Wednesday 13 June 2007

cooking. Again.

Another cooking weekend. The first curry on the left is another Tikka - this one from an SA recipes magazine, the recipe in question being from Beyond India. It was supposed to be for fish, but I used chicken and it wasn't very good - last week's was better. My brother said it tasted like KFC moist lemon towelettes 'but not in a bad way'. Right, how?


On the right is a combination of the two recipes for Saag Paneer I found. Both recipes were quite similar, so I pretty much just added them together. It turned out ok - it approximated the ones I've tried in restaurants. It smelled bang-on, but it tasted a little bitterer than it should've. Perhaps I overcooked the spinach, or should've ground the spices (even though it said not to). Still, it's a recipe worth tinkering with. I got the paneer from Maya, and I discovered that they also have the most amazing range of Indian sweets. I tried one called Gulab Jamin which was some kind of deep fried dumpling in a sweet syrup. It wasn't the prettiest one they had, but I re-heated it in the microwave and it was so delicious!

Since Elsie was over this weekend, I made another batch of the choc-chip cookies for our get together. Actually I made two batches - on the right is the regular dark choc and pecan, but on the left is a macadamia and white choc version for my brother who's decided he's allergic to pecans. It's fine, but the original is better. I also made Anzac biscuits, and they came out crunchy not chewy. Any tips on that?

My French teacher is trying this new thing where at the end of each lesson we have a free-form chat, and I tell her about stuff that's happened to me. This is supposed to build my confidence I suppose. The discussion about the biscuits went something like this (italics represent French since I can't be bothered again [and hey! Maybe your French is worse than mine! {doubtful}], the magenta is me):

'This morning, I made biscuits'.
'Really, what kind of biscuits?'
'Sorry?'
'What kind of biscuits?'
'Sorry?'
'What. Kind. Of. Biscuits?'
'No, I'm afraid you're going to have to give it to me in English.'
'What kind of biscuits?'
'Oh. Anzac biscuits.'
'Great! And what were they made from?'
'Sorry?'
'What were they made from?'
'Sorry?'
'What. Were. They. Made. From'.
'Um....English?'
'What were they made from?'
'Ah. Ok. They were made from butter, and sugar, and flowers, and...what's coconut?'
'Coconut, and btw, flowers ≠ flours'
'Oh, ok. Ooops. Well, coconut... and what's Golden Syrup?'
'Um. That doesn't translate'.
'Yay. Oooh!!! I thought of something I can say. Wait, wait....Some of the biscuits, they.... descended... from the....um....'
'What the?'
'They fell out of the oven.'

Guess I've still got a ways to go, huh?

This croquenbouche (sp?) is not mine I'm afraid, but it seemed too glorious not to mention. My mum made it for my brother's 21st and it looked a lot easier than I expected. I thought choux pastry was supposed to be a nightmare (and I wouldn't've thought the Women's Weekly BBQ Cookbook was the ideal reference), but as you can see it turned out spectacularly well!

4 comments:

Molly said...

Oh Em. Your conversation about the biscuits reminds me so much of my Italian conversation tutes. Honestly. So. Much. Silly conversations revolving around the handful of words you know and held together by repeated questions of "Um, how do you say..."
Keep persisting! It will get better!

Margie said...

Hee hee. The biscuits descended from the oven.

Double the butter and the golden syrup and your anzacs will chewily ooze off your tray. Much better that way. My brother's traditional recipe... or I suppose just increase them to a point you feel is rational.

m∃ said...

Ooooh there was a LOT of butter in there to start with. I could certainly put in a fair bit more golden syrup though. There wasn't much of that.

Funnily enough, straight after I cooked them they were crispy, but a day later they were nice and chewy. Odd.

Margie said...

Oh maybe there is a good amount of butter already then. But yeah we always just overloaded on the wet mixture and they would spread out so you got one trayful sized giant cookie you had to cut into rectangles.