Mexican Gazpacho Salad

To go with the Camarones y Arroz Blanco as recently blogged I served this salad from Ursel and Derek Norman’s Salad Days (1975). I really like this book, and am looking forward to summer when I shall live entirely from its recipes. Here’s the recipe and picture:

Spanakopitakia

Here’s an appetizer from Joyce M Stubbs Home Book of Greek Cookery (1963). It’s Spinach Pasties and sounds quite delightful. This was my first time cooking with filo pastry and I can’t say I was very confident. I was pleased with how quickly it defrosted though, almost suspiciously fast. What is filo pastry anyway? It’s so thin; it’s unnatural. I didn’t trust it an inch. I’m afraid I was rather hungry when I made these and the entire process was rushed. This shows in the results. I know very little about Greek cuisine, not much more beyond moussaka and the existence of feta and I have certainly not done it justice with this.

Potage Saint-Germaine – Pea Soup

Final soup for January. This time from Ma Cuisine by Auguste Escoffier, published by Paul Hamlyn in 1934. (I am becoming very proficient at locating the recipes in this long book which do not require meat jelly or double cream!)

This is the second version given, the first being just boiled, puree’d peas with a little stock added. I was attracted to the idea of eating something summer-y, as it’s been so effing cold over the last week.

Cucumber Salad

And…another from Salad Days. I think I shall try to work my way through the entire book. Including the Heringsalat. This was served with the Plaice in Savoury Custard, it cut through the rich custard but wasn’t quite right.

Cucumber Salad

This beautifully juicy salad with a taste of spring is very smooth on the palate, and is ideal with rice dishes or new buttered potatoes. The addition of dill gives it a slightly sweet and very delicate taste. A favourite with children.

Shredded pork stir-fried with bean-sprouts and spring onions

Although I enjoy Chinese food I’ve very little experience making it – there’s an assumption on my part, rightly or wrongly, that it’s somehow difficult. I bought the following book partly to make me give it a go (and also it only cost 50p). The book is ‘Cheap Chow – Chinese Cooking on next to nothing‘ by Kenneth Lo, published by Pan in 1978. I have no idea how popular Chinese food was in the seventies, but I assume that it wasn’t a very frequently cooked cuisine in the average home (nb, I wasn’t around in the seventies, so please set me to rights if I’m assuming wrongly). This recipe book suffers no fools though, and gives a very decent run through of Chinese cooking techniques, including recipes for the standards Red Sauce and Master Sauce, which Lo explains are the basis of many a dish. I’ve certainly made a mental note to set an afternoon aside to slow cook some meat in the red sauce.  I decided to start with something easy though:

Javanese Bamie

I picked up this book on Saturday from a charity shop in Kilburn. It’s called Simple Oriental Cookery and it’s from 1960, published by Peter Pauper Press and compiled by Edna Beilenson (a quick search reveals that similar titles existfor a range of other cuisines, Beilenson was fairly prolific, it would appear!).