Aloo Gobhi

I don't like cauliflower at all. I don't like it raw or cooked. But I do like aloo gobhi. Yanna made this one from Jamie's Food Revolution with some chicken spiced with curry paste.

It's actually pretty bland on its own (we omitted mustard seeds), so we added some spicy mango chutney and it was great.

Beef Pie

I didn't find the pictures of British Beef and Onion Pie on page 177 in Jamie's Food Revolution very appetizing. Something about the look of the ground beef seems odd to me. But I gave it a go anyway.

I didn't have Marmite, so I think I used a mix of soy sauce and balsamic vinegar instead.

I used the Basic Pie or Pastry Dough on page 665 recipe from Joy of Cooking for my crust.

 I like the pastry crust on this pie as opposed to the potato topping on cottage (or shepard's) pie.

Broccoli and Pesto Tagliatelle

I don't often cook Broccoli -- I generally like it steamed with cheese or in stir fry -- but Broccoli and Pesto Tagliatelle on page 46 from Jamie's Food Revolution was a nice alternative.

My potatoes were a little undercooked, but overall it was still really nice. I even had some fresh basil to top it off with.

"Biryani" Fish

One of the treasures of Jamie's Food Revolution is the notion of using Indian spice pastes as a quick rub for your fish (Quick Salmon Tikka with Cucumber Yogurt page 28). It takes so little time and it's so easy to do. Make sure you use spice paste and not sauce (I used Patak's Biryani paste). Scoop some into a bowl and use a basting brush to paint your fish (I've used salmon and steelhead trout). Then fry until cooked (takes about 1.5 minutes per side).

Biryani is a rice dish, but the spice blend still tastes great on fish with no rice in sight.

You can serve your fish on naan or pita bread with raita. The raita is as simple as cucumber, tomato, red onion, and yogurt. Add some dill, garam masala, or cilantro if you like.

Surprising Sweet and Sour Pork

I like sweet and sour pork, but the breading and sugary sauce is unhealthy. I was impressed by "My Sweet and Sour Pork" (p65) in Jamie's Food Revolution. While it doesn't look like fast-food-style sweet and sour, the taste is spot on.

My pork didn't turn out nearly as dark as in Jamie's pictures, because I replaced the balsamic vinegar with white vinegar.

Pea and Mint Soup

I haven't made a lot of soups and we had ham from mushrooms and ham cream sauce, so I found Pea and Mint Soup on page 132 in Jamie's Food Revolution. The soup was great, but I didn't make mine as smooth as Jamie -- partly because we don't have an immersion blender (I used a Magic Bullet instead).

Broth added

It's a pretty simple soup: carrots celery, onion, garlic, broth, peas, mint, salt, and pepper. Chop and fry, add broth and peas, and simmer for 10 minutes. Then add your seasoning, blend, and add the ham before you serve.

Boiled and added mint

 The most difficult part was the blending. Our Magic Bullet is small, so we had to do several batches. Also, the hot soup makes the air in the bullet expand, so you need to release the pressure regularly while blending. It helps if you let the soup cool a bit before starting on the blend. The soup is great reheated, so I made a big batch and stuffed it in the fridge for later.

First batch of blending completed

This post is based on a published recipe. Please be aware that we've bent the recipes to our will. If you'd like the original recipe, have a look at the cook book linked in the post.

Tilapia with Mushrooms and Ham Cream sauce

We often cook tilapia marinated with a simple vinaigrette or with an assortment of spices, but I wanted to do something more interesting. I grabbed Jamie's Food Revolutionand found "Bacon and Mushroom Cream Sauce" on page 270.

I'm not a big bacon fan, so I've used ham in this recipe. However, it's one of our less successful results. The ham felt too bulky and its fried crunch was a strange contrast to the soft mushrooms. Next time, I'll either skip the ham or just fry it less to prevent any crispiness.

Additionally, my cream sauce looks wildly different from the version in Jamie's book. I made several substitutions, but I think replacing crème fraîche with whipping cream didn't give the expected result: Jamie's looked more like soup in the book and mine was more like a stew. Regardless, it worked well served on top of fish and rice.

Main

• 2 tilapia fillets
• vinaigrette -- any kind, I prefer store-bought citrus-base vinaigrette
• cooked rice

Sauce

• olive oil
• 4 slices ham, julienne
• 1/2 lb of a variety of mushrooms, roughly chopped -- I used button, oyster, and enoki
• 4 sprigs thyme
• 1/2 small red chile, seeded and sliced
• salt and pepper
• 1/3 cup whipping cream -- or heavy cream

Four slices of ham sliced into thin strips

It's mushrooms-chile-thyme

I ground peppercorns in my mortar to get coarser pepper

Directions

• Put the tilapia in a dish and cover with vinaigrette. Marinate overnight if desired.
• Add some oil to a pan on medium heat.
• Add fish and fry until cooked through.

• Meanwhile, prepare the sauce.
• Pick leaves from thyme and discard stalks.
• Add oil to pan on medium heat.
• Add ham to pan and fry until it crisps a bit.
• Add mushrooms, chile, and thyme to the ham. Fry for a few minutes.
• Add salt and pepper to taste.
• Add whipping cream. Bring to a boil and then simmer for a minute.

• Serve tilapia with rice and cover with sauce.

This post is based on a published recipe. Please be aware that we've bent the recipes to our will. If you'd like the original recipe, have a look at the cook book linked in the post.

Comments on Cook Books

Occasionally, we mention recipes from cook books on our site. We'll try to keep this post updated with our thoughts on those books.


Pressure Perfect

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The introduction is like a workbook, where you can fill in information about your pressure cooker to make it easier to refer to later. There are lots of general tips about using and caring for your pressure cooker. The recipes are tasty and result in good presentation, although the book has no pictures for you to know that in advance. Each recipe comes with small variations to change it up and they also have "transformations" which significantly change the resulting dish. Transformations include from adding pasta, changing the meat, different barbecue sauces, and swapping many ingredients to give the dish a different ethnic spin.



125 Best Pressure Cooker Recipes

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Like Pressure Perfect, this book includes some tips on pressure cooking, but isn't as exhaustive as Pressure Perfect. I've had some recipes not turn out, but I blame that on not using the alcohol specified in the recipe. Regardless, it's turned me off of 125 Best Pressure Cooker Recipes. Has a few pictures, but I've yet to make anything with a picture, so I don't know how they compare to actual results.



Jamie's Food Revolution

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This book clearly wants to teach you more about cooking and how to make cooking more enjoyable. Jamie Oliver is one of my favourite TV chefs because he makes cooking seem more fun, and less rote following directions. The book is full of beautiful pictures that illustrate the meal in various stages of preparation. It also includes pictures of normal people with motivational quotes. Jamie's Food Revolution demonstrates some basic technique and pictures several major ingredients. I think the book's pictures are realistic and haven't been disappointed that my meals don't look as good as the pictures in the book.

If you're just starting cooking, like simple recipes (most are one page text and one page pictures), or just love cook books with pictures, this book is highly recommended.



The Joy of Cooking

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The Joy of Cooking is a classic cooking text that is filled with useful information on a wide range of culinary technique. It comments on ingredients and recipes with general advice for most recipe categories. While there are no pictures, there are frequently illustrations to demonstrate technique or to clarify the instructions.

If you're using the page numbers from Plate to Palate, I'm using "Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition - 2006."

Roast Chicken

This post is part of our update of  meals from the past few months using recipes based on published recipes. Please be aware that we've bent the recipes to our will. If you'd like the original recipe, have a look at the cook book linked in the post.

It was just the two of us this Christmas, so we made a roast chicken for  dinner. We made the Perfect Roast Chicken (p196) and A Consistently Good Gravy (p205) from Jamie's Food Revolution.

Chicken
Ingredients: chicken, onions, carrots, celery, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper, lemon, and herbs. We used a bay leaf dried rosemary, oregano, and basil.

Gravy
Ingredients: heaped teaspoon of flour, wineglass of wine, 1 L of broth.


Prep

• Preheat oven to 475 F.
• Wash and chop vegetables -- these are for the trivet that will become your gravy.
• Peel garlic.
• Pile vegetables and garlic into your roasting pan.
• Drizzle chicken with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
• Prick lemon all over and put in microwave for 40 seconds.

Cook

• Put chicken on top of vegetables and put in oven.
• Turn heat down to 400 F.
• Cook for 1 hour 20 minutes.
• Baste the chicken after 40 minutes. If vegetables look dry add some water to prevent burning.
• When done, remove the chicken from the pan and cover with foil.

Gravy

• Remove 90% of hot fat from the roasting pan.
• Put pan on cooktop over high heat. If your pan is not cooktop safe (metal), transfer trivet and juices to a sauce pan. Be sure to include the bits stuck to the roasting pan.
• Add flour and stir.
• Mash vegetables with a potato masher to a lumpy mush.
• Tear off chicken wing tips and break them up in the pan.
• Add the wine.
• Boil a few minutes.
• Add the stock -- add it in a few batches to ensure your gravy isn't too runny. You may only need 1/2 L, but keep in mind some liquid will boil off.
• Break to a boil and keep scraping the bottom.
• Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes or until you reach desired consistency.