Cookbook challenge | madeleines with lemon curd

Summer holidays as a child were often spent in France, and one of my favourite things about visiting the country was buying the huge bags of madeleines. Small enough you could reasonably eat them in just two mouthfuls, yes, really, but still satisfying enough to feel like you were eating a cake, what’s not to love? I remember watching A Little Paris Kitchen on the box a couple of years ago and watching Rachel Khoo (yes, my obsession with her continues…) and thinking how wonderful to be able to whip up such delicious looking recipes from a tiny kitchen in a corner of Paris. It gave me hope for my then student living ways! Anyway, when I got the book over Christmas I knew I had to make these madeleines, and so with a free weekend I decided to go for it.

Ingredients: eggs//sugar//plain flour//baking powder//honey//milk//butter//lemon zest//icing sugar//raspberries//lemon curd (homemade preferably, but I cheated and got shop bought!)

Taste: Fresh out of the oven these taste like little pieces of heaven, they’re so good. I took them into work and my manager liked the contrast of the sweet lemon curd with the sharp raspberry, high praise indeed!

Time taken: You’re meant to leave these quite a while for the batter to chill in the fridge. I admit to being slightly impatient and not leaving them quite as long as I should have done, but I don’t think that altered them. According to the original recipe they should take about 3 hours, I’d say mine were done in 2.

Likeness to the book: Spot on in my opinion, what do you reckon?

Photo taken from the BBC website

Improvements: Next time I would like to have a go at making my own lemon curd, and seeing if this makes a difference to them.

Cost: I bought a terribly cheap garish jar of lemon curd, probably less than 50p, raspberries are about £2/punnet and you needed a whole punnet, lemons are 30p each, and everything else I had in the cupboard, so I probably spent an additional £3-ish on ingredients on top of what I already had.

Overall score: 5/5. These were well worth a slightly faffy recipe and two years of waiting after seeing Rachel make them on the TV, I’m already trying to think of more reasons to make them.

If you want to have a go at making them yourself, the recipe is on the BBC website. Enjoy!

Cook book challenge | Quatre-quarts aux agrumes

This weeks cook is from my favourite tv chef of the moment, Rachel Khoo. I’ve cooked a few of her recipes now, I think it’s going to be a long love affair. I’m also loving how the challenge is getting me to cook new things, it’s definitely working! This week is quatre-quarts aux agrumes, or citrus fruit cake to the non French speaking folk among us, and comes from Ms Khoo’s book The Little Paris Kitchen.

Ingredients: eggs*//golden caster sugar//plain flour//salt//zest of one lemon and one orange*//baking powder//butter

Taste: This is a really citrusy fruit cakey loaf, very fresh, a bit dense, comforting too.

Good: The ingredients are pretty much all things that I had in my cupboard, which makes it something really easy to whip up, and I would say, very cheap as I had everything but the lemon and an orange. It was also easy to measure out all the ingredients, as they all weigh the same!

Time taken: Oh my goodness, Rachel said this cake takes about 35-40 mins to cook. Mine took about an hour and half and still wasn’t quite cooked through in the centre. So blooming ages! The prep was a bit faffy compared to a normal cake, but nothing too bad.

Likeness to the book: I think mine looked spot on compared to the book, so I was very pleased!

Improvements: Hmmm I think I’d need a bigger loaf tin if I’d make this again, as I think that’s the cause of my problem of it not being cooked all the way through. Other than that, I don’t think I’d change anything about it, it was really good and easy.

Cost: eggs, lemon and orange. Eggs are about 12p each, orange and lemon are normally 30p each. So £1.08, which is pretty darn good I reckon!

*I’ve only included ingredients I had to go out and buy, as the others I would consider store cupboard basics that I always have on hand.

Score: 4/5. The cake was easy to make, if a bit faffy, and it tasted really good. I’ve given it a low score more for my cooking and tin for it taking so long, rather than Rachel’s directions!

Cook book challenge | Poulet rôti au vin rouge

This weeks recipe comes from my favourite chef of the moment, Rachel Khoo, and her latest book, The Little French Kitchen. My friends came to stay last weekend and I wanted to cook them something special. After a bit of a rummage through my cook books I thought this would be perfect for when they arrived after a long journey and a cold night.

Ingredients: red wine*//tomato paste//thyme//oregano or marjoram//red wine vinegar//whole chicken*//baby potatoes*//onions//carrots*//water

Taste: Like something my Mum would make, in a good way. Rich, warm and full of fresh flavours. Plus it smelt incredible!

Good: Super easy to follow, and can be prepped in advance and then just left to do it’s thing in the oven whilst you potter about. It’s a one pot job so very little washing up, and I think it looks really impressive, and makes your house smell good too.

Time taken: Prep was about 20 mins, and cooking was 50 mins.

Likeness to the book: I forgot to take a photo of it all roasted up in the pan so my photo doesn’t do the dish any justice. My skin on the chicken wasn’t as crispy and my pieces of chicken weren’t as big.

Improvements: I would use chicken thighs instead of a whole cooked chicken next time as it turns out I am awful at dissecting chickens, any tips people? I’d also pre cook the potatoes for longer and leave it in the oven for longer as my potatoes and carrots were a little too al dente, and my chicken wasn’t quite as crispy as I’d have liked.

Cost*: £4.50 ish for the chicken, 80p for the carrots, £1 for the potatoes, £4.99 for a bottle of wine (you can drink the rest with dinner!). It serves four easily with the portions I made, so total of £11.29 which is £2.82 a portion including a glass of wine with the meal!

*I’ve only included ingredients you need to actively buy for this recipe, as the others I would consider store cupboard basics that I always have on hand.

Overall score: 4/5.

Cook book challenge | Poisson meuniere

My first recipe for 2014’s cook book challenge comes from Rachel Khoo’s Little Paris Kitchen. The recipe was for poisson meuniere or fish with lemon and brown butter sauce to us non-French speaking folk. I chose the recipe because it seemed simple enough from the ingredients and prep time. I managed to get the lemon sole in Tesco for £3.50 for two fillets, so not too bad, and everything else I already had. I didn’t include the optional capers as the recipe suggested, as I’m not a big fan.

Ingredients: lemon sole*//plain flour//salt//pepper//butter//lemon juice*//oil//parsley*//capers (optional)

Taste: The fish was so delicious, and made me wonder why I don’t eat more fish! I cooked this for my New Years Eve treat dish and it was very worthy. It tasted decadent whilst being easy to follow, it was fresh, light, and as I added extra lemon, very zingey, which is good, as I love lemons!

Good: The recipe itself was very easy to follow, and took the stated amount of time, if not less. I think I could probably get it to plate in less than the ten minutes if I made it again. The ingredients were easy to find in Tesco, but when I looked in Morrisons after out of curiosity for price comparisons I couldn’t see any lemon sole, so maybe something to pick up when you see it and put in the freezer for when you’re ready.

Time taken: The recipe states 10 mins prep and 10 mins to cook, I’d say I could probably do it in less now I’ve done it once. The first time it probably took me a shade under the 20 mins total time allocated.

Likeness to the book: The above picture is what my version looked like, and the below is the picture from the book. I’d say bar the capers I didn’t include, they look pretty similar! (Mine is more orangey looking because of my photo taking, not the fish!)

Improvements: Whilst a delicious dish on it’s own, I would have liked to see some suggestions for what to accompany it with, as just fish on it’s own isn’t enough for my appetite! Maybe I’m just used to recipes for meals instead? I ate this with wild rice on the first night, and noodles on the second.

Cost*:  Approx £2/portion.

*I’ve only included ingredients you need to actively buy for this recipe, as the others I would consider store cupboard basics that I always have on hand.

 Overall score: 4.5/5 (Would have got a full 5 if it had some suggestions on what to serve it with).

 

So there you have it for recipe number one in the challenge. A good one to start with, and one I think I’ll revisit.