jackal10

Best baked potato is rolled in clay then put in the middle of a campfire... The point is that the potato is ridiculously overcooked, so you get that delightful taste, and crisp crunchy skin. You can reproduce it in an medium oven, just cook for a long time - 3 hours say. Butter, salt, black pepper is all you need... Lesser potatos are just a sponge to sop up other food- melted cheddar, baked beans, chili...

Sticky Toffee Pudding Adapted from John Tovey and others. Do not eat when heavy activity is expected afterwards (wrong image - this belongs with the sourdough bread recipe, and ther is no way to delete it!) Pudding 6 oz Soft Brown Sugar 4 oz Butter 4 Eggs 8 oz SR Flour (I add extra baking powder) 1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda 2 T Coffee extract or instant coffee 8 oz chopped stoned dates ( I prefer raisins) 1/2 pt boiling water Butterscotch Sauce 1 lb Golden Syrup (Corn Syrup) 3 oz Butter 4 oz Soft Brown Sugar 1/4 pt Double (heavy) cream vanilla essence Pudding: Line a 9 inch cake tin with a couble layer of silicon baking paper. Preheat oven to medium/350F/180C/Gas 4 Cream the butter and the sugar until white, fold in the eggs and the flour. Sprinkle the bicarb over the dates (or raisins, or can be omitted, pour on the boiling water and stir. Leave for 5 mins, then mix into the flour etc to form a runny mixture. Pour into the cake tin, and bake for 1 1/2 hours until springy to the touch. Sauce: Mix all together, and gently boil for about 10 mins, stirring all the time. Pour over the pudding, and bake or grill until the top bubbles. Serve with lots of whipped cream. Keywords: Dessert, Pudding ( RG444 )

Ideally and properly the sauce should be an integral part of the dish, and part of the food balance. Unfortunately many customers in a restaurant (present company excepted) don't have the palate but want to be amazed, chiefly with something they can't do at home. Its all too easy to for a professional kitchen to squiggle two different sauces on a plate, and stick in a potato galette, the sprig of rosemary or a caramel hat (or all three), and send it out to the gullible. What did we do before squeeze bottles? edit: added the sprig of rosemary

Why would the chocolate bead? Its not like the filling has to be cold. You can use the mousse at room temperature. Fill with a straight coulis even, if you seal the shell with a bit of melted chocolate after. Are these deserts or chocolates?

shcrambled eggs... loaded with whatever comes to hand, lox, cheese, chives, cold baked beans, bacon...

The rules are complex,, but I believe that one of your parents must have British Citizenship. Its possible that your mother may have inherited that from her father (if she was not illegitimate), but I think she (or her parents) would need to have made that claim and held dual nationality. The rules for right to abode and work are different, as are the rules if your parents were Crown service.

I find them in my vegetable patch. You really only want to eat the young, blanched leaves, and it then takes the plant a couple of seasons to recover from having the top sliced off. You can propgate from offsets - leaves with a bit of root attached pulled from the outside. For some reason they do OK in my heavy alkaline clay soil, whereas globe artichokes struggle. They are occaisionally for sale in the equivalent of farmer's markets Cynara cardunculus makes a stately plant, good grey-green background to show off roses, for example. If left they produce Globe Artichoke like buds and flowers, also edible if picked young, but smaller than artichokes. If you leave them until the blue thistle head flower shows its too late, but then flower arranger of the household may like them. You can dry them for winter decoration, head down, so as to keep the vivid blue colour.

Bath Olivers have a very high fat content and coat the mouth. Good if you are selling wine, no so good if you are buying it. Also the current versions are somehow thicker and not quite as crisp as the ones before they moved factory. Chocolate coated Bath Olivers are, of course, perverted. Millers Damsel Wheat Wafers are my favourite. Others I eat cheese with: McVities Digestive close second, but not really a cracker Jacob's High baked Ryvita Dark Rye

a) The cardoons you buy should have been blanched first (wrapped in polythene or newspaper) to make them tender b) Cut off the barbs - you only wnt the central part of each leaf c) Braise, like celery, with onion and bacon..

I'd follow Steve's advise. Might be easiest to make (or buy) chocolate shells - pour tempered chocolate into moulds, let stand a bit then pour out. Then you can fill the shells with mousse at your leisure, por on a bit of chocolate to seal and hey presto. You can get non-stick rubber chocolate moulds in a variety of shapes...including spheres and berries

Cheesy leeks,especially leek pie Sliced finely lengthways and deep fried as a garnish Use a single layer as a wrapper or stuffed as cannelloni outer Coarse tops in the stockpot

Raspberry mousse: Depends on the effect you want Start with raspberry coulis (3 c raspberries, 1/2c sugar, whizz together, sieve). It's cheating use raspberry jam, but a bit of framboise eau-de-vie helps boost the aromatics. a) set with a sheet of gelatine, then foam; or b) Fold into whipped cream; or c) Whipped Egg whites and sugar (Italian meringue) and whipped cream. To coat in chocolate mould individual portions and freeze them first. To get a shine see the thread on tempering chocolate.

You could follow Ms Chu, and do a Diploma at Cordon Bleu

Dried rhubarb strips as a garnish or sweetmeat. Slice the rhubarb stalk lengthways into thin strips. I used a potato peeler for this. Put onto a silpat or non-stick silicon paper. Dredge with icing (confectioners) sugar. Put into a very low oven until dry and crisp.

Battenburg (four squares of coloured sponge enclosed by marzipan) Stuffed Monkey (Cinnamon pastry enclosing and almond filling) Black forest Gateau (chococolate and cherries) But greatest of all, at 11am or 11pm, with a glass of Bual... Madeira Cake (doesn't contain any wine but is a light lemon sponge made to go with a glass of Madeira)

I've never had the privilege of trying it, but Parker raves about the 1997 Quinta do Noval Vintage Port, giving it a perfect 100 points (maturity 2007+) (WS 99) The 1963 gets 99+ points, and there seem to be a few on offer on the web at around $200. I prefer them older, as it gives a chance for the spirit to mellow and marry with the wine, so this would be my choice. If you can find the Nacional, it is made from pre-phylloxera vines. Wine Spectator rates it 100 as does Fonseca 77,

Taramasalata Grilled fish eaten overlooking the warm sea at sunset....actually doesn't have to be Greek, but they do it very well...

The old fashioned Strawberry (or raspberry) mille-feuille is easy, spectacular and a crowd pleaser. Bake 3 pieces of flaky pastry. Unless you are an expert pastry chef, a good suermarket fresh or frozen pre-packed is OK, especially if you you incorporate extra butter by doing an additional "turn" Bake according to the instructions on the pack - 20 mins in a hot oven or so. Can use shortbread instead. Let them cool. Sandwich together with plenty of whipped cream and lots of strawberries. Dust the top with icing sugar. To serve cut with a serrated knife.

The ones that won't fit on a normal shelf go on the big shelves at the bottom There are seperate sections for antique and precious books and books mostly on wine or gardening Then there are the not-very-good books that seldom get used - they are in the hard to reach places Then there are the ones, like Bourdain, that are mostly essays not recipes Then the are the food guides, like Michelin. Otherwise they are roughly grouped by cuisine

Couple of months ahead of us in the UK. Here are some suggestions: Eton Mess: Crush strawberries with suger to taste. Fold into whipped cream Stewed with rhubarb, a Scandinavian delight: Cook rhubarb the usual way. When hot stir in the hulled strawberries. Let cool. Strawberry kebabs. Thread strawberries on kebab skewers. Smother with rum or brandy butter (butter, sugar, spirit of choice, nutmeg, lemon juice). Grill or BBQ until hot. Serve immediately. If you like, flame with more spirit. Strawberry jam. Problem here is to get enough pectin out of the strawberries. Cheat and add pectin. Here is a mthod from an ancient newpaper clipping that I find works well: 1.5Kg/3lb strawberries 1.5Kg/3lb sugar (use Jam suger with the pectin in it if cheating) Wash and hull fruit. In a large non-metalic bowl layer the strawberries with the sugar, cover and leave for 24 hours. Next day scrape the contents of the bowl into a preserving pan, bring slowly to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Return the to the bowl. Leave for 24 hours Next day repeat. Third day boil until setting point is reached (220F, or some wrinkles on a cold plate), Stir in a knob of butter to displace the foam. Let it cool a bit before pouring into jars and covering .

Lemon Syllabub added to the Recipe Archive Forgot to add Creme Patissier to the list. Thickened with cornflour, sometimes eggs. Thick, for pastry fillings.

Lemon Syllabub Dates back to the 16th century, but most popular in the eighteenth. This from my copy of "The London Art of Cookery" John Farley (Principal cook at the London Tavern 1796) 1 pt White wine 2 lemons 1 pt Cream Rub a quarter of pound of loaf sugar upon the rind of two lemons till you have all the essence out of them; then put the sugar into a pint of cream, and the same quantity of white wine. Squeeze in the juice of both lemons and let it stand for two hours. Then mill (whisk)it and take off the froth as it rises. Lay it on a sieve to drain, fill your glasses with the remainder and lay on the froth as high as you can. Let them stand all night, and they will be clear at the bottom. Keywords: Dessert ( RG357 )

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Asparagus. First of the new season, plain with melted butter, parmesan Salmon en croute. The old George Perry-Smith recipe with currants and ginger. Still spectacular Hollandaise Baby Lettuce and arugula Salad (the thinnings from the garden) Ballontine of chicken, roast. Sage and Onion Sausagemeat stuffing New potatos Purple sprouting broccoli Jus Cheesecake with balsamic strawberries (anything to get some flavour into those hot house horrors) Cheeses with pumkin seed bread (Munster, Stilton, Cothersdale, Montgomery cheddar) Coffee, cinnamon balls

a) Plant in the garden. They like a fairly damp spot, but tolerate shade. Once established they are an invasive weed. b) Throw it away. Much easier to buy a small bottle of ready prepared c) Grate:(caution fumes!), do it outdoors, or use a food processor. The grated horseradish will keep a long time in a jar in a fridge, Once grated you can - Make Chrane/horseradish sauce. Mix with vinegar, salt, sugar, grated beet, grated turnip, cream, mayo etc as you please. The sugar counteracts the heat a bit, but taste with caution. - Use as a flavouring/condiment. Horseradish dumplings, horseradish mash, horseradish pie crust, honey-horseradish-mustard dressing - Use sparingly as a substitute for garlic. Surprisngly horseradish has many of the same flavour and flavour enhancing properties, and apparently some of the same chemical constituents in the heat. They combine well together.