Scallops with Garlic and Crisp Crumbs - Anna Del Conte & Eric Treuille

Last night with A before our daughter returns home so another recipe close after the previous one.

Decided on pasta and looked through 'Pasta' by Anna Del Conte & Eric Treuille.  I love this book as it has so many photos, which I need when looking for recipes.

I looked through the book and excluded any tomato based sauces which I make a lot.  Also excluded meat sauces ('no meat mondays').  And no cheese sauces as still recovering from the phenomenally buttery bearnaise sauce!! Looked at the seafood section and didn't get any further.  I selected four recipes and I let A choose... Scallops with Garlic and Crisp Crumbs.

Not many ingredients and again, I made sure that I had all the ingredients ready.  I even made sure I measured out the olive oil, the parsley and the chili, when usually I throw in what I think looks like the rough measure.

This recipe does not take long to cook but next time (if there is a next time) I would suggest adding the garlic last when adding the parsley, chili and breadcrumbs to the pan.  As you cook on a high heat to get the breadcrumbs crispy, the garlic burns.  I did try to do it all quickly but the garlic still burned slightly as I added it to the pan first. 

Also I was worried about the lack of any sauce, not even enough to coat the pasta.  The breadcrumbs absorb all the olive oil.  I saved some pasta water but didn't use it as I followed the recipe.  it was tasty but too dry.  We drizzled olive oil on but the taste of the olive oil was slightly too strong.  We also squeezed a bit of lemon juice but again, it wasn't right.  I think a bit of water from cooking the pasta might have been the best thing as I re-heated some left overs and added some water, making it less claggy (but did make the breadcrumbs soggy - you can't win).

Not sure I would have this again, but I do like the idea of frying breadcrumbs, garlic, chili and parsley and sprinkling on something

Bearnaise Sauce - Nigel Slater

No visitors. No dinner parties. No daughter! Just me and A. I really didn't feel like doing much for dinner but I am on a mission after all.  I settled on steak (easy and tasty) and decided to make bearnaise sauce.

I love bearnaise sauce.  In fact I probably miss the taste of a good steak as I eat so much of the stuff.  I always stock up on jars of bearnaise from France.  I have tried budget brands and more expensive brands and I love 'em all!

I have always avoided making bearnaise sauce as it has such a potential to go wrong.

I picked the first recipe I found in my search - from Nigel Slater's 'Real Cooking'.  So much butter!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway one of the points of this blog is not just cooking from my endless recipe books, but also following the recipe properly in terms of ingredients and instructions - and this I definitely did for bearnaise sauce.

Did I say - so much butter?????!!!!!

I read, re-read and read again the instructions and pleased to say that the sauce did not curdle, did not cook and thickened nicely.  I used a very small whisk thinking that would be more effective for a shallow sauce but eventually swapped it for a normal size balloon whisk which did speed things up.

        

  

Comments:

- prepare all the ingredients and utensils

- read the instructions properly as you have to be careful

- the recipe was for two, but we had half left over - and I ate loads

- A loved it but I'm not sure.  I didn't think the tarragon flavour was strong enough.  It tasted stronger the next day when we had the rest on poached eggs.

Birthday Meal - Steak & Oyster Pie

It was my partner A's birthday last week.  He requested a pie.  This request became my first weekly recipe.  I looked at 'England's Finest Heritage Food and Cooking.  My criteria was:
1.  Puff pastry (personal preference)
2. Not chicken (I don't like how it re-heats)

Anyway, found the recipe very quickly and didn't look at any more books.  I planned to make the pie filling the night before, so all I would need to do was top it with the (ready made) pastry the following day.  This is even mentioned in the recipe.  This decision raised the question... shall I add the oysters the night before as well - I don't consider giving food poisoning an appropriate birthday present!!??  I even asked the fishmonger who said it would be OK but A was unhappy.  We reached a compromise - A shucked the oysters the following morning leaving them in a sealed tub.  I added them in the evening when I was making up the pie itself.

Making the pie filling was no real problem.  Much like making a stew.  I really wanted to add chopped bacon as I find it adds to this sort of food but resisted as 'it was not in the recipe'.  I used Old Speckled Hen ale for no other reason than we had it in the house, out of date but I thought it tasted OK.  Obviously not as worried about food poisoning when it comes to alcohol!!!!!. 

It was all very straight forward. My main comments are:
- I did not reduce the sauce to the quantity stated in the recipe.  It looked like there was the right amount already and I was hoping there would be enough to make into gravy.
- I do not own a large pie dish so made two smaller pies from same packet of puff pastry (which used more than if making one large pie).
- After cooking the pie itself, I would have liked the sauce thicker so would add flour / cornflour next time.  But that might just be a personal preference.
- Interestingly the oysters stayed very plump and soft despite being cooked for an hour in the pie (from cold).
- I liked it cooked in ale.  You could add red wine which I have added to stews in the past.  I found the addition of ale did not overwhelm the taste the way red wine can.
- The recipe was for six and there were five of us.  There were left-overs, which were happily eaten by A over the following two days.

Second Recipe - Dinner Party

We had invited two good friends over for dinner so true to my principles, I picked recipes from my book collection.  Unfortunately I did not decide what to make until the night before, breaking a cardinal rule about preparing for a dinner party.

I found the starter pretty quick: Carpaccio of Beef from 'Jamie Does...'.  I decided on this as I had also seen the TV episode and it looked very easy to make ( no cooking involved so it would be)!!!!.  We have had this dish before in Bologna several years ago.

I bought 300g of fillet steak as per the recipe and got the butcher to cut into six slices, for me to bash later.  This was done without problem and I didn't tear.  I strayed from the recipe re the salad garnish.  Wrong time of year for courgettes and courgette flowers so I improvised using watercress and mixed salad leaves. None homegrown.  I added mustard to the lemon and olive dressing which is suggested in the recipe, and I have read in other recipes.

When it came to eating, the meat was so very tender and you were not really aware of eating raw meat, due in part to the salad dressing.  Even 11 year old daughter ate it (after watching us eat it first to make sure we were 'not poisoned from eating raw meat'.  I reminded her that her favourite parma ham is raw.  The recipe is 300g for six starters, which five of us ate.  Not substantial, but luckily we had olive, cornicions, capers and anchovies on sticks, and grissini artigianali with our prosecco before dinner.  I must stress we do not eat like this every week - but I do watch a lot of 'come dine with me'!

I would have liked to have picked the main course from the same book - just felt right to do so.  I was tempted by Vongole but the shopping trip did not manage to buy any clams.  Also the weather was too nice to make a lovely stew so I decided to stick to an Italian theme, just to be safe.

Plan B was linguine frutti da mare from 'Rick Stein's Seafood Odyssey' using whatever seafood we could find (prawns, mussels and a bag of mixed seafood from the fishmonger, and also a few scallops that were in our freezer).

As you can see, I have cooked this recipe before!!!! I followed the recipe to the letter. I did not weigh the seafood, as it was mostly unshelled - so I figured I was allowed a bit of leniency!  The wine used was pinot grigio only because that was what we were drinking. 

Dessert was my old staple, lemon tart from '1000 Italian Recipes. Made earlier in the afternoon.  I buy a ready made sweet pastry case and make 3/4 of the filling (butter, cream, eggs, sugar, lemon juice and zest).  I also bake it for longer than the recipe as it always looks too 'wobbly'when following the recipe timings - but who knows, maybe it sets when it has cooled down.

We finished with cheese board and the remainder of my home-made limoncello.  All in all, very successful (but they haven't all been)!

Tips:

- don't cook a starter, or at least cook it in advance.

- make dessert earlier in day.

- prepare all the ingredients so all ready when it comes to cook.

- if you are going to cook when your guests are there, make it something that does not take longer than 15 minutes.  I chose to cook after we had eaten the starter so there was was not a long wait.  Nor was it a case of getting the main course out immediately after the starter.

- finally, use real napkins if you have them! no point in having them if you never use them!

The things I have learned are preparation; having a really nice set table; a flower display that suits the table setting; and thinking about who you are cooking for.  And also someone to help with the clearing and washing up!



So Many Cookery Books

I love cookery books.  I love reading them but especially I like looking at the pictures! What I appear to be remiss at is cooking from them.  Don't get me wrong, I do cook using recipes from the books, but given that I have so many, I should actually use them more.

I have a collection of all sorts, ranging from an M&S one from 1981 (particularly useful for meat cooking times) through to the Goddess Delia and Nigel Slater.  There are books that I refer to for the same old recipes, and some that I never cook from.  I have books by the respected such as Elizabeth David and Patience Gray, through to the novelty Elvis one called 'Are you Hungry Tonight'!  I even have recipes torn out of magazines, carefully inserted in a relevant cookery book to ensure that it is easily retrieved.  My books have either been bought by myself or been presents.  They range from the celebrity to cheap books of a type of food (e.g. Spanish, Moroccan, French, Italian).
In this era of austerity, I have decided not to buy any more books but cook from the books I already have.  My problem is this, I can't help but feel some recipes become out of date, like fashionable clothes.  They lose their appeal.  Is this correct, or is this boredom (self-inflicted if I only use the same recipes)?

I have decided that the delicate tweaking of a recipe is acceptable.  Downloading recipes from the internet is not acceptable (at least not until I have cooked five recipes from every book; or have cooked once that week from a cookery book).

Some cooking will be for a family evening meal.  Some recipes will be for the all too rare dinner party.  Some might be à deux.

I look forward to sharing the recipe, the cooking experience and of course what it tasted like!