Thursday 30 May 2013

Black Bream

My better half is out with the girls tonight so it's food for one. She does not like fish on the bone so I took a whole black bream out and made a rub of toasted and ground cumin & coriander, crushed garlic, hot and sweet paprikas, salt, pepper and some lemon extract. To that I added a modest amount of chopped parsley, tarragon, lemon balm and thyme. I must say that I like lemon extract as it is in oil and has the advantage of not 'cooking' food which is left to marinate. I left the fish in foil in the fridge for a few hours and then put it on the BBQ for about 7 or 8 minutes in a fish grill.

It's a beautiful but very much under appreciated fish. I will buy some and fillet them so we can both have them as a meal.

I accompanied the fish with a salsa of tomatoes, steamed asparagus, chives, spring onions and cucumber in garlic, virgin rape seed oil, s&p, and white wine vinegar.

Wednesday 29 May 2013

Salmon with ginger

My wife like salmon so it's a regular (about twice a month). I finely sliced a small piece of root ginger and laid the steaks face to face covered in the fridge for a few hours.
As my better half is on a Weight Watchers diet at the moment, I just used 3 small potatoes (about 250gr in total) and put these in a 180c oven for about 45 minutes along with chunks of swede and celeriac. About 10 minutes before the end, I popped a couple of good sized garlic cloves in. I scooped the potato out of the skins and did a rough mash along with the swede, celeriac and garlic keeping that warm and putting the skin halves back in the oven for about 10 minutes to crisp up.
This was accompanied by steamed broccoli with a touch of nutmeg and a small piece of cooked leftover butternut squash cut into strips and fried off.

Sorry no pic .. we ate it too quickly! The mash with the crispy skins was gorgeous and similar things will feature again.

The salmon was pan fried as in blog 16th May 2013

Sunday 19 May 2013

Chicken roast on root vegetables

As we are usually only 2, I halved a chicken although a spatchcocked chicken would suit for more.

A selection of root veg, chopped in chunks - I used potatoes, swede and carrot, garlic chopped and onion large chopped. Add the root veg etc to a pan and cover with water (season) or stock, beer or what you will. Add herbs - I used tarragon and thyme tied so it's easy to remove after. Put the chicken on top so that the skin is clear of the water. Roast at a fairly high temperature (about 200c fan) for about 45 minutes until the internal temperature is over 70c. It will continue to cook while resting.

While this is doing, cook some green veg e.g asparagus, beans, broccoli, peas and chill to keep the colour.

When the chicken is ready, remove it to a hot tray and add stock to the pan and boil down so the root veg is nicely soft and glazed. Stir in the green veg. Portion the chicken and served on top of the veg.



You MUST try this!

Friday 17 May 2013

Lemon Chicken Breast

I brined a couple of chicken breasts, using 1% gross salt solution and 0.5% sugar overnight. I also added some lemon extract to the solution. In the morning, I removed the breasts and left them covered in the fridge for the day.
I did these sous vide with a little butter and lemon thyme for about 2 hours at 63c and then seared them off.
I accompanied them with roast peppers stuffed with mushrooms, asparagus, red onion and garlic (all roasted) and cous cous done with roast butternut squash.


Thursday 16 May 2013

Simple Salmon

I enjoy simple meals done well. Today was salmon steaks. I cooked these in saute pan with a lid on on a moderate heat, turning them once to give the top and side a nice colour and slight bite until the internal temperature was 50c. They continue cooking afterwards and that leaves them lovely and moist.
This was accompanied by sous vide carrots, thickly sliced on the bias and bagged with a little butter and some cummin seed, then cooked for 2 hours at 85c. The sweetness and flavour is amazing. Also accompanying this was some steamed french beans and reheated butternut squash and celeriac mash.

Simple but delicious.

I recommend http://www.amazon.co.uk/SuperFast-Thermapen-professional-food-thermometer/dp/B002BIATM8/ref=sr_1_37?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1368739579&sr=1-37&keywords=temperature+probe temperature probe after using many other cheaper ones.

Tuesday 14 May 2013

Lamb Koftas

The day before yesterday, I had done a 14 hour sous vide lamb shoulder (63c) which was beautiful and as usual there was plenty left over. I froze some and kept some out to do some lamb Koftas.

Ingredients:   Cooked lamb, onion, some lamb gravy, chopped mint, egg, garlic, cous cous.

I finely chopped the onion and garlic. Unusually, I softened the onion in the microwave (not a fan of microwaves!) and then added the garlic to that to use the residual heat to just take the rawness off it. Blitzed the lamb in the food processor and added all the ingredients. I didn't add other herbs as the original joint was well seasoned with thyme and garlic. I added the cous cous gradually to allow it to soak up the juices until the mix was of form-able consistency. The mixture was then shaped into thick sausage shapes, covered and refrigerated to firm up.

I cooked them in a saute pan (which I covered to start with to help set the rolls)  for about 10 minutes until well coloured all over. Served them with asparagus and a mash of celeriac and butternut squash.

Conclusion:- Very nice but could have been a bit firmer.