Hello and welcome back, dear reader. I've had a few requests for a recipe for kedgeree, so I knocked some up last week and I'll give you my usual exciting and informative instructions below. Incidentally, if anyone else has a request for a recipe/something you would enjoy hearing me fail to cook, you can always leave a comment below or find me on Twitter @roseblackettord. I'm always open to suggestions.
On to some kedgeree chat.
Traditionally thought of as a breakfast dish, and especially as an element of that great old English institution, the Country House Breakfast, kedgeree also makes a great simple supper. Like the kipper, its days of regular early-morning appearances are, for the most part, a thing of the past; nevertheless, its creamy combination of rice and fish is not something that should be allowed to slip away into the mists of time. Hence, this recipe, along with the recommendation that you give kedgeree a chance on your supper table. One final added bonus? It's brilliant for using up leftover fish - one of those 'leftovers' recipes which gives the sad remains a whole new lease of life.
Ingredients
(for 3)
250g fish - almost any kind/combination. It should be cooked (cover with milk and water in a pan, bring to the boil then allow to cool). A combination of smoked/fresh often works well. Smoked salmon is nice too, and a few prawns won't go amiss.
100g rice - basmati or long-grained.
2 eggs - hardboiled (immerse in boiling water for 12-15 minutes, allow to cool) and shelled.
Double cream - 1/2 a small pot, c.70ml
Butter - a chunk
Chopped herbs - about 2 tbs altogether. Parsley and chives are good. Dill would work too. You can also substitute spring onion for chives.
Salt, pepper, cayenne pepper - pinch of each
Method
First of all, make sure the fish and eggs are all ready and cooked. Run the eggs under cold water to cool, then remove the shells and chop them into medium-sized chunks.
Cook the rice according to the instructions on your packet, then drain, run some cold water over it, and drain again. While the rice is cooking, make sure any skin and bones are removed from the fish and gently separate it into bitesize pieces.
Now for the quick putting-together bit, which you can normally do just before you eat. Melt the butter in a pan, and add the cream and chopped herbs. Leave over the heat. When it begins to bubble, add the fish, rice and egg and stir gently until all is evenly combined (try not to break up the chunks of fish too much if you can avoid it). Season to your own taste with the salt, pepper, and cayenne. Eat with green vegetables and hot buttered toast.
A lovely supper which can be pre-prepared and put together at the last minute. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do.
Showing posts with label fish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fish. Show all posts
Friday, 11 March 2011
Thursday, 23 December 2010
Fish Pie (for the cousins)
My cousins are coming for lunch here tomorrow for Christmas Eve, and as a result I've been presented with some assorted fish by the Anonymous Bystander and commanded to make a pie. This 'Oi, Rosie, make a pie' thing seems to be happening ever more frequently. I can't complain, though, because frankly I love a good pie.
Fish pie, like a lot of cooking, is quite a personal affair in terms of what you like to include. Do you prefer white fish or salmon? Smoked or plain? Prawns, mussels or both? Do you like boiled eggs in your pie? Leeks? Tomatoes? What herbs do you add? Do you top it with potatoes or pastry? Mashed or sliced, puff or filo? Or just sprinkle the filling with crushed up crisps? There are a hundred and one variations on the basic pie, but they all involve the same key elements: filling (meat, fish, or vegetables and sauce) and topping.
You'll probably find, like me, that the pie you end up with is dictated as much by the ingredients you have to hand as by your own taste. Hence, for example, my recipe today contains hard boiled eggs, even though I generally think they ruin a perfectly good pie. The reasons for this are twofold: firstly, there wasn't enough fish to feed six people and I needed to bulk out the pie's filling; and secondly, and more importantly, I'm not at home for lunch tomorrow so I won't have to eat it...
I chose mashed potato for a topping, because I love the way it soaks up the sauce in a fish pie. I prefer puff pastry in a meat pie, but mash for fish. To be honest, I'm pretty sure your preference has a lot to do with how your mum makes hers. For the filling of my pie, I used what I had available, which this time happened to be some unsmoked haddock from the freezer (skin and bones on); some smoked salmon (unusual, but it happened to be at hand); and some prawns, which I think are essential in a top fish pie.
The basic pie usually involves cooking your fish if it's raw (smoked salmon and frozen prawns already count as cooked, by the way) by poaching it in milk with a couple of bay leaves. The milk just needs to be hot, not boiling, and you'll find that the fish turns crumbly and opaque very quickly. This means it's cooked; fish takes no time at all. Once all your fish is cooked off, you can leave it to cool a bit and make the pastry or mashed potatoes for the topping, the sauce, and anything else you're including in your filling. I used the cooking liquor from my haddock where you'd usually use plain milk in a bechamel sauce, which helped to blend the flavours of the fish and sauce in the finished pie. Once everything's cooked, you need to separate the fish into bitesize chunks, either by cutting it or with your fingers, and take off any bones or skin at the same time.
Finally, the easy bit: mix all the filling elements together with the sauce, pop it in a dish, and cover with the topping. You can freeze it at this point if you like, or it will keep in the fridge overnight or for a couple of days (not too long, or the fridge will smell all gross). When you want to serve it, you just put it in the oven until the topping is golden brown and the filling is bubbling up around the sides. All it needs is some vegetables or salad to go along with it, and plenty of slices of fresh lemon. Yum.
Here's a rough recipe for the pie I made today, but bear it mind you can be very flexible with most of it.
Ingredients:
Around 1kg of whatever mixture of fish you fancy (best to avoid very oily fish though)
Around 1kg of assorted mussels, prawns, scallops, or other yummy things that you like. These should be cooked first.
Some butter
Some flour
A glass of white wine (and one for you)
Some milk
A couple of bay leaves
Lots of potatoes
Some butter and cream to go in the mash
Salt and pepper
About 5 eggs
A handful of parsley
Recipe:
1. Put your fish in a saucepan and cover with milk. If you don't have enough milk, make up the difference with water. Add some bay leaves and simmer very gently until the fish is cooked. This won't take long.
2. Set the fish aside to cool. Keep the cooking liquid for later. Make sure the rest of your filling is ready - hard boil the eggs if using, cut up the smoked salmon if using. Etc etc etc. Take a cooling sip of wine.
3. Cut and peel the potatoes, and boil then in another saucepan until they fall apart when you prod them with a knife. Drain and mash with butter and cream. Season, using more salt than you think is wise (another golden tip from the Food Guru there).
4. Separate the haddock into bitesize chunks, discarding the skin and bones as you go.
5. Make the sauce. Melt butter in a pan, add flour to make a roux. Pour in the glass of white wine and whisk until it's combined - it will be very thick. Add the haddock cooking liquid, very slowly and whisking all the time, until the sauce is the thickness you'd like in your pie.
6. Chop up your parsley and eggs, and put them in a bowl along with all the fish and the sauce. Mix together thoroughly, but try to keep the haddock in reasonably big chunks.
7. Top with the mashed potato (remember you can use pastry if you like), and make pretty patterns in it with a fork. These will turn lovely and crunchy when you cook the pie. At this point you can freeze it if you like.
8. To serve, cook in a medium oven (c.180) for 30-40 minutes, until the topping is golden and the sauce is bubbling up.
9. Drink plenty of white wine and congratulate yourself on a fantastic fish pie.
Fish pie, like a lot of cooking, is quite a personal affair in terms of what you like to include. Do you prefer white fish or salmon? Smoked or plain? Prawns, mussels or both? Do you like boiled eggs in your pie? Leeks? Tomatoes? What herbs do you add? Do you top it with potatoes or pastry? Mashed or sliced, puff or filo? Or just sprinkle the filling with crushed up crisps? There are a hundred and one variations on the basic pie, but they all involve the same key elements: filling (meat, fish, or vegetables and sauce) and topping.
You'll probably find, like me, that the pie you end up with is dictated as much by the ingredients you have to hand as by your own taste. Hence, for example, my recipe today contains hard boiled eggs, even though I generally think they ruin a perfectly good pie. The reasons for this are twofold: firstly, there wasn't enough fish to feed six people and I needed to bulk out the pie's filling; and secondly, and more importantly, I'm not at home for lunch tomorrow so I won't have to eat it...
I chose mashed potato for a topping, because I love the way it soaks up the sauce in a fish pie. I prefer puff pastry in a meat pie, but mash for fish. To be honest, I'm pretty sure your preference has a lot to do with how your mum makes hers. For the filling of my pie, I used what I had available, which this time happened to be some unsmoked haddock from the freezer (skin and bones on); some smoked salmon (unusual, but it happened to be at hand); and some prawns, which I think are essential in a top fish pie.
The basic pie usually involves cooking your fish if it's raw (smoked salmon and frozen prawns already count as cooked, by the way) by poaching it in milk with a couple of bay leaves. The milk just needs to be hot, not boiling, and you'll find that the fish turns crumbly and opaque very quickly. This means it's cooked; fish takes no time at all. Once all your fish is cooked off, you can leave it to cool a bit and make the pastry or mashed potatoes for the topping, the sauce, and anything else you're including in your filling. I used the cooking liquor from my haddock where you'd usually use plain milk in a bechamel sauce, which helped to blend the flavours of the fish and sauce in the finished pie. Once everything's cooked, you need to separate the fish into bitesize chunks, either by cutting it or with your fingers, and take off any bones or skin at the same time.
Finally, the easy bit: mix all the filling elements together with the sauce, pop it in a dish, and cover with the topping. You can freeze it at this point if you like, or it will keep in the fridge overnight or for a couple of days (not too long, or the fridge will smell all gross). When you want to serve it, you just put it in the oven until the topping is golden brown and the filling is bubbling up around the sides. All it needs is some vegetables or salad to go along with it, and plenty of slices of fresh lemon. Yum.
Here's a rough recipe for the pie I made today, but bear it mind you can be very flexible with most of it.
Ingredients:
Around 1kg of whatever mixture of fish you fancy (best to avoid very oily fish though)
Around 1kg of assorted mussels, prawns, scallops, or other yummy things that you like. These should be cooked first.
Some butter
Some flour
A glass of white wine (and one for you)
Some milk
A couple of bay leaves
Lots of potatoes
Some butter and cream to go in the mash
Salt and pepper
About 5 eggs
A handful of parsley
Recipe:
1. Put your fish in a saucepan and cover with milk. If you don't have enough milk, make up the difference with water. Add some bay leaves and simmer very gently until the fish is cooked. This won't take long.
2. Set the fish aside to cool. Keep the cooking liquid for later. Make sure the rest of your filling is ready - hard boil the eggs if using, cut up the smoked salmon if using. Etc etc etc. Take a cooling sip of wine.
3. Cut and peel the potatoes, and boil then in another saucepan until they fall apart when you prod them with a knife. Drain and mash with butter and cream. Season, using more salt than you think is wise (another golden tip from the Food Guru there).
4. Separate the haddock into bitesize chunks, discarding the skin and bones as you go.
5. Make the sauce. Melt butter in a pan, add flour to make a roux. Pour in the glass of white wine and whisk until it's combined - it will be very thick. Add the haddock cooking liquid, very slowly and whisking all the time, until the sauce is the thickness you'd like in your pie.
6. Chop up your parsley and eggs, and put them in a bowl along with all the fish and the sauce. Mix together thoroughly, but try to keep the haddock in reasonably big chunks.
7. Top with the mashed potato (remember you can use pastry if you like), and make pretty patterns in it with a fork. These will turn lovely and crunchy when you cook the pie. At this point you can freeze it if you like.
8. To serve, cook in a medium oven (c.180) for 30-40 minutes, until the topping is golden and the sauce is bubbling up.
9. Drink plenty of white wine and congratulate yourself on a fantastic fish pie.
Monday, 20 December 2010
Thai Fishcakes (and Garlic Bread)
Hello, hello, hello. I'm back, after a slightly-longer-than-planned 'one week' hiatus (that one worked...) I've been staying with the Boyfriend again, and extending his culinary knowledge even more. I won't bore you with stories of all the alpine cooking I did during my ski break, because to be quite honest we just ate a lot of pasta. In addition, while we did make one sauce ourselves it was pronounced 'not saucy enough' by the Boyfriend (genuine quotation there) and has therefore not made the cut for blog inclusion. No, really, it hasn't.
So, Thai fishcakes and garlic bread, both of which I made this week at Boyfriend's house, as part of my Teach Him Cooking initiative. I have to say, he did a lot of this himself and both dishes turned out brilliantly.
Thai Fishcakes
Boyfriend and I made this for our supper, and served it up to his mum as well. She loved it, which was a big relief for me - cooking for any mother is always an anxious time, and the other half's mother is the most nailbiting of all! We used the recipe from Real Cooking by Nigel Slater. By the way, in case you're wondering, this is not my only cookbook. It is, however, the Boyfriend's only cookbook, so whenever I cook with him we use it: hence its frequent appearances on these pages.
Fishcakes, like many things, almost all follow a basic recipe. Poach the fish, often in milk; mix with mashed potatoes and herbs and flavourings of your choice; form into fishcake shapes with your hands; possibly dip in flour, beaten egg, breadcrumbs (in that order); fry in shallow hot oil and enjoy.
These fishcakes, however, followed a slightly different method, which to my mind made them much more authentically Thai. The flavourings (chilli, lemongrass, garlic, shallott, ginger, nam pla - thai fish sauce, if you were wondering - coriander, salt and pepper) were pulsed into a slush in the food processor, as was the raw fish. We then combined the two by hand in a bowl (fishy fingers, lovely), made fishcakes out of the raw fish with a little flour to stop it sticking to our hands, and shallow fried these to eat. This did mean we had to be careful that they were cooked right the way through as well as being nice and crispy on the outside, but on the plus side the lack of potatoes made them waistline-friendly. Sadly, we immediately cancelled this out by serving them with roast potatoes.
We also served them with a green leaf salad and, most importantly, the dipping sauce included in the recipe, which was an absolute stunner and very simple to make. Vinegar and sugar heated up until syrupy, then add soy sauce and chopped chilli, garlic and coriander. Genuinely beautiful.
Once again, I'm sorry not to include a recipe, but you can find it in Nigel Slater's Real Cooking. He should definitely be paying me for the promotion.
Garlic Bread
So, Thai fishcakes and garlic bread, both of which I made this week at Boyfriend's house, as part of my Teach Him Cooking initiative. I have to say, he did a lot of this himself and both dishes turned out brilliantly.
Thai Fishcakes
Boyfriend and I made this for our supper, and served it up to his mum as well. She loved it, which was a big relief for me - cooking for any mother is always an anxious time, and the other half's mother is the most nailbiting of all! We used the recipe from Real Cooking by Nigel Slater. By the way, in case you're wondering, this is not my only cookbook. It is, however, the Boyfriend's only cookbook, so whenever I cook with him we use it: hence its frequent appearances on these pages.
Fishcakes, like many things, almost all follow a basic recipe. Poach the fish, often in milk; mix with mashed potatoes and herbs and flavourings of your choice; form into fishcake shapes with your hands; possibly dip in flour, beaten egg, breadcrumbs (in that order); fry in shallow hot oil and enjoy.
These fishcakes, however, followed a slightly different method, which to my mind made them much more authentically Thai. The flavourings (chilli, lemongrass, garlic, shallott, ginger, nam pla - thai fish sauce, if you were wondering - coriander, salt and pepper) were pulsed into a slush in the food processor, as was the raw fish. We then combined the two by hand in a bowl (fishy fingers, lovely), made fishcakes out of the raw fish with a little flour to stop it sticking to our hands, and shallow fried these to eat. This did mean we had to be careful that they were cooked right the way through as well as being nice and crispy on the outside, but on the plus side the lack of potatoes made them waistline-friendly. Sadly, we immediately cancelled this out by serving them with roast potatoes.
We also served them with a green leaf salad and, most importantly, the dipping sauce included in the recipe, which was an absolute stunner and very simple to make. Vinegar and sugar heated up until syrupy, then add soy sauce and chopped chilli, garlic and coriander. Genuinely beautiful.
Once again, I'm sorry not to include a recipe, but you can find it in Nigel Slater's Real Cooking. He should definitely be paying me for the promotion.
Garlic Bread
Really just so I have an actual recipe for you today, I thought I'd mention the garlic bread we made a couple of days ago also. I should stress that this is not meant as an accompaniment for the fishcakes...
Garlic bread may be readily available in supermarkets everywhere, freezable and all, but it's also pretty easy to make if you're feeling saintly. Made all the easier in this case by the fact that we had lunch at Pizza Express and blagged some of their garlic butter to use!
If you aren't best friends with the staff at your local pizza emporium, you might want to thoroughly crush some garlic, mix it with salt and mash it into some butter until it's thoroughly combined.
After the garlic butter-obtaining stage, its easy. Grab a baguette and cut some slits in it, as if you were slicing it but don't go all the way through. Shove some butter into each slit, wrap the whole mess in some tin foil and bake it until it's a bit crispy and all the butter has melted. Munch.
Recipe for Garlic Bread
Ingredients:
Garlic
Sea salt
Butter
A Baguette or two
Recipe:
1. Mash together the crushed garlic, salt and butter until thoroughly combined.
2. Cut slits into the baguette
3. Put some butter into each slit
4. Bake in a hot oven, wrapped in tinfoil, until crispy and until the butter has melted.
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