This month’s recipes
Category Archives: The Cook Shelf
In praise of craft…the joys of baking with a master
Yesterday I took my godson/nephew Matt for his long-overdue, ‘well-done-on-your-exam-results’ present: a class on bread-making at The Bertinet Kitchen Cookery School. Bread, or rather the baking of it, has become a bit of an obsession of mine and, having met Richard Bertinet at Port … Continue reading
Posted in Bread recipes, Dough
Tagged Bertinet Kitchen, bread making, real bread, Richard Bertinet, Ritz Escoffier
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Bad Seed bread
My mission to bake better and easier bread continues apace and this week I found a magic ingredient. Many moons ago, when I was younger and idiotically naïve, I worked in a bar in Paris, which is probably the most … Continue reading
Savoy cabbage and Parmesan soup
There is a moment, about now, when the earth starts to wake up and smell, not in a too-many-dogs-not-enough-flowers way but more in a, well, earthy sort of way. I absolutely love it. I crave light more than warmth so … Continue reading
Turning cabbage into chou: helping you love your greens
Cabbage. Now what does that word conjure up? A soggy, smelly, unappetising vegetable? Or the trendiest green in the winter food wardrobe? I used to be in the former camp, having been raised on overcooked white cabbage at home and … Continue reading
Cold remedy 2: Nigel Slater’s aromatic rice
The ideal response to the end of a cold is a Vietnamese soup like this, a Thai one like this or a curry like this. However, since I didn’t have the ingredients for any of those in my cupboards, I was … Continue reading
Posted in Appetite, One pot, rice recipes, Spicy recipes
Tagged Nigel Slater recipes, one pot recipes, rice recipes
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Cold remedy 1: potato soup with crispy bacon and sage
When I have a cold I go through a few ‘food’ stages. In the first few days I need comfort: soothing soups and lots of toast. Then, when I start to feel the tug of recovery and want to kick-start … Continue reading
Posted in Appetite, Gluten-free, One pot, Potato recipes, Soup recipes, Winter vegetables
Tagged one-pot, potato soup recipes, soup recipes
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Bertinet bread
If we are starting on the basics, then there is no more basic foodstuff to make, or learn to make than bread. I have always been a bit rubbish at it and envy my friends who can churn out soda … Continue reading
My cookbooks of the year and a couple for 2013
I found myself in Foyle’s yesterday, one of my two favourite shops for Christmas shopping (the other being Fopp, handily located just round the corner) and, once I had chosen the last few presents I wandered, as nonchalantly as a … Continue reading
Peter Gordon’s Double Chocolate Nut Cookies
The difference between cookies and biscuits is often missed in the UK. Cookies here tend to be a tad too biscuity (in the UK sense of that word) for my liking: too crunchy, too heavy and too thick. A proper … Continue reading
