Turbot and trout fish head soup

I know I know - you shouldn't make fish stock with oily fish. But that's just in french style cooking. They don't know everything do they?

Bangladesh, India, Thailand, Indonesia - all those places and more they'll cook & eat everything - it's suprising how much we waste! The eyes in particular are a delicacy. Not sure I could eat crab shells though - maybe it's an acquired taste?

So with some trout and turbot heads & tails left after filleting them for a couple of parties (the turbot for a main course dish and the trout to cure for a starter of another party) I made this soup.

Onions
Whole baby shallots
Carrots
Leeks
Celery
Fennel
Baby button mushrooms
Parsley and coriander stalks
Garlic
Ginger
Lemongrass
Chilli (only had green so used those)
Rice wine
Light soy sauce
Lime
Thai fish sauce
Coriander leaf
Seaweed


Made this back in January - so it was a winter warmer with the root veg, ginger & lime. It had been another typical Monday - phone & email going mad with enquiries, so by the time it came round to doing this the daylight had gone - hence odd light.

After doing quite a few thai meals we had all these thai ingredients in the kitchen - and they work really well with the fish heads. Thai fish makes everything taste good - even lamb (that's another story/ blog post).

Sweat off all veg. Add veg stock, ginger garlic, lemon grass, chilli etc & fish heads. Bring to boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Should never overcook fish stock - taste goes bad. The parsley & coriander stalks give out flavour to the stock, then I removed them for the finished dish. Keep adjusting to taste - you can never have too much thai fish sauce, soy & lime. Think I added some rice wine vinegar too. On top I did a variation on gremolata - instead of the traditional parsley, garlic and lemon zest this was a more thai version - coriander, garlic and lime zest. It gives it a nice fresh taste on top. I also added some deep fried seaweed on top - really going for the healthy soup that day!

Next time might try a coconut milk version......

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Sweet potato, feta and coriander ravioli

Kneading pasta dough? What a revelation that was all those years ago. My first pasta attempts at 14 struggled to stay together and were rather rough - and I learned a bit by trial and error. The right flour helps too. Also semolina to dust the table - prevents sticking.

Saffron pasta dough:

350g flour ('OO' or strong white - there's some great chefstalk on the subject here)
4 eggs
Saffron steeped in hot water then chilled out
1 tsp salt

Filling:

Roast sweet potato
Red onion sauteed in butter & cooled
Feta diced
Coriander (fresh)
Ground coriander seed
Lemon zest


Related post:

Homemade marmite XO farfalle poached in miso

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Pepper and coriander quinoa salad

6 am on Saturday morning and preparation for the breakfast and barbecue delivery is in full swing. All the ingredients ready for the cous cous salad..... apart from the cous cous. With 9 events in 3 days there are 1000's of ingredients involved and this was the only one I had missed. Fear not though - with the shop not open yet it was time to bring the quinoa to the fore. With plenty of lemon juice and olive oil it makes a refreshing change to cous cous. I liked it so much I'm doing it for another barbecue this Saturday.

Peppers
Red onion
Garlic

Sweat on medium heat.

Add Chicken/ vegetable stock (c. 750 ml per 200g raw quinoa)
Ground cumin
Ground coriander
Quinoa

Boil c. 15 - 20 mins till quinoa is soft and liquid all absorbed.
Add:

Raisins/ sultanas
Fresh coriander
Lemon juice
Olive oil or Cotswold Gold

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Meat Free Monday #3 - Beluga lentil curry with coriander yogurt

Does meat free monday still count after midnight? [Writing this now at 01:45] Hope so. Well it's still Monday somewhere anyway.

Hadn't heard of beluga lentils till Johanna's post last November. When I read the title I was expecting something quite different rather than lentils. They are however really good. Found some in the local Waitrose last week and had to try them.

A rare night off tonight. Arabian Nights at the RSC (lucky we're so close), hence the midnight (well 1am really) feast.

When I tweeted earlier for ideas with lentils @EyesBigger suggested 'curried lentil stew with greek yogurt'. Great idea.

I suppose I did something very like this recipe but with celery & carrots as well, and without the cream. I also delved into my spice collection and added fenugreek seeds, cumin, cayenne, turmeric, garam masala etc. And fresh coriander at the end.

I mixed some of the coriander in the yogurt too which went on top. And as I had some pumpkin seeds out they went on top too.

The china is really designed for outdoors in the summer. Hovering around zero degrees outside at the moment so I thought eating inside might be a better idea instead......

Lentils & poached egg will have to wait till next time.

Related posts

Other Meat Free Mondays

Vegetable samosas

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Lamb kofta with millet seed, cherry tomato and watermelon salad

Some people say you shouldn't trust a slim chef. Well I'm sure my chef jackets shrunk in the wash recently.

When I'm talking to the guests I cook for one of the most common things they say is along the lines of 'do you cook for yourself as well' or 'when do you ever get time to eat yourself' or 'you can't want to cook for yourself after all this.....'. But it's when you cook for yourself you throw things together and come up with new flavours or combinations, or quicker, more efficient techniques. 24 hours a day, 363 days a year (there was one day - the first day of holiday last year when I didn't cook) you eat, sleep (I've done a record number of functions in my sleep this week) and live food so not cooking would be like not breathing.

I cracked the 5 minute lunch when working at Claridges - if there wasn't a queue in the canteen I could be away from the larder, grab lunch and be back in 5 minutes. There was no time for lunch yesterday really - Adam who was helping me pack up and then cooking at Wellacres was stuck in traffic getting back from Wales, but I knew I had to fit in lunch somehow because it would be so long till I could get time to stop again (and sure enough it was after 2am), so it was 2 minutes of getting it together and 3 minutes eating while answering an email at the same time. Busy.

I'd been experimenting with millet seed earlier in the week (I've really become a new fan of grains & pulses this year) and still had some left so combined it with left over cherry tomatoes, watermelon and basil from the goats cheese starter. Added some sesame oil and coriander. It needed some acidity - lime zest/ juice would have been good, but as I put the sesame oil back on the shelf I passed over the rice wine vinegar so added this instead. Millet, being similar to cous cous, worked well with the left over lamb kofta.

Related posts:

Pork tenderloin curry in a hurry

Ratatouille macaroni cheese

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Wild strawberry and coriander sushi

Strawberries and coriander - who would ever think of putting those two ingredients together?

Mr Brooks might. And did - that's where I got the idea for doing this. I was going to use normal strawberries, but as I went through the garden this morning in search of rosemary and sage to go on top of foccacia I saw the recent sun had ripened up all the wild strawberries so I just had to pick them......

As this is a sweet version of sushi I used coconut milk to cook the rice rather than water. I'm not sure this is quite authentic - maybe in malaysian cuisine, but it tastes good. If you want a savoury version (with normal sushi rice) tuna and strawberry sushi is a classic.

No nori on this one - though if you google strawberry sushi - you can see some quite interesting versions and some 'interesting' ones too.

Rolled in toasted dessciated coconut. Best to toast it in a frying pan - if you put it in the oven you'll remember it's in there only when black smoke is wafting through your kitchen.......

Let it cool down too before you roll. Roll tightly in cling film - this helps you cut the round shapes easily.

Balsamic syrup makes a nice accompaniment (as above), but you could also sieve some strawberries to make a coulis as a dip.

This has been submitted to the Strawberry Feast at My Kitchen Treasures.

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