Sage is one of my least favourite herbs. I have too many memories of bad childhood dinners consisting of dry roast chicken served with cardboardy Paxo sage and onion stuffing to ever really be comfortable with the flavour. As a result, I’ve always shied away from making this recipe, with its whole leaf of sage […]
When it is good, calamari is a fabulous thing – crisp exterior, meltingly tender inside. When done badly, it’s like chewing on a mouthful of pencil erasers. On holiday recently, we had a fair amount of really good squid, and so I was determined to make some at home. For a little while now, I’ve […]
It’s certainly been all about the asparagus lately, but I’m afraid you do have to make the most of it while it’s in season. You may be pleased to hear, though, that this is the last of the Asparagus recipes. Asparagus Soup. It all looked pretty straightforward, and my initial plan was to make this […]
Regular readers may have noticed that it’s been a little quiet here just lately. We’ve been away on holiday for the past couple of weeks – sixteen days in a lovely spot on the north coast of Tenerife. During that time, we ate an endless array of delicious things: pork, paella, tapas, more pork, perfectly […]
And now for the third asparagus recipe: Asparagus with Vinaigrette. In the introduction to the asparagus recipe, the authors say “Melted butter is possibly the first choice for hot asparagus, vinaigrette with cold.” So, I guess I ought to serve this asparagus cold. I’d planned on some fried chicken for the evening meal, and figured […]
Time for the second of the four asparagus sauces: Hollandaise. I’m not actually sure I’ve ever made a hollandaise sauce before. I’m sure I must have done, but certainly not in recent memory. Hollandaise sauce is basically a lightly cooked mayonnaise, except instead of whisking oil into egg yolks, clarified butter is used. Now, I […]
It’s asparagus season – my favourite food season of all! I love asparagus. It has to be proper, fresh, in-season, British asparagus though, not that tasteless stuff they fly over from Peru all year round. The asparagus season is woefully short, only a couple of months at best, and so at this time of year, […]
It’s years since I’ve made a Wiener Schnitzel. They’re delicious and are so easy to make, I really don’t know why I don’t do them more often – I’ve been looking forward to cooking this recipe ever since starting on this challenge. So, two veal escalopes were duly ordered from Ocado, together with a variety […]
I wanted something relatively quick and easy for tea tonight before we went out for the evening. Spanish Omelette looked like it fitted the bill, so that would be this evening’s meal. I’ve made many omelettes over the years, but never followed this particular recipe. The book is very specific that it should contain only […]
I made a corned beef for dinner yesterday, and needed some vegetables to go with it, so I looked to see what would be a good match from The Prawn Cocktail Years. Lyonnaise Potatoes and Carrottes Vichy both looked like good candidates. I hadn’t knowingly had either of those before, and they sounded like they’d […]