Baked Salmon with Pesto and Butterbeans

With Paul working up in Durham at the moment, we're having to adjust to a new routine. He comes home on a Friday night, in time for dinner. In theory. In practice he is at the mercy of the railways and dinner needs to be fairly flexible, in order to accommodate various delays. It also needs to involve a lot of vegetables and pretty punchy flavours, because the poor love is getting very tired of the menu at the pub across from his motel.

This dish fits the bill perfectly! It's a variation on a recipe that I got from a woman called Maureen, on a now-defunct food forum about 10 years ago. It's healthy, delicious and forgiving.

Baked Salmon with Pesto & Butterbeans (serves 2)

1 red onion, cut into wedges
1 can of butterbeans, drained and rinsed
1 red pepper, cut into wedges
1 punnet of cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup pesto (this can be a jar, but I made a simple one from rocket, basil, garlic and olive oil - left out the parmesan and pinenuts on this occasion)
2 salmon fillets
salt, pepper & olive oil

Put the wedges of onion and red pepper in a roasting tin and drizzle with a little olive oil. Roast for about 25 minutes at 180C. Remove from oven and add the butterbeans and cherry tomatoes, and toss with the pesto, adding a bit of extra oil if it looks too dry.

This is the point where it can wait. The last bit only takes a few minutes, so if you are making this for a dinner party, or a partner whose train is delayed outside Milton Keynes, this is where you can hold it.

When your tired, grumpy husband walks through the door, place the salmon fillets, skin side up, on the bed of vegetables, nestling them in a bit so their flesh gets a bit of the pesto on them, season with salt and pepper and put back in the oven. By the time he has changed and has a drink and has cuddled the cat (i.e about 20 minutes) dinner is ready to eat. Needs nothing else, but a glass of white wine or a light red is just the thing.

Ricotta Fritters

On Friday night I made ricotta. I'd been starting my cheddar for the Forging Fromage cloth-banded cheddar challenge, and had an enormous amount of whey, so I thought I'd re-cook it and skim off the ricotta before portioning up the whey for other uses.

So on Saturday morning I had a nice cupful of fresh, milky ricotta and a strong urge to make ricotta fritters for brunch.

I largely followed Orangette's recipe, although as my ricotta was really very wet and I didn't have quite enough, I only used 2 eggs, and a bit of extra flour, and I used Cointreau instead of brandy or bourbon to bring out more of the citrus flavour. When they were cooked, I dusted them with golden icing sugar and cinnamon, and served them with slices of mango and large cups of coffee. Heaven. Absolutely gorgeous. Obviously (well, it should be obvious!) we weren't able to eat the whole batch in one sitting, but they stayed crisp as they cooled, and as the afternoon wore on, the pile on the plate gradually dwindled to nothing.

Meat-Free Monday - peppered potatoes and cauliflower

One of my favourite dishes at our favourite Indian restaurant, Sahib's in Northwood Hills, is a starter called maree aloo - sauteed potatoes liberally coated in black pepper. So I sort of had that in mind when I threw together this supper.

Peppered Potatoes and Cauliflower

500g new potatoes
1 small head of cauliflower
1 sprig fresh green peppercorns
1/2 tsp white peppercorns
1/2 tsp black peppercorns
pinch cumin seeds
pinch salt
big pinch curry leaves
2 cloves garlic
big knob of butter
Tomatoes, coriander leaves and strained yoghurt to serve.

Boil the potatoes. About 2/3 of the way through the cooking time, add the cauliflower, broken into florets. While it is cooking grind the 3 peppercorns, cumin seeds, salt and curry leaves in a spice grinder to a coarse powder.

Drain the potatoes and cauliflower. Melt the butter in the saucepan and add the garlic, cut into slivers. When it starts to sizzle, and the pepper mixture, and saute for a minute. Add the drained vegetables and crush a bit with a potato masher, then give it a good stir to make sure it is all well-coated with the spices.

Serve with a good handful of chopped coriander, a spoonful of strained yoghurt and a few halved cherry tomatoes.

Serves 2 as a main, 4-6 as a side dish. And I suspect the leftovers would make really outstanding potato cakes, mixed with an egg to bind.

Barbecue Brisket and Burgers

The weather has decided to cooperate with my ambitions to make the perfect barbecued pizza, burgers and brisket. We're having the best summer since we arrived in England 4 years ago, with sunny skies, hot temperatures and not too much wind. Ideal for barbecuing! Unfortunately Paul has just started a job up in the North of England, so he's only home on weekends at the moment, which is limiting my time for experimenting.

But we have had some fantastic successes!

We had a houseguest staying a few weeks ago (the friend whose dating technique was commemorated in this post) and I decided he'd probably had enough rich, fancy food on his trip and needed something basic and homely. Burgers seemed to be the right thing for the occasion.

He was very, very sceptical when I told him that it was just going to be beef, salt and pepper and started telling me about these amazing burgers with egg and breadcrumbs and Worcestershire, cumin seeds and mustard and god knows what else in them. And I told him that these were going to be beef with salt and pepper and if he didn't like it he could get the hell out of my kitchen.

I didn't have time to make burger buns, so I cut some slices of sourdough bread and toasted them on the barbecue while the cooked burgers were resting, then I rubbed the toasted bread with a clove of garlic and a drizzle of olive oil.

The burgers were ever so slightly over cooked, but the flavour was perfect and the garlic toast was just the right thing underneath them. And our guest agreed that they didn't need any fillers or binders or anything else to give them flavour.

Then last weekend we had enough free time to devote to barbecuing a brisket. In America (Texas particularly, I believe) they take the cooking of barbecue extremely seriously and have cook-offs where people virtually come to blows over the right way to do things, so it feels slightly audacious to be presenting my Australian/English version of barbecued brisket on Independence Day. But no offence is intended!

This was a small, 3lb brisket, so I couldn't do the sort of 12 hour cook that some recipes recommend, but I figured that an hour per pound on an indirect heat was probably going to be about right. A lot of the recipes seem to be more about the basting sauces and marinades than the meat itself, but I found this recipe for a dry rub, which sounded good to me. The big thing about the recipe is that it contains no sugar, which appealled from a flavour point of view and also made it less likely to burn.

We cooked it on indirect heat, covered, with hickory chips, placing the vent on the barbecue to encourage the flow of smoke over the meat and turned it over twice.

As you can see, after the 3 hours and a short rest, the meat was still succulent and juicy, and we had a really good penetration of smoke. The flavour from the rub was excellent. The leftovers were gorgeous cold!

I don't think this was the definitive brisket, but it was certainly very successful.

Forging Fromage - Feta

I'm back, did you miss me? Well, sort of back. I'm still on the spare computer and it has Paint, not Photoshop, which is very frustrating and I don't know how to use it properly so I don't know how much blogging I will be able to bear!

But I had a good incentive for persevering with Paint! The current Forging Fromage challenge is a two-fold one: feta this month and gouda next month, and I was very keen to show you the first half of my endeavours.

Our local supermarket sells goats milk reasonably cheaply, so I was able to make my cheese with all goats milk. I made a half-quantity, but that was enough feta for 3 meals.

I used a jellybag to drain the curds, and it has a seam down the centre, hence the brain shape of my feta!
I found this one really very straightforward. It came together very easily and looked exactly right at every stage.

I jumped the gun a bit - we ate the first half of the cheese a day early because I just couldn't resist. We had it in a Greek-ish salad of cucumber, tomato, avocado and red onion, dressed with oregano, basil, olive oil and white wine vinegar. It was delicious! Not too salty, not mushy, not too crumbly, with just the right hint of goaty tang.


The rest of the cheese was allowed to age for a week before we ate it. Some of it went in a warm broccoli salad with tomato and pinenut vinaigrette. Some of it was crumbled on top of roast lamb and aubergine. After a week it was drier and crumblier with a more pronounced tang, but it still had a lovely creamy mouthfeel.

This was a great success! Definitely worth doing again, the amount of effort was well worth it for the results!

Do visit us at Forging Fromage after June 29th, to see what everyone else has been doing with their feta. And you still have time to get on board for the gouda challenge!

Taking a bit of a break!

Hi all,

Last week my computer died. It was very sad - we'd been together for 6 years and in fact was what I got instead of an engagement ring. Paul got most of my files backed up while the poor thing was in its death-throes, although he is still trying to retrieve the last 12 months of photos and the bookmarks from my browser.

So I am temporarily on Paul's laptop - which is very nice, but just doesn't feel like me. So I will be taking a bit of a break from blogging, until I get a new computer and get comfy again.

Take care!

Chuck another bird on the barbie

I've been a bit sidetracked from my stated aims for this summer's outdoor cooking season. Not a burger or pizza in sight. Instead, we've been trying a few other things, and have had great success with poultry. So much so that the burgers might have to wait until next summer!

It started with a compromise.

I had in mind to make some potstickers, and I'd bought pork mince, prawns and duck breasts to give myself some options for the filling. But then it turned out to be a really beautiful day and it would have been wrong not to light the Weber. So there was some discussion and some disagreement and it was eventually decided that I'd do pork & prawn dumplings, and that Paul would barbecue the duck breasts.

We slashed the skin on the breasts, not cutting through the flesh, and rubbed in some salt. Paul made a small fire (1 easy-light bag of charcoal) in the centre of the Weber. Once the fire had burned down the duck breasts went skin-side down, to one side of the fire and then he added a couple of tablespoons of lapsang souchong tea, soaked in a little water to the coals. The lid went on top, with the vent right over the duck to encourage the flow of smoke. After 12 minutes, the lid came off, the duck was turned over and finished over direct heat for 8 minutes.

After a couple of minutes resting, the fragrant, tea-smoked duck breasts were sliced and served with edamame, beanshoots pickled with beetroot, pork and mushroom potstickers and steamed pork, prawn and water chestnut dumplings.

The fat had rendered out of the duck, the skin was crisp and the smoke flavour subtle but delicious. Amazing. There is a use for lapsang souchong! Who knew? The duck wasn't perfect. I think next time it'd get a bit longer in the smoke - maybe 18 minutes indirect cooking on the smoke and then a quick 5 minute cook on direct heat to finish. Although it would be a longer cook time, it would end up slightly less well-done because of the gentler indirect heat.

Of course, having started so well, we both thought that we should do more poultry on the barbecue. As it'd been ages since we'd last had roast chicken, we thought a whole chook on the barbecue would be just the ticket!

I just untrussed it, to help the air circulate around it, and stuck half a lemon in the cavity. It was a medium-sized chicken - about 1.3kg - so we planned to give it about an hour of cook time.

Paul built two fires, on either side of a drip tray of water, added a good handful of soaked hickory chips to the coals, placed the chicken in the middle and put on the lid.

After about 40 minutes, a halved aubergine joined the chicken. Then after another 10 minutes the lid came off and some asparagus rolled in olive oil went onto direct heat to finish.

The chicken was absolutely delicious! Deeply smokey, very moist and just perfect. A crunchy little salad (more pickled beanshoots and some cubed cucumber) provided a nice tangy contrast, but some coleslaw would also have been very good. The leftovers were wonderful the next day.

I think the next thing is going to be a whole duck. Or maybe pigeon breasts. Or possibly chicken kebabs. So many options!