Book Review: Toast Hash Roast Mash by Dan Doherty

One wonders whether Dan Doherty was having a little bit of fun when he named his latest cookbook. As a title, Toast Hash Roast Mash is a bit of a tongue-twister but in many ways it also reflects what the book is all about; - playful, unpretentious food that is easy to make and delicious to eat. This is a book designed to have wide appeal as most of the dishes are quick to prepare and use everyday ingredients that are widely available. Even someone possessing limited culinary skills will feel empowered under Dan’s guidance to turn on the stove and get cooking.

Dan Doherty

Born and raised in Shrewsbury, Doherty started his career working as a kitchen porter and also helping out in the kitchen where he developed a love of food and cooking. A three-year apprenticeship with the Academy of Culinary Arts followed during which he worked at the Michelin-starred 1 Lombard Street under Herbert Berger. He did stints in a number of restaurants, working his way through the ranks, before becoming head chef at The Ambassador in Exmouth Market and subsequently at The Empress in Victoria Park. In 2012 Doherty was made Executive Chef at Duck & Waffle, developing a menu packed full of his interpretations of classic British dishes.

Toast Hash Roast Mash is a change of direction for Doherty. In Duck & Waffle:  Recipes and Stories, his first and much-lauded book, he shared the recipes for many of Duck & Waffle’s signature dishes. This über cool restaurant is located on the 40th floor of the Heron Tower in London’s financial district and, with its high-altitude location, offers up spectacular views of the city. The restaurant is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and serves the type of food that you will want to eat at any time; - smoked haddock scotch eggs, savoury ox-cheek doughnuts and a plethora of decadent desserts amongst many other offerings. Throw in a cocktail or two and you can see why tables are booked out months in advance.
 

Toast Hash Roast Mash

In Toast Hash Roast Mash Doherty gives us recipes that he likes to cook at home when he is off-duty and, in keeping with the food that he serves at Duck & Waffle, these are dishes that can be enjoyed throughout the day and are not slavishly structured around starters, main courses and desserts.

The book kicks off with chapters on Toast and Eggs before moving on to Pancakes, Savoury, Sides & Salads. It finishes with chapters on Sweets and Drinks but my favourite section of the book has to be the one entitled ‘Hangover’ with its indulgent but comforting recipes. Food for the morning-after-the-night-before may all sound a tad laddish but I defy anyone to not want to try out these dishes.


The recipes in the ‘Hangover’ chapter (and throughout the book) are also great from a practical point of view; - so many cookbooks demand that you buy obscure and often expensive ingredients but in Toast Hash Roast Mash leftovers are regularly employed to create new and exciting dishes. In ‘Hash, Eggs over easy’ Doherty explains how hash is essentially meat and potatoes plus anything else you have lying around, all chopped together and fried. Think Bubble & Squeak with Smoked Ham or Black Pudding & Yesterday’s Potatoes. Think comfort food.
 

Smashed Avocados on Toast

The best way to judge a cookery book is by trying out some of the recipes so I decided to start with one from ‘On Toast’, the first chapter of the book. Doherty notes that toast is the perfect vehicle for so many other ingredients and judging by the thousands of photos of it that appear daily on social media I have to say that I’m inclined to agree with him. People love toast.

Doherty recommends using sourdough bread to make toast as it holds its crispness much better than other breads. Luckily, I always have a sourdough loaf in the bread-bin so in no-time-at-all I made the Smashed Avocado with Minted Goats’ Cheese. Consisting of slices of toasted sourdough topped with mashed avocado, crumbled goats’ cheese and some finely chopped mint; this was a wonderful breakfast and a tasty start to my day. I’m often a little drowsy in the morning, so an added drizzle of fiery sriracha upped the ante and kick-started me into wakefulness. Delicious!

Turkish Eggs

Eggs are something that Doherty states that he could not live without and he devotes a couple of chapters in the book to recipes including them. The ultimate in fast-food, eggs can be eaten at any time during the day, whether poached, scrambled fried or boiled. The recipes in Toast Hash Roast Mash use eggs in all these forms but along with his take on Eggs Benedict using salt-beef and mustard hollandaise, you will also find Baked Eggs, Coddled Eggs, Smoked Salmon & Cream Cheese Scotch Eggs and that favourite of the 1970’s buffet table – Devilled Eggs.

There are many other egg recipes in the book but the one that immediately jumped out at me was Turkish Eggs, Yoghurt, Chorizo Butter, Mint. Here, small cubes of spicy chorizo were gently pan-fried in butter until cooked through and releasing their spicy flavour. The were then served alongside a poached egg and some warm yoghurt with plenty of toast on the side to mop up the buttery juices. Although the combination of ingredients may sound strange, this was a superb dish and one that has already established itself as a personal favourite.

The PBJ

The problem with Toast Hash Roast Mash is that I wanted to try out ALL the recipes in the book for this review and the beautiful, very tempting photographs by renowned Danish photographer Anders Schønnemann didn’t make whittling down my choices any easier. Succumbing to pressure from my children who are addicted to pancakes, I quickly whipped up ‘The PBJ’ – a glorious concoction comprising Doherty’s fluffy American-Style Pancakes, peanut butter, jam, cream and fresh strawberries… topped with crumbled shortbread biscuits for good measure. This was sinfully good.

I decided to complete my recipe road-test with Doherty’s Queen of Puddings. This is one of my favourite desserts and is made up of a custard base containing breadcrumbs, topped with sweet jam and clouds of frothy meringue. I could eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner and for me it conjures up childhood memories of delicious meals at my Granny’s house which always finished with something sweet like this. In this updated version, the custard is flavoured with Earl Grey tea which adds a subtle and fragrant background note of bergamot which cuts through the overall sweetness of the dish. Although this recipe involved a number of steps, it was relatively easy to prepare and looked stunning when it emerged from the oven.

Queen of Puddings

I loved Toast Hash Roast Mash. Despite all the plaudits and awards he has received Dan Doherty has an inherent understanding of the type of food real people like to eat and he presents his recipes with a sense of impish good humour which is immediately appealing. Most importantly, the recipes actually work which makes this a book that you will actually use. This is not some tome that will sit on a shelf getting dusty but rather, I can see it becoming dog-eared and stained as all the best loved cookbooks do over time.

Toast Hash Roast Mash: Real Food for Every Time of Day

Author: Dan Doherty

Published: 11 August 2016

Hardback. First published by Mitchell Beazley, a division of Octopus Publishing Group

Pages: 224.
 

American Style Pancakes

 

Book Review: Fruit on the Table by Theresa Storey

Theresa Storey knows a thing or two about fruit; knowledge which she has acquired over many years making the wonderful jams, jellies, marmalades and chutneys for The Green Apron - the artisan preserve company she runs from the family farm in Ballingarry, County Limerick. The award-winning preserves are made in small batches by traditional methods using locally-sourced, organic produce where possible and without artificial preservatives, colours or setting agents. In Fruit on the Table: Seasonal Recipes from the Green Apron Kitchen, her debut book, Theresa brings the reader on a fruit-filled culinary journey through the different seasons of the year and along the way shares some of her favourite recipes.

Fruit on the Table

Originally from Detroit, Theresa moved to Ireland as a young child with her family. Her parents had bought a small farm in County Clare and there they grew their own fruit and vegetables and kept livestock including chickens, ducks, geese, and sheep. Producing much of their own food meant that there were inevitable gluts so Theresa’s mother, Barbara, started making preserves in the late 1970s using the surplus fruit and vegetables. She sold the preserves locally and at the Milk Market in Limerick. Theresa, who qualified as a botanist took over the business in the 1990s and expanded it. These days The Green Apron also runs courses and workshops on sustainable living and all aspects of kitchen gardening. Topics covered on the courses include preserving, beekeeping and chicken-rearing amongst many others.

 

Apricot Cobbler heading into oven

Written in a relaxed and reassuring style, Fruit on the Table contains over one hundred easy-to-follow recipes and also includes loads of tips for growing, preserving and drying fruit. The book is structured around the fruit growing year and features fruit that grows here in Ireland but also includes recipes for some imported fruits - e.g. citrus fruits and bananas - as they are readily available and extremely popular. So, alongside recipes for Rhubarb & Coriander Meringue Pie, Strawberry Jam and Coronation Chicken are tempting recipes for Boozy Butterscotch Bananas, Lemon & Coconut Cake and Lamb & Fig Tagine. I couldn't wait to get stuck in and try some of them.

 

I decided to start with the Apricot Cobbler. Cobblers are most commonly made as desserts, but they can also take the form of savoury dishes where the filling is placed in a baking dish and topped with a batter or scone/biscuit topping before baking in the oven. In this inverted version the batter was mixed in the baking dish and then stoned and quartered fresh apricots were scattered on top. As it baked the batter turned into a delightful sponge with a crisp top and velvety smooth centre which rose up to surround the apricots. The cobbler was incredibly easy to make and I had it mixed up and in the pre-heated oven in less than ten minutes. The resulting dish was totally delicious and devoured by my family.

Buoyed by my success with the Cobbler, I then made the Pineapple & Rosemary Upside-Down Cake. Theresa Storey pairs rosemary with pineapple in this updated version of a family favourite and in her introduction to the recipe suggests that the two work well together with the woody herb adding a piney note against the caramelised fruit. I was intrigued and curious to try it out for myself.

Again, the recipe was simply laid out and easy-to follow. After peeling, coring and slicing my pineapple I laid it onto a base of melted butter and sugar in my cake tin. I then set about mixing up my cake batter which was made by the all-in-one method where all the ingredients (except the chopped rosemary) were placed into a bowl and mixed together. The rosemary was then folded in and once mixed through the batter was spread on top of the arranged pineapple before being baked in the oven for three quarters of an hour.


The only slightly tricky bit in the whole recipe was turning out the cake, but Storey recommends waiting ten minutes - no longer or the fruit may stick to the tin - so I followed her advice. The cake came out of the tin perfectly and looked gloriously resplendent with its upended topping of sticky caramelised pineapple. It was delicious to eat both as a dessert served with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream but also cooled and enjoyed as a cake in its own right. I felt that the rosemary was an inspired addition.

 

Pineapple & Rosemary Upside-Down Cake

I find it impossible to resist anything that contains lemon. Some people are addicted to chocolate but lemon always makes me go weak-at-the-knees. I’m a huge fan of lemon curd but find it tedious to make -  lots of stirring for a long time to avoid the mixture turning into lemon-flavoured scrambled eggs. I had never considered making it in a microwave but this is exactly how the Lemon Curd is made in Fruit on the Table. I was convinced that it could not work. How wrong I was!

 

Containing only lemons, butter, eggs and sugar,  the recipe required that the ingredients were combined together before being cooked in 1 minute bursts in the microwave until the mixture had thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon. I then poured it into a sterilised Kilner Jars which I allowed to cool before refrigerating. As it cooled it thickened further to create a perfect lemon curd. I couldn't believe that it could be so simple to make and given my love for this rich tangy preserve, it’s fair to say that I was more than a little bit excited by Theresa Storey’s amazing recipe.
 

Microwave Lemon Curd

I finished my recipe road-test with the Apple-Pie Filling which like all the recipes that I tried, was easy to prepare. I used store-bought Granny Smith apples which worked perfectly but later on in the year will use some of the fruit from the apples in my garden when they ripen. In this recipe the fruit was peeled, cored and chopped and then simmered in a sweet and spicy sauce before being allowed to cool. I stored the pie filling in a jar in the fridge and later used it to make an apple pie and as a topping for my morning porridge. Delicious!

 

From start-to-finish, Fruit on the Table is a joy to read. Theresa Storey’s passion for growing and cooking fruit is evident throughout the book. You really get the sense that she wants to de-mystify the whole subject and this she does brilliantly. All the recipes that I tried were easy to make and resulted in some truly tasty food. I love the way the recipes in the book follow the fruit growing and harvesting calendar as this makes the book one that you will refer to and cook from many times during the year. The recipes are accompanied by beautiful  photographs which were taken Valerie O’Connor, a food writer and photographer who was also responsible for the food styling.

Apple Pie Filling

The truth is that whilst fruit is readily available in our shops and supermarkets it is also relatively easy to grow. So many Irish families have an apple tree or rhubarb growing in their gardens. Glancing out my kitchen window as I sit here typing away, I can see the blackcurrant and gooseberry bushes that I planted nearly a decade ago heavily laden with fruit that should be ready to pick in a couple of weeks time. I usually freeze a lot of the fruit or use it to make jams and jellies to see me through the winter months but now, armed with Theresa Storey’s book and using her recipes as inspiration, I will endeavour to use my crop in more inventive ways.

 

Fruit on the Table: Seasonal Recipes from the Green Apron Kitchen is available to buy here.

Author: Theresa Storey

Hardback: 208 pages

ISBN: 9781847177773

Published by: O’Brien Press

 

Theresa Storey

Book Review: Tasting Rome by Katie Parla & Kristina Gill

There is something really special about Italian food and with its reliance on using the best fresh seasonal ingredients that are available it is easy to understand why. However, it’s also easy to fall back on time-worn perceptions of Italian cuisine and believe that it’s primarily centred on pizza, pasta and ice-cream. The truth is that the food of Italy is far more complex and varied than you might first think and each region has its own unique culinary customs and traditions which are best experienced by visiting those places and eating as the locals do. This is as true with regard to the food of Rome as it is to the food found elsewhere in Italy.

 

In Tasting Rome: Fresh Flavours and Forgotten Recipes from an Ancient City co-authors Katie Parla and Kristina Gill want to show us Rome as it really is. This they do by reference to the food found in the different neighbourhoods around the city and through the many tempting recipes that they have included in this sumptuous book. With the turn of each page, the reader learns new things as they are brought on a gastronomic tour of the city.

 

Tasting Rome

Parla and Gill are respected food and travel writers/journalists and have both lived in Rome and Italy for a number of years. Parla has written over 20 food and travel books and her work has appeared in a large number of publications including the New York Times and Bon Appétit. She also writes on her blog. Gill is the Italy based food and drinks editor at Design*Sponge – a much respected lifestyle blog. As a photographer she has also worked for National Geographic, Traveler and Kinfolk.

 

Despite its Imperialistic past Parla and Gill show us that there is little that is lavish or ostentatious about Roman food but rather that it is characterised by its simplicity and a no-nonsense approach to the ingredients that are used. Put simply, Roman cooking is instinctive and based around using whatever produce is freshly available and in season. I was keen to start cooking and try out some of the recipes.

 

Suppli

Rather than dividing the chapters of the book into traditional courses like antipasto, primo, secondo, contorno, and dolce, Parla and Gill chose to structure the book in a way that highlights new classic dishes but also acknowledges the importance that certain dishes have played in Rome’s culinary past. Consequently, the eight chapters in the book encompass topics such as Snacks, Starters & Street Food; Foraging Rome; Bread & Pizza and Drinks.

 

I decided to kick off my recipe road-test with Cacio e Pepe Suppli (Rice Croquettes with Pecorino Romano & Black Pepper). Here Parla has adapted the flavours found in Cacio e Pepe – a pasta sauce made from Pecorino Romano and coarsely ground black – and has used them in an updated version of the deep-fried rice croquettes which are a popular street-food in Rome.

 

Suppli ingredients

I started by making a simple risotto flavoured with Pecorino Romano – a salted sheep’s milk cheese that has roots in Rome stretching back two thousand years – and let this cool before forming it into little individual croquettes around a central core of mozzarella. After dipping each croquette into flour, beaten egg and fine breadcrumbs, the croquettes are deep-fried until golden brown. The suppli are eaten whilst still warm so that the melted cheese centres can be enjoyed in all their glory.

 

I love classic suppli and didn’t believe that they could be improved on… but the recipe in Tasting Rome surpassed all expectations. The recipe was easy to follow and whilst some technique was involved even someone with limited cooking skills could make them. I loved them and thought this updated version was inspired.

 

Biscotti just out of the oven

As a keen baker, I am invariably drawn to recipes for breads cakes and biscuits so decided to make the Almond and Cinnamon Biscotti. The recipe in Tasting Rome was inspired by the biscotti which are unique to the Roman Jewish Tradition. There are approximately thirteen thousand Jews in Rome – a city with a population of almost 4 million – but the community’s influence on the food culture of the city is immense. As Parla and Gill acknowledge, this is due in part to three centuries of isolation in a walled Ghetto (from 1555 to 1870), living on limited food resources out of which they developed a unique cuisine called the cucina ebraica romanesca which “coaxes intense flavour from paltry resources”.

 

I love biscotti so this recipe containing whole almonds and cinnamon immediately appealed. Although American Cup Measurements were used, the book contains a handy conversion chart and in no-time at all I had the ingredients weighed out and the dough mixed up. I then shaped the dough into two logs and popped them into the oven for their first baking. Once out of the oven the logs were sliced into individual biscuits and baked for a second time to dry them out. This recipe makes a large amount of biscuits, but I wasn’t complaining as they were absolutely delicious. They also were easy to store and remained beautifully crisp, stored in a tin for a number of days after I had made them.

 

Frittata

I then decided to make the Frittata di Zucca (Pumpkin Frittata). Like most of the recipes in the book, this used simple ingredients and was easy to make, merely requiring the cracking of a few eggs and the chopping of some vegetables which were then combined in a large frying pan to make the flavoursome frittata which was wonderful eaten at room temperature but also equally tasty eaten cold at a family picnic the following day. I loved it.

 

Panna cotta is served in most Roman restaurants, so I felt duty bound to make the Panna Cotta alla Menta con salsa di Cioccolato (Mint Panna Cotta). At its simplest panna cotta is a set-milk dessert, commonly flavoured with vanilla but easy to adapt to incorporate other flavours. This version was gently flavoured with vanilla but had a good hit of mint. It was incredibly easy to make and I quickly had it mixed up and poured into ramekins. They were left to set in the fridge overnight and the following day I turned them out onto individual serving plates and served them along with the wonderful chocolate sauce suggested in Tasting Rome. They were outstanding.

 

Panna Cotta

I decided to finish my recipe road test with the rather enticing Crostata di Prugne di Sara Levi (Sara Levi’s Plum Crostata with Almond Crust. This beautiful fruit tart was topped with a lovely pastry lattice which I thought looked fabulous albeit complicated to achieve. Fruit tarts are hugely popular in Rome and are seen everywhere; – they are even often enjoyed for breakfast. The version in Tasting Rome is based on a recipe by Chef Sara Levi of the Rome Sustainable Food Project and is truly exceptional. I found the pastry a little difficult, but not impossible to work with and thoroughly enjoyed creating the lattice on top of the tart. Whilst this recipe was more complicated and time-consuming to make than many of the others in the book the final result made all the effort worthwhile. For me it was the highlight of my recipe-testing and I have made it a number of times since.

 

Crostata prior to baking

Tasting Rome is a beautiful book which is extremely informative and very well-written. The photography throughout it is exceptional. If I’m being completely honest, I have to admit that I own many cookery books that I have never actually cooked from. They sit on shelves gathering dust and serving no real purpose. The recipes in Tasting Rome are recipes that you will want to cook. The food is beautifully presented and the recipes are well laid out with easy-to-follow instructions. But the thing that really sets this book apart is the fact that you really feel as if you are getting a true taste of this most iconic of cities. This book is an absolute must for anyone who loves Italy and wants to learn more about the city, its people and its food.

 

I defy anyone to read this book and not want to immediately book a flight to Rome.

 

Tasting Rome: Fresh Flavours and Forgotten Recipes from an Ancient City is published by Clarkson Potter and is available to buy at Amazon

 

This book review first appeared in TheTaste.ie

 

Crostata ready to serve