SMOKED SALMON PATÉ

 

Every so often I make smoked mackerel paté which you can see here.  This time I had some smoked salmon in the freezer so I decided to use that instead.  I also looked for a different recipe and adapted this one by Paul Hollywood from the BBC Food website.

It was easy to make, perfectly delicious and kept for a few days in the fridge.  We had ours with some toasted walnut bread and a glass of something chilled.

I recently spotted a very similar recipe where Boursin cream cheese with garlic and herbs is used instead of plain cream cheese, which sounds delicious.  See here.

Ingredients

200g (or one pack) sliced smoked salmon

100g full fat cream cheese

100g full fat crème fraîche

1 lemon (zest of the whole lemon, juice of half)

2 tsp creamed horseradish or horseradish sauce

1 tsp mustard

Chopped fresh dill (optional)

Method

Put all of the ingredients into a food processor and pulse until almost smooth.  Stop the machine when the texture still has some flakes and lumps. 

Season with salt and pepper and add more lemon juice, horseradish and mustard to taste.  

Chill in the fridge until needed and serve with toast, crusty bread or croutons.

Serves 6-8 as a starter, 2-3 as a filling for jacket potatoes.

SALMON WITH BRAISED CABBAGE AND BACON

The weather has cooled down a lot and although there are some warmer days forecast it definitely feels autumnal now and we feel more like "proper cooking" as opposed to barbecues, quiches and salads.

This is a version of something I cooked a few years ago to a much more involved recipe.  

The sauce is one we make regularly which also works well with chicken or pork.  It’s a method we call "camp cooking" as that’s how we used to cook ourselves a decent dinner while on holiday - chicken in a creamy sauce done in a frying pan, having brought a separate pan of potatoes up to the boil and left to cook by themselves.  It’s amazing what you can do with a one burner camping stove with a little imagination.

For this version, the cabbage was cooked until just done then stirred through the hot sauce.  The salmon fillets were cooked plain and simple in the air fryer, or you could oven bake or fry them.  I added some courgette just because we have so many to use up but you could leave that out.  We had ours with plain boiled potatoes as the dish is already very rich - and delicious!

Ingredients 

half a small hard white cabbage, roughly shredded

1 small courgette, diced (optional)

a splash of vegetable oil

1 onion or shallot, chopped

a small pack (125g) lardons (we prefer smoked)

2-3 tblsp full fat crème fraîche

2 small salmon fillets

a few snipped chives

Method

Cook the shredded cabbage in boiling water until just tender.  Drain and set aside.

Cook the salmon fillets separately using an air fryer or by baking in the oven or in a frying pan.  They will  take 12-15 minutes.  Keep your eye on them as it’s easy to overcook and they’re best if just done and flaky.

In a deep sauté pan or large frying pan heat a splash of oil and add the onion, courgette and lardons.  Cook on medium heat until the onion and courgette are just tender.

Add the crème fraîche a spoonful at a time, stirring on low heat, until you have plenty of sauce.  Season with black pepper but very little salt.  Tip the drained cabbage into the pan and stir through the sauce.

Place the salmon on the bed of cabbage, sprinkled with snipped chives.  Serve with plain potatoes or pasta.

Serves 2.

SALMON KEBABS

We are having a more typical summer here in the middle of France so plenty of barbecues.  Much as I love a well cooked Toulouse sausage, the occasional steak and a good burger, I really fancied something lighter.  Looking at some twin packs of chunky salmon fillets I decided to go off piste.  Cooking fish on a bbq can be tricky.

The trick is to construct kebabs with chunkyish slices of courgette between the pieces of salmon so that the fish itself barely touches the grill because the courgette "wheels" raise it up.  Then the fish does not stick to the grill, you don’t have to scrape it off and it doesn't fall apart. Huzzah!!

The marinade is simple and the excess can be used for slices of aubergine or kebabs of courgette and tomato.  All very quick and easy to put together.

As an aside, we decided to go gas with our barbecue a few years ago, during lockdown in 2020 to be exact.  Cooped up in our little UK back garden during unusually good spring and summer weather (a saviour for our sanity that year) we lashed out on a reasonably priced one from Argos and it revolutionised our success rate with the food!  Predictable cooking times and no more burnt chicken!

We were so pleased with it that back in France the next summer (2021) we decided to get one there and ordered something that looked similar from Amazon.  It was more expensive but nowhere near as good, being flimsy, cheap looking and a self assembly nightmare.  We were very disappointed with it.  That’s the trouble with Amazon, you have no idea of the quality until you get it!  We repaired and repainted it each summer but when we wheeled it out of the barn in April this year we looked at the flaking paint and rust and decided it was time for a new one.  

Bricomarché had just set up their display of this year's barbecues so we swooped on a small Camping Gaz model, about the same price but infinitely more well made. Small but perfectly formed!  We're hoping it will last much longer! 

As a temporary measure we shoved the old one round the back of the house (where nobody sees it) until we feel up to heaving it into the trailer and taking it to the tip.  I hesitate to say it, but there seems something very "rural France" about that!

Ingredients

2 salmon fillets

2 tblsp olive oil

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

1tsp dried dill 

1 tsp dried parsley

Salt and pepper

1 courgette

½ a red pepper, deseeded

Method

To make the marinade mix the lemon, oil and herbs together in a medium sized bowl.

Remove any skin and bones from the salmon fillets and cut into large chunks.  Add to the marinade with salt and pepper to taste.  Stir well, cover with cling film or a lid and chill in the fridge until needed.

Wipe and thickly slice the courgette and pepper.  Assemble the kebabs by alternating salmon and courgette/pepper slices.  Pour residual marinade over the kebabs and grill on gentle heat, turning frequently until cooked through.  Check after about 5-6 minutes.

Any excess marinade can be used for aubergine slices or veg kebabs.

Serves 2.  

SALMON, PEA AND POTATO QUICHE

"Here she goes again" I can hear myself saying! Yes, another blog post about leftovers!

I've been "off the lead" for a couple of weeks while Nick is back in the UK for one of our scheduled visits, which usually revolve around seeing friends and family, and mending things.  The MOT for the car we leave in the UK falls due at this time of year and when I was last there it had a dashboard warning which declared "ENGINE FAULT. REPAIR NEEDED".  Naturally I ignored it and it ran perfectly well except for the annoying audible warning!  However it needed to go to the garage anyway for its test so we allowed a bit longer for the visit in case parts needed to be ordered.  It was a simple fix so all is well.

So, with Nick out of the picture I decided to host a "ladies that lunch" for some other singletons at home.  For starters I served the little vegetable tarts which you can see here.  For main course I made roast salmon on a bed of courgette and tomatoes which you can see here.  For dessert I made five pana cottas with a strawberry topping.  I made these the day before so that I just had to add the topping last minute.  Only three other ladies had replied to my invitation so I had "quality tested" the spare one for my dinner.  When a fourth guest accepted last minute and having eaten one of the puddings I rustled up a second dessert of apple and gooseberry crumble using fruit and topping from the freezer, to Mary Berry's recipe which you can see here.

Naturally there were leftovers!  A few unused cooked peas, beans and broccoli from the starter, plus nearly half a pint of the egg mix.  I have found it best not to over fill the tarts, as the leftover mix can be used later.  (Usually I just pour it over a few savoury bits and pieces to bake a kind of "crustless quiche".)

There was also one salmon fillet with a few bits of courgette and tomato left and a few potatoes. I had a pack of shortcrust pastry in the freezer which I thawed out and then just piled everything into it including ripped up flakes of salmon.  I used my general method for making a quiche which  you can see here, adding a few slices of a rather past it noggle end of goat's cheese and some tomato to decorate the top.  Three quarters of the way through the cooking I pressed the filling down a bit using the back of a fish slice as it looked like some bits were going to be browned too much.  This made sure everything was submerged in the custard and resulted in a well filled quiche.

It was absolutely yummy!  Another "free lunch"!  It took me three days to eat my way through it on my own but was so delicious I would most definitely make it again from scratch!  In fact it would have made the ideal lunch dish for the ladies.

Ingredients 

a pack of ready made, ready rolled shortcrust pastry

2 tblsp caramelised onion chutney (or any other suitable chutney made with onions)

a handful of cooked peas, green beans and broccoli florets

1 cooked salmon fillet

a few chunks of cooked courgettes and tomatoes from the roasted salmon recipe (or fry some)

2 small cooked potatoes, sliced

2 eggs

2 tblsp of crème fraiche

approx 100ml milk

a few slices of goat's cheese, or any other cheese, grated or sliced

a few slices of tomato

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C / 160 fan.  Line a loose bottomed 20cm tart tin with the pastry.  Use the baking paper that comes in the pack to line the pastry case, add a layer of baking beans and blind bake for 15 minutes.  (I find it a good idea to put the tin on a baking sheet, which removes the risk of accidentally pushing the loose bottom up when lifting the pastry case in and out of the oven.)

Remove from the oven, remove the baking beans and paper and, if the pastry still looks a bit damp, return to the oven for another 5 minutes.

Spread the onion chutney over the pastry case.  Add the cooked greens in an even layer and distribute the sliced potatoes evenly over the top.  Tear the salmon fillet into strips and arrange them evenly over the veg.

Beat the cream and eggs together in a jug and add enough milk to make up to 250ml.  Mix well, add salt and pepper and pour evenly over the filling.  Add the cheese slices (or some grated cheese) and tomato slices.

Return to the oven, reducing the temperature to 160C / 140 fan.  Bake for 20 minutes then press any bits of filling that are above the surface of the custard back down so that they are submerged.  

Bake for another 10-20 minutes until the filling is set and slightly browned.

Allow to settle and cool for 10 minutes before serving.  Serve warm or cold with salad or anything else you fancy.  Chips and baked beans would be nice!  Equally a simply "English" salad or something more exotic.

Cuts into 6 regular or 4 generous servings.

SMOKED HADDOCK GRATINS

In France there is a chain of frozen food shops called Picard.  Their range of foods goes from basic stuff, like peas and green beans, through to luxury items.  Our favourite purchases include their croissants, which cook from frozen in eighteen minutes, their salmon fillets, which are not cheap but occasionally on special offer, and twin packs of scallops in chardonnay sauce which are a bit pricey but utterly divine as a starter.  These little gratins also come in reusable ceramic dishes, always a bonus in my book.  We have frequently seen little piles of them for sale at village brocantes - the French rarely throw anything away that they might get a few euros for! I have hung on to mine and by now have collected enough of the little blue dishes to feed quite a crowd!

After treating ourselves to another scallop gratin starter I thought I really ought to look for a recipe for something similar that would make a tasty starter without the hefty price tag.

I spotted a recipe for a smoked haddock gratin on a lovely blog which you can see here and which gave me the idea for my starter.  I used frozen spinach which comes chopped and mixed with a little crème fraîche - a combination that I’m not sure if it’s available in the UK but any fresh or frozen spinach would do the job.  I left the quantity I wanted in the fridge to thaw overnight which made it easy to drain off excess liquid.  

The rest of the recipe is really just an assembly job.

They were perfect little starters, quite rich with all the cream and cheese but very tasty and not too filling! Definitely good for a dinner party.  Next time, instead of smoked haddock, I might try a mixture of prawns and smoked salmon - the little packs of diced smoked salmon or trimmings that you can buy would be ideal.

You can find more recipes for the smoked haddock that I used, and other smoked fish, on the manufacturer’s website here. There are English and French versions.  

UPDATE: I made the gratins using smoked salmon trimmings and prawns, which were delicious.  I also made a couple using chicken and chorizo for someone who was allergic to most fish and they were pronounced delicious too.

Ingredients

5 blocks of frozen spinach in crème fraîche, thawed, or equivalent, or a 200g bag of fresh spinach

1 x 140g smoked haddock fillet, skin removed

6 small knobs of butter

6 dessert spoons half fat crème fraîche

3-4 tblsp grated gruyère cheese

3-4 tblsp grated parmesan

6 slices of a large tomato

2 tblsp fresh breadcrumbs made from 1 slice of white bread

Method

Preheat the oven to 220°C / 200° fan / gas mk 7.  Put six small gratin dishes or ramekins on a baking sheet.

First make the breadcrumbs.  Tear a slice of white bread into pieces and drop into a food processor.  Process until you have fine crumbs.

If using fresh spinach wash and cook it for a few minutes until just cooked then chop it.  If using frozen spinach make sure it's completely thawed.  Press out any excess liquid and share between the gratin dishes or ramekins.

Cut the fish into small pieces and sit them on top of the spinach.

Dot the fish with a small knob of butter and spoon some crème fraîche on top.  Sprinkle with the two grated cheeses and place a slice of tomato on top.

Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and bake for 15-20 minutes until golden and bubbling.  Serve immediately.

(As the dishes are straight from the oven you may want to serve them sitting on a heatproof plate or dish so as not to damage your table, placemats or tablecloth.  I served mine on a small glass plate protected from the heat by a pad of folded paper serviette.)

Serves 6.

ROAST SALMON WITH COURGETTES AND TOMATOES

We are up to our necks in produce at the moment and finding ways to keep up with supplies is becoming a challenge.   As fast as we pick them the tomatoes and courgettes keep on coming and as fast as we give them to friends more stuff comes our way.

It's a marvellous yet humbling feeling, being so well supplied with fresh produce when so many people can't afford to eat properly.  Hence I feel even more determined to use it all and not waste any.

We gave two enormous tomatoes and some courgettes (green and yellow) to a friend who sent me a message the next day to say she had made them into a delicious chicken traybake.  I thought that was a good idea but on looking at the contents of our fridge found no chicken but a pack of two salmon fillets.  So "why not" I thought.

Roasting is now my preferred way to cook salmon fillets as I find the timing and the result more reliable.  Sometimes I sprinkle a few herbs on the top but otherwise I just bake them.  The days of foil parcels with herbs and lemon slices and having to peek inside to see if it's done are a distant memory!

The veg are roasted for a while before the salmon goes in as they take much longer to cook and it's very easy to overcook the fish.

Ingredients

1 large or 2-3 smaller tomatoes

1 courgette

2 salmon fillets

olive oil or Olive Fry Light

Herbes de Provence or fresh herbs of your choice (optional)

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180° fan / gas mk 6.

Wash and chop the courgette and tomatoes into large dice and place in a single layer in a suitable baking dish.  Drizzle a little olive oil over or spray with Fry Light, season with salt and pepper and sprinkle over some H de P. 

Bake in the oven for 25 minutes or until nearly done, tossing them once if they begin to brown.

Remove from the oven, place the salmon fillets skin side down on top (coated with herbs if you like) and return to the oven for another 15 minutes.  By this time the salmon should be pink and tender and the veg soft.  If you need to cook for longer do it for only a minute at a time as the salmon quickly becomes overcooked.

Serve with potatoes, rice or pasta and extra veg if you like.

Serves 2.

TUNA SALAD

 

I seem to have been to a lot of picnics lately.  They are usually the kind of event where each person brings a salad, a quiche, sausage rolls, a dessert or so on, ending up with enough food to feed twelve or more people.

For the last picnic I volunteered a tuna salad - a salade Niçoise (or Niçoisée as per the American tourists in the marvelous film "A Good Year"!) 

I looked up what constitutes an authentic salade Niçoise and decided to lay everything out in rows rather than tossed in a large bowl.  That way people could pick out the bits they like without having to rummage around in the bowl too much.  It looked appetising too.

The whole lot was laid on a bed of crisp lettuce and I constructed it straight into a large plastic box to take to the picnic.  It was served with a simple home made French dressing.

One tin of tuna will serve four people if there is plenty of salad and everything can be scaled up or down to suit your taste or the number of servings required.  I reckon the amount shown above would serve six as it is, or twelve when you add a slice of quiche, a sausage roll, etc.

Details to be found here.

The beans were frozen haricots verts and to cook them I used a small steamer basket that came in a set from Sainsbury's - one shallow saucepan and two steamer sections for £20 or thereabouts.  This is what I brought to use here in France but in the UK I use just one steamer section with lid which I found for £2 in a charity shop.  We rarely use more than one steamer section and it fits several of my saucepans - bargain!

Ingredients

For the salad

crisp green lettuce

chopped peeled cucumber

hard boiled eggs (4 here)

cold boiled new potatoes, skin on

cold steamed French beans

halved black olives

quartered small tomatoes

tinned albercore tuna

For the dressing

6 tblsp olive oil

2 tblsp white wine vinegar

1 tsp Dijon mustard

a pinch of caster sugar

Method

Boil the eggs for 10 minutes.  Plunge immediately into cold water.  When cold, peel and cut into quarters.

Boil the potatoes in salted water for about 15 minutes or until just tender.  Put the frozen beans into a steamer basket on top of the potatoes and cook for about 5 minutes.  Drain and cool.

Wash all the salad ingredients, chop and arrange as in the photo.  

To make the dressing put all the ingredients into a jam jar or bottle with a lid and give it a good shake to combine.  Shake well before serving.

Voilà !!

ROASTED COD WITH POTATOES AND TOMATOES

The first time we had this dish it was served to us by friends at least twenty years ago.  The lady of the house (who does all their cooking)  (he does all the ironing)  gave me the recipe.  She actually photocopied the page from the recipe book that it came from, which included notes in pencil on how she had tweaked it.

For quite a few years I cooked it regularly.  It's a great dish to serve to friends and family and also easy to scale down for dinner for two.  Then, I totally forgot about it and I didn't make it all for years.  In fact if I had remembered it I would have had no idea what became of the recipe.

Until last month when we were ferreting about in the loft for the Christmas decorations.  Not that we have an actual loft, living in a dormer bungalow, it's just a triangular shaped space under the roof running the length of the house.  We've still managed to cram it with plenty of STUFF.

Crouching awkwardly in the tiny space Nick passed me a box of stuff that wasn't Christmas decorations but long lost paperwork.  Including my ring binder full of much loved saved recipes from magazines, friends and internet.  I spent a happy half hour browsing through the folder and my eyes fell upon this long forgotten recipe.  I couldn't wait to make it again.

The recipe originates from an old Ainsley Harriot cook book but I don't remember which one.  It's called "French style roasted cod" and is basically cod fillets baked on top of a layer of roasted potatoes.

I remembered that it was a good idea to make sure the potatoes were completely cooked before adding the cod as it would be easy to overcook the fish, which takes hardly any time at all.  You end up with succulent fish, lovely garlicky potatoes and tangy, herby tomatoes.  

It was totally delicious, just as I remembered it.  The instructions written in pencil by my friend on the recipe said "serve with green beans" - very French and oh-la-la!  We had ours with broccoli and carrots!

Looking back through some of my photos pre-edited in the folder marked "blog" I found this one.  A bit of detective work showed that I made this dish in December 2014 using hake fillets instead of cod.  That would have been in my French kitchen, suggesting that the elusive ring binder of recipes must have gone with us to France and since been repatriated, only to end up forgotten in the loft!  Zut alors!

Ingredients

450g floury potatoes* or enough to cover your dish in a single layer when peeled and cut into medium sized chunks.   (I used Maris Piper) 

1 bulb garlic

a handful of large cherry tomatoes, halved

4 sprigs rosemary

3 tblsp olive oil

4 thick boneless cod fillets (or suitable white fish)

4 tblsp dry white wine

Method

Preheat the oven to 220C / 200 fan / gas mk 7.

Cook the chunks of potato in a pan of boiling salted water until just tender.  Drain and tip into an ovenproof baking dish.

Tuck the cloves from the bulb of garlic in between the potatoes (I peeled mine as I wasn't sure our guests would like them unpeeled).  Scatter the tomatoes over the top and add the rosemary.  Season with salt and pepper and drizzle over 2 tablespoons of the olive oil.

Roast in the oven for 25 minutes until the potatoes are turning golden brown.

Remove from the oven and place the cod fillets on top of the potatoes.  Drizzle with the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil and roast for another 5 minutes.

Remove from the oven and splash over the wine.  Roast for a further 7 minutes until the fish is just cooked and tender.  Check after 5 minutes to avoid over cooking the fish.

Serve immediately with green veg of your choice.

* the hake version shown in the last picture was made in France where I have yet to find floury potatoes.  They mostly seem to be waxy ones with a deeper, creamy colour.  It looks like that time I made it with the small, salad potatoes that we often buy in France, halved.

Serves 4.

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For dessert we had this.  Apricot brioche pudding, another dish I hadn't done for years.  You can read about it here.  This time I tucked some small nuggets of marzipan in with the apricots.  Yum!

SMOKED MACKEREL SOUP (soup maker recipe)

I stumbled across a copy of the Covent Garden soup recipe book in a charity shop the other day.  We like their soups, a favourite of ours being their smoked haddock chowder.

Almost any hot soup recipe can be adapted for the soup maker and as I hungrily devoured the pages of the book looking for ideas for I spotted the recipe for our favourite soup.  That's when I remembered the pack of smoked mackerel fillets in the fridge.  I had bought them while we were in France, intending to make some paté (which you can read about here) for my birthday bash (which you can read about here) but ran out of time.  (Who knew that putting up bunting could take so long?!)  We brought them back to the UK with us and by now they were heading for the wrong side of their use by date so I thought "why not?".

By jove it was tasty!  I considered using the chunky setting to get the real chowder effect but instead settled on smooth, reserving some of the flaked fish to add in once cooked.*  That turned out to be a mistake because of the annoying little bones, so next time I think I would put all the fish in the machine, cook on smooth and add a few bits of diced cooked potato at the end instead. 

Anyway, if you're a fan of smoked fish you would love this soup!  I have to say that the flavour was quite intense.  It would probably have been flavourful enough with only one of the fillets, not both, which I will also try next time.  Apart from the fish stock pot I didn't add any extra seasoning as the fish itself was peppered and is quite salty.

Ingredients

A twin pack of peppered smoked mackerel fillets

2 medium/largeish potatoes

2 large carrots

1 fish stock pot (I used Tesco own brand)

1 large knob of butter,

Milk to thin the soup when cooked

Method

Remove the skin from the fish, break into large flakes, reserving a few for later. *

Peel and roughly chop the veg, preparing enough to fill the machine to the lower line when added with the flakes of fish.  Add the stock pot, butter and enough water to fill to the upper line.  Process on smooth.

When cooked, thin with milk to get the thickness you prefer, stir in a few small flakes of the reserved fish and serve.

*See notes in text.

Makes four generous portions.

PILCHARDS ON TOAST, NEW CAKE STANDS AND SOME SAD NEWS

Now I know this may be an odd thing to post about but bear with me.

The recipe, if you can call it that, popped up in my FB feed and I was instantly compelled to make it for lunch!  We had it that day.

I was brought up on pilchards.  Not sardines*, but tinned pilchards in tomato sauce, warmed in a saucepan or in the oven and served on thick slices of toasted wholemeal bread.  Proper Hovis bread that had that delicious and unique aroma that Hovis doesn't have any more.

We usually keep in stock those very small tins of Glenryck pilchards in tomato sauce and at around 50p a tin they are just the right size for lunch for two.  The tins usually contain two plump pilchards that when split open and served with hard boiled egg make one of our favourite salads.

However, this particular recipe is a bit more sophisticated than just pilchards on toast!  It includes crushed avocado and rocket.  So, late to the party as usual, I have finally discovered that crushed avocados can be quite nice - how exciting that you can do more with an avocado than just serve it in wedges in a salad or prawn cocktail!

On the day I spotted the recipe I happened to have both a packet of ready washed rocket and two avocados in the house.  We also had a home made wholemeal loaf that Nick had made the day before.  You can see the toast recipe here, although it is actually for sardines and includes a sprinkling of chilli seeds which I omitted.

Ingredients

2 slices wholemeal bread

1 avocado

1 155g tin Glenryck pilchards in tomato sauce

a handful of rocket.

Method

Empty the can of sardines carefully into a dish or plate and split them into two along the back and open out.  If like me you are not partial to the larger bones remove the spines.  Transfer carefully to a small saucepan so that they don't break up into pieces and heat gently.

While the sardines are warming through toast the bread.  Halve the avocado and remove the stone then the flesh with a dessert spoon.  Put the flesh into a small bowl and mash with a fork.

Spread the mashed avocado on the toast, top with the rocket then the sardines and serve warm straight away.

Serves 2.

*A sardine is a small pilchard.  In other words, pilchards are bigger and plumper than sardines.

Now for the cake stands.  I had a couple of Ebay successes recently and added to my collection.  This one is a Clarice Cliffe creation by Wedgwood and I was thrilled when it arrived.  I was not so lucky with the next one.

I often see cabbage leaf pottery on sale at French brocantes (a brocante is like a flea market) and it is usually quite pricey.  Most of it is also quite hideous.  I spotted this cake stand on Ebay just after I had already bid on the Clarice Cliffe one and it also came with two fairly large plates.  I was not fussed about having the plates but coveted the cake stand.  I turned out to be the only bidder and got the lot for £15.

Unfortunately the seller made the double error of not wrapping it very well and sending it via Hermes.  Over the last few years we've been doing a dog walk that begins at a small car park on the edge of town.  It's used by Hermes to decant parcels from their huge lorry to the cars and vans that deliver them to people's homes.  I have seen the way the parcels are handled and personally I would never use them to send anything even vaguely fragile or more valuable than a cheese sandwich. 

The seller has refunded my money and the three items are now in the bin.  Such a shame.  It will be a long time before I ever see another one like it I expect.

Lastly, the sad news as mentioned in the title is that the cake stall that we held at my place of work every year is no longer going to take place.  Not just this year (for obvious reasons) but not ever.  The owners of the business have decided that the Children in Need charity is already cash rich and any funds should be raised a different way and given to a different charity. 

 

So, no more huge baking sessions to supply the cakes.  

The first time we did it in 2003 we raised £130.  Last year we raised £2,113 and the grand total over the years is well over £15,000.  That's an awful lot of cake and I shall miss doing it.  It's what renewed my interest in baking and extended my repertoire beyond the annual Christmas cake and the occasional birthday chocolate cake.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have done a bit of research and discovered that the "lettuce leaf" plates and cake stand are quite sought after and can be obtained elsewhere for quite large sums of money.  The design is actually "geranium leaves" and now I look at the pictures they do look like geranium leaves.  I can get a cake stand for £52 and the plates for £35 each.  What a shame that the seller did not pack them more carefully.  

SMOKED HADDOCK AND LEEK RISOTTO

Whoosh, where did the last few weeks go?

 

It's certainly not that there has been no baking going on chez nous.  Indeed, there has been an above average amount of baking, cooking and entertaining and consequently a shortage of time to write about it.

 

We returned to the UK at the end of October and immediately turned the house here upside down to have two bedrooms decorated, one upstairs and one downstairs.  (It's a bungalow with a dormer extension.)  So far we have done all the decorating ourselves but by now are thoroughly fed up with it so this time wielded the wallet instead of the paint brush.  Paul the decorator was a joy to have in the house (he is very house trained and totally unlike any workmen we have ever had the displeasure to meet before).  He did a brilliant job of first the upstairs bedroom then the downstairs, on consecutive weeks.  All very good but it still meant moving furniture yet again from one room to another then back again.  I swear I never ever want to do that again.

 

With the furniture still displaced we then put Daisy into the cattery, loaded Hugo into the car to return to France for just one week to "close up" the house there and say goodbye to it until next Spring.  When we got back to the UK we then had to restore the house here to something like habitable and get back to normal life.  Not that I can actually remember what normal is like. 

 

 

You may wonder what any of this has to do with a risotto but I have to say that this recipe is a joy to have discovered.

 

Our nephew and his girlfriend cooked this for us when we went round to theirs one evening last week to meet their new cat and dishwasher.  They bought their very first house a couple of months ago and Nick went round soon after to put in place the plumbing and electrics for a dishwasher - their first one of those too.  Having only ever previously lived in rented houses they haven't had the opportunity to gain DIY skills, all repairs having to be done by landlords, or, more often than not, put up with undone.  The dishwasher finally arrived and was successfully installed at about the same time as they got their own cat, having not been able to have one of those before either.

 

The cat Mavis is adorable, the risotto was delicious and rustled up in no time at all and the dishwasher worked brilliantly.  They are busy people, often getting home from work quite late, so having a repertoire of quick dinners is essential.  I asked for the recipe and couldn't wait to try it myself. 



You can see it here on the BBC Good Food website.  Curiously, some of the reviews describe it as bland.  Well, au contraire, for me/us it was packed full of flavour, utterly delicious, rich and creamy.  I made it myself this evening and even my dad enjoyed it too, it being the first risotto he has ever eaten (at the age of 91).  I used a Tesco fish stock pot (little plastic thing) and skinless, boneless smoked cod as that was what was available.  I am also looking forward to adapting the recipe using bacon and mushrooms instead of the smoked fish.

 

Ingredients

 

a small knob of butter

1 large leek, washed and thinly sliced

300g risotto rice

700 ml fish or veg stock

250 ml whole milk

375g (approx) smoked cod or haddock, skinned, boned and cut into large chunks

3 tblsp crème fraiche

100g baby spinach

 

Method

 

Preheat the oven to 200C / 180 fan / gas mk 6.

Melt the butter in a large ovenproof dish or casserole over medium heat and cook the leek slices for 4-5 minutes, stirring, until just tender.  Add the rice and stir for two more minutes.

 

Add the stock and milk, bring to the boil and bubble for 5 minutes.  Remove from the heat and sit the fish chunks on top.

 

Cover with a lid (or foil) and bake in the oven for 18 minutes until the rice is tender.

 

Remove from the oven and stir through the crème fraiche and spinach.  Season with salt and pepper and cover with the lid again.  Leave out of the oven for 3 minutes by which time the spinach will be cooked.  Serve immediately.

 

Makes 4 generous portions.

SALMON PUFFS

This is a recipe of my own invention, if you can call it a recipe.  It's more like a guide for using leftovers.  Leftover salmon, that is.

 

It came about because I bought a pack of four salmon fillets in the reduced section in the local supermarket.  With three of us for dinner that evening, me, Nick and my dad, I cooked them all and that left one piece of cooked salmon to use later.  I had ideas to use it in a salad or pasta dish but a trip to Ikea intervened.

 

For some time we have been buying the pouches of lemon and dill sauce that you can buy in Ikea's food department every time we visit.  They have a good shelf life and can be kept in a cupboard so don't take up space in the fridge.  You can see them here and they also do a tomato and herb version.  You simply pour the sauce over four salmon fillets and bake to get a delicious meal.  I have also used it with chicken pieces and it is just as tasty.  Mostly we use half of a pack for two pieces of salmon (as normally there are only two of us for dinner) and the rest on some chicken a few days later.  I know that this is a cooking cheat but sometimes we can't always be bothered to cook entirely from scratch - plus the fact that this is quick, easy and not too guilt-ridden.

This time I had one cooked salmon fillet and almost half a pack of sauce left in the fridge.   Also part of a pack of puff pastry in the freezer.



 

 

And so a recipe idea came to mind.  I cut the pastry into two oblongs about the right size to enfold a half of the cooked salmon fillet, dolloped the leftover dill sauce on top, created a parcel and baked.  It was absolutely delicious!
We had ours warm with some new potatoes and greens but it would have been just as good cold with a salad.  Or anything you like....baked beans, ratatouille, you name it, the possibilities are many.  I wondered about experimenting by making it into little open tartlettes baked in a mini muffin tray to be served with aperitifs...…..

Ingredients
One cooked salmon fillet, cut into two equal portions
half a pack of puff pastry (ready rolled or otherwise)
half or a third of a pouch of Ikea lemon and dill sauce
1 egg, beaten, to glaze.

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C / 160 fan / gas mk 4.  Line a baking sheet with baking paper.

Roll out or cut the pastry into two oblongs about double the size of each piece of salmon fillet.  Place each piece of salmon on one half of each oblong.  Put spoonfuls of the sauce on top of each piece of fish.

Dampen the edges of the pastry and fold it over to form a parcel.  Press the open edges together and seal by pressing with the back of a fork.  Brush with beaten egg to glaze.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until the pastry is golden brown and crisp.  Serve with salad or veg.

Serves 2 as a main meal.  (Smaller parcels could be made to serve more as a starter.)

SMOKED MACKEREL PATÉ

This has to be one of the least inspiring photos I have ever posted in the blog but don’t let it put you off……..

At a couple of events in France last summer bowls of this stuff appeared on the table with the other nibbles.  When I said how delicious it was the ladies who produced it told me how easy it was to make.  I next encountered it when we went to a restaurant for a pre-Christmas meal with family where it was served as a starter and I thought it was time to have a go myself.

Dead easy it really is and tasty in measures well beyond the level of competence required to make it.
The first time I made it I blitzed it in my food processor and it turned out really smooth.  The next time roughed up the fish with a fork then processed it only a little so that it turned out more rustic in appearance.  I preferred it this way, although it did leave the odd tiny bone.

You can make it look much fancier by adding herbs or salad.  I liked serving mine in my ancient lidded dish made by Pearsons of Chesterfield, the maker of rustic cookware now sadly long gone.  I could just pop on the lid and leave it in the fridge where it kept well for several days allowing us to dig in as and when we wanted.

Ingredients

A twin pack of smoked mackerel fillets
1 tblsp crème fraîche
1 tblsp full fat cream cheese
1 tsp French mustard
1 tsp horseradish sauce or creamed horseradish
a few drops of lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

Method

Remove the skin from the fish and place in a small bowl.  Mash it with a fork to break it up then transfer to the bowl of a food processor.  Blitz briefly for rustic looking paté or for longer for a smoother paté.
Stir in the other ingredients and mix until well combined.
Serve chilled to spread on toast, bread or crackers, or as a filling for a jacket potato.  You can dress it up with herbs or by serving with salad and a lemon wedge on the side. 

Serves 6 with an apéro, 4 as a starter, just 1 or 2 as a jacket potato filling.

TUNA PASTA SALAD

We were recently served a small portion of this as a starter in one of those “menu du jour” restaurants in the Dordogne.  The ones where there is no choice for lunch and you get what there is on the menu that day, which usually includes cheese and wine as part of the all-in price.  On that particular day we had garlic soup, this salad, entrecote and frites, cheese, crème brulée and a glass of wine all for 12.50€ including bread and the only extra we paid was for two espressos. 

The dish has its origins somewhere in the prawn cocktail years* and it reminded me of the 1970’s buffet table delights that I used to serve up at family parties.  I enjoyed it so much that I wasted no time in recreating something very similar for lunch one day once we were back home.  The main reason for me writing this post is so that I can remember how I did it!

*”The Prawn Cocktail Years” is actually the title of an excellent cookbook by Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham.  It includes recipes for many of the old favourites of the 1970’s which every self respecting housewife should have been able to rustle up to impress friends and family at social occasions.  I was really lucky and picked up a copy in pristine condition in a charity shop a couple of years ago.

Ingredients

4tblsp any mini pasta – I used 2 tblsp each of risetti and etioles but alphabet pasta would be nice too.

2 hard boiled eggs, quartered

1 small tin tuna, drained and flaked

2 inches of cucumber, cut into 1cm cubes

6 cherry tomatoes, halved

2 spring onions, thinly sliced, or half a small red onion, diced

1 small tin sweetcorn, drained

salt and pepper to taste

1 tblsp mayonnaise or crème fraîche, as required

a few chopped chives

Method

Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the packet, drain and leave to cool.

Add all the other ingredients and mix well to combine, using enough mayo or crème fraîche to loosen it to your taste.

Serve with a small green salad and crusty bread as a starter or lunch dish.  You could of course add any other bits and pieces that take your fancy, such as chopped red or yellow pepper, quartered radish and so on, depending on what you have in the fridge.  Back in the day I would have used rice instead of the pasta.

Serves 6 as a starter, 4 portions as a lunch course.

SMOKED SALMON AND HALLOUMI STUFFED COURGETTES

 

We have loads of home grown produce around at the moment.  From a small number of tomato plants we have grown many kilos of tomatoes and they keep on coming.  We didn’t grow these squash and courgettes ourselves, they were gifts from different friends, all of whom seem to have a glut of them this year.  Lucky for us!

We haven’t done so well with our apples.  Our best apple tree had to be removed to make way for the new fosse septique, leaving us with just one that we have “rescued”.  It was squashed in amongst lots of other weed trees and bushes that were overcrowding it when we bought the house so we cleared them all out to give it room to thrive.  By early July it had loads of apples on it but then we had a spell of really hot weather and the tree suffered badly, most of the apples falling off before they were ripe, becoming food for the critters.  The few in the picture above are our full crop for the year as there are no more on the tree.

We may be short of apples but we have plenty of donated courgettes - although I thought these looked more like small marrows.  They made me remember the stuffed marrow dish my mum used to make.  Each summer my dad would proudly produce a couple of giant marrows and she would fill thick slices of them with a stuffing of minced beef and onion cooked in Oxo gravy, smother them with cheese sauce and bake them in the oven.  Delicious!

However, on checking the contents of our fridge I discovered a glut of other bits and bobs that were also in need of using up.  My brother and his daughter came to stay with us in early August and we predictably overbought on food, not allowing for the number of days we were likely to eat out – not to mention the food shopping they did themselves to add to the haul.

My brother and his daughter both enjoy cooking and after they had gone home I found a few interesting things in the fridge that they had bought but never got round to cooking.  Including two packs of halloumi.

I don’t think I have ever eaten halloumi, certainly I have never bought any or cooked with it.  But, along with my glut of tomatoes, a pack of smoked salmon trimmings, some grated Emmental and the large courgettes, an idea of what to do with them all started to form.  I was thinking of a blog post from our friends who gave us the courgettes and the link to a recipe for something called “zucchini boats”.  You can read it here.

So it turns out that I made something totally new and delicious that I didn’t have to shop for, never really planned, and I will definitely be making again!

Ingredients

2½ large courgettes

1 pack (183g) halloumi, diced

6 medium tomatoes, diced

half a pack (125g) smoked salmon trimmings

a few handfuls of grated Emmental cheese

Method

Put on a large pan of water to boil.  Wipe clean two of the courgettes, slice in half lengthways and remove the seeds.  (I scooped them out with a melon baller.)

Put the oven on to heat up to 200°C / 180° fan.

Drop the courgette halves carefully into the boiling water and cook for 4-5 minutes.  Remove and drain.

Dice the remaining half of a large courgette (or a smaller one) and put into a large bowl.  Add the diced tomatoes and halloumi.  Season with salt and pepper, mix together well and stir through the smoked salmon trimmings.  I also added a pinch of the little pack of herbs and spices that came with the cheese.

Arrange the courgette halves in a suitable ovenproof dish.  Pile the stuffing ingredients into them and sprinkle over the Emmental.  Bake for 30-40 minutes until the topping is nicely browned and bubbling.

Serve with a green salad.  Serves two.  Gluten free.