Cod & Peas

388. Cod & Peas

Kids chapter. Quick meal. You cook peas in butter and a bit of liquid (water & lemon juice, or white wine, or vermouth), then add bite-sized cubes of fish (Nigella says cod or trout; I chose trout) and let it cook for a couple more minutes. That's it.


Trout & Peas

It was really easy and quick to make, so if you expect that your kids will like this kind of stuff, then you should definitely give it a go. Personally, I was nonplussed - I thought it was pretty bland, but chacun à son goût, as the French say.

Ceviche with Hot Garlic Potatoes

Tonight for dinner my good friend Frances came over, as well as my Uncle Sonny.

384. Ceviche with hot garlic potatoes (Dinner)

Yes, it's potatoes again.

Ceviche is a South American (I think) way of preparing fish, in which very thin slices of super-fresh fish are steeped in an acidic marinade (citrus juice, vinegar etc), until cooked. "Cooked" here is a chemical term rather than a culinary one. You see, when you cook meat (a protein), you apply heat to it, which denatures the protein molecules (i.e. changing the meat from "raw" to "cooked"). When you make ceviche, the same protein denaturing occurs, but it is caused by a change in the pH levels rather than by heat. It takes longer and doesn't denature the proteins as much as heat would, but I suppose that's the point.

(By the way, please excuse any confusion in my explanation of protein denaturization - I did do chemistry at high school, but that was 5 years ago, and now that I'm an arts student, the mind does tend to get a bit fuzzy).

Nigella says to use a combination of salmon, scallops and turbot (huh?). I didn't know what turbot was, and certainly wasn't in the mood to Google it - I'm currently working on all my final essays for the semester, which means I'm getting a bit sick of our good friend Google - so I omitted it. I was quite keen to try scallops, but am suspicious of their freshness. I once saw super-fresh ones, the little muscles still quivering, on Nick Nairn's program, but that's Scotland. I'm sure I could find properly fresh scallops if I really tried, but at any fishmonger or supermarket close by, they're frozen and watery and quite feral. So we just used salmon.

Luckily, my friend Frances who was coming over for dinner offered to go buy me salmon at a market close to her house, and delivered it to my house in the early arvo. (As I was preparing lunch.)

I sliced it up, arranged it in a dish, and poured over the marinade - a mixture of lemon, lime and orange juices, and balsamic vinegar. It needs about 6 hours to marinate.

About an hour before Frances was due to arrive, I cooked the hot garlic potatoes. I'm not going to explain them. You've seen them (and I've eaten them!) enough in this past week. But goodness, they are delicious. I'd always recommend making a few extra for you to munch on as you finish preparing your meal.

When I took the salmon out of the fridge, I couldn't tell if it was sufficiently "cooked" to be ceviche, because it still looked quite rare.


salmon

However, upon closer inspection, I saw a small bit of fish that had not been covered by the marinade, and it still looked totally raw. Thus, I concluded that the rest of the fish was indeed, cooked enough. Take a look.


look closely

The fish is served tossed through watercress (I used rocket, my usual substitute), with the garlic roast potatoes, and some of the marinade as a dressing.


Ceviche with hot garlic potatoes

It was good! So light and refreshing. The salmon was rich and tender, the potatoes were crunchy, the rocket was peppery and light. A wonderful combination.

Pig’s bum and tuna

For lunch today, we had a lovely low-fat griddled tuna dish. Followed by a steamed pudding with lashings of custard. Ooh yeah.

364. Tataki of Tuna (Low Fat)
365. Quick Foolproof Custard (Basics etc)

I chose to reprise the pig's bum because I needed a pudding to go with the second custard recipe in the Basics etc. chapter, and I seem to have already completed all the other puddings and crumbles. The pig's bum is without a doubt my favourite pudding from the whole book.

Just in case you forgot…

The mixture for this steamed sponge is equal parts butter, sugar and flour, with 2 eggs, some baking powder, vanilla extract and milk (so just a normal sponge-cake mixture), with a rhubarb puree mixed through. And apart from the cooking of the rhubarb (which takes a scant 5 minutes), it’s all done in the processor.


pig's bum mixture


pudding in basin


Steamer

You have to put the lid on the pudding basin, and let it steam for 2.5 hours. And in the meantime, I made the custard.

The quick foolproof custard is good for the custard-o-phobes among us (aah.. I remember when I used to be one of them!) because it dispenses with that whole nerve-wracking “stirring over low heat” stage. What you do is whisk some egg yolks, sugar and cornflour in a bowl. In a pan, you heat cream with a vanilla pod, and “allow the cream to rise in the pan”, before pouring it over the eggs, and whisking for a good 10 minutes until thick. I had no idea what allowing “the cream to rise in the pan” meant, so I just let it bubble a teensy weensy bit before adding it to the eggs. The custard took about 10 minutes with a KitchenAid mixer on medium heat.

Upon reflection, I don’t know why I didn’t try this custard back in the days when I couldn’t make custard, as it would have saved a lot of bother. But in the end, I guess it’s good that I forced myself to learn how to make custard with old fashioned stirring. Because even though this custard tasted fab, it did have a lot of tiny little air bubbles in it from the whisking, so it didn’t have that lovely voluptuous gloop of real custard.

Nigella says to have cold custard with the pudding, so I set the custard aside while I made the main.

Tataki of tuna is ideally, a long round tail piece of tuna, seared on all sides, and sliced thinly. I had to substitute tuna steaks, as they were all I could find, but the result was still good. I dusted the sides with wasabi powder, and cooked them briefly on a high heat in a cast-iron frypan.

Nigella says to serve with thin slivers of spring onions and a sprinkling of coriander, as well as a side salad of cucumber slices. As for sauces, she suggests a paste made of wasabi powder mixed with soy, or a mixture of soy, sugar and lime juice. I made both, just to try each one.

I also served it with cold soba noodles, dressed with a mixture of all the Japanesey sauces from my pantry – mirin, soy, rice vinegar, and honey.


tuna and cucumber salad


Table


wasabi powder mixed with soy


one bowl

It was a fabulous lunch. The noodles, the tuna, the cucumber, the sauces – all lovely. After plowing through so much of the rich, meat-and-potato heavy food that Nigella favours, this was a refreshing contrast. Goodness, how I love soba noodles! It was so healthy and delicious, and not in that resignedly virtuous way – it actually tasted good, irrespective of its being low-fat.

Mmm… now check out the dessert. I think words are superfluous in this instance; just check out the photos…


Pudding


Custard


one delicious plate

Pig’s bum is totally the best.

Happy Mother's Day / Happy Birthday Dad!

Dad's birthday was on Saturday. Mother's Day is today. Dinner tonight just had to be special.

360. Sole with Chanterelles (Fast Food)
361. Apple Butterscotch Tart (Weekend Lunch)

The justification behind putting these 2 recipes together is that Dad loves apple pie, and Mum loves mushrooms. The sole only takes about 20 minutes in total, so I started by making the tart.
This tart has pastry on the bottom, then a layer of thinly sliced apples (I used granny smith), then a butterscotch paste on top. Nigella stipulates ordinary unsweetened shortcrust pastry, which is a doddle to make. The butterscotch paste contains light muscovado sugar, flour, eggs and cream, and looks like this...


walnut-coloured paste

Given the occasion, I went for dinky presentation and used these super-cute heart-shaped pie tins that my aunt gave me for my birthday.


pastry with apples


w paste

They need to be baked for about 30 minutes in total, which gave me just enough time to make the fish.

Now, even though the recipe is called "sole with chanterelles", I could find neither sole nor chanterelles. When I went to Prahran market on Friday, I went to Damien Pike's wonderful mushroom stall, and got these pine mushrooms, which are yellow like chanterelles. The lovely guy running the stall (which I'm pretty sure was Mr. Pike himself) said they'd intensify in colour when cooked and be lovely with fish. FYI, chanterelles are only available in Australia in August, imported from Scotland. Mr. Pike at the stall says they're his favourite kind of mushrooms in the whole world.

But back to the pine mushrooms.


ooh mushrooms!

You have to cook the mushrooms down in a lot of butter, remove them to a plate, and cook the fish fillets in the mushroomy butter. Another substitution, I used flake instead of sole because I couldn't find sole at Box Hill at 5:45 on a Sunday afternoon. I figured it didn't matter as long as the fish was white, to contrast with the mushrooms.

So, when the fish is cooked, you remove it to a plate, and return the mushrooms to the pan, sizzling it down with white wine and a squeeze of lemon. The mushrooms and their delicious thick yellow sauce go on top of the fish, with parsley to garnish.


Flake with pine mushrooms

This dish was delicious! I really can't fault the mixture of flavourful mushrooms, a buttery brown and yellow sauce and fish. It requires a bit of specialised shopping, but it's just so easy and fast to make! It simply must be tried.

Here are the little tartlets, fresh out of the oven. One thing I noticed was that even though the filling was cooked, the pastry wasn't completely cooked. I had to cover them with foil and put them back in the oven until the pastry was ready. I'm not sure if this is because of the individual tins, but at any rate, I'd definitely blind-bake them next time.


baked pies


apple pies - this was Dad's idea for presentation. Cute, huh?


One heart, with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream

These pies were delightfully cute, adorable even. Despite the name, they weren't sweet at all. Add more sugar if you want it to be properly sweet and butterscotch-like, although I found that vanilla ice-cream added sufficient sweetness.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Salade Niçoise

341. Salade Niçoise (One & Two)

I made this for my mother and I for lunch today. This salad involves a lot of fiddly effort. But persevere, because it is so worth it! I got all my ingredients at Leo's supermarket (bar the fresh tuna, which I got at a nearby fishmonger).

I found the method for the recipe in the book to be a bit confusing, so I've decided to itemize it here for your convenience. You have to prepare each of the ingredients individually, and then mix them together at the end.

1. Steam potatoes (I used kipfler, because this is what I found at Leo's. I was ecstatic to see an unusual species of potato and really wanted to try it). Then slice them into thick coins, sprinkle with pepper and olive oil.


kipfler potatoes

2. Marinate tuna strips in olive oil, red wine vinegar and soy sauce.

3. Cover cherry tomatoes in boiling water, peel and quarter.

4. Soak salted capers in water.

5. Blanch green beans. (We happened to have fresh ones which our neighbour gave to us from her garden. Score!)

6. Boil eggs (Nigella says the eggs are optional, but when my mum is eating, eggs are not optional, they're mandatory).

7. Wash salad leaves (I used baby spinach)

8. Get out some anchovies (Nigella says to use proper fresh ones, but we couldn't get any. And I just love the super-salty hairy little anchovies from the jar)

9. Make your dressing. (I pounded a garlic clove with salt, white wine vinegar and olive oil)


ingredients

Once that's all done, you can sear the tuna, and toss all the ingredients together.


Salade Niçoise

It was so beautiful! Every element of the salad melded together so well to form a complete and filling meal. It was just gorgeous. I think the dressing really made it. Delicious!


Check out that egg yolk. Just how I like it.


mega closeup... mmmmmm.....

Arriba!

This morning my parents and I went to Prahran Market and spent a bomb on exotic ingredients – bratwurst, frankfurters, duck breasts, venison fillet, smoked ham knuckles, puy lentils and so on. The market is closed every day of Easter except Saturday, so I had to get in while the getting was good.

We got back at around midday, and I started on lunch.

331. Guacamole with paprika-toasted potato skins (Dinner)
332. Cod wrapped in ham (Dinner)
333. Sage and onion lentils (Dinner)
334. Digestive biscuits (Feeding Babies and Small Children)
335. Lemon ice-cream (Weekend Lunch)
336. Lemon meringue ice-cream (Weekend Lunch)

Now, I know that looks like a lot of recipes, but I only made the first 4 today. The 2 lemon ice-creams were made last week when I had some free time, and I felt like pulling them out today.

The plain lemon ice-cream is simply lemon juice and zest, icing sugar and whipped double cream. All you do is stir it together, put it into a shallow container and chuck it in the freezer.

As for the lemon meringue ice-cream, you whip some cream, add yoghurt, lemon curd, lemon juice and zest, and some crumbled meringue nests. You fold it all together into a big billowing pile of deliciousness.


lemon meringue ice-cream

In fact, at this point it was hard to put it in the freezer – it tasted so good, I could have eaten most of it right then and there!

Anyway, that was Tuesday. Today, Saturday, I made the meal that preceded the ice-cream.

This menu is basically Nigella’s EARLY-AUTUMN LUNCH FOR 6, with ice-cream and biscuits in place of the hazelnut cake she suggests for dessert. I halved all ingredients to feed my parents and I.

I started by putting the potatoes for the potato skins in the oven. Next were the lentils. They need to be simmered for 45 minutes with an onion, some sage and a couple of garlic cloves.

While the potatoes were baking and the lentils were simmering, I made the digestive biscuits, which were very easy. In fact, the most difficult thing about the recipe is sourcing the main ingredient – spelt flour. This has been my main obstacle in making this recipe for the past 10 months. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find a packet of organic wholemeal spelt flour at the market in the morning. Score!

So to make the biscuits, you put the spelt flour in the bowl of a KitchenAid, with sugar, baking powder and oatmeal, and then rub in butter and shortening. Then you bind it with a bit of milk, and roll it out.


rolling out

They take about 15 minutes to bake.

The fish fillets are simply brushed with melted butter, wrapped in Parma ham, and brushed with butter again. I couldn’t find cod at the market, so I used rockling fillets. You can prepare the fillets in advance and bake them at the last minute.


fish on tray

Ok, so once the potatoes are baked, you cut them in half, scoop out the fluffy middles, sprinkle the skins with salt and paprika, and bake them until crisp. Nigella says to mash the scooped-out potato flesh to make another side dish.

By this stage, the lentils were cooked, so I finished them off by turning them in a pan with some oil, softened and chopped onion, and sage leaves.


lenticche in a pan

The guacamole has to be made at the last minute, to prevent brownage. All you need to do is mash up some avocado with lime juice, salt, spring onions, green chilli and coriander.


potato skins and guacamole

This was the first course. I put the fish in the oven whilst we were eating this.

I loved the potato skins! I haven’t eaten potato skins since I was a small, potato-obsessed child. And because they don’t need to be eaten hot, they’d be great made a few hours in advance for a cocktail or dinner party.

And onto the second course…


fish on lentils


lunch plate

The ham was quite salty, but it went well with the bland fish, mashed potatoes and mealy lentils. They also looked extremely impressive, which was a bonus.

Here is our dessert. It's lemon meringue ice-cream in the metal container, and the plain lemon ice-cream in the tupperware container.


ice-cream and biscuits

Surprisingly, I much preferred the plain lemon ice-cream - it had a much better texture and flavour. The lemon meringue ice-cream was ok, but it had a lot of ice-crystals in it, and was very, very sour. It must have become more sour as it froze, because it was perfect before I froze it. Even though Nigella says "it needs an edge to it", I think that adding a bit of extra sugar wouldn't hurt. Or if not adding extra sugar, definitely take Nigella's sugestion of serving it drizzled with honey or extra lemon curd.


ice-cream and biscuit

Delighfully refreshing!

If I ever had a cat, I'd call it mackerel

291. Pink Fish and Beans

This recipe, from the children's chapter, is suggested as a quick and easy meal to feed a child. Nigella says to poach Pink fish (trout), then chop it up roughly and add it to a tin of borlotti beans. Thankfully, she also says you can use smoked mackerel for the fish (thus dispensing with the need for cooking at all!). I went for the smoked mackerel option, not only for the ease of execution, but because I had a packet of it left in the fridge from when I made the crepes parmentier. She concedes that this is a "radical substitution... but can be successful".

I made this for lunch on Thursday, adding some mixed salad leaves, and ate it on the bus to work. It was very nice - "fish and beans" is indeed, a good combination.


pink fish and beans

However, I'm not sure if children would go for this. As Nigella acknowledges, the texture of smoked mackerel is quite dense and oily, and the flavour is very smoky. It could be a bit strong for a childish palate. Furthermore, the mackerel I bought had bones in it. Eek! So, I'd only advise using the smoked mackerel if you're happy to really get your fingers in there as you break up the fish, making sure to get out each and every last bone.

WELCOME BACK FRANCES!

I had lunch today with my very good friend Frances, who has recently returned from a year abroad. Frances has been keeping up with my blog, but as she was overseas, had not yet been able to try any of the dishes.

THE SMALL BUT PERFECTLY FORMED LUNCH FOR 4-6

286. Crepes Parmentier with Smoked Haddock
287. Poires belle Hélène

We had an extremely leisurely lunch – Frances arrived at about 1:00pm (complete with issues of Spanish Cosmo!) and I only started cooking then, very relaxedly, chatting away to Frances as I chopped and stirred. It was one of those convivial, companiable lunches that Nigella often writes about.

I did the shopping in the morning before Frances arrived. As you might expect, I couldn’t find any smoked haddock, and had to substitute. Nigella suggests smoked salmon as a substitute, but warns that it can signify “no-effort”. I happened to find a packet of smoked mackerel at the supermarket, which was cheaper than the salmon, so I went for that.


smoked mackerel

The crepes are similar to blini – small pancakes served with a soured cream (in this case, crème fraiche) and smoked fish, which you assemble as you eat. These crepes, however, contain mashed potato as the prime ingredient, which gives them a different taste and texture.

The fish (which my mum sliced for me) is marinated in lemon juice and oil, whilst you fry the crepes.

You serve fish and pancakes with crème fraiche and chopped chives. Nigella suggests St. John’s salad as an accompaniment, which went very nicely.


lunch

This was a lovely lunch. All the components complement each other perfectly – the pancakes themselves are quite bland, but with the smokily salty fish, they’re just right. And it was a decent amount of food – we were satisfied after lunch, but not bloated.

Dessert was poached pears. You peel and halve pears, and poach them in a vanilla sugar syrup until tender, and serve them with a chocolate sauce, vanilla ice-cream and crystallized violets. Truth be told, I was quite hungrily impatient with the pears. I removed them from the pan before they were quite ready, so they were a bit firmer than they should be, but not unpleasantly so.


pears belle helene - delicious!


Pears


one serve

Frances really liked the chocolate sauce - I think the inclusion of espresso really adds a nice, rounded flavour to it. We weren't mad on the crystallised violets, however. $17.28 for a teensy jar? Waste of money!

We cleaned up the kitchen together, and then I immediately started on dinner…

Fishy Fish

249. Red Mullet with Garlic and Rosemary (Fast Food)

You will see, from my photos below, that I did not use red mullet, but rainbow trout. I knew we wouldn't be able to get red mullet, but when we went shopping this morning, all the white-fleshed-red-skinned fish looked slightly dodgy. "Red snapper", "red fish", "pinky"... I had no idea what they would taste like, so I took the safe route and got my favourite, rainbow trout.

I choose to accompany it with a pared-down version of the noodles with spring onions, shiitake mushrooms and mangetouts. (And by pared down, I mean I used regular onions in place of the spring onions, and omitted the mushrooms).

As for the fish, you start by heating up some orange zest, rosemary and garlic in a pan with oil (I chopped them up using a processor) until sizzling, then frying your fish fillets on both sides.


Sauce

Then you remove the fillets to a warmed plate, and deglaze the pan with white wine or vermouth. Having neither white wine nor vermouth in the house, I used gin. Good old Beefeater gin. It worked a treat.


noodles + fish

Now, the fish didn't look too pretty because the garlic-orange-rosemary mixture went really brown in the pan. Perhaps this problem could be avoided if I were to use a non-stick pan instead of a cast iron one. The flavour was great, however. And the noodles were a great complement. Much like the rice in yesterday's lunch, we've been really missing noodles lately, and slurped them up like nobody's business.


Fish + noodles

Cod with Clams

239. Cod with Clams (One & Two)

This dish is designed for one, but I increased quantities for 4 of us. Upon making it, I realised why Nigella designates it for a solitary supper - it's a bit fiddly to make. That's not to say it's impossible to make in larger quantities, but it just requires a bit more dexterity and care.

As I said in my previous post, I bought gummy shark instead of cod, but I think any white fish would be fine. To start, you melt butter and oil in a pan, and slowly heat some garlic slivers in it. Then you dredge the pieces of fish in cornflour and cayenne, and fry gently on both sides.


frying fish

Dump in your clams and pour in some sherry and water, clamp on a lid and let it boil until all the shells have opened. At this point, I realised that by the time all the clams cooked (I needed a kilo for four people), the fish would be disentegrating, so I carefully fished them out (what a pun!) and set them aside whilst the clams finished cooking. Once the clams are done, you remove them to a plate, and boil down the sauce with a bit of butter. Onto each plate goes a piece of fish, surrounded by the clams, and with the sauce poured over.


cod with clams


the table

We served it with Phillipa's Corn Bread, which was fabulous.

This dish was quite easy to make, and an unusual inclusion in my repertoire. It kinda tastes like moules marinière. My family really liked it too. Much better than the duck liver sauce, which was tolerable rather than delicious. Phew!

Lunch

Today at 11:00am, I was sitting at the computer, doing my own thing when Dad walks in…

Dad: Hey Sarah, what are the plans for lunch?
Me: Huh? I dunno…
Dad: You know that we’re all home for lunch today? Daniel’s only working at night.
Me: We’re ALL at home…?!
Dad: So are you going to cook something?
Me: I don’t have anything planned!!! … NOOOOOOO!
Dad: Yeah but if you’re tired it’s ok, we can go out and eat…
Me: No, no! I’ll cook! Let’s go to Box Hill to buy stuff!

So we drove off to Box Hill, with me furiously flicking through How to Eat. Luckily, I already had a dessert ready. Having been totally enamoured with the Rhubarb Meringue Pie and the other rhubarb-pulp-based treats I've made recently, I was inspired yesterday to poach more rhubarb. I kept the pulp in little baggies for future use (on cereal, in yogurt, perhaps another pie?), and made another vagina jelly out of the juice.

As for the lunch part of lunch, I chose Nigella’s SPRING LUNCH FOR 8, in halved quantities. For this menu, Nigella suggests baked salmon, with either a taboulleh and fennel salad, or a pea, avocado and mint salad. I chose the pea, avocado and mint salad, but as for the taboulleh and fennel salad, I’m not sure whether Nigella meant for there to be two separate salads, or for the taboulleh and fennel to be all mixed up as the one salad.

The pudding in this menu is “Almond sponge with orange syrup”, which I believe is actually the Moorish Cake, not the Almond and Orange Blossom cake for which she gives a page reference. Either would be good, I suppose. But at any rate, I was having the vagina jelly for lunch, so had no need to worry about which almond cake was the correct one.

236. Salmon baked in foil
237. Pea, avocado and mint salad

You have to start off by doing the peas, as they need an hour of steeping in a dressing of olive oil, vinegar and chopped mint. For the fish, you rub it with oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and then wrap in a tightly-sealed-yet-baggy foil parcel, and bake it at 150C for 12 minutes per 500g. Once the peas have had their steeping time, you toss through some mixed salad leaves, some chicory (I couldn't find any, so substituted baby cos lettuce leaves - these look appropriate, but taste different) and some sliced avocado.


Lunch. As you can see, I took Nigella's garnish suggestions into consideration. There are the necessary lemon wedges, and some flat leaf parsley on the rim of the plate; "there is something about an unadorned fish on its platter that makes it look beached".


Pea, avocado and mint salad

The salad was fantastic; all the flavours complemented each other wonderfully and it was a great dish for a summer's day. The salmon just tasted as you would expect it to, no surprises there. But it's a good, simple method for cooking a whole fish with not too much fuss or mess.

And here's a shot of the rhubarb and muscat jelly. Like I said, I've made it before, but I thought you might like to see a photo of it anyway.


Jelly


jelly with icecream - I filled it with some sauternes ice cream, just for fun. But I think fruit would probably have been a better aesthetic choice. (Golden raspberries would look lovely, don't you think?)


Serving - I had mine with some double cream instead of the ice-cream.