Jul 20 2008
Dear Helen. Buy an electric whisk. You have been promising yourself one for eleven months. Love, Helen.
Written after putting together a meringue-based pudding (containing six egg whites) entirely by hand (at almost midnight).
May 02 2008
Sunday proved to be the first hot day of the year. As such an informal and laid-back dinner was called for.
The sharp-eyed and keen-witted amongst my readers will recall that we did, in fact, make the halloumi bits right back at the beginning of the challenge; the first ‘friends for dinner evening’. However, at the time we forgot to take any piccies, and seeing as we’d both enjoyed it so much felt quite prepared to cook it again ‘in the interests of completeness’.
This time it was made with bona fide garlic oil, as opposed to just some garlic fried in oil. Presumably this added to the flavours; I think if anything it masked the lime juice and over all this was a little on the greasy side, compared to last time. Perhaps I am just remembering wrongly, of course.
The mexican scrambled eggs were chosen specifically for being a bit of an easy-going sort of dish. Of our guests, Le C we basically just know through blogging (although curiously she is one of my best friends’ best friends!) and we don’t know her boyfriend at all. So Dougal felt an informal tea was called for; no need to get the good china out! On the other hand it was a bit of a gamble; whilst we’d asked them if there was anything they didn’t eat, Dougal and I agreed later that someone could really hate scrambled eggs but never think to mention it if asked!
Between the halloumi and the eggs, this was a ‘make lots of little bowls up in advance and then fry with guests in the kitchen’ sort of meal. Added nicely to the relaxed vibe. For all I talk about liking having folk in the kitchen whilst I cook its not actually something I often do.
Generally the eggs were pretty good. My mum makes awesome curried scrambled eggs, with tomato and spices in it and coriander on it; these eggs were pretty similar but without the curry and with the curious addition of fried strips of tortilla. I’m not sure if these oughtn’t have been a bit crisper- the oil wasn’t really hot enough when we fried them, bloody electric cooker- which might have made them a bit more obvious. As it was they added a bit of structure but I’m sure the dish wouldn’t have been weakened in their absence! As suggested in the pre-recipe blurb (but not as an actual recipe) we made a meal of the eggs by serving frigoles refritos with them. We’d neither of us made really-fried beans before (I’d only ever had them out of a can before) but we can report that made with tinned borlotti beans (soak overnight?…hah!) they are quick to make and most hearty and satisfying.
Pudding was chosen specifically for Le C, as the dish that pretty much got her through fourth year of her Part One in Architecture. She used to blog about it on regular occasion. I’d forgotten, but D had spotted the recipe in the book and said we have to make that for Le C. Whilst it tasted absolutely delicious and had the decency to serve beautifully and not fall apart on application of a spoon, as previously noted the proportions in the recipe seemed all wrong. We are currently eating our way through the remaining sponge fingers (very nice they are too) and you saw what happened to the coffee and baileys! Thing is, it’s not just that there was too much, as we ran out of mascarpone at about the point we would have expected. We probably could have soaked the sponge fingers a little more too, but not enough to use all that coffee mixture up!
Either way, it worked out very well, and was also most acceptable the following day when we invited HarveyNick over to help us polish off the leftovers.
Apr 27 2008
Part one, of a recipe from the Quick, Quick, Slow chapter.
We started the preparation of this Baileys Tiramisu last night, to serve to friends this evening. Now we’re not sure entirely what went wrong, but our proportions and the proportions given in Nigella Express simply did not match up. On the one hand, this means we have over a packet of Savoiardi biscuits in the cupboard now. On the otherhand, it meant we were left with a large volume of espresso-Baileys mixture last night…which this morning with the addition of some ice cubes and a couple of croissants on the side, was absolutely gorgeous. That kind of mistake we can cope with!
Apr 06 2008
A three course meal for a vegetarian friend….oh heck, no, marshmallows ain’t veggie…
So yes, this would have been a three course meal, but about an hour and a half before our guests arrived I remembered that marshmallows aren’t vegetarian. You’ll have to wait and see (as will we!) to hear how the Instant Chocolate Mousse I’d had planned goes down.
The red pepper hummus was our starter, and I served it with standard cruditée accompaniments; thin slices of red and yellow pepper, fine green beans and batons of cucumber. As by then I knew the pudding was going nowhere, I added some wedges of freshly toasted pitta bread. I wasn’t as excited by this as I’d expected to be; home made hummus can taste really fantastic! Either it wasn’t peppery enough (because I’d had to combine two jars and couldn’t therefore just drain off the oil but had to decide what proportion of a jar constituted enough extra pepper) or it was because I used red and yellow peppers not just red. Or perhaps I didn’t squeeze on quite enough lime juice, to lift it up. Either way, whilst it was entirely pleasant and rather lovely to look at, it didn’t push all my buttons.
However, I followed it up with our first definite success from the soups in the book. The sweetcorn chowder, essentially pulped sweetcorn, garlic and spring onion cooked up in vegetable stock was blinding, in no little part because of its topping of cheesey toasted tortilla chips and chilli. It looked gorgeous, even in the absence of arty earthenware bowls, and was warm and filling. A little too warm; we all burned our mouths!
I accompanied the soup with a big plate of the Slow Roasted Tomatoes, Goat’s Cheese and Mint Salad. It was every bit as lovely as when I made it back at the beginning of the challenge. I am definitely a fan. We saved pudding (or, more accurately, the lack thereof) by serving the remaining Banana Butterscotch /Chocolate Chip muffins (this was the day after we’d made them). Most respectable and an excellent end to the meal.
Mar 06 2008
Organic Spare Ribs, Happy Chicken Drumsticks, and Posh Apple Juice. What a marriage!
This recipe was one of the very first to catch my eye in Nigella Express, back in the innocent, pre-Challenge days. The idea of having a hearty meal that, at the point of getting in from work, needed only arrangement in a tray and then bunging in the oven for an hour whilst I went off and faffed around/had a big Gin appealed greatly. The other night I saw organic free range pork spare ribs in Waitrose and I knew the time was right.
As suggested in the book, these were dead easy to put together. The chicken (drumsticks in our case, it was supposed to be thighs) and pork goes in a bag or bowl, and over the top go lots of tasty flavours; maple syrup, posh apple juice (ooo, I think I’ll have a glass now), star anise, garlic, cinnamon….and then the whole lot melds for 24 or 48 or so hours. Then, hot oven, wee wait, and then smashing hands-on tea.
I didn’t quite get my big drink as planned; in fact whilst these were cooking I did the ironing (good deed in a naughty world) and put together a wee italian salad (spoiled by cheap mozzarella and the avocado being not quite ripe enough). I gave the meat an extra wee blast at the end because I didn’t think they seemed quite sticky enough…a bit too wet really.
In all, whilst this was a scrummy meal, I would say I was a little disappointed it wasn’t a bit stickier. I suppose for that you either have to use some fake stickiness in your glaze, or endlessly baste the meat whilst it is cooking, which is not the point at all! Or maybe more maple syrup. You couldn’t really taste it, after the star anise and ginger, so perhaps doubling that would be a step in the right direction.
It should also be noted that this meat was most delectable cold.
Jan 07 2008
I realised whilst preparing this meal that, for the course of this challenge, my friends will have to learn that “just supper, nothing fancy” only goes as far as to mean we’ll be wearing jeans, and they won’t be given cocktails. Beyond that, anything goes.
Two friends for supper, to really grasp the challenge by the horns, and to get some recipes under my belt as insurance for the working week ahead. I think managing five (six!) was pretty good going. The only pre-planned part of the meal was the salad, which you can currently see gracing the banner of this blog. I’d bought the special soft goat’s cheese on the 31st, intending to make this salad for my folks on New Year’s Day, but then I forgot to put the tomatoes on to cook in advance.
Not to be beaten a second time, I merrily (very!) prepared the tomatoes on Friday night, a little after 1am, after we got back from Fife. Easy peasy- heat the oven up, slice toms in half, sprinkle with good things, bung in oven, turn oven off, go to bed. I was concerned that the measurements were going to be a problem- I would personally have used half as much salt and twice as much olive oil- but decided to Trust Nigella.
The following evening, I scattered my salad leaves on the plate, dolloped about the goats cheese, and arrayed the now Moonblushed Tomatoes. Instant show-off salad!
(Instant- apart from the mint. My local supermarket failed me on fresh herbs. Thankfully our guests were able to bring us some and I’m really glad I decided to ask, as the mint really lifted the flavours and added that important je ne sais qois.)
All the other dishes were chosen on the basis of what I might feasibly find ingredients for in our local, small and grotty supermarket. I’ll pretend that I was doing the cooking in the true Express ethos, but actually I just couldn’t be bothered shopping the day before and left it till two hours before our friends arrived. Perhaps that is the true Express ethos anyway. I chose reasonably well too, seeing as the only ingredients I couldn’t get were the aforementioned fresh mint, and some fresh rosemary for the Pollo alla Cacciatora.
The Hunter’s Chicken was nice enough, but no great shakes. We had (over-)faithfully followed the recipe with Dougal boning chicken thighs for fillets (it was the only way I could get free range chicken, and anyway the recipe called for thigh fillets. The bones and skin will make great stock!). Nigella describes this as a dish she can construct from scratch in comfortably under half an hour; we had more time and so cooked it for longer, reasoning that no stew ever suffered a bit of slow simmering. It was nevertheless a bit thin (needed reduced) and just not very exciting. But I reckon I’d be happy enough with it after a lousy day at work, so I’ll not write it off altogether.
Perhaps the chicken seemed dull because it had followed on from such a fabulous starter. A starter which I’ve just realised I took no photos of; damn, I’ll just have to cook it again. Halloumi is one of my favourite nibbley foods, in the whole world and there are TWO recipes using it in this book. This was dead straightforward: dry fry your cheese and then toss it in citrus juices, oil and herbs. My only complaint was that I couldn’t eat the whole lot myself.
For pudding we served Budino di Cioccolato with Chocolate Macaroons; the macaroons use the two egg whites left over from the egg yolks that go into the choccy pots. I nearly didn’t make the macaroons, thinking them unnecessary additional effort, but the fact that they only need baked for 11 minutes spurred me into action. I’m glad I did as they were perfect; chewy and chocolatey and really good for dipping into the pots. I don’t feel so glowing about the Budino themselves, despite them turning out really well. Perhaps this is the fault of our lousy electric cooker, or perhaps it was the recipe, but Nigella’s cooking and whisking for about 3-4 minutes until the mixture thickens took well over half an hour for me. This took me firmly out of Express zone and into argh, why am I wasting so much time making sure the pudding doesn’t burn (the macaroons were finished and out of the oven by this point). I would also quibble with the illustration on the book, which was clearly taken before the things had been chilled. Mine weren’t quite so exquisitely shiny, but I think my take on her serving suggestion was pretty funky, in a cute and modern way.
