Tagged: ireland

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Cook / Storecupboard Specials

Comfort food: Dal

Dal with baghar Dal – also known as Dhal – is one of my favourite comforting winter meals. On a cold evening when you’ve got wet through on the walk home and don’t feel like leaving the house again, it is enormously reassuring to find that there’s a packet of red split lentils and some spices in the press and a few onions and garlic looking lonely in the vegetable rack. There are as many recipes for dal as there are vegetarians in the world so if you don’t have the exact ingredients mentioned below, don’t worry. The split lentils, onions and garlic are absolutes but you can play around with all the rest.

2

Cook / Return to Ireland

In New Zealand, pumpkins. In Ireland, squash. Roasted Butternut Squash with Chickpeas and Cumin

Roasted Butternut Squash with Chickpeas and Cumin - and lots of coriander! After mourning the lack of good pumpkin in Ireland, I’ve discovered an alternative option – squash! Now, there’s a terminology question here. What is the difference between squash and pumpkins? I think it was Stephanie Alexander’s Cook’s Companion that made the point that all squash in Australia (and New Zealand) are called pumpkins. My own understanding of the difference between the two is that a pumpkin is a rounded vegetable, like that used by Cinderella to get to the prince’s ball, while a squash can often be a different shape. That’s no hard and fast rule, however!

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Cookery Books / Read

How to Cook Absolutely Everything & Best Recipes for Absolutely Everything by Anne Willan **

Educational and interesting Before I started reading/reviewing these books, Anne Willan was unfamiliar to me but, as soon as they arrived, her name started to crop up in my reading with increasing regularity. An American by way of Yorkshire, Willan established La Varenne, the prestigious Burgundy-based French cooking school, in 1975. For those who haven’t the time or money to study with her, she has also written an impressive number of cookbooks, ranging from Dorling Kindersley’s Perfect series (Perfect Chicken Dishes, Perfect Chocolate Deserts, Perfect Appetizers etc), last year’s useful A Cook’s Book of Quick Fixes to the more personal in From My Chateau Kitchen.

Portable food: Chickpea, tomato and spinach curry 0

Food for Friends

Portable food: Chickpea, tomato and spinach curry

Last week we were going to one of the semi-regular dinner parties hosted by our friend the Tax Advisor. The Tax Advisor loves to host – but he doesn’t cook. For years now he has been hosting these dinner parties in his city centre apartment while the other guests come bearing food and dishes and, on several occasions, spare chairs!For the first dinner in his new flat, there were eight guests. This time there was no point in bringing spare chairs as the Tax Advisor doesn’t have a table. Or many plates. Or any serving spoons. Or a sharp knife. So, faced with such a lack of utensils, I decided to cook the dish that I was going to bring for dinner at home the night before. As a couple of the guests are vegetarian, it gave me an opportunity to work on one of my favourite meatless recipes from last year – Chickpea and Tomato Curry.

New NZ food blogs 6

Do

New NZ food blogs

When I started Bibliocook in New Zealand almost a year ago, there weren’t that many NZ food blogs. Barbara at Auckland’s Winos and Foodies was in contact early on and I’ve since enjoyed reading her posts about Real Mexican Hot Chocolate, pumpkins, wine and books – I have to especially credit her with introducing me to remarkable Australian chef Gay Bilson. On one of my regular wanders over to Winos and Foodies I suddenly realised that there was a list of new food blogs on her side nav. After spending a couple of hours wandering around their sites, I now introduce you to foodies in NZ…

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Cookery Books / Read

Trattoria: Food for Family and Friends by Ursula Ferrigno ****

Will appeal to anyone with even a passing interest in Italian food My first introduction to Ursula Ferrigno was through a book called Bread (published by Dorling Kindersley) that she co-wrote with Eric Treuille, the owner of London shop/haven Books For Cooks. It’s an eminently useful publication with, as is the Dorling Kindersley way, plenty, almost too many, illustrations. This became a much-used publication in my kitchen – especially when the Boyfriend appointed himself official bagel-maker! – and so it was with great interest I turned to Ferrigno’s latest book, Trattoria: Food for Family and Friends.

2

Eating Out

Restaurant review: Hô Sen, Dublin

A resounding success Before I left Ireland in 2004 I heard great reports about a new Vietnamese restaurant in Dublin’s Temple Bar. As it happened, the Boyfriend and I were hoping to visit Vietnam while either journeying to or from New Zealand but this never happened. Since my return, the regular mentions of in the cookbooks, magazines and websites that I read have piqued my interest so I jumped at the chance to take the Boyfriend to dinner in Hô Sen last night.