Bibliocook: All About Food

Some days start off grey and just don't improve. Take today, for instance. Overcast morning, freezing cold at the bus stop waiting on the bus to work, get lost looking for this week's office (I'm temping at the moment), spent the day nearly submerged beneath files - and what do I find on my phone when it's time to go home? A text from the Boyfriend who had to come home from work early because he was sick. As I had a nasty cold at the weekend, we know who to blame it on. And there's only one thing to sort it out and that's Chicken Noodle Soup.

Fortunately we have plenty of chicken stock in the freezer from the last time we had a Manuka Smoked Chicken. I'm a bone saver so anything that looks like it might be useful is tossed into the stockpot - and believe me, the bones from a Manuka Smoked Chicken are pretty good. There's a note of bacon - the smoked flavour - there, of course, but that only adds to the eventual dish.

A healing dish like this always needs a quantity of garlic and onions and then it's good - as well as giving it an Asian accent - to add some fresh ginger and chilli into the equation. Goodness upon goodness. How could any cold survive that? We'll have to wait and see but, for some reason, the sky doesn't look so grey any more...

Continue reading "Food for a cold day and sick boyfriend" »

There's more than one way to make the best of your time. And perhaps writing about Hot Cross Buns as they (hopefully!) rise in your kitchen may be winning in the multi-tasking stakes at the moment. Not very New Zealand, you may say, but no! These are extra special Kiwi Hot Cross Buns with Chocolate Chips.

Now, I've always been a fan of the Hot Cross Bun, especially when it's toasted so that you can add the extra treat of melted butter to the warm, spicy yummyness, but Chocolate Chip HCBs I had not come across before arriving in New Zealand. And now they're everywhere! I just have to wander into or past a bakery (of which there are many) to see an advertisement for HCBs - plain (as if you could ever call a HCB 'plain') or with chocolate chips.

A taste test at Baker's Delight in Northlands shopping centre while waiting to collect some of their dense Cape Seed rolls (ideal for packed lunches) convinced me that these were indeed a good idea and so I pressed our new breadmaker into service this morning. Not being lazy, you understand, just intrigued to see what it can do. So far it's doing good. I carefully measured the ingredients into the pan, in sequence as told, just adding a ¼ cup chocolate chips with the sultanas, and set it running.

An hour and a half later, three beeps told me we were ready to rock so I took the dough out of the machine, kneaded it for a few minutes - not that it needed it but old habits die hard - and divided it into slightly over the dozen pieces as recommended by the manual. Well, you can't be following instructions blindly all the time. I put my fourteen buns lovingly on to two trays and set them to rise, which is the stage we're at now.

This is the first time I've ever made a bread-type thing in our rather cold house and I'm not sure how long they're going to need to rise. The recipe, which says leave for 30 minutes, seems a little optimistic so we'll see how we go. In the meantime, here's the recipe. Bear in mind that my breadmaker has a capacity of 1½ lbs and your own breadmaker might even come with a handy recipe that you can use yourself.

For those of you without breadmakers, I often made HCBs by hand in my mother's kitchen without any problems. If I had the recipe I'd give it here but, alas, I'm far from the advantages of having all my tried and tested cookbooks to hand so you'll just have to do with my breadmaker one. Oh, and don't forget, all the measurements in New Zealand are in what seems to me, terribly inconvenient cups. Still, you'll find no end of conversion tables available on the internet.

Continue reading "Hot Cross Buns, Kiwi Style" »

My, oh my. Who would have thought I'd have to come all the way to New Zealand to get my first bread machine, known here as a breakmaker? And who would have thought that an unemployed journalist could afford to buy herself one of these breadmakers? Well, if aforementioned journalist spends time surfing on Trademe, the Kiwi equivalent of Ebay, it seems that anything is possible. For the princely sum of $25 I purchased a PALSONIC Auto Bakery Breadmaker and we collected it tonight. What excitement!

Well, that was nothing as compared to the excitement felt by all the occupants of a certain wee house in Christchurch when the breadmaker was coming towards the end of its 3½ hour cycle. The yeasty, homey smell of fresh baked bread filled the air and the end product actually looked like a loaf of bread, albeit square - the cooking tin is not very loaf-like - but the proof was going to be in the eating. Well, you never know if you're buying a pig in a poke with this online trader activity.

It's reassuring to report that not only did the end result have the accurate appearance and smell but it also tasted like real bread. Phew! Apart from the fact that it was cooked in my own house, I have to say that I wasn't hugely impressed with the first loaf. It was a bit too...normal for my liking. Time to pore over the recipes that came with the breadmaker and see what innovations can be introduced.

Are your egg whites not turning into peaks, no matter how long and for how hard you beat them? Having lumping problems when you try blending soup powder with water? Do you want to know how to use up those brown bananas at the bottom of the fruit bowl?

Have you got a cookery query that you'd like answered? A knotty kitchen problem that's been driving you mad?

Why not Ask The Cook! Post all your problems - well, all your cookery problems that is - on this page and I'll try and help you sort things out.

Updated: 25 August 2007: Two-and-a-half years after I started Bibliocook, I think it is about time I updated the About section! I started this blog while living in New Zealand - see below for my first entry - with the Boyfriend, who recently became the Husband. After a year focusing on the flavours and tastes of New Zealand and cooking for my friends and family in Christchurch, I had a new perspective on food when I returned to Ireland in 2005. I resumed my day job at RTÉ.ie Entertainment but continued to write about baking and dinners, cafés and restaurants, cookbooks and products here on Bibliocook, making friends at Greatfood.ie, Slow Food Ireland and Intermezzo Ireland. And now, the next step for me, in both writing about and working with food is the 12-week certificate course at Ballymaloe Cookery School!

Original text 25 March 2005: I've been reading other people's food blogs with great interest for a couple of years. I love how blog writers describe how they come up with their recipes, foods that they like, kitchen equipment that is essential to them, experiments they make and their favourite cookbooks. It's a much more personal way of learning about food rather than just looking at the bare bones of a recipe. And for me, food is all about context. Like the blogs, the cookery writers that I adore - Nigel Slater, Nigella Lawson, Darina Allen - are good at evoking the events and feelings that surround particular dishes, Nigella Lawson in particular. So, with the help and encouragement of my Techie friend, I decided to explore doing that for myself.

At home in Ireland I had a busy life as an entertainment journalist on the RTÉ website but, since coming to my Boyfriend's native New Zealand in December, I have much more time on my hands so it's the perfect opportunity to write about food. Particularly since the food here in New Zealand is amazing - I've been constantly amazed at the quality of food available in restaurants and cafes, in local markets and side-of-road stalls.

Another thing that really impresses me is the New Zealander can-do attitude. They've taken a look hard look at European produce and determined that it can be done - and bettered - here, from spectacularly good olive oil, wine and verjuice to new products such as avocado oil and hazelnut paste. I am living in Christchurch on the South Island at the moment and have every intention of spending the next few months eating my way around the country - and writing all about it here.

There were several reasons why I picked the name Bibliocook. Firstly, I'm a long standing (if absent at the moment) member of an Irish bookclub called Bibliofemme and this website is designed by that club's Techie who has been saying "and, of course, Bibliocook is your baby" to me for years. Also, it is a name that sums up two of my major loves in life - cooking, naturally, and reading. My Boyfriend says that I sometimes spend more time reading cookbooks than cooking from them. I don't see a problem with that! So Bibliocook it is - I hope you enjoy it.