Re: [london.food] Delia (was: Cumin)

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From: Simon Batistoni
Subject: Re: [london.food] Delia (was: Cumin)
Date: 00:21 on 23 Oct 2003
On 22/10/03 23:43 +0100, Kate L Pugh wrote:
> Oh; or recommendations of other ingredients that go well with cumin.
> Delia has reminded me that aubergine is one:
>   http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/r_0000001358.asp
> 
> Kake (a big Delia fan)

Bleh. Delia's one of those weird recipe-writers, in that most of her
recipes are so prosciptive and prescriptive (yes, at the same time)
that it takes all of the fun and creativity out of cooking.

An example from the above recipe:

> Meanwhile, skin the tomatoes. To do this, pour boiling water over them
> and leave for exactly 1 minute before draining them and slipping off
> their skins.

"exactly 1 minute"? Bollocks, Delia. You can boil tomatoes for between
30 seconds and 5 minutes, depending on the ripeness of the tomatoes,
the particular sub-genus of tomato you're boiling, and how easy you
want the peeling to be (where "easy" is a 2-axis graph plotting "ease
of skins peeling away" against "ow, my fingers are burnt")

And if I ever hear anyone utter "salt and freshly milled black pepper"
in my presence, there shall be particularly unpleasant death involving
kitchen implements. Probably one of those horrible potato-masher
things.

I use Delia purely to remind myself of the relative quantities of
ingredients required in certain recipes (yes, right down to Yorkshire
Pud); then I make up the method as I go along.

I don't tend to actually stick to the quantities either in the
end. Last time I followed Delia's suggestions for Yorkshire Pud, I
ended up with a gooey stodgy mess, so I added equal parts milk and
water till the consistency just felt right. They all got eaten, so I
don't feel bad about thumbing my nose at Delia. Or her sodding
pepper-mill.

sb

There's stuff above here

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