Everytime I see Rachel Allen I think she must be a middle class wet dream. She’s homely, mumsily pretty and all purring niceties. She seems like the kind of person who would be ideal to have at a dinner party. She won’t get hammered, won’t say anything controversial and will be relied upon to glide into the kitchen, only to emerge with a bit of flour on her nose with a tray full of freshly baked puds. If she wasn’t Irish, the Daily Mail would probably make her a saint.
Rachel Allen’s Food For Living (BBC1, Saturday, 11am) is something I’ve been watching for a while now. Don’t ask me why, but my Saturday a.m.’s have always been filled with a couple of cookery shows followed by Football Focus and copious amounts of tea. I guess it’s comforting. Rachel’s show essentially demonstrates everyday recipes made using readily accessible foods. Out with the showing off and in with ace looking crumbles.
With this being a cookery show, it has to fall into one of two categories. Faux cutting edge or twee. By this I mean shouting or whispering. Those obsessed with appearing at the top of their game barge around kitchens yelling at onions and smacking pans together whilst shouting “YOU IMBECILIC KNUCKLEHEADS” at viewers down cameras one, two and four (camera three is spared as he’s responsible for close ups on hobs and a wonky angled shot of a neat pile of shallots in small white bowls).
With people in the food industry so very desperate to let us know that they’re better at cooking than we are and in fact, more ambitious and driven than we are, then it is left for the other type of TV cook to put an arm ’round us and say “Listen sweetypie, stop listening to those nasty oafs… when exactly are you going to be able to cook a stew made entirely from saffron and emus? Come ’round mine, I’ll make you a nice cup of tea and we’ll have a lovely steak and ale pie. I’ve even run you a bath…”
The other type of TV chef seemingly has no restaurant experience whatsoever, leaving them talking and humming to themselves in their kitchens. Occasionally patronising, these ‘home’ cooks don’t want to leave anything to chance because the thought of us getting upset in our meagre kitchens leaves them all in a tizz. Of course, I’m talking about Delia and the newest apron on the box, Rachel Allen.
Rachel is seriously the nicest person I’ve ever seen on telly. You want to go ’round her house whilst you watch the show… at times, you may actually convince yourself you’re sat in her lovely kitchen. Naturally, this is what the show wants you to believe… and who am I to argue? Saturday morning, Rachel told us of steak, lemon tarts and salads in her soft well spoken Irish burr. Imagine the Cadbury’s Caramel Bunny… only the playful flirting has been replaced by holding hands on a park bench beneath a willow tree on a sunny day. If you read a more disturbing sentence than that today I’ll be very surprised.
Rachel, like Delia, left me wondering. How do you get a job in TV being a cook if you don’t own a restaurant? I’m sure some of our more enlightened readers (read pedants) could inform me of this… but really, it matters not. It seems to me that chefs who’ve worked in the kitchens of eateries have been left scarred and mentally shattered, leaving them paranoid (“MY REPUTATION IS ON THE LINE!” they shout at their hands) and angry like Vietnam veterans. These home cooks saunter and scamper around getting all giddy at bits of beef and the smell of dripping. This may be the reason why I trust Rachel Allen more than Gordon Ramsay. I can’t caramelise onions by shouting at them, or thicken a sauce by glaring at it… so I’m sticking with the girls. [Mof Gimmers]
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I watched her programme today. She was cooking a lobster dish. The animal was immobilised alive. Then she put it in the boiling water. I know unfortunately that is the way lobsters are cooked. However I think this scene was disturbing and not so “posh” as she wants to be! That is a very vile act, and showing it on TV is not a great idea.
I am vegetarian and I didn’t appreciate this scene. I am sure other people agree with me, maybe kids too.
Kind regards
I watched her programme today. She was cooking a lobster dish. The animal was immobilised alive. Then she put it in the boiling water. I know unfortunately that is the way lobsters are cooked. However I think this scene was disturbing and not so “posh” as she wants to be! That is a very vile act, and showing it on TV is not a great idea.
I am vegetarian and I didn’t appreciate this scene. I am sure other people agree with me, maybe kids too.
Kind regards
I watched Rachel’s show on Saturday and thought it was great. I am looking for her cheesy pancake with tomato topping
recipe that she made and I can’t find it anywhere.
Please help.
I watched Rachel’s show on Saturday and thought it was great. I am looking for her cheesy pancake with tomato topping
recipe that she made and I can’t find it anywhere.
Please help.
I am looking for Rachel’s cheesy pancake, too ans also her brownie recipe from her Sept. 22nd program. Can’t find it anywhere. Can you help, please?
I’m looking for the cucumber and yogurt raity recipe She did with sunday lunch she did on 29th september 2007
A great programme pity recipes for each programme not on site I would like to see recipes for broccoli and yoghurt with cumumber please from Brenda
A great programme pity recipes for each programme not on site I would like to see recipes for broccoli and yoghurt with cumumber please from Brenda
Please send details of Rachels Almond biscuit and chocholate cake shown on Saturday 29th September.
please could i have the recipes from saturday 29th september 2007 as they looked really good and i am planning a family lunch soon and would like to cook everything she did it looked great.
thanks kathy
Iam looking for the salad dressing she did on saturday 6th october
thanks
Thank you for Rachel’s food program being on TV, but may you please show on the internet webside her recipes as they look absolutely lovely and easy to prepare.
Thank you
May I please have the recipe for slow roasted shouder of lamb demonstrated Sat. 29th. Sept. 2007.
Many thanks.
i would much appriciate the recipe Rachels children’s great grandmother made onSaturday the , 13th October, i think they were called “balloons”, they were deep fat fried,
I too would like the recipe for the ‘balloons’ that Rachel cooked, they looked really tasty. Regards
yeh i 2 wud like the recipe for “balloons” cooked by her childrens grandma, they looked rly tasty!
Thanx
Cannot find the receipe for Prawn & Basil Pate as shown on Sat 20th October 2007 – would certainly like to try this.
Would love to try the Prawn & Basil pate – cannot find anywhere
Would love to try the Prawn & Basil pate – cannot find anywhere
Just watched Rachel’s show on Saturday morning. I would love the recipe for the torte di cappuccino, it was stunning and relatively easy, but I cannot find it anywhere.
I WATCHED RACHELS PROGRAME THIS MORNING AND WOULD LIKE THE RECIPE FOR TART DI CAPPUCCINO PLEASE
would like the recipe for the choc and caramel slice that was shown on the 27,october 2007. but cannot find it. would love to try this recipe myself. thanks.
I would very much like the recipe for basil & prawn pate. I bought the ingredients but unable to find the method
I watched today and would love to find the recipe for the tart di cappuccino please ?
piss off silvia prandi u paki! leave rachel alone
I watched Rachel’s programme on Saturday last and bought the ingredients for her Cappucino Torte and was very disappointed to note that her recipe was not put up on the website. Can you please forward the recipe to me asap as I intended to make it this weekend.
Many thanks
Tricia
I watched Rachels programme this Sat too and have the same problem, bought ingredients for Cappucino Torte to make at my Bonfire Party next Sat but cant find the recipe. Please help asap
Many Thanks
Jan
Also keen to get hold of the Torte Di cappucino recipe. Hoping to make it for friends we’re going to lunch with on Sunday. Anyone able to help?
Wached Rachel’s programme today 17 November and would very much likt ALL receipes on this show (Leek, Potato and Blue Cheese soup-Chicken Kiev-Chocolate Sticky Toffee Pudding)
Thank You
I had recorded the programme featuring the Torta di Cappuccino, I played it back and wrote down the recipe. I made it last Saturday – what a disaster, it was still raw in the centre after one and a half hours! I’m not sure if the temperature was correct 170° or what but it was a complete waste of time and money!
Dear Rachel
You made little cheese croquettes on Saturday 24 November but I cannot find the recipe on the BBC web site. Where can I find it please.
Many thanks
Patricia Fox
Dear Rachel,
Is it possible to post all the recipe’s from the Saturday 24th show. Thanks.
Mick
dear rachel,
enjoy your programe most saturday’s.could you possibly tell me the make and model of the food mixer you made dough with on sat
november the 24th.
thank you.
r connell
I like Rachael Allens show BUT it is a pity you cannot get her recipe’s on web site. Can I please have the recipe for the lemon tart she made just a few day’s ago.
Dear Rachel
You made cheeses croquettes on Sat 24th November 2007 and I would like to make them for my friends as I have only just started cooking but could not write the recipe down in time
Thankyou
Rachael
hi love the show .where can i find the recipe for the crab meat prawn noodle soup
thamks
Surely, if any of you tightwads like Rachel Allen’s recipes so much, why don’t you buy one or all of her books rather than trying to something for nothing and whinging that the BBC hasn’t put it on her website.
please could you send me the receipe to the “Celebration Dinner” as per the programme 8th December 2007? many thanks
What utter tosh has been written above by the first poster, Silvia Prandi, about alleged “cruelty” in Rachel Allen’s boiling of a live lobster!
She states that she is a vegetarian. Has she not therefore read that plants, fitted with sensors, have been found to undergo many complex electro-chemical changes, signifying processes of “pain” and distress”, when they – or even other plants physically close to them – are “traumatised” – i.e. cut, dug up, plucked, felled, browsed etc?
“Pain” (and thus potential “cruelty” – however one defines those emotive terms) are, it seems, by no means limited to the animal creation.
One senses massive inconsistency in this poster’s “logic”. Unless, of course, she regards the plant creation as having no “rights” . . .
Or does she, I wonder, first conscientiously and carefully “anaesthetise” her body- and mouth-living bacteria, before she kills those organisms in their many millions several times each day, by showering, bathing, tooth-brushing etc?
Perhaps she even prays for the eternal repose of the immortal souls of her soon-to-die-in-millions of pathogenic germs – a sort of pre-shower/tooth-brushing Requiem? Who can tell?
Or perhaps she does not wash, from reasons of principle. . . Yet even if she scratches herself (perhaps unthinkingly, in her sleep) she is killing countless bacteria and suchlike organisms daily by so doing. Ditto through actions such as walking, breathing etc etc.
We all have to eat, for essential nourishment. That necessarily entails the frequent, repeated, large-scale death and destruction of innumerable other forms of life, both animal and vegetable, daily and hourly. Fact.
A little joined-up thinking would not come amiss from Silvia Pandi. More bluntly – GET A LIFE.
Could someone e-mail me the details of Rachel Allen’s lemon tart. roger@jollyroger.org.uk
Could someone e-mail me the Rachel Allen lemon tart instructions. irene@jollyroger.org.uk
I have made the Torte di cappuccino now 4 times I originally wrote the recipe from the program while watching it and made it and it was a total disaster just like the previous comment it was raw in the middle.
so I bought the book rechecked everything and have made it now 3 more times and there is definatley something wrong. Do try it it costs alot of money to make and it definately doesnt work
please can i have rachel`s recipe for cappuccino torte
Recipe for Rachel Allen’s Balloons-
1 Cup of flour.I use self-raising.
2 Teaspoons of caster sugar
1 Teaspoon of baking powder
Pinch of salt
Then add milk until a thick batter consistancy.
Spoon them into hot fat and cook until golden brown.
Roll them in sugar as soon as you take them out of the fat so the sugar sticks.They are yummy! x