Cooking recipe books

As I was doing the tiramisu a few days earlier, I remembered this recipe as the layout and the dipping the biscuits in coffee is similar. I wonder if it is a tiramisu copycat, Portuguese way. I am not quite sure how to translate the name of this recipe so I made it a literal translation. It is a very common recipe in low to mid range restaurants in Portugal and very popular with the Portuguese.  This is one of those recipes that may have the same name across the country but each restaurant's chef makes it slightly different. It is almost impossible to get the same desert from one restaurant to the next. However, they all have eggs, condensed milk, Maria biscuits and double cream. I have made the recipe that more accurately matches my childhood memories, look and taste Serves: 8 persons. Ingredients: 4 eggs, separated 1 can condensed milk (397g) 1 can of milk (use the condensed milk's can to measure the milk) 1tbsp corn flour 150g coffee 200g Maria biscuits - 32...

Following up from the previous recipe (Portuguese roast chicken), I was left with the breast bones, the neck and the giblets of the chicken I had cut up. The bones still had plenty of meat in them and it seemed quite a waste to throw them away.  I had two options of recipe: chicken stock or chicken broth. I decided to go for the later and make something mums usually make when we are sick and I hadn't had for decades: chicken broth soup,  canja de galinha in Portuguese. The end result had the taste I remembered but a much fainter taste and much less fat. I realised that there is a reason why this is made with a whole chicken: the skin is the key ingredient for the flavour of the soup. I regretted having thrown away the skin from the chicken breasts, which was too ripped for roasting but would have made a difference for the broth. Serves: 6 persons. Ingredients: leftovers of cutting up a chicken (and as much skin as you can get your hands on!) 1 onion, diced 3 garlic clov...

This recipe is actually the base for a peri-peri chicken but without the hotness of the peri-peri. We don't like heat very much so I added 2 chilies and left it at that. Anyone wanting the real experience will have to buy peri-peri and add it to taste. It's really easy to make as long as you leave it to marinate overni ght. The long marinade will make it taste much better! I also took the opportunity to learn how to cut up a chicken. I have done it before but it has usually been a very messy job with a poor end result so this time I used a tutorial on YouTube and I am now much more confident. For the tutorial see this link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z7KU7WHr3M&vl=en Serves: 4 persons. Ingredients: 1 chicken 5 garlic cloves 2 chili peppers 4tbsp red pepper puree ( massa de pimentão )  olive oil ½ glass of white wine. Method: In a pestle and mortar, crush the garlic and chili peppers.  Add salt and pepper, a dash of olive oil and the red pepper paste and m...

It has been a few years since I made tiramisu.  I started by trying my own recipe which ended up being a small disaster as I discovered that the sponge fingers packages in the UK are smaller than the ones in Portugal and my recipe called for 1 package but that clearly wasn't enough. I am a fan of Felicity Cloake's column in The Guardian and one of her articles is entitled ' How to make the perfect tiramisu '. It sounded promising. Alas, we seem to disagree on the amount of coffee and the type of booze. Her recipe was OK but not the taste I remembered and there was too much mixture left over. Third time lucky. I absolutely nailed it on my third go! Serves: 6 good size portions or 8 average portions. Ingredients: 4 eggs, separated 75g caster sugar 5 tbsp Amaretto 400g mascarpone 250ml coffee 250g sponge fingers biscuits cocoa powder to dust Method: Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until pale. Whisk in the mascarpone, a little at a time until smooth and combined. I ha...

This soup is absolutely delicious! It didn't last long... Another recipe from Scottish Cookery , by Flame Tree Publishing. Serves: 7  persons. Ingredients: 2 tbsp olive oil 1 onion, chopped 2 garlic cloves, chopped 3 celery stalks, chopped 700g pumpkin, cut into chunks 500ml chicken stock 125ml white wine (the recipe called for dry sherry but I had none so I improvised) 200g smoked haddock fillet 150ml milk 3 tbsp water 4 tbsp parsley, chopped pepper to taste Method: Heat the oil in a large saucepan and gently cook the onion, garlic and celery for about 10 min.  Add the pumpkin and potatoes to the saucepan and stir to coat the vegetables with the oil. Gradually pour in the stock and bring to the boil. Cover, then reduce the heat, and simmer for 25 min, stirring occasionally.  Stir in the wine, then remove the saucepan from the heat and leave to cool for 5-10 min. Blend the mixture and reserve. Place the fish in a frying pan and pour the milk with 3 tbsp water and bring t...