Something New On The Menu

Cooking is one of my great pleasures and my bookshelves are sagging under the weight of cookbooks I have collected over the years. Some are mainly of nostalgic value, tastes in food generally having moved on, and our tastes too. For instance we have all seventy two volumes of the part-work "Cordon Bleu Cookery", bought week by week back in 1972. There are three or four dishes from there that I occasionally cook, but overall a quick glance at the week's menu plans on the back covers is enough to raise my cholesterol level to dangerous heights. How those who aspired to middle class status were supposed to eat!

Others (any of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's River Cottage books) are my staple references, and then there are books that I bought and mean to use. One such, bought about six months ago is the Hummus Bros book. I love hummus, make my own and have always thought of it as a dish that simply needed pittas or flatbreads and a sprinkling of smoked hot paprika to provide a meal. This book though sees it having the ancillary role of the carbs in a meal where some other dish takes the star role. So this evening we sit down to spicy chicken in a tomato, onion and garlic sauce, to be piled in the centre of the dish, with a generous ring of hummus surrounding it. And of course, flatbreads to mop it all up. It's very nearly ready to be served up, so that's what I'm away to do right now.