it go.

 

 

Gingernuts

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This book was provided by the publisher at no cost.

Previously, on BakeClass: rhubarb cake; self-saucing pudding; the book itself; sponge-making.

I have never made gingernuts before, which seems vastly remiss since they’re definitely a favourite. And they’re going straight to the top of my ‘I feel like baking but nothing too strenuous also I don’t have anything exotic in the house’ list of recipes, too, which is a feeling I et surprisingly often – these are incredibly easy and very very tasty. I was a bit dubious that there wasn’t enough ginger (3 tsp), but I was grumpily good and followed the recipe aaaand I think it’s safe to say they were spicy enough.

Apparently I also made them too big. Perhaps my estimation of how much a tablespoon of biscuit mixture is is somewhat off. As you can see they kind of… spread. They looked more like a gap-y slice than neat little biscuits. (The big gap in the second row wasn’t there while they were cooking….) Still, they were excellent, and will apparently keep for about a fortnight. If they’re not eaten first.

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Cypriot cooking

UnknownI’d been wanting this book for quite a long time when I finally saw it on sale and cracked. I like that it doesn’t just have the standard ‘Middle Eastern’ countries that I think Anglo-Australians think of when they think of food; it’s got Armenia, The Gulf States, Yemen…. So my thought was to try and do a week or two of mostly cooking from on country. Obviously that’s going to be harder or easier depending on season, as to what we feel like; and some ingredient will make things hard. But I figure it’s a good way to try new things and make my way through bits of the book.

So my first foray was into Cyprus. It’s not the first country in the book – that’s Greece – but I thought starting with Greek was cheating because I already know at least some Greek food.

The very first recipe is for haloumi. I am intrigued by the idea of making haloumi but I can’t imagine every actually doing it. Unless I hit some holidays and I get really adventurous… which may well happen, not going to lie.

I also don’t think I will be marinating or frying brains (appetisers). Yes, I happily own to being a culinary coward.

Page-wise, the first recipe I tried was the Kolketes (pumpkin pies; appetiser). This was a bit harder than I had expected. Making the filling of pumpkin and bulgur and spices was a cinch. But the pastry wasn’t nearly as easy to deal with as I had expected, and I got a bit frustrated. This was compounded by the instruction to roll the dough out “about the thickness of a normal pie crust” which is not at all useful if you’re not accustomed to making pie crusts. As I am not. So I just had to guess. Ultimately I managed to make the IMG_0885pies; they were quite tasty. However the pastry has made me leary of trying them again.

Next was haloumi bread. Yes yes yes and yes. I can also imagine just making the Kouloura bread dough by itself.

Further on we hit vegetables, and I made Yemista – stuffed vegetables. I can’t quite imagine stuffing eggplants and my love isn’t a huge fan, so I just went with tomatoes and capsicum. I’d seen some American cooking show where the woman did ‘deconstructed’ stuffed capsicums – don’t worry, she was being sly about and knew this was entirely the cheat’s way of making them – and I had every intention of making the filling (mince, rice, tomato) and then piling the capsicum and tomato on top or something. But in the end I actually properly stuffed them (and how organised is this, I made that bit the day before and just had to cook them the next day for dinner!). They were quite tasty, although I think either the stuffing or the sauce (which was a very basic tomato sauce) needed something a bit richer. Possibly just more tomato.

Then there’s Afelia, which is apparently anything with cracked coriander seeds. I made mushrooms with coriander – fry them off, add some red wine, add coriander – and given I love coriander in all its forms I liked it. I would have liked more ideas in this section about what sort of food it should accompany, though. I also made the pork version, which was quite a Moment for me since I’m not sure I’ve personally cooked pork more than… once before? Basically it just tasted like coriander, though; I didn’t think the pork came through at all. Maybe that’s just pork.

Finally, fish: Psari Savoro (fish with rosemary and vinegar). I used Australian rockling. We went through a bit of a fish phase a few years ago but haven’t been back in ages; I’ve just not found a convenient and good fishmonger. There’s apparently one a bit north of where we are, though, that I’ll have to try – I think this cookbook is likely to have some good seafood recipes. Anyway: salting the fish was an intriguing suggestion, and then coating with flour of course made it crisp up a bit and leave flour to thicken the sauce. My love cooked the fish and did it very well. The sauce was made up of garlic, rosemary, vinegar (we used cider instead of brown) and white wine. It thickened up heaps more than I expected, and was basically tasty although too heavy on the vinegar for my taste. One I will quite likely be revisiting.

Starting with Cyrpus was an … interesting choice. It wasn’t an overwhelming success – I didn’t love everything – but there wasn’t anything that I hated the taste of. I’ll be a bit more cautious as I go further into the book as I’ve not always found Mallos’ instructions to be as straightforward as I’d like. With both the pork and the fish, she says to fry until ‘just cooked through’ – but no instructions about what that looks like. It’s surely not hard to say ‘until the pork is white through’ or ‘until the fish is white and flakes’? Even expert cooks aren’t going to get annoyed by a few extra words, are they?

None of these were particularly photogenic, hence the lack of pics.