try a new recipe every fortnight throughout 2008

Delicious and delicately spiced.

But boy, wasn’t I hungry, like, 30 minutes after eating it! I thought that was supposed to happen only with Chinese food?!?

My quiches are still butt-ugly for some unfathomable reason (well, not so unfathomable, really: I can’t quite get the custard-to-pie-to-filling ratio right), but at least there are no complaints on flavour.

This one turned out to be a touch greasy, but that’s entirely my fault for adding an extra splash of oil to the pepper-and-onion mix while I was sauteeing it. I just had to meddle, I couldn’t leave it be! Sheesh…

But all in all, I feel like I’m making progress on the learning curve, and that can be no bad thing.

The recipe called for equal amounts of fish and potato (which I think is the wrong ratio, incidentally: in my opinion, it could do with being more like 60/40), and not much else, except for spices and seasoning.

However, when I went to cook the patties, they just didn’t hold their shape. There was nothing wrong with the flavour, especially with the accompaniment of the Thai chilli sauce. But man, these things were… can we say ugly? :(

What should I use to make them hold their shape more? (Or at least a bit!) Should I dip them in beaten egg? Would that help give them more consistency?

It’s funny, I feel so confident cooking pasta dishes these days, but take me out of my comfort zone, and I’m a total amateur.

Still, I am a determined amateur, and I will get better, dammit!

Two weeks went past without me trying anything new in the kitchen. Oh, well. I’ll make it up this week with not one, but two new recipes.

A couple of nights ago, I made a new stir-fry with prawns, pak choi and peppers. It was lovely and, very importantly, super-fast!

And tonight, I will try to make fishcakes. I’m setting aside a good couple of hours because I have no idea what I’m doing, and I’ll be following the recipe to the letter. But I’m excited. I love fishcakes, and if this recipe turns out well, it may become a staple.

Fingers crossed…

With almonds instead of pine nuts, less basil than traditional pesto, and extra tomatoes.

The picture doesn’t do it justice (the camera was upstairs, and I ended up using my mobile phone), but this was truly lovely: zingy and full of flavour.

And we got to enjoy it while watching Italy win (at long last!!) and go through the next round of Euro 2008. Hurrah!

Last night I tried a leek and mushroom quiche. It wasn’t the most attractive quiche I have ever seen in my life (in fact, it was rather messy!), but it was certainly the most delicious, if I say so myself.

I don’t know if I’ve ever had home-made quiche before—certainly any quiche I’ve eaten at home was store-bought. The difference in flavour was remarkable. I guess that’s what happens if you use free range eggs and fresh, good-quality ingredients instead of whatever they use in industrially made quiches.

Not a dish per se, granted, but still a new addition to my repertoire.

It’s like an addiction.

Less than a week after my delectable gnocchi with pesto sauce, I tried my hand at a chicken and mushroom pie.

The husband really liked it, which is always a bonus. I enjoyed it too, but I should have made something to go with it too—some new potatoes or something.

Next on my list of new dishes are a quiche and fish cakes. I can’t stop!!!

I am on a roll with this “new recipe” thing. Yesterday I made a mozzarella, courgette and mushroom tart for lunch (dead easy) and gnocchi al pesto for dinner.

I finally got over my fear of the food processor and whizzed those pine nuts, cheese and basil leaves to perfection! I’m not sure that gnocchi is the right accompaniment for this sauce, though. In Liguria, where the dish originates, they use a type of long pasta called “trenette”, which is kinda like tagliatelle. I might try the pesto sauce with tagliatelle in the future, or with orecchiette. I think that might work.

Of course, I have to wait till my basil plant grows a few more leaves…

I got this recipe (a Gennaro Contaldo/Jamie Oliver idea) from an old issue of the BBC Good Food magazine.

I was surprised at how fast and easy this was—literally the time it takes for a pan of water to boil and the pasta to cook.

My husband had some difficulty with the pears, as he couldn’t quite reconcile the overall savoury flavour of the dish with the sweetness of the fruit. Personally, I thought the pears were just fine, though, and they went beautifully with the salty gorgonzola.

Final verdict: Deliciously more-ish.