Kippers
Tonight saw Stephen and I wandering aimlessly around the supermarket, tired, hungry and lacking in enthusiasm. That is until we happened upon these smoked kippers at the fish counter. We quickly decided we would take them home and have them with salad. Imagine our delight when we found they had been reduced and were only 39p for two!
Stephen heated them up in the oven and made a quick salad to go with them. They were delicious (if a little boney).
Guacamole, Salsa and Chicken Fajitas
The title says it all really. We made guacamole to our usual recipe (avocado, red onion, lime juice, chilli, coriander, garlic, salt and pepper) and served it with some toasted corn wraps.
We attempted to make salsa but it came out too watery (I caught Stephen drinking it when he thought I wasn’t looking) although tasty.
Finally (after marinating the chicken in lime juice, chilli, coriander and ginger for about half an hour) we fried it and then removed it from the pan. In went the red onions and peppers before combining the whole lot and serving with more corn wraps.
Tasty.
Steamed Fish
Stephen cooked a lovely dinner this evening of steamed sea bream which he had marinated in garlic, ginger, minced shallot, oyster sauce and soy sauce. It was topped with ginger, chilli and spring onions and steamed for 20 minutes.
We served this with some steamed vegetables: cauliflower (not good), red pepper (ok), celery (surprisingly delicious) and baby corns (good, as usual) and jasmine rice.
Next time I’d like to try this with trout. And sliced garlic.
Roast Chicken, Stuffing and Roast Potatoes
Today we cooked a roast chicken, for five people. We bought a rather large chicken and cooked it upside down so that it wouldn’t dry out. We had intended to turn it over for the last twenty minutes, but forgot. So the result was that it was tasty and moist, but didn’t look very photogenic. Hence no picture since we have plenty of better roast chicken pictures in Dinner Diary already.
We made chestnut stuffing for the first time. Last night, we roasted some chestnuts and Kerri spent quite a while shelling them. Her nail varnish survived by the way, in case you were worried. We sweated some onion, then added the chestnuts, breadcrumbs, garlic, sage, lemon zest and juice and sausage meat. We cooked it separately from the chicken and it turned out well; crunchy on the outside and soft and gooey on the inside. I’ve never used lemon in stuffing before, but a Delia recipe mentioned it so we gave it a go; the result was good but I still found it a bit odd when I encountered a particularly lemony bit.
Roast potatoes turned out rather well and the picture does them justice. We also had roast parsnips, mashed butternut, steamed kale and steamed cauliflower. And gravy of course. Mmmmm gravy.
Pasta Puttanesca and Chestnuts (separately)
Tonight we wanted something quick and easy so we had pasta puttanesca, which has featured several times before on Dinner Diary, so not a particularly exciting picture. Tasty though.
Tomorrow we are going to make chestnut stuffing, so tonight we roasted some chestnuts. Tomorrow we’ll make them into stuffing. Mmmmmmm stuffing.
Pork Chops and Stuffed Peppers
Last week we bought some long, red peppers that we thought would be nice stuffed. We didn’t get round to using them during the week so had them last night with some pork loin chops. The chops were rubbed with our usual garlic, rosemary and bay mix before being expertly fried by Stephen.
The peppers were roasted slightly before being filled with a mixture of cous-cous, pine nuts and spring onions. We finished them in the oven for about 15 minutes before serving.
The chops were very tasty and the combination of cous-cous and peppers worked well but the stuffing went a bit soggy. It has potential though.
Thai Steamed Fish
A few weeks ago I bought some green peppercorns without really having a plan for what to do with them. They languished in the bottom of the fridge until tonight when, quite coincidentally, the recipe that I looked up for Thai steamed fish call for them. And just in time too, as they were a bit past their best and would already have been consigned to the bin had Kerri found them.
So, in our newly purchased bamboo steamer, I placed tuna steak that had been rubbed with a mixture of ginger, garlic, black pepper, soy sauce and oyster sauce. I placed chopped ginger, chopped shallots and a sprig of rescued green peppercorns on top of it and then steamed for about ten minutes. Half way through, I put in some pak choi as well.
Served on some noodles (not the right sort really; I wanted vermicelli but didn’t have any so used egg noodles) with the pak choi. It was really good; the flavours all combined well during the relatively short cooking time. Definitely something to try again soon.
Pea Shoots
Tonight we made a rather disappointing stir-fry, we used the same method we used here but substituted chicken for beef. Something went wrong though because it just didn’t work, the flavours didn’t come together properly and I ended up having Marmite toast instead.
We did however have some interesting pea shoots that we stir-fried with garlic. We bought them at Oriental City at the weekend…along with this pretty plate.
Thai Green Curry
Not all that exciting because we make this a lot but this was a particularly good example. We used the reduced fat coconut milk again and I don’t think I’d have been able to tell if I didn’t know as the liquid was really creamy and tasty. We added some small, purple aubergines that we bought at Oriental City but sadly the yard-long beans were past their best.
Fish Pie
We’ve cooked fish pie a few times in the past but always with varying success. Today’s method was slightly different and more successful. Rather than poaching the fish in milk as we usually do we added it to the dish raw with some white sauce (which had been steeped with celery, carrot, shallots and capers), it seemed to make a difference to the flavour of the fish as well as the texture.
120g salmon
240g cod
Broccoli
250ml white sauce
2 large potatoes, mashed with butter and milk
50g cheese
Arrange fish and broccoli in an oven-proof dish, cover with white sauce and mashed potatoes. Sprinkle with grated cheese and bake for 20 minutes.
We served this with more broccoli, green beans, carrots and brussels sprouts.
Next time I’d like to try it with some smoked fish, perhaps instead of the cod. The salmon was tasty but the cod was quite bland. Parsley would be a good addition too.
