La Recette du Jour

... or goodbye bread machine. There's been a growing buzz about this book on the web and I finally managed to get a copy last week. I've made one batch of dough so far and while the results are not perfect yet, they are startlingly good for such a low-effort method. They are certainly far better than any bread machine bread I've tasted.

Basically you make a large batch of rather sloppy dough using unbleached plain flour (not bread flour), and store it in a bucket in the fridge (no kneading; just mix it all together). When you want some bread, pull off a lump, shape it, and let it rest at room temperature for an hour, before putting it in the oven. Half an hour later, fresh crusty bread!

You can keep the dough for up to two weeks; my first batch lasted five days, and the last loaf I made with it had a pleasant sourdough flavour and improved texture compared to the first one.

Continue reading "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" »

Another recipe from Rossella's Ma che ti sei mangiato. I didn't have any courgettes unfortunately, and I think it would have been better with. Next time I will roast and peel the pepper first for a more intense flavour. Quick to make, and vegetarian.

Continue reading "Tagliatelle al buffone" »

Taste & Create has come round again already, and I haven't even posted anything since last time! This time it's a different kind of challenge: Nicole emailed me to say my partner's blog is entirely in Italian! I should have guessed from the title ... Ma che ti sei mangiato.

Still, since I know French, Latin, and a smidgin of Spanish, and I've been to Italy a couple of times, how difficult could it be? I love Italian food, so I have a pretty good vocabulary of food items, and I can usually understand the gist of what Italians are saying to me once I'm fortified with a couple of glasses of wine. So I set forth to explore.

Honestly, with the aid of the photos there were loads of recipes that appealed to me enough to make the effort to understand them (a little Babelfish was required here and there). But I decided to start with a really simple one for which I fortuitously had all the ingredients: leek risotto. It was simplicity itself to make, and I liked the result, even if Steve wasn't so keen (he thought it was too sweet, but I think I reduced the wine a bit too much). Sorry about the photos, risotto just isn't photogenic, but it tasted good! Look for at least a couple more recipes from Rosella soon, and thank you Nicole for the introduction!

Continue reading "Leek Risotto" »

I happened across a food blog event called Taste and Create in which food bloggers are paired up and cook something from each other's blogs. It sounded like fun, so I signed up. I was a teeny bit alarmed when I saw who I'd been paired with: Megan is obviously a baker who specialises in fancy cakes, which are not my forte at all. I was worried I wouldn't find anything I thought myself capable of cooking, but luckily I quickly found ricotta pound cake, which looked like the sort of cake I make to take to choir practice and doesn't involve fondant icing. I briefly toyed with the chocolate cupcakes, but they involved piping bags and I just didn't see myself with a piping bag; I think I've probably used one about once in my entire life, and that was for making Duchesse potatoes.

Next challenge: the American cup measures. Gah! I hate these! How do you measure a cup of butter?? Off to Google, and I found this handy calculator, instantly bookmarked.

So off to the kitchen with the scales and a measuring jug. Now I have to confess that even after I'd done the conversions I fiddled with the recipe. 340 grams of sugar to 170 g of flour?? Pound cakes normally have equal weights of egg, butter, sugar and flour, and I'm sure most Americans have a sweeter tooth than I do, so I reduced the sugar to "only" 200 g. This might have something to do with the fact that my cake took even longer than Megan's to cook, and was very moist -- er, soggy even. But it had a lovely crisp, caramelised outside which contrasted nicely with the golden yellow interior. It's a "pudding" sort of cake; it would be nice with some soft fruit such as raspberries or blueberries, or even as the basis of a trifle.

So I'm not disappointed with my choice. Maybe I should put more sugar in next time though. The quantities below are what I actually used after my measuring/weighing/converting session; if you want the real recipe, I recommend visiting Megan's blog!

Continue reading "Ricotta Pound Cake" »

I needed a quick cake to take to choir practice, made with ingredients to hand. This fitted the bill, and there wasn't a crumb left over. No time for photos! The base is a bit like a crumble mix; pack it down well so that it holds together.

Credit: I think it originally came from World Wide Recipes. Unfortunately the measurements are in cups, and in my haste I didn't do the conversions to metric weights as I normally do. But at least the equivalents in ml are given so if you have a measuring jug it is relatively painless.

Continue reading "Lemon squares" »

Sea bass, called bar in most of France, is called loup de mer on the Mediterranean, apparently because of its aggressive behaviour. It's a delicious fish, with glossy silver scales and firm white flesh, but expensive enough to be an occasional treat. Yesterday our fishmonger had small ones at 16 euros a kilo, but they were beautifully fresh, and not farmed, a rare thing among fish these days. So I bought two, and with a big bag of moules de bouchot for mouclade, my purchases came to just over 17 euros.

Usually I cook bass the Catalan way, simply with tomatoes and lemon,or else grill it on the barbecue with fennel if it's summer, so I'd just asked the fishmonger to gut them and leave the scales on. However I felt like a change, and Steve kindly agreed to fillet them. This is a very simple, healthy recipe and it was excellent, served with some sliced potatoes left over from a baked dorade earlier in the week.

Continue reading "Loup de mer en papillotte" »

I've always been a fan of anything lemon-flavoured, but I seem to have been going overboard lately. Every time I go to the supermarket they have piles of lovely firm untreated lemons, and I can't resist them.

This originated as a recipe in Sainsbury's magazine. Having just made some limoncello I had to try it. An additional motive was the hope of finding a form of jelly I can serve to French people without them going "eeeeew! Jelly!!" (le jelly invariably comes up immediately after "they boil everything to death" when you ask French people what they think of British food).

I think I have a winner here, the jelly cunningly concealed under layers of lemony custard and syllabub, the whole intensely lemony. The original recipe suggests folding broken-up bought meringues into the cream topping. Yes, it does need something crunchy, but I think meringues are the wrong thing. When you've made the custard, you will have five egg whites left over; use them to make tuiles to serve with the trifles. They look very pretty served in individual glasses; this makes 6 200 ml trifles.

It might look like a faff, but you can/must make the jelly and custard the day before serving (and the tuiles if making), and then assemble everything up to a couple of hours before the meal. The syllabub topping is better if left to stand for a couple of hours for the flavour to mature.

Continue reading "Lemon trifles" »

So this seems like something so basic you don't need a recipe, but it's surprisingly easy to get wrong, as I know from experience. The key is not to overdo the potato, or you will end up with something stodgy and dull. Stick to equal weights of fish and potato; the rest is a matter of taste..

Continue reading "Fishcakes" »