coronation quiche

Where is the recipe from?
The Royal Family website

[Coronation Quiche]

Ingredients & any changes made?
milk, double cream, eggs, chopped fresh tarragon, Salt and pepper,
grated cheddar cheese, cooked spinach,broad beans or soya beans

There is also a recipe for pastry, which included both lard and butter.

A couple of changes. A sudden rush on fresh tarragon meant I had to rethink and opted for dried. Broad beans were not available anywhere, so I left them out altogether.
I did follow the pastry recipe but changed the lard for Trex as I am not a fan of lard.

Verdict?
The negatives first.
As someone who makes pastry on a fairly regular basis I wasn't afraid to try out their recipe, but had no intention of buying lard. Struck me as quite odd that a vegetarian quiche would instantly be made unsuitable for vegetarians by it's lardy pastry!
So with the substitution of Trex for lard I followed the recipe. Total disaster. It was so crumbly and measly in amount that I gave up. The probelm is they have given quantities for a very specific quiche tin, it's smaller than most people have so you'd have to source the exact same size in order for the amount of pastry. Perhaps it would have been better with lard, but I found it a very mean recipe and it really didn't work for me. Luckily I had a small amount of ready made in the freezer so defrosted and used that. Didn't really have enough so had to roll it thinly, hence the raggedy edges as I didn't dare trim it too much before cooking.

The filling was pretty much kept as it was meant to be. Sans broad beans, because I really don't think it's the season for them just yet. Could not find a single bean and didn't fancy soya beans so left them out.

After those changes, what was my verdict?
Lovely. This is a really nice quiche. A different one. Usually I will make quiche with mushrooms, onions, slices of tomato on the top. Nor do I use cream in the filling, the difference was noticeable. So to me personally this is a complete change and something I'd order in a restaurant and then wonder why I never used these particular ingredients myself. Spinach and Tarragon are superb together. Tarragon is a herb I often buy, but not with the intention of putting it in a quiche. It really was a revelation.

There have been complaints about this recipe. But it's very King Charles. I can absolutely imagine he and Camilla sitting down to eat it on a sunny afternoon in Windsor. It's light and - if you leave out the lard - adaptable to many dietary requirements.

In my view, this is a pretty perfect quiche for a special occasion.

Rose & pistachio cake

Where is the recipe from?

Waitrose weekly newspaper.
Available online [HERE]

Ingredients & any changes made?

golden caster sugar, butter, self raising flour, eggs, vegetable oil, chopped pistachio nuts, ground almonds, rose water. Lemon juice, icing sugar, rose petals, more pistachios for the top.
No changes made. when it comes to cakes you must do exactly as you are told. That's the way I feel anyway.

Verdict?
Amazing. That's all I can say. When it comes to cake I am not the best at all, so any recipe I follow has to be as simple as possible. This caught my eye because it looked so pretty. How can anyone resist the green of pistachios with the pinkness of rose petals? A beautiful combination.

Cakes that contain oil always make me nervous after trying one that used olive oil that tasted absolutely vile. Not the case with this. It looked a little greasy as I poured it into the tin, but once cooked it looked perfectly fine.

It was also a very easy to mix cake, no mixer needed, just a case of pouring it into a large bowl and combining.
The icing was superb, as someone who is not a fan of butter icing, this made me very happy. Icing sugar and lemon juice will always be my favourite icing, it's easy and tastes wonderful.
It's Easter Sunday as I write this, and I'd had it in my mind since seeing the recipe towards the end of March that I'd like to make it as an Easter treat. Yet again it's a Waitrose weekly newspaper recipe, and I reiterate what I've said in previous recent posts, that their weekly paper has had some corking recipes lately. I've kept several and made several. Not only are they good, but they are recipes I want to repeat and feel confident making. I know I'm going to keep this cake as a 'go to' cake recipe. Try it. You will be glad you did.

broccoli, green beans & new potatoes in tarragon cream sauce

Where is the recipe from?

Waitrose's weekly newspaper, it's also online and can be found [HERE]

Ingredients & any changes made?

Purple sprouting broccoli, green beans, new potatoes, fresh tarragon, cream, white wine vinegar, dijon mustard, shallot.

Minor changes. I used tenderstem broccoli not purple sprouting, I didn't follow the exact quantities either as it was just for two of us and I didn't need to make a huge amount. This means the tarragon cream probably wasn't quite right, but let's face it, it's just mixing up a few ingredients and tasting to see if it tasted good or not. Pretty hard to mess that up. In hindsight I think I used a touch too much vinegar as it was quite sharp, but as suggested by the recipe I added in a sprinkle more sugar which seemed to correct it nicely.

Verdict?
Waitrose are putting out some great recipes at the moment, not a week goes by when I don't save at least one from the newspaper.
My favourite recipes are simple ones that just add something different to a plate of food. These were pretty dull ingredients, even though they were cooked simply by adding a creamy herb sauce it enhanced an otherwise ordinary Sunday roast chicken.
Tarragon isn't a herb I buy often or give much thought to, but I know I'll make this cream sauce again so it's time to think about growing some in my little herb garden.
Two mistakes on my part. I overcooked the shallot a bit. It was meant to be soft with no colour, mine ended up with too much browning but in the overall scheme of things it didn't matter.

The other mistake I made was forgetting to mix it so the sprinkled on shallots and sauce covered everything. Again, not exactly a huge problem as I'd made a decent amount of sauce so it seemed to cover most things anyway. But that is something you are told to do, mix it all in and coat with the sauce.
The empty plate tells you all you need to know. This recipe is a keeper.

easy salmon en croute

Where is the recipe from?

Waitrose's weekly newspaper. Also available online [HERE]

Ingredients & any changes made?

Leeks, ready made butter puff pastry, Boursin with garlic and herbs, salmon.
Only two tiny changes made. Instead of buying a large fillet which would have been too much, I bought two small fillets. Nor did I buy the pack of leeks as again it would have been too much, so I bought one large leek instead. This saved both money and wastage. Other than these alterations I bought exactly what was listed in the recipe.
The recipe itself was so simple. Very few ingredients and no skill needed other than the need to skin the salmon, which I'd never done before. The knife used was too small but it did the job and I felt quite pleased to have removed the skin as well as I did.

The leek and Boursin filling was incredibly simple to make, and what's not to like. Delicous ingredients.

Verdict?
My en croute presentations skills need more work. It looked more like a pastry brick both before and after cooking. But it was easy and quick to put together.

It also looked dull, if I make it again I'd give the pastry an egg wash to add a shine. I'd also try to make it look nicer, it was so chunky that I am ashamed to show it here.

It is a good recipe though. Very simple, nothing complicated. If you were entertaining and wanted something that looks like it was harder to do in order to impress, then this is a great one to do. Just work on the wrapping of the salmon and don't just slap it around the way I have. It would have been better had I wrapped the fillets individually instead of together, and as I said earlier, an egg wash would have given it a glossier look. Perhaps it wasn't suggested as the butter pastry was rich enough already, but from an appearance point of view it would certainly have helped.

Mushroom Tartlets

Where is the recipe from?

The Royal Touch, by Carolyn Robb

Ingredients & any changes made?
Puff pastry, woodland mushrooms, dried porcini mushrooms, chives, thyme, lemon juice, cream, onion. Pretty much kept to it, though I used half a shallot instead of an onion. I chose to use lemon thyme. When sauteeing the mushrooms I also added a teaspoon of butter. Also, the recipe makes a lot of tartlets, so I eyeballed it to make a smaller quantity.

Verdict?
If you love mushrooms, or to be more precise, mushroom vol au vents, then you will LOVE this. It's so easy to put together, and you already know the flavours will be fantastic.
I have tried this recipe before so knew it was simple and tasty, but in my first attempt I overcooked the mushroom 'paste'. It's worth bearing in mind when sauteeing at the start not to let them go too far. Once they are lightly coloured, the mushrooms and onion are then whizzed up to make what is described as a paste, but looks more like a lumpy pate. Egg yolk and cream are added. This is then smeared onto the rectangles of puff pastry before lightly cooked mushrooms are placed on top. Again, take care not to overcook as then the tartlets going into the oven for around 15 minutes.
The end result is just lovely. Good if you are entertaining as it's pretty failsafe. My only query is that in the book the tartlets look quite glossy, which I assume is down to the photography and all the foody styling tricks they use to make things look perfect and beautiful, but it makes me wonder if I've done something wrong.

Tried to find this online so I could link it up, but alas, I couldn't. Is it worth buying the book for? I'd say yes, it's one of many very doable recipes, and I already have plans to make another from this book now I've started leafing through it again.

cooking the books

Not literally, but 'trying out recipes in cookbooks" wasn't a snappy blog name.
Trying to motivate myself to try out some of the recipes that catch my eye in the cookbooks I own. Let's see if I can update it more often that once every six years this time!!