Support them when you can. They are the guardians of quality and will be founts of knowledge about buying clever cuts of meat, seasonal produce and other ways to enjoy the best without having to be profligate. I find myself magnetically drawn to delis for bowls of glossy olives, haunches of cured hams begging to be sliced by the handsome Italian boy, or a beautifully packaged bar of chocolate.
When guests are coming over, I treat myself with a visit to my favourite independent specialists to pick up the huge paper bag of cherries and a whole runny cheese that I can never justify for myself. I beg you not to do the heavy stuff vegetables, drinks on the same day as your dinner.
For a start, you spare yourself the Panic of the Missing Ingredient. Boring but important Changing shopping habits makes a huge difference to our environment. Supermarkets really are squeezing small producers and the quality, variety and flavour is disappearing from our food and our high streets. Support specialist shops whenever you can. Obviously, it is a bit more expensive, but as with anything, there are sensible choices you can make that collectively affect small-holding farmers, food production in general, and finally, the ingredients on your plate:.
Cut down on the miles your food travels. Chops with sage and lemon The longer you have to marinate the meat, the better the flavour will be. An hour is OK, overnight is great, but allow it to come back to room temperature before you cook. Serve with the lentils below and dark greens.
Place the chops in a large Ziploc plastic bag.
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Whisk the lemon juice, zest, sage, oil and seasoning together and pour into the bag. Leave to marinate in the fridge for as long as you have. Under a medium-hot grill, cook the chops for 10 minutes on each side. Check for readiness pork should be succulent but not pink, veal can be rarer and grill for a further 5 minutes if necessary. Leave the chops to stand for 5 minutes before serving with a little paprika and chopped parsley sprinkled over them. Make in a big batch as they will keep well in the fridge for a week. Place a saucepan over a moderate heat. When hot, throw in the garlic, celery and carrot with a big glug of olive oil.
After a few minutes, add the pancetta and cook until it begins to brown. Add the lentils and stir vigorously until they are well covered in the oil and flavourings.
Season with generous amounts of salt and pepper and cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes. Pour in the stock, stir, then add enough water so that there is twice the level of liquid to lentils in the pan. Bring to the boil then lower the heat so that the lentils simmer until almost all the liquid has evaporated.
The dish is done when the lentils are melting into a thick mass but still have a little individual bite — it will take about 30—40 minutes the packet will say less, but I find them indigestible when too al dente. You can add water as necessary during cooking, or drain them, within reason.
Take the pan off the heat and allow to cool for a short while before serving. Cheese and salad The French always save their salad to eat with cheese, and it makes a wonderful accompaniment. Buy one runny cheese and one firm, and serve on a plate with some crackers, accompanied by a green salad. It is not an authentic risotto but it is wonderfully tasty and very easy.
Boil a full kettle of water. Put the rice in a large saucepan, cover with the boiled water and bring to a simmer. Cook at a bare burble for about 25—30 minutes, stirring frequently and adding a little hot water from time to time, just enough to keep it covered. Meanwhile, put the frozen spinach in a large pan with a little water and cook until it has just defrosted. Remove from the heat and stir in the nutmeg.
Whiz the spinach with a blender until smooth, then set aside. When the rice is soft and creamy, crumble in the stock cube and a few good grinds of pepper and stir to disperse. Add the spinach, mix well and taste for seasoning. It will probably want at least a teaspoon of salt. When you are ready to eat, stir in the cream and half the Parmesan, and serve the rest of the Parmesan in a bowl for people to help themselves.
Peel and chop the mango into 1cm cubes and split between four cups or tumblers.
How To Feed Your Friends With Relish
Put a generous spoonful of yoghurt on top of each, then a thin layer of sugar, and smooth out to the edges. Empty the seeds of each half-passionfruit into each cup, then top up with yoghurt. Sprinkle the rest of the dark sticky sugar over the top of each one — you may need to crumble it with your fingers as it tends to clag together. Cover and put in the fridge for as long as you can so that the sugar sinks and streaks throughout — a couple of hours is preferable.
Eat straight from the cup. In a loving sisterly way, Sam and I thought it would be amusing to torture her, by planning a surprise. There needed to be food, and dancing, and enough people, but not so many that it was a bun-fight. For the surprise to work, it needed to be on a night before her actual birthday.
We decided to transform my kitchen with a maypole of multi-coloured ribbons pinned into the centre of the ceiling and stretching out to the walls. Dressing up, we thought. Disco lights, a smoke machine, a great playlist, and dancing in the hall. We scanned in a collage of pictures that we had printed onto a postcard to send to everyone, with a little badge pinned to the corner.
We set up an email address for people to RSVP to. It dawned on me that in some ways, the planning was the most fun part. I ordered five dozen Krispy Kreme donuts to stack into a tower and spike with sparklers instead of baking a cake. Bottles of ketchup and Worcestershire sauce lay on each table with a couple of opened bottles of wine, posies of roses and peonies from the market.
Everyone arrived on time. Giggling and whispering, they gathered behind the closed kitchen door. Kate and Sam arrived, and I opened the door, sure I had guilt written all over my face. We trudged upstairs to get my bag and. Kate stood, blinking in the light, not quite able to believe her eyes.
Given the situation, she was amazingly composed. Channelling the movie star within, she hugged everybody in turn, smiled, laughed and swung her hair. Cottage pie came out of the oven, peas from the pan, the final flourish of the sparkling doughnut tower into the darkened room. When Kate got up on the table to make a speech, you could see right up her miniskirt, which made us all laugh.
This slow-cook method makes the beef unbelievably tender, pink and juicy. Most importantly, it means you can go out on Saturday night, read the papers on Sunday morning, and still have a horde of people around for lunch. You will need an oven that can hold a low temperature very accurately, and a meat-thermometer probe.
How to Feed Your Friends with Relish - Joanna Weinberg - Google Книги
You may need to adjust the temperature gauge a bit — a digital oven would make this much easier. Slather the beef generously with mustard and black pepper. Stick the meat probe into the beef and put the joint in the oven so that you can see the gauge through the door. In the morning, check the temperature every half an hour or so: Make crosshatched scores across the top of the meat and rub with mustard powder, salt and pepper.
Allow the joint to rest for 15 minutes before carving. Horseradish cream Fresh creamed horseradish is a different creature to the bottled variety. It is worth buying a root whenever you come across one as you can store it in the freezer and simply peel as much as you need and grate from frozen. Chipolatas Allow at least 3 chipolatas per person. You can go for one variety or mix them up. Tuck the chipolatas snugly into a roasting tin just large enough to fit them in one layer and pour over enough water to come halfway up the sausages.
Roast for 20 minutes, turning a couple of times. The water will evaporate and they will be sticky and juicy. No need to prick them: A hunk of Parmesan and an ice pick Buy a large block of Parmesan in one piece, and put it on a board. Using an ice pick or a sharp knife, spear it around the edges to make large-ish shards of cheese that people can eat with their fingers. Leave the pick with the cheese so everyone can continue helping themselves.
Mixed charcuterie Buy several different types of whole salami and put them on boards or plates. Slice off a good few slices of each to lay out, and leave the knife for people to cut their own slices afterwards. Olives, cornichons, caperberries Leave small bowls of olives, cornichons and caperberries, either separately or mixed together, near the charcuterie. They all work well together. My current favourite is smoked chilli jam. If you find them too dry like this, grab a beer. Scatter with watercress before capping with the rest of the buttered bread.
Be brave with your choice of jam — rose, if you can find it, is spectacular. This amount will make about I often find this pastry crumbly and difficult to manipulate, in which case I will cut it into five or six pieces first and then roll each out and cut them up in turn. Sandwich the jam between the cut pastry and bake for about 15 minutes until they turn golden. Allow the biscuits to cool properly on a wire rack before packing carefully.
This is their recipe for sponge — it can be used for cupcakes which, to keep in the spirit, should be iced in pastel-coloured butter icing — plenty of it or for a basic sponge cake. This recipe will make 24 cupcakes. Prepare two cupcake tins by filling each hole with paper cups.
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Beat the butter in a freestanding mixer or with a hand mixer until smooth, gradually adding the sugar until it becomes pale and creamy. Continue to beat for a further 3 minutes or so until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well to combine between each. Sift the flours together and, with a metal spoon, fold into the mixture a quarter at a time, alternating with the milk and vanilla. I picked this up from the "free books" shelf in the library because I like books about food and cooking. It's not exactly a recipe book, and it's not exactly a book-about-food.
It's sort of both, and specifically about feeding other people, i. The book is divided up by type of entertainment - suppers for friends, romantic dinners, picnics, barbecues, tea parties, and so on - and in each section, Ms. Weinberg talks about parties of that type that she has been to or held, and foods I picked this up from the "free books" shelf in the library because I like books about food and cooking. Weinberg talks about parties of that type that she has been to or held, and foods that are well suited to that type of event, and gives more general organisational advice.
And then provides recipes for the things she's eaten at that type of event that she really likes or thinks work well or has found to be popular with guests. It was an entertaining pun intended read, and looks likely to be useful as a cookery book too. Nov 05, Sarah rated it really liked it Shelves: A wonderful read, I generally dislike parties and big dinners but the wonderful writing made me want to fill up the dining table with flowers and candles and eclectic serving wear and throw an impromptu weekday dinner party for all my friends.
The recipes are a bit garlic and sugar heavy for my tastes but I don't think the author would mind me adjusting them as I go. I generally don't write reviews either, see what sort of an influence this has already! Dec 22, Rachel rated it really liked it Recommends it for: Recommended to Rachel by: The only problem is I don't have enough room in my house to invite 30 people to a meal so may have to reduce the contents of the recipies a bit for my entertaining!
Dec 26, Robin rated it liked it Shelves: A very English read. Lots of pastry, drinks and advice on romantic meals and setting up your friends! For me the charm is more in the atmosphere than the recipes - the menus are fairly meat heavy - lots of panchetta and chicken.
There are some veg dishes, though, especially some good looking 'puddings', which she very sensibly includes for all her menus ;. Oct 03, Michael Macleod rated it it was amazing.
Gave to my friend Johanna, mainly for the Kenyan Quiche recipe. Dec 21, Elizabeth marked it as to-read Shelves: Rec'd by Food in Jars. Polarka rated it it was ok Nov 23, Xina54 rated it it was amazing Mar 25, John rated it it was amazing Apr 04, Rosemary Rycroft rated it really liked it Mar 20, Maria rated it really liked it Jun 16, Sara-jayne May rated it it was amazing Sep 27,