Spanish Roasted Fish with Patatas Bravas

I love fish, but usually find white fish - even cod - too plain and uninteresting. This recipe from Tesco, in one of their recent free magazines, is a great way to enjoy cod with some new flavours, and with the potatoes it makes a really substantial meal - and one that is really easy to cook.

You can find the recipe on the Tesco website. Don't be afraid of using fennel even if like me you don't really like it - it works really well in this dish and once it's roasted with the other ingredients the aniseed flavour is much less pronounced.

I didn't use the cherry tomatoes as I don't like them though I did use the tinned tomatoes in the patatas bravas sauce. I made this on a weekend as it does take quite a while to cook but is pretty easy - you just bung most things into a roasting tin - and it really was delicious.

 

Here's the fish (salmon, cod and prawns) plus potato, chorizo and onion in a foil-lined roasting tin.

It doesn't look much different after it's cooked, does it?!

Here's the patatas bravas - I cheated slightly and used Aunt Bessie's mini roast potatoes but then followed the recipe for the sauce, which worked really nicely.

The finished dish - really tasty!

Salmon with Mustard and Gruyere Herb Crust

I love salmon and often when I'm planning my week's meals, I put down salmon for one night - it tastes so good I don't really need to do anything, and can quickly cook a piece of salmon and some vegetables for a delicious dinner.

Sometimes though it's nice to do something a bit different. I found this recipe in my BBC Saturday Kitchen Cookbook; it's also available on the BBC website.

You make a crust from breadcrumbs, cheese and herb, and press it on top of the salmon. I didn't bother with the part where you chill it in the fridge and instead mixed it and pressed it straight onto the fish.

The fish is baked in a mixture of fish stock and wine which keeps it light and gives it a lovely flavour. I didn't bother roasting the tomatoes as I don't like them, but didn't think the dish lacked anything for it.

Low Carb Fish Pie with Cauliflower Mash

My low sugar diet also means low carb, as the starch and glucose in potatoes raises your blood sugar, so I've been looking for some good alternatives. I like cauliflower and wondered if I could make a fish pie and put mashed cauli on top, and found a few recipes online doing just that.

I followed this recipe for the cauliflower puree but I couldn't get mine smooth enough; I think if I had cooked the cauli for longer so it was softer that might have been better. I wouldn't have thought to add cheese and cream into it as well; it was quite nice, though to be honest I would have preferred mashed potato!

For the fish pie, I cooked a mixture of fish - I think I had white fish, salmon and smoked mackerel, and added some chopped leaks and made a white sauce.

I put it in a pie dish, spread the cauliflower mash over the top and popped it in the oven to brown.

Here you can see the fish and the topping. This felt like a very virtuous recipe and is good if you're cutting down on potatoes and miss having fish pie - but I have to say I would only eat it as "diet food", whereas a lot of the low cal/fat/sugar recipes I make are nice enough to eat whether you are on a diet or not.

Spiralized Salmon and Broccoli Balls with Carrot Pineapple Rice

This recipe comes from Ali Maffucci's book Inspiralized, and takes a bit of preparation but the cooking time itself is minimal - and more importantly, it tastes amazing. If you've only spiralized courgette or butternut squash and used it instead of pasta so far, you are really missing out - there are so many ways you can use your spiralizer, but you could also make this recipe even if you don't have one.

I don't want to repeat the entire recipe as I'm sure Ali would appreciate it if you bought the book but I'm going to describe what I did. The recipe consist of three elements - salmon and broccoli balls, which I thought would be like fishcakes minus the potato but actually were quite different; homemade teriyaki sauce; and carrot 'rice' cooked with spring onion and pineapple.

I started by making the salmon balls. Preheat the oven, and pulse some broccoli in a food processor. Add a piece of salmon, some garlic and ginger and onion or shallot and pulse again. Turn the food processor off, and scoop the mixture into balls. Place on a foil-lined baking sheet and bake in the oven for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile make the teriyaki sauce by mixing soy sauce, mirin, honey, garlic and ginger.

After the salmon balls have baked for 15 minutes, drizzle over a couple of spoonfuls of the teriyaki sauce and bake for another 10 minutes.

Meanwhile spiralize some carrots -you need to choose quite thick ones otherwise it's tricky. I used three carrots; once they are spiralized, wash out the bowl of the food processor and pulse the carrots until you have a rice-like consistency.

In a small pan, heat a little coconut oil and fry some chopped spring onion, garlic and ginger. Add the carrot rice, some chopped pineapple and a little teriyaki sauce and stir fry for a few minutes. Serve the salmon and broccoli balls on top of the carrot. This was a delicious meal and I felt very healthy!

I'm entering this in Spiralizer Saturday, the blog challenge I run for all things spiralized. If you have any good recipes, link them up here!

I'm also sending this to Extra Veg, hosted by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours.

Two-Pastry Fish Pie

I was given a pack of Jus-Rol shortcrust pastry and another of puff pastry to take home after attending an event recently and decided to use them - both of them - to make a pie. I've never used more than one type of pastry before but thought that the shortcrust would work well on the bottom, and the puff pastry on the top to make a lattice. So this is more of an idea than a recipe post, but it worked pretty well so I want to share.

Take an ovenproof dish - I used a small pyrex dish that was enough for two servings - and line the bottom with rolled out shortcrust pastry. Line with greaseproof paper (I forgot this part but it makes it much easier) then fill with ceramic baking beans, or uncooked rice, and bake blind in the oven for 15 mins.

Meanwhile I poached some smoked haddock in milk

I also had a packet of salmon flakes (cooked) which I bought as they were reduced in the supermarket, and I decided to throw these in as well.

When the base of the pastry is cooked, spoon in the fish. I used the poaching milk as a basis for a small quantity of a white sauce which I poured over the top. 

I've written before about my lattice pastry cutter; it's definitely easier to use with shop bought than homemade pastry! Roll out your pastry and roll the cutter over the top, then use your fingers to gently prise apart the lattice - you can see here I've done the top section but not the bottom section yet.

Place over the top of the pie and cut off any excess, then brush with milk or beaten egg.

Bake in the oven for 15-20 mins until the pastry on top is risen and golden brown. I think the lattice effect makes the pie look nice and it reduces the amount of pastry you need on top so it's even a little healthier!

Salmon with Linguine and Leek Pesto

I was looking for a springtime pasta recipe and came across this recipe for salmon with linguine and ramp pesto. I'd never heard of ramp but according to Wikipedia the allium tricoccum is known as many things, including ramp, spring onion and wild leek. I don't think it's actually the American word for spring onion though as that's scallion. I had some leeks in my fridge and decided that would be close enough and I would give it a go!

I didn't have Asiago cheese (whatever that is) but did have parmesan in my fridge, and a packet of sliced almonds that needed using up. So I decided to throw the whole lot together and make my own springtime pasta!

To serve 3-4, you need:
1 leek, sliced
2 tbsp. oil
30g grated parmesan
30g flaked almonds
handful of fresh parsley
approx. 4-6 tbsp. oil
to serve: linguine
salmon fillet

Cook the pasta according to pack instructions and cook the salmon fillet in whichever manner you prefer - pan fry, poach, oven roast or even microwave. This is really just the recipe for the pesto...

Slice the leek and add to a large pan with 2 tbsp. oil. Heat until the leeks are softened but not browned.

Transfer to a food processor along with the parmesan, almonds and parsley, and pulse for a few seconds. With the motor running, slowly add the oil until it reaches your preferred consistency.





Toss through the cooked pasta and top with the salmon. Enjoy!

This had a different flavour (obviously) to pesto I'd had before but thanks to the parmesan and nuts it was still definitely a pesto, and I really enjoyed it.

I'm sending this to Credit Crunch Munch, hosted this month by Jo's Kitchen on behalf of Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Camilla at Fab Food 4 All. Parmesan isn't cheap but I'm sure a lot of people like me have half a packet hanging around to be used up, and as this recipe only used things I already had open in my fridge, hopefully it counts!

This recipe is a good way to sneak in some veg so I am sending this to the Extra Veg challenge, hosted by Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary. The challenge was started by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Michelle at Utterly Scrummy.

Leeks are in season so I am sending this to Simple and In Season, hosted by Ren Behan.

The recipe uses fresh parsley so I am sending it to Cooking with Herbs, hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage.

 

Finally I am sending this to Pasta Please, hosted by Family Friends Food on behalf of Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes as the challenge this month is for springtime pasta recipes.

Salmon Cooked in the Dishwasher

Don’t you just hate it when you are preparing a lot of food for a party and you haven’t got enough room in the oven? At the risk of sounding like an infomercial, never fear – with this handy appliance you probably already have in your kitchen, you need never run out of cooking space again!

 

No, I’m not talking about the microwave…. But the dishwasher! Did you know that you can actually – and safely – cook food in a dishwasher? I read a few articles about it a while ago and was very curious. I never got round to trying because one of the main things people seem to cook in dishwashers is a whole side of salmon – not something I had occasion to cook.

 

 

But when we had a lot of people over on new year’s day and I was preparing a buffet, I decided this would be the perfect opportunity. I didn’t actually tell my guests how the salmon was cooked but mainly because I forgot to mention it – it was no great secret! The salmon came out perfectly poached and nobody would have ever known the difference.

 

There are a couple of key things to remember when poaching salmon – or indeed cooking anything – in the dishwasher. I’ve read a few articles claiming that you can cook something while you are actually cleaning dishes at the same time, but I’m not sure about that – I’d prefer to run an otherwise empty dishwasher and not put any detergent in!

 

 

 

The most important thing is to make sure that whatever you are cooking is tightly wrapped – I wrapped my salmon in several layers of foil. I placed it on the top shelf of the dishwasher and ran the shortest economy setting cycle – it doesn’t take hours to poach salmon.

 

 

And that’s pretty much all you need to do! I used a whole side of salmon – I think a smaller piece might disintegrate but if you do try this with a single fillet, let me know how it turns out! I served the salmon on a beautiful Richard Bramble plate that I was given a while back and it looked very good as part of the new year buffet. I served the salmon cold with mayonnaise but there’s no reason why you couldn’t serve it hot, straight from the dishwasher!

  

 

 

I’ve recently seen an articles about cooking in your washing machine which is interesting (and possibly a hoax), I’m not sure if I’m brave enough to do that!

 

 

Salmon Stir-Fry with XO sauce

I found an ingredient for Alphabakes beginning with X! XO sauce is a spicy seafood sauce that originates from Hong Kong; you cnn make your own, but apparently you need dried scallops, Jinhua ham, dried shrimp and canola oil, which I don't think would be very easy to source in the UK - or you can buy it ready-made in a jar from Tesco.

According to Wikipedia the name comes from cognac - extra old, which is known as XO. I know from my previous incarnation as a drinks writer that high end western spirits are very popular in Asia and Wikipedia says that XO came to denote high quality, luxury products. So I guess that XO sauce is supposed to be a luxury item - looking at the list of expensive ingredients I can understand why that is!

I had a look online for a recipe and they all seemed to be variations on a basic stir-fry. Most of the recipes I found suggested using chicken but I thought the seafood flavours in the XO sauce would work really well with salmon, and I was right. You can use any stir-fry vegetables and I have to admit cutting a few corners and buying a packet mix, which included beansprouts, cabbage and carrot. I used scissors to chop a piece of salmon into chunks.

Heat a little oil in a large frying pan or wok then add a teaspoonful of the XO sauce and stir around the pan. Pour in about 50ml fish stock or water. Then add the veg and stir-fry until softened. Add the salmon chunks and add another dash of water or fish stock if desired. Stir-fry until the veg and salmon is cooked through.

Serve, and enjoy! This was the first time I have tried XO sauce and I really liked it so will see what else I can do with the rest of the jar.

I'm sending this to Alphabakes, the blog challenge I host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter I have chosen is X.

Slimming World Smoked Salmon Pate

After coming back from holiday in America I decided to follow the Slimming World 7-day meal plan inside the magazine for a few weeks. It recommended homemade smoked salmon pate as a syn-free snack; it was easy to make this low fat version which lasted several days and tasted really good. 

Quantities are approximate as I just used what I had; it's probably best to err on the side of caution with the yogurt as you can always add more if necessary.

You need:

about 200g smoked salmon

about 60ml fat-free plain yogurt

handful of fresh parsley

squeeze of lemon juice

Simply place all the ingredients into a blender and pulse to combine.

Add more lemon juice to taste or more yogurt for a runnier dip.

This kept well for a few days in an airtight container -this cute little tub is part of a set that I received from the Dot Com Gift Shop a little while ago.

It's good with carrot sticks and you could also have it spread on toast.