Cookbook review - Supper for a song - Tamasin Day-lewis

First off I have to admit to having never read another Tamasin Day-lewis cookbook so I can't compare this latest book to her usual style. This latest release is another in a long line of books clearly written with the more cost conscious cook in mind. In it Tamasin provides recipes for making the most of the food we buy and in some cases encourages the reader to cook extra food so there are left overs to be made in to some mouth watering recipe the following day. Yes the book is called Supper for a song but this doesn't involve buying the cheapest food in the supermarket. This book is about using good quality ingredients and making sure you waste none of it. Recession or no recession this book (and the others similar to it) are designed to help us make the most of the food we buy and in the processes eat delicious food.

This book is packed with ideas for using up left over potatoes, bread, meats, chickpeas and fruits (to name just a few). It is filled with delicious looking photos, mouth watering recipes and tips from the author. There are recipes for roasting a chicken and making stock and risotto with the left overs, Shepard's or cottage pie with leftover roast beef or lamb, potato bread and cakes and hummus and chick pea soups and stews. There is a chapter on meat using the cheaper (but more flavourful) cuts of meat such as braised belly of pork, brisket with pickled walnuts and oxtail stewed with grapes. There are also plenty of recipes for those who love to bake such as carrot cake, Earl Grey fruit tea loaf and chocolate brownies.

One thing I would warn some people about is that the title may make you think this is 'budget' cooking. It's not! Its about buying the best quality ingredients you can afford and using them wisely. Recipes use organic ingredients, wild salmon, vanilla pods and many different types of alcohol including Marsala, Creme de cassis and Madeira (so clearly not aimed at those on a tight budget!).

Further information:
Supper for a song. Tamasin Day-Lewis
Published by Quadrille publishing, September 2009
Hardback, full colour photography, pages 192
ISBN 978 1 84400 743 1
£20

Fresh from the oven - Edible bread bowls

This months Fresh from the oven bread challenge was hosted by Corry. She chose ‘Soup Bowls’, from Richard Bertinet’s fabulous book ‘Dough – Simple Contemporary Bread’.

I really enjoyed baking these bread bowls and found them simple and reasonably quick to make. They were a great novelty idea but not something I will make regularly. I replaced a 1/3 of the bread flour with smoked bread flour (more about here) which added an extra flavour to the soup. I served spiced vegetable and chickpea soup in mine, a recipe from this months sainsbury's magazine which was delicious (I will post the recipe shortly).

Here's what corry had to say about the bread bowls (recipe at the bottom).

The bread bowl recipe is quick and easy, It’s a great recipe to have in your repertoire and a lot of fun, There’s no dishes to clean up afterwards and you get to lick the bowl as well as eat it. If you are organized, you can have it ready in time to serve up for dinner. They also freeze well for a few weeks.

This dough has a small amount of semolina added to give it a nice texture, and some fruity olive oil to make it soft, resilient and give it a good flavour. You can also add a little chilli or spice to the dough for extra favour.

I found that the recipe makes 6 bowls using 16 x 10cm diameter pyrex bowls or 8 if you use 12cm bowls . Preparation takes 30 minutes, with 60 minutes resting time and 20 to 25 minutes to bake.

Bread bowls

Ingredients:

500g strong bread flour

20 gm course semolina

15gm fresh yeast (or 1 sachet dried)

10 gm salt

50 gm good-quality fruity olive oil

320 gm water

chilli or spice (optional for added flavour)

Preheat the oven to 250˚C (500˚F). Mix together the flour and semolina and rub in the yeast as if you were making a crumble (Richard Bertinet’s method – see below for video link). If using a mixer, switch it on to the slowest speed, add salt, olive oil and water and mix for 2 minutes, then turn the speed up to the next lowest speed and mix for 6 to 7 minutes until the dough becomes smooth and elastic.

If you are kneading by hand, knead for approximately 10 to 12 minutes or until you have a nice smooth elastic ball of dough. Richard Bertinet has a unique kneading technique referred to as the French fold that can take approximately 5 to 10 minutes depending on practice. You can view his method in a online video at the Gourmet Webpage. In this video, he is actually doing sweet dough but the same technique can be used for most bread dough.

Place the dough into a bowl that has been floured, cover with a tea towel and leave in a draught free place for approximately 1 hour or until doubled in volume.

Lightly oil or spray with non-stick spray, the outside of 6 ovenproof bows (I used pyrex bowls). Turn the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and divide into 6 to 8 pieces (depending on the size of your baking bowls). Taking one piece of dough at a time and using a rolling pin, roll each piece into a circle (similar to making pizza). Shake off excess flour and shape each piece over an upturned bowl, patting into shape and pressing gently to remove air bubbles from between the dough and the bowl. Rest the dough for 10 minutes. Place the upturned bowls, two at a time, on a baking tray lined with parchment paper, then into the preheated oven. Turn the oven down to 200˚C (400˚F) and bake for 20 - 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for a few minutes. Using a fine-bladed knife, gently loosen the bread from the bowls and ease off. Cool on a wire rack.

It is probably safer to serve the bowls on a plate, as they do become soggy after a while and the soup may leak through.

Daring bakers - October 2009 - Macarons

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

I was very excited when I visited the Daring Bakers forum on the 1st October to discover we would be making macarons. I have seen lots of them on various blogs (mainly the fantastic ones on Tartelette) and had been thinking about baking them for a while but just never quiet got round to it. This month has been busy though and I only found the chance to bake them last week and predictably they went very wrong! I spent ages reading through all the tips people had been posting on the forum and felt well prepared to undertake the challenge but the results say otherwise!I hope to try making macarons again one day soon and think that next time I will try a different recipe. Perhaps the one in the Ottolenghi cookbook or one from Tartelette's website. Any tips on why mine turned out this way would be appreciated!

For any one who wants to try the recipe, here it is.

Macarons

Ingredients
Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)
Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.)
Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)
Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.
2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip. You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.
5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).
6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.
7. Cool on a rack before filling.

Yield: 10 dozen. Ami's note: My yield was much smaller than this. I produced about two dozen filled macaroons.

Cookbook review - John Torode's Chicken and other birds

Chicken used to be one of my favorite meats and I used to cook it at least once a week. Right now though I can't remember the last time I cooked it. Its not that I've gone off chicken but more that I'm a less fussy eater and cook a wider range of dishes. However this book could hold the next chicken recipe I cook. 256 pages on chicken and other birds, cooked in a variety of different styles and cuisines, with this book you'll never be short of inspiration for chicken again! But this book is more than a book of chicken, there are also lots of recipes and information on cooking game birds too.

The first thing I liked about this book was the removable jacket sleeve with a flow diagram of what to do with your chicken. From poaching or roasting it whole, to jointing and grilling it or using the meat in curries, pies or kebabs. This diagram inspires you to turn to the book for recipes, ideas and tips for getting the most out of your chicken. As well as the recipes which I will cover in a minute, there is lots of other useful information such as a calendar of the game seasons so you know what to eat when its at its best, a brief guide to all the types of bird you might wish to cook, what to look for when shopping for chicken (no not the 2 for £5 stickers), jointing a bird and a list of poultry and game dealers.

So on to the recipes. The book is split in to chapters on the following topics soups and stocks, snacks and starters, legs and breasts, salads, curries, barbecues, roasts, one pot wonders, tarts, pies and pasties, pasta, noodles and grains and finally confit, terrines, pates and pastrami. Each chapter has a brief introduction by John which will inspire you to try the recipes. Some of the recipes that I want to try include chicken Cesar salad, some of the 8 different chicken kebab ideas (oregano and garlic, chicken and prawns with pancetta, Chinese chicken with sesame seeds), the roast chicken with olives and lemons, and the chicken paella. There are nearly as many game bird recipes as their are chicken ones such as penne with ragout of game sausage and red wine, guinea fowl tagine, five-spiced Chinese duck with bok choy and oyster sauce and pheasant wrapped in proscuitto with polenta. I've never eaten game, let alone cooked it but should I ever decide to this will be the book I reach for. Scattered throughout the recipes John also offers lots of useful advice and tips.

Whilst I would not normal buy cookbooks that focus on one type of meat I do think this is a good book. Its stuffed full of mouth watering pictures and John's useful hints and tips. Although you may glance over this book on the shelf if your not a fan of chicken or think you know all there is to know as chicken I think this book is a great introduction to cooking other types of birds.

Thanks to Quadrille publishing for sending me a copy of this book to review.

Further information:
John Torode's chicken and other birds.
Published by Quadrille publishing, September 2009
Hardback, full colour photography, pages 256
ISBN 978 1 84400 715 8
£20

Authentic spaghetti carbonara

Until a few years ago I used to love the rich, creamy carbonara sauces most Italian restaurants serve. Ok so it's not the healthiest dish on the menu but it was a very occasional treat. Then suddenly I started to find the dish too rich for my tastes and stopped ordering it when in Italian restaurants. Maybe my tastes had changed or maybe I had had one too many rubbish carbonara's. Then as I started to get more and more in to cooking I discovered that true Italian carbonara's don't include cream at all! At this point I started to consider the idea of making a carbonara myself.

I discovered Italian Foodies sometime last year and have been following the blog since then (and also working my way through the posts/recipes from before I discovered it). It has to be up there as one of my favorite blogs. It is full of mouth watering pictures and deliciously simple recipes (mostly Italian - my favorite kind). You might have noticed that I have a list in my side bar called 'recipes I want to try'. I have been using this list to keep track of some of the recipes other blogs post that I want to try myself. Italian foodies authentic carbonara has been sat there for quiet sometime waiting for me to find the time to try it.

At the weekend we visited The Hollies farm shop in Cheshire. They were hosting a Great British food feast, with lots of local suppliers showcasing their produce and lots of food to sample. There was also a delicious hog roast and a showcase of 1000's of pumpkins (the advertising said 4000 but I didn't count them!). One of the products that caught our eye was their bacon. So armed with a packet of local bacon I decided to try my hand at a real authentic (cream free!) carbonara. I wasn't disappointed. The carbonara was simple to make and turned out fantastic, I didn't miss the cream and it really allowed the quality and taste of the bacon to shine. I wanted to share this recipe with you all and also book mark it here so I can make it again in the future. For the recipe and step by step photos see here.

smoked bread recipe

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Anglesey Oyster and welsh food produce festival in Treaddur Bay, Anglesey. Whilst we were wandering round the different food stalls we came across Derimon smokery which as well as some of the smoked products you might expect (salmon, garlic, tomatoes, etc) had a few I wouldn't of expected like duck breast, mussels and bread flour. The bread flour grabbed my attention and the man of the stall was more than happy to tell me about it. He sells it in his shop and also supplies it to El Bulli! where it is used in bread buns for dipping in to oils and vinegars. He suggested using a ratio of 1 part smoked flour and 3 parts strong white bread flour as a starting point but to play around depending on how strong or mild you want the smoky flavour.

I started by using the formula he suggested and using it to make a pizza base for a ham and mushroom pizza. For me the ratio seemed just right. You got a good amount of smoky flavour which complimented the toppings well with out being overpowering. Next I decided to make a smoky bread loaf using the same ratio. The end result again was delicious and just the right amount of smoky flavour perfect for cheese on toast! I have also used some of the flour in my Fresh from the oven challenge which will be revealed on the 28th October. The only problem is I'm down to half a bag and have no idea where I can get another bag in Cheshire!Smoked bread flour loaf

125g smoked white bread flour
375g strong white bread flour
10g salt
5g fast action yeast
2 tbsp sunflower (or similar) oil
300ml warm water

• Combine the bread flours, yeast and salt in a bowl. Add the water and oil slowly into the flour, stirring (I use a KitchenAid on low speed with a dough hook fitted) until well combined.
• If using turn the mixer knead for a couple of minute until a smooth, satiny bread dough forms (if not using a mixer knead by hand on a lightly floured surface for approximately 10 minutes).
• Shape the dough into a ball and place in a lightly oiled bowl. Leave to prove in a warm, draft free room until doubled in size (mine took 1.5-2hrs).
• Preheat oven to 250C (or it's highest setting). Deflate the dough with your hands. Shape in to a ball and place on a baking sheet or if you own one in a lightly flour proving basket and leave to prove for 30minutes.
• Transfer the bread from the proving basket (if using) to a baking sheet. Score a cross in the center and bake for 10 min at 250C then turn the oven down to 200C. Bake bread for a further 20-30 min. You can always cover the bread with tin foil if the crust is getting brown too fast. The bread is cooked when it sounds hollow when you tap on the base.
• Leave to cool on a wire rack.

I am submitting this entry to Yeastspotting.
Enjoy!

Guest post

Just to let you all know I have wrote a guest blog post on Nora the kitchen 'Splorer tonight. You can read it here, its a review of all the deliciousness posted on other food blogs this week.

Enjoy!