Nigella Express
The great thing about having a chef for a son in law is not just the food - it’s the presents. His latest gift to me is the new Nigella Express. Here’s someone who understands the craving for a good recipe book as bedtime reading. And Nigella always serves up a good book, as tasty as her dishes.
I love the succulence with which she writes about and describes food. Here’s a delicious sample from the introduction to her recipe for Chocolate Mint Cookies;
These don’t take long to make up and bake, and I can’t tell you how lovely it is to be able to open the door to people with the smell of their baking oozing welcomingly out in the evening air.
Nigella makes cooking a sensual experience, even in a book that purports to be about cooking in a hurry for people who don’t have time to cook.
Incidentally, here’s that cookie recipe.
Choclate Mint Cookies by Nigella Lawson
100g soft butter
150g light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
150g flour
35g cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
200g dark chocolate chips
For the glaze
75g icing sugar
1 15ml tablespoon cocoa, sieved
2 15 ml tablespoons boiling water
1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract (Nigella uses Boyajian Natural Peppermint Flavour)
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C (gas mark 4)
Cream butter and brown sugar, then beat in vanilla extract and egg.
Mix flour, cocoa and baking powder in a bowl and gradually beat in to the creamed mixture. Finally, fold in the chocolate chips.
Using a rounded 15 ml tablespoon measure, spoon out scoops of cookie dough and place on a lined baking sheet, leaving a little space between each one.
Bake in the oven for 12 minutes and let them sit on the baking sheet for a couple of minutes before moving them to a cooling rack, with some newspaper on the surface underneath to catch any escaping glaze later.
Put the glaze ingredients into a sauce pan and heat until combined.
Using a teaspoon, zig zag the glaze over each cooling cookie.
Makes 26.
And they don’t last long!
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Gosh that sounds good, I’d be tempted to make them up today but I don’t have any peppermint extract or flavour! I don’t tend to buy many cookbooks (although I’m a big fan of women’s weekly books!) but I’ve been after this one for a while.
I tried her caramel croissant pudding the other night - it’s like bread and butter pudding, but you use stale croissants torn up, and cover them with a caramel custard made with sugar, cream and eggs. It was spectacular!
my sister and i gave this to my dad for mother’s day!
i know…wrong day…haha. but since my mom’s been gone since 1999, we give my dad gifts on both mother’s day AND father’s day.