recipes: November 2006 Archives

You guys voted it into third place, but it had a few particularly passionate supporters, so this week I'm sending you the aubergine soup.  It's one I learnt at school and then played with at home. .It's great for a cold autumn night.  Don't omit the garlic cream - it's essential.  Roasting the bulb first makes the garlic flavour sweet and smooth.

The aubergine is simply a marvellous vegetable.  Do send me your own aubergine recipe favourite if you have one.

It was fairly clear in the end:
Black cod: 9; Roast chicken: 6; Aubergine soup: 5; Squash soup: 2

Thanks for all the votes.  You were right about the squash soup - it's not quite as nice as the other dishes.  I'll send the recipes for the chicken and the aubergine soup another week.  The squash soup has obligingly resigned.  (Voting has gone pretty well over here in the US of A too.)

As promised, some ice cream to go with last week's apple cake.  If you have an ice cream maker, this is really easy.  (Or as they would say here, 'super easy'.)  I made this ice cream having had something similar at Chez Panisse (a famous Berkeley restaurant).  There it was served with roasted figs - delicious.  At home we had it with Carlo's Florentine Apple Cake - equally delicious.  

You should use the nicest honey you can find.  If yours is too hard and crystalline to mix easily with the yolks, first warm the jar in a pan of hot water.  The honey keeps the ice cream soft, which means you can serve it directly from the freezer.  The honey also prolongs the life of the ice cream, so you can keep it for several weeks.  But you won't want to.