Cooking from the WWW*

MEJADRA, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE? 

* A few dishes I have cooked lately, using recipes off the World Wide Web.

The more I read about Jerusalem, the cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi, the more I want to get it. All the recipes I have seen so far on newspaper websites have looked delicious and easy to do. The latest one I read, in the Los Angeles Times, is mejadra, a dish of rice and lentils topped with crisp fried onions.

Sticky ginger cake

I never pass up Sticky Ginger Cake and the recipe from The Guardian was one to try. It's from the book Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer: A Golden Treasury of Classic Treats by Jane Brockett. Although I was anxious to have a slice straight out of the oven, I restrained myself and followed the instruction to wrap the cake in greaseproof paper and foil so that it would get an more sticky and gingery. It is a suggestion that should always be heeded. Yum. 

Emily Dickinson's coconut cake

Emily Dickinson's Coconut Cake from The History Kitchen. The Emily in question is the American poet. This is a good full-flavoured, moist cake. Fresh grated coconut gives it a rich coconut flavour. I was surprised to learn that fresh coconut was used in cooking in Massachussetts in the 19th century. I thought coconuts were just targets to knock down in old-time fairground games (very often rigged!).