Cooking recipe books

Foraging diaries # 9: Elderflower /  Jam diaries #2: Green gooseberry & Elderflower Gooseberries are ripe in July/August but Darina Allen advises pairing them with elderflowers and, by then, elderflowers would have long gone. She writes ' When the elderflowers come into bloom, I know it's time to pick green gooseberries. They feel as hard as hailstones, but for cooking it's the perfect time '. I searched for gooseberries everywhere but, being a bit before the season, I couldn't find them anywhere. I was saved by Winchester's Farmers Market, as I usually am. Coronavirus restrictions were finally lifted and the market re-opened. On their first re-opening day, there I found the gooseberries I had been looking for! Darina's is a compote recipe, which requires more water (600ml), leaves the fruit whole and is a bit more runny. I prefer jams so I changed the method and let the majority of the water evaporate.  Darina also says that gooseberries...

Foraging diaries # 8: Elderflower /  Jam diaries #1: Rhubarb & Elderflower Rhubarb is a vegetable but it's used more as a fruit in jams, desserts, pies and crumbles. I have never seen rhubarb in Portugal and it was not until I arrived in the UK that I discovered this vegetable. Both rhubarb and elderflower are in season so I decided to search online for a jam recipe and found out that they actually pair together. Elderflower sweetens the tartness of rhubarb. Really good! Serves: 600g jam. Ingredients: 500g rhubarb, chopped 6 elderflower heads 250g sugar juice of ½ lemon  Method: Place the rhubarb, lemon juice and sugar in a stainless steel pan, heat up and let the sugar dissolve. Add the elderflower heads and let it cook for 2 min. Remove from the heat, cover and leave the elderflowers infusing overnight.  Remove the elderflower heads but squeeze the goodness from them before throwing them away. Bring to the boil unti...

As I mentioned before, I love avocado. After mashed avocado on toast, guacamole comes high on my preference list. I do add quite a lot of tomato to it, mush more than the traditional recipe, which makes it lighter. However, if the traditional is what you want, stick to just 1-2 medium tomatoes. This recipe is from the Hairy Bikers. I really like their unusual combination of bikers who love cooking. They are really chatty and look great fun on camera. The tomatoes and onion can be finely hand chopped for a more textured result or very finely chopped on a food processor as I did for a more smooth result. Serves: 700ml. Ingredients: 1-2 medium tomatoes (I used 2 large tomatoes) 1 red onion 3 ripe avocados 1-4 chilies (I used 1 chili as we can't take much heat) bunch of coriander juice of 1 lime salt to taste Method: Chop the tomatoes. Chop the onions. Mash the avocados. Finely chop the chili. Finely chop the coriander. Add the lime ...

I found this recipe in Liz Herbet's ' Woman's Institute: bread ', the first book we bought when we started baking our own bread. I had no idea what pikelets were but the name was interesting. In the picture it looked like small crumpets, which was confirmed as I read on and the author mentioned that to make crumpets ' cook 2 tbsp of batter in greased 8cm egg rings or biscuit cutters '. Pikelets taste good and  work well with jam or lightly toasted with butter. Serves: 26 pikelets. Ingredients: 225g strong white bread flour 1 tsp sugar ½ tsp salt 1 tsp fast action dried yeast ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda 175ml warm milk 175ml hand-hot water vegetable oil for brushing Method: Stir the flour, sugar, salt, yeast and bicarbonate of soda together in a mixing bowl. Gradually blend in the milk and water to make a smooth batter. Beat for a couple of minutes with a balloon whisk, cover and leave in a warm place until the mixture becomes l...

UPDATE JULY 2021: This year I decided to make an experiment and tried the following combinations: elderflower without lemon or citric acid. elderflower with lemon but without citric acid. elderflower with lemon zest and juice. elderflower with lemon zest and slices. I wanted to know if there was a taste difference between them. My conclusions are as follows: Elderflower tastes marvellous on it's own and needs no lemon added. When you add lemon you can feel the lemon zing but the elderflower flavour is still strong. However, without lemon or citric acid, it is not going to last any longer than a few weeks. Another difference is the fact that without lemon the cordial is much more clear. With lemon added it has a cloudy look. Make elderflower cordial without lemon or citric acid only if you know you are going to use it quick. Citric acid gives the cordial a slightly stronger lemony taste but the elderflower taste can still come through. With citric acid the cordial is going to last l...

A Paul Hollywood recipe on a day I fancied almond biscuits with coffee. A match obviously made in heaven! Serves: 40 biscuits. Ingredients: 125g flaked almonds, toasted (plus extra to finish) 125g unsalted butter 185g sugar 2 tbsp brandy 2 tbsp milk 200g plain flour 25g cornflour icing sugar for dusting Method: Toasting nuts is quite a simple task. It involves dry frying them, mixing them regularly as they brown to avoid them burning. I could have toasted them less, judging by the picture in the book Paul surely did, but they got a very deep flavour this way which we like. Blitz the 125g flaked almonds briefly in a food processor until coarsely ground - you want them to retain some texture. Cream the butter until pale, then slowly add the sugar, creaming as you go, alternating with splashes of brandy, and then the milk. Keep going until everything is well combined. Gently fold in the coarsely ground almonds, then sift over the flour and cornflour and...