bookcook

#Bookcook Chronicles of Narnia – Turkish Delight

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Book Synopsis

Journeys to the end of the world, fantastic creatures, and epic battles between good and evil—what more could any reader ask for in one book? The book that has it all is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, written in 1949 by Clive Staples Lewis. But Lewis did not stop there. Six more books followed, and together they became known as The Chronicles of Narnia.

For the past fifty years, The Chronicles of Narnia have transcended the fantasy genre to become part of the canon of classic literature. Each of the seven books is a masterpiece, drawing the reader into a land where magic meets reality, and the result is a fictional world whose scope has fascinated generations.

This edition presents all seven books—unabridged—in one impressive volume. The books are presented here in chronological order, each chapter graced with an illustration by the original artist, Pauline Baynes. Deceptively simple and direct, The Chronicles of Narnia continue to captivate fans with adventures, characters, and truths that speak to readers of all ages, even fifty years after they were first published.

‘It is dull, Son of Adam, to drink without eating,’’ said the Queen presently. ‘‘What would you like best to eat?’’
“Turkish Delight, please, your Majesty,” said Edmund.
The Queen let another drop fall from her bottle on to the snow, and instantly there appeared a round box, tied with green silk ribbon, which, when opened, turned out to contain several pounds of the best Turkish Delight. Each piece was sweet and light to the very centre and Edmund had never tasted anything more delicious. He was quite warm now, and very comfortable. 
-The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis

A world of the fantastical, adventure, creatures and epic battles. All of which can be found in the saga of Chronicles of Narnia. I have included a recipe from the website http://www.inliterature.net that covers the Narnia/Turkish Delight connection. If you haven’t been to that site, you should. She makes such fun book/food connections.

Turkish Delight | The Chronicles of Narnia; The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

Cook time 1 hour

Total time 1 hour

Author: Bryt@InLiterature.net

Ingredients

  • 380g / 1.9c white sugar
  • 455 ml water
  • ½ tsp cream of tartar
  • 95g/ ¾c cornflour
  • 150 ml water
  • 1 cup pistachios
  • ½ tsp rosewater essence (or 2-4 tsp rosewater)
  • a drop of rose food coloring
  • Icing sugar for dusting
  • Butter or oil (for greasing)
  • a bowl of cold water

Instructions

  1. Start by buttering a square casserole pan measuring 20cm by 20cm.
  2. In one medium sized saucepan, pour in the white sugar, cream of tartar and the 455ml of water. Stir over medium heat until the sugar dissolves.
  3. While you let the sugar come to a boil, in another saucepan, (same size or slightly smaller) stir together the cornflour and 200ml of water. Note: do not start mixing this cornflour mixture until after you’ve finished stirring the sugar. If you start the cornflour too soon, the mixture will clump together into a large mass and won’t dissolve properly later.
  4. Whisk the cornflour and water until it’s a smooth paste, then add it straight away to the sugar mixture.
  5. Whisk the cornflour mixture into the sugar syrup over medium heat for a minute or two. Once the sugar mixture comes to a boil, turn down the heat to low.
  6. Grab a wooden spoon (and a seat) and continue to stir continuously in the same direction for the next 40-50 minutes. You’ll know the mixture is ready for testing when the sugar mixture is thick and clearly pulls away from the edges of the pan.
  7. Scoop a little bit of the mixture and drop it into the cool water. The mixture will stay together but is very soft to the touch.
  8. Pour in the flavour first, then the rose colour. Stir for another minute over heat, then turn off the stove. Stir in the pistachios and scoop the mixture into the casserole dish.
  9. Use a spoon to spread it out, then leave to cool on the counter.
  10. Sprinkle icing sugar onto a cutting board and onto the top of the turkish delight.
  11. Turn the Turkish Delight out onto the board and use a long sharp knife to slice, sprinkling icing sugar over the knife between each cut to keep from sticking.
  12. Sprinkle more icing sugar over the Turkish Delight to coat before serving.
  13. Turkish Delight can be stored in a container at room temperature with a cloth dishtowel over the top.

Notes*Instead of butter you can use an oil, but make sure it has a pleasant or minimal flavour.
*Prep your ingredients before you start.
*Continuously stir. It’s not as difficult as it sounds– the time goes quickly!

Turkish Delight recipe adapted from Felicity Cloake’s The Guardian article https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/dec/10/how-to-make-the-perfect-turkish-delight

#bookcook – Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss

Categories bookcook14 Comments on #bookcook – Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss

Green Eggs and Ham: The book contains only fifty words due to a bet with Seuss’ publisher that he could write a book for children under 225 words.

Yes, the recipe green eggs and ham exists and if you are a true enthusiast cook it in a box, and with a fox.

Here is a recipe that does not look disgusting. It actually looks rather tasty and wonderful. The recipe is taken in it’s entirety from https://www.theinspirationedit.com

Ingredients For Green Eggs And Ham

  • 6 Hardboiled Eggs
  • Avocado (Small-Medium size)
  • 2 Tbsp Mayo
  • 1 Tbsp Lime Juice
  • Salt to taste
  • Sliced Deli Meat Ham
  • Green Food Coloring
  • Toothpicks

How To Make Green Eggs And Ham

Green Eggs And Ham – Step One

Peel and cut in half the hardboiled eggs.

Scoop out the yolks and place in a medium size bowl.

Green Eggs And Ham – Step Two

Add the mayo, lime juice, salt, avocado and 1-2 drops of food colouring. 

Green Eggs And Ham – Step Three

Mix and mash well.

Green Eggs And Ham – Step Four

Scoop or pipe the yolk mix into the eggs.

Green Eggs And Ham – Step Five

Take the ham and cut in half. Roll up and stick a toothpick in it.

10 More Feminist Dystopic Books

Categories 1001 comics, bookcook, Books, reviews, Science Fiction, short story11 Comments on 10 More Feminist Dystopic Books

Recently I posted an article on The Rise of Feminist Dystopic Novels and some examples to check out. I also received a bunch of wonderful suggestions on twitter, and have added them here. Thanks!

The Female Man

by Joanna Russ

It has influenced William Gibson and been listed as one of the ten essential works of science fiction. Most importantly, Joanna Russ’s THE FEMALE MAN is a suspenseful, surprising and darkly witty chronicle of what happens when Jeannine, Janet, Joanna, and Jael—four alternative selves from drastically different realities—meet.

Parable of the Sower

by Octavia E. Butler

In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future

Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others.

When fire destroys their compound, Lauren’s family is killed and she is forced out into a world that is fraught with danger. With a handful of other refugees, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean salvation for all mankind. 

Gather the Daughters

by Jennie Melamed

Never Let Me Go meets The Giver in this haunting debut about a cult on an isolated island, where nothing is as it seems.

Years ago, just before the country was incinerated to wasteland, ten men and their families colonized an island off the coast. They built a radical society of ancestor worship, controlled breeding, and the strict rationing of knowledge and history. Only the Wanderers–chosen male descendants of the original ten–are allowed to cross to the wastelands, where they scavenge for detritus among the still-smoldering fires.

The daughters of these men are wives-in-training. At the first sign of puberty, they face their Summer of Fruition, a ritualistic season that drags them from adolescence to matrimony. They have children, who have children, and when they are no longer useful, they take their final draught and die. But in the summer, the younger children reign supreme. With the adults indoors and the pubescent in Fruition, the children live wildly–they fight over food and shelter, free of their fathers’ hands and their mothers’ despair. And it is at the end of one summer that little Caitlin Jacob sees something so horrifying, so contradictory to the laws of the island, that she must share it with the others.

Born leader Janey Solomon steps up to seek the truth. At seventeen years old, Janey is so unwilling to become a woman, she is slowly starving herself to death. Trying urgently now to unravel the mysteries of the island and what lies beyond, before her own demise, she attempts to lead an uprising of the girls that may be their undoing.

Gather The Daughters is a smoldering debut; dark and energetic, compulsively readable, Melamed’s novel announces her as an unforgettable new voice in fiction.

The Gate to Women’s Country

by Sheri S. Tepper

Tepper’s finest novel to date is set in a post-holocaust feminist dystopia that offers only two political alternatives: a repressive polygamist sect that is slowly self-destructing through inbreeding and the matriarchal dictatorship called Women’s Country. Here, in a desperate effort to prevent another world war, the women have segregated most men into closed military garrisons and have taken on themselves every other function of government, industry, agriculture, science and learning.

The resulting manifold responsibilities are seen through the life of Stavia, from a dreaming 10-year-old to maturity as doctor, mother and member of the Marthatown Women’s Council. As in Tepper’s Awakeners series books, the rigid social systems are tempered by the voices of individual experience and, here, by an imaginative reworking of The Trojan Woman that runs through the text. A rewarding and challenging novel that is to be valued for its provocative ideas.

Woman on the Edge of Time

by Marge Piercy

Connie Ramos, a woman in her mid-thirties, has been declared insane. But Connie is overwhelmingly sane, merely tuned to the future, and able to communicate with the year 2137. As her doctors persuade her to agree to an operation, Connie struggles to force herself to listen to the future and its lessons for today….

Sultana’s Dream

by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, Durga Bai

The female narrator of Sultana’s Dream wanders into a dream city that shuns war and violence. In this utopian world, women rule and men are content with their places in the kitchen. The queen of this kingdom explains how women won and kept their peace against men and their war-like ways.

This edition of a feminist utopian classic is a conversation across time; Durga Bai, a contemporary tribal woman artist from Central India, brings her own vision to bear on a Muslim gentlewoman’s radical tale.

He, She and It

by Marge Piercy

In the middle of the twenty-first century, life as we know it has changed for all time. Shira Shipman’s marriage has broken up, and her young son has been taken from her by the corporation that runs her zone, so she has returned to Tikva, the Jewish free town where she grew up. There, she is welcomed by Malkah, the brilliant grandmother who raised her, and meets an extraordinary man who is not a man at all, but a unique cyborg implanted with intelligence, emotions–and the ability to kill….

The Stepford Wives

by Ira Levin

For Joanna, her husband, Walter, and their children, the move to beautiful Stepford seems almost too good to be true. It is. For behind the town’s idyllic facade lies a terrible secret—a secret so shattering that no one who encounters it will ever be the same.

At once a masterpiece of psychological suspense and a savage commentary on a media-driven society that values the pursuit of youth and beauty at all costs, The Stepford Wives is a novel so frightening in its final implications that the title itself has earned a place in the American lexicon.

Swastika Night

by Katharine Burdekin, Daphne Patai

Published in 1937, twelve years before Orwell’s 1984, Swastika Night projects a totally male-controlled fascist world that has eliminated women as we know them. Women are breeders, kept as cattle, while men in this post-Hitlerian world are embittered automatons, fearful of all feelings, having abolished all history, education, creativity, books, and art. The plot centers on a “misfit” who asks, “How could this have happened?”

Bitch Planet #1

by Kelly Sue DeConnick (Goodreads Author), Valentine De Landro

Are you non-compliant?
Do you fit into your box?
Are you too fat, too thin, too loud, too shy, too religious, too secular, too prudish, too sexual, too queer, too black, too brown, too whatever-it-is-they’ll-judge-you-for-today?
You may just belong on…
Bitch Planet

“A comic book love letter to non-compliant women.”
-VOX

#Bookcook – Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss

Categories bookcook6 Comments on #Bookcook – Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss

Book Synopsis

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

“Why?” asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

“I’m a panda,” he says at the door. “Look it up.”

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

“Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”

So, punctuation really does matter, even if it is only occasionally a matter of life and death.

Now, we all know the basics of punctuation. Or do we? A look at most neighborhood signage tells a different story. Through sloppy usage and low standards on the internet, in e-mail, and now text messages, we have made proper punctuation an endangered species.

In Eats, Shoots & Leaves, former editor Truss dares to say, in her delightfully urbane, witty, and very English way, that it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and see them as the wonderful and necessary things they are. This is a book for people who love punctuation and get upset when it is mishandled. From the invention of the question mark in the time of Charlemagne to George Orwell shunning the semicolon, this lively history makes a powerful case for the preservation of a system of printing conventions that is much too subtle to be mucked about with. 

This is a fun one. What is a recipe that has shoots and leaves in it? My first and only thought was Pho. Pho is one of those dishes that can be as complicated or as simple as you want it to be. You can add thirty things or three. The choice is up to you.

ifoodblogger.com

This recipe was taken directly from ifoodblogger.com as it is a fantastic representation of how diverse you can make this.

Ingredients

For the pho bo broth:

  • 3 lbs beef knuckles or neck bones (with meat, see notes)
  • 2 lbs beef oxtail (see notes)
  • 10 cups water (or enough to entirely cover the meat)
  • 2 large yellow onions (peeled)
  • 1 fresh ginger root (½ size of a small palm, roughly peeled)
  • 4 whole star anise (with pods)
  • ½ Tbsp whole cloves
  • 1 Tbsp black peppercorns
  • 4 cloves garlic (smashed)
  • 1 daikon (peeled and cut into 3 pieces)
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 3 small shallots (peeled)
  • 1/2 cup fish sauce (see notes)
  • 1 Tbsp salt (plus more to taste, the original recipe calls for 2 Tbsp)

For pho bo assembly:

  • 12 oz flat rice noodles (pho noodles, see notes)
  • 1 pound sirloin or top round steak (sliced paper-thin against the grain)
  • 1 medium yellow onion (sliced paper-thin on a mandolin)
  • 6 scallions (chopped into rings)

For the garnish:

  • Sriracha chili sauce
  • Hoisin sauce
  • Fresh cilantro leaves
  • Green limes (quartered)
  • Mung bean sprouts
  • Thai basil leaves
  • Perilla leaves
  • Coriander leaves
  • Fresh whole red or green chiles

Instructions

  • Place the beef bones and the oxtail in a large stockpot. Add the water. The bones should be completely covered with water. If not, add more. Bring to a boil and let the the bones boil while you are preparing the rest of the ingredients.
  • Cut two peeled onions in half. Char each half by holding it with tongs over open flame of a gas stove or place it under the broiler. This will bring out the aroma and deepen the flavor of the broth. Repeat the same with the ginger and set aside.
  • In a small skillet, lightly toast, frequently stirring, the anise pods. cloves, peppercorns, and garlic for about 5 minutes, or until fragrant. Set aside to cool.
  • Check on the boiling bones in the stockpot and skim off any scum that has accumulated.
  • Add the toasted spices and garlic, charred onion and ginger, daikon, cinnamon stick, and shallots to the stock. Boil for 15 minutes, then bring down to a gentle simmer.
  • Add the rock sugar (optional), fish sauce, salt, and stir well. Continue to simmer for 2½ hours, uncovered, periodically skimming off any scum or fat as they accumulate. The broth will be ready to eat after 2 1/2 hours,  but the longer you simmer the better it will become. Continue simmering, covered, for up to 10-12 hours in total for the ultimate pho bo.
  • When the broth is done cooking, remove the pot from the heat and set aside to cool a little. Remove the bones and oxtails and set aside. You can use the meat and the bone marrow in the soup. Strain the broth through a fine mesh strainer into a new stockpot. The broth should be richly colored but clear. Bring the broth back to gentle simmer.
  • Fill a large pot with hot tap water. Soak the rice noodles in the water for about 10 minutes. They should soften just slightly: the hot pho broth will cook them the rest of the way.
  • Drain the noodles and place them in six individual soup bowls. Arrange the sliced raw beef on top, followed by thinly sliced onions and scallions.
  • Slice the oxtail meat and add it to the bowl as well as any of the bits of meat and bone marrow taken from the bones.
  • Pour the boiling hot broth into the soup bowls, making sure it covers the raw beef. The broth will cook the beef as well as the noodles. Give it a few minutes to do so, then serve with the pho garnish platter. A squeeze or two of lime juice will help cut the richness of the broth. The sauces can be added to the pho bo or used as a dipping sauce for beef. Using them as a dipping sauce will prevent from spoiling the wonderful flavor of the broth.

Notes

I had a hard time finding beef knuckles of beef neck bones at local supermarkets and ended up buying what was called ‘beef soup bones’. They worked really well.Oxtails are not cheap. I’ve tried this recipe with and without oxtails, and both times the broth turned out fantastic. The difference was barely noticeable.The original recipe calls for rock sugar – ½ cup rock sugar, roughly palm size. If you like sweetness in your pho, add this ingredient. I usually omit it.The original recipe calls for 1 cup fish sauce, which I found to be a little too much for my taste. 1/2 a cup was just perfect for my taste. You decide for yourself.Pho noodles or rice noodles are what’s used traditionally, but they are a bit rubbery and quite tasteless. Personally, I like using ramen noodles. You can’t go wrong with those.

Nutrition

Calories: 645kcal | Carbohydrates: 45g | Protein: 63g | Fat: 22g | Saturated Fat: 8g | Cholesterol: 200mg | Sodium: 3115mg | Potassium: 608mg | Fiber: 4g | Sugar: 5g | Vitamin A: 2.6% | Vitamin C: 24.8% | Calcium: 12.3% | Iron: 49.5%

#Bookcook – Giant Donut Cake – I Kill Giants by Joe Kelly, J.M. Ken Niimura

Categories bookcook4 Comments on #Bookcook – Giant Donut Cake – I Kill Giants by Joe Kelly, J.M. Ken Niimura

Synopsis

Barbara Thorson, a girl battling monsters both real and imagined, kicks butt, takes names, and faces her greatest fear in this bittersweet, coming-of-age story called “Best Indy Book of 2008” by IGN.

Have you come to battle your demons, Barbara has, and I know I have? Oh wait, this is cake. Nope, no slaying of anything but a slice of this cake. So come with me on an epic and emotional heroes journey whilst slaying this bad-ass donut shaped cake from Epicurius.

I Kill Giant is a graphic novel based around a child slaying demons and giants. It is emotional and wonderful. You simultaneously cheer Barbara on and want to grab her into a huge hug. There is no thing as giants, right?

Giant Vanilla Donut Cake

Recipe from Epicurius.

INGREDIENTS

YIELD Makes 1 (23 cm/9 in) cake

  1. Cake:
    • 230 g (8 oz/2 sticks) unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
    • 230 g (8 oz/1 cup) caster (superfine) sugar
    • 4 medium eggs
    • 230 g (8 oz/1 3/4 cups) sifted self-rising flour
    • 1 tsp baking powder
    • Pinch of salt
    • 2 tbsp whole milk (if needed)
  2. Pink vanilla bean icing:
    • 500 g (1 lb 2 oz/4 cups) icing (confectioner’s) sugar
    • 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
    • 50 ml (2 fl oz/1/4 cup) full-fat (whole) milk
    • Pink natural food coloring
  3. Giant sprinkles:
    • 100 g (3 1/2 oz) fondant icing (shop bought is fine)
    • Natural food coloring in pastel blue, yellow, pink and lilac
  4. Special Equipment
    • 23 cm (9 in) savarin ring tin (mold)

Cake in all its glory. Photo from epicurious.com

PREPARATION

  1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC (350ºF/Gas 4) and liberally grease the savarin tin (mold) with butter.
  2. Put the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl and whisk until pale and fluffy.
  3. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, adding a spoonful of flour with each egg. Gently fold in the rest of the flour, baking powder and salt, trying not to overwork it. Add the milk if it seems stiff.
  4. Place the mixture into the cake tin and bake in the oven for 25–30 minutes, or until skewer or cocktail stick inserted in the centre should comes out clean. Leave to cool before transferring to a wire rack.
  5. Place the icing sugar, vanilla bean paste and half the milk into a bowl and stir.
  6. Gradually add the rest of the milk, while mixing, until you end up with a smooth mixture. Add a drop of pink food coloring. Mix together and set aside.
  7. To make the giant sprinkles, divide the fondant into 4 even pieces and color each one with each of the shades of food coloring.
  8. Using the palms of your hands, make small sausage shapes of around 1 1/4 cm (1/2 in) width with each of the colors. With a sharp knife, cut 3 cm (1 1/4 in) lengths from each sausage shape to make giant sprinkles.
  9. Turn the cooled cake out onto a stand or dish. Give the icing a quick stir then pour it over the cake. Be quick and confident with it—you don’t want it to begin to set before you’ve finished covering the cake, otherwise lumps will form. If the icing seems too thick, warm it up a little either in the microwave for a few seconds or in a pan on a low heat.
  10. While the icing is still damp, press the fondant sprinkles onto the cake in a random formation.
  11. Let the icing set before slicing up to serve!

Saturday #BookCook Boeuf au Daube from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Categories bookcook1 Comment on Saturday #BookCook Boeuf au Daube from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

“…an exquisite scent of olives and oil and juice rose from the great brown dish as Marthe, with a little flourish, took the cover off. The cook had spent three days over that dish. And she must take great care, Mrs. Ramsay thought, diving into the soft mass, to choose a specially tender piece for William Bankes. And she peered into the dish, with its shiny walls and its confusion of savoury brown and yellow meats and its bay leaves and its wine . . . ‘It is a triumph,’ said Mr. Banks, laying his knife down for a moment. He had eaten attentively. It was rich; it was tender. It was perfectly cooked.”

Something a little different this week.

Virginia Woolf had a way with words. The words in the above paragraph taken from To The Lighthouse are so succulent, so unctuous that they are practically dripping off of the page. It is a credit to her writing considering most times Woolf had to be coaxed to eat something due to her degrading mental health. I wonder what a writer like her would have accomplished had she not lived 100 years ago and got proper care for her mental health? We may have had more than the 8 books and a few dramas that she was able to pen.

Today’s recipe is Boeuf au Daube which translates to French Beef Burgundy or Beef Stew. The below recipe was taken from the fantastic website genius kitchen . 

Image courtesy of Geniuskitchen.com
READY IN: 25hrs 30minsSERVES: 8-12
UNITS: US

INGREDIENTS

  • 5lbs prime beef, cubed & trimmed of fat
  • 1 lb shallot, peeled
  • 4 -6 garlic cloves, peeled & chopped finely
  • 1 bunch fresh thyme
  • 2 -4 bay leaves
  • 750 ml Burgundy wine
  • 1 -2 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 lb lardons, Smoked Bacon pieces
  • 1⁄2 ounce dried cepes, soaked for 1 hr
  • 6 -8 pieces dried orange peel, see method
  • 1 tablespoon soft brown sugar
  • sea salt
  • fresh ground black pepper
  • 1 -2 tablespoon cornflour, for thickening
  • 2 tablespoons cognac
  • 2 -4 sun-dried tomatoes, drained & chopped finely (optional)
  • 1 (8 ounces) can chopped tomatoes(optional)
Image courtesy of Geniuskitchen.com

DIRECTIONS

  1. Marinade the beef with the herbs, shallots & garlic overnight in the bottle of red wine.
  2. Drain and put the wine to one side.
  3. In a large skillet or frying pan, sear & brown the beef pieces over high heat in the olive oil until nutty & brown. Do not overcrowd the pan!
  4. Place browned beef into the crockpot or cast iron Le Creuset Casserole Dish.
  5. Fry the lardons or chopped bacon pieces until crispy & golden brown. Drain & add to the beef.
  6. Brown the shallots & garlic in the bacon fat & add to the beef & bacon.
  7. Add all the other ingredients, except the cornflour, to the crock pot including the reserved wine.
  8. (Add the tinned tomatoes & sun-dried tomatoes at this stage too if you are using them.).
  9. Cook on automatic or High for 4 hours and Low for up to 6 hours.
  10. (For conventional cooking – pre-heat oven to 175 degs C or 325 degs F or gas mark 3 and cook SLOWLY for approximately 4 to 6 hours; check towards the end, the meat should be extremely tender – you MUST not be tempted to cook it quicker, it will be tough!).
  11. Towards the end, blend & mix the cornflour with a couple of spoons of the stock in the crock pot & add to the beef, stirring well. It should not be TOO thick but just like a glaze or thickened jus. Add the cognac at this stage as well – stirring into the daube.
  12. Serve with Green Beans, Mashed, Steamed or Pureed Potatoes during the colder months OR with a selection of salads, crusty French bread & Pasta during the warmer months. The excess sauce can be used or saved as a fantastic gravy or stock later!
  13. THIS IS BETTER MADE 24 HOURS BEFORE EATING!
  14. Freezes beautifully – I always make a large batch and then freeze some.
  15. NOTE: If you cannot buy sun-dried orange peel, make your own, it’s VERY easy! Peel some oranges with a swivel head vegetable peeler or parer, be careful not to peel the pith. Spread outside on a rack in the full sun and leave to dry for about 2-4 hours. Weather permitting of course – otherwise dry in an airing cupboard or a very LOW oven overnight.Store in an airtight jar for up to 2 years.
  16. If you are really stuck – just grate some fresh orange peel into the daube, it will not have the same intensity as dried peel, but it will work!