Smoked Mackerel Chowder

We've been very busy the last few weeks and I've not really been keeping on top of things in the kitchen. This includes buying food. Joe has been a legend and has done the shopping, but that can mean we have an awful lot of some random things. Often it means we have a lot of booze and meat. Strangely, this time, we have a lot of celery and potatoes.

I'm not very good at cooking for one. I tend to make big pots of stuff and really struggle to downsize. Normally when I am on my own I make a stir fry or noodle soup. This time I fancied something different, but I still wanted to use up some stuff and avoid going shopping. I found a solitary smoked mackerel fillet in the freezer so I thought I'd make some sort of chowder. (I defrosted some prawns so I had a bit more meat) I did buy some soda bread to go with it.

Ingredients (to serve one very hungry person) - 

 

One smoked mackerel fillet, with the skin peeled off and flaked into chunks

Three/four big prawns, uncooked and chopped into 1cm chunks

Two medium potatoes (or three small ones), peeled and diced into 1cm chunks

One stick of celery, finely chopped

Three spring onions, sliced into 1cm pieces

Half a small tin of sweetcorn/three or four baby corn sliced into chunks

A small handful of frozen peas

A bay leaf

A quarter of a pint of milk

Two teaspoonfuls of crème fraiche

A quarter of a pint of vegetable stock

A handful of fresh spinach

Melt a little butter with a spoonful of vegetable oil over a low heat then add the potatoes, celery and spring onion with a pinch of salt. Fry slowly until they soften a bit. Then stir in the crème fraiche.

Stir in the milk, vegetable stock and bay leaf, simmer for five minutes then add the peas and sweetcorn and smoked mackerel. Keep the heat low and simmer for another five-ten minutes until the potatoes are completely cooked. 

For the last minute or two add the chunks of prawn and the spinach until they cook. If you happen to have chopped parsley or chopped chives add some finely chopped at the end. I didn't have any. 

Serve with big slabs of brown soda bread spread with butter.

This was great. Cheap and really tasty. It would be better with smoked haddock, because that would flavour the soup more, but still, this did the job.

I'm aware posting this means I've done two soup recipes in a row but I think this is more of a stew... later in the week I'm going to make a really easy pie. Maybe I'll put that one up here to remind you I do eat solid food occasionally.

Two more curries

I'm genuinely enjoying the Olympics. I'm not into watching sport as a rule, but it's won me over. The opening ceremony was brilliant, and I've just been to London. Not for any events, I mostly watched bits of it in the pub/on a big screen in Greenwich etc. Not the healthiest approach to an enormous festival of sport, but one that I enjoyed.

Right, now on to the recipes. When I'm craving healthy stuff I will almost always make a curry. In fact, so much so that this blog is full of curry recipes. See here:

http://idontjustmakesoup.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/three-curry-feast.html

and here:

http://idontjustmakesoup.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/one-for-hippies-and-veggies-potato-and.html

But these are different recipes, and you can never have too many curry recipes up your sleeve. I like to make two at a time, so that at least one of them is veggie. 

A note on spices: I think it pays to invest in a load of them, as you will never be far from a really tasty meal and you will always be able to tart up the cheapest ingredients.

Curry one: Prawn with Spinach and Peas

Ingredients

an onion, sliced

a red chilli, including seeds

three cloves of garlic

an inch of fresh ginger, peeled

a teaspoon of mustard seeds

½ teaspoon of turmeric

4 cardamom pods, smashed a bit with the back of a knife

1 cinnamon stick

2 bay leaves

¼ teaspoon chilli flakes (leave out if you don't like spicy food, it had quite a kick)

a tin of coconut milk

a packet of prawns (peeled)

a good few handfuls of spinach or some frozen spinach

a small cup of frozen peas

1. Make a rough paste by blitzing together your chilli, garlic and ginger in a hand blender with a tablespoon of water.

2. In the meantime heat some oil in a large pan, then add all the spices and fry for a couple of minutes. Keep a close eye on them, they're easy to burn!

3. Once the mustard seeds start to pop, add the onion, fry for a minute or two before adding the chilli/garlic/ginger paste. Turn the heat down, and fry for ten minutes before adding the coconut milk. Simmer for five minutes before adding the peas and spinach.

4. Add the prawns towards the end, and give them a few minutes to heat through

Curry two: Chickpea and Peppers

Ingredients

an onion, sliced

a pepper sliced

a tin of chickpeas, drained

a clove of garlic and an inch of fresh ginger, peeled and blitzed together with a little water

½ teaspoon cumin powder

½ teaspoon coriander powder

¼ teaspoon of turmeric

¼ teaspoon of dried chilli flakes

¼ teaspoon of garam masala

half a dozen cherry tomatoes, halved or one whole big tomato

1. Fry the sliced onion and pepper in a little oil for a few minutes in a medium – high heat then add the garlic and ginger paste

2. Add all the spices and fry off for a few minutes, before adding the tomatoes

3. After another few minutes add the chickpeas and half a can of water, then let it bubble away for 15 minutes, squashing a few of the chickpeas as you go along to thicken it up a bit.

Serve with some brown rice, some yoghurt or raita and naan bread if you've got some.

Three course extravaganza.

I have spent all weekend eating. Or that’s what it feels like. Amazing. Last night we had an extremely good value Moroccan meal at Sami’s in Chapel Allerton; £12 for three courses. Ridiculous. It’s a bit basic but still tasty, and very, very cheap! (and bring your own booze, happy days)

Today I was cooking as, not only was it Father’s Day, but yesterday was my Mum’s birthday. So I decided to make something a little bit special. However, I was also conscious that it’s Sunday night, so it couldn’t be too heavy. The menu went like this:

Grilled asparagus and halloumi starter; Cod with creamy leeks and peas, pancetta and Jersey new potatoes; then chocolate brownies with raspberries and vanilla ice cream.

The key is to be prepared… I managed to spend the whole day reading papers and hanging out with my folks then pull it all together.

Yesterday I made brownies according to this recipe: My earlier blog with a brownie recipe

Then this morning I made a dressing for the asparagus starter, by blending together 6 olives, the juice of half a lemon, some olive oil and some salt and pepper.  Pop it in a jam jar, so that later you can just give it a shake and it’s good to go.

For the starter I coated the asparagus in a little olive oil and cut the halloumi into big chunks. Then shove it all on the griddle pan. 

Stack a few asparagus spears, with a big chunk of griddled halloumi on top, then a handful of rocket. Drizzle over some dressing. 

In advance I griddled the pancetta until it was crispy and part cooked the leeks and peas. Whilst preparing the starter I got the potatoes on. 

I’m a bit gutted, I forgot to take a picture of the potatoes, and after they were cooked I tossed them in some butter with chopped parsley and chives (from my garden!) They were lovely.

In defence of the use of cod, my Dad offered to get something for the meal and I went to two supermarkets and was so unimpressed by the selection I asked him to get the fish. I asked for a more sustainable alternative, but the fishmonger convinced him that line caught North Atlantic cod is sometimes ok. And according to http://www.fishfight.net/ that’s true, so I went with it.

After the starter it was a case of reheating the leeks and peas whilst the cod was pan frying over a high heat. I added lemon juice and a touch of cream to the veg as well as plenty of black pepper.

Then stack them up too. Toss the pancetta in a hot frying pan to reheat a little bit and put a bit on top. Yum.

I'm really annoyed I didn't notice the two runaway peas when I took this picture - they've ruined the presentation!

Then for pud I just zapped the brownies in the microwave for a minute, then served with fresh Scottish raspberries, and some nice vanilla ice cream. 

Whilst making this I was mostly listening to: Fleet Foxes. 

Apologies if this is full of mistakes; quite hastily written as I'm shattered! Ready for an early night before work tomorrow. Rock. And. Roll.

Mackerel for tea with a sweet treat for afters.

For me, hangovers usually bring out one of two approaches to food; I either want to gorge on rubbish and stodge all day, or I want to eat incredibly healthy food to undo the badness of the night before.

Today is a mixture of both. I decided to make brownies to distract myself from the pain, and because I’ve got to work on Bank Holiday Monday, so I thought they would brighten up a quiet newsroom.

Chocolate Brownies:

I don’t have a massively sweet tooth, and I’m not great at baking, but I can just about stretch to some cookies or brownies. I think the trick is to get the best possible chocolate with lots of cocoa in it; cooking chocolate just doesn’t cut it.

Melt about 200 grammes of dark chocolate with about two thirds of a bar of butter. (The recipe I used suggested 165g of butter; my scales aren’t that precise). 

When it’s melted and cooled a little beat in about 200g of brown sugar, preferably muscovado but I only had Demerara. Add a pinch of salt, and some vanilla extract.

Beat in three eggs one by one, then some plain flour. (Again, the recipe I used for amounts said 85g, but my scales are not that good.) Put in a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. 

Bake at 160 degrees for about 40 minutes. Allow to cool on a wire rack.Then slice.

And now for the healthy (ish) supper…

Mackerel fillets with chorizo, leeks and peas.

I’m going through quite a chorizo/paprika phase at the moment. 

First slice a leek and fry in a little butter and vegetable oil, with a pinch of salt. Put some potatoes on to boil.

Take the papery skin off a good chunk of chorizo, and cut it up into chunks. Technically you should use cooking chorizo for this, but it’s not that easy to get hold of, so I used some ordinary chorizo. When the leeks are starting to collapse a bit, add the chorizo to the pan along with a good pinch of paprika. You want the edges of the chorizo to go a little crispy. 

 Add the nearly cooked potatoes to the pan to allow them to crisp a little, before adding a small amount of vegetable stock and some frozen peas. If you want, you can add a few spoonfuls of cream to the sauce, but it doesn’t necessarily need it. Add a good squidge of lemon juice, and turn the heat right down.

Season the mackerel fillets. Heat a little vegetable oil in a pan until it’s fairly hot, then put the fish in, skin side down.  If you want to be really healthy you could just grill the mackerel.

It doesn’t take long – just three or four minutes, then turn the heat off and flip the fish to finish cooking in the residual heat.

Serve the fillets on top of a big mound of chorizo leek-y loveliness. If you can hack it, have with a nice chilled glass of white wine.

I’m off for a lie down.

Fish pie and egg poaching

So it’s the weekend before payday, and I spent five days in Scotland last week eating and drinking. This means I am absolutely skint, and trawling the freezer to see what we could eat this weekend! I realised we had basically all the ingredients for a fish pie, and even better might have enough to cook for some friends too…

I also have duck eggs, courtesy of a nice man at work who keeps ducks and hens and brings in the eggs. So the sort-of-dinner-party recipe is:

-          Poached duck egg salad with bacon bits and balsamic dressing

-          Fish pie

-          Loads of wine

Fish pie is a bit laborious, but worth it. It always feels to me a bit of a treat and very comforting. The key thing is to have a good variety of fish. In our freezer we had some pollock, a tiny bit of salmon, and some prawns.  I bought a piece of smoked haddock to go with it (smoked fish adds loads of flavour to fish pie, it’s a must).

Put some potatoes on for mash.

All the fish except the prawns goes in a big tub with a bay leaf and some peppercorns and gets covered with milk, then goes in the microwave for 4 minutes or so to poach lightly. It needs to be only just cooked, and pulling apart quite easily. 

Meanwhile, de-vein the prawns. Basically there’s a manky looking black line on prawns that is their intestinal tract or something (bleurgh). Thankfully, a quick scrape with the point of a sharp knife gets rid of it. 

Scatter your prawns into your pie dish, and pull the fish apart into chunks and distribute it fairly evenly. You don’t want any skin or anything. I also add some spinach leaves for a bit of extra veggie goodness, but you can leave it out if you’re not bothered.

Then make the sauce by stirring together some butter and flour over a medium heat, and gradually adding the milk you cooked the fish in. (Basically a classic white sauce, but it tastes all fishy and good). Add a load of chopped parsley and some chopped chives and the juice of half a lemon. Season with salt and pepper, then pour over the fish. Should look a bit like this:

 Mash the spuds with butter and milk then spread over the top. I tried something different with this pie, and blitzed up some bread with some herbs and salt and pepper to give it a nice crust on top. (Got the idea from a Nigel Slater article I think). It worked a treat!

(Not to blow my own trumpet but one slightly pissed guest said the fish pie was “awesome”)

Ready to go in the oven for about 30/40 minutes at 200 degrees. Should end up looking a bit like this (perhaps slightly less blurry. May have had a G and T by this point...):

For the starter, I fried off some bacon-y bits. I was going to buy pancetta or streaky bacon slices but my butcher gave me tail end bits of bacon for free, so I wasn’t about to complain! A salad of spinach, chives and radishes, then a lovely poached duck egg, and some bits of bacon. After the bacon has fried off, I put it on some kitchen paper to drain, and added some balsamic to the pan to deglaze it for the dressing with a bit of lemon juice.

Poaching eggs is a bit of a dark art, and it’s in the hands of the gods whether it works out or not. Lots of boiling hot water with a touch of vinegar in it is the key, break the egg into a cup or saucer so you can make sure it stays whole, swirl the water around and drop it in. Then hope for the best. They don’t take long, just a couple of minutes for a nice soft centre. Take out of the water with a slotted spoon and let them drain really well; no one wants vinegar-y water on their dinner. I’d never poached four eggs at once before, and decided just to go for it and see what happened. By some fluke it worked!

Awesome! I’ve been having a 6music and sunshine based weekend, hope you have too.

Mussels and chips

Or Moules Mariniere. It’s one of my all time favourites. I love mussels. My folks introduced me to them as a kid, probably on one of many trailer tent holidays in France.

To this day, one of my most memorable birthdays took place while we were on holiday in France, in a slightly dodgy café, where men came in trying to sell us leather jackets as we ate.  We had French onion soup, with proper big croutons with Gruyere cheese on top, then had mussels and chips.  A man with an accordion came in, and my mum got him to play happy birthday. I must have been about nine. Amazing.

Anyway, enough of my (slightly wine fuelled) trip down memory lane. The other thing I love about mussels is that they’re so damn easy. A little labour intensive to clean maybe, but very little skill involved!

And the OTHER thing I love about mussels is that they’re so damn cheap! I bought a kilo of them from Waitrose yesterday (hardly known for being cheap and cheerful) and they were about three quid. It was more than enough for two people with hearty appetites, and feels like a proper treat.

The first, and most arduous, bit of tonight’s meal was cleaning them.  Thankfully these were rope grown, so there weren’t many barnacles. Basically the job involves running them under cold water to get any grit or dirt off, knocking any barnacles off with a knife, and pulling off the beards. (see below for a picture of a mussel with a beard) 

If any are open, give them a good tap on the sink/counter.  If they close they’re fine, if they don’t then get rid of them. There’s always a few that need to be discarded.

Finely chop an onion (traditionally it would be shallots) and a clove of garlic, and soften them in some butter on a low heat, so they don’t colour. Then chuck in 100 ml of white wine, the mussels, put the lid on and whack the heat up. They take three to four minutes, with the odd shake of the pan.

Once they’re opened, pour in about 100 ml of cream and a load of chopped parsley and give it a good stir around. That’s it. Really. And they’re brilliant.

I don’t make chips from scratch, due to lack of deep fat fryer/chip pan. Also, we rarely have chips, so the standby frozen skinny fries do me just fine.

And the best bit? Dipping some nice bread in all the juices that are left in the pan. And having a nice glass of white wine with it. Truly awesome. I now need a lie down as I couldn’t resist a third slice of bread to dip.

Note: I can’t claim moules mariniere as my own recipe, but it’s so good I wanted to write about it anyway.