Smoked Salmon Salad
Not all that exciting but very necessary after our week of potatoes and creamy sauces! This was dinner on Friday night and lunch on Saturday; usual salad with some hot smoked salmon. The salmon is very strongly flavoured but works well with the salad.
Scotland
We’ve just got back from a week in Scotland where we visited both Aberfeldy and Edinburgh. The main purpose of our trip was to relax and eat some good food, both of which we achieved.
One of our favourite places was the Courtyard, a bar/restaurant near to where we were staying in Aberfeldy. The menu was small and varied, relying heavily on local produce. We had lunch there last Sunday and shared a starter of smoked trout salad, this was serve with confit potaoes and dill creme fraiche (there was also the dreaded balsamic vinegar but it worked well with this dish so I’ll save he ranting for another time):
I then had pollack for the first time, we saw this appear often on menus while we were away. I really enjoyed it, the texture is similar to that of cod: firm and meaty. It was served with basil mash and a mussel brothe (a cream sauce with mussels). It was really tasty, possibly the best thing I ate.
Stephen chose oven baked ballotine of local pheasant stuffed with wild mushroom mousse, with barley risotto and game jus – we both enjoyed this, the addition of the barley gave the risotto an interesting texture.
We didn’t drink any whisky here but we would have been spoilt for choice if we’d wanted to:
While in Aberfeldy we stayed in a cottage and took the opportunity to cook “at home”, we’d both been looking forward to doing this but in reality it’s quite difficult because we didn’t have access to our store-cupboard of oils and spices. We resolved this by eating a steak pie which we bought from the local butcher, it was tasty but we didn’t have any gravy sadly (or mashed potatoes as we were trying not to totally over-indulge).
While in Edinburgh we read a review of Creelers, at this point we hadn’t eaten a lot of seafood so it seemed appropriate to eat there. We went at lunchtime and were the only visitors which seemed odd as the town was busy and the food brilliant. I had scallops which were served with a leeky, cream sauce similar to the sauce that the pollack came with but with smoked haddock instead of mussels.
Stephen chose halibut which was beautifully cooked and served with almond mash – the second time we’d been served this.
We weren’t brave enough to take photographs of all the food we ate but some other highlights included enormous langoustines and lots of great smoked salmon, real tablet (better than our attempt but we weren’t far off), oven-bottom rolls and deep fried haggis!
Macaroons
While shopping earlier I happened across these beautiful looking macaroons, I bought one of each colour for us to eat this evening (plus one to eat on the way home!) and after this evenings earlier disappointment I’m glad I did. The pink one was raspberry, the white vanilla and the brown coffee; we both liked the coffee best. It’s hard to describe the texture if you haven’t had them before, they’re essentially meringuey with a sticky, gooey inside and a fondant centre.
I’ve had these before from Paul but the ones I really want to try are from Laduree, I could try making them myself but these are so good (and only 40p each from my local deli) that I think I’ll leave it to the experts this time.
We’re off to Scotland tomorrow so our posts probably won’t be so regular for the next week, we’re both really excited about the food that’s on offer though so hope to post something exciting when we get back.
Lemon Chicken
I found a recipe for this in this month’s Olive magazine, clipped it and added it to the pile of “Things To Cook Soon”. I’ve been at home today and asked Stephen earlier what he felt like eating for dinner; I listed this among various lamb related dishes and also sausage casserole. This was his favourite though so I went out earlier and bought what I needed. The recipe called for preserved lemons which I found but they were £7 and as we only needed one I thought it was a bit excessive, the recipe mentioned you could also use ordinary lemons so that’s what I did.
When it came to cooking the dish it seemed too simple so, feeling brave after a glass of wine, I decided to tinker. I browned the chicken and removed it from the pan, sauteed the onions and garlic, added the chicken back in, deglazed with a glass of wine, added some parley, capers and the aforementioned lemon and put the dish in the oven for 35 minutes. I then added the olives and cooked for a further 10 minutes. Then I removed the chicken, bubbled the sauce for a minute or so to thicken, added some extra parsley and served with cous-cous.
The actual recipe said just to put all the ingredients (minus the capers) into the dish and put it into the oven for 35 minutes. Then the olives went in for 10 minutes, the chicken came out and the sauce bubbled. I’m not sure if my way of doing things added anything extra but I’m pretty certain that my addition of capers was wine-fulled madness. Why add something tart and briney to a dish that already has olives and lemons in it?
Stephen ate it and said he enjoyed it, I’m not sure if he was just being polite though. The chicken was moist and tender (probably because I browned it first 🙂 ) but the rest of the dish was too sharp for me. Note to self: if you thought a recipe sounded good then the chances are it is good, feel free to tinker once you’ve tasted the dish but not before.
Geng Gari Gai
I ate this recently in Busaba Eathai and it was lovely so we thought we’d try making it ourselves. Stephen made the paste on Wednesday night and we cooked it together last night.
This is the recipe from David Thompson’s “Thai Food”:
200g chicken thighs
4 medium potaotes (we used some new potatoes that were lurking in the bottom of the fridge)
4 cups coconut milk (we didn’t use quite that much)
2 cups coconut cream (we didn’t use it because we didn’t have any)
1 tablespoon palm sugar (we used about a teaspoon of golden caster sugar)
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1/2 cup deep fried shallots (we didn’t use them)
Marinade
1 tablespoon chopped ginger
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
pinch of salt
1/2 cup coconut cream (we used coconut milk)
Paste
6-10 dried chillis, soaked and drained (we used seven)
Large pinch of salt
1 tablespoon chopped turmeric
4 tablespoons chopped red shallot
3 tablespoons chopped garlic
1 coriander root (we didn’t have any)
1 teaspoon white peppercorns
1 tablespoon coriander seeds, roasted (we increased this to make up for the lack of coriander root)
A little grated nutmeg
The cooking method was really complicated and there seemed to be gaps in the process and unnecessary steps so we did our own thing.
We started off by simmering the potatoes in some coconut milk before adding the marinated chicken (which had been resting in coconut milk overnight, as per the recipe) and vegetables. We fried off the paste in a separate pan for about five minutes before adding the sugar and fish sauce and cooking for a further minute or so. We then combined the whole lot and cooked it on a high heat for a further five minutes.
It was a great success and it doesn’t really need any refinement which is unusual for the first attempt at a dish. The addition of coconut cream would have made it thicker but it didn’t really need it. I enjoyed it more than the restaurant version actually.
Vongole
This is one of my favourite pasta dishes but oddly, we’ve never cooked it. I’ve been thinking a lot about quick dishes lately as we both often get home late and this seemed ideal; and ideal it was – quick and tasty which is exactly what we were trying to achieve.
Fry some garlic and chilli until the garlic starts to brown – we used one whole chilli and one large clove of garlic (next time we’ll use two cloves). Add the clams (400g) and a glass of white wine. Put a lid on the pan and cook until the clams open. Serve with spaghetti and some fresh parsley.
This is the first entry into our new category: Dinner Diary Express. I’ve slightly stolen the name from Nigella’s recent TV series but don’t worry, we won’t be buying jars of curry paste or canapes from the deli and passing them off as our own 🙂
Thai Steamed Seabass
While we were in China Town recently we picked up some fresh green peppercorns, Stephen bought some on a previous trip and used them to make steamed fish. We thought we’d do the same again last night as for some reason I didn’t eat the previous dish.
We used sea bass fillets and coated them in a marinade of soy sauce, oyster sauce, black pepper and garlic. The fish was placed in the steamer and topped with sliced onion, sliced spring-onions, julienned ginger and the fresh peppercorns. We then added some shredded cabbage on top and steamed the whole lot for about 20 minutes.
It worked very well, the flavours of the ginger and onions managed to penetrate both the fish and the cabbage on top. We steamed the noodles seperately as we didn’t have space for them in the steamer but the recipe said to add those on top of the cabbage. Perhaps we can do that next time.
Chicken Breasts stuffed with Haggis
We’ve been planning to cook this ever since Burns Night last year. Every Burns Night we become determined to eat more haggis and try to think of things to do with it instead of just having it plain. So the time finally came and we made it.
When shopping for chicken breasts, there was only one package of free range chicken breasts left in the shop and they were looking rather sad. So I bought a whole chicken and jointed it, which worked out rather well as I was able to get the breasts off in one piece with our shiny new filleting knife. I covered them with cling film and bashed them with a rolling pin to flatten them out.
We had cooked the haggis beforehand, then spooned some of the filling onto the flattened chicken breasts. We rolled them up and tied them up to keep them together. Quick browning in a frying pan and then into the oven for about 20 minutes. We were considering making whisky sauce to go with them, but ended up skipping that.
Served with crushed new potatoes, green beans and cabbage. The haggis worked well in the chicken; the gooey spiciness of the haggis going well with the chicken which was also well seasoned and slightly crisped on the outside.
Jambalaya and Wild Rice
Yesterday, Kerri suggested this Jambalaya recipe for dinner and when we read it we realised that we already had all the ingredients at home, either in the fridge and needing to be used up, or in the freezer and waiting to be useful. We skipped the prawns though, used some chorizo as our “Spicy Mediterranean Pork Sausages” and put some wild rice in with some plain brown rice.
The preparation and cooking times are both quite short and the longest part of it was waiting for the wild rice to cook. The result had promise, but not a great depth of flavour and some of the component parts hadn’t combined that well. We’ll definitely make it again, but we’ll look for a more traditional recipe with a longer cooking time rather than a quick-and-easy one.
Pancake
The obligatory pancake post! We didn’t do anything complicated having had quite an elaborate dinner, pancakes don’t lend themselves to healthy eating either unfortunately so we stuck to the traditional lemon and sugar. Stephen had cinnamon on his though, quite a lot as it turned out due to a mis-shake of the jar.
Had we been able to indulge our wildest pancake fantasies though I would have had Dulce Du Leche and ice-cream or Nutella and hazelnuts. I quite like maple syrup pancakes too so they may have featured and now that I think about it I quite like the idea of raspberries and hot chocolate sauce. Mmm, I didn’t think I really liked pancakes but clearly I do!
