snake_soup

Tags: meta

(9 comments | Leave a comment)

Current Mood: curious
Tags: lizw, not meatloaf, nut roast, nuts, questions, vegetarian

(4 comments | Leave a comment)

I've made these a couple of times now, and they work quite well. Based on a recipe from Waitrose.

• 50g self-raising flour
• 75ml (5 Tbsp) milk (soya milk is fine)
• 1 egg, separated
• small handful of fresh parsley, chopped
• 250g sweetcorn kernels, cooked if raw, thawed if frozen, drained and rinsed if canned

Sift the flour into a mixing bowl, add a pinch of salt. Whisk the soya milk with the egg yolk and parsley, then pour into the flour and mix well. Add the sweetcorn and mix well.

Whisk the egg white in another vessel until it's at the soft-peak stage, then fold it carefully into the batter.

Heat a large heavy-based frying pan, add some oil, and cook spoonfuls of the batter (this recipe makes 12 spoonfuls) on each side until golden brown — you'll have to do this in batches; my pan makes 6 fritters at a time.

Serve as a side dish (e.g. with fried egg and bacon for breakfast) or on their own with a dipping sauce of some kind (ketchup works).

Tags: eggs, fresh parsley, fritters, milk, nou, photos, soya milk, sweetcorn

(Leave a comment)

More on the cookbook project! This time the cookbook was the Cosmopolitan Vegetarian Cookbook, chosen by me, with recipes chosen by rjw1: Japanese beetroot stirfry (p105), lentils with bananas (p127), Thai cucumber (p157), and cardamom risotto pudding with dates (p194).

I was a bit scared of this menu, since it all seemed a bit... disparate, but bob assured me that he'd chosen "the only interesting recipes in the book". It all worked pretty well together in the end.

Incidentally, I think bob's assessment of this book is a little unfair — it has quite a few other interesting-looking recipes. I've owned this book for about a decade, and have a couple of recipes from it on my website: noodle salad with quick peanut dressing, peanut and coriander dressing, and caramelised leeks over noodles.

Japanese beetroot stirfry (serves 4)

• 1 Tbsp hazelnut oil (didn't have any, so bob used walnut oil instead)
• 1 Tbsp groundnut oil
• 1 Tbsp pickled ginger
• 2 leeks, thinly sliced
• 3 raw beetroot, peeled and grated
• 1 tsp wasabi (bob used a lot more than this, and it still wasn't noticeable)
• 3 Tbsp sake
• 1 Tbsp golden granulated sugar

Heat the oils in a wok or large frying pan (bob used a wok), then add the ginger and leeks and stirfry for 5 minutes. Add the beetroot, wasabi, sake, and sugar, stirfry for a few more minutes and serve immediately.

Verdict: This was pretty tasty. bob said he had to cook it for quite a lot longer than the recipe said, since it was all quite liquidy. This may be because our hob doesn't get very hot. The part about serving immediately is a bit silly; the leftovers reheated fine.

Lentils with bananas (serves 4)

• 25g (1 oz) butter
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 red onion, peeled and cut into wedges
• 1 clove garlic, peeled and slightly squashed
• 1 x 400g (14 oz) tin Puy lentils, drained and rinsed
• 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
• salt and freshly-ground black pepper
• 3 semi-ripe bananas, peeled and roughly chopped
• handful of fresh coriander leaves
• handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley

Melt the butter and oil in a large pan. Add the red onion and the garlic clove, and sauté for about 5 minutes before adding the lentils and balsamic vinegar. Season with salt and pepper and simmer for a minute. Take off the heat and leave to cool before adding the bananas and herbs. Serve warm or cold (we had it at room temp).

Background: Apparently this dish "originates from the Canary Islands", but the author doesn't give much information apart from that. I'm having trouble finding its actual name — most mentions of banana/lentil dishes on the interweb seem to be referring to Latin American cuisine. I suspect the Puy lentils might be a replacement for Lanzarote lentils.

Verdict: I thought this was going to be more weird than tasty, but it actually wasn't bad at all — and it's converted me to canned Puy lentils (I've not been too impressed with canned lentils previously).

Thai cucumber (serves 4)

• 2 cucumbers
• 2 red chillies, deseeded and diced
• 1 red onion, peeled and diced
• 2 Tbsp chopped fresh coriander
• For the dressing:
  • 1 Tbsp rice wine vinegar
  • 1 Tbsp golden caster sugar
  • 2 Tbsp olive oil
  • 125g (4 oz) roasted peanuts, roughly chopped

Cut the cucumber in half lengthways and scoop out the seeds, then use a vegetable peeler to cut it into long, thin strips. Put the cucumber strips in a bowl with the chillies, onion, and fresh coriander. Mix all the dressing ingredients together and drizzle over the salad.

Verdict: Not great. It was OK, but it was quite unexciting. bob effectively quadrupled the dressing, and there still wasn't enough flavour. The rice wine vinegar may have been a bit too mild.

Cardamom risotto pudding with dates (serves 4)

• 750ml (1.25 pints) milk
• 25g (1 oz) soft brown sugar
• seeds from 5 cardamom pods
• 50g (2 oz) butter
• 125g (4 oz) arborio rice
• about 1 Tbsp honey, to taste
• 75g (3 oz) dates, stoned and roughly chopped
• 50g (2 oz) toasted flaked almonds (optional — bob forgot to put them in and it was still good)

Put the milk, sugar, and cardamom seeds in a pan and heat to simmering point. Melt the butter in another (heavy-based) saucepan, then add the rice and stir to coat the grains. Add a ladleful of the hot milk and stir well. When the rice has absorbed the milk, add another ladleful; keep doing this until the rice is al dente (cooked through, but still with a "bite"). The end result should be creamy, with liquid around the rice. Add honey to taste, fold in the chopped dates, sprinkle over the almonds, and serve.

Verdict: Pretty tasty. I don't really like desserts, but I'd eat this again.

Next cookbook: An Invitation To Indian Cooking, due to be cooked from on Sunday 7 February, when rjw1 gets home from his travels.

Tags: almonds, arborio rice, bananas, beetroot, chillies, cookbook project, cucumber, dates, fresh coriander, fresh parsley, leeks, lentils, milk, nou, peanuts, pickled ginger, puy lentils, red chillies, rice, rice pudding, risotto, sake, vegetable side dishes, vegetarian, wasabi

(5 comments | Leave a comment)

Tags: black olives, cheese, chicken, drplokta, leftover meat, leftovers, meat, olives, parmesan, peas, rice, risotto

(3 comments | Leave a comment)

Photo by rjw1

And here's the second installment of the reborn cookbook project! I chose the cookbook — Glorious Garlic — and rjw1 chose the recipes and did the cooking. We started off with Spanish Garlic Soup (p30), then had Chicken Ali Baba (p64) accompanied by Dragon's Breath Noodle Salad (p42).

Spanish Garlic Soup (serves 4)

• For the croutons:
  • 8 thin slices baguette
  • 1 Tbsp butter
  • 1/2 Tbsp olive oil
  • pinch cayenne pepper
• For the soup:
  • 1 Tbsp olive oil
  • 8 cloves garlic, sliced
  • 900ml (30 fl oz) beef stock (could use veg stock to vegetarianise it)
  • 1 Tbsp tomato puree
  • 125ml (4 fl oz) dry sherry
  • salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• To serve:
• 4 eggs, poached
• 3 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
• fresh coriander leaves, to garnish (optional — bob didn't bother)

To make the croutons, melt the butter and mix it with 1/2 Tbsp olive oil and the cayenne pepper, then brush it over the baguette slices before baking them at 150°C (300°F) until crisp (around 20 minutes).

To make the soup, heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in a heavy saucepan, then add the garlic and cook until lightly browned. Add the stock and tomato puree, mix well, bring to the boil, then reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes. Remove and discard the garlic, add the sherry and seasoning, and reheat to a boil.

To serve, put two croutons into each soup bowl, put a poached egg on top, then pour in the soup. Sprinkle over the bacon and fresh coriander.

Verdict: Really quite tasty; I'd make this again, though probably without the bacon since I didn't think it added much (I'm not a fan of crispy bacon in general). I would have preferred smaller croutons so I didn't have to hack them up with my spoon, but croutons definitely work better than non-toasted bread in this. Bob's excellently-poached eggs (runny yolk, just-set white) were part of what made this so good.

Dragon's Breath Noodle Salad (serves 4)

• 350g (12oz) udon noodles, cooked and drained
• 2 Tbsp grated fresh ginger
• 140g (5oz) sliced water chestnuts (bob left these out since we didn't have any)
• 250g (9oz) sliced mushrooms (the original recipe used a volume measurement of 500ml/2 cups; I have no idea what this is in a sensible measuring system)
• 2 Tbsp sesame oil
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 6 spring onions, including green part, minced
• 1-2 tsp cayenne
• 125ml (4 fl oz) soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp honey
• To serve:
  • 125ml (4 fl oz) chopped peanuts (again, no idea what this is in real money — bob forgot to add these)
  • crisp fried garlic chips (see directions)

To make the garlic chips, peel cloves of garlic, and slice them paper-thin. Deep-fry them in peanut oil (groundnut oil) at 150°C (300°F) for 3–5 minutes until completely dry, golden brown, and crisp. Leave to drain and cool on paper towels.

To make the salad, mix everything together except the peanuts and garlic chips, and leave it to marinate for at least 45 minutes. Sprinkle the peanut and garlic chips over before serving.

Verdict: That's a hell of a lot of soy sauce, but somehow it didn't make the salad too salty. I didn't really like this dish — it was certainly powerful, but I felt it was a bit one-note. The peanuts and water chestnuts would have improved the texture, but I don't think they'd have rescued the flavour. The garlic chips (which I made) ended up too brown and bitter, and I didn't even fry them for the whole 3–5 minutes; maybe my oil was too hot. Next time I'll try Thomas Keller's method.

Chicken Ali Baba (served 6, or however many people 1 chicken serves in your household)

• 1 roasting chicken (1.4–1.8kg, 3-4lb)
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 40 cloves (3 heads) garlic, separated from heads and with papery skin removed, but not peeled
• 4 Tbsp unsalted butter
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 250ml (8 fl oz) chicken stock
• To garnish: 1 bunch parsley, minced

Pour the lemon juice over the chicken, then sprinkle the salt and pepper over the top and rub in. Leave to marinate for 30 minutes, then brown the breast side for about 5 minutes in the butter and oil in a large Dutch oven or heatproof casserole (large enough to contain the chicken). Add the garlic cloves and chicken stock to the pan, stir to coat with oil, cover, and roast in a 190°C (375°F) oven for 60–70 minutes.

Remove chicken to serving platter. Degrease the pan juices. Purée the garlic cloves with the remaining pan juices by pushing through a food mill or sieve. (At this point bob reduced the garlic/pan juices by boiling in a pan — this wasn't mentioned in the recipe, but it certainly needed it.) Sprinkle the chicken with the parsley, and serve with the garlicky pan juices as a gravy.

Verdict: The pot-roast technique meant that there was no lovely crispy chicken skin, but the meat was wonderfully moist and the garlic gravy was excellent. I'd eat this again.

Next cookbook: The Cosmopolitan Vegetarian Cookbook, due to be cooked from on Saturday 19 December.

Tags: bacon, chicken, cookbook project, deep-frying, eggs, fresh coriander, fresh parsley, garlic, meat, mushrooms, noodles, nou, roast chicken, sherry, soup, spring onions, water chestnuts

(6 comments | Leave a comment)

People who used to read nou_cooks may remember the cookbook project. I have now revived it in a slightly modified form — I will be doing the book-choosing and the writing-up, and rjw1 will be doing the recipe-choosing and the cooking. And since snake_soup is a collaborative venture, please feel free to host your own cookbook project dinners, and post the results!

We started off last night with IKEA's Real Swedish Food Book, from which bob chose Noggin Salad (p24) and Irene's Salmon Casserole (p51). Unsurprisingly, the ingredient lists suggest the use of IKEA food products; however, we shop at Ocado, so I've listed what we used instead. I've also translated the measurements to British (i.e. ml instead of dl) and Imperial ones.

Noggin salad (serves 4)

• 100ml (3.5 fl oz) half-fat soured cream
• 100ml (3.5 fl oz) mayonnaise
• 4 Tbsp salmon caviar (H Forman brand is much much better than the Spinnaker brand I've previously tried)
• 1 small red onion, finely chopped
• 1 small yellow onion, finely chopped
• 1 small bunch of fresh dill (15g), finely chopped
• 200g (7 oz) (drained weight) sweet-pickled herring fillets (bob said this worked out to a 500g/17.5oz tub gross weight), drained and sliced
• 6-7 potatoes, boiled, cooled, and diced (around 500g/17.5oz) (we used Roseval variety)
• 2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
• parsley (optional — I forgot to buy any and didn't miss it)

Mix it all together and leave to stand in a cold place for an hour before serving. The IKEA book suggests serving it with crispbread and a beer.

Verdict: Delicious! The roe is a bit expensive, but I'd happily eat this again.

Irene's salmon casserole (serves 4)

• 400g (14 oz) potatoes, peeled and sliced (we used Kestrel variety)
• 500g (17.5 oz) salmon fillet (bob left the skins on, which didn't turn out great since Ocado left some scales on too)
• 1 small bunch of fresh dill (15g)
• 2 Tbsp oil
• 75ml (5 Tbsp) white wine
• 50ml (3 Tbsp + 1 tsp) sherry
• 1-2 tsp salt
• To serve: half-fat soured cream mixed with grated horseradish (we used ready-prepared horseradish, English Provender brand)

Lightly salt the salmon fillet, and divide it into 8 pieces. Place alternate layers of salmon and dill+potato into a lidded ovenproof dish or casserole. Heat the oil slightly and pour it over the top, sprinkle with salt, and put the lid on. Bake in the oven at 175°C (350°F) for about 20-30 minutes until the potato is soft. Pour in the wine and sherry, and leave in the oven for another 2 minutes. Serve with the horseradish-flavoured cream on the side.

Verdict: Not very good, overall. The salmon was the best part, cooked through but not dry at all. With the timings given, the potatoes were undercooked to the point of inedibility, and there was a vast amount of liquid swimming around in the bottom of the pan.

Next cookbook: Glorious Garlic, due to be cooked from on Saturday 12 December.

Tags: caviar, cookbook project, dill, fish, fresh dill, nou, pickled fish, potatoes, salmon, salmon roe, swedish

(1 comment | Leave a comment)

Current Mood: satisfied
Tags: cheese, enchiladas, gaspodog, jalapeños, mexican, mince, tortillas

(1 comment | Leave a comment)

Tags: christmas cake, christmas pudding, scat0324

(13 comments | Leave a comment)

Tags: chillies, emperor, sauces, sweet chilli sauce, thai

(7 comments | Leave a comment)

Try to make warming, tasty food out of a) heaps of old dried food which is mostly long past its best-before date, and b) a weekly delivery of seasonal veg[*]. The food has to be warming because there's no central heating or hot water in the house. You can only use one hob ring and a microwave for cooking. It's impossible to find any specific item because half of it's still packed as none of the cupboards are actually big enough to store things in. Still sounds far too easy so far? Here's the real catch: the other person you're cooking for doesn't actually like any savoury food except bread, pasta, bacon and cheese.

Tags: j4, links

(1 comment | Leave a comment)

nou

Tags: coconut, cumin, curry powder, guacamole, october challenge, peas, pizza, spinach, susannahf

(3 comments | Leave a comment)

This is proving to be fun. I'm on day 9, and I've already used 18 spices, two of which I'd never used before.

One of these, khakshir, is perhaps technically not a spice, but I didn't know that when I started out. A bit of Googling revealed that it's usually used to make a drink with rosewater and sugarwater; I didn't have any rosewater, so I used fresh lime juice instead. Pretty tasty! The khakshir added a very subtle flavour, but it was fun to see it swirling around in the glass (you stir it up before you drink it).

The other was sumac, which is a reddish sourish powder that comes either coarsely-ground or finely-ground. Mine is coarsely-ground, which put me off using it before since it wasn't any good for just sprinkling. So I made za'atar with it (pictured); this is a mixture of herbs and spices that are ground up together and then either mixed with olive oil to make a spread/dip or just sprinkled on top of things. There are various recipes for it, but this is what I did: take 2 tsp toasted sesame seeds, 2 Tbsp + 2 tsp dried oregano, 1 Tbsp + 1 tsp dried thyme, 2 tsp sumac, a tiny pinch of ground nutmeg, and a tiny pinch of ground cinnamon, and whizz it all up together in a spice grinder. (The nutmeg and cinnamon were a replacement for allspice, which I didn't have on hand.)

The other 16 spices went in curries (prawn patia, saag, and baingan ka bhartha), in masala tea, in hot chocolate (grated whole nutmeg), and on toast with Nutella (ground cinnamon).

How is everyone else getting on? Anyone feel like joining in late? There's still plenty of October left.

Tags: khakshir, nou, october challenge, photos, sumac

(9 comments | Leave a comment)

Tags: october challenge, owlfish

(6 comments | Leave a comment)

Current Mood: accomplished
Tags: brown sauce, butter, carrots, creme fraiche, garlic, ketchup, leek, lizw, pepper, potato, quorn, stock, vegetarian

(2 comments | Leave a comment)

nou

Tags: october challenge, susannahf

(3 comments | Leave a comment)

OK, here's my list of herbs and spices for the October challenge. There are 48 of them, counting variations, so my aim is to use one every day in October, for a total of 30. I'll be updating this post as I use them, with the date of when I used them and a brief summary of what I used them for. I might also post a roundup once a week or so.

If you're also doing the October challenge, feel free to post your own lists, either as a separate post like this one or as a comment to the original post, as hennes has done.

Day 1: 1 spice used (khakshir)
Day 2: 5 spices used (chilli powder [hot], coriander [ground], cumin [ground], garam masala, turmeric)
Day 3: 1 spice used (cumin seed), also reused 4 previously-used (chilli powder [hot], coriander [ground], garam masala, turmeric)
Day 4: 3 spices used (oregano, sumac, and thyme)
Day 5: 1 spice used (nutmeg [whole])
Day 6: 0 spices used (didn't cook anything — takeaway leftovers for breakfast then out all day)
Day 7: 3 spices used (parsley, rosemary, sage), also reused 1 previously-used (thyme)
Day 8: 3 spices used (cardamom [green, pods], cinnamon bark, fennel seed)
Day 9: 1 spice used (cinnamon [ground])
Days 10-12: 0 spices used (other people did the cooking on the weekend, and I was out all day Monday)
Day 13: 1 spice used (dill)
Day 14: 1 spice used (chervil)
Day 15: 1 spice used (tarragon)
Days 16-19: 0 spices used
Day 20: 3 spices used (basil, garlic powder, paprika), also reused 5 previously-used (dill, oregano, parsley, thyme, turmeric)
Days 21-27: 0 spices used (there's no lighting in my kitchen at the moment, so cooking is tricky)
Day 28: 3 spices used (black onion seed, chillies [arbol, diced], chillies [habanero, diced])
Day 29: 1 spice used (bay leaves)
Day 30: 0 spices used
Day 31: 2 spices used (chillies [jalapeno, crushed], chilli powder [mild])

Running total (day 31): 30 spices used.

Tags: nou, october challenge

(6 comments | Leave a comment)

Image © Léon Brocard

Hello Snakes! Do you remember that around this time last year I first proposed and then postponed a spice challenge? Well, let's give it a go again this October.

Here are the details, hopefully clarified a little from last time (thanks to Alan for pointing out I was being ambiguous in the second point):

• Make a list of all the dried herbs/spices in your kitchen.
• Every day in October, pick one of these herbs/spices that you haven't picked on any previous day of the challenge, and use it in something.
• If you deem something to be so far past its best that you don't want to use it, throw it out!
• Tell the other Snakes what you did, whether it worked or whether it didn't.

If you prefer, you can do this "per week" rather than "per day", or you can set yourself a target (e.g. 10 herbs/spices during the month).

Who wants to play?

Tags: nou, october challenge

(11 comments | Leave a comment)

Tags: dessert, egg, meringue, photos, pineapple, susannahf

(4 comments | Leave a comment)

uon bought me a couple of packets of cocoa nibs, and I used one of them in a batch of biscuits, roughly following this recipe by Alice Medrich. Instead of the wheat[0] and buckwheat flour mix she recommends, I used a mixture of rye flour and barley flour with just a little bit of wheat flour added in. I also left out the vanilla extract.

They were pretty tasty. The rye and barley lent a nice bitterness to the biscuits which complemented the bitterness of the cocoa nibs. I don't like things that are too sweet, and these biscuits are certainly not too sweet. I also liked the buttery flavour and the crisp, crumbly texture. I'll make these again.

Tags: barley flour, biscuits, butter, cocoa nibs, nou, photos, rye flour

(3 comments | Leave a comment)