Fish Taco Salad

I’m lucky enough to work near the Gherkin - which means that Thursday (and now Friday!) of every week the Kerb street food stall thingy is held there. *

I don’t always remember to go, or there are other things on, and one of my fast days is quite often Thursday, which meant that until recently I didn’t go much at all (sad face) but I always want to get a fish taco.

So far fate has conspired against me - either there is something else there that I have wanted for even longer (step forward Yum Bun) or either Ambriento or Luardos aren’t there when I am.

So I decided to take matters into my own hands: I would make my own fish tacos dammit! But with a twist, and as summer was in attendance (and yet sadly nearly over), I decided on a fish taco salad. Without the actual taco element.

Here it is.

* EDIT - in fact the evil villains that are the City of London Corporation have now closed Kerb down as apparently it wasn’t pretty enough. Or something. The Gherkin itself apparently didn’t have a problem with it but there you go. Boo! There’s a petition here - please do sign it, street food markets are ace.


Fish Taco Salad

serves 2

For salad
1 bag of crunchy salad (to include shredded cabbage & carrot)
1 tbsp coriander, chopped 
½ avocado, diced
10-12 cherry tomatoes, quartered
¼ onion, finely chopped
juice of ¼ lemon
juice of ¼ lime
sea salt 
1 tbsp pickled green chillis (jalapeno slices) or 1 whole green pickled chilli, chopped
For dressing
4 tbsp greek yogurt
1 tbsp coriander, chopped
juice of ¼ lemon
½ tbsp chipotle paste (or hot sauce to taste)
½ clove garlic, minced
¼ tsp cumin
¼ tsp coriander
salt and pepper to taste

For Mango Salsa
150g mango, diced 
½ green chilli, finely diced
2 tbsp coriander, finely chopped
¼ red onion, finely diced
juice of ¼ lime
salt to taste
For fish
2 river cobbler fillets (or any sustainable white fish)
2 tsp old bay blackened seasoning (optional)
½ tsp cumin
½ tsp coriander
⅛ tsp chili powder
⅛ tsp black pepper
⅛ tsp. salt
⅛ tsp. cayenne pepper
⅛ tsp. garlic powder
1 ½ tsp olive oil
To serve
extra chopped coriander
lime wedges
smoked chipotle tabasco

In a small bowl, mix the spices for the fish then put into a large food bag. Add the fish fillets and toss around to ensure that the fish gets evenly coated with the spices.

Heat a frying pan with the olive oil over a med-high heat, and add the fish: frying on both sides for 3-4 minutes until golden brown and cooked through. It’s fine if they break up as they’ll be broken up for the salad itself.

Remove to a piece of kitchen towel on a plate, squeeze over some lime or lemon juice and set aside to cool a little.

Meanwhile mix the ingredients for the mango salsa in a bowl and set aside.

In a separate bowl, add all the ingredients for the dressing up and stir together.

In a third bowl, from the salad ingredients, mix together the chopped onion, coriander, citrus juices, jalapeno and salt to taste.

Finally, in a large bowl toss the lettuce mix and tomatoes with some of the coriander / onion / jalapeno mix as above. Season carefully to taste.

To serve, divide the lettuce mix between 2 plates: break up the fish fillets and lay on top of the lettuce mix. Top with a dollop of dressing, some avocado, mango salsa and a sprinkling more of the onion / coriander.

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Baked Bacon & Mushroom Risotto

For years I’ve had it in mind to try out one of Delia’s baked risotto recipes and had a look at one of them recently but just didn’t fancy it at that moment in time in the end (it was a risotto carbonara if you are interested). 

I decided to go with the concept however and just devise something: fairly comforting yet at the same time not too calorific. As I’ve mentioned before, I had, at the time of cooking this, been doing the 5:2 diet thing for a few months (cooking and eating out so much can take its toll) but recently what with one thing and another I haven’t been very good. The week I made this I was back on it and on my “non-fast” days I wanted to be reasonably careful (I should point out I’ve not been very good since…!)

And for that, this recipe is great - surprising low calorie for days when you’re being “good” but still want yumminess. Not to mention good for days when you have better things to do than stand by the stove stirring..to be honest, that kind of is my “better thing to do” but I appreciate that for others it isn’t!


Baked Bacon & Mushroom Risotto
serves 2

2 medium rashers of unsmoked back bacon, chopped
100g mushrooms, sliced
5g dried porcini (soaked in 150ml boiling water for 15-20 minutes)
10 puffs low-fat cooking spray
1 medium banana shallot, finely chopped
175g risotto rice
150ml dry white wine
300ml vegetable stock
small bunch of parsley, finely chopped
25g parmesan, freshly grated
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Fry the bacon in a small pan, in it’s own fat until it is crispy. Remove and set aside on a piece of kitchen towel.

Meanwhile heat a heavy casserole (that has a lid) on the hob and spray with the low-fat cooking spray. Add the chopped onions and cook quite gently for about 10 minutes until softened.

Add the sliced mushrooms, season with salt and pepper and fry for 5 minutes more.

Drain the porcini mushrooms, reserving the soaking liquor, chop them up finely and add to the pan with the fried fresh mushrooms.

Cook for a couple of minutes more then add the rice.

Stir well for a few minutes then turn up the heat and add wine. 

Let it simmer hard until reduced by about half before adding the porcini soaking liquid and stock.

Lower the heat and stir in the bacon. Give it a good stir, pop a lid on and then transfer the casserole to the preheated oven.

Cook for 20 minutes then gently stir in most of the parmesan.

Return to the oven and cook for a further 10 minutes, or until the risotto is soft and creamy.

Stir through the chopped parsley then place a clean tea towel over the pot and let rest for 5 minutes.

Serve with the remaining parmesan sprinkled over and crispy salad leaves and quartered baby plum tomatoes on the side.

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Beef with Cumin and Sichuan Broad Beans

Number two in operation “Open a Cookbook at Random”. Spookily Beef with Cumin was one that I first remember seeing (and thinking looked great) in Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook but as I tend to shy away from deep frying as I find it a bit of a faff (and don’t have a deep frying pot and can’t think of where to store the oil after) I never tried it. That’s not to say I haven’t attempted any of Fuchsia Dunlop’s other “deep fried” recipes as I have, namely here. 

Pre deep-frying is a method known as “velveting” which results in tender & juicy meat. When I have done it before the results really do speak for themselves but all the same I was glad to see a version of the same recipe in Every Grain of Rice where just stir-frying is employed. And more, what I found was that if you buy a good cut of beef - a very good sirloin steak in my case - and make sure to cut the slices across the grain, the result will be in my opinion, pretty close to that derived by velveting anyway.

As ever, this is slightly adapted and as I wanted a bit more sauce coating the meat I increased the quantities of marinade (bar the potato flour).

The chilli I had incidentally was quite large so I actually only used half of it in the end... that said, I’m effectively using 4 types of chilli here: fresh, dried and “red pepper” flakes and sedimented oil. The original recipe calls for dried chilli flakes and optional fresh which I’m sure would be quite sufficient. The other two I added for further depth of flavour and the fact that I bloody love Sichuanese chilli oil.

Overall this seems to be another great book from FD, her latest, and concentrates on Chinese (and again largely Hunanese and Sichuanese) “home cooking”. A lot of recipes showcase humble vegetables: very simple preparations that make these simple ingredients sing.

This broad bean recipe (not by the way chosen at random but selected as I had some fresh broad beans in the fridge) is a very good example; admittedly they are probably one of my favorite veg anyway but with just a couple of other ingredients and pretty quick cooking and prep they are taken to a whole other level.

Cumin with Beef - Zi ran niu rou (孜然牛肉)
serves 2

250g v. good quality beef steak, cut into 1-2cm wide slices 

½ red pepper, cut into strips 1–2cm wide on the diagonal
½ green pepper, ditto
4 tbsp rapeseed oil
2 tsp ginger, finely chopped 
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped 
1 fresh red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped 
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried chilli flakes (or to taste)
1 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)
1 tsp chilli oil with sediment
2 spring onions, green parts only, finely sliced
1 tsp sesame oil
for the marinade
4 tsp Shaoxing wine
½ tsp salt1 tsp light soy sauce
1½ tsp dark soy sauce
1½ tsp potato flour

Mix the marinade ingredients with 1½ tbsp water in a bowl and stir the meat in. Set aside

Heat a wok over a high heat and when hot add 3 tbsp and swirl it around.

Add the beef (keeping the marinade to one side) and quickly stir-fry to separate the slices. When they have, but are still a bit pink, remove from the wok and set aside.

Return the wok to the flame with the remaining oil.

Add the ginger and garlic and allow them to sizzle for a few seconds until fragrant, then tip in the peppers and fresh chilli, and stirfry for a few minutes.

Add the beef slices and the marinade back into the wok, giving everything a good stir before adding the cumin, chilli oil and chilli & red pepper flakes. 

After a minute or so when it is all sizzling and fragrant add the spring onions. Stir around for 30 seconds then remove from the heat, stir in the sesame oil and serve with plain rice and the beans as below.

Sichuan-style Broad Beans with Spring Onion

serves 2

440g broad beans (about 145g podded)

salt

1½ tbsp oil

1 small garlic clove, finely chopped

2 spring onions, finely sliced

Sichuan pepper oil

Boil the podded beans in lightly salted water for 3-4 minutes then refresh under cold running water. When they are cool enough to handle, slip the skins off the broad beans.

Heat a small wok over a high flame, add the oil and thrown in the garlic & let sizzle for a few seconds.

Add the beans, the white parts of the spring onions and a little pinch of salt. Stir fry for a few minutes until the beans are heated through.

Add the green parts of the spring onions, stir around and then take off the heat. Sprinkle in a little Sichuan pepper oil and serve with the beef and steamed rice.

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Pork with Beans & Green Peppercorns

I have a lot of recipe documents & documents with lists and lists of links to recipes.. sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming and I am sure there are dozens of recipes that I have wanted to try and they just get lost in the veritable megabytes of recipes that I have.

I also have a ton of recipe books - both in storage and temporarily loaned to a friend (read: in cheaper storage) as well as at home. And of those books, there are some that I have never cooked out of.

So I decided, for a while at least, to operate a “page at random from a random cookbook” policy interspersed with cooking from my “Food Ideas” document.

The first page flipped to happens to be in Bill Granger’s “Everyday Asian” bought as not only did it get pretty good reviews but also as, as the name suggests, it has a range of Asian cuisines covered: Singaporean to Japanese to Korean.

This is Thai, and in fact is also featured in my Thai bible, “Thai Food” by David Thompson. Now the latter is, in all honesty, pure brilliance and everything I have ever cooked from it is utterly fantastic. But, David Thompson always feature a lengthy ingredient list and one which, if you do it right (and frankly you feel you should), involves a trip to Chinatown.

I’ve no doubt that the DT version of this would be more authentic, and possibly even more delicious. But this was a Saturday night, we wanted to eat and having the ingredients to hand, BG it was. And it was entirely delicious anyway.

I did make some minor changes: palm sugar rather than granulated, and the addition of a couple of kaffir lime leaves, as well as various changes in quantities. I also changed the way the dish itself is cooked, using more of a DT method by frying the paste.


Pork with Beans & Green Peppercorns
serves 2

200-250g pork shoulder, cut into strips
2 tbsp green curry paste
1 tbsp groundnut oil
2 green chillis, deseeded and finely chopped
200g green beans, cut in half on the diagonal
150ml coconut milk
2 tbsp fish sauce
½ tsp palm sugar
1 tbsp green peppercorns (from a jar)
2 kaffir lime leaves, shredded
small handful basil leaves, torn

Heat the oil in a wok and when hot add the curry paste. Fry over a medium heat for about 5 minutes until the paste is fragrant and fairly dry.

Add the pork and continue to stir fry for a few minutes.

Add the chilli and green beans and cook for a few minutes more.

Finally add in the peppercorns, coconut milk, fish sauce, lime leaves and sugar. Stir it around a few times so that it is all well mixed and heated through.

Taste and adjust very carefully for sweet (sugar) and salty (fish sauce).

Serve with steamed rice with the torn basil leaves scatter over.

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Panamanian Fish with Rice & Peas

This, I believe, is a Panamanian recipe of a kind of “escabeche de Pescado” (I’ll get to that) served with Arroz con guandú - or rice with (pigeon) peas.

Panamanian cuisine is uniquely and richly mixed - as a land bridge between two continents, there are an unusual variety of ingredients and the cuisine itself reflects its diverse population: African,Spanish, Native American, Asian with foods tending to be less pungently spiced that its Latin American and Caribbean neighbors.

The pigeon pea itself has many names: Gandule bean, Congo pea, gungo pea, gunga pea, and so on. The rice with pigeon peas is obviously very similar to “Rice & Peas” which in the UK tends to be made with kidney beans. A little word of warning regarding the Scotch Bonnet - don’t chop it up whatever you do - you want it to infuse the rice with a warm aroma rather than (blow the back of your head off) spice!

The fish in tomato & pepper sauce reminds me of a fish escabeche - an Afro / Antillean meal apparently brought to Panama during the construction of the Canal. Escabeche refers to a dish of either poached or fried fish marinated in an acidic mixture (usually vinegar) before serving.

I came across the recipe here and I can’t really remember what impelled me to cook it but I am very glad I did - very tasty, very comforting. By the way, I don't usually write cup measures in my recipes as it is a very specific thing; in this case it just seemed easier to do so where I have. If you don't have a culinary cup set (but they are pretty handy), 1 cup is equivalent to about 250ml.


Panamanian Fish with Rice & Pigeon Peas
Serves 2

For the rice
150g long grain rice
1 cup coconut milk
1 cup boiling water
½ tsp caster sugar
150g tinned pigeon peas, drained
small handful of fresh coriander, finely chopped
1 scotch bonnet chilli, left whole

Put the rice in a heavy bottomed saucepan that has a lid and mix in the pigeon peas, sugar, coconut milk and water. Bring to a boil.

Give the rice a good stir, turn down the heat to low, place the chilli on top and then cover the pan with a lid.

Cook for 15 minutes but give it a stir halfway through cooking time.

Once done take off the heat, stir through the coriander and leave to one side, covered until you are ready to serve.

For the fish

2 sea bass filets
1 ½ cups soy sauce
grind of fresh nutmeg
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
plain flour
1 onion finely chopped
4 garlic cloves
1 vegetable stock cube
1 ½ cups water
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp dry Mexican oregano (or normal if that is what you have)
2 big tomatoes finely chopped
½ red pepper finely chopped
½ green pepper finely chopped
2 tbsp of the soy marinade (or to taste), from the fish
2 tbsp olive oil + a little extra

Marinate the fish in the soy sauce, nutmeg and salt and pepper for at least half an hour.

Remove from the marinade, shaking off the excess and dredge the fillets in flour.

Fry in a little olive oil for about 3 minutes per side until golden brown.

Remove the fish from the frying pan and wipe it out with kitchen towel.

Put 2 tbsp of oil in the frying pan over a medium-low heat and add the onion, garlic and crumbled stock cube. Let the onions soften for about 5 minutes.

Add the vinegar, peppers, water, oregano and tomatoes with a couple of tablespoons of the soy marinade from the fish and let the sauce simmer on a low heat for 20 minutes or so.

Lay the fried fish fillets on top of the sauce and gently cook for a further 5 minutes.

Divide the rice between two plates, place the fish on top and spoon over the vegetable sauce.

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Lamb Meatballs with Broad Beans, Herbs & Lemon

A lamb recipe swiftly followed by another if only to prove myself a liar.. In the last post I mentioned that I couldn’t get hold of any broad beans anywhere near me - well, only the next day, on the way back from lunch at Mum’s we made a slight detour to the Waitrose in the City and hurrah! There they were. Big smiles. I should point out that I tend to have a 4-6 week lag between cooking things and blogging them so at the time they were of course in season.

This recipe is one of the reasons I had been on the hunt for them (just to be clear however, out of season feel free to use frozen). One from Ottolenghi featured in his recipe book “Jerusalem” I had seen it mentioned on a few forums & posted comments on blogs but the only link was to an expired copyright page (and therefore non-existent) on the Food section of the Guardian online*.

I’m nothing if not an expert googler (in my world) so did eventually find a few other blogs that had cooked it themselves and had kindly provided the recipe (here and here are two of them).

Minor changes: the original recipe had ⅓ lamb to ⅔ beef - I love the depth of flavour and sweetness to lamb mince and this sort of ratio is kind of inconvenient so I just used lamb. On this occasion I was unable to get hold of dill so I left this out but very slightly increased the quantity of the parsley, mint & coriander.

This was utterly delicious: richly flavoured succulent meatballs in a lovely fresh & fragrant lemony herby broth. With of course one of my favourite vegetables: a definite keeper.

* Edit - as it turns out the recipe on the Guardian website is now, weirdly back up and can be seen here (maybe I imagined it had been removed...)


Lamb Meatballs with Broad Beans, Herbs & Lemon

serves 2

2 ¼ tbsp olive oil175g fresh broad beans 
2 sprigs thyme 
3 garlic cloves, sliced
4 spring onions cut on the diagonal into 2cm pieces
2 tbsp lemon juice
250ml of chicken stock
Salt & black pepper
For the meatballs
225g minced lamb
½ red onion, finely chopped
60g fresh breadcrumbs (or those handy ready made ones from Waitrose!)
1 ⅓ tbsp (i.e 1 tbsp + 1 tsp) flat leaf parsley, chopped
1 ⅓ tbsp mint, chopped
1 ⅓ tbsp coriander, chopped
½ tbsp of each of the herbs to finish 
1 large garlic clove, crushed
½ tbsp baharat spice mix 
½ tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp chopped capers 
1 egg, beaten (but only use half)

Place all the meatballs ingredients into a large bowl with about ½ tsp sea salt flakes and a hefty grind of black pepper and mix well with your hands.

Shape into pingpong sized meatballs - you should get somewhere between 10 and 14.

Sear the meatballs in a ½ tbsp of olive oil in a sauté pan (for which you will need a lid) over a medium heat until browned.

Remove from pan, set aside and wipe the pan clean with a paper towel.

Meanwhile blanch the broad beans in boiling salted water for 2 minutes then run under cold water.

Remove the skins from about half the beans, discarding the skins and setting the skinned beans aside.

Heat the remaining oil in the sauté pan used previously and add the thyme, garlic and spring onions. Cook over a low-medium heat for about 3 minutes.

Add the unshelled broad beans, 1 tbsp of lemon juice, 100ml or so of stock (the beans need to be almost covered), a pinch of salt and again, plenty of black pepper. Cover the pan and cook on a low heat for about 10 minutes.

Now return the meatballs to the pan and add the remaining stock, cover and continue to simmer for about 25 minutes.

Check the seasoning and adjust if necessary. Add the extra reserved herbs, remaining lemon juice and the shelled beans.

Stir everything together well, but gently and serve immediately.

This can be served with rice but we had it with some nice bread.

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Lamb Cutlets with Warm Bean + Pea Salad & Roasted Tomatoes

The bf wanted lamb, and I had seen this recipe earlier in the week so, as far as I was concerned, job done.

It was a Gordon Ramsay recipe on the BBC Good Food site I had seen. Or at least I found out that it was later, I actually saw it on another site first that had made no reference at all to Gordon Ramsay and it was only after further research that I found it, word for word, on BBC Good Food. I’m sure that happens quite a lot in fact so to make it clear - you can find the original recipe here!

As usual, a few changes were made - for a start, I chose to use individual cutlets rather than a rack mainly because the last remaining rack in the shop was tiny (less than 200g I think - i.e. barely enough for one greedy person) but also as I thought I would “simplify” matters in doing so. If I had engaged brain for a moment it would have been pretty apparent that this was balderdash - browning the fat side of a rack of lamb is actually pretty quick & easy. Six Individual cutlets? Not so much.

A couple of other changes were made with the vegetables: I hadn't been able to get my hands on broad beans, for love nor money (and in season!) in any of the supermarkets near us and our freezer is similarly lacking in stock so I used frozen edamame (soy beans), frozen petis pois and fine green beans. And I can’t remember the last time I saw a plum tomato in the veg section which means common or garden (although very ripe) tomatoes were used instead. Taste-wise I am sure it made little difference but plum tomatoes do have that nice barrel quality that holds its shape rather well.

Lamb Cutlets with warm bean & pea salad & roasted tomatoes
serves 2

For the roast tomatoes
1 tbsp olive oil
3 ripe tomatoes, halved
a few sprigs of thyme 
3 cloves of garlic 
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
a small handful of basil leaves
For the lamb
6 lamb cutlets 
1 tbsp olive oil
15g butter
4 garlic cloves, bashed, skin left on
a few sprigs of thyme 
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
For the warm bean & pea salad
150g frozen edamame 
150g fine beans, trimmed
50g frozen petis pois 
1 tbsp olive oil
1 shallot, halved lengthways and finely sliced 
small handful flaked almonds, dry toasted 
For the dressing
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Heat the oven to 200C.

Heat the oil in an ovenproof frying pan or skillet and fry the tomatoes cut-side down.

Add the thyme and garlic and continue to cook until softened and slightly coloured.

Turn them over, drizzle with balsamic, then roast in the oven for 20 mins until soft and caramelised. Once cooked, take out and leave aside to rest.

While the tomatoes are roasting, cook the lamb. Season the cutlets generously and heat the oil and butter in another ovenproof frying pan (if you don’t have another, as I don’t, fry in a normal pan and then transfer to a roasting dish).

Place the lamb cutlets (I did this in 2 batches as unless you are actually cooking a rack of lamb it can all get a little unwieldly), fat-side down, in the pan and scatter round the garlic and thyme. Brown the lamb fat really well, then give each of the sides a little colour.

Baste the lamb with the pan juices, then transfer to the oven alongside the tomatoes for 10 mins then remove from the oven and leave aside somewhere warm to rest.

While the lamb is cooking, prepare the bean & pea salad.

Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and cook the edamame (or broad beans!) for a few mins. Scoop them out with a slotted spoon straight into a bowl of iced, cold water.

Boil the fine beans in the same water for 2 mins, then add the peas and cook both for a minute longer. Drain, plunge into iced water, leave for a minute or so then drain again.

Meanwhile heat the oil in a frying pan and cook the shallots for a couple of minutes until they start to soften and just colour, then add the fine beans and peas. Cook for a minute or 2 (you are just heating them through), then throw in the almonds followed by the edamame.

Scatter the basil over the tomatoes and make the dressing by whisking the oil and vinegar together.

Arrange 3 chops per plate on top of the bean salad on one side of the plate, with 3 tomatoes halves each down the other side. Drizzle the dressing around and serve.

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