Fish virgin

I have, until quite recently, been something of a fish virgin. I have never cooked, a great deal of fish in the past. It's not that I don't like it - I am a sashimi addict and a seafood lover, it's just that I have always told myself that cooking fish was very complicated and should only be attempted by the very skilled. This is what I told myself about baking too until I decided to just give it a go. So I decided to give fish a go too.

In true Beyond Chocolate style, I decided to make it as easy as possible and resisted the temptation to go out and buy a fish cookbook. I was going to cook it once and see if I liked it and wanted to do it again. Then, I might consider getting Fish: The complete fish and seafood companion (all 320 pages of it). In the meantime I consulted St. Nigel - the king of the quick and easy - and picked the recipe that sounded the easiest and most tasty: a thick juicy fillet of haddock, browned in butter and served with mash. I had no idea fish could be so satisfying. 

If you are a fish virgin I heartily recommend taking the plunge with this recipe. It's taken from Nigel Slater's excellent cook book Appetite and it's simply called 'a thirty-minute fish supper'. I've always thought of fish as something 'light' and although it sometimes hits the spot I've never thought of it as lip smacking, tummy patting, sigh inducing nosh. Fish cooked this way is. It ticks all the boxes, just as the best steak, chips and Bernaise sauce has done for me in the past.

So, to the recipe...

A Thirty-Minute Fish Supper

"Appetite" by Nigel Slater

potatoes--a large, floury one per person

olive oil

butter--a thick slice for cooking the fish and another for the mashed potato

cod or haddock--a thick piece, about 7 ounces, per person

lemon--a quarter per person

Peel the potatoes and cut them into halves or quarters, depending on their size. Drop them into boiling salted water and let them cook till tender to the point of a knife. You can expect this to take about fifteen to twenty minutes, depending on the variety of the potato.

Meanwhile, get the oven good and hot. It should be at least 400 degrees F. Put a thin pool of olive oil--just enough to cover the bottom--into a metal handled frying pan or roasting pan. Warm the oil over a moderate heat, then slide in a thick slice of butter. The butter will bubble, then foam, and this is when you should lower in your piece of fish. Do this skin side down.

Tweak the temperature so that the bubbles surrounding the fish are lively but not so excited that the butter burns. Leave the fish without nudging or turning, for a minute or so. Lift it gently to check how it is coming on. You want the skin to be touched with pale gold. Now turn the fish over with a slotted or metal spatula, crumble over some sea salt and black pepper, and put it in the hot oven. Bake until the fish is opaque and juicy, and will come easily away from the skin and bone. Test it for readiness by gently tweaking a flake. You will find the thickest piece of fish, about 7 ounces in weight, will take about eight minutes.

Drain the potatoes, mash them with a potato masher, and beat in the butter. How far you go with this depends on how much dishwashing you feel like doing, but I believe the fluffiest mash is that which spends a minute in an electric mixer. Serve the mash with the roast fish and some lemon for squeezing over.

Family favourites...and a recipe

I was banging on about the chorizo, spinach and chickpea stew being a firm favourite here at the Kitchen Fairy household only last week but faced with yet another chorizo in the fridge, I decided I wanted to experiment with something else. 

As a general guideline, I aim to experiment at least one new recipe each week. If I don't challenge myself, I never cook new stuff and my repertoire becomes a bit stale. It's great to rotate favourites and it can get boring, however much you love them. So  it's also great to add to the list with new entries. Of course, in true Beyond Chocolate style, I don't beat myself up when I don't manage it. On the weeks when I'm rushed, uninspired and budget conscious, I stick to the tried and tested. 

I had some potatoes left over from the roast chicken on Sunday and some parsley from making stock. I surfed about the internet for a while and found this easy looking chorizo, potato and parsley stew on the Independent website. It's easy, quick and very tasty and went down well here at Kitchen Fairy HQ.

Kitchen Fairy tips
1) Chop the parsley quite coarsely. It isn't a garnish it's a part of the dish.

2) The better the quality of the stock, the better the end result. If you've got home made chicken stock now is the time to use it. If not, buy the fresh stuff in the tubs you find at the supermarkets. Give it a go with a stock cube. I'd be interested to hear if anyone does to know if it tastes good?

3) The recipe says salad potatoes but I had some basic whites from the supermarket. The kind that doesn't even have a name. They were floury and thickened the sauce quite a lot which I liked. I'll make it again with the firmer potatoes and see what happens.

I'll have to make a few more times before I decide whether it's going on the family favourite list but it's a definite contender!

Emergency Pudding

Strawberries 'n' Cream 'digestive' sanwich 

My niece and nephew came round for the dinner the other night. I always cook something nice for them and usually make pudding too as I know how much they love it and it gives me an excuse to experiment with new recipes. That day, however had been a bit hectic and I just didn’t have time for a pudding. They were bitterly disappointed and I racked my brains to come up with something, anything that would put a smile on the glum faces around the table. Inspiration struck as I thought about what I had available. I’d been experimenting with making my own digestive biscuits and they’d come out pretty well, I had some strawberries hanging about in the fridge and half a pot of leftover cream. I pondered for a minute then came up with an emergency pudding solution. Everyone got to work: My nephew (15 yrs old) and my toddler set about whipping the cream. My niece (10 yrs old) chopped the strawberries and put them in a bowl with a spoonful of sugar and a squeeze of orange juice and I grated some dark chocolate into a little bowl. We set out the biscuits and all the other ingredients on the table and took it in turns to create and photograph our own ‘sandwich’. The result was fab – the unmistakable sandy texture of the digestives worked really well with the light and fluffy cream and juicy strawberries and the chocolate sprinkles brought it all together (after all, what’s a pudding without chocolate?). It tasted yummy, it was fun to do, it was easy and we had a real laugh taking ‘stylish’ photos for the blog.

Mum of a future masterchef winner?

I’ve watched every episode of Masterchef religiously. I’ve even converted DP who has been known to prefer the competing chefs over a few Z division football teams. I love how the groans of disgust gradually turn into groans of something strangely approaching lust as the judges pick out the best ones and the cooking gets better and better.

I loved Alex’s fried pig ear and would give my right arm to eat at le Calandre where he made the aubergine sorbet. The chef Massimiliano Alajmo not only makes sexy food; he also looks hot and sounds like a philosopher. I quote from his homepage:

“There is no other truth than the one in the ingredients. I decide to approach the matter with the aim of approaching the core, humbly: and I try to act consequently, with lightness. Massimiliano Alajmo” Check out the website for more delightfully intense thoughts like these.

Although I like to think I’m serious about cooking and food and DP has been overheard saying my chorizo, spinach & chickpea stew would make it through the first round, watching some of the culinary art that was on show in Masterchef has also made me realise that I am serious about cooking easy, hearty, tasty food for my family and friends, not about creating art on a plate in a professional kitchen.

I wonder if it has anything to do with being a woman? Have you noticed that out of the last seven winners, six have been men? Today, as I was making blackberry and yoghurt muffins with my toddler and watching him love every minute, I reflected that those Masterchef winners probably had mums like me. I don’t have the time, creativity, technical knowledge or equipment to make sorbets with liquid nitrogen but I can show my son how to throw together some yummy muffins on a Sunday morning. If he doesn’t become a golfing champion as is father hopes, he might fall back on winning the Masterchef title.

Muffin Improvisation

blackberry and yoghurt muffins

I’m excited about these muffins in the same way I got excited about finally being able to turn a cartwheel when I was 7 years old. I’ve been practising muffins for ages now with disasters of varying degrees and more recently a few successes. A few days ago I decided to finally become my own Guru (for more about being your own Guru, see Beyond Chocolate) and make up my own recipe – my own Masterchef thing.  My son had threatened nuclear war in the supermarket a few days before and I’d managed to appease and contain him with a punnet of overpriced, sour blackberries which had been sitting in the fridge, ignored ever since. I wanted to use those – they’d probably end up tasting ok ensconced in a muffin. I had some Total Greek yoghurt (full fat) hanging about. I based the mixture on the FoolProof Yoghurt Cake and took the best tips I’d picked up from all those different muffin recipes I’d used. I let the blackberries sit in a tablespoon of the sugar for a bit and then I tossed them in the dry ingredients before adding the eggs, yoghurt and oil which I’d lightly whisked together in a separate bowl. The Total worked really well and is actually better than the Onken I’ve been using for the purpose of making muffins. It makes the mixture stiffer then the smooth batter you get using a more watery yoghurt and that helps get a muffin consistency. 

These muffins are light and fragrant and have these wonderful bursts of blackberryness inside them. I’m ridiculously thrilled with them.

Time needed to put together: 10 mins

Cooking time: 25-30 mins

Storage: They keep for a few days in a Tupperware.

Portions: Makes about 12 muffins

What you’ll need

• 1 small pot of plain yoghurt (150mls)*

*Use the pot the yoghurt comes in to measure out the other ingredients.

• 1 pot vegetable oil (sunflower or other flavourless)
• 1 to 2 pots of sugar (depending on taste)
• 3 pots plain flour
• 1 pinch of salt
• 3 eggs
• 1 rounded tbsp baking powder
• 1 small punnet of blackberries

How to put it together

1. Heat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4.

2. Measure out the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl. Sift or stir well to make sure it mixed well.

In another bowl or, better, a jug, whisk together the eggs, oil and yoghurt until smooth.

Pour the egg mixture onto the dry ingredients and then add the blackberries mixing just enough to bring the batter together. Do this gently so you don’t mash the blackberries to a pulp.

Spoon into muffins cases and cook for 25-30 mins or until skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Family Favourite Chorizo, Chickpea and Spinach stew

This recipe is a much simplified version of the one in Rick Stein’s Mediterranean Escapes. I loved the idea but never remembered to soak the chickpeas overnight and he boils them for hours to make vegetable stock for which I never had time so I adapted it. Both my 2 year old and partner love this (it’s the only time my son will devour spinach) and I make it at least once a week. It’s a good idea to invest as much as possible in the quality of the chorizo. I started out making it with the cheapish, pre-sliced stuff that comes in plastic boxesand I have to say that it tastes infinitely better when I spend a little more and buy a whole sausage from the deli counter. I’m planning an excursion to Borough Msrket some time soon to buy a chorizo from Brindisa  to see just how much of a difference the chorizo can make. The rest of the ingredients are quite cheap – you’re talking £3 top for a tin of chickpeas, a bag of spinach and a tin of tomatoes. I serve it with a thick wedge of bread – the ‘French’ loaf setting on the bread machine makes a really good, crusty bread with a texture a bit like baguette which really works with this dish and makes very nice toast too. If you’re a vegetarian, you could experiment with using tofu, or better, smoked tofu and adding a bit of paprika to the onions at the beginning. I’ve no idea how that would turn out but it sounds right.

Time needed: 10-15 mins to put together + 30 mins to cook

Storage: This stew will keep in a Tupperware in the fridge for a day so you can make it in advance and it freezes well too.

Portions: The ingredients below make enough stew to feed my partner (who eats a lot), a hungry me as well as my 2 year old with usually enough leftover for his lunch the next day too.

What you'll need

1 tin of chickpeas

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

100 grams of chorizo sausage

1 onion

1 bag of spinach

How to make it

1. Put a largish frying pan (28-30cm

diameter) with a couple of tablespoons of

olive oil on a  low heat.

2. Chop the onion quite finely and put it in the pan with a sprinkle a bit of salt to stop it burning.

3. Leave it to fry gently until it is soft and translucent, about 7 mins. In the meantime, take the skin off the chorizo and cut it into bitesize chunks. Add these to the frying pan with the onion and let it cook until the oil turns orange (that’s the paprika in the chorizo coming out), another 5 mins.

4. Add the drained chickpeas and the chopped tomatoes and give it a stir.

5. Fill the empty tin of tomatoes with some water, and if you have some, a teaspoon of vegetable stock powder).

6. Simmer uncovered on a low heat so the stew is just bubbling away for 20 minutes then turn the heat off. At this point, most of the stock will have evaporated but you should have a more liquid tomatoe sauce than you’d have for pasta.

7. Toss in the spinach and put a lid on the pan so that it wilts in the steam and barely cooks through. This will take 5 or so minutes. Don’t worry if the mound of spinach looks like it won’t fit – it reduces to nothing! If you really haven’t got enough room add half and then add the rest a few minutes later when it’s wilted and there’s more space. If you are making the stew ahead, then leave out the spinach and add it only when the stew is reheated and ready to eat. The spinach stays fresher that way. 

FailProof Yoghurt Cake

This recipe is insanely easy. Use the pot the yoghurt comes in to measure out the other ingredients.

1 small pot of plain yoghurt
1 pot vegetable oil (sunflower or other flavourless)
1 to 2 pots of sugar (depending on taste)
3 pots plain flour
3 eggs
1 rounded tbsp baking powder


Putting it together:

Heat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4.

1) Measure out all the ingredients using the yoghurt pot into a large bowl. Mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon until you have a smooth batter.

2) Pour into a loaf tin (approx 9’ x 5’) and bake for 45 to 55 mins or until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean (I have noticed that the time very much depends on the oven).

Variations:
Stuff I've played with and that's worked out well. Send me yours.

Lemon: add juice and zest of a lemon

Apple: chop one large or two medium apples into smallish pieces and add to batter before pouring into loaf tine. Add 5 mins or so to cooking time.

Banana and choc chip: add 1 large or 2 small well mashed bananas and 150 grams of dark chocolate chips to the batter. Add 5 to 7 mins cooking time.

Coconut: use coconut yoghurt and add a handful desiccated coconut to the batter.