Tablet
Tonight we’re going to a Burn’s Night party at a friend’s house, it’s become an annual tradition (much like Burn’s Night itself funnily enough!) and is always a lot of fun. There is of course haggis, neeps and tatties but there is also a performance element to the evening which everyone is encouraged to get involved in. Neither Stephen nor I are particularly talented in the traditional areas of singing, dancing or instrument playing and in previous years we’ve tried to remain as invisible as possible during this part of the evening. This year however we decided to be brave and rather than subjecting our fellow guests to a karaoke version of Scottish pop music, we thought we could take a dish along and talk about it; we chose tablet.
We researched a number of recipes but become increasingly apprehensive about our choice of dish, it seems tablet can be rather troublesome and unpredictable. Neither of us have eaten it before so we had the added disadvantage of not really knowing what we were trying to create. We’d made a decision though so we stuck to it and last night we set about boiling vast amounts of sugar with butter and condensed milk.
Once the sugary mixture had thickened we followed the instructions to whisk vigorously until we felt the mixture become grainy. We continued to mix for some time but weren’t entirely convinced we’d got to the grainy stage. We carried on as long as our mixing arms would allow before tipping the mixture into a greased baking tray and leaving it to cool.
This morning we cut the tablet into generous sized pieces and have packaged it up ready to take along with us this evening. We have of course tasted the crumbs and while we think it’s good, neither of us are sure whether we’ve come up with tablet or fudge. I guess we’ll find out this evening.
A Sort of Puttanesca
I had a pasta craving today. I get these often but usually manage to be persuaded by Stephen that there is life outside an entirely carb-based diet. Today however he lost the battle and when he said the magic p word we were all set. But what to do with our spaghetti? In a moment of genius he came up with tonight’s offering (he might have called it a “deconstructed puttanesca” but we’ll gloss over that) and I was on the next bus home ready to start roasting tomatoes.
Stephen picked up some fresh anchovies on the way which we fried off in some olive oil until they had broken down and the vinegary smell had dissipated. Next went in some green and black olives, a handful of capers and some basil. We quickly realised that the slow roasting tomatoes were indeed roasting slowly so abandoned that plan and threw them into the pot too. Some seasoning, a little more basil and we were ready to eat.
It did taste a lot like puttanesca but was lighter and fresher which we put down to the lack of chilli and the way it was cooked. We both enjoyed it and I’m sure we’ll make it again, perhaps next time the craving hits.
Steak Fajitas
We’ve had some good successes with chicken fajitas before, but our previous attempt at steak fajitas didn’t turn out that well. So we decided to try again and attempt to get it right. And, after all the meat-free dinners we’ve had recently (we decided that fish doesn’t count as meat), we needed some steak.
Kerri bought some really good rump steak from our local butcher, cut it into strips and marinated it in lime juice, garlic, chilli and coriander for about an hour. We fried these strips until they were medium and set them aside. Then we heated some oil and added some more garlic, some chilli, some cumin, some coriander and a dash of cinnamon (not traditional Mexican, but it was a suggestion by a friend who makes really good fajitas). Then we added the sliced peppers and red onion and stir fried until they were just softening, adding a splash of water along the way. Added the steak slices back into the vegetables, stirred them together and then served on a plate to be wrapped up in tortillas.
This was much more successful than our previous attempt at steak fajitas, with the steak strips remaining tender and having a decent depth of flavour both from being good quality steak and from having marinated for an hour. The spicing was just right too. Certainly a good comeback to carniverousnous.
Smoked Mackerel Fishcakes
We had some mackerel in the fridge that needed using up today and while wondering what to do with it I noticed a lone potato lurking in the vegetable bowl. I decided to make mackerel fishcakes and spent a little time looking at recipes online. There was a wide variety of choice but I settled for mackerel, potato, capers and lemon juice to start with so I could work out how the flavours worked together. And work together they did, very well in fact.
Next time, I’ll add some butter and more seasoning to the potato as it tends to stay quite separate from the fish and I’ll increase the capers and lemon juice, maybe adding some zest too. A lot of the recipes I looked at suggested mustard or horseradish, we had a mustardy dressing with our salad and the flavour complimented the fishcakes well so perhaps I’ll add some mustard in next time too.
These are another great mid-week meal as they’re very east to put together and cook quickly under the grill, the added bonus being that mackerel tends to be something we often have in the fridge so they’re also a great store-cupboard meal. I imagine they’ll freeze well too as our other fishcakes too and can be cooked from frozen too, making it even quicker!
1 packet smoked mackerel
1 large potato
10 capers (approximately!)
S&P
Lemon juice
Bake potato in the oven, scoop out flesh and mash (eating of skins with butter and salt optional!)
Flake mackerel fillets into potato
Add chopped capers, s&p and lemon juice
Mix and form into cakes
Grill
Roasted Vegetable Lasagne
We’ve only cooked this dish once before, partly I think because it’s quite time consuming. However, we planned for this by roasting the vegetables over the weekend so that all we needed to do today was assemble the lasagne and cook in the oven. The dish doesn’t suffer from the pre-roasting and it obviously makes it much quicker and easier to cook during the week.
After the vegetables have been roasted all that needs to happen is for them to be layered up with the lasagne sheets, bechamel sauce and mozarella before cooking in the oven for half an hour. It’s a rich, tasty dish and could be made healthier by reducing the amount of mozarella.
1 courgette
1/2 red pepper
1/2 orange pepper
1/2 red onion
1/2 aubergine
1/2 punnet of mushrooms
2 garlic cloves
Handful basil
S&P
Olive oil
Olives
Capers
Bechamel sauce
Mozarella ball, sliced
Dice the vegetables and roast in the oven with oil, s&p, basil and garlic for about 40 minutes (or until the edges have started to char). Once cooked, remove the basil and add the olives and capers.
Make the bechamel sauce (we follow a basic recipe)
Place lasagne sheet into the bottom of the dish, cover with bechamel sauce, vegetables and mozarella. Continue until you’ve run out of everything and end up with a layer of bechamel sauce.
Bake in the oven for 30 minutes.
That’s our second meat-free meal in as many nights, unusual for us but definitely something we would like to continue.
Mushroom Risotto
Kerri was going to be out today, so we hadn’t planned anything particularly elaborate. As it was though, she wasn’t feeling well and stayed at home. Which meant that we needed dinner and hadn’t planned any. Kerri suggested mushroom risotto with thyme and lemon, which sounded like a good idea so we made chicken stock from yesterday’s chicken carcass, bought some mushrooms and got to work.
We followed a fairly standard risotto recipe, with a few additions. We used half chestnut mushrooms and half mixed wild mushrooms. We fried the mushrooms in batches in a mixture of butter and olive oil with some thyme, then when they were done, put onto a plate and sprinkled with some lemon juice (found that in a Jamie Oliver risotto recipe). We also soaked some dried porcini mushrooms in hot water and then chopped them, mixing them with half the chestnut mushrooms which we also chopped finely.
After adding the first ladle of stock, we added the finely chopped porcini and chestnut mushrooms and then carried on as normal. We mixed the the porcini soaking water into the stock to give a more mushroomy flavour, and also added a few dashes of mushroom ketchup. With the last ladle of stock, we added the rest of the mushrooms and also the zest of half a lemon.
Quite late in the process we realised that we didn’t have any parmesan, which was a bit of an oversight. We decided that we would just live without it and have a slightly more healthy risotto. It did turn out rather well and was very mushroomy, with the rice cooked until just soft enough but still with some bite. It was good without the parmesan, but I did end up grating some manchego onto it though (needed to make do with what we had), which added a bit extra.
Roman Chicken
This is a recipe that I cut out from Delicious ages ago which we thought would fit in with our healthy eating plan. The recipe said it took 50 minutes but we did it in about half an hour and it was really good. We’ve done a number of chickeny/tomatoey/winey dishes before but this is the best we’ve tried so far.
Serves Two
2 chicken legs
2 chicken thighs
1tbsp flour
Pinch of oregano
Olive oil
Half sliced onion
50ml white wine
200g tomatoes
1/2 tbsp tomato puree
1 garlic clove, crushed
1tbsp capers
40g olives
Dust the chicken with flour and oregano and brown.
Remove chicken from pan and fry onions until golden.
Add all other ingredients (including chicken), season and simmer for 20 minutes.
We served this with brown rice and steamed green cabbage.
Steamed Sea Bream
This was based on a Jamie Oliver recipe that was reproduced in the Observer Food Monthly some time last year. The original recipe called for the bream to be fried but in the intersts of being healthy we decided to steam it.
Despite the huge amount of garlic, chilli, ginger, lime, lime leaves, lemongrass and soy that it marinated in the flavour just didn’t permeate the fish and the end result was pretty dull and tasteless.
I’m curious as to how much extra flavour would have been produced if we’d fried the fish, not curious enough to try though I don’t think!
Beef in Mirin and Soy
Yesterday heralded the start of our new year healthy eating plan. In honour of the occasion I spent some time on Sunday going through our recipe files looking for low-fat dishes that looked exciting. I find it helps to be organised about what you’re eating so those mid-afternoon lows aren’t too difficult to get over, variety also helps so we’re not eating the same things every day.
Stephen then went through my chosen recipes and selected the ones he fancied and having bought the ingredients we settled on this dish first.
It seemed to come together very quickly and the smell of the food cooking was really good, the end dish was tasty but a little too sweet for our taste despite reducing the amount of sugar. It’s definitely something we’ll try again though because it checked all the boxes: quick, tasty, healthy.
Serves Two:
75ml white wine
50ml dark soy sauce
50ml mirin
1cm piece of ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
1 tablespoon caster sugar (next time we’ll half this)
1/2 onion, sliced (increase this next time)
250g rump steak, thinly sliced
50ml water
Put the wine, soy sauce, mirin, ginger, sugar and water in a saucepan over a medium heat. Cook so that the sugar dissolves then bring to the boil and simmer for 2-3 minutes.
Add the onion and simmer for a further 8-10 minutes. Add the beef and simmer until just cooked.
We served this with pak choi and rice but noodles would also have worked well.
Pot Roast Pork Loin with Cider
Stephen was given Mark Hix’s book British Regional Food for Christmas last year and while we’ve both enjoyed reading it, we’ve never cooked anything from it. So today, when we decided to roast something for lunch we thought we’d make this dish which hails from the South West.
We bought a piece of pork loin from our butcher yesterday and left it uncovered in the fridge, one of his tips for good crackling, we’ve done this before and it works well.
This dish required the rind to be be removed so we did that this morning, poured a kettle of boiling water on it, dried it thoroughly and then sprinkled it with salt. We cooked that separately to make (brilliant and very crunchy!) crackling.
The rest of the pork was roasted in the oven for half an hour on it’s highest setting before the vegetables (onion, carrot and celery) were added with some thyme and some cider. The heat was reduced to 160 and the meat continued to cook for a further hour and fifteen minutes during which time we basted the pork every fifteen minutes with the cider.
We rested the pork for 15 minutes or so while Stephen made gravy. The pork was served with some mashed potatoes, the crackling and some January King cabbage.
It was very good, the meat was cooked perfectly and was moist and tender with a subtle, background flavour of cider. The cider also made a really tasty gravy and the mashed potatoes (baked in their skins in the oven) were fluffy.
