October 2021: Salmon, Tomato & Basil Soup; Courgette, Tomato and Basil Pie with Goat's Cheese; Dattelmakronen (Date Macaroons)

Blimey, that's a lot of basil. At least the macaroons won't have any in (I assume).

Yes, as the German title suggests, this month we celebrate the Random Kitchen debut of Backen macht Freude, the most recent addition to my collection! Alongside that, it's a basil-tastic journey through two older books that have tended to deliver mostly decent results in the past. Sounds promising, right...? Join me for the antepenultimate edition of the Random Menu and find out! 

Wait a minute, "antepenultimate"? Well, I did restart this blog to help me ride out a lockdown or three, and so I don't specifically intend to carry on after Christmas unless the winter prompts the government to admit that Covid still exists after all.

So OK, not necessarily the antepenultimate edition...

◘ THE STARTER ◘

The book: A Soup For Every Day (The New Covent Garden Food Co.)

The recipe: p144, "Salmon, Tomato & Basil Soup"

Let's be honest, "salmon soup" sounds like a weird concept right from the get-go, but I'm definitely here for it.

I suppose it's not that odd really; fish soup itself is no rarity, conjuring up visions of everything from bouillabaisse to lobster bisque. "Salmon, tomato and basil" sounds more like an Ainsley main meal, though - inevitably served with a side of oven-baked potatoes, a green vegetable and a stupid recipe name - so I'm curious as to how it'll translate into soup.

(The short answer, for those who are too impatient to read on, is "lumpy".)

The ingredient list for this one is threateningly long, but the preparation isn't especially difficult. Notable ingredients include both fresh salmon and smoked salmon trimmings, and fish stock - or "shellfish stock" as M&S insists on calling theirs, because M&S. Still, it's not something that's stocked (no pun intended) by any of the other Lewisham supermarkets, so M&S it is.

There are two phases to the making: let's call them Before The Blend and After The Blend. On the "Before" side, it's all fairly standard for a soup. Butter is heated, onion and garlic are sweated, flour is stirred in, then the remainder of the soup base ingredients are added: the stock, a decent slosh of white wine, some milk, tomato purée, a pinch of cayenne pepper, and a bay leaf. This combo is simmered until the onions are soft, then the bay leaf is removed, and the soup base is cooled until it can be blended without me scorching my forearms.

So this has started appetisingly

As it turns out, "blend until smooth" isn't the easiest instruction to follow when what you're blending is almost all liquid, give or take a medium onion. My hand blender does its best, but what I'm left with at the end mainly resembles a fizzy latte.

Croissant, anyone...?

Anyway, during the aforementioned cooling phase, I was preparing the remainder of the dish. That meant chopping a salmon steak into 2cm cubes, chopping some fresh basil (the recipe calls for one tablespoon, but that seems incredibly measly for six bowls' worth of soup, so I do at least three times as much - it's in the title, for heaven's sake, it ought to be actively present), and... ah. Apparently the 700g of ripe firm tomatoes needed to be not only deseeded and diced, but skinned first.

Well, ain't no one got time for that, as the cool kids say. The skins will soften in the soup, and it's not like I'm serving this to the Queen at one of the dinner engagements that have left her knackered of late. We'll cope.

So, the fizzy latte is reheated to boiling and the salmon cubes, salmon trimmings, diced tomatoes and chopped basil are introduced and cooked for a couple of minutes "until the salmon is just firm".

And that's it, pretty much! A "garnish" is also called for - this involves some whole basil leaves, a dusting of paprika, and a swirl of single cream that immediately merges into the ocean of liquid in each bowl.

Elegant

 
Which, I think, goes some way to summing up the problem with this soup. Even by Random standards, it is very much just some stuff floating in (or sinking to the bottom of) an awful lot of wetness. Erm, so to speak. It's definitely not one for fans of consistency and texture, that's for sure. In hindsight, I think it would have made a lot more sense to include the salmon trimmings at the pre-blend stage and get a bit more substance into the soup base.

But, I have to admit that's the only real problem with it. The flavours are nice - how could they not be, they're a decent main course in a bowl - and there's some quite interesting stuff going on in there. It's just a bit of an odd eat and not one I feel especially compelled to repeat.

File under: Nice but conceptually flawed.

◘ THE MAIN COURSE ◘

The book: Masterclass (James Martin)

The recipe: p22, "Courgette, Tomato and Basil Pie with Goat's Cheese"

Now here's a thing.

I went through the whole process of making this dish. I found a local, far less pretentious equivalent to the "Dorstone cheese" that features in the actual recipe title. I let out a quiet cheer to myself at the return of that old Random Kitchen staple, the "thing calling itself a pie that's actually just some ingredients with a bit of puff pastry rested on top".

I sliced courgettes lengthways, cursed the recipe when they took more than twice as long to brown in the oven as they should have done, and wondered why I wasn't told to cut them into smaller pieces before adding them to the pie mixture.

I took lovingly framed photographs of the pie filling, even though courgettes, sunblush tomatoes, shallots, basil, garlic and crumbled goat's cheese were never going to be the most photogenic thing in the world.

See?

I noted that the photo accompanying the recipe had some nice pastry patterns on top of the pie, so even though the recipe itself doesn't mention using the trimmed pastry for this purpose, I did what I could within the constraints of my personal lack of artistry.

Self-praise is no praise

I took the pie out of the oven - again, about ten minutes after the recipe wanted me to, because it clearly wasn't browned enough yet. My "K" disintegrated a bit along the way, but these things can happen.

Slop

We cut into the pie. As expected, it had precisely zero internal cohesion.

We ate it anyway. Despite being sloppy, it was quite nice. I made some notes and filed them away for later.

And then, while writing up those notes today, purely out of curiosity, I Googled the phrase "even a French crottin" to see if anyone else had picked up on James Martin's endless pretension when it comes to goat's cheese, and I realised that...

...oh.

The single solitary hit for that phrase on Google is the Random Kitchen post from October 2016 in which I made exactly the same pie.

It probably says all you need to know about the bang-averageness of this dish that Sam and I had both completely forgotten about having literally made and eaten it before.

On re-reading that post, I'm reassured to note that our verdict is largely the same as it was five years ago; broadly speaking, thumbs down for the lack of "pie-ness" but thumbs up for some of the flavours.

That's embarrassing though. My recipe books are packed full of similarly "perfectly OK" recipes that I could have been making instead. Sorry everyone...

File under: Eminently forgettable, apparently.

 

◘ THE DESSERT ◘

The book: Backen macht Freude (Dr. Oetker)

The recipe: p370, "Dattelmakronen" (Date Macaroons)

At least I can be sure I haven't made these before, since the book is new to my collection. But I'm shedding an anguished tear for a different reason, and that reason is the sheer cruelty of the random number generator. A big chunky cookbook packed full of hearty German bakes that would have been the perfect kitchen fit as the autumn closes in around us, and I have to make some lightweight meringue puffs?

Not only that, but the adjacent pages are full of macaroons with far more appealing flavour combinations - there's one that's basically just Nutella - and I'm stuck with poxy date and almond. Ah well. I suppose it's... kind of festive? So let's crack on.

This classic German book from the Dr. Oetker stable, updated for the modern age but still cheerfully traditional, comes with "SUCCESS GUARANTEED" emblazoned on the front cover. The ingredient list for this recipe gives a first indication as to why they feel confident in making this boast - including, as it does, a "sachet" of vanilla sugar and a "vial" (!) of rum flavouring. See, what they mean by those vague descriptions is "the packaging sizes you get when you buy the Dr. Oetker-branded products". Clever.

And so, via an order from the German Deli (and a parcel that goes missing thanks to DHL - no hyperlink for you), I find myself pre-emptively stocking my kitchen with various things that I'm likely to need as I work my way through this book, both randomly and out of choice.

Yes, I even buy the Speisestärke called for in this recipe - that's basically just cornflour, but I figure there might be something different about the German version, so better safe than sorry.

Anyway. This recipe begins with fairly standard meringue procedure - egg whites, sugar (including the sachet of vanilla sugar), and lots of beating until some nice firm peaks form. (Or "until a knife cut remains visible", as the recipe insists.) Even as an experienced German translator, I have to double-check the meanings of a lot of the baking terminology to make sure I'm not going wrong here - I wouldn't want to get my unterschlagen, unterheben and unterrühren confused, after all.

The vial of rum flavouring also gets added at this stage. It definitely doesn't look at all suspicious.

Now I turn my attention to the ingredients that will be stirred through the macaroon mix, and this is where things get a bit silly. Finely chopped almonds, no problem; I can get those pre-chopped from the supermarket anyway (and I do). However, the pre-chopped dates you can buy are still too big for the "fine" pieces this recipe calls for - and I have whole dates in the cupboard anyway following last month's weird dessert, so naturally, I do the job myself.

You see, the thing about chopped dates - their main distinguishing feature - is they're all sugary and sticky. So when the recipe asks me to mix them with the chopped almonds, all that's ever going to happen is some unfortunate clumping and clagging.

Thus rendering it pointless having chopped them up into tiny pieces in the first place. Sigh.

And when the recipe asks me to combine this with the meringue mixture, all that's ever going to happen is that the whole thing is going to end up looking like this.

Exactly: The almonds are nicely distributed throughout the mixture, but the dates most definitely are not, and there's no way of recovering the situation now.

I'm not sure how you'd avoid this really. Freeze the dates first, then chop them with a really sharp knife, then freeze them again before using them in the recipe? Or just surrender on the "fine pieces" requirement and use the shop-bought bigger chunks in the first place, in the hope that their coating might stop them from having the adhesive qualities that are inherent to the inside of a date?

Anyway, the next step is the slightly loose instruction to "use two teaspoons" to make "small heaps" of meringue on a baking tray.

This lack of clarity is problematic insofar as I realise I've used well over a third of the mix already and the recipe is meant to produce "around 50" macaroons. Whoopsie. Still, can't be helped - and besides, the photo in the book gives a sense that these things are meant to turn out fairly big and pillowy...

...albeit with the almonds clearly a lot more visible. (Should I have toasted them? Perhaps I should have, even though the recipe didn't tell me to. Never mind.)

Next, my baking tray goes into the oven for 20 minutes at - get this - 120 degrees. Yep, you're right, that is a subtle bake and no mistake. The idea is clearly to make the macaroons set so lightly that they're fluffy and airy. That's fine, but it also makes them very hard to handle. They break at the slightest touch, and about a quarter of them don't even make it off the baking sheet and are now being frozen for use as ice cream topping. (Waste not, want not!)

Those that do survive, however, look... well, they look much as they did before going into the oven.

See? Already crumbling

They also don't look a huge amount like the photo in the book, but I've already accepted the fact that the almond and date distribution is going to be all off here. That might also be why they're so breakable, I don't know.

In case the size is the problem, I do a final mini-batch that are a lot smaller...

(and somehow even less attractive)

...but no, they turn out to be just as brittle on the outside. It's clearly part of the design. To be fair, the recipe does talk about "carefully" removing them from the baking paper. I am inevitably reminded of certain other meringue-related experiences I have had in the past.

But enough about that, Faulkner - how do the things taste? Well, the flavour side of things is perfectly acceptable really. They're basically just little clouds of baked sugar, and that can never be too wrong. What's definitely a bit odd is the texture - the almond fragments are distributed fairly consistently, meaning you're always chewing on some nuts (steady, woman, steady!), but the clumping of the dates means you don't have the fruity chewiness to offset that. Instead, you get the occasional bite that's all date, whereas some of the macaroons don't have any in them at all.

Or, as Sam puts it, "It's got something not very nice in it, but everything else is good". (He got a bite that was all date.)

What is nice and chewy is the meringue interior, I have to say, despite my suspicions over the baking process. (Turns out 20 minutes at 120 degrees would have made my swans a lot more palatable too.) While going harder on the baking front would have made the macaroons firmer to the touch and less likely to immediately collapse, I suppose the gentle treatment is what gives them that chewiness that would otherwise be lost.

Good enough to be given to friends
Good enough for us to eat
Good for nothing

Anyway, while I cannot claim that this was a wholly successful bake, it wasn't terrible either. It just wasn't really what it was supposed to be... whatever that even was (I'm still not entirely sure).

Can we have a Stollen or a Kirschtorte next time please?

Until then, allow me to finish by bestowing upon you an Ohrwurm courtesy of the only thing that should ever spring to mind where dates and the German language are concerned. You're welcome!

File under: SUCCESS NOT GUARANTEED.

September 2021: Savoury Avocado Snack; Citrus-Crusted Cod with Cajun Spuds; Fruity Sticky Rice with Toffee Sauce

I keep my promises (most of the time) - and so normal service is duly resumed with a Random Menu for September that features two of our favourite authors from editions past, and a dessert from a book that I didn't think would contain any.

The randomness in my new kitchen starts about as uninspiringly as it possibly could, however: with a recipe entitled "Savoury Avocado Snack".

Let's just bask in those words for a moment.

Savoury. Avocado. Snack.

"Snack", that's a packed lunch box component as far as I'm concerned. A Club bar or some Dairylea Lunchables, that sort of thing. And as for the need to stress that this is a savoury avocado snack, as opposed to all those sweet avocado dishes you famously encounter...

So who could be behind such a flat and dull recipe name? You guessed it...

◘ THE STARTER ◘

The book: How To Boil An Egg (Jan Arkless)

The recipe: p55, "Savoury Avocado Snack"

Actually, we shouldn't be too harsh on old Jan. After all, How To Boil An Egg was published in 1986 - a time when, at least in my northern experience, most people mainly encountered avocado as a bathroom suite colour option. And yet here she is, giving the students of the mid-80s not one but three avocado recipes, including avocado stuffed with various fillings and even - gasp - a method for preparing avocado on toast. (Don't tell the Daily Mail comments section.)

Where the book does show its age is by referring to "avocado pears" throughout - I realise that's (still) a perfectly valid descriptor, but it does come across as a little quaint now.

Anyway, the first "S" of this particular SAS could easily have been "Simple" rather than "Savoury", because there's not a great deal of work involved. Or nothing complex, at least. Which is very much Jan's shtick. I require: an avocado (pear), a little cheese, 1-2 rashers of bacon, a little butter, and the rather non-specific "chunk of French bread". I suppose it's a question of your appetite and what you happen to have in the house. "Bread (to taste)", if you will.

Blimey, that's a lot of plastic

 
I'm doubling the quantities to make this a starter for the two of us, and I'm using smoked bacon medallions rather than rashers because... well, because they're better. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The first step is to fry that bacon over a moderate heat until it's crisp. Meanwhile, the avocado is de-stoned, peeled and sliced - no specifics on dimensions - and the cheese, too, is "grated or sliced". (I go with grated because I'm using pre-grated cheese from a bag, and forming slices out of that would seem a little counter-productive.)

I cut the French bread in half lengthways and spread the butter onto it. Next, I'm called on to "arrange layers of the avocado and bacon on the bread" before topping it with the cheese. Again, no real instructions on how to do this - not that it's hard, but this book does famously include an explanation of how to boil an egg, so I might have expected more hand-holding.

One of my avocados hasn't sliced especially well on account of being very ripe, so I do a mix and match, using some of the squishier avocado more like a spread and then heaping up the bits that did actually slice properly. It's not going to look elegant, but I don't think Jan is expecting it to, so we're fine. 

 
Next comes the first test for the grill in our oven - often a temperamental component of rented houses (is it any better with brand-new ovens?), but this one seems to do the job well enough and soon my cheese is "golden, bubbling and melted".

"Eat at once", Jan says, so we do.

And hey, it's okay! It's nothing stunning, obviously, but in terms of ingredients and preparation, it's already at the "ambitious" end of anything I actually rustled up during my three years of self-catering at Aston University plus a year abroad in Hamburg - I think the poor kids from my Gastfamilie there are still traumatised by the sheer number of supermarket own-brand pasta ready meals and frozen pizzas I got through during my time living with them.

Come to think of it, haven't I basically just made a variation on this?

Only, you know, less cardboardy. No wonder I enjoyed it.

File under: Would easily sell for £6.50 in an artisanal South London café

◘ THE MAIN COURSE ◘

The book: Meals In Minutes (Ainsley Harriott)

The recipe: p88, "Citrus-Crusted Cod with Cajun Spuds"

Since we're talking titles, this has a very tame one by Ainsley standards. Not least since it sits opposite a recipe called - I kid you not - "Rocky Road Potato Cod". (It's not actually a chocolate traybake with bits of fish in it, but nothing would surprise me with Ainsley.)

At the risk of sounding like an "AIBU" Mumsnet post, I have to start by making a little point. So the concept of Meals In Minutes is - as you'll have gathered - quick and easy dishes to rustle up at the end of a long day's work. "Preparation: 10 mins | Cooking time: 20 mins" is the boast at the top this particular recipe. Which is why it's a little galling to find, buried away in the ingredient list next to the titular potatoes, the word "cooked". That's right: I'm expected to have cooked the potatoes before cutting them into wedges, seasoning them and popping them into the oven. And somehow boiling the potatoes magically doesn't count as part of the preparation or cooking time, because... we all have cooked potatoes just lying around the place? Oka-a-a-ay.

Potatoes that have very definitely been prepared

Fortunately time is on my side today - and in any case, the accompaniments aren't the important part of this particular dish. So rather than dwell on the "Cajun Spuds" - they're fairly standard oven-cooked potatoes, as you'll gather from the "before" photo above - or the accompanying steamed broccoli, I'm going to focus on the "Citrus-Crusted Cod".

 
I almost never buy cod to eat at home. It's a restaurant treat, or if nothing else, a Gosforth Chippy treat (which is better than most restaurants anyway). I suppose that's a bit silly really, because even if it has got pricier over the years, it's not that much more expensive than the various white fish alternatives - basa, pollock, etc. - that the supermarkets have felt the need to come up with to fill that entry-level gap in the market. And it is noticeably better. It's the "if a pint of Carling is £5, I might as well pay £6 for something actually nice" logic, and I should remember to apply it more often.

It's certainly nice to be handling some good meaty chunks (oo-er) here, because the first step is for me to spread sun-dried tomato paste over one side of the cod fillets. Due to in-store shortages of some items for some reason or other, the paste is home-made and involves decent quantities of garlic - it's my party and I'll ward off vampires if I want to.

The paste then serves as the "glue" for a mixture of breadcrumbs, fresh parsley, lemon rind, lemon juice, salt and pepper, which is pressed into the paste-covered fish to form a crust of sorts.

Though of course the crust won't be crusty until it's been cooked, and that's where I'm a little cynical: I'm expected to cook the fillets breadcrumb-side down in a frying pan for three minutes before flipping them over - without everything falling apart in a big old pile of disaster - and baking them in the oven for a further 8-10 minutes until cooked. Uh-oh.

But to my great surprise, it works! I possibly go a little long on the frying pan phase out of fear that my crust won't be crusty enough - it ends up closer to the burny end of the spectrum, but not in a way that impairs the flavour in any way. In any case, nothing falls apart, disaster is averted, and the dish is ready to go into the oven.

 
While it's in there alongside some tenderstem broccoli (steaming is for people who own steamers), I assemble the final element of the meal, a rather optimistically named "salsa" that mainly comprises deseeded chopped tomatoes, sliced spring onions and some oil and lemon juice. Hm.

 
As unconvinced as I am about the salsa, I'm really happy with how the fish looks when it comes out of the oven, and the eating only reinforces this impression. It's an effective combination of powerful flavours that pairs well with the meatiness of the white fish - and I include the salsa in that, even if the recipe generates far too much of it (what you see on each plate here is about, ooh, one-eighth or so of the whole thing, and I've done double portions of the fish because we're hungry bois, so you get the idea).

Potato preparation gripes aside, I absolutely cannot complain about this one, then. Good work, Ainsley. Even if an awful lot of your recipes do seem to fall into the category of "fish/chicken with something on top and a vegetable on the side". Still, if it ain't broke...

File under: Genuine (suburban) restaurant quality (circa 1998)

◘ THE DESSERT ◘

 The book: Chinese Food Made Easy (Ching-He Huang)

The recipe: p150, "Fruity Sticky Rice with Toffee Sauce"

"Steaming is for people who own steamers", he says, just as random.org picks out a steamed rice dessert for this month's menu. Ho hum.

I have to admit, I was expecting to have to re-spin the wheel here, because Chinese Food Made Easy didn't feel like it'd be overflowing with dessert options. That comes from a slightly stereotypical view born of the British Chinese restaurant menus of my childhood, all deep-fried banana fritters in syrup and not a great deal else. Which is fine by me, really - I'm happy to skip a dessert if it means more room for crispy duck. Nevertheless, this book does indeed offer a short but perfectly formed "Desserts and Drinks" section, containing magnificently named recipes like "Great Wall of China Green Tea Ice Cream with Candied Walnuts" and - wait for it - "Empress Dowager Cixi's Longevity Peach Pudding".

Of course I don't get to make any of those. Instead, prepare yourself for what basically amounts to a Christmas pudding only with rice instead of flour. Great.

It's quite an interesting one to make, though. First, I take some pre-cooked glutinous rice...

Pre-cooked by someone else

 
...and briefly wok-fry it in butter with some chopped dates, "dried golden raisins and cranberries", orange zest, caster sugar and ground cinnamon until the ingredients are all nicely combined.

 
The reason for the sarcastic quote marks above is that golden raisins end up eluding me on my shopping travels (though hindsight and Google tell me that Holland & Barrett might have done the trick). As a nod to the spirit of the recipe, I adapt an Ottolenghi trick from a past random recipe and soak some regular raisins in freshly boiled water for ten minutes or so to make them a bit softer and less gritty, at least. It doesn't make them any closer to "golden", but it's a step in the right direction.

Mmm, murky raisin water

 
The wok-combined ingredients are then spooned into ramekins (or small bowls in this case), which are filled right up to the top. Since I'm going to have to turn these out later, I make sure everything is nicely squished down.

The rice bowls are then put aside until I'm ready to cook them - which, yes, is meant to involve a bamboo steamer. Thankfully, Ching gives me an "If you do not have a steamer, see page 173" option, which requires me to deploy a baking tray, tin foil, some boiling water and a hot oven.

Hey, if it works, it works

 
Whatever the method, the plan is for the steamed sticky rice to slide seamlessly out of the buttered ramekins/bowls onto a plate. I'm always sceptical about this kind of thing, but lo and behold...

Ta-dah!

And actually, if we stopped here, this would be fine as it stands. You have to like dried fruit and Christmassy flavours to be into it - Sam isn't, I just about am - but it does what it's meant to do fairly well, and it looks quite cute.

What's weird is that the recipe then calls for me to make an incredibly rich and sugary toffee sauce and pour it "around the steamed rice pudding as well as over the top"... and also sprinkle some chocolate-covered raisins around the dessert to finish.

I mean, okay?

Way to make the whole thing look like various small animals have had accidents on and around it.

You'll have gathered from my tone that, as well as ruining the look of the dessert, this wrecks the eating side of things too. There's absolutely no need for all this rich buttery sugary sauce when the rice is already full of flavour and texture - it just swamps whatever fruitiness is left in a bunch of fruit that's already been dried to peak sugar density anyway. And as for the chocolate raisins: weird. Just weird.

So yeah. I don't really get this at all. As a series of cooking techniques it's quite fun, and I'd be tempted to repeat the whole "steamed sticky rice with sweet stuff in" experiment with some flavours that I think would work better, because it presents nicely (as long as you don't throw poo-coloured things at it) and you can prepare it ahead of time - both of which are definitely Good Things. As it stands, though, this is not making me at all confident about the quality of the other dessert recipes in this book. Not even Empress Dowager Cixi and her peach pudding.

File under: Send it back to the chef and order some more duck and pancakes

August 2021: An apology

No Random Kitchen this month, I'm afraid - way too much going on, from a protracted (though successfully completed) house move, to family stuff, to watching the Olympics when I could have been making a fennel and caramel soufflé or whatever the hell else is lurking in the pages of my cookbook collection, just waiting to be unearthed by the finger of fate.

Normal service will resume in September. 🙌

I have, however, received a new addition to the collection as a housewarming gift - the veritable Bible of German baking, which should hopefully provide plenty of translation-related merriment (as well as some pleasingly weighty bakes).

And on the other side of the collection refresh, not only did several cookbooks get snapped up from outside our old house almost immediately, including Everyday Novelli (dear new owner, I am so very sorry) - but a few weeks have now passed since this tweet:

Having conclusively failed to be claimed from outside our house (even Novelli got taken!), I'm thrilled to announce that Barbara Kafka's seminal "Microwave Gourmet" is now available from the phone booth library on #Lewisham Way/Tyrwhitt Road. Will anyone fall for its charms? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/gqMjHRu7f3

— Martin Faulkner (@faulknmd) August 4, 2021

...and I'm thrilled to say that Barbara Kafka is no longer to be found on those esteemed shelves! Now, there are some big empty gaps in there now, so I can't say for sure that The Microwave Gourmet hasn't just been thrown in the bin by whoever periodically curates the place (and I wouldn't blame them) - but I like to think there's someone, somewhere in Lewisham, currently discovering the unique joys of "Apple Butter" and "Thanksgiving Pudding".

Although I still wouldn't rule this out altogether...

 See you next month!

July 2021: Chicken and Salsa Verde Crostini; Green Lentil and Coconut Curry; Thanksgiving Pudding

It's hard to believe this is the last Random Kitchen I'll be doing in our current house. If the walls could talk, what tales they'd tell of swan meringues, microwaved vegetables, and loud bouts of swearing interspersed with manic laughter.

Since it's about to join the pile of items that will not be making the move with us (sorry fans), it's entirely appropriate that Barbara Kafka's Microwave Gourmet makes a farewell appearance this month courtesy of the random number generator - and with a microwave dessert, no less. What a treat!

But let's start at the very beginning - a very good place to start...

◘ THE STARTER ◘

The book: Good Housekeeping Easy To Make Complete Cookbook

The recipe: p12, "Chicken and Salsa Verde Crostini"

We've had some decent experiences with this cookbook so far, albeit nothing mindblowing, which feels in keeping with the resolutely solid Good Housekeeping ethos. This starter both looks and sounds most acceptable too. I'm never quite sure what makes crostini different to other forms of "nibbly stuff on a toasted base", but you can't go too far wrong with what is essentially party food, even if a housewarming party for our new pad might have to wait until the world is a bit more normal again.

For a "30-minute recipe", the ingredients list on this one is rather daunting, although it turns out that a lot of it is the stuff that's getting blitzed together to make the salsa. 

In fact, let's begin there, even if the recipe doesn't: I take several tablespoons of chopped coriander, mint and basil and pop them in a food processor along with some mustard, three anchovy fillets, a tablespoon of capers, plenty of olive oil, the juice of half a lemon, and a clove of garlic (well, a clove's-worth of garlic paste - I'm lazy and the end result is going to be a liquid anyway).

Might have gone a bit heavy on the mustard, actually

The next step in the process is exactly as you might expect, with the following outcome:

Next, I take a handful of walnuts, toast them in a dry pan and set them aside before chopping them up once they've cooled a bit.

There's a walnut theme to this recipe, actually, because it also wants to use walnut bread as the crostini base. I tend to think of that as having a rounder form and I'd have thought something more baguette-ish would be closer to the right size and shape for the purpose - though I suppose bread can be any shape really, can't it? Anyway, I don't have time to go round a bunch of local independents (soz) but there is one supermarket that has a space on the shelf for walnut bread, and that's the Sainsbury's in the Lewisham shopping centre. Sadly, that space is very much empty when I visit. I end up having a nice conversation with a member of staff about food delivery delays, pingdemics and such, the upshot of which is "you're not getting a walnut loaf this side of the weekend, pal".

I'm not baking one either (it is HIGH SUMMER are you CRAZY), so instead I make do with its spiritual cousin once removed: a dark rye loaf from the M&S bakery. This wants to be "cut into 15 x 1cm slices" before being sprinkled with sea salt, but it isn't quite long enough to support those numbers, so instead I go with some more bite-sized half-slices.

And if you think I went heavy on the mustard earlier, just wait till you see my sea salt sprinkling skills...

Bagsy the ones in the top-right and bottom-right. Salt is awesome.

These bready bites are grilled "until lightly toasted" (I must remember not to do this on the Foreman, it never really works), and then it's time for assembly!

Each piece of toasted bread is topped with a slice or two of cooked chicken breast (straight out of a packet from the chiller cabinet at Asda - thank you, gym bunnies who need lazy protein snacks), then a dollop of the salsa verde and a couple of slices of chopped sundried tomatoes, then the aforementioned walnuts and a "sprinkling" (here we go again) of flat-leaf parsley to garnish.

I dislike this last part, because herb "garnishes" invariably make it look like you've just accidentally tipped some leaves onto your dinner (this theme will recur later), but what the heck. This is the end result:

And hey, that's not too bad, right? Other than the leaves, like I said.

I'm pleased to report that these crostini eat very nicely too. As foreshadowed, I have gone a bit heavy on the mustard in the salsa verde - the recipe called for Dijon, whereas I used some medium-strength Polish mustard I had in the house in the honest assumption that it'd be a near enough equivalent, but it's clearly a bit more potent. Still, it's not enough to kill off the general flavour profile, which is very decent indeed.

Even as someone who likes walnuts, I don't think this recipe needs both walnut bread and a walnut garnish, so I'm reasonably happy to have been forced to use the dark rye instead. What I will say is that, if you were serving these as party canapés, the walnut pieces would immediately fall off and go absolutely everywhere. Be prepared for some vacuuming, in other words. If you do manage to get them into your mouth, though, they add a satisfying crunch to proceedings.

Then again, that could just be the excess sea salt...

One-word verdict: Gnarly.

 

◘ THE MAIN COURSE ◘

The book: My red recipe folder

The recipe: "Green Lentil and Coconut Curry"

I sometimes feel like I'm in a constant pass-agg battle with clients and proofreaders over the merits of the Oxford comma, but in this case it is worth pointing out that this recipe does not call for a green coconut (though such a thing does apparently exist).

Actually, it barely calls for coconut at all. But we'll get to that.

This is a recipe I found, downloaded and printed years ago, not that I have any active memory of doing so. (Presumably this was before I bought Madhur's Curry Easy, which isn't short of a lentil recipe or twelve.) It's the second time we've dipped into this folder of random curry recipes recently, but that's the nature of the project for you - while I'm allowed to veto things like sauces, condiments or live lobsters, "that's a bit repetitive" isn't usually a criterion for dismissal, otherwise we wouldn't have had so many deeply average desserts involving meringues and strawberries recently.

What I will say about this recipe - and there isn't much to say about it - is that it involves a technique point that catches me a little off-guard. I've made more veggie curries than I care to remember, and they basically all involve frying up onions, spices and maybe some tomatoes to create a base, before tipping in some cooked lentils and/or other ingredients.

Here, though, I start to cook up a bunch of well-rinsed lentils in a whole litre and a half of vegetable stock...

Yum

...then prepare the base in a frying pan, this involving an onion, garlic, ginger, a chopped green chilli, mustard seeds, some curry powder, some garam masala, plenty of tomato purée and - here we go - half a cup of coconut milk.

Yep, that's the "coconut" content that merits a mention in the recipe title. Well, okay. You're the boss, long-forgotten website from 2009.

Yum

Now here's the weird part: I tip the contents of the frying pan into the big pot with the lentils and the stock. Hm. The lentils have been cooking for 15 minutes at this stage, meaning they've absorbed some of the liquid, but really not all that much - and so, yes, the result is somewhat goop-like.

If all else fails it'll make a nice soup

There's another 20 minutes of cooking time to go, though, and that - plus a pause in proceedings while Sam goes for a run - is enough to let things thicken into something recognisably curry-like.

There are two steps remaining before I serve up, and the first is to add two big handfuls of spinach leaves. You're thinking what I'm thinking, aren't you? Why wouldn't you call this a green lentil and spinach curry? Your guess is as good as mine.

Anyway, the final step involves some coriander "to garnish", but because I have no desire to photograph yet more food with greenery strewn atop it, I stir the coriander leaves (and some stalks - as mentioned, I'm lazy) through the curry before plating up.

"Serve with brown rice", the recipe says, so I do.

And a roti for good measure

Between the rustic nature of the lentil goop and the absence of any real heat (just that solitary green chilli I mentioned earlier), it's clear that this is meant to fall more at the "warming and hearty" end of the culinary scale, but the garam masala, the curry powder and the earthiness of the cooked lentils make it a pleasantly rewarding eat. I choose to add a dollop of lime pickle to give it a bit more contrast, but it's not essential.

It's a little on the austere side - you'd ideally want it as one of several dishes on the table, I suppose - and there is absolutely no sign of any coconut flavour in the end product, but tailor this to be a teensy bit more exciting (it could easily cope with twice or three times as much spinach, for instance) and I'd be happy enough to add this to my arsenal of simple midweek meals.

Just as long as someone else does the washing-up

One-word verdict: Earthy.

 

◘ THE DESSERT ◘

The book: Microwave Gourmet (Barbara Kafka)

The recipe: p352, "Thanksgiving Pudding"

If anyone wants this book, holler now - it's going outside our house as soon as I hit "Publish" on this post, and I'm sure the good people of Lewisham will be fighting each other to take it home with them.

I feel a little bad getting rid of it, because this silly project has never really allowed us to do a deep dive into its pages. There are some interesting-sounding dishes in there (or at least not terrible-sounding), whereas we've had to make do with apple sauce and well, you know. On the other hand, this third spin of the random wheel has given us yet another selection that fails to get the taste buds going - "Thanksgiving Pudding", whatever it may be, isn't something I'd be lining up to try even at the right time of year - so perhaps it's only right that Barbara's days are numbered.

This recipe is the first in a section entitled "Steamed Puddings", not a category I would readily associate with the microwave. All the more reason to get stuck in, then. Starting with a quote from the lady herself:

"I'm afraid I've got rather satiated with the rich, traditional pies associated with Thanksgiving - pumpkin, pecan and mincemeat. Wanting something equally good but a less heavy, I devised this steamed pudding. Pumpkin can replace the acorn squash, if you like."

I do like, because I've never so much as heard of an acorn squash. One thing I've learned from being a long-standing Riverford veg box customer, however, is that there more types of squash than you could possibly imagine. And as pretty and varied as they look on the outside, they're mostly quite similar once you cut them open and dig out their flesh (mmm, flesh). The internet assures me that I can use butternut as a perfectly adequate substitute here, anyway, so that's what I'm doing.

As the above photo suggests, the basic principle behind this dish is to use the squash as a vehicle for carrying the flavours of sugar and autumnal-going-on-wintry spices.

I begin by liberally buttering a "ceramic dish or pudding basin" - this will have to do, even if we usually use it to serve crisps in.

 
The first deployment of the microwave today is to zap the cubed squash for eight minutes until it's nicely soft. I then set it aside to cool a little.

Meanwhile, I ready the food processor and tip in the dark brown sugar and the cubed unsalted butter. These are blitzed into a paste that looks every bit as appetising as you might hope.

That done, the squash cubes are added along with some double cream, a couple of eggs (I forgot to include them in the photo above), sifted plain flour, vanilla essence, and what I can only describe as tentative quantities of cinnamon and allspice.

This is blended to create a "smooth mixture" that gets poured into the prepared bowl, which is tightly covered with cling film.

Because I'm making half quantities here (as the recipe permits), that means halving the cooking time too, so the above goes into the microwave for a mere 4½ minutes "until set".

I'm deeply concerned by the additional note from Barbara saying "if the pudding looks moist in the centre, that is fine". This feels like it's going to end up a sloppy liquid mess. But no - the eggs, flour and other ingredients clearly do their job, because what emerges after 4½ minutes looks well set and has even come away from the edges of the dish slightly, suggesting that it'll tip out onto a plate without problems.

And, after being allowed to cool slightly, it does tip out onto a plate without problems!

There may be other problems, though...

I mean, wow. 

Granted, I didn't use a properly deep pudding basin so the flatness of the end result is partially my fault, but I don't feel like a better shape would have made this substantially easier on the eye.

Ever the optimist, Barbara suggests an "optional" garnish of candied orange peel and/or pomegranate seeds. I'm not wasting the latter on this nonsense, but I can definitely stretch to the former, so let's see if that improves the visual side of things at all.

That'd be a no

This is wonderful, really. It's everything I wanted from a final encounter with the Microwave Gourmet - baffling and bizarre and uniquely unappealing.

Regrettably, we also have to eat the thing. "Optional" double cream isn't an option I'm going to pass up any time soon, and so here's the plate-up pic:

And hey, you know, that's starting to look a bit more like actual food. If I thought the pudding was chocolate, say, I might be happy to get stuck into that. Unfortunately, I know it's made of butternut squash.

I should be fair and cut Barbara some slack, because it actually tastes okay. I suppose it would, really; there's enough sugar and other good stuff in there that it can't be completely wrong. And the "steamed pudding" consistency is authentic enough, without any of the faff of actual steaming.

There are two main reasons it only tastes "okay". Firstly, the spices: there's a tiny hint of allspice and cinnamon at the edges here, but if I were making this again (spoiler: I will not be making this again), I'd go all in on the spices to try and perk things up. And secondly, despite being comprehensively blended prior to cooking, the flavours in the pudding are uneven throughout - some mouthfuls are sweeter and nicer than others. I presume the different ingredient densities have played a part here, but that's a shame.

All in all, then, this "Thanksgiving Pudding" (still not a thing) is far from a disaster by the time it actually reaches our mouths, but it's fair to say it doesn't sell itself especially well along the way. That's three strikes and you're out - sorry, Babs.

One-word verdict: Unthankful.