Cooking recipe books

I know what you are thinking but I must disappoint you. No, I did not go mushroom foraging. I know nothing about mushrooms and it's dangerous. Eating the wrong mushrooms can provide a holiday stay in an Intensive Care Unit with liver and/or kidney failure or a one way ticket to the afterlife.  Our usual farm shop was selling boxes of wild mushrooms and I bought one. Wild mushrooms are very flavoursome so I would highly recommend buying them if you can find them. If not, the usual shop bought mushrooms would do but buy the best you can.  This recipe is Darina Allen's and it is absolutely delicious! Serves: 3 persons. Ingredients: 250g wild mushrooms, sliced 30g butter 100g onion, finely chopped good squeeze of lemon juice 125g double cream 2 tbsp parsley, chopped 2 tbsp chives, chopped 270g tagliatelle salt & pepper to taste Method: Melt 15g butter in a pan and sweat the onion for 5-10min or until quite soft but not coloured. Reserve. Cook the mushrooms in a hot frying pan ...

Neuza Costa is a Portuguese food blogger. She has the most irritating voice but she is an expert on traditional Portuguese cuisine. When my Portuguese cookbooks don't offer me a good enough recipe, Neuza always delivers. Her website: www.saborintenso.com . My favourite recipes are all made with rice. I know, I am very partial! This is just one of them. It's very difficult to find good octopus in the UK. I have tried fresh Cornish octopus and frozen Filipino octopus. Although the texture is right, the taste isn't good enough. I am afraid that the best I have tried is frozen Portuguese octopus. It can be found in very few fishmongers and, of course, in Portuguese shops. It's not cheap but it's the real deal. Serves: 5 persons. Ingredients: 1100g octopus (it will shrink to 400g once cooked) 1 onion, chopped 2 garlic cloves, chopped 2 bay leaves 150ml white wine 1 can chopped tomatoes (400g) 400g short grain rice ( Carolino - if you can find the Portuguese rice variety...

I don't like picking presents for anyone. Majority of times one ends up buying something useless, 9 out of 10 made of plastic. Presents should be useful and meaningful but the road that leads to them is not an easy one. A friend's birthday is in November and I was meeting her 3 days before her birthday. She is one of those people that never forgets your birthday and always buys you something. Of course, I need to get her something. Luckily, she is crazy about croquetes de carne . I don't think she minds that I have gifted these to her last Christmas as well. Her eyes light up like a small child when she sees them! In Portugal, any café sells these. No one even bothers thinking about making them from scratch. In the UK, if you want it, you have to make it! This is another recipe from Neuza Costa's  saborintenso.com . Serves: 32 croquettes. Ingredients: 500g minced pork butter: 30g + 80g 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped 1 bay leaf 90g chorizo, minced 2 tbsp parsley, chopp...

Moules marinière was the second course of my Saturday shellfish lunch from  Kate Whiteman's  The ultimate book of fish and shellfish. I saw the mussels in the fishmongers. I never cooked mussels at home. Why not try? I cut and started cooking the onions before I realised what the ingredients proportions were. There was too much onion for the amount of mussels so it ended up quite oniony. Not that I mind but it could taste more of the mussels. This is what happens when you are cooking 2 dishes at the same time... Below is the original recipe, which uses 2kg of mussels, not the 400g I bought and cooked. It would have been so difficult to reduce the portions to just 400g mussels anyway... Serves: 4 persons. Ingredients: 2kg mussels 1 onion, chopped 2 shallots, chopped 25g butter 300ml white wine 1 bay leaf 1 sprig of fresh thyme a bunch of parsley, chopped Method: Clean the mussels: Scrub under cold running water, using a stiff brush to remove any sand or dirt. Scrape off any ba...