Author Archives: whatkimcookednext

Tuesday night in Berkshire -Bob Marley and Blackened fish

I’m trying to decide what to have for dinner and for no reason, I think about the  Barbados Fish Fry.  I start to think about the amazing smells and tastes of this amazing spectacle, which takes place every Friday and Saturday night in Oistins. Locals and tourists all turn up for for the amazing food- fried and grilled fish (marlin, swordfish, tuna, dolphin – not flipper- anything they’ve caught really) fish cakes, sweet potato, macaroni pie, and coleslaw and a lot of beer and rum-based drinks.

http://www.barbados.org/oistins-fish-fry.htm

Dancing, eating and drinking are the order of the night.  Alas on a Tuesday evening in Berkshire there was no  live reggae, or rum punch, but I thought I’d give my favourite type of cooking, which was “blackening” a try. I love the spiciness, great on fish or chicken.

In the blender I whizzed

  • 2 tablespoons ground paprika
  • 1 teaspoon ground chilli powder(more or less, depending how spicy you like)
  • 2 spring onions
  • 1 clove of grarlic
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • Small handful of freshthyme, basil and oregano (use ¼ teaspoon of dried if you don’t have fresh)
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil

I spread just one side of 6 pieces of skinned salmon fillet with the mixture, then placed a heavy frying pan on the heat until it was very hot. I placed the fish mixture side down for 2-4 minutes or until it was blackened, then flipped it over for a further 2 to 3. Take it off the heat and leave for a few minutes, the fish will continue to cook through.

I served this with new potatoes and a sort of raita/tsaziki  (greek yogurt, fresh mint and cucumber).

I stuck a bit of Bob Marley on the Ipod and had a rum and coke, it was the nearest I could do, and you know what? It wasn’t bad at all!

Do you have to cook chips three times for them to be good?

It does seem excessive doesn’t it, to cook chips three times?

So is it worth it?

It’s all Heston’s fault really, so much more a chemist than a cook, he was the one who started all this triple cooking stuff and frankly, until I went to his pub “The Hind’s Head” in Bray, I thought it was all a load of nonsense. I have to admit, that having tasted them, they were wonderful, so of course that sent me on my quest to reproduce that crispy exterior, and fluffy inside.  My friends know that I very rarely eat carbs, so when I do they have to be super-special and trust me these are, I actually went out and bought a deep-fat fryer just to make these delicious little chaps.

You will need:

 1kg Potatoes – preferably Maris Piper, washed and peeled
Vegetable Oil (Heston uses peanut oil, us mere mortals can’t afford that…don’t be tempted to use olive oil – waste of money and too low a burning threshold)

1. Cut the spuds in to fat  chips about 1cm thick. Place them straight into a bowl under cold running water and keep them there for about 10 minutes to rinse off some of the starch.
2. Bring a large pan of unsalted water to the boil and plunge in the drained potatoes. Bring it back up to the boil and simmer very gently for about 10 minutes, or until the point of a knife easily penetrates the chips. Make sure the water is only just simmering or your potatoes will break up
3. Using a slotted spoon, lift the potatoes carefully out of the water and place them on a tray. Allow them to cool, then place in the fridge until cold. You will notice that the chips harden when chilled.
4. Second cooking – heat the oil in a deep-fat fryer to 130C/250F and plunge in the chips. After 5 minutes take them out – do not let them brown! Drain, cool them and place them in the fridge. You can keep them now, for a few days if you like, you don’t have to cook them straight away.
5. Final cooking –  heat  the oil in the deep-fat fryer to  180C/350F. Plunge in the chips and cook until golden brown. This may take 8-10 minutes — you need to be patient in order to obtain a really crisp chip.
6. Drain and season

These are brilliant served with moules mariniere, or just on their own with home-made mayonnaise although Waitrose wholegrain mustard mayonnaise is very good.

So do you have to cook chips three times for them to be any good?

Probably not for, but for super-fabulous chips, yes, Heston, you do.

does cupcake size really matter?

No English picnic would be complete without the humble cupcake despite its american origins…come to think of it, why didn’t we stick with Fairy Cakes for heaven’s sake?

But does size matter?  In this case, absolutely!

As some of you know I have been experimenting and designing cupcake recipes for the last year or so and the one thing I have learned is that your cupcake size must match your event. So, for  some, tiny bite-sized cakes are the key, no mess, fewer calories and easily transportable. Don’t get me wrong, there is a time and place for big, fat luscious ones, but this isn’t one of them.

The recipe I’m using can be used for any size, you just need to adjust the cooking time, but for lemon cocktail cupcakes you will need the following:

  •  180g of self raising flour, caster sugar and unsalted butter, 2 eggs, 5 tablespoons milk, zest of 1 lemon.
  • Preheat oven to gas mark 6, 180 degrees or 160 if fan
  • Throw all the ingredients in a food processor and whizz together.
  • Using sweet-sized cake cases, add 1 teaspoon to each and place in oven for approx 12 to 15 minutes
  • In the meantime, in a saucepan add 75g caster sugar to the juice of the lemon and stir over a low heat until all the sugar is absorbed and the syrup is clear.
  • When the cakes come out of the oven, prick with a fork and drizzle the lemon syrup over the top
  • Allow to cool and ice with either buttercream or fondant icing

You will end up with tiny, delicious, moist lemon cakes. If I want to be really wicked I drizzle them with limoncello instead of the lemon syrup. Either way, they are heavenly.

Last minute fillet

Panic, panic what to have for dinner?

Everything has been left to the last minute, as usual, so a quick nip in to Waitrose, ensuring I only grabbed a basket so it didn’t take too long. Why is it that I can always fill a supermarket trolley even when I don’t need anything?  I was drawn to the lamb neck fillets, cheap and unbelievably easy to cook. I knew I had a few other random ingredients at home, so a quick checkout and I was done.

First I rummaged round in the herb garden and grabbed a few handfuls of basil,coriander,  a little mint and a sprig of rosemary. Along with a red chilli lying at the bottom of the fridge, I added the zest and juice of a lemon, a clove of garlic and olive oil and threw them in the food processor. The smell was amazing.

I only whizzed it for a little as I like it quite chunky. At this point you could add some grated parmesan or pine nuts if you wanted to go down a pesto route. Pre-heat your oven to gas Mark 4, electric  180/160 for fan ovens.

Spread the paste on one side of the lamb fillet, then place, paste side down in a very hot frying pan with a little olive oil. After a couple of minutes, carefully turn over, the crust should be brown.

Turn down the heat, and cook the underside for a couple of minutes. Place in the oven for a further 5 minutes or so if you like it rare, or longer if you prefer well-done.  Take the lamb out of pan and leave to rest. Poor thing, its had a hard time. Add a tablespoon of redcurrant jelly and a slosh of red wine to the wine juices and allow to bubble for a couple of minutes. 

 I served it here, with some simple stir-fried veggies, but you can really team it with anything.

Best part about this?  It took me under half an hour.

Feet up, glass of red wine, Corrie  (Don’t knock it, best writing on telly)and my lovely last minute fillet. Bliss

You can only have so much plum crumble – is vodka the answer?

 

Imagine that your freezer is already full of tin foil containers, with the words “plum crumble Aug 2009” scrawled on the top of them and yet every time you look out of the window, your plum tree is still loaded with more ripe plums than there are at Covent Garden? On top of the fact that your garden is now a refuge for every wasp within a five-mile area ,what do you do with them? You can’t let them rot…..can you? And then as so often happens in life, you find the answer at the bottom of a bottle , in this case, a vodka bottle . A simple solution, make your own plum vodka!

 Today, 10 months later is decanting and tasting day. I tried two different methods so it will be interesting to see which has worked best. I will post both recipes later this week if you want to try.

 Delight! The colour of the vodka is a wonderful delicate pink and when I open the kilner jars, the aroma is definitely of plums. First, I taste the straight vodka, which is just basically plums stuck in a jar with vodka and a little sugar syrup and left for a long time. It is surprisingly good, colour is marvellous and the taste is delicate, the plums themselves are hard and inedible, but they have done a good job.

 Secondly, I taste the batch made by gently stewing the plums in sugar syrup, cooling and then adding vodka. Oh my, equally good, but a lot sweeter. The colour is just as good, but the main difference is that the plums are soft, delicious and alcohol laden.

 The bottles are placed in the fridge for future consumption after dinner parties and there’s only one problem…It is 11.30 on a Tuesday morning and I have a very nice plum vodka buzz going on….oh well!