13th April
Cooking Moroccan, p. 78, Lamb shank tagine with prunes
This recipe was a stunner. The mix of flavours and textures covered the whole palette from the sweetness of the prunes and Christmas Tree honey to the spicey ginger, garlic and delicate flavour of saffron. I mounted a search for ground saffron, but figured that maybe I should grind the strands myself. I also ended up with frozen lamb shanks, but after a spin in the microwave and their time in the tagine, they came good with really succulent, juicy bites of lamb.
14th April
Elisabeth Luard, the food of Spain and Portugal, p. 161 pine-nut prayers (suplicas de pinhos)
The flavour of these biscuits was superb. But, I did make quite a few mistakes. I couldn’t find any polenta flour and had to use coarse grain polenta. I forgot to put the ground aniseed in the first batch which also suffered from the oversight of not lining the tray and so they stuck like glue. Also, my decision to go with 185 oC which was still too high (recommended temperature is 200 oC) gave me nicely dark brown to burnt biscuits. For the second batch I used a slightly lower temperature and the plastic muffin trays. They were pretty good. But for the third batch I used grease proof paper in a corning ware dish. They came out just right in terms of flavour, texture and colour.
Stephanie Alexander’s, Kitchen Garden Companion, p. 546, Rocket, Chestnut and Bacon Salad
This salad was sensationally deliciously. I had no idea how to cook chestnuts, but discovered that I had to steam them for 15 minutes and then remove the skins, all two of them, and then fry them in the sage oil. Wow that sage oil was nice! And bacon is always a winner with me. To the final assemblage I added some sage oil and lemon and it was truly the result was truly delectable to the palate. Thank you Stephanie Alexander.
Morocco Mediterranean Cuisine, p. 88, Chicken Mkaddam Souiri
This tagine was totally different from the previous night in every way. Following the recipe as closely as possible resulted in a superbly aromatic and flavoured tagine that was worthy of the most discerning of palettes. I even managed to obtain a ‘red, firm fleshed’ organic chicken from Woolworths. The blend of herbs and spices was amazingly well balanced and high on the nutritional scale as well with all the green leafies. The omelette was soft and light on the palette and infused with all the flavours. I also visited my local Mediterranean food store in Willoughby and found out that Persian saffron was the best and that grinding it was essential to bring out its flavour. They also had some thoroughly flavoursome rose and walnut Turkish delight which really rounded out the meal.
