Notes about Recipes in this book

• Fish tagine

  • chrisguzzi on January 15, 2012

    I cooked this for friends who supplied the fish, the type of fish was not known, a family member caught it. The friends are not keen on fish. The Egyptian recipe is a little different to the usual Morrocan tagine but quite easy to put together. It relies on the sauce ingredients being whizzed together in the first instance and then cooked off in the oil (bit like a Malaysian curry). I used a stove top Emile Henry Tagine rather than bake in a oven. One friend who describes even the best restaurant food as "nice", declared "I would have that again". Worth a try for your own fish.

• Orange and almond cake

  • micheleK on July 09, 2011

    Boiled oranges for two hours, then read elsewhere that you can shorten that step by microwaving them in a covered container (quartered) to save time. Followed recipe quantities, tried baking for 1 hour in my fan forced oven at 170 degC. Top of cake was nicely browned, with a few cracks. Skewer came out clean. Served with sprinkle of icing sugar and vanilla ice cream. Well received. For dinner party might try making a syrup with orange juice and orange slices to serve with this cake.

• Fava-bean dip (Bissara)

  • AgusiaH on July 21, 2013

    Nice taste but too much liquid - I needed to strain it before puréeing. Added some onion.

• Lamb kofte

  • Melanie on January 06, 2016

    Delicious. We minced the lamb ourselves and needed to mix in some breadcrumbs to help mixture come together. Made long skewers and cooked on BBQ. Served with salad, pickled carrots and tzatziki in a wrap.

• Eritrean stir-fry (Kulwha)

  • amoule on May 17, 2016

    This is very good and super easy, but I doubt I'll do it again. The lamb called for is very expensive where I live and it just gets lost in this. You could just as well use pork tenderloin or flank steak sliced against the grain. If you make this, taste your chile to see how hot it is -- this can get very spicy with the berbere I served it with cauliflower "rice" sauteed in the seasoned, clarified butter, to keep it low carb.

• Pad Thai

  • e_ballad on November 05, 2016

    Undoubtedly, this is clearly an authentic recipe. Unfortunately, it wasn't to our taste. I really liked the dried shrimp & preserved radish, but we didn't like the sauce, which really impacted on our enjoyment of this dish.

• Haleem -- 'King of curries'

  • e_ballad on January 24, 2021

    Straight off the bat: this is a labour-intensive time commitment, requiring very frequent stirring for almost 4.5 hours. And that’s without the overnight soaking of the beans & grains. And don’t use wheat berries - it needs you to ‘partially crush’ the grains, so save yourself the effort & use cracked wheat. So for the “king of curry”, was it worth the effort? Not a jot. Bland, textureless sludge.

• Green sauce with pork

  • e_ballad on March 17, 2017

    Not a big fan - quite bland.

• Beef satay (Satay sapi)

  • e_ballad on October 24, 2016

    Good, but not amazing. Given the crazy number of beef satay recipes out there, this is unlikely to make a return.