Easter 2012 Outtakes

I actually made most of the dishes I made for Easter during the preceding week to test them. Does anyone else do this? I have a phobia of feeding people bad food. An honest to God phobia. I get the shakes and hyperventilate and feel like I'm going to have a heart attack. Does anybody else do that?
As I get older, no doubt, all this panic will be replaced with serenity and grace. Good old Grace. Anyway, these are the dishes that didn't quite make the cut.

Roasted Beetroot with Almond and Horseradish Sauce - from Moro East. Unpleasantly sweet and suspiciously dense. The boyfriend likes the sauce but I found it gritty and astringent

Hot Cross Buns - from Louis P de Guoy's Bread Tray. I don't remember why I bought this book but it's not particularly useful, all the recipes are written for an American kitchen and many include archaic ingredients. I would give an example but I've already given the book to a charity shop to ruin some other sucker's life. I must have done something wrong because the bun dough was too runny to shape and had to be poured into makeshift tinfoil cases. The taste was exactly as a bun should be, but they were a little too heavy and well just look at them!

Courgette Strudel - from Vegiterranean. This book has never been very good to me, but I think the reason I keep it around is that it tells a great story and I'm a creepy peeper who likes to pry in other people's personal lives. I ended up making this strudel twice, once as written and once filled with leftover fruity chicken stuffing. The first time I forgot to add the egg to the dough but the result was nice enough (a little too slippery to eat while hot but delicious when cold), the second time I made the dough as instructed and it turned into stone in the oven. In the end it was nice enough but not outstanding in any way.

Sweet Lemon and Olive Cookies - from New Portuguese Table. These were easy to make, unusual and delicious. I usually hate making desserts from American cookbooks because they're always too sweet for me but these cookies are thin, crisp and combine saltiness and sweetness. The olives are a good balance to the tartness of the lemon. The only reason these didn't make it to the Easter table was because I thought they might be a little controversial for my stepmother. I was right - she'd bought a frozen Black Forest Gateaux. More for me.

Last note, check out this olive oil I got from a Portuguese deli near my office, it's so green and mild. On the boyfriend's insistence we have always bought Spanish olive oil, but this was a steal at £15 for a whole case, so I'm switching allegiances. O fim!

Parmentier

This is the last soup for a while because after this I completely fell off the wagon.
Basically it's one half of some kind of a double ying yang soup from this book,
and it's meant to look like this.
I only made the leek part, so mine was never going to look anything like this. It tastes ok. Really, only ok.
When I went to hear Ms. Marmitelover do a little talk for her book last year, one of the things she said is that she doesn't trust the likes of Nigella for providing recipes because as a columnist and cook book author only she has never had to prove herself by catering on a large scale so the likelihood of her dishes failing is higher. Obviously she was speaking about this in context to her own home restaurant enterprise, but still, I cannot disagree more. Restaurants that produce cookbooks have to adapt the recipes to the home cook to allow for available equipment, ingredients, which alters the result. Which is why restaurant cookbooks are always difficult to cook from. It's a showcase designed to entice you to visit the place, so what do they care if it takes you 2 hours at home to make the soup, you should have booked a table instead! Meh

Bigne con Crema de Funghi and Coxinhas Encantadas

I'm using The Vegeterranean by husband and wife hoteliers Malu Simoes and Alberto Musacchio. I initaly gave this thing as a Christmas present and it's never been used bacause all the recipes are super fiddly. It's a nice big glossy book with dishes from their restaurant so it's as much about presentation as it is about the food. I've had a couple of comments from the nearest and dearest to the tune of 'all the dishes I've cooked so far are E-Z', so I've decided to try something more challenging and learn some new skills! Go skills!
Also we were having a barbeque this weekend, a total sausagefest, so I wanted to make some elaborate vegetarian side dishes.

So first dish is Bigne con Crema de Funghi, which translates from Italian as Mushroom Eclair (I guess). Here are the substitutions I've had to make for all the fancy ingredients, Manitoba flour became flour, but that's only the beginning! Parsley became basil, and Robiola turned into Keci Peyniri from the Turkish supermarket up the road. I'm sure I'm robbing myself of a unique taste experience, but that's a crime I will have to make my peace with later, right now I have half a kilo of mushrooms to chop up. It looks like a lot, but it boils down to not that much. Mustachioso magnanimously doesn't specify which fancy expensive mushrooms you are meant to forage for and use, so I've bought Flat Caps, Oysters and Shitake. That was obviously the wrong decision because instead of becoming 'golden brown' they've turned into pidgeon poop gray. Look at all that crap, I really couldn't find enough nice bits to fish out for garnish so I put everything in the blender.
The pastry is really easy to make, and I fashion a piping bag out of a food bag just like they showed us on Ready Steady Cook. And behold the inamorata!












They actually look quite revolting side by side :(




Result: Maybe all that was a bit too easy, you know what I mean? Because look how they turned out!
The puffs are a little anaemic looking and the mushroom paste doesn't gain anything cosmetically from being in the blender, but they taste really good. Although the goats cheese and basil were not the prescribed ingredients they taste really good with the mushrooms so I rather think they should have been. I used the exact quantites specified and the overall yield was 18 mis-shapen pastries but I only ended up using about half of the mushroom mix. I would probably make the choux again but most likely fill them with something like choklit!
But really, if I have learned anything it's that I need a proper camera instead of my crappy phone.

My other attempt to class up this hibachi was with Coxinhas Encantadas.These are really impressive looking and are on the cover so let that be the reason! But I think it's supposed to have chicken inside.
I didn't have any thyme but got some rosemary from the garden, I didn't make the Vegetable Stock as required and outlined on page 36, and what is the difference between Parmesan and Pecorino Romano? They taste the same, especially if you're only using 2 tablespoons, wrapping it in mashed potato and chucking it in the fryer.
OK, lets get going. I have never peeled an aubegine before, and what's the difference if you're putting it in the blender afterwards? You can't taste the rosemary anyway...
The dough is quite tasty, it would be a good thing to make out of leftover mash, but you know, with meat on the inside.
I'm a little bit nervous about the deep frying, I always worry that the pan will catch fire, tip over, splash me in the face, and explode.

Result: Well I dodged the deep fat fryer appocalypse bullet once again, but lets put it this way - this would be the most appropriate dish to make for my next S&M sex party because it's both humiliating and painful to do. It's clear now why the Coxinhas are in the shape of teardrops, it's to symbolise the frustration of the person stuck in the kitchen cooking them, it took me almost 5 hours to get 18 of the other ones and 11 of these. They look gorgeous and taste really nice, but why would you bother? I had 4 pans, countless plates and the blender to wash and it totally killed any buzz I got from eventually eating the now cold appetizers. I guess it's because I don't need to try to impress people with my cooking skills, on account of my winning personality! Duh.