I’ve spent my life shying away from the idea of cold soups, but after the outstanding success of last summer’s gazpacho, the recent spell of hot weather makes me think it’s now time to try the vichyssoise. The recipe looks incredibly simple. It’s basically a creamed leek and potato soup, that’s blended, sieved and chilled […]
The second Creamed Spinach recipe in the book is very different to the first. Whereas the first recipe is cooked long and slow in butter, this version is cooked much more quickly and then mixed with a béchamel sauce. Once again, the recipe calls for an outrageously large amount of spinach, so I scale things […]
I don’t believe I’ve ever eaten Chicken Maryland in my life. I remember seeing it on restaurant menus back in the 1980s, but haven’t seen any reference to it in more recent days. In fact, I think the only time I have been directly exposed to it was many years ago when I was sent […]
This week’s veg box from Riverford contained a large bag of spinach. Now, there are two recipes for creamed spinach in The Prawn Cocktail Years, both very different. I decide to make the first, and simplest, of the two, which basically has you cooking the spinach slowly in a pan and then adding butter. I […]
This is one of those recipes that has just never appealed to me. It sounds sweet and sickly, and if I ever saw it on a restaurant menu, it’s certainly not something I’d order. But, I have an awful lot of egg whites left over from yesterday’s Peach Melba, so here goes. The recipe starts […]
Peach Melba is another of those recipes in The Prawn Cocktail Years that I’ve just never bothered making. This time, not because it looks too complicated, but because it looks too simple. I mean, it’s peaches with ice cream, topped with raspberry sauce – not exactly fancy. In fact, it always sounded a bit boring. […]
Home-made cream of tomato soup doesn’t look very much different to the stuff that comes out of a tin, but the flavours are worlds apart. I’ve made this a good few times, but not for a while now. I have some chicken stock left over from last week’s duck, so this seems like a good […]
Breaded scampi, deep-fried, is a delicious thing. I buy it from time to time, and it makes for a quick, easy and tasty meal. I’ve never really thought about making it myself from scratch though. Of course, I’ve glanced at this recipe in The Prawn Cocktail Years many time, but I’ve never been tempted to […]
Of all the soup recipes in this book, I’ve always thought that Cream of Celery sounded the least interesting. Consequently, I’ve never felt inclined to make it. The description, however, says “this is one of the finest British Soups it is possible to eat”. Hyperbole, surely. Let’s see. It all starts, rather unsurprisingly, with a […]
Oxtail can be delicious. It can also be tough, chewy and unpleasant. Now, I do like a good Oxtail Soup, so how might this particular one turn out? The recipe calls for “1 oxtail”. No clues as to how much oxtail that actually is. I buy my oxtail in packs of 500g (or thereabouts). Is […]