Feta and herb omelette, potato pancake

After Nowruz, I had a lot of herbs left over. And quite a lot of feta. I also had a pile of sloppy mashed potato from a not-very-successful gnocchi making attempt.

They combined to make a really fantastic brunch. The chopped herbs (chives, mint and parsley) and feta went into a light, fluffy French-style folded omelette while the mashed potato was mixed with a good amount of wholemeal flour and an egg, patted into a flat pancake and fried in a little olive oil in a heavy cast iron pan. And some bacon came along for the ride.

Fresh Caught Trout 5

It finally comes to an end...

For my final dish using the wonderful trout Paul caught, I decided on a kedgeree. We used to eat this quite often when I was growing up, and the combination of rice, brilliantly yellow smoked cod and hard boiled eggs is one I remember always loving and I knew our home-smoked trout would be brilliant and it would make a fitting end.

Instead of doing my usual riff with this of a bit of garam masala, I decided to follow Jamie Oliver's recipe. I followed the recipe quite closely (for me), only substituting garam masala for curry powder, my smoked trout for the haddock, parsley for coriander (because that was what I had in) and topped it with some roasted tomatoes instead of adding chopped tomatoes to the dish. It was fabulous. You wouldn't necessarily think that the curry spices would go so well with the smoked fish, but they really, really do!

Second barbecue of Spring

Of course, having wheeled the Weber out of the shed and tasted the smokey lamb, we've got the taste for it. A boneless chicken, marinated in rosemary and sundried tomatoes and such (bought that way) was the next sacrificial lamb, so to speak. Artichoke fritters, and a tub of buckwheat and 4-bean salad on the side.

First barbecue of Spring

Last year, come March we decided it was time to get the Weber out. And were thwarted for 2 months until the shops caught up with us and started to stock charcoal.

This year we were prepared. Throughout October, everytime we saw a shop with bags of charcoal, we'd buy one, until we had a plentiful supply stashed in the shed.

So last week, when it was still twilight at 6 when I got home from work, clear and relatively mild, it was easy enough to get the barbecue out of the shed, whack in some charcoal, and then sit back and revel in the tender rack of lamb, baked butternut and garlic, and steamed sugar snap peas. Bring on the summer!

Fresh caught trout 4

Or, a week old but still fresher than anything you buy in the supermarket.

Trout fishcakes

1 cup flaked thawed baked trout
1 cup flaked hot-smoked trout
1/4 cup thawed leftover watercress sauce
1 cup thawed leftover colcannon
1 egg

Mix together, form into patties, roll in panko, cover in clingfilm and refrigerate overnight to firm up. Next day, fry well on both sides in a splash of oil and serve with a warm mangetout salad.

Fresh caught trout 3

And we return to our scheduled programming.

As you can imagine - we had a lot of smoked trout on hand. We came home late the day after we smoked the trout, having had a pretty large lunch. We didn't want an actual meal, but a little snacky something to go with a glass of something.

Smoked trout, flaked into a tub of herb & garlic soft Philly, and a bag of toasted bagette slices. Just the thing.

Nowruz - Persian New Year

We interupt the stream of trout-posts to bring you a change of pace. Yesterday was the Spring equinox, which means it was Nowruz, the day the Iranian disapora celebrates the start of the New Year.

Family legend has it that my grandmother was once propositioned by the former Shah of Iran (I think - may have been someone else, I will wait for my mother to confirm). Moreover, we used to go to a lovely Persian restaurant in Sydney (run by Armenians of Tehran, which in my experience guarantees amazing food) where the maitre d' was the first person to tell Paul that he was going to marry me. So it seems only fair to adopt their holiday, and anyway, the food is good and it was a Friday so I had time to play a bit.

It was, of course, a half-arsed observance. I ignored the haft sin - the table displaying 7 items beginning with S that has symbolism for the holiday - and went straight to sort of Persian food.

Firstly - sabzi khordan. This platter of herbs, radishes and feta (it probably shouldn't really be feta, but needs must) is sort of a salad, sort of a relish and sort of an appetiser. Plucking leaves of mint and basil to snack on while you wait for the meat to grill, and then eating more with your bread and whatnot is one of the delights of a Persian meal. I used chives, flat-leaf parsley, mint and basil, arranged on a block of feta cut into cubes.

Then lamb kebabs. I marinated cubed lamb for about an hour in olive oil, a really special ras el hanout, and 2tbs of grated onion before threading it onto soaked bamboo skewers and handing it to Paul to cook on the charcoal Weber.

He toasted the pita bread on the Weber as well - they puffed up deliciously and had lovely toasty charred spots on them.

I also made a little salad-e shirazi - a finely diced cucumber, tomato and onion salad.

After stuffing ourselves with kebabs, we only had room to share a dessert - rosewater pannacotta, with figs drowned in it. Happy New Year!