No-Churn Pomegranite Ice Cream

From Nigella Express

It's not hard to think of a pudding that can be made in advance. But mostly the advantage is simply that all the effort is upfront and early. The thing about this recipe is that you do it in advance - it's ice cream, so that stands to reason - but what you do in advance is negligible in terms of effort. You don't make a custard, and you don't have to keep whipping it out of the deep freeze to beat the crystals. No, you simply squeeze and stir.

On top of that cause for greater contentment, there is also the fact that this delicate pink ice cream tastes like fragrant, sherbety heaven.

Ingredients

• 3   pomegranates
• 1 lime
• 1 ½ cups confectioners' sugar
• 2 cups heavy cream

Instructions

1. Juice two of the pomegranates and the lime and strain the juices into a bowl. Save the third pomegranate to use the seeds only.
2. Add the confectioners' sugar and whisk to dissolve.
3. Whisk in the heavy cream and keep whisking until soft peaks form in the pale pink cream.
4. Spoon and smooth the ice cream into the airtight container of your choice and freeze for at least 4 hours, or overnight.
5. Scatter with some pomegranate seeds before you eat it.

Slow Roasted Lemon-Garlic Chicken

This is one of those recipes you just can't make once: that's to say, after the first time, you're hooked. It is gloriously easy: you just put everything in the roasting dish and leave it to cook in the oven, pervading the house, at any time of year, with the summer scent of lemon and thyme - and of course, mellow, almost honeyed garlic. I got the idea of it from those long-cooked French chicken casseroles with whole garlic cloves and just wanted to spritz it up with lemon for summer. The wonderful thing about it is that you turn the lemon from being a flavouring to being a major player; left in chunks to cook slowly in the oven they seem almost to caramelise and you can eat them, skin, pith and all, their sour bitterness sweetened in the heat.

Ingredients

• 1  chicken (approx.4½lbs) cut into 10 pieces
• 1 head of garlic (separated into unpeeled cloves)
• 2 unwaxed lemons (cut into chunky eighths)
• 1 handful fresh thyme
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• ⅔ cup white wine
• black pepper

Recipe from Nigella Lawson's FOREVER SUMMER 

Instructions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 160°C/gas mark 3/325ºF.
2. Put the chicken pieces into a roasting tin and add the garlic cloves, lemon chunks and the thyme; just roughly pull the leaves off the stalks, leaving some intact for strewing over later. Add the oil and using your hands mix everything together, then spread the mixture out, making sure all the chicken pieces are skin side up.
3. Sprinkle over the white wine and grind on some pepper, then cover tightly with foil and put in the oven to cook, at flavour-intensifyingly low heat, for 2 hours.
4. Remove the foil from the roasting tin, and turn up the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6/400ºF. Cook the uncovered chicken for another 30-45 minutes, by which time the skin on the meat will have turned golden brown and the lemons will have begun to scorch and caramelise at the edges.
5. I like to serve this as it is, straight from the roasting tin: so just strew with your remaining thyme and dole out.

Chef's Best: Grandma's Pound Cake a Tasty Legacy

By Chef Jason Cobb

It’s kind of sad, really. 

It seems no one knows how to cook anymore. Those of us who are part of the Generation X, remember growing up in our parents and grandparents kitchens. We were either tuaght to cook directy by our family, watched and hoped to learn, or have orginal copies of recipes we hold dear. 

When my grandmother passed away several years in Westminster, I only asked for one thing from the estate - her hand-written recipes she had collected over a lifetime of cooking for her family. My grandmother was an incredible cook. I am sure she learned from her mother, who learned from her mother. I wish this kind of generational goodness was still being passed down!

If you remember the movie “The Sound of Music,” you should remember the song “My Favorite Things.” My favorite thing my grandmother cooked was her homemade pound cake. It was incredible, made with lots of butter, sugar and eggs - the ingredients which make it so good.Traditionally, the pound cake has included a pound of butter, a pound of sugar, a pound of flour and a pound of eggs. But it has evolved over the years to include flavorings, milk, baking soda or power and a number of other custom ingredients.

My grandmother used a number of different flavorings from Superior Flavorings, a company in Charlotte which was sold locally in the “Dixie Store.” Since the closing of Winn Dixie, these flavorings can be difficult to find.One source selling the Superior Flavorings on line can be found here. Any of these flavorings can be used in this pound cake or in any number of other recipes. But whatever you use, the following recipe will result in the best pound cake you have ever tasted.

Grandma’s Pound Cake

2.5 cups All Purpose Flour

.5 tsp Iodized Salt

1.5 tsp Baking Powder

1 pound Unsalted Butter

3 cups Granulated Sugar

6 eggs (room temperature)

1.5 tbs Flavoring (Vanilla or if you can find them one of the Superior varieties)

1, 12 oz can Evaporated Milk

Cooking the Cake

1. Preheat oven to 325° F. Prepare either a large tube pan or two loaf pans by buttering, flouring and lining with parchment paper
2. Sift together flour, salt and baking powder
3. Cream butter, sugar together until light and fluffy
4. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat for 30 seconds between each egg at medium high mixer speed
5. Add extract and beat again until well incorporated
6. Alternately add the flour mixture and the evaporated milk until just incorporated
7. Pour into the prepared pan(s) and bake for 40 to 55 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean

The Glaze

Combine the juice of one lemon, one-half cup or sugar and one cup half&half in a quart saucepan. Bring mixture to a boil and cook for 30 seconds. Any flavoring, about 2 tsp, can be added at this point if you wish. Pour mixture over warm pound cake and allow to cool.

Anderson's own Chef Jason Cobb. Cobb is a graduate and Culinary Fellow of the prestigious Johnson & Wales University. Chef Cobb is also available for catering at 864.367.6047

An Easy, Cool, Summer Mousse

From Nigella Lawson

Serves: 4-6

When you haven't got time for overnight setting in the fridge or you don't want to use raw eggs, this mousse is perfect. In fact, at all times, constraints or not, it is chocaliciously gorgeous.

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cups mini marshmallows
• ½ stick soft butter
• 9 oz good bittersweet chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids) chopped into small pieces
• ¼ cup hot water (from a recently boiled kettle)
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method

1. Put the marshmallows, butter, chocolate and water in a heavy-based saucepan.
2. Put the saucepan on the hob, over heat, though keep it fairly gentle, to melt the contents, stirring every now and again. Remove from the heat.
3. Meanwhile, whip the cream with the vanilla extract until thick, and then fold into the cooling chocolate mixture until you have a smooth, cohesive mixture.
4. Pour or scrape into 4 glasses or ramekins, about ¾ cup each in capacity, or 6 smaller (½ cup) ones, and chill until you want to eat. The sooner the better!

Visit Nigella.com/recipes

Sharper Knives Safer in the Kitchen than Dull Ones

We've mentioned that a dull knife is a dangerous one, and discussed how to properly sharpen a knife or use a water stone in the past. Still, why exactly is a dull knife more dangerous than a sharper one? Plus, honing is easy with a 10" chef's knife—how do you keep your paring knives sharp? This video from the America's Test Kitchen answers both questions, and shows you how to test to see if your knives are ready to use.

In the video, Lisa and Bridget from America's Test Kitchen explain that dull knives require more force to use and press through the food you're cutting, which means you're more likely to lose control of the knife if something happens that you don't expect. Then they use a simple test with a sheet of paper to determine if their paring knife is sharp enough to be used. It fails, and they bring out the Test Kitchen's favorite electric sharpener to get it back into shape.

Some knife aficionados will tell you never to sharpen with anything less than a water stone or a honing steel, but doing so with small knives can be difficult. On the other hand, tabletop sharpeners are inexpensive and get the job done nicely. Check out the video for more tips on taking care of small knives, and a few bonus skill tips for handling small blades.