Poached Salmon With Pasta and Wholegrain Mustard Sauce

Right, I've been promising to write this recipe up for ages now and, as usual, I've just been too lazy.

This recipe was a result of a lot of experimenting after buying a rather large whole salmon. I found that some of the steaks I'd cut were quite bony so decided to poach a couple of them, break the fish into chunks (picking out the bones while I was as it) and adding to pasta.

The problem was the sauce. It took about four attempts to get to this stage (it was a very big salmon) and I've done this twice now with success, finally getting the all-important 'thumbs up' from The Missus.

Well, I've rambled enough, here's the recipe, as always this serves two.

First, poach the salmon. I've used two steaks but you could use a couple of fillets. Put the fish in a frying pan deep enough to allow you to cover the fish with water. Chuck in a couple of bay leaves and four or five whole peppercorns. Cover the fish with boiling water and simmer for about 8 minutes. You can, of course, bypass this step and buy ready-poached salmon. M&S do nice poached salmon fillets.

Remove the fish from the pan and drain on some kitchen paper, allowing it to cool while you get on with the sauce.

Finely chop 1 shallot and a couple of cloves of garlic. Add this to a saucepan with a couple of glugs of extra virgin olive oil. Soften over a low(ish) heat, taking care not to brown, then add about a wine glass of dry white wine.

Point of interest here. Don't be fooled into thinking you can use rubbish wine for cooking. Rule of thumb, if you wouldn't drink it, don't cook with it.

Bring the wine to the boil and simmer until the smell of alcohol has gone then add about a tablespoon of wholegrain mustard. Stir this in then simmer for about 5 minutes or so.

While that's simmering away, go back to the fish. Remove any skin and break the fish into bite-sized chunks, making sure you pick out all the bones.

Now, cook some pasta in loads of boiling, salted water for about 10 minutes (check with the packet).

While that's cooking, finish the sauce off. Add a couple of heaped tablespoons of creme fraiche, season with salt and pepper, add the salmon, stir through and warm through over a low heat.

When it's cooked, drain the pasta and divide into two bowls. Spoon the salmon sauce over the pasta, giving it a gentle stir through, then scatter over a handful of roughly chopped parsley.

Goes nice with a glass of ice cold Gavi.


Cheers



The Bloke

Pan-Fried Sea Bream With Pineapple Salsa

This is more to tell you about the salsa than the bream as I've already written about this before - here http://blokeinthekitchen.blogspot.com/2009/06/pan-fried-sea-bream.html. I wanted to do something a little different to go with it and remembered that I had a pineapple and plenty of chillies so I'd give it a bit of a Caribbean treatment.

I filleted, boned and skinned the fish myself but as I mentioned in the earlier recipe, you can get a fishmonger to do this for you. When I finally get my act together, I intend to include how to do this in my video content. In the meantime, see the above post for how to cook the fish.

To go with the fish, I did some cheat's sauteed potatoes. Take a few handfuls of new potatoes and boil them for about 15 minutes in salted water. Heat some vegetable oil in a decent sized roasting dish at 240 degrees (gas mark 9). Drain the potatoes and run them under cold water to cool them enough to handle. Cut the each potato into 8 pieces and season well with black pepper and paprika. When the oven is hot enough, take the roasting dish out and add the spuds. Give them a good toss and put the dish back in the oven for about 20 minutes, giving them a toss after about 10 minutes.

So to the salsa. Very simple really. Finely chop about a quarter of a red onion, a quarter of a red pepper, a whole chilli (depending on how hot you like it, seeds in or out - up to you) a couple of cloves of garlic and about a centimetre of ginger and a couple of slices of pineapple.

Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan and fry the salsa until the edges of the pineapple are slightly singed, remove from the heat and add a handful of roughly chopped parsley. Give it all a good stir and you're done.

Serve a couple of fillets of the pan-fried bream with the potatoes, the salsa and some fine green beans.


The Bloke

Bloke Pasta With Chorizo

This is something that I love cooking when The Missus is out, as she is tonight. It only takes about 12 minutes to cook which means that you can knock it up at half-time and tuck in while you're watching the second half.

Right, first get your pasta on. Tonight I used some chilli penne as I had a craving for lots of chilli but I've done this with all sorts of different pasta, whatever I have in the house. Cook the pasta in accordance with the instructions on the packet, normally about 12 minutes.

While that's going on, turn your attention to the sauce, such as it is.

In a frying pan, add a good few glugs of good extra virgin olive oil. Add a couple of cloves of finely sliced garlic, as much chilli as you fancy, and a couple of inches of sliced chorizo. Warm all this through, don't fry it. This will release the paprika from the chorizo into the olive oil and soften the garlic.

When the pasta is cooked, drain it and add it to the frying pan. Chuck in a load of roughly chopped parsley and give it all a good mix about.

Tip the lot into a bowl and grate over a jolly good dose of parmesan. Grab a beer, sit down in front of the telly and watch the rest of the footy while you've got the house to yourself!


The Bloke

Mackerel With Ciabatta and Creme Fraiche

A nice simple lunch that we've just had. Fast food at it's best. Very cheap, too!

Get a couple of mackerel fillets per person. You can either buy the mackerel whole and fillet them yourself, get the fishmonger to do it (they'll normally do it at the fish counter in supermarkets) or just buy fillets. Either way, they'll only cost you a couple of quid.

You may still need to pin-bone the fish. There are two ways to do this. You can pick your way down the middle of the fillet with a pair of tweezers, plucking out all the bones but this takes a while and is a bit messy. The way I've just done it is to run a very sharp knife down either side of the row of bones at a slight angle, being careful not to cut through the skin, then pull the whole 'V' of bones right out.

Put the fish to one side while you make the sauce.

In bowl mix a couple of large tablespoons of creme fraiche with a finely chopped clove of garlic, a bunch of chopped parsley, a pinch of salt and pepper and a splash of white wine vinegar. Mix it all together and set aside.

Now for the ciabatta. Cut the bread in half horizontally and place the slices cut-side up under a hot grill for a minute or so. Keep an eye on them and take them out when they're golden brown. Rub the toasted surface all over with a clove of garlic and drizzle with some olive oil.

Keep the bread warm somewhere while you cook the fish.

Simply drizzle the mackerel on each side with a little olive oil, season with a touch of salt and pepper and cook under a hot grill for about a minute on each side.

Put a couple of mackerel fillets on a slice of ciabatta, drizzle with the creme fraiche and serve with a nice bit of green salad and a cold, crisp sauvignon blanc.



The Bloke

Poached Smoked Haddock With Parsley Sauce

This was another make-it-up-as-you-go-along affair after some nice smoked haddock took my fancy the other day.

Find yourself a frying pan just big enough to house your fish fillets. Put the fish in the pan along with a couple of peppercorns and a bay leaf. Add some milk to the pan, just enough to cover the fish and bring it to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for about 8 minutes.

When the fish is cooked, remove it from the pan, reserving the milk, and keep it warm in a very low oven while you make the sauce.

Make a beurre manie by mixing a tablespoon of flour with a knob of very soft butter. Add the butter to the milk and bring it back up to the boil, stirring constantly. When the sauce starts to thicken, add a good handful of chopped parsley and stir through.

Serve the fish with the parsley sauce, creamy, herby mashed potatoes and griddled asparagus.

I had intended to serve this with a poached egg instead of the sauce but I completely forgot! Nevermind, the sauce was fab anyway.


The Bloke

Courgette Chutney

It's been a while since I've posted anything new; too long, I know. I've been trying to think of a reason other than I'm just plain lazy but, in all honesty, I'm too lazy to think of anything.

Right, courgettes. If you've been following me on Twitter (@blokeinkitchen) then you'll know I've been growing, amongst other things, courgettes this summer. It's turned out really well and I've had a fine crop but sometimes they've been coming through so quick that it's difficult to know what to do with them all.

I've made soup and had courgettes cooked in every way I can think of but following my recent success with gooseberry chutney, using gooseberries from my mum's garden, I've got the chutney bug and decided to put some of the larger courgettes to good use.

So, here goes, in approximate quantities:

140g raisins
2 Granny Smith apples (peeled and diced)
4 Cloves of garlic (peeled, smashed and roughly chopped)
1 Onion (peeled and diced)
1lb fat courgettes (peeled, de-seeded and diced)
1 inch of ginger (peeled and finely chopped)
300ml white wine vinegar
100g brown sugar
1 red chilli (finely chopped - seeds in/out - up to you)
Tablespoon of green peppercorns.

Because I'm lazy, I just put everything listed above into a large stainless steel pan, brought to the boil and simmered for about an hour, stirring frequently to make sure it doesn't stick. When the whole thing has reduced to a jammy consistency, pour into a sterlised glass jar, seal tight, allow to cool then put it in the fridge.

The texture of this chutney is more chunky than the gooseberry one and the chilli, ginger, garlic and peppercorns give it a good kick. I think it would be a good curry accompaniment, alongside the usual lime pickle and mango chutney but also with sausages, strong cheese and cold meats.

Hope you like it.



The Bloke

Pancetta-Wrapped Stuffed Chicken Breasts

Here's one that actually came about from buying a couple of chicken breasts on my way home then seeing what we had in the fridge and the garden and taking it from there.

First, the stuffing. Mushroom, garlic and rosemary. Roughly chop a few handfuls of mushrooms, a couple of cloves of garlic and the picked leaves from a sprig of rosemary and soften them in a pan with a couple of glugs of olive oil with a pinch of sea salt and a few grinds of black pepper.

Now on to the chicken. Take the skin off the chicken, if it has skin, then you'll need to cut a pocket into the underside of the breast. To do this, turn the breast over so it's 'smooth' side down and you'll see a thick bit sloping down to a thinner bit. Cut into the thick bit at the same height as the thin bit, making sure you don't cut all the way through. This should make a good hole for you to put your mushroom filling into.

When the mushroom mixture has cooled, spoon it into the aforementioned pockets in your chicken breasts then wrap the breasts in slices of smoked pancetta (you can get this in supermarkets - definitely Tesco and Sainsbury's). The best way to do this is to lay four or five slices of pancetta on a baking tray, carefully lay the chicken breast onto the pancetta, smooth side down, wrap the ends of the pancetta over the back of the chicken breast then turn it over and you're done.

Cook the chicken in an oven at 180 degrees (gas mark 4) for, depending on the size of your breasts (oo-er, madam) around 15 - 20 minutes.

Leave to rest for a couple of minutes while you plate up the veg of your choosing - I did herby mash and garden peas but The Missus has just suggested asparagus. Lovely!

The Bloke