Cookbook Challenge 2013 - Week 30

When hubby was invited to play cricket with the husband of a friend of mine I had visions of me sat by a pavillion in the glorious sunshine drinking pimms and generally enjoying life…however the reality was somewhat different. Knowing that my friend was providing the cricket tea I naturally offered my services and was asked to bring a chocolate cake of some description, no problem there I thought and immediately hit the books. I chose the Classic Tearoom Chocolate Victoria from Annie Bell’s Baking Bible and I can honestly say it was the best chocolate cake that I’ve ever made, the cake itself was delightfully soft and moist, the buttercream was so light and the chocolate icing was just the shiniest I’ve ever known. My friend had done an amazing job with the rest of the food; there was enough for an army never mind a couple of cricket teams. We spent the first half of the game in the tiny pavillion kitchen making up sandwiches and scones, and making the place look pretty (because I hear that’s what sportsmen really want from their afternoon tea!). When we weren’t cooling down in front of the fan we were rushing out with drinks for the players, this was not the quiet Sunday afternoon I had anticipated, but thankfully after the men had returned to their game we were able to put our feet up and finally enjoy some of the fruits of our labours. I do highly recommend the chocolate cake though, and I take little credit for it as it was all down to the recipe! Once again I must stop giving cake away…

 

Next up was a recipe for Tomato & Anchovy Risotto with Crispy Crumbs from BBC Good Food magazine, which I had squirrelled away in my file and thought it was about time I dusted off. I’ll be honest when I started to cook it I was a little dubious about how it would turn out, I find the smell of anchovies frying to be quite unpleasant and until I added the rest of the ingredients I was not convinced that this dish would work. However, once I’d started adding the stock things were looking up and I found myself getting quite hungry. The finished dish was lovely, there was a trace of anchovy in the background but it did not overpower it at all and the crispy crumbs were a wonderful addition and added a much-needed element of crunch.

My final recipe of the week was Linguine con Cipolle e Acciughe (Linguine with Sautéed Red Onions & Anchovies) from Gino’s Pasta. Now I should really have known that the onions would not look as lovely as they did in the picture because when you cook red onions they lose their vibrant colour and turn a non-descript grey colour, which is exactly what happened here and unfortunately the resulting ‘sludge’ did not look particularly appetising. I persevered though, and just threw in a lot of freshly chopped parsley to help disguise it. Once it was mixed with the linguine, some parmesan, and a parsley garnish it did look a lot more respectable, and to be fair it was extremely tasty but I’m not sure I’ll be in a rush to try this one again – nothing you’re going to eat should resemble sludge!

Recipe Count: 96
New Target: 104