Here's to cookery

[highlyeccentric]

I may have been tired and cranky since I got back from the UK, but I've cooked some really tasty foods. Let me share recipes!

I had RPG gamers over last Sunday, and fed them gluten-free salads. First there was a version of this Salmon and Chickpea salad, using tinned tuna instead of tinned salmon (couldn't find the latter in my supermarket - Switzerland seems to default to smoked salmon). I also used a teaspoon of sembal oelek instead of chilli flakes*.

Also made was rice salad with apple and nuts, but I learned an important lesson: 4 cups cooked rice =/= 4 cups rice, cooked. So I had MOUNTAINS OF RICE SALAD with comparatively little apple. I still have leftovers of the bloody thing.

Later in the week I made Black-eyed bean and tomato curry, which turned out... hmm. Tasty, filling, but not quite *right*. It's missing something, and I'm yet to figure out what. Could be that I didn't have curry leaves or garam marsala, so that's I'll try again with those. Can I also note how much I'm loving that blog, 'Lisa's Kitchen', since going part-time vegetarian? OM NOM NOM. Today or tomorrow I'm going to try my hand at lentil borscht with her recipe...

Finally, I made ANZAC biscuits using the Women's Weekly recipe rather than the Taste.com.au one, and *with* baking soda this time. They turned out perfect and charmed my students - so much that students wanted the recipe! Accordingly, here I present the Women's Weekly ANZAC biscuit recipe modified for international measurements and with ingredients list glossed in French:


ANZAC BISCUITS
(Women’s Weekly Cookbook, 1977 edition)
I have edited this recipe to use mililetre measures – because Australian cookery usually uses ‘cup’ measures that results in the odd result of mililitre measures for dry goods.
Ingredients
250 ml oats (avoine)
190 ml dessicated coconut (noix de coco râpée)
250 ml plain flour (farine)
7.5 ml (1 ½ teaspoons) bicarbonate of soda (bicarbonate de soude) – Note: I had trouble finding this in supermarkets. I’ve seen it in the American Market in Paquis.
40 ml boiling water
250 ml sugar (use sucre fin cristalisée or finer)
125 grams butter
20 ml golden syrup (sirop cristalisée, sirop épais partiellement inverti) – Note: this is available in British goods sections in Food City opposite the Plaine de Plainpalais, and in the American Market. You could probably use mollasses or treacle instead.

Method
Mix the oats, flour, sugar and coconut together in a bowl.
In a saucepan, melt together the butter and golden syrup.
Mix together the bicarb soda and the boiling water – it will go fizz. Stir it into the butter mixture, which creates a bubbly liquid.
Mix together the dry and wet ingredients.

Pre-heat your oven to about 150 degrees C. Grease some cookie trays with oil or butter.

Roll balls of about one spoon of the cookie mixture, and then press them into flat(ish) circles on the tray – allow room for them to spread out as they cook.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden and just beginning to crisp on top. Cool on trays.

~

*Another thing I can't find in switzerland is minced chilli in a jar. Sembal Oelek seems to be, while not the same, a flavoursome substitute, especially if one doesn't usually add salt to recipes anyway.

Comments

[monksandbones]

Wait, wait lentil borscht? Lentil borscht? I can has link to the recipe? My quarter Ukrainian is rising up in protest at the very thought, but the rest of me is really intrigued as to what manner of soup this lentil borscht might be.

I'm intrigued by the Anzac biscuits too!

[highlyeccentric]

http://foodandspice.blogspot.ch/2013/11/hearty-lentil-borscht.html

[monksandbones]

My quarter Ukrainian concedes that this can be legitimately admitted to the ranks of borscht. It does look good! In fact, as my brothers would say, it speaks to me culturally. And cumin seeds! I may have to try it out, although with modifications like NEEDS MOAR CABBAGE.

[highlyeccentric]

I am not one for cabbage but I concede this is where cabbage belongs! This will be my first foray into borscht and indeed into beetroot served anywhere save for a hamburger. WISH ME LUCK.

[monksandbones]

Good luck! Do you have the same situation en Suisse that I had in France where the only beets I could get in the grocery store were vacuum-packed pre-cooked ones? That still seems genuinely bizarre to me...

[highlyeccentric]

I have no idea, as I acquired these beets at the farmers' market! I had a chocie of varieties of beet, and a choice between pre-peeled and whole.

[redsnake05]

All the food! How awesome. And ANZAC biscuits! Not one of my favourite biscuits, but a very patriotic and nostalgic biscuit. I'd bake them for other people, and I like the look of this recipe. One thing I am planning on baking soon is English macaroons with jam centres. I cannot find a picture online, but I found the recipe in *whispers* The Australian Women's Weekly Baking Bible, and they look very similar to french macarons, but without any piping or other fluffing round.