Cooking recipe books

I've made this recipe once and it takes a long time to cook so make sure you start early.  It has an incredibly rich and strong flavour which comes not just from the beef but mainly from the wine. The onions are a sweet and very tasty addition. The blandness of the boiled potatoes is a welcome relief to it's overpowering flavour. The next day the flavour was better! Next time we're hosting, I'll make this recipe the day before and then re-heat it on the day. Recipe from  ' Paris in a basket: markets, the food and the people ', by  Nicolle Meyer and Amanda Smith. Serves: 10 persons. Ingredients: 125g bacon strips 1.5kg diced beef (a cut fit for slow cooking) 2 onions - 200g, peeled and chopped 2 carrots - 250g, peeled and sliced 40g plain flour 1 bottle of red wine, bordeaux or bourgogne (I used an Italian red wine I had at home) salt & pepper to taste 500g white or button mushrooms olive oil 500g small shallots 40g butter 2 tbsp sugar parsley, finely chopped...

Foraging diaries # 25 : fool's  watercress. Hampshire has been cultivating watercress for centuries. Hampshire's fairly flat and chalky land and waterways make it for the ideal conditions to grow watercress. Wild watercress can be easily found in areas of slow moving water on river banks. River Itchen's banks are the ideal location to find watercress. We live a few minutes from the river and the river path is popular with local walkers and dog walkers. Even when, as today, it was overflowing and you couldn't tell what was river and what was path... Wellies were absolutely mandatory! We set off to find watercress ( Nasturtium officinale ) but we completely forgot that it's season ends in November. Instead, we found fool's watercress ( Apium nodiflorum ), which can be found until the end of December. Both have the same habitat and are incredibly similar. Fool's watercress has serrated leaves whilst true watercress has smooth wavy margins. Watercress has a cres...

Another Portuguese recipe. A seafood recipe. I love seafood! My partner is not very keen on squid, but he'll happily eat squid when prepared with beans. Serves: 4 persons. Ingredients: 500g squid, clean 1 onion, chopped 2 garlic cloves, chopped 1 chili, chopped (optional) 1 bay leaf 2 carrots, peeled, cut lengthways and sliced 1 tin of chopped tomatoes (400g) 150ml white wine 400g white beans, cooked salt & pepper to taste olive oil to taste parsley to taste Method: Cut the squid in strips. Fry the onion, garlic, chili (if using) and bay leaf in the olive oil. Add the carrots, stir and let them cook for 5 min. Add the tomatoes, white wine and salt & pepper to taste, stir and bring to the boil. Add the squid, stir and let it cook covered for 20 min. Add the beans, stir and let them warm up. Serve with white rice. Sprinkle parsley over the squid on the plate. I actually forgot to buy parsley so we had it without.

We stock up on fish at Bishops Waltham's fishmongers, Anyfish . Fishmongers have a better and more varied supply of fish than supermarkets and it's always fresh.  I tend to buy plenty and freeze the majority as it takes me a 40 min round trip so I go to the fishmongers about once a month. I have quit on taking a list to the fishmongers. They rely mainly on locally sourced fish and you don't always know what they have in stock. If I make the mistake of going late on the day, they are also more likely to have run out on some fish or another.  I have learnt to go after breakfast and enter the shop with an open mind. I buy what they have in stock and figure out what to do with it later. This time it was skate. I bought a wing planning on scattering it on a salad but then found this recipe on Kate Whiteman's The ultimate book of fish and shellfish and decided to cook it for my partner. The wing was quite big and we ended up sharing it. Serves: 1 person. Ingredients: 1 sk...

Arroz doce , not to be confused with British rice pudding or Spanish arroz con leche . These recipes are all translated as 'rice pudding' in English. They all have the same main ingredients, rice and milk, but the end result is truly different. Up to today, I only seemed to be able to produce a decent arroz doce when cooking it with my mother or my mother-in-law. It's a very traditional Portuguese recipe, and at first glance very easy, but I don't seem to be able to nail it by myself! I followed my mother's recipe several times and the rice is always under-cooked. My last attempt wielded raw rice in a bed of water. A complete mess! This time I wasn't going to take any chances. I was cooking it for Christmas! I whatsapped my mother-in-law, several times!, and although it ended up a bit drier than I wanted, the rice was cooked and it was delicious and creamy. Serves: 6-8 persons. Ingredients: 200g short grain rice ( Carolino - if you can find this Portuguese ri...