Recipe one for really lazy cooks is gazpacho. It’s only a kind of vegetable smoothie, so as long as you’ve got a blender, it’s done in five minutes. In hot weather, it’s a great starter; and it isn’t even fattening. Unless…
Your first problem is to find ripe tomatoes. Blend four of them, five or six if they’re very small. Add a couple of cloves of garlic, a small onion, half a cucumber, peeled, and a red sweet pepper. (I use red for the colour. Recipes usually ask you to use green. Who cares?) Blend well – if you don’t, you’ll need to thin the soup with water, and that of course dilutes the taste.
Now add five tablespoons of olive oil and one or two of vinegar, depending on how strong it is (balsamic is more sweet than sour so you’ll need two of that). And a decent pinch of salt and some scrapes of black pepper. Blend some more.
That’s gazpacho. But I also blend in a bunch of basil, which is un-Spanish.
In Andalucia, to fill up farm workers, they also blend in raw eggs and dampened bread. But we aren’t farm-workers, are we?
I don’t see the point of serving this with chopped onion and peppers. But I do see the point of making croutons with cubed bread and olive oil (that was why I wrote "unless..."). However, for a very lazy cook that may be over the top, and if so then you’ll be glad to know there’s absolutely no point in buying ready-made croutons. You’re better off without them. Take it easy.
For Corlyss and other very lazy cooks...
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Guest
For Corlyss and other very lazy cooks...
Last edited by Guest on Sun Apr 17, 2005 5:51 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Guest
If you do a gazpacho followed by pasta with pesto, you’ve got a really lazy hot-weather meal for four.
Your problem with pesto is only to find plenty of basil, a lump of fresh parmesan, and pine kernels.
You need enough basil to have two ounces of leaves or more. In France I have to buy three or four bunches. Blend the leaves in a food processor with a pinch of salt and a few scrapes of black pepper. When they’re ground well down, add a clove or two of garlic and an ounce to an ounce-and-a-half of pine kernels and carry on grinding. Grate an ounce to an ounce-and-a-half of fresh parmesan, add it to the paste and, again, carry on grinding.
Now add, in a very thin stream, about a cup of olive oil. As if you were making mayonnaise. On a good day, the pesto will actually “gel” like mayonnaise, but it doesn’t make the slightest difference to your guests if it doesn’t.
To avoid serving them tepid food, I warm the pesto through in the empty pasta pan while the pasta is draining.
Now, just in case: if you can get hold of sardo cheese – a pungent Sardinian one – that’s even better than parmesan. If you have a glut of walnuts, you can use those instead of pine kernels. And once, out of olive oil, I used walnut oil instead and got a very pleasant variant.
Your problem with pesto is only to find plenty of basil, a lump of fresh parmesan, and pine kernels.
You need enough basil to have two ounces of leaves or more. In France I have to buy three or four bunches. Blend the leaves in a food processor with a pinch of salt and a few scrapes of black pepper. When they’re ground well down, add a clove or two of garlic and an ounce to an ounce-and-a-half of pine kernels and carry on grinding. Grate an ounce to an ounce-and-a-half of fresh parmesan, add it to the paste and, again, carry on grinding.
Now add, in a very thin stream, about a cup of olive oil. As if you were making mayonnaise. On a good day, the pesto will actually “gel” like mayonnaise, but it doesn’t make the slightest difference to your guests if it doesn’t.
To avoid serving them tepid food, I warm the pesto through in the empty pasta pan while the pasta is draining.
Now, just in case: if you can get hold of sardo cheese – a pungent Sardinian one – that’s even better than parmesan. If you have a glut of walnuts, you can use those instead of pine kernels. And once, out of olive oil, I used walnut oil instead and got a very pleasant variant.
Last edited by Guest on Sun Apr 17, 2005 5:51 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Guest
I’m still thinking of summer. Instead of starting with gazpacho, you could throw tomatoes, onion, cucumber, feta (ewe’s milk) cheese and black olives together with plenty of olive oil, the juice of a lemon, coarse sea salt and a whole bunch of parsely, chopped. Greek salad. I don’t always use cucumber – it makes some people belch. But there’s only one way to find out…
It’s nice with a few anchovy fillets, too. And it makes a lot of juice, so you need good bread to mop that up. Cut the tomatoes up smaller and add chopped chilli peppers - supposing you like them - and it becomes Turkish.
Again, the better the various ingredients, the better the salad will be. I buy the cheese and (Kalamata or Vollos) olives from a Greek supplier and I use an appellation contrôlée olive oil for salads.
A mushroom salad I picked up in Florence is easy to make and doesn’t require special mushrooms – just the ordinary white button ones.
Mix some dark salad leaves – spinach shoots, lamb’s lettuce, some arugula or mesclun if you can get it (sometimes in France we can get mesclun with nasturtium and some other blue flowers mixed in – with basil leaves (or not, if you haven’t got any) and dress them all with lemon juice and olive oil.
On this bed, place a pile of sliced mushrooms and dredge them with more oil and lemon juice. Quite a lot, or they’ll be dry. And some salt & pepper.
Now top them with parmesan shavings. No, I don’t have a special tool for shaving parmesan, I use a knife.
That’s it. People seem to like it.
It’s nice with a few anchovy fillets, too. And it makes a lot of juice, so you need good bread to mop that up. Cut the tomatoes up smaller and add chopped chilli peppers - supposing you like them - and it becomes Turkish.
Again, the better the various ingredients, the better the salad will be. I buy the cheese and (Kalamata or Vollos) olives from a Greek supplier and I use an appellation contrôlée olive oil for salads.
A mushroom salad I picked up in Florence is easy to make and doesn’t require special mushrooms – just the ordinary white button ones.
Mix some dark salad leaves – spinach shoots, lamb’s lettuce, some arugula or mesclun if you can get it (sometimes in France we can get mesclun with nasturtium and some other blue flowers mixed in – with basil leaves (or not, if you haven’t got any) and dress them all with lemon juice and olive oil.
On this bed, place a pile of sliced mushrooms and dredge them with more oil and lemon juice. Quite a lot, or they’ll be dry. And some salt & pepper.
Now top them with parmesan shavings. No, I don’t have a special tool for shaving parmesan, I use a knife.
That’s it. People seem to like it.
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jbuck919
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Sardo is a pecorino--a sheep's milk cheese. Even a pecorino romano, commonly found in the US, would be slightly more authentic. Marcella Hazan, as a I recall, uses a combination (she normally and sensibly advises against using Parmesan in any recipe calling for olive oil instead of butter).npwparis wrote:Now, just in case: if you can get hold of sardo cheese – a pungent Sardinian one – that’s even better than parmesan.
If you have a glut of walnuts, you can use those instead of pine kernels. And once, out of olive oil, I used walnut oil instead and got a very pleasant variant.
Though such substitutions are fashionable, and may be delicious, it isn't pesto anymore if you don't use pine nuts, anymore than it would be if you substituted parsley for the basil. There is a recipe from another region for a walnut sauce; you will forgive me for not running upstairs to consult my cookbooks.To be fair, I have been heretical in my pesto pasta making too. Though like many truly Italian sauces it is vegetarian, I will usually add to such sauces some chicken, pork, or even some kinds of fish (cut up to become part of the sauce, not as a separate course or on the side) because, while for the Italians their pasta with pesto or whatever would be a primo, for the rest of the world it would be a main dish. I like to serve it with a salad, and appreciate the idea of having a preliminary gazpacho instead.
Corlyss and I would have had no problem finding these and many other ingredients back the in the DC area. I don't know how she's doing in Utah. The grocery situation in Germany is inferior to that in the old urban part of the States, though there is a local Italian grocer here where I could get all this (but not anchovies in a can or capers packed dry in salt).
I used to grow my own basil back in Maryland, though there was a grocer in Columbia that offered large bunches sufficient for a quantity of pesto, which does not need a delicate touch with the basil, dirt cheap as it were.
There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.
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Guest
I don't know about fashion. In season I sometimes have pounds of walnuts to use up. And once I ran out of olive oil. My point was a practical one.jbuck919 wrote:
If you have a glut of walnuts, you can use those instead of pine kernels. And once, out of olive oil, I used walnut oil instead and got a very pleasant variant.
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Guest
Can you buy little new potatoes, all the same size and already peeled? If so, Elizabeth David’s recipe for “pommes fondantes” is foolproof. Unless you’re very foolish, I suppose.
You just need a frying pan with a lid. Heat some butter, or oil, or both, or duck fat or goose fat or whatever you’re using that day to a medium kind of heat – say 2/3 up whatever scale your stove uses – put the potatoes in in one layer, put the lid on and turn the heat down to something more moderate –say 1/3 up your scale. Fifteen minutes later, turn them all over and put the lid back on. Fifteen minutes later, they’re done. If you haven’t been foolish in any way, they’ll be golden brown on the outside and melting inside. That’s what “fondant” means (as in "foundry," a place where you melt stuff.)
Salt them and add chopped parsley.
Just the thing, for a very lazy cook, with a roast chicken*. Or with some confit browned under the grill (in which case you’ll have used some of the duck or goose fat off the confit to cook the potatoes).
By the way, if you’re going to be lazy about roast chicken, just slip a finger of butter, some chopped garlic, salt, pepper and a few springs of tarragon inside. Corlyss, why bother with gravy? So long as your chicken is good, the cooking juices will do. That's what "jus" means. So San Francisco restaurants charge you more for not making gravy (serving "au jus") than making it.
Chicken reminds me of something else I mangled from E. David: black olive stuffing. People who like olives love it, and provided you have a food processor it’s admirably lazy. You just put about 20 stoned black olives, a couple of cloves of garlic (you can interpret "a couple" depending on how much evil you need to ward off), some fresh rosemary, a fistful of bread, a spoonful of olive oil, an egg and some pepper (no salt, the olives will do) in the machine and switch it on. Stuff the chicken with it, drizzle it with olive oil and sprinkle it with coarse sea salt. Roast it. It makes a very odd-looking stuffing, but if you like olives… (and it’s better than anything they’ll serve you at the restaurants of that name).
*I’m talking about free-range chickens that weigh about 5 lbs, not 50.
You just need a frying pan with a lid. Heat some butter, or oil, or both, or duck fat or goose fat or whatever you’re using that day to a medium kind of heat – say 2/3 up whatever scale your stove uses – put the potatoes in in one layer, put the lid on and turn the heat down to something more moderate –say 1/3 up your scale. Fifteen minutes later, turn them all over and put the lid back on. Fifteen minutes later, they’re done. If you haven’t been foolish in any way, they’ll be golden brown on the outside and melting inside. That’s what “fondant” means (as in "foundry," a place where you melt stuff.)
Salt them and add chopped parsley.
Just the thing, for a very lazy cook, with a roast chicken*. Or with some confit browned under the grill (in which case you’ll have used some of the duck or goose fat off the confit to cook the potatoes).
By the way, if you’re going to be lazy about roast chicken, just slip a finger of butter, some chopped garlic, salt, pepper and a few springs of tarragon inside. Corlyss, why bother with gravy? So long as your chicken is good, the cooking juices will do. That's what "jus" means. So San Francisco restaurants charge you more for not making gravy (serving "au jus") than making it.
Chicken reminds me of something else I mangled from E. David: black olive stuffing. People who like olives love it, and provided you have a food processor it’s admirably lazy. You just put about 20 stoned black olives, a couple of cloves of garlic (you can interpret "a couple" depending on how much evil you need to ward off), some fresh rosemary, a fistful of bread, a spoonful of olive oil, an egg and some pepper (no salt, the olives will do) in the machine and switch it on. Stuff the chicken with it, drizzle it with olive oil and sprinkle it with coarse sea salt. Roast it. It makes a very odd-looking stuffing, but if you like olives… (and it’s better than anything they’ll serve you at the restaurants of that name).
*I’m talking about free-range chickens that weigh about 5 lbs, not 50.
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Guest
Is green asparagus coming into season? If so, it’s as easy to bake as to boil, if not easier. If the asparagus is very slender, you don’t need to scrape it. If it’s as thick as a finger, you probably need to scrape the stems with a potato peeler. (If, in the US, it’s as thick as your thigh, give up). I use about 2/3 of the total length.
People can eat a lot of it, so you need about half a bunch per person. Lay the asparagus in an oven dish, not more than two layers. Drizzle it well with olive oil, sprinkle it with a little coarse sea salt (a little – if you overdo it, it’ll be inedible) and bake it in a medium-hot oven for half an hour. It will still be al dente and the tips may even be a little brown and crunchy. As soon as you take it out of the oven, sprinkle it with plenty of freshly-grated parmesan and serve it red hot. If you think it isn’t enough as a starter, surround the dish with raw ham.
Everyone will love going for a pee for the next 24 hours, like Proust and his chamber pot.
You can do the same as a vegetable course, in which case one bunch should be enough for three people. Leave off the parmesan if you like. I serve it as a vegetable with salmon steaks cooked on the skin side only.
You can also do parsnips in much the same way. Only in Paris, I don’t know where to find them. Most French people have never heard of them.
Even when asparagus isn’t in season, it seems to be flown in all year round from South America. Baking it in oil and adding cheese seems to be a good way of dealing with the imported stuff.
People can eat a lot of it, so you need about half a bunch per person. Lay the asparagus in an oven dish, not more than two layers. Drizzle it well with olive oil, sprinkle it with a little coarse sea salt (a little – if you overdo it, it’ll be inedible) and bake it in a medium-hot oven for half an hour. It will still be al dente and the tips may even be a little brown and crunchy. As soon as you take it out of the oven, sprinkle it with plenty of freshly-grated parmesan and serve it red hot. If you think it isn’t enough as a starter, surround the dish with raw ham.
Everyone will love going for a pee for the next 24 hours, like Proust and his chamber pot.
You can do the same as a vegetable course, in which case one bunch should be enough for three people. Leave off the parmesan if you like. I serve it as a vegetable with salmon steaks cooked on the skin side only.
You can also do parsnips in much the same way. Only in Paris, I don’t know where to find them. Most French people have never heard of them.
Even when asparagus isn’t in season, it seems to be flown in all year round from South America. Baking it in oil and adding cheese seems to be a good way of dealing with the imported stuff.
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Guest
Once in a restaurant in Rome I had pasta with green asparagus, and thought “I could do better than that.” It was a little bland. It needed a touch of ham.
You can do enough for four (European portions; it would only be enough for one Mel) with one bunch of asparagus. Discard the bottom half of the stems. Cut the remaining part in two, the tip and a bit of stem. Throw the lot into a pot of boiling, salted water for two minutes.
Melt some butter in a frying pan. Add some raw ham cut into rough strips and let it turn pink. Add a sprinkling of chopped onion (not much – spring onion would be good and mild; don’t ask me what that’s called in the US, it’s the kind the Chinese use with pork to stuff dim-sum), scrape in some nutmeg and black pepper, and add a herb of some kind. You could use chives and not bother with that sprinkling of onion. In Rome it was chervil. Tarragon isn’t a bad choice, but don’t overdo it.*
Now add some cream. The kind you can cook without it separating. Let it melt down, then bubble and thicken a bit. Mix it with hot pasta (I suppose it might look nice if you mix white and pink pasta. I've never bothered). In Rome, it was farfalle.
*About herbs. I don’t know how easy they are to get in the US. I always buy too much and freeze the rest. Sage, rosemary, thyme, parsley, basil, tarragon… I freeze the lot, in a small drawer that just happens by chance to be there, in the freezer. That way, you know you’ve always got some somewhere. Of course, basil leaves turn black, but if you’re making a Bolognese… All the others freeze remarkably well.
You can do enough for four (European portions; it would only be enough for one Mel) with one bunch of asparagus. Discard the bottom half of the stems. Cut the remaining part in two, the tip and a bit of stem. Throw the lot into a pot of boiling, salted water for two minutes.
Melt some butter in a frying pan. Add some raw ham cut into rough strips and let it turn pink. Add a sprinkling of chopped onion (not much – spring onion would be good and mild; don’t ask me what that’s called in the US, it’s the kind the Chinese use with pork to stuff dim-sum), scrape in some nutmeg and black pepper, and add a herb of some kind. You could use chives and not bother with that sprinkling of onion. In Rome it was chervil. Tarragon isn’t a bad choice, but don’t overdo it.*
Now add some cream. The kind you can cook without it separating. Let it melt down, then bubble and thicken a bit. Mix it with hot pasta (I suppose it might look nice if you mix white and pink pasta. I've never bothered). In Rome, it was farfalle.
*About herbs. I don’t know how easy they are to get in the US. I always buy too much and freeze the rest. Sage, rosemary, thyme, parsley, basil, tarragon… I freeze the lot, in a small drawer that just happens by chance to be there, in the freezer. That way, you know you’ve always got some somewhere. Of course, basil leaves turn black, but if you’re making a Bolognese… All the others freeze remarkably well.
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Guest
As you make it, I'm surprised you seek it out in restaurants at all. It's rarely as good. It's like margaritas - they're never strong enough, bought.Ralph wrote:I've made gazpacho for decades and seek it out in New York restaurants.
Who else would think of it, Ralph? I think it's time we had Ralph's Diet Coke Cookbook. You might make a lot of money out of it.Ralph wrote:Has anyone else ever made gazpacho with 8 ounces of Diet Coke?
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Ralph
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*****npwparis wrote:As you make it, I'm surprised you seek it out in restaurants at all. It's rarely as good. It's like margaritas - they're never strong enough, bought.Ralph wrote:I've made gazpacho for decades and seek it out in New York restaurants.
Who else would think of it, Ralph? I think it's time we had Ralph's Diet Coke Cookbook. You might make a lot of money out of it.Ralph wrote:Has anyone else ever made gazpacho with 8 ounces of Diet Coke?
Nigel,
On a warm day, enjoying a bowl of gazpacho on an outdoor terrace in Bryant Park is a special pleasure when I'm in that area.
Ralph wrote, " On a warm day, enjoying a bowl of gazpacho on an outdoor terrace in Bryant Park is a special pleasure when I'm in that area."
Yumm.. The NY Public Library in the background, the gazpacho and the Byrant Park Film Festival in front of you on a warm evening... few things are better.
Purists may avert their eyes from the following: sometimes people find they want to dress up their gazpacho with a couple of tablespoons of wine, then drink that same wine along with the gazpacho.
Yumm.. The NY Public Library in the background, the gazpacho and the Byrant Park Film Festival in front of you on a warm evening... few things are better.
Purists may avert their eyes from the following: sometimes people find they want to dress up their gazpacho with a couple of tablespoons of wine, then drink that same wine along with the gazpacho.
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Guest
I'm not a purist - it's hard to be one even if so inclined, when Andalucians themselves can't decide whether to add bread and eggs or not - but I'd hesitate to put wine in a soup that is already seaasoned with vinegar.
Otherwise, pouring red wine into soup is a traditional practice in France, not done much nowadays, but that's probably because so little soup is consumed. I'm old enough to remember when Lucas Carton, at the Madeleine, was not yet a three-star belonging to Senderens, but a very old-fashioned one-star restaurant with a choice of soups on the menu. Even then (1980) that was unusual.
Otherwise, pouring red wine into soup is a traditional practice in France, not done much nowadays, but that's probably because so little soup is consumed. I'm old enough to remember when Lucas Carton, at the Madeleine, was not yet a three-star belonging to Senderens, but a very old-fashioned one-star restaurant with a choice of soups on the menu. Even then (1980) that was unusual.
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Guest
We had no guests last night. No guests means no reason to go to any effort at all, i.e. the easiest dinner possible without going out: lamb and green beans.
A leg of lamb, here, once prepared (by the butcher of course, not me) weighs no more than 5 lbs. I laid a bunch of rosemary in the baking dish and put the leg on it. With a sharp little knife I made a dozen deep slits in the flesh and slipped in slithers of garlic. I rubbed the lamb all over with olive oil and seasoned it with salt and pepper. And roasted it. I’m such a lazy cook, I have an oven that calculates the cooking time so long as you give it the weight. Being bought in France, it assumes we want it rare.
I bought green beans ready topped and tailed of course. And when the lamb was done, transferred it to a clean dish to carve, and dressed the beans in the roasting juices.
That’s it.
For starters, I bought a scallop terrine and made a little green salad with dill. For pudding, we had a strawberry tart. This is comfort food, really, and you need comfort when you've spent the evening filling out the forms for season tickets to the Opéra National and the Châtelet and calculating the cost
Tonight we'll have cold lamb, with a rice salad using up leftover green beans and a couple of tomatoes. And the rest of the tart.
A leg of lamb, here, once prepared (by the butcher of course, not me) weighs no more than 5 lbs. I laid a bunch of rosemary in the baking dish and put the leg on it. With a sharp little knife I made a dozen deep slits in the flesh and slipped in slithers of garlic. I rubbed the lamb all over with olive oil and seasoned it with salt and pepper. And roasted it. I’m such a lazy cook, I have an oven that calculates the cooking time so long as you give it the weight. Being bought in France, it assumes we want it rare.
I bought green beans ready topped and tailed of course. And when the lamb was done, transferred it to a clean dish to carve, and dressed the beans in the roasting juices.
That’s it.
For starters, I bought a scallop terrine and made a little green salad with dill. For pudding, we had a strawberry tart. This is comfort food, really, and you need comfort when you've spent the evening filling out the forms for season tickets to the Opéra National and the Châtelet and calculating the cost
Tonight we'll have cold lamb, with a rice salad using up leftover green beans and a couple of tomatoes. And the rest of the tart.
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jbuck919
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I have been enjoying Nigel's posts. He makes the point, without directly saying so, that the wondrous French style of eating has nothing to do with being fancy but everything to do with making eating times special and good food a fun part of it.
You can do this anywhere in the world. In Germany, not a country noted for having a cuisine, I have found Nuernberger Bratwurst (not what you think) to be the best breakfast sausage imaginable. The cheap "Lachs" is superior to to any version of Lox I've had in the US (sorry, Ralph). Ubiquitous bakeries offer fresh bread daily, even though none of it resembles a baguette or a bagel, alas.
Next weekend, I'm having the crew from the Morocco trip over for a tagine, a traditional one of chicken with olives and preserved lemons (yes, I brought everything except the chicken back with me). I'll also make up some sort of salad with Moroccan olive oil, and though I can't contrive Moroccan bread here I will find an adequate substitute. Here of course it is a question of availability of ingredients, not difficulty in cooking.
So what do I have for lunch at school? A liverwurst sandwich, of course. It's been my favorite since I was a kid. Here they have 50 varieties.
You can do this anywhere in the world. In Germany, not a country noted for having a cuisine, I have found Nuernberger Bratwurst (not what you think) to be the best breakfast sausage imaginable. The cheap "Lachs" is superior to to any version of Lox I've had in the US (sorry, Ralph). Ubiquitous bakeries offer fresh bread daily, even though none of it resembles a baguette or a bagel, alas.
Next weekend, I'm having the crew from the Morocco trip over for a tagine, a traditional one of chicken with olives and preserved lemons (yes, I brought everything except the chicken back with me). I'll also make up some sort of salad with Moroccan olive oil, and though I can't contrive Moroccan bread here I will find an adequate substitute. Here of course it is a question of availability of ingredients, not difficulty in cooking.
So what do I have for lunch at school? A liverwurst sandwich, of course. It's been my favorite since I was a kid. Here they have 50 varieties.
There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.
-- Johann Sebastian Bach
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Guest
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Guest
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have mostly friends who can’t cook. All this easy stuff I’ve been rattling off here amazes them. They don’t know how easy it is, they think there’s some mystery to it. What especially wows people is serving them home-made ices. To most people, just as soups only exist in cans, so ices can only possibly come from shops. Yet, Corlyss, I can assure you Elizabeth David is right: you need no special appliances, nor awkward egg custards or whipped egg whites or gelatine, to simply flatten your guests. You need fruit, cream, sugar and a blender. I have adapted one of her recipes and do it every summer. If you have people coming to dinner, start this early in the afternoon.
Buy a pound of strawberries plus enough other berries to make up another pound: raspberries, blackberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants, whatever. Put the whole 2 lbs in the blender and blend.
Put half a pound of sugar in a quarter pint of water and boil it for 10 minutes. This makes a thickish syrup. Let it cool a little, then switch the blender back on and blend this syrup and the juice of a lemon into the fruit puree.
Whip a quarter pint of cream. Blend it gently, in a bowl, with the fruit puree. Put the bowl in the freezer. Every hour or so, take the bowl out and stir the stuff near the outside into the middle.
Depending on how fierce your freezer is, in about 4 hours you’ll have a big bowl of ice cream that has such a strong, pure flavour of fruit your friends will never have tasted anything like it. If you leave it in the freezer longer, it will go rock hard, so to use it again, you’ll have to take it out early to let it thaw. But it’ll still be as good.
I serve it with what the French call "fours secs," i.e. little mini biscuits and cakes, but bits of shortbread or thin slices of plain cake should do.
Gazpacho, pasta with pesto, one cheese and this ice make for a very lazy dinner in hot weather.
By the way, Ms David's original recipe was for strawberries only. I prefer to mix them with others, but I must say that her original is a damned good way to bring out flavour in strawberries that didn't seem to have much. Also, just leave out the cream and you have a granita.
Buy a pound of strawberries plus enough other berries to make up another pound: raspberries, blackberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants, whatever. Put the whole 2 lbs in the blender and blend.
Put half a pound of sugar in a quarter pint of water and boil it for 10 minutes. This makes a thickish syrup. Let it cool a little, then switch the blender back on and blend this syrup and the juice of a lemon into the fruit puree.
Whip a quarter pint of cream. Blend it gently, in a bowl, with the fruit puree. Put the bowl in the freezer. Every hour or so, take the bowl out and stir the stuff near the outside into the middle.
Depending on how fierce your freezer is, in about 4 hours you’ll have a big bowl of ice cream that has such a strong, pure flavour of fruit your friends will never have tasted anything like it. If you leave it in the freezer longer, it will go rock hard, so to use it again, you’ll have to take it out early to let it thaw. But it’ll still be as good.
I serve it with what the French call "fours secs," i.e. little mini biscuits and cakes, but bits of shortbread or thin slices of plain cake should do.
Gazpacho, pasta with pesto, one cheese and this ice make for a very lazy dinner in hot weather.
By the way, Ms David's original recipe was for strawberries only. I prefer to mix them with others, but I must say that her original is a damned good way to bring out flavour in strawberries that didn't seem to have much. Also, just leave out the cream and you have a granita.
Last edited by Guest on Sun Apr 17, 2005 5:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Corlyss_D
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Oh, no! Don't tell me you like liverwurst too! I love it! Do you also like liver and onions? I have 3 restaurants in town to choose from for that. Funny thing, none of the staff in the places has ever had it.jbuck919 wrote: So what do I have for lunch at school? A liverwurst sandwich, of course. It's been my favorite since I was a kid. Here they have 50 varieties.
Corlyss
Contessa d'EM, a carbon-based life form
Contessa d'EM, a carbon-based life form
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jbuck919
- Military Band Specialist
- Posts: 26856
- Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2004 10:15 pm
- Location: Stony Creek, New York
Yes, I love liver and onions. Made it once every couple of weeks back in Stony Creek for my mother, who loves it too. Served it with mashed potatoes. Curiously not on the menu in Germany, and also not a regular item at the grocer.Corlyss_D wrote:Oh, no! Don't tell me you like liverwurst too! I love it! Do you also like liver and onions? I have 3 restaurants in town to choose from for that. Funny thing, none of the staff in the places has ever had it.jbuck919 wrote: So what do I have for lunch at school? A liverwurst sandwich, of course. It's been my favorite since I was a kid. Here they have 50 varieties.
There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.
-- Johann Sebastian Bach
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Guest
Corlyss, do you like Indian food, and can you buy cooked beetroot? If so, here's a spectacular soup.
Heat some oil and sprinkle in a couple of teaspoons of cumin seeds. Leave them for a few seconds, then throw in as much chopped garlic as you like and a chopped onion, and let these brown a little. Add some salt, a quarter teaspoon of cayenne pepper (or not, if you don't like spicy food), a couple of cooked beetroots cut roughly into wedges, and half a pound of chopped tomatoes (and yes, I used canned ones).
Cook this for half an hour, then blend it. Your guests will be amazed at both the colour and the flavour. It doesn't sound half as good as it is.
Last night, by the way, I did a lazy dinner for guests: foie gras with seams of figs in it (bought of course) with a little salad with nasturtium flowers; a Bresse chicken with that black olive stuffing I mentioned above, and little potatoes and green beans; and a bought pudding. All I had to do was make the stuffing in the food processor, and the vinaigrette.
Heat some oil and sprinkle in a couple of teaspoons of cumin seeds. Leave them for a few seconds, then throw in as much chopped garlic as you like and a chopped onion, and let these brown a little. Add some salt, a quarter teaspoon of cayenne pepper (or not, if you don't like spicy food), a couple of cooked beetroots cut roughly into wedges, and half a pound of chopped tomatoes (and yes, I used canned ones).
Cook this for half an hour, then blend it. Your guests will be amazed at both the colour and the flavour. It doesn't sound half as good as it is.
Last night, by the way, I did a lazy dinner for guests: foie gras with seams of figs in it (bought of course) with a little salad with nasturtium flowers; a Bresse chicken with that black olive stuffing I mentioned above, and little potatoes and green beans; and a bought pudding. All I had to do was make the stuffing in the food processor, and the vinaigrette.
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Ralph
- Dittersdorf Specialist & CMG NY Host
- Posts: 20990
- Joined: Fri Mar 25, 2005 6:54 am
- Location: Paradise on Earth, New York, NY
I have an occasional need for liverwurst on rye but no chinese restaurant offers kung pao liverwurst. That I have to make myself.
Thanks goodness for Zabar's and Citerella in New York. Even Nigel would be impressed (I think).
Thanks goodness for Zabar's and Citerella in New York. Even Nigel would be impressed (I think).
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Albert Einstein
Here is what I do when the sous chef leaves and the dishwasher packs up; cook things in paper - cooking parchment.
Get 4-6 ounces of fish or chicken per person. Cut the paper as seen here
http://www.reynoldskitchens.com/reynold ... illote.asp
Cut one wrap per person. Toss the flattened meat onto each wrap. Put some julliened veggies - zucchini, carrots, celery, whatever you have to just about cover the meat. Put a half teaspoon of dried seasoning (dill for fish, oregonal for chicken perhaps) on top of each mound, or 1 teaspoon of mustard, Wrap it up as shown at the above site, make the steam release slots and cook at 400 F degrees on a cookie sheet. 15-20 minutes will do for fish, 20-25 will do the chicken.
VARIATIONS
Thaw a box of frozen chopped spinach, squeeze it bone dry and place 2-3 ounces on each wrap, load up the wraps as above.
Place pencil thin asparagus and lemongrass over fish and cook it with alittle sake or green tea. I serve this with steamed rice and a runny Thai dipping sauce. Cold fresh pineapple with fresh chopped mint for dessert.
Place some stripes of roasted red peppers from a jar on top of chicken smeared with about a tablespoon of feta cheese and a little basil.
One can do infinate variations, just don't have too much water in the packet or it will cook down and leak. Some resturants double their wraps to make sure there are no leaks. We used to do this type of cooking in aluminum foil but we don't let food touch aluminum anymore. Some people can cook in a microwave with different timings. I don't because I like the look of the browned parchment so I can tell how done things are and I need the time to make the side dishes. Since this is basically oven steaming, always make the vent hole, and be careful when you open the packets. The dishwasher is the trashcan.
Get 4-6 ounces of fish or chicken per person. Cut the paper as seen here
http://www.reynoldskitchens.com/reynold ... illote.asp
Cut one wrap per person. Toss the flattened meat onto each wrap. Put some julliened veggies - zucchini, carrots, celery, whatever you have to just about cover the meat. Put a half teaspoon of dried seasoning (dill for fish, oregonal for chicken perhaps) on top of each mound, or 1 teaspoon of mustard, Wrap it up as shown at the above site, make the steam release slots and cook at 400 F degrees on a cookie sheet. 15-20 minutes will do for fish, 20-25 will do the chicken.
VARIATIONS
Thaw a box of frozen chopped spinach, squeeze it bone dry and place 2-3 ounces on each wrap, load up the wraps as above.
Place pencil thin asparagus and lemongrass over fish and cook it with alittle sake or green tea. I serve this with steamed rice and a runny Thai dipping sauce. Cold fresh pineapple with fresh chopped mint for dessert.
Place some stripes of roasted red peppers from a jar on top of chicken smeared with about a tablespoon of feta cheese and a little basil.
One can do infinate variations, just don't have too much water in the packet or it will cook down and leak. Some resturants double their wraps to make sure there are no leaks. We used to do this type of cooking in aluminum foil but we don't let food touch aluminum anymore. Some people can cook in a microwave with different timings. I don't because I like the look of the browned parchment so I can tell how done things are and I need the time to make the side dishes. Since this is basically oven steaming, always make the vent hole, and be careful when you open the packets. The dishwasher is the trashcan.
Corlyss_D wrote:What's that? The chef in charge of the cooking spirits closet?operafan wrote: the sous chef
In my kitchen it is he who chops the vegetables and cleans up after me, a resourse I'm glad to have. I am careful to cook with wine, sometimes it even gets into the food. And when he goes on a business trip, the chineese mandoline (a $5 vegetable shredder) gets a work out because I am so lazy about chopping veggies.I think Nigel's beetroots are beets. Beets are wonderful, just boil fresh beets in orange juice, peel them, place a 4 to 1 mixture of beets to juice in a blender, puree it, and serve the soup.
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