The 2017 Salad Crisis and Burgers

There has been a shortage of courgettes and salads due to bad weather in Spain. I hadn’t really noticed as we don't buy courgettes in winter, because we grow them in summer and anyone who has ever grown their own courgettes knows, by the end of the season you don’t want to see another courgette until next May at the very earliest!

Salad leaves are different we do buy some during the winter to supplement the leaves we grow in the poly tunnel. Little gems are our favourites and we’re quite bad about composting the outer dark leaves preferring the inner pale leaves. This is a waste of the outer leaves, so what to do?

Well, for a start I gave the slightly floppy outer leaves a good soak in some cold water with a spoonful of salt in it for about 45 minutes, then I drained the leaves and dried them in a salad spinner. After that they went into a container covered in damp kitchen paper in the fridge over night.

They were crisp the next day and perfect for a salad. I used them in a classic Caesar salad and got to thinking about all the Caesar variations there are out there, with bacon or chicken, blue cheese or avocado or sometimes all of the above!

Blue cheese……….. there was some blue cheese butter in the fridge, some cream and I was making burgers from some minced beef……… how would burgers with blue cheese and lettuce sauce go down?

Very nicely as it turns out.

Burgers with Blue Cheese and Lettuce Sauce

The finished burger

250g beef mince

salt and pepper

1tbs butter

1tbs blue cheese

100mls cream 

10 lettuce leaves

2-4 slices of onion

4 slices of aubergine or 2 flat cap mushrooms 

2 slices of Parma ham or 4 slices of pancetta

Season the mince with salt and pepper and shape into two burgers and leave to rest in the fridge.

Mash together the blue cheese and butter with a fork and put into a small saucepan with the cream.

Slice the lettuce leaves longways removing the centre rib if you like.

Brush the onion and aubergine slices with oil and fry in a pan until nicely browned and keep warm.

Bake or grill the mushrooms with a knob of butter, salt and pepper until just done and keep warm.  

Grill the Parma ham or pancetta till crisp.

Heat a pan or grill to cook the burgers and put the blue cheese butter and cream on to a low heat to melt.

When the blue cheese is liquid add the lettuce leaves and bring to a simmer until the lettuce is wilted and the sauce thick.

Lettuce sauce!

Cook the burgers as you like them and place on the aubergine slices or flat cap mushrooms and top with the onions and the sauce and then the Parma ham or pancetta.  

Building the burger

Sausage supper and some thoughts on photographing food

       There are some days when food just needs to be easy and quick and grilled sausages with fried onions and a salad are the perfect.

       The sausages are from a deli called Iago on Princes street, they use to have a stall in the English market, but the new shop is bigger and brighter. The sausages are specially made for them and the thick meaty, fennel and garlic ones are our favourites.

       We are still eating onions we grew in the garden last year, sliced thickly and cooked slowly in some olive oil with a seasoning of salt and pepper, they make a soft bed to put the sausages on. 

The salad of fennel and orange is one of our regular winter salads I blogged about last February, its sweetness complements the onions and to stop it being over sweet we add a good squeeze of lemon juice. It is particularly nice when made with blood oranges. The fennel gives a crunch amongst all the softness.

       I tweeted about this supper the night we ate it, but I didn’t post a photograph. Someone questioned if it had happened, in a joking way, and I said I’d been too hungry to take a photo and that I thought people would be sick of food photos after Christmas. Anyway I like to take a good photo of the food, to do it justice. I did take the photo below the next day of the leftovers.

Leftover sausage supper.

       So is it important to take a photo or just enjoy the moment of sharing the food?

For me cooking and sharing the food is more important. Sharing food is what makes us friends and friendship keeps us connected to other people. In reality very few dishes are photographed and posted on social media considering the number of meals consumed around the world each day.

We are lucky to have food and more than enough.

       When I do photograph my food it is usually for a blog post here or as an aide-mémoire when eating out. I do my best to make the images interesting, informative and in focus for here, but when we are eating out they tend to be a quick snap so I can recall each of the elements on the plate and quite often they are not perfectly in focus or they will have a shadow of the camera/phone in them. As in the one below.

Octopus and black chickpea stew.

       The eating out photos are useful to help me create new dishes at home by maybe bringing in an element that was particularly tasty or for seeing whether a flavour or texture go well together or not, all these add to our everyday meals. Very few of which are ever photographed.

       Do I need to share more of these, I don’t think so. I write this blog to keep my hand in at writing and as a way of recording what’s around me here. 

Thank you for reading this.

Pisces or "Two Fish Dishes"

       My zodiac sign is Pisces, two fish swimming against each other, and I am very indecisive. I've started teaching an evening cookery class for adults, very different to taking children's classes. I'm being pulled by these two different classes, but I am getting there. This week the adults are making these fish dishes, they are quick and do not need much added to them, perhaps a salad or more vegetables cooked quickly while they bake.

Gremolata Crumbed Hake

Gremolata Crumbed Fish With Roast Tomatoes

      I freeze the heels of the bread and they make great breadcrumbs whizzed up in the Magimix, you can even add the garlic and parsley while making the breadcrumbs to save time.

Per person

handful of breadcrumbs

1tsp of grated lemon zest

½ a clove of garlic very finely chopped
2tbs of chopped parsley
squeeze of lemon juice

salt and pepper
1tsp olive oil
1 portion of white fish, hake, whiting, cod or haddock 

6-8 cherry tomatoes

Heat the oven to GM7, 220 ̊C and line a baking dish or tin with baking parchment.  

      Mix together the breadcrumbs, lemon zest, garlic, parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper.  

      Place the fish on the parchment skin side down and cover the top of each fillet with a layer of the breadcrumb mix. 

      Dribble the olive oil over each one and add the tomatoes around them. 

      Bake in the hot oven for about 20-25 minutes, more if the fillets are very thick. Serve with a wedge of lemon. 

Soy Ginger Salmon

Soy Ginger Salmon 

      This is a cheats version of "teriyaki" dish without the sugar, soy sauce, ginger and scallions are staples in my larder. By the time the oven has heated up the topping is mixed and while it is in the oven I steam some asparagus or sauté some spinach with more ginger and some garlic. All done in under half an hour.

Per person

1 portion of salmon

2tsp soy sauce

thin slice of ginger chopped

chilli, a few slices or a some dried chilli flakes optional

1 scallion sliced

a squeeze of lime juice

pepper and salt

Heat the oven to GM7, 220 ̊C and line a baking dish or tin with baking parchment.

      

      Place the salmon onto the baking parchment, skin side down.

      Mix together the soy sauce, ginger, chilli, scallion, lime juice, a pinch of salt and some pepper, spoon this mix over the salmon on the parchment. 

       Bake in the hot oven for 15-20 minutes. Serve with a wedge of lime. Steamed asparagus or some wilted spinach is perfect with this.

Summer Arrives!

      Summer has arrived with a bit of a heatwave and we've been enjoying BBQs with our Aldi Pizza oven and some Irish lump wood charcoal from The Irish Artisan Charcoal Company. 

      I have to admit we got both of these as gifts, my husband Tom who is connected with Aldi on the wine side was given the Pizza oven to test and due to a modicum of interaction and retweeting with Colin on Twitter he very kindly gave me a bag of charcoal at Litfest.ie in May.

Fuel!

      I put the oven together, it was relatively easy and when I looked at it I felt it was a bit low so I put it up on two cavity blocks, much better for our backs.

The cat inspecting the new addition!

        Now what to cook? First up some mini pizzas on the pizza stone, these will need a bit of practice as we got the bottoms to be crispy bit there wasn't much browning on top, but we will persevere. Then we removed the pizza stone and BBQed some free range pork chops and roast peppers, much more successful. The next night we spatchcocked a chicken and seasoned it with the Bharat spice mix below, this was a great success and it was as good cold for lunch next day.

         We had, well Tom had used different fuels apart from the charcoal the first night. He'd had some trouble getting the charcoal started, but Colin came up with a good tip, dip strips of the paper bag the charcoal came in in vegetable oil and add that to the kindling. With the last of our charcoal we cooked these burgers and an aubergine for a tasty supper on a warm evening. 

BBQ, burgers and aubergine slices.

Spicy Lamb Burgers

This recipe is one I have developed for the Summer cooking camps I do at Brennan's in Cork, it makes 6 small burgers and while it has spice it doesn't have heat, feel free to add chilli if you like things hot.

500g minced lamb

1 clove of garlic

1 small onion

2tsp baharat spice mix

1tbsp pinenuts 

1tsp salt

1tbsp olive oil

      Place the minced lamb in a bowl.

Peel the garlic and the onion and grate them. 

Add the grated garlic and onion and then the spices, pine nuts and salt.

Mix well and divide the mixture into six, shape each sixth into a burger and leave to rest on plate.

Brush the top of the burgers with oil.

Heat the grill for 5-10 minutes and then grill the burgers for 4-5 minutes on one side and turn them over and brush the other side with oil and for another 4 minutes.

Make sure they are cooked through and serve.

      These are even nicer cooked on a BBQ, timings will vary depending on the heat of your BBQ. A great accompaniment is aubergine cut into 2cm thick slices and brushed with oil and grilled on each side with the burgers.

The spices

Baharat spice mix

1tsp black peppercorns

1tsp coriander seed

2cm cinnamon stick

½tsp cloves

2 allspice berries

2 tsp cumin seeds

1tsp green cardamom pods

½tsp grated nutmeg 

      Put all the spices in a spice grinder or a mortar and pestle and grind to a powder.

Store in an airtight container for up to 8 weeks. Makes about 6 teaspoonfuls.

This is based on a recipe from "Jerusalem" by Yotam Ottolenghi & Sami Tamimi 

With tzatziki and salad.

Beetroot Tzatziki

Depending on the beetroot this can taste quite sweet.

1 small cooked beetroot

¼ of a cucumber

½ a shallot

1 small clove of garlic

12 mint leaves

¼ of a lemon 

salt & pepper 

125g thick yogurt

      Grate the beetroot onto a plate. 

Cut the piece of cucumber in half and scrape out the seeds with a teaspoon, grate the flesh onto the plate.

Peel and finely chop the shallot and the garlic and add to the beetroot and cucumber.

Roll the mint leaves up and very finely slice them across the roll, add to the plate.

Season the vegetables on the plate with the lemon juice, salt and pepper.

Put the yoghurt into a bowl and add the vegetables stir to mix well.

Taste and add more seasoning if you think it needs some.

Evening light!

Let us hope the good weather continues, it sure puts everyone in better form! 

A Sunny Dish for a Dark Winter Day

        We've been having a lot of windy and blustery weather over the past while, including flooding in some parts of the country. 
        The darkness of these stormy winter days makes me want sunny food, food that reminds me of warm Summer days and calm seas. 
        Hake with Chorizo and Peppers will do the trick, but I may have to wait for calmer seas for there to be any hake at the fishmongers. Cod, pollock or monkfish would work well instead of hake.

I like steaks for this dish as the bones transfer the heat into the centre of the fish helping it to cook.

A reminder of Summer

Baked Hake with Chorizo and Peppers

1 cooking chorizo

1 onion

2 cloves of garlic

2 peppers

2 hake steaks

salt & pepper

Heat the oven to 220˚C, GM 7 and place an ovenproof dish in to warm.

Cut the chorizo in to small cubes, peel and slice the onion and garlic.

Cut the peppers into 2cm squares.

Heat a frying pan over a medium heat and add the chorizo when the oil tuns add the onion and garlic and cook gently until soft.

Add the peppers and season with salt and pepper then cook for a minute or two. Put a couple of spoonfuls of the vegetables into the hot oven proof dish and put the hake steaks on top, spoon the rest of the vegetables over the hake and bake in the hot oven for about 15 minutes until the fish is cooked. 

Devilled Crab Gratin

Devilled Crab Gratin

         Some jobs in the kitchen just have to be done by hand, topping & tailing gooseberries, stoning plums for the freezer, shelling fresh peas, pricking sloes for sloe gin and picking the meat from a hole crab. There is nothing for it but to gather all you need sit down at a table and get on with it. Company of some sort is essential, ideally a real live person who will share the task or one engaged in other activities that you can chat to. Failing live company the radio will keep me entertained.

Of course the point of these activities is to end up with something delicious to eat!

Last night I took on the crab picking challenge and it was well worth it. The brown meat is essential to this dish as it gives a richness that can’t be achieved with anything else.

Crab meat and shells

and the rest.

2 crabs

2 small onions or 1 large one

50g butter

2cm piece of fresh ginger peeled

2 cloves of garlic peeled & chopped

1 dessert spoon of lime pickle

double cream

salt & pepper

fresh coriander chopped

grated cheddar

Pick the brown and white meat from the crabs.

Peel the onions and slice them very thinly, melt the butter in a pan over a low heat and add the onions. Cook the onions gently. 

Grate the ginger and chop the pieces of lime in the lime pickle. Add the grated ginger, garlic and lime pickle to the onions and continue cooking until the onions are soft.

Heat an ovenproof dish and preheat a grill.

Add the crab to the pan with the onions and enough double cream to loosen the mixture. Heat it all through and stir through the chopped coriander, pour into the warm dish and sprinkle with the grated cheese and grill until browned and bubbling.  

Leave to cool until the bubbling stops and serve with a green salad.

Let the bubbling stop before serving!

Serves 4 as a starter or 2 as a main course.

PS Add a chopped chilli if you want a really spicy version, but I like the crab flavour not to be drowned by the chilli.

Kedgeree

         Someone on Twitter requested this recipe after my husband Tom mentioned we had had some. It is a wonderful old fashioned dish easily made of  frozen fish and store cupboard ingredients. If you don't have the spices a couple of teaspoons of  'curry powder' will do.

     Tom so enjoyed it he finished the remains for lunch, leaving me with nothing to photograph!

  

The sea.

250g smoked white fish

100g small prawns or shrimp

250g rice

2 eggs

1 small onion

knob of fresh ginger

25g butter

½ tsp turmeric

½ tsp ground coriander

a pinch of chilli powder

2 tbs chopped fresh coriander to serve

Put a serving dish into the oven to warm up at 180˚C, GM 4.

Place the smoked fish into a pan and cover with cold water, put the pan on the heat and bring to the boil. Turn off the heat and let the fish cook in the heat of the water for 10 minutes.

Cook or defrost the prawns/ shrimp. Peel if necessary.

Cook the rice and drain well and keep hot.

Hard-boil the eggs for 10 minutes cool and peel.

Peel the onion and slice very thinly. Peel and very finely chop the ginger.

In a frying pan melt the butter over a medium heat and add the onion, ginger and spices. Cook gently until the onion is soft. Do not let it burn.

Drain the fish and gently break it up into flakes.

Peel the egg and cut it into 6 slices lengthways.

Stir the hot, drained rice into the onion and spices and mix well.

Add the flaked fish and prawns/ shrimp and mix gently through the rice.

Pile the rice mixture onto the warm serving dish and cover with foil and heat through in the oven for 15 minutes.

Decorate with the egg slices and chopped coriander.

Red Sweet, grown by Tom.

Gluten-free Pizza Base

I think I've finally cracked a half decent pizza base that is wheat and gluten-free!
I love pizza and I was missing it when I reduced my wheat consumption, but recently I've been thinking about it and have a few goes at making this version. 



                                                          Gluten-free Pizza Dough
 

This is not like a bread dough it is more like a paste.

6tbs warm water

150g mashed potato

1 tsp sugar

1tsp Doves Farm 'Quick Yeast'

Mix together in the bowl of an electric mixer, cover and leave in a warm place until it smells boozy and is frothy.

Boozy smelling bubbles

375g gluten-free bread flour

1 ½ tsp salt

190ml milk

1tsp vinegar

2tbs olive oil

 

Sift the flour into the bowl with the frothy potatoes and add the rest of the ingredients. Mix with the paddle/"K" beater for 4 minutes at a medium slow speed. Cover and leave in the warm place again for 30 minutes.

The 'Dough'

 

Oil 4 large baking trays and put a quarter of the dough on to the centre of one. Then using a pallet knife dipped in water spread the dough out into a circle or oval as evenly as you can. Cover and leave to rise while you do the other 3 bases.

Almost round!

Leave them all to rise for 10-15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180˚C, GM 4.

Bake the bases until dry on top, firm and beginning to brown, about 15 minutes.

The cooked 'B' side

Remove them from the oven and take the bases off the trays and leave on wire racks. 

 

Ready to go

Turn the oven up to the highest setting and put a heavy baking tray into the oven at the top.

Brush the top of the bases with oil and turn over. Cover the bases with your favourite toppings and bake directly on the pre heated baking tray for 10-15 minutes, until bubbling and golden.

(If using a pizza stone put it into the oven before you turn it on to bake the bases.) Makes 4 bases about 27cm in diameter.

Pizza!

 It could have done with a minute or two under a hot grill. Next time I'll use the oven with the grill in it and turn it on to finish the top.

There is some 'dough' left... almost supper time.....