Category Archives: taste

read & taste: ripe

Posted on January 29, 2013 | Leave a comment

ripeNigel Slater‘s Ripe is a gorgeous object: a heavyweight, clothbound, coffee-table tome that isn’t so much food porn as gastronomic erotica. There are gorgeous photographs throughout, of apricots poaching in fragrant tea and berries swooning on pillows of cream, of lacy stalks of blossom and rough hunks of pie. Ripe makes a pair with Slater’s previous book, Tender, both focused on the garden and the plate. Tender takes you through the cook’s vegetable patch and here, we’re guided through his orchard – a term he admits is generous for his tiny London backyard.

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taste: key* lime pie

Posted on November 11, 2012 | Leave a comment

* Featured limes may not actually be Key limes.

Friends, I apologize for a very short and lazy post on this pie, without even a picture of the finished product. But essentially this is a PSA: Key* lime pie is the easiest damn pie in the world to make. It is easy as pie. Really. I used the Pioneer Woman‘s recipe (original here - her pictures are excellent, and I swear mine looked just like that) and it was an excuse to use up some of the glut of limes we’ve had sitting around since the wedding, making me feel guilty every time I open the fridge door and it’s *not* to make margaritas. As for the Key lime/regular lime question, I think there’s already enough sugar in this pie to make tart limes actually preferable. Whisper: I think this might actually be the best [key] lime pie I’ve ever had.

1. Preheat the oven to 350° and dig out a shallow 9in pie plate. Take 18 Graham crackers (we used original Keebler’s) – about 9oz – and crush them mercilessly into submission, either in a food processor (boo!) or in a Ziploc bag using a heavy object and plenty of pent-up aggression (yay!)

2. Put the now thoroughly humiliated crumbs in a bowl and add 1/3 cup sugar, 1/3 cup butter, melted in the microwave, and if you’re feeling frisky, 1/2 tsp cinnamon. Scrunch together with your hands, and then scoop out and press into the pie plate. The crust will be thick – do your best to approximate a pie-crust shape. Pop into the oven for 5 minutes then pull out to cool slightly (a handy windowsill is your friend here.)

3. While the crust is cooking, zest 2 limes (to yield a heaping tablespoon of zest) and squeeze those two, plus 4-6 more limes (to yield 1/2 cup juice). Let the size of your limes be your guide, in this as in all things.

4. Place the lime zest and juice in a bowl, together with 2 egg yolks and 1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk (the can can do double duty as a cracker-crusher.) Stir until well combined.

5. Pour the filling into the prepared crust and put back in the oven for 15 minutes.

6. Let the pie cool to room temperature, then chill in the fridge for at least an hour or two. That’s it! That’s honestly it! How easy is that?

Serve with whipped cream if you’re feeling extra decadent.

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taste: platonic form of the summer salad

Posted on July 30, 2012 | Leave a comment

Corn. Tomatoes. Basil. Peppers. Lime.

This was an adaptation of this Bon Appétit recipe, to which I added the grilled peppers – and, not pictured, a couple of hot Italian sausages. The title is not quite accurate, as I think we can all agree that the actual Platonic form of the summer salad should be prepared outside, on a charcoal grill, on a deck overlooking a sparkling lake. Continue reading →

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taste: adam gopnik’s scrambled eggs

Posted on January 21, 2012 | Leave a comment

Food for a day like this

I know that sounds like a bit of a joke. I am halfway through Gopnik’s lovely meandering cultural history of cooking and eating, The Table Comes First, and in the soft quiet of the first snow of the year, I made his scrambled eggs. It’s not a recipe, exactly, but it’s perfect, and reminds me of the way I was taught to make scrambled eggs, on a stool by the stove with my mother hovering, patiently stirring until the first scrapings emerged from the liquid. I don’t know how this gets so bright yellow and creamy when hurried, lazy scrambled eggs in a frying pan end up pallid and dry. Too good to wait to photograph, Gopnik’s description will have to do. Continue reading →

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taste: fennel, quinoa and pomegranate salad

Posted on January 16, 2012 | Leave a comment

The finished dish. Bright wintry goodness

I was extremely happy to see a spread of Yotam Ottolenghi‘s recipes in the January 2012 issue of Bon Appétit – I’ve been coveting his book Plenty for ages, and this recipe gives a pretty good sense of his cooking – mostly vegetarian, fresh & unexpected combinations of flavors, and totally indulgent without involving bacon fat. As often with BA, though, I found the order of instructions illogical, so here’s how I *actually* did it, with my modifications. The original recipe is here. Continue reading →

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taste: chicken breasts in blue cheese sauce

Posted on October 24, 2011 | Leave a comment

It’s been forever, I know. I have been eating, and even traveling a bit (holla, Buffalo!) but somehow have been feeling photographically and culinarily uninspired. So many people do this so much better than me – that kind of thing. But then sometimes, inspiration just smacks you, and you have a camera to hand, and you decide you don’t care, because damn, you have to share this. And so, inspired by this post by the Pioneer Woman, but lacking the necessary steaks, I substituted chicken breasts (don’t go to that link before you’ve finished reading this by the way, you’ll never come back.) This is easy, and ye gods of dairy goodness, is it worth it.

Cream makes everything better

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taste: caesaresque

Posted on July 15, 2011 | Leave a comment

The season for Caesar!

Yes yes. Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s – namely, anchovies, Romaine lettuce, parmesan and croutons. This is only ‘Caesaresque’ because there’s no egg in the dressing, but it’s a strong, hearty, garlicky way of getting your salady rocks off. And there’s none of that cloying creaminess that cheap restaurant Caesars come bathed in. It’s adapted (of course) from a Gourmet recipe on Epicurious, and will serve 4 as a main.

First, make your croutons. Melt 2tbsp butter with 2tbsp olive oil and three garlic cloves, roughly chopped over a low heat. Once the butter has melted, turn off the heat and let the garlic flavor infuse for 10 minutes or so.

Chop 1/3 baguette, or a similar amount of any chunky bread you prefer, into crouton-sized cubes.

Wash and chop one large Romaine lettuce and dry well. Leave to one side.

Coat the bread cubes in the butter/oil/garlic mixture and spread them on a baking sheet. Take out the garlic pieces first if you like, but they were pretty delicious baked in butter. Bake in a medium oven (350°C) for 10-12 minutes until golden and crunchy.

Butter, oil, and bread. For the salad.

While the croutons are baking, make the dressing. Mash together two anchovies and two cloves of garlic in a pestle and mortar (this would have been much easier if I had crushed the garlic first. I ended up picking garlic chunks out of the dressing. I used tinned anchovies that were rolled up around capers, as if there wasn’t enough of a kick already…

This salad lets you know it's arrived.

Transfer your anchovy-garlic paste into a larger bowl (efficient cooks will use the salad bowl they’re going to serve in. I only thought of this once it was too late.) Add 2tsp red wine vinegar; 2tsp fresh lemon juice; 1tsp Worcestershire sauce; 1 tsp Dijon mustard and whisk together. Still whisking, pour in 1/3 cup olive oil (you can use your judgement and tastebuds on the exact quantity.)

Add the lettuce and toss well to coat in the dressing. Add the croutons hot from the oven, the rest of the anchovies from the tin, and a generous sprinkling of Parmesan cheese. Dig in, and think of Rome. (OK, I know Caesar salad has nothing to do with that Caesar, but a very different man named Caesar.)

Not for the garlic faint-of-heart...

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taste: tutti clafouti(s)

Posted on May 28, 2011 | Leave a comment

pear & walnut breakfast goodness

That blue tinge you see? That’s me grappling with my dimly lit kitchen and manual white balance on this new camera. More to the point, though, this is my attempt at Clotilde’s Oatmeal Breakfast Clafoutis, a kind of light oatmeal flan that I am planning to eat for breakfast, slightly warm, all week. It apparently freezes very well, and can be made with any variety of nuts, dried and fresh fruit that you have to hand. I had walnuts, raisins and an aging pear, which I substituted for the apple in the original recipe. I didn’t think the pear would do much, but the slices turned that lovely rose pink at the edges and subtly flavoured everything. I didn’t have a 13×9 baking dish, so I went with one rather larger, so my slices will be thinner. I think I can cope. Here’s the original recipe.

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taste: herb butter

Posted on May 13, 2011 | Leave a comment

This is not difficult...

…but it is delicious. I had some finely chopped leftover Italian parsley, half a stick of unsalted butter in the fridge, and a dream. Or, fine, an idea. To chop the parsley very finely and mix it into the butter, softened slightly in the microwave. I originally used this as a topping for salmon, oven-roasted with some lemon zest, alongside some sauteed onions, zucchini and wholewheat couscous. But it keeps a week or so in the fridge, and you can stir it into any kind of pasta. I recommend that course of action heartily.

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taste: bon appétit’s steak tacos

Posted on April 19, 2011 | Leave a comment

We’ve now eaten twice at Pachanga Patterson, the new Mexican restaurant in our little mainstream-media-anointed stretch of 31st Avenue, and each time I’ve had some transcendent tacos that have stuck in my memory long after the sangria should have wiped them away… so it didn’t take much inspiration to try Bon Appétit’s version on a recent rainy night (good lord, I’m looking forward to not wanting to complain about the weather every day.) This was simple to make, and there was a lot going on flavour-wise – perhaps a little too much to hold together, but if you’re looking for something to wake up a mundane evening and make your tastebuds work out, this is a good bet.

taste-overload tacos

These were very easy and pretty inexpensive to throw together, as well. They made about four tacos each for two people plus a couple of forkfuls of extra filling – BA says 4 servings, but only if you have other things on the side, I’d say.  Continue reading →

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