Sea Bream Marinated in White Miso
A few weeks back on Saturday Kitchen, Nic Watt cooked Sea Bream Marinated in White Miso. I have been obsessing about it ever since and we ended up buying white miso and mirin when we came across them in anticipation of making it. Last night I made the marinade and put the badly filleted sea bream (really should just ask the fishmonger to do it next time) into it to marinate overnight. The recipe says two hours, but that wouldn’t have fitted into our schedule very well.
So when we got home tonight we cooked it under the grill. And almost burnt it. Which is part of the plan really; Nic Watt was saying this is best done on a barbecue but that wasn’t likely to happen on this rather cold and windy night. We served it with some sesame mushrooms and pak choi. It wasn’t as good as I was hoping. Not sure what went wrong – maybe the extended marination had made it too sweet, but somehow the flavours just didn’t seem to complement each other well. And the mushrooms didn’t taste like much either. Anyway, at least I’ll stop obsessing about it now.
Lamb Stuffed with Couscous
It was only last week that we tried lamb stuffed with couscous, but we decided to try it again as we had enjoyed it so much.
Much the same this time: lamb fillets stuffed with a mixture of couscous (hydrated with chicken stock), pine nuts, parsely and mint with a sprinkle of cinnamon. We didn’t have spring onions this time, so didn’t include them but I did add some chopped dates into my half. Served on a bed of roasted cherry tomatoes, red pepper and orange pepper, it was good but not quite as good as last time somehow; maybe the spring onions made the difference or maybe we overcooked it a little this time.
The recipe goes something like this, if I remember correctly. The amount of couscous actually makes twice as much as we need for stuffing two neck fillets, so we just eat the rest of the couscous as an accompaniment.
2 lamb neck fillets
125g couscous
200ml hot chicken stock
one large or 2 small spring onions, chopped, including white and green parts
small bunch parsely, chopped
small bunch mint, chopped
handful pine nuts, roasted or dry fried until light brown
dash of cinnamon
pinch of salt
Add the spring onions, parsely, mint and pine nuts to the couscous in a bowl. Add the hot chicken stock, stir up and cover with a plate for 15 minutes. Fluff it up with a fork when it’s ready.
Cut open the lamb neck fillets and flatten them out. Place a line of couscous down the middle and wrap the flattened lamb around it, tying it up with string. Brown the wrapped fillets in a frying pan, then put into a 180 degree oven for 20 minutes (actually maybe 15 minutes as we did 20 this time and it was too long, last time it was moister and slightly pink inside).
Slice and serve with whatever takes your fancy.
Guinea Fowl Casserole
As we seem to have been having chicken a fair amount lately, when the urge to cook chicken again struck us, we figured that guinea fowl would be an interesting alternative. We cooked this yesterday to eat today – a fairly standard casserole with the jointed guinea fowl, onion, celery, chicken stock, a dash of garlic and some thyme and bay. We put in the carcass in with everything else too in order to flavour the stock a bit more as it was cooking.
Served with some crushed potatoes and some brussels sprouts and cauliflower. It was good, but as Kerri said, it would be nice to have fewer little feathers floating around in the sauce.
Rice Pudding
I made a rice pudding yesterday and almost burnt my mouth in my hurry to taste it as soon as it came out of the oven. Although it was hot, it wasn’t long before I realised I’d forgotten to add the sugar. I managed to rescue it today though by re-heating some with some extra milk and a sprinkling of sugar. It was perfect, rich and creamy with a lovely nutmeggy ‘skin’.
Toad in the Hole
Today was the last day of British Sausage Week, so we obviously had to have sausages as we haven’t had any yet this week. We bought some herby pork sausages from our local butcher and made toad in the hole. From what I can remember, it’s the first time we’ve made it. It turned out well, even though our oven doesn’t really get hot enough for Yorkshire pudding.
We had it with onion gravy and brussels sprouts; the first time we’ve had them this year… very exciting. Also parsnips and cauliflower, but they were less interesting.
Smoked Salmon Pate
After our recent success with mackerel pate, we decided to try smoked salmon pate for lunch today. We used half poached salmon and half smoked salmon, which we mixed with a spoon of crème fraîche and some lemon juice and seasoned with salt and cayenne pepper. I wasn’t convinced at first, but with the addition of a bit more salt it was rather good and I ate loads of it.
Rocket Pesto
Last night, we used some of the rocket pesto from the freezer but mixed it with some roasted tomatoes and some Emmett’s bacon that we bought when we were in Suffolk. The roasted tomatoes acted much like a tomato sauce and I think we’ll use this method when we next need some instead of fiddling about with tinned tomatoes. The bacon was beautifully sweet and worked well with the peppery rocket.
Stuffed Lamb
I was out after work this evening so Stephen was in charge of dinner. I got home to the smell of something sweet and roasty which turned out to be roasted sweet potato. This was the accompaniment to some brilliant stuffed lamb fillets which he served with roasted red pepper and, of course, the sweet potato. The lamb was stuffed with cous-cous which had been flavoured with garlic, spring onions, nutmeg, chicken stock, pine nuts, mint and parsley. It was sealed on the hob after being filled with the cous-cous and then roasted in the oven for about twenty minutes.
It was a brilliantly thought out dish which combined the sweetness of the lamb with the sweet potato and the aromatic and nutty cous-cous. If this is the result when I leave Stephen to his own devices in the kitchen then I think I should go out more often and leave him to cook 🙂
Squid, Scallop, Salmon and Prawn Stir-Fry…with Oysters
We’d vaguely planned a fish stir-fry for dinner this evening and Stephen volunteered to go shopping for the ingredients. I’d imagined some kind of white fish or possibly some salmon but he came home with a big bag from the fishmonger which included all of the above.
He sauteed off the fish first before removing it to a plate and cooking the vegetables, the fish was then returned to the pan and a mixture of fish stock, oyster sauce and soy was added before the whole thing was steamed for a few minutes. The resulting dish was tasty but lacked any sort of strong flavour. We’d used a chilli from a plant we have growing in the kitchen which was barely recognisable in the end product; clearly meant just for decoration.
The big bag of fish also included two oysters which Stephen had bought as a starter (how decadent for a Tuesday!). We tried to open them but failed miserably so decided to steam them to see if that made the opening process easier; it did and they were really tasty and completely different to the usual “raw” oyster – none of the sliminess that is often associated with oysters but instead a delicately flavoured and moist piece of fish.
Beef Casserole – take two
I can be pretty fickle when it comes to food – quite often I find something I love and I want to eat it all the time, other times I might think something is brilliant but eat it once and then not want to eat it again. Tonight was one of those nights. There was plenty of leftover casserole for dinner this evening which should have been great because it’s Monday and I always find it difficult to get excited about cooking by the time I’ve got over the shock of going back to work following the weekend. Stephen is out so it solves the cooking-for-one issue and the casserole was good. Did I want to eat it though? Nope.
I didn’t give myself a choice though, I just got on with heating it up and congratulating myself on how mature I was being when something struck me; if I spooned the casserole into a dish and smothered it with the leftover potato and parsnip mash then it would be transformed into a completely new dish and I would be fooled.
And fooled I was! It tastes exactly the same as it did yesterday really (the flavours have intensified as you’d imagine) because, really, it is the same as yesterday but in my little head I’d created a whole new and very imaginative Shepherd’s/Cottage pie type-thing – aren’t I clever 🙂
As an aside, leftover mash = good, leftover parsnip and potato mash = not good, in fact more than a little sweet and strange tasting 🙁
