Paper Palate

On the cookbook shelf lies a collection of recipes where each has a list of ingredients longer than the Channel Tunnel. Attempts to replicate a couple of these recipes have produced acceptable results; but at the end of all that pulverizing and chopping, the result is the same - underwhelming.

What is the point of all that stuff? Does it really make a difference to the final dish? No, is the answer. Which explains why my copies of Delicious magazine are more thumbed and food-splattered than that cookbook. Take this month’s issue - there are just 7 ingredients for the Sardines with Lemon Salsa for example, which I am sure is going to be more fun to cook and more enjoyable to eat than a recipe that has 10 herbs and spices just for a marinade!

And if that’s too many for you, how about the 5 required for the broad bean dressing recipe found on the back page? (Dry-fry mustard seeds, mix with a pinch of sugar, olive oil, wine vinegar, and fresh parsley).

Even a Thomasina Miers dinner-party dish, Lamb Steaks with a Coriander and Mint Salsa, where you would expect a little more complication, uses just 6 ingredients in the salsa and 7 for the lamb.
On the same page is an unusual Sangria cocktail, one for The Spirit World to try out. It is unusual in using white wine rather than the traditional red, described as a “beautifully refreshing drink for summer evenings and somehow tastes lighter than many of the sweet cocktails around during the summer months.”

Another  summery dish, again with few ingredients, is the Red-Leaf, Fig and Serrano Ham Salad. Simply radicchio and baby chard mixed with sherry vinegar, olive oil plus fresh figs, Serrano ham, and Manchego cheese. They recommend a “dry, elegant Austrian Riesling” as a match to the salad, a great choice in my opinion and a combination I am certainly going to try.

As regular readers of Spittoon Extra will realize, I have a penchant for desserts! This month’s Delicious is a bit light for the sweet-toothed. Apart from a collection of cupcake recipes (just so 2007!), all that inspires is a Honey Peach and Vanilla Compote and a Strawberry Sorbet with Aged Balsamic Vinegar. A touch disappointing; perhaps desserts outside of ice cream are not in demand during the summer months.

Sometime back I held a fun little ginger beer tasting; six ready-mixed beers all served blind. The worst was the Belvoir Fruit Farms Ginger Beer with a nose and taste so close to tepid washing-up water as to be indistinguishable. Interestingly, this month’s Delicious taste test is for Cordials; the Belvoir Fruit Farms Ginger Cordial is the Editor’s Choice.