Mayonnaise

The first recipe in the book and i've only just got round to making it. It was to accompany the prawn cakes above. It wasn't a great success - too oily and too strong a taste of olive. I should have stopped when it looked about perfect, but this being my first time making mayonnaise, i thought i'd better carry on and follow the recipe exactly. Maybe the eggs i used were too small for the amount of oil, but either way, nigella suggests far too much olive oil i think.

- Whisk 2 egg yolks, preferably from room temperature, with a pinch of salt.

- Very slowly add 225ml groundnut/sunflower oil, whisking all the time.

- Then continue with 25ml olive oil (nigella suggests 75ml), followed by the juice of 1/2 lemon, still whisking all the time.

- Season with salt and white pepper.

So not too bad a recipe, but next time i'm going to stop adding oil when it gets to the consistency i want.

Mushroom Crostini

You wake up, get up, make a cup of tea, feel hungry, think about having some breakfast, and of course, if you are me, you turn to nigella for another recipe to tick off. But, nigella doesn't really do breakfast, at least not in "How To Eat". Tara wasn't really on for the suggested Jam Tarts and Custard for breakfast, so mushroom crostini it was, turned basically into mushrooms on toast.

- Put 2 tablespoons olive oil in a pan, add 2 finely chopped sprigs thyme and 1 finely choppedclove garlic, and heat for a few mins while the oil hots up.

- Add 200g finely sliced mushrooms and cook until soft.

- Add 1 tablespoon grated parmesan, season, and sprinkle with parsley.

For mushroom crostini, nigella suggests finely chopping the mushrooms rather than slicing, and also combining everything afterwards in a processor. It makes a tasty mushrooms on toast recipe, although maybe using butter instead of olive oil, would make it even tastier.

Lemon Chicken

Quite a few times now, i have slightly altered the recipe, or in the light of the cooking, wish i had. Mainly this has been to cut corners when nigella has been overly laborious, or because my oven seems to be much more efficient than hers and i end up over-cooking things. So, instead of repeating exactly what nigella recommends, i am going to put in my slight amendments.

And a classic example of this is this lemon chicken. Lemony - tick; chicken - overdone. Nigella suggests cooking it for 30 mins at 210c, but in my modern, efficient oven, i'm going to suggest 25-30mins at 200c.

- Take a large chicken cut into 8 portions (or simply take 8 portions of chicken) and cook them for 2 mins in an oven dish of 6 tablespoons of hotolive oil.

- Add the zest of 2 lemons, 1 tablespoon of oregano, 300ml white wine, and salt and pepper.

- Allow to bubble, then add 300ml water.

- Put in the oven and cook for 25-30mins at 200c.

- Remove the chicken and measure out 300ml of chicken juices.

- Whisk together 3 eggs and the juice of 2 lemons until frothy.

- Slowly add the chicken juices whilst still whisking to create an "avgolemono sauce" to create a thin custardy, but tasty sauce.

- Season and pour over the chicken.

The result is very lemony, but the sauce is slightly disappointing. You could have just added some lemon juice to the cooking juices and then use these as gravy. I'm not sure i really get avgolemono sauce, but maybe i didn't make it properly.

Custard Tart

Hmmm.... Not the best birthday cake ever made, but hopefully she won't remember! Nigella says this is tricky and it is. The problem is making sure that the pastry base is completely water-tight so that when you add the custard mixture, it doesn't all leak out. I lost about half of my custard this way.

Nigella also cooks her pastry far too hot, so that the sides burn before the base is done. She says she covers the sides top prevent them burning, but i'm not convinced. When i tried this on the second bake, all that happened was that the tin foil stuck to the pastry, hence the uneven pastry sides.

The leaking was however, all my own fault. A few tears appeared when moving from worktop to flan case, and i thought i'd patched them up with pastry, but not good enough it seems. Basically your rolled out pastry needs to be perfect and you need to move it perfectly into the flan tin. Sealing the pastry with the egg white just isn't enough.

- Bake the pastry blind for 20 mins at 200C (using pastry beans on top to weigh it down)

- Beat an egg white and brush this onto the pastry base and cook it again (without the beans) for a further 5 mins.

- Lightly whisk together 3 eggs, 1 egg yolk, and 2 tablespoons vanilla sugar (or plain sugar with a drop of vanilla essence).

- Warm 300ml single cream and 150ml milk in a saucepan with a pince of ground mace.

- Add the egg/sugar mixture, stir and strain into the pastry case, (the pastry case on a pulled out oven shelf so It it doesn't spill when putting in the oven).

- Grate over some nutmeg and cook at 160c for 35-45 mins.

It tasted pretty good. The pastry was delicious (where it wasn't burnt!) but i was disappointed with the custard. It tasted a bit bland to me, although Tara seemed to think this was classic english custard. I prefer the sweeter, richer Portuguese style of custard. Maybe a touch more sugar next time.

Sweet Pastry

I normally make pastry by hand, but Nigella's method is simpler (i know, i couldn't believe it!) and turns out better. She uses the blender and it just seems to work, and this is without doing the fiddly bits of putting things back in the freezer.

- Sieve 120g flour and 30g icing sugar into a bowl and add 80g cold cubed (1cm) butter.

- Put this in the deep freeze for 10 mins.

- In a small bowl, mix 1 egg yolk, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, a tablespoon of iced water and a pinch of salt.

- Beat together and then put back in the fridge.

- Remove the flour/butter bowl and add to a blender.

- Blend for a few mins, until the mixture resembles oatmeal.

- Add the egg yolk mixture to the blender and blend until the mixture nearly comes together - add slightly more iced water if necessary.

- Just before it totally amalgamates, remove it and combine into a round ball.

- Cover with clingfilm and put in the fridge until its ready to be used.

Just perfect for the custard tart coming up...

Red Wine, Cumin and Onion Gravy

One of nigella's simpler recipes. It gives a lovely silky gravy and i'm not quite sure how! maybe its the caramelising of the onions or maybe the cooking in flour before adding the stock. Either way, its pretty good gravy and great with sausages and mash, even though they were vegetarian sausages courtesy of Tara.

- Cook 225g of thinly sliced onions in 30g beef dripping or oil for about 10 mins, or until soft, on a low heat.

- Add 1 teaspoon cumin and cook for a further 5 mins.

- Turn up the heat and add 1 tablespoon sugar, cooking for 3 mins to let the onions caramelise.

- Add 2 tablespoons flour and continue cooking for 2 mins.

- Add 500ml meat stock and 150 ml red wine, heat to boiling, then simmer for 20-30 mins, stirring occasionally.

I would loved to have used beef dripping and meat stock, but i can only dream of what this would have tasted like. The vegetarian version was good enough though.

Cream of Chicken Soup

Having cooked this, I'm not sure i've ever had a proper cream of chicken soup before - ever! It's not something i've ever cooked before, i never order something like this in a restaurant, and no-one has ever served at a dinner party. The closest i have come is out of a packet, and that's not very close. I can heartily recommend it though - a true classic that is definitely under-represented on today's menus.

- Melt 30g butter and cook 200g finely sliced leeks in it for 10 mins or until soft.

- Put 300ml chicken stock and 300ml milk in a saucepan, add a clove of garlic, 2 bay leaves and a chicken breast and bring to the boil.

- Simmer until the chicken breast is just tender, probably only 5-10 mins after the mixture has boiled, then remove the chicken.

- Add 1 tablespoon of flour to the leeks, cook for a couple mins, then add the milk/stock mixture, keeping on the simmer.

- Finely shred the chicken, add this to the sauce, add a pinch of salt and cook for a further 5 mins.

- Add 15g butter and cook for a further 5 mins, adding extra milk if it starts to look like white sauce.

- Put it in a blender, and sieve into a saucepan.

- Put back on the heat, add an egg yolk and 3 tablespoons double cream.

It sounds quite complicated for a soup, but basically it's cook, blend, sieve. The chicken gives up its flavour really well and makes it taste delicious. It's worth it just to know what a proper cream of chicken soup tastes like.