Mexican Prawns with Tomato Salsa and Avocado
This recipe comes from our new Mexican book, Rick Bayless’s Mexican Kitchen. We haven’t read through it in a lot of detail just yet but this recipe caught Stephen’s eye so we decided to cook it tonight. It’s straightforward but the beans we opted to serve with it require a little more attention which I wasn’t really paying at the time. I added too much water at the beginning and didn’t realise until it was too late. I didn’t have time to reduce the liquid down so I drained it away and probably drained away most of the flavour too. Some extra salt, a squeeze of lime juice and some chopped coriander rescued it pretty well though.
The prawns were good but even though I’ve eaten warm avocado a couple of times I still find it a little challenging. In hindsight, this would have been better with some flavoured rice and some crunchy tortilla but it wasn’t a disastrous combination.
Tomato Salsa
Serves Four
2 medium-small ripe tomatoes, cored and finely chopped
3-5 chillies, finely chopped
3 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 small white onion, finely chopped and rinsed
11/4 teaspoons salt
1 packet coriander, finely chopped
Mix together the tomatoes, chilli and garlic. Add the onion and salt. Stir in the coriander. This benefits from being made ahead and kept in the fridge.
Prawns
Serves Four
24 prawns, peeled and de-veined
2 tablespoons lime juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 small avocadoes
6 tablespoons coriander, chopped
Olive oil, for frying
Cover prawns with one tablespoon of the lime juice, salt and pepper and leave to marinate for 30 minutes. Pat dry with kitchen towel.
Dice the avocado.
Heat oil in a frying pan over a medium heat and lay the prawns in one layer. When half done (about 2.5-3 minutes), turn the prawns, add the salsa and remaining tablespoon of lime juice to the pan. When the prawns are cooked, remove from the pan and set aside but leave as much of the salsa in the pan as you can.
Add the avocado to the salsa and cook for 1.5-2 minutes.
Arrange the prawns on a serving plate, cover with salsa and sprinkle with coriander. Serve!
Spaghetti with Cabbage and Bacon
Another attempt to use up the cabbage mountain cobbled together from various recipes and suggestions I found online. It was very simple and tasted good but could have used a lot more cabbage.
Not really a recipe but fry off the bacon until the fat has rendered and transfer to a plate. Drain some of the oil (if there’s a lot) and then slowly sweat the onions until softened. Add a clove of garlic and half a red, chopped chilli and cook for about two minutes. Return the bacon to the frying pan, add the shredded cabbage with a little water, put a lid on and cook for about three minutes.
When your pasta is cooked, drain and return to the pan. Add the onion and bacon, some grated parmesan and some black pepper, combine and serve.
Some cream would have been a really good addition but a drizzle of good olive oil worked well.
Bubble and Squeak
I don’t normally eat hot lunches, preferring a sandwich or cheese on toast to soup or leftovers but today I thought I should make a start on the vegetable mountain that’s taken up residence in our kitchen.
We’d planned a roast chicken for lunch yesterday but since my mum’s oven had broken we had to freeze the chicken. Along with the chicken, we had a large bag of potatoes for roasting and a cabbage to go alongside which we brought back to London with us. Some of the potatoes are destined for tortilla which Stephen will take to work for lunch but that still left us with a fair amount left over which is why I opted for bubble and squeak for lunch today.
Traditionally, bubble and squeak is made with leftover roast potatoes and vegetables but I cheated and steamed some potatoes and cabbage instead. These were combined and then added to the frying pan that I’d used to soften some shallots, garlic and sage.
It didn’t taste quite the same as the traditional version but it made a pretty good lunch. A fried egg would be a good addition if you’re that way inclined. Now I just need to think of a way to use up the rest of the cabbage.
Bonfire Food
This title was suggested by my brother and it’s very apt, not just because we cooked the brownies and cheesecake to take to a bonfire party.
Our oven is broken and we’re waiting for a new one to be fitted. Having suggested we take dessert along to the afore-mentioned bonfire party on Saturday night, Stephen and I took the ingredients to my mum’s to cook there. Only, once the assembled desserts were in the oven, we realised her oven had also broken and both dishes were burnt.
We tried to rescue the cheesecake by scraping off the top layer and, while it tasted pretty good, it looked terrible and certainly not fitting for a party. The brownies didn’t fare any better so we made a quick stop at the local supermarket on the way and picked up some ready-made versions.
Arriving at the party, we got on with setting up the barbecues for the lamb legs and other assorted meat products we were to cook that evening. Only the charcoal wouldn’t light and one barbecue went out completely halfway through. Luckily we were able to rescue the meat so we didn’t starve, we just ate a bit later than planned.
Today, we had toast for dinner.
Fish Fingers
Another recipe from the Mark Hix book we’re currently reviewing: British Seasonal Food. The beginning of the November chapter is mostly concerned with mushrooms, particularly lovely-looking chanterelles, then moves on to slow-cooked meat recipes, with a couple of dishes using smoked fish too. And then fish fingers. I’m not sure what makes fish fingers fitting for November, but it sounded like a great idea so we went with it. The recipe suggested haddock, but the haddock in the shop didn’t look that great so we got cod instead. Line-caught of course, which makes it more sustainable, but we still felt a bit bad about it.
This is one of those things that really just needs to be an idea more than an actual recipe, such is its simplicity. Cut some fish into fingers, then dust with flour before dipping into beaten egg and coating in breadcrumbs. Then fry. The recipe said to fry in a heavy-based frying pan in a thin film of oil, which is what we did, but I think the ones in the picture in the book must have been deep-fried or at least contained turmeric or some other colouring in the crumbs because they looked a consistently lovely and golden orange, whereas ours didn’t. The other thing that the recipe didn’t point out is that the fingers will be a lot shorter when they finish cooking, so if you want nice long fish fingers then cut your fish longer than you think it needs to be.
However, the proof was in the eating and they tasted delicious. A lot like fish and chip shop fish actually, despite the fact that they were in crumbs rather than batter. We did attempt to make proper tartare sauce to go with them, but much like last time we did so, it didn’t emulsify properly; tasty but too runny. For my last mouthful I added some Halen Môn spiced sea salt and it was brilliant; I wish I had tried it earlier. Next time we make this (I am sure there will be a next time) we will try adding some spices to the crumbs and see what happens.
Sausages and Mashed Potatoes
There wasn’t much discussion over what to eat for dinner tonight: for us, bonfire night = sausages and mashed potatoes. We did consider cooking the Cumberland sausage we brought back from our recent trip but that really needs to be cooked in the oven and ours is currently broken. So, ordinary pork sausages cooked under the grill with some mustard mashed potatoes and onion gravy. Peas are mandatory, cabbage optional but good for soaking up gravy.
Mushroom Risotto
On our visit to Borough Market last week, we picked up four chicken carcasses for £1 at the Ginger Pig to make into stock. We haven’t had a roast chicken recently (or bought a whole chicken for any other reason) so spotting these was good timing. Four chicken carcasses makes quite a lot of stock though and since we only have a small freezer, we needed to use some up quickly. Risotto was the obvious answer.
We kept this fairly plain and just added some interesting mushrooms at the end which were cooked with some thyme. Stephen went on to add some lemon juice and parsley to his and I added some truffle oil, both of which worked well with the mushrooms and thyme.
Basic Risotto Recipe
Serves 2
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 sticks celery, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1-2 tbsps olive oil for frying
1 small glass white wine or white vermouth
250g risotto rice
1l chicken stock
Good handful grated parmesan
Salt and pepper
Heat up the oil and when it is hot, add the celery, onion and garlic (we put a lid on at this point). When this mixture has softened, add the rice and turn up the heat. The rice should fry and start to turn translucent, but if it starts to colour then turn the heat down. As it starts to colour, add the wine or vermouth and stir while the alcohol burns off.
Turn the heat back down and when the wine has been absorbed, start adding stock a ladle at a time, stirring until it has been absorbed and then adding some more. If you run out of stock before the rice is cooked, then just start adding water. When the rice is cooked but still has just a little bite left to it, it is done. Stir in the grated parmesan, check for seasoning and serve.
This can of course be varied to include other ingredients, we often use bacon which we cook in the same pan and then remove, returning to the pan with the last ladle of stock (as we did this time with the mushrooms). Other vegetables could be added at this point too.
Teriyaki Salmon
After a weekend of eating mostly red meat, we thought fish would be a good option today. Having been a while since we tried anything Japanese, teriyaki salmon sounded good since we enjoyed it last time we cooked it. This time we followed a recipe in a Japanese cookbook though rather than one off the web, was closer to the traditional style and involved marinating the fish in the sauce before cooking it and then also glazing with it later, rather than simply putting it on after cooking.
It turned out really well, with the lovely sweet, salty and savoury teriyaki glaze complementing the salmon. We served it with some noodles, bean sprouts and pak choi – of those, only the bean sprouts were in the recipe, but it all went well together.
Teriyaki Salmon
Serves Two
2 salmon fillets
1.5tbsp shoyu
1.5tbsp sake
1.5tbsp mirin
1.2 tbsp plus 1 tsp sugar
Mix all the liquid ingredients together except for the 1tsp sugar in a pan. Heat to dissolve the sugar and leave to cool for one hour.
Place the salmon fillets in a shallow bowl and cover with the cold marinade. Leave for 30 minutes.
Remove the salmon from the marinade and dry with kitchen paper. Reserve the sauce. Grill the salmon for six minutes, turning once.
Reheat the reserved sauce and add the remaining sugar. Pour the sauce over the salmon and grill until it bubbles, turn the salmon over and repeat on the other side.
We served this with some noodles, spring onions, pak choi and bean shoots which we stir-fried in the wok with some soy sauce and then drizzled with sesame oil just before serving.
Liver and Bacon
We were just trying to remember when and how we decided to cook liver and bacon tonight, but we just couldn’t remember. It must have been before yesterday though, because yesterday we bought some liver at the butcher and planned to use up the bacon that was in the fridge. So, this afternoon saw us starting to fry our onions for the gravy quite early, jumping up during advert breaks during The Spy Who Loved Me to stir them. Luckily the advert breaks were at predictably regular intervals and the onions didn’t burn.
We made some mashed potatoes with plenty of butter and seasoning and stirred in some chopped spring onions and chopped parsley to use up what we had in the fridge. We finished off the gravy by stirring flour into the onions, then adding some red wine and some beef stock and simmering before checking for seasoning and adding a dash of red wine vinegar. The liver we dusted with seasoned flour and pan fried. We also cooked some peas and cavolo nero, which don’t feature in the picture but were good accompaniments.
All in all, a tasty and comforting dish on a rather rainy and winter-is-almost-here sort of day.
Lamb Shanks Adobo
Stephen had dinner at Green and Red last week. Even though he invited me to go along and I declined in favour of staying home to watch TV and eat cheese on toast, I was still envious when he told me he’d eaten a really good lamb shank. We found this recipe online which seemed fairly similar and decided to cook it this evening.
It took a little while to put together as it wasn’t the most straightforward of recipes but being that today was pretty grey and damp, it felt like a good day to spend in the kitchen.
All the chopping and simmering and blending was definitely worthwhile though because we ended up with a deep, complex dish that had many layers of flavours. There was a gentle heat in the background and a fruity, almost sweet flavour in the front of the mouth to carry the richness of the lamb. Served with some brilliant Mexican beans and guacamole this was perfect for a rainy Saturday night. Not exactly the same as the Green and Red dish apparently but close enough.
Mexican Beans
Serves Two
175g dried pinto beans, soaked for four hours
1 onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 bay leaf
1 red chilli
1/2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tomato, peeled and chopped
Salt
Put the beans into a pan, add cold water to cover by 2cms.
Add half the chopped onion, half the garlic, the bay leaf and the chilli. Bring to the boil and boil hard for 10 minutes. Turn the heat down, cover and cook for 30 minutes ensuring that it doesn’t boil dry. Add more water if necessary.
Add vegetable oil and continue to cook for another 30 minutes, topping up with water if necessary so that it doesn’t dry out.
Add salt and cook for another 30 minutes continuing to keep an eye on the water level. Don’t add so much water that the beans are completely covered but don’t let them dry out. You want the water to have almost completely evaporated by the time you’ve finished this stage.
At the same time, heat some oil in a frying pan and soften the remaining onion and garlic. Add the chopped tomato and let that soften, squashing as it cooks. Add a quarter of the cooked beans into the frying pan and mash. Take this mixture out of the frying pan and mix into the beans.
