I also have found something completely new to me - finger lime. Mia at the vegetable vendor Grönsakshallen Sorunda was kind enough to introduce me to this fantastic fruit when I was there and had a look around the other day. I’ll write more about it here on the blog in the future, so keep your eyes open and you’ll know more about it soon. In short you can describe it as a long, fingerlike, lime with pulp that you can squeeze out of it and it looks like caviar. It’s a really sour, with a slightly salty undertone, kind of caviar. Not like anything else. A fantastic little thing! 
Ma'moul are Arabshire's "other" sweet – well, I mean, everybody knows paklava, but these little datey, nutty pastries are not perhaps quite as familiar. In my ignorance, I used to regard ma'amoul as the ugly sister, mousy and uninteresting, something to be left on the shelf. Well, like many of the more restrained, classier things in life, the subtle butteriness of ma'amoul is actually infinitely more appealing than the floozy-ish, syrupy sweetness of paklava. Veggiestan: A Vegetable Lover's Tour of the Middle East Buy it from the Guardian bookshop Tell us what you think: Star-rate and review this book The basic recipe for this is from Dina, our Lebanese bakers – but I have interfered with it a bit. Fresh Iranian dates will make your life easier – they are good and soft. I should also recommend unsalted butter, but I like salted in this context. Serves 6 For the pastry: For the filling: Sift the flour into a bowl, mix in the semolina and the spices, and then chop the butter into the mix and rub it through with the tips of your fingers. Add the flower water, and then beat in enough milk to make the dough cling together in a soft, tactile ball. Cover with a clean dish towel and leave to sit for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, make the filling: to be honest, I just squidge it all together with my hands. Handy hint: if you are using dried dates, you can make them more malleable by putting them in a small pan, sploshing them with 1–2 tablespoons water, and bringing them to a simmer for 10 minutes. To form the ma'amoul: they should look rather like baby, ridged traffic cones, so break off a little piece of the dough, cup it in your hand, and then use a finger to create a well in it. Press a little of the filling into the middle of each, and then close the pastry around it, flattening it off so that you can turn it upside down and sit it on a baking tray. To get that authentic, ridged look, run a fork gently down the sides of the cone. (If you like this recipe, it is worth investing in a ma'amoul mould – you'll not only save yourself time, but you'll also gain one of those kitchen thingummybobs that any avid cook likes to collect.) Bake the ma'amoul at 160C / 325F / Gas mark 3 for about 20 minutes, or until they acquire just the faintest golden hue: it is important not to overcook them, as they will then be awfully hard and dry once they cool. Let them cool a little and then dredge them with icing sugar before serving with the ice cream. For the ice cream: Remove the knobbly bits from the figs, and quarter them. Pop them into a saucepan with the water and the lemon zest, cover and cook gently, stirring occasionally, for 8–10 minutes, or until the figs look lovely and soft and inviting. Next add the sugar, bring the liquid up to bubbling, and cook until the mixture becomes jammy. Allow to cool, then beat together with the cream and lemon juice to taste. Pour into a freezer-safe container and freeze for 1 hour. After this time, churn it up again, and then pop it back into the freezer. Remove it from the freezer 10 minutes before serving. • This recipe is taken from Veggiestan: a vegetable lover's tour of the middle east by Sally Butcher with photography by Yuki Sugiura (Pavillion, £25). Order a copy for £20 from the Guardian bookshop 
Haggis is traditionally enjoyed and devoured on Burns Night (25 January), when Scotland marks the birth of its most famous poet, Robert Burns. With the celebrations almost upon us, Rich Summers from our butchery and charcuterie team shares his recipe for this classic Scottish dish… Ingredients 1.5 kg boneless, fatty pork belly or shoulder 
Ingredienti 
I think one of the travesties in mainstream American food culture is the kneejerk revulsion towards offal. For those of you unfamiliar with offal, it typically refers to edible internal organs and entrails of animals. 
This week for Cooking Around the World Friday, Zita shares her tradition and recipe for Mákos Guba, a traditional Hungarian Christmas Dessert (RT @ziziadventures: See my "Cooking Around the World" article on @travelbelles.)... 
THIS IS PAULA DEEN'S RECIPE FOR FRESH TANGERINE CAKE. MY FRIEND MADE THIS AND IT WAS HEAVENLY! THOUGHT I WOULD SHARE WITH YOU AS I WILL BE MAKING THIS ONE THIS WEEKEND! ENJOY! 
After a filling Seder dinner, this colorful dessert is a welcome treat. It is a study in contrasts -- sweet and tart, crunchy and smooth -- and totally satisfying. As an added bonus, it can be made in advance. Powdered sugar is not kosher for Passover because of the cornstarch it contains. Our easy substitute is a combination of potato starch and sugar whirled in the blender. 
It was my first attempt at pannacotta, but I wanted to emmulate Fins delicious Lemon Myrtle Pannacotta with Finger Lime. We grow Kaffir lime on our balcony, so I opted for to combine lime flavours for the dessert. It was a great balance between citrussy flavour, creamy texture, sweet limey syrup and the explosion of the finger lime spheres which truly pop in the mouth! A beautiful fresh dinner to highlight a lesser known magical fruit from the land of Oz! 
Persimmon is a most understood fruit. Those who “hate” persimmon probably do so as a result of a confusion between fuyu and hachiya varieties. If you attempted to eat an unripe hachiya, that is certainly the cause of your disgust. An unripe hiachya is super-tannic and can taste like chalk or bark. Or worse. Its astringency makes it totally unpalatable. A fully ripe hachiya, however, has the consistency of jelly and is sweet and rich. And a ripe fuyu has a firm texture and tastes like a honey-flavored apple. Now, who “hates” that? 
Tapioca & Soto is a highlight from the "Food from Sabah Malaysia" series on The Longest Way Home... 
Le madeleine (madeleinette o petit madeleine se di forma più piccola) sono dei tipici e soffici dolcetti francesi a forma di conchiglia, originari di Commercy, comune situato in Lorena, nella Francia del nord-est. La forma delle madeleine è dovuta allo stampo a conchiglia nel quale vengono cotte; si pensa che questi dolci risalgano al XVIII secolo, quando Luigi XV, assaggiatele allo Chateau de Commercy, se ne innamorò a tal punto che gli diede il nome della pasticcera che le aveva create: Madeleine Paulmier. 
've never had or made a pumpkin roll before, or any other kind of roll for that matter. I was originally going to make the traditional pumpkin roll but then I found a recipe that combined the flavors of pumpkin and orange and it intrigued me. So I decided to make both :) I was honestly a little intimidated by the idea making my own roll, but it really wasn't that difficult. |
San Francisco Chronicle (blog)Tracking down the best chocolate dessertsSan Francisco Chronicle (blog)Not a day goes by that I'm not challenged by a reader e-mail, whether it's someone looking for a place to dine by the airport, a diner who craves... 
Last week I began seeing TV ads for kids’ meals from IHOP (a division of DineEquity) tied to today’s release of the family film Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax from Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment. The ads tout new menu items, including a pancake stuffed into a waffle cone, topped with blueberry compote and powdered sugar; a version with ham, eggs, and creamed spinach (hence “green” eggs); and a rendition that adds hash browns to the mix. But what’s the caloric content of these breakfast items? IHOP provides nutritional information on its website, but I couldn’t find the Lorax meals. Patrick Lenow, executive director of corporate communications, looked into the matter and discovered this was an oversight. It’s on the site now. Still, it’s troubling that the corporations behind these fast-food outlets continue to target kids with ads for high-calorie meals when our nation is facing what can only be called an obesity crisis. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of overweight or obese children in this country has more than tripled in the past thirty years—over a third of children and adolescents weigh too much. Given this, is it right for restaurant chains to market belly-busting breakfasts to kids? The combo platter mentioned above packs 1,050 calories and 52 grams of fat into one meal—more than half the total calories most kids should consume in a day. You can cut calories by choosing just a Rooty Tooty Bar-Ba-Looty Blueberry Cone Cake (a relatively paltry 330 calories and 7 grams of fat), but let’s face it: This is still a confection masquerading as breakfast. It’s time for the hospitality industry and the entertainment conglomerates who work with them to rethink their promotional offerings to children. Kids don’t know any better, but parents who give their children dessert for breakfast are not giving them their just deserts. Bruce Weinstein, PhD, is the author of Ethical Intelligence (New World Library, 2011) and host of "Ask the Ethics Guy!" on Bloomberg Businessweek's online management channel. He frequently gives keynote addresses on ethics and leadership to businesses, nonprofit organizations, and schools across the U.S. Readers can follow him on Facebook and Twitter. 
At 12, Arantxa Zecchini-Dowling has very clear ideas on what she likes and doesn't like when it comes to parties. So when she couldn't find a decent book to help her make things that met her criteria, she decided to write one herself. "I really like organising my own parties, but I didn't really have anything like it [the book] for girls my age, everything was too childish or too difficult." Arantxa, who is in year eight, had help from her mother, Auckland food writer Alessandra Zecchini, and they worked on creating the recipes during a seven-month stint in Italy last year. The result is Party Food For Girls, an undeniably girly book full of adorably pretty things to make. There are lots of projects to keep young hands busy for hours - delicate petits fours and meringue wreaths, a fairytale cookie house and a much-simplified version of the Italian mimosa cake that is traditionally given to women on Women's Day (March 8). But there are also recipes for more every day food - with high fruit and vegetable content - to please parents. "Mum and I would try the recipes together, then I would try it out by myself to see if it worked," Arantxa says. "I'm not a fussy eater and I like most things." The budding cook says the secret to having fun in the kitchen is to "enjoy yourself". "Just relax and have fun, and cook things that you know people will like." MIMOSA CAKE This is a spectacular cake that even younger children can make. This is more like a fun assembling project, which can be done in a short time and with spectacular results. It is called "mimosa" because it resembles the mimosa flower. You can also make a pineapple mimosa variation by adding canned pineapple pieces to the filling. Serves 8-10. 300ml whipping cream 2 Tbsp icing sugar 500ml custard or creme anglaise 2 x 20cm round sponge cakes an electric beater, whip the cream until light and foamy. Add the icing sugar and fold in. Add half the whipped cream to the custard or creme anglaise and fold gently. Place both the custard and the rest of the cream in the fridge. Using a bread knife, carefully remove the entire golden crust from the top, the bottom and the sides of the sponges. Slice one of the sponge cakes across the middle to make two discs (some ready-made sponge cakes are sold already cut). Place the first disc on a very large serving plate - you will need to leave quite a bit of space around the borders, because the sponge will eventually become a larger dome-shaped cake. Ad Feedback Spread two tablespoons of the custard over one of the sponge halves, then top with half the cream. Cover with the other half sponge, and spread the top with the rest of the cream. Take the other sponge cake, cut into two discs, then cut one disc into a smaller round cake, about 10 centimetres in diameter. Place the smaller disc on top of the cake, in the centre, then spread all the remaining custard evenly around the sides and the top of the cake stack. 
Ho ordinato le arance ai Contadini per passione e mi sono arrivate dalla Sicilia in 2 giorni, Le arance non sono trattate e quindi le ho solo lavate… 
Cod Offal. by Winston on January 13, 2012. Cod Tongues. I didn't know that cod had tongues. I didn't even know they could speak. Kristin's father told me about them being a delicacy a long time ago, and I had been anxious to try them ever ... 
Johan's Passion for ....Cooking: TRADITIONAL KOEKSISTERS http://t.co/6QG3tNpR... 
Ingredienti per 8/10 persone: 
It’s here in Testaccio where you can grab a suppli – deep fried arancini-like little balls of rice, meat and cheese – or the so-called ‘trapizzini’ at 00100, where you can devour a hybrid between a pizza and a tramezzino filled with classic Roman stews like coda alla vaccinara (oxtail) and lingua (tongue) con salsa verde. Or the unique Roman dish of pajata, the intestines of milk-fed veal which when cooked reveal a tasty, cheese-like cream inside. They are either simply grilled or tossed through rigatoni and tomato sauce. 
This plated dessert consists of crumbled graham cracker crust, key lime mousse, meringue, finger lime and rhubarb gelee. The dessert is light - sweet yet tangy, but you get a punch at the end when you bite into the finger lime. I think it's a nice little surprise for the unsuspecting. 
I love the fresh taste of the kaffir lime in these salmon cakes, and wish I had used an extra leaf. I also think it could definitely have used that wasabi kick. The "ponzu" sauce helped reinforce that nice lime flavor. All in all, this salmon cake recipe is a keeper! 
I've had dried lavender burning a hole in my pantry for ages, so I decided it was time to make something yummy. Once I started looking for ideas, I was amazed to discover that there's an entire c... 
This galette was filled with both fresh and dried cranberries, apples, lime zest, and fresh ginger, tossed together with some raspberry jam (I used orange marmalade), lime juice and brown sugar. The layer of ground nuts and bread crumbs lining the bottom of the galette was subtle but perfect. The combination of cranberries and lime is wonderful - I love a good cosmopolitan, but I've never seen the cranberry and lime combination in sweets before. |
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