Scallops and Samphire
Yesterday we visited our local farmer’s market and were lucky enough to find samphire. We’ve heard a lot about it recently but haven’t seen it anywhere so we were both really excited to find it at the market.
Online recipes were pretty scarce, I found a few risottos but not much else apart from a couple of fish dishes. I knew that we would be going out for lunch today and wouldn’t want a big dinner so decided to pair it with some scallops, broad beans and salad; working on the basis that scallops go well with chorizo and the samphire tasted quite salty.
We sauteed the samphire with some shallots and steamed the broad beans. The scallops were fried quickly with some salt and pepper. Once assembled, a squeeze of lemon juice and some good Spanish olive oil finished the dish. It was good but some bacon or pancetta would have added something extra.
Marmite on Toast
Stephen is out tonight so I have spent most of the day wondering whether to cook something for myself or just have Marmite toast. I decided that I would attempt to make an interesting pasta sauce with the chorizo that’s been lurking in the fridge and some mushrooms I bought on the way home. Interesting is one word for it, another might be inedible.
So, in the end the Marmite toast won out. I should have just done that in the first place and saved myself the effort of cleaning up.
Brownish-Green Thai Curry
While cooking Thai green curry this evening, I was wondering how to make it slightly differently because we have had it quite a few times over the past few months. While pondering this, I was not really paying attention and burnt the chicken slightly. Which I’m claiming makes it brownish-green curry rather than green curry; hence slightly different 🙂
We had some curry paste in the fridge from last time we’d made it, but we remembered that as not being quite hot enough, so we added another couple of chillis to it. We added our usual vegetables – baby corn, mange tout and pea aubergines. It was really good and we ate it all, despite initial decisions not to do so.
Spaghetti with Roasted Peppers and Chorizo
I think this has the potential to be quite good, but it needs some refinement. I oven roasted the peppers and then added them to some softened onions, garlic and chorizo. Next I added some basil, s&p and passata and reduced the sauce before adding a dash of worcester sauce and mixing it through some spaghetti.
It was quite sweet, partly from the roasted peppers but partly because my tomato sauce is always quite sweet. I think maybe next time I could add some chilli in the beginning or some vegetable stock with the tomatoes. Creme fraiche at the end may work to lighten it slightly too.
Marinated Tuna and Alaskan Spider Crab
Tonight we had marinated tuna; it’s ages since I remember cooking tuna. We marinated two tuna steaks in some oil, soy sauce and lime juice with some chopped garlic, chilli and lemongrass. We’d planned to marinate it for one hour but due to some changes of plan it ended up being in it for three hours. I was worried that it might have been too long, but the result was really good: deep flavours and a slight caramelised sweetness on the outside of the tuna. Served with some jasmine rice and steamed leaves (I failed to find pak choi, so just used some lettuce which was okay but not brilliant).
As a quick starter we’d had two legs of Alaskan spider crab. The legs were huge and contained enough meat to cover two whole slices of toast. We dressed it lightly in olive oil, salt and pepper and a light squeeze of lemon, then ate it with triangles of the aforementioned toast. Yummy.
Chicken Basque
Today was really rainy and evil and nasty. We went out for lunch and were completely drenched going three blocks to the pub even though we had umbrellas. (Tip: If you have wet socks in the office, hang them behind your PC to get dry; the outflow from the fan is quite warm and will have them dry quite quickly). So we fancied something hearty for dinner to get the chill out of our bones when we got home.
We decided on Chicken Basque. A Spanish (Basque) recipe that includes chicken, chorizo, paprika, onions, garlic, olives, red pepper, sundried tomatoes, herbs and rice. Started on the hob and then into the oven. The rice hadn’t quite cooked correctly (maybe we had the wrong type), so we put it back onto the hob to finish it off.
When eventually served up, it was really good. Deep flavours of paprika, olives and chicken melded with all the other flavours. Kerri said it could really quickly become one of her favourite dishes.
With it, we had a Spanish wine – Gaba do Xil – which tasted somewhat of marzipan and peaches. Slightly sweeter than I usually like, but good deep flavours and it matched the deep flavours of the Chicken Basque very well.
Baked Potatoes with Cheese and Bacon
Last week, we cooked baked potatoes with smoked trout which were brilliant. Tonight, we fancied something easy so decided to do the same but with cheese and bacon (or, CHEESE and BACON as Stephen put it). They were tasty but needed more cheese and more bacon.
Aubergine, Pepper and Halloumi Stacks
This is our first attempt at cooking something for “in the bag”. The ingredients this month were aubergine, peppers and basil. We roasted the aubergine and peppers, then griddled some halloumi and assembled them into stacks. We drizzled the stacks with some basil-infused oil and topped them with a basil leaf and a roasted cherry tomato for good measure.
We had these for dinner with some tabouleh and some basilly salsa. They would make a good lunch on their own or with a salad.
Stir Fried Beef
After yeserday’s not-very-successful braised beef, we were left with a surfeit of meat which we stir fried this evening. This was much more successful than yesterday’s offering and here, mostly for my mum’s sake, is the recipe. Hi mum 🙂
Ingredients
Leftover beef, sliced into strips
Onion – half, sliced into moons
Garlic – two cloves, crushed
Baby corn – sliced in half lengthways
Mange tout (I know you don’t like these mum but try them, they’re REALLY good done this way)
Beansprouts
Marinade
1/2 cup chicken stock
3 tablespoons oyster sauce
2 tablespoon dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine
1 teaspoon cornflour
Method
Fry onion and garlic in vegetable oil for a few minutes, add meat and heat through. Remove from pan. Add more oil and cook vegetables (corn first, then mange tout, finally beansprouts) then return meat to the pan, mix, add sauce and put lid on. Cook with lid on for about five minutes.
Serve with jasmine rice.
Blackberry Fool
We picked up some really nice looking blackberries yesterday but when we came to eat them they were really sharp. We decided to make them into blackberry fool but substituted the mascarpone for some leftover cream cheese. The result was very cheesecake-like, which I liked but Stephen wasn’t that keen on.
