12th November 2024

Today really did turn into a day of lockdown memories.

At the start of lockdown I found Dominique Ansel’s bakery in Victoria thanks to my little brother James and discovered the cronut.  We jumped into the car a couple of times to go get the new cronut of the month and I loved them and looked forward to them each month. Sadly the bakery closed down and with all travel being banned it was obvious a trip to New York for Cronuts was many months away.  James and I talked long and hard and decided the only thing to do was for me to buy the cookbook and make them myself. 

Now for one reason and another I never actually got around to making them, it is a very complex recipe and a 3 day process, when I thought of them I did not have 3 days and when I did have 3 days, I didn’t think of them.  Until a month or so ago that is when I was reading the book and read and re-read the recipe and thought on my day off that week I would make them.

Anyway as the book was out and Matt was in need of smiling I flicked through and thought I would make the chocolate and pecan cookies which were in the beginners section.  Despite following the recipe to the letter, they really did not work at all.  They were not thick and crumbly as the picture looks but thin and bendy and they also stuck to my non-stick tray (and nothing sticks to that!).  I assumed I had just made a monumental error and put it on the back burner to make another batch another day.

It has been playing on my mind since and so yesterday decided to give them another go.  I followed the recipe and the mixture looked exactly the same and cooked the same as the last time. WHY? They are in the beginners section, why can’t I actually cook them.

After going over and over and over it, I did some digging and an internet search shows many others have found as I did, that the recipe just does not work. They had the exact same issue I had, flat bendy patties rather than gorgeous thick cookies. Although there are a few people who said it was a perfect recipe. I cannot work it out at all.  How can one recipe have such wildly different results? I won’t be making them again and am unlikely to now try the cronuts since who wants 3 days of work only for them to turn out badly.

Then this evening we made another recipe from Ottolenghi Comfort, the stroganoff. Cue our second lockdown memory.  During lockdown stroganoff was a recipe that we made and we all loved.  We then ended up making many different versions from various chefs, cookbooks and websites, trying to find a perfect version.  It was actually a lot of fun and eventually we came up with a recipe we deem as the perfect stroganoff. 

So loving stroganoff so much this recipe jumped out of the book screaming make me, make me! I was really intrigued at the idea of a stroganoff with meatballs pasta and the idea of the gherkins over the top sounded so interesting.

Despite reading through the recipe, I just did not appreciate just how long a cook this would be and in hindsight not one to start after finishing work late.  However, once we had started we just decided to go with it, especially as we were looking forward to it so much.

We loved the meatballs, the lemon really lifted them and it worked really well with pasta.  We also really loved the gherkins over the top, what a revelation, I would most definitely do stroganoff with meatballs and pasta again and would always serve any stroganoff we make from now on with gherkins.  The sauce was not as nice as our usual one but I look forward to making our sauce with meatballs next time.