Recettes

How to Boil Broccoli

Broccoli florets cooked briefly in salted water until just tender, then drained. This is a technique page rather than a dish, and no country is claimed for it. The only thing that matters here is timing, and the margin is narrow. Three to five minutes gives you florets that are bright green and tender with some resistance left. Much beyond that and the chlorophyll degrades, the colour shifts from green towards olive and then yellow-brown, the texture collapses, and the sulphur compounds that give overcooked brassicas their smell are released in quantity. Small florets sit at the short end of that range and large ones at the long end, which is why cutting them to an even size is worth the extra thirty seconds. Draining immediately is half the technique. Broccoli left sitting in hot water carries on cooking, and so does broccoli left in a covered colander. If you are not serving it straight away, plunging it into iced water stops the process outright and holds the colour. The source's nutritional claims, that boiling preserves vitamins better than other methods, have not been carried across. Boiling in fact leaches water-soluble vitamins into the cooking water, which is the opposite of what it says.

10 minEasy

Recette de Debby · Africook

Roasted Potatoes

Potatoes cut into chunks, tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic, and roasted until browned and crisp. No country is claimed and none applies, this is the standard Western roast potato. The one piece of technique worth understanding is parboiling, which the source explains well in its text and then leaves out of its method. Boiling the cut potatoes briefly before they go into the oven does two things: it cooks the inside through so the oven only has to work on the outside, and it roughens the surface so that fat can get into the cracks. That roughened surface is what turns into crust. Skip it and the skin stays smooth and tough, and the fat sits on the outside instead of crisping it. Giving the drained potatoes a good shake in the pan before they are dressed roughs them up further, and is the single cheapest improvement you can make. Drying matters too. A wet potato steams before it browns. Any variety works, though they behave differently: floury potatoes such as russets and Maris Piper give a fluffier interior and a crisper crust, while waxy red and new potatoes hold their shape and crisp less. This recipe uses small red or white potatoes. Africa has deep roasted-tuber traditions, yam, cassava and sweet potato from street braziers, but this is not one of them.

1 hr 10 minEasy

Recette de FoodChef · Africook

Mashed Potatoes

Potatoes cooked until tender, then mashed with warm butter and milk. No country is claimed, it is a European staple that has travelled everywhere, most associated in Britain with bangers and mash. The one thing the recipe does that matters is warming the butter and milk together before they go in. Cold dairy into hot potato drops the temperature and makes the mash claggy; warm dairy is absorbed smoothly. It is a small step that nobody does and everybody should. The other decision is the tool, and it determines the result. A hand masher leaves texture and works quickly. A ricer or food mill gives the smoothest possible mash by pushing the potato through small holes without working it. An electric mixer or food processor is the one to avoid: over-beating ruptures the starch cells and releases enough starch to turn mashed potato genuinely gluey, and there is no recovering from it. The source's explanation of mashed versus smashed potatoes contradicts itself between paragraphs, it defines smashed as roughly mashed, then describes mashed as the chunkier of the two. The distinction generally drawn is that smashed potatoes are left rough and lumpy, often with the skins on, while mashed are worked smooth.

40 minEasy

Recette de Nympha · Africook

Chekhchoukha

Chekhchoukha, also written chakhchoukha, is torn flatbread under a spiced meat and chickpea sauce, and the name describes the tearing. It comes from tacherchert in the Chaouia language, meaning to crumble or to tear into small pieces, and the bread is broken by hand rather than cut. It is a Chaoui dish, from the Aurès mountains of eastern Algeria, and it spread from there into Constantine, Biskra and the rest of the country. Its origin is in shepherds' food, the substantial thing eaten on returning home on cold winter nights, and it kept that character even as it became a dish for festive occasions and celebrations rather than everyday eating. The bread is rougag, also called trid, a very thin round flatbread made from fine semolina. It is torn, steamed briefly to soften, then heaped on a plate and covered with marqa, the sauce of diced lamb, tomato, onion and chickpeas spiced with dried red chilli, caraway, ras el hanout, black pepper and cumin. Two versions are recognised: chakhchoukha of Biskra, which is this one, and chakhchoukha dfar, which uses a different flatbread and differs in taste and thickness. Which pot it is made in also varies, with some cities using clay and others iron.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

1 hr 10 minMediumAlgeria

Recette de Blessing · Africook