Nigella Bites Read Online Free PDF

days when you just can’t wait the three hours for a proper, old-fashioned rice pudding, this is what you need. In fact, it’s just a sweet risotto, with warm milk substituted for the stock. This does mean that the rice takes longer to cook – and what’s more, you want it rather less al dente than is usually desirable – but it’s the best I can offer. Anyway, you can’t, on eating this, resent one moment of your stoveside-stirring captivity.
    Serves 1.
    700ml full-fat milk
    1 heaped tablespoon unsalted butter
    2–3 tablespoons caster sugar or vanilla sugar
    60g (about 4 tablespoons) risotto rice, preferably Vialone Nano
    ½ teaspoon good vanilla extract (if not using vanilla sugar)
    2–3 tablespoons double cream, the thicker and fattier the better
    Heat the milk in a pan that preferably has a lip, which will make pouring easier (or give it a couple of minutes in a plastic jug in the microwave). When it’s about to boil (but don’t let it) turn off the flame. Melt the butter and a tablespoonful of the sugar in a heavy-based pan. When hissing away in a glorious pale caramelly pool, add the rice and stir to coat stickily. Gradually add the milk, stirring the rice all the time, and letting each swoosh of milk get absorbed into the consequently swelling rice before adding the next bit. To see when it’s ready, start tasting at 20 minutes, but be prepared to go on for 35. You may want to add more milk, too (and if the rice tastes cooked before all the milk’s absorbed, don’t use all of it).
    When the rice feels as it should, thick and sticky and creamy, take it off the heat, and beat in another tablespoonful of sugar (taste and see if you want yet more), the vanilla, if using, and as much of the cream as you like. Think of this as the mantecatura: the final addition to a risotto, to thicken and add fat-globular volume, normally of butter and grated parmesan; indeed just add butter if you haven’t got any cream in the house.
    CHOCOLATE FUDGE CAKE
    I have a bad Amazon habit. You know the ‘when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping’ line? Well, the not-so-tough get their retail therapy online. Or I do: when I can’t sleep I start ordering books. And I comfort myself twice over by telling myself how useful they are, how they really help my work. I offer this recipe, adapted from a book that in itself soothes, Tish Boyle’s Diner Desserts, bought at about 3am one unravellingly wakeful night, as proof.
    This is the sort of cake you’d want to eat the whole of when you’d been chucked. But even the sight of it, proud and tall and thickly iced on its stand, comforts.
    Serves 10. Or 1 with a broken heart.
    for the cake:
    400g plain flour
    250g golden caster sugar
    100g light muscovado sugar
    50g best quality cocoa powder
    2 teaspoons baking powder
    1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
    ½ teaspoon salt
    3 eggs
    142ml/small tub sour cream
    1 tablespoon vanilla extract
    175g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
    125ml corn oil
    300ml chilled water
    for the fudge icing:
    175g dark chocolate, minimum 70% cocoa solids
    250g unsalted butter, softened
    275g icing sugar, sifted
    1 tablespoon vanilla extract
    Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4.
    Butter and line the bottom of two 20cm sandwich tins.
    In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugars, cocoa, baking powder, bicarb and salt. In another bowl or wide-necked measuring jug whisk together the eggs, sour cream and vanilla until blended. Using a freestanding or handheld electric mixer, beat together the melted butter and corn oil until just blended (you’ll need another large bowl for this if using the hand whisk; the freestanding mixer comes with its own bowl), then beat in the water. Add the dry ingredients all at once and mix together on a slow speed. Add the egg mixture, and mix again until everything is blended and then pour into the prepared tins. And actually, you could easily do this manually; I just like my toys and find the KitchenAid a comforting presence in