BBC Recipes – a Suggestion!

I see, as most of us do, that the BBC is to remove 11,000 or more free recipes from their website and that almost everyone is pissed off about this.  Me too! 

However ...

Whilst all the free recipes online (including mine!) are a great and useful resource what is even usefuller is learning some key recipes and taking it from there!

 

I recently wrote a post, titled “Why are Most Cookbooks the Same” because most recipes in books and online are just that – recipes. They give no further information on how to make the dish exactly the way you want it; how to vary the flavour, texture and finished result according to taste, what’s available and budget. 

On my blog and in my books instead of giving just a collection of recipes I try to help people learn and understand the basics of a dish and the many ways to vary it so they can eat exactly what they fancy every day of their life!

In the aforementioned post I remark that there are 2,592 recipes for hummus listed on Eat Your Books none of which you need if you know the basics of making hummus and other bean dips which are given here.

Suppose you want to make a salad dressing – all you really need to know is the proportions of oil to vinegar or other acid, how to make it emulsify (it’s a doddle) and some great additions all of which vinaigrette making information is here.

A useful cookie recipe that can be varied with all sorts of additions?  Or maybe you'd like an easy to vary shortbread recipe.

Here is an honestly foolproof and failproof meringue recipe – with lots of variations.

Scones/Dumplings/Doughnuts?I have a great recipe which makes all these and much more but I’m afraid there’s so very much I can tell you about this recipe; (different fats, liquids, methods etc. I had to write a book about it!

These are Sautéed Blueberry Scones!

Here is a simple but very useful and delicious cream sauce which can be varied and added to and used with pasta, fish, chicken, steak, mushrooms, as a dip and lots more. 

Almost (but not quite) all soups can be made based on my one “genius” recipe – details here.

Ice Cream is another example – my very, very easy no-churn and egg-free ice cream recipe can be varied to make wonderful ices limited only by the imagination. 

I could go on!

Once you know these basic key recipes you can save them somewhere for easy reference, handy hint; don’t hide them like the Beeb. According to the ticker tape on BBC News – 

“recipes on the BBC website will become harder to find with an online search” 

So not gone, just hidden!