Experiments with Gousto #9: Mediterranean Fish Stew & Sunny Aioli

Here we are with the final entry in the current run of Gousto recipes, and any others will be appearing on Instagram, while my more 'experimental' efforts, or anything particularly fun or interesting, will continue to appear - sporadically - on this blog. This recipe is the one where I ended up eating both portions because my girlfried was away - I had one portion on the Friday, when I did the actual cooking, and the second for lunch on the Saturday.

This turned out to be a Very Good Thing as it didn't all go according to plan on the Friday.

As before, I got the chopping out of the way ahead of time, attempting to be clever and using the mandoline for the onion, but mistaking the 'julienne' attachment for the 'fries' attachment and consequently setting the blade too low. This still gave me sliced onion, but with deep grooves cut into it rather than allowing it to separate into nice, small chunks. I did the carrots the old-fashioned way and chopped the garlic as finely as I could (news flash - still not that fine), where I'd grated it for a couple of the previous recipes and got uncomfortably close to grating my fingers. I should, perhaps, have used the garlic press for broadly similar results, but that didn't occur to me at the time.

The second step of this recipe confused me: heating a frying pan with "a drizzle" of olive oil and 15g of butter. Why so vague with one measure and so specific with the other? And using oil and butter? Surely one or the other would be more usual? Nevertheless, I followed the instructions as described. The stew part of the fish stew was easy enough, but puzzling on at least one other point: the inclusion of star anise. Now, clearly, I'm no expert in culinary matters, but star anise is described online as "one of the central spices in Chinese cooking", and supposedly has a strong anise flavour - whatever that may be - and a licorice-like aroma. I'm a big fan of licorice, and I have to say there was no licorice aroma. I couldn't say whether its presence in the making of the stew had any effect on the final flavour, but it had none that was discernible to my palate. I'd have to try cooking this again without star anise to be certain.

As with the previous recipe, I started preparing the stock ahead of time as well, though this one required the addition of turmeric to turn it into the required "yellow stock". Turmeric may well be the bane of my existance, but we'll get into that shortly... For now, let's focus on the stew. Any recipe which can be completed in one frying pan or saucepan is always going to be a winner, so I really liked that every stage of preparing the stew was simply a case of adding the next thing to the frying pan. With the onions, carrots and garlic cooked to the point where the onion was softening, the tomato paste went in, followed shortly by the stock and the olive, and the whole thing was left to reduce on a low heat while I switched over to preparing the sunny aioli and baking the rolls, which I'll go into separately. The fish caused an interesting complication, in that I was preparing the stew in a frying pan which has no lid, so I had to improvise - upending a wok and balancing it on the rim of the pan for the few minutes required to cook the fish. The final stage was simple enough - add in some of the fresh parsley, remove the star anise (which took longer than expected because it had managed to disguise itself very successfully), then serve with more of the parsley as a garnish, a ciabatta and the sunny aioli...

...Which is where it went awry for me. It's not often, even with an amateur like me working in the kitchen, that a recipe goes so wrong that something actually breaks. Sure, I've had cheap-and-cheerful bits of kitchen equipment break (most recently the Ikea can opener that was part of my kitchen starter kit, basically dissolved thanks to its cheap, plastic construction... it's almost 10 years old, but barely used). The sunny aioli seemed to be going swimmingly, too, until I lost my grip on the bowl I was using to mix it, allowing it to tumble to the floor - trailing sunny aioli - break unrecoverably and spill what little of the sauce wasn't already staining the white plastic/rubber of my fridge. Hence, the first photo features no sunny aioli.

It's probably a good thing my girlfriend wasn't around for this one, because I came very close to losing my temper over the breakage and spillage, and spent the evening grumbling to myself and cursing the bowl for its slipperiness. It had all been going really well up until that point, so falling at the last hurdle was a huge disappointment.

My second attempt, for lunch the following day, went far better, and the sunny aioli really added to the overall flavour. I may have to figure out other ways to use a similar sauce. This is a really lovely fish stew, and I'd definitely like to try making it again... though I'm not quite sure what the ciabatta adds to the meal, other than being something to soak up the last few drops of the stew.

In retrospect, I'm puzzled by the instruction to drizzle olive oil over the ciabatta rolls before sticking them in the oven. I ended up doing one with and one without the oil and, yes, there's a massive difference in the result... but the one with oil ended up extremely tough and crusty, while the other was more like what you might buy in a shop. I'm not massively keen on super-crusty bread, but each to their own...

Experiments with Gousto #8: Wholesome Haddock & Apricot Tagine with Bulgur

And so we come to the penultimate post in this new round of Gousto recipes... and if there was a duffer in the selection, this would be it. Not that it was bad, just not as outstandingly good (or fun to prepare) as the others. This recipe also featured a couple of tasks that had to be kept on the go at the same time, which isn't something I find particularly easy in the kitchen. The daftest part, for me, was the opening instruction, which breaks down into three separate tasks: boil a kettle (the quantity of water isn't specified, but is more than my kettle can handle, for reasons I'll explain shortly), peel and chop the onion, peel and dice the carrot. Since I knew that peeling and chopping/dicing the veg would take more time that the boiling of a kettle, I did that - along with pretty much all the other chopping - before even filling the kettle, and feel that's the safest option. It's not as if step 2 (actually steps 4 and 5, if we're being fussy) makes use of the boiled water, and step 3 (AKA steps 6 and 7) doesn't start with "Meanwhile...", yet the actions in step 2 take 5-8 minutes. Thus, following the recipe to the letter would result in the water cooling off during that stage, throwing off the timing for the rest of the recipe.

Going from memory, I think I also prepared the vegetable stock before starting to cook the carrot and onion pieces, because step 4 (steps 8-11) includes making the stock as its last instruction before switching back to working on the onions and carrots in the pan.

I did, for a while, have the bulgur wheat and the early stages of the tagine cooking simultaneously, but the alarm going off for the wheat pretty much shattered my concentration. I also found that the full kettle of water I started out with wasn't sufficient for the 10-15 minutes cooking time... Not sure whether that means I cooked it for too long, or just that I need a bigger kettle (or to boil the water in the pan rather than using the kettle at all), but I had to boil the kettle again to top up the pan at about the halfway point, because it looked as though it would boil dry otherwise.

Like the previous recipe, the instructions say to add a lot of dry stuff to the pan ahead of the stock and, again, I find this counterintuitive. Not to say I didn't do it that way, or that I don't think it works, just that it doesn't make sense to me to add three lots of ground spices, chopped garlic and ginger and a relatively small quantity of tomato paste to a pan of onion and carrot, cooked in a drizzle of olive oil. Granted, the onions will start to sweat some of their fluids out, but it's still a fairy dry pan, and the spices will tend to clump. The next instruction is to cook "until fragrant"... which is tricky to follow, as I'm not sure I trust my nose in the kitchen... particularly with allergy season in full swing, and not long after chopping the onions...

Nevertheless, from here on, the recipe became much easier to follow, except inasmuch as I really need to figure out what constitutes 'low heat', 'medium heat' and 'high heat' on my hob... Its highest setting always seems a little too aggressive, but the general idea at this stage was to boil off some of the water to thicken up the sauce. That said, the instruction to aim for "a curry-like consistency" isn't especially helpful to one who doesn't tend to eat a lot of curry. I had a broad idea of what was meant, and did a fair job, I think, but still wasn't convinced by the finished product.

Probably the hardest part came when the fish was added, because ensuring white fish is cooked through when it's in a strongly-coloured sauce is a bit of a fine art - it needs to get to the stage where it flakes easily, but not so far along that it starts drying out. Since the instructions say to chop the coriander and mint at this late stage, I made sure to do it in advance to avoid any last-minute stress, or the risk of over-cooking the tagine.

Curiously, while the instructions say to "serve the haddock & apricot tagine over the bulgur wheat", all the photos show the two served side-by-side and very separately. The problem with following the instruction rather than the images is that the sauce is inclined to soak down into the wheat, so what I served up looks much less impressive... and not just because of my haphazard chopping of the coriander and the mint. It also seemed very anaemic - the photos depict a tagine that's bold and warm-looking, all browns and reds... mine ended up more beige and orange.

Now, I described this as the duffer of the set and should explain why. I liked this meal - as did my girlfriend, who actually had her share when she got back home late that evening - but the flavour wasn't as captivating as some of the other recipes. By comparison, I have to say I found it a little bland. It's worth noting that the recipe describes "diced apricots", but what was supplied was a bag of diced, dried apricot, so it's possible that working with fresh fruit would yield better results. Haddock doesn't have a particularly strong flavour of its own, but it didn't really pick up as much from the sauce as I'd hoped... and then the wheat was extremely plain. My girlfriend suggested some kind of seasoning for the wheat, so perhaps cooking it in another batch of vegetable stock would improve it... or, at the very least, adding more than just salt to the water.

With the end result of this being so underwhelming, I'm somewhat keen to try it again sometime - perhaps I missed something, perhaps the incredients weren't quite ideal in some way, perhaps I needed to chop the onion and carrot a little more finely. I'd also argue that, going by the photos on the recipe card, the quanity of mint and coriander supplied for the garnish was far in excess of requirement.

Experiments with Gousto #5: Scandi-style Mackerel & Potato Salad with Spinach

The final recipe of the first new Gousto box didn't really require that much actual cooking, and yet I still managed to balls up one of the simpler tasks on my hob. This is partly due to the wonky timings in the recipe - something of a running theme, I'm finding - but mainly due to me splitting my attention between two small tasks that shouldn't have been attempted simultaneously. Nevertheless, this turned out to be a rather anticlimactic finale to my first foray into preparing evening meals for two again.

It probably would have been a lot simpler to break this up into two entirely separate tasks - the potato salad being one, with everything else in the second.  The potato salad is the most complicated task, in that the potatoes have to be chopped in half, then boiled for about a quarter of an hour, then drained and, ideally, allowed to cool. It's entirely possible, given the length of time it generally takes me to chop things, that the whole point of the recipe as it's presented is that you complete step 1 (cooking the potatoes) before even starting on step 2 (preparation of the spinach salad). However, since I wanted to ensure everything was ready ahead of time, I'd chopped the dill, the spring onions, the garlic and the potatoes as one task, a couple of hours earlier than necessary, and put the results back in the fridge till they were needed.

Then again, this particular recipe was a little 'pre-disastered' by the fact that the yoghurt container had apparently exploded in transit. It was in a small, sealed plastic pot - a miniature version of the average yoghurt pot you can buy in a supermarket - contained within a plastic bag of its own. When we unpacked the box all the ingredients came in, the inside of the plastic bag was coated with yoghurt, so the whole thing had to be thrown away. Thankfully we had a large, open container of essentially identical yoghurt already in our fridge, and we had more than the 80g worth required by this recipe. I was a little worried during the last stage of preparing the mustard dressing, in that it initially seemed as though the lemon juice was curdling the yoghurt. Thankfully a good stir sorted that out. The real problem - but still not the balls-up I mentioned at the start - was that the potatoes were still quite warm when I added them to the dressing, so it immediately got thinner and runnier than it should have been.

Where it went undeniably wrong, and mostly down to my mismanagement of the tasks, was with the almond toasting, believe it or not. It should only take about 2-3 minutes according to the recipe, but it was at this point that I realised I hadn't sorted out the mackeral, so I started to remove the skin and flake the fish while the almonds were still on the hob, resulting in a selection of flakes ranging from 'lightly brown and toasted' to 'utterly burnt'. Next time I do this - and there almost certainly will be a next time for such a simple and delicious meal - I'll make breaking up the mackerel one of the first tasks because, once flaked, it can be put back in the fridge till it's needed. I'll also be sure to boil the potatoes further ahead of time so they have a chance to properly cool, and possibly put them in the fridge at that stage, rather than just after chopping them. Everything else is quick and simple - preparing the entire meal is timed at about 20 minutes, after all - though I reckon a more generous portion of mackerel would improve it no end. The other issue is that the spinach salad seems like a bit of an afterthought - a plate-filler - compared to everything else. It's literally just baby spinach drizzled with olive oil, then seasoned with salt and pepper. A more complicated dressing may have helped but, obviously, you wouldn't want it to clash with the mustard dressing in the potato salad.

The next batch of Gousto recipes arrived yesterday, and I've prepared the first of them already... but expect a slight delay in posting about it as I'm trying to get other stuff done in the meantime.

I just hope I don't leave it too long, resulting in another batch of drafts that I can't finish...

Smoked Haddock Paella (sort-of à la Slimming World)

I'd like to call it a tradition that I cook dinner while I'm off work but, over the last couple of years, Courtney and I have usually been doing something - like taking a holiday - which means there's actually not much of an opportunity to cook, and when I'm off work due to illness, cooking couldn't be further from my mind. This week - coming at a bad time for going away - has presented the first good opportunity (other than, y'know, every frickin' weekend) for me to get back into the kitchen and prepare some meals from scratch... But it didn't happen without a struggle. We'd talked about it a while back but, in the run-up to the week, Courtney became reluctant to pick meals for me to cook. I had previously become a little stressed during other stints in the kitchen and she felt that she wanted to spare me the upset.

Nevertheless, a handful of recipe suggestions were eventually teased out of her and, on the Wednesday, I tried my hand at an adaptation of a 'Syn-Free' Slimming World recipe for a vegetarian/vegan paella, with a bit of fish added because we happened to have it in the freezer, otherwise unused. There were a couple of other changes to the recipe, so I'll give this the full write-up...

Ingredients:

• Smoked Haddock (a couple of small fillets should be enough)
• Onion (one of a decent size is sufficient, to be sliced)
• Garlic (a couple of cloves, to be crushed)
• Peppers (one red, one yellow, to be sliced)
• Tomatoes (four, to be sliced - the original recipe specifies plum tomatoes, but I used the normal kind)
• Lemons (one to be juiced, one to be cut into wedges)
• Peas (200g, frozen)
• Artichoke Hearts (one 400g tin - equating to about 240g of artichoke when drained)
• Arborio Rice (largely because we couldn't find anything called 'Paella Rice', 350g)
• Paprika (2 teaspoons)
• Cumin (1 teaspoon)
• Turmeric (half teaspoon)
• Saffron (just a pinch, however one measures that...)
• Vegetable Stock Cubes (3 should be sufficient, to be dissolved in about a litre of water)
• Salt & Pepper (to taste) 
• Cooking Oil (to lubricate the wok in the initial stages)

Preparation Time: About an hour, less if you're better at slicing and chopping - or generally more organised - than I am

Tools Required:

• 1 Large Wok or Frying Pan
• 1 Saucepan (large enough to comfortably accommodate 1 litre of boiling water)
• 1 Kitchen Knife
• 1 Mandoline (because it makes slicing the onion far easier on the eyes)
• 1 Garlic Press
• Miscellaneous receptacles to contain the ingredients prior to adding to the wok
• 2 Stirring Implements (one for the wok, one for the stock)

The Process:
This is one of those recipes where it pays to prepare in advance. Before even firing up the hob, I cooked the two haddock fillets (thawed overnight in the fridge, then approximately 5 minutes in the microwave, breaking halfway to drain the excess water, and then removing the skin and flaking the fish at the end), mixed up the spices in a small bowl (since it's easier to mix in the paprika, cumin, turmeric and saffron evenly if they're already mixed up and ready to be dumped into the wok) and chopped up all the veg. While I would never say that I've got chopping things down to a fine art, I do find it easy enough to deseed and slice up things like peppers. Slicing things like onions has become far easier for me since we acquired a mandoline (the Chef'n Pull'n'Slice mandoline from Lakeland, specifically) but, even so, I had to cover over the onion slices once finished to avoid getting all weepy. The tomatoes were slightly more complicated to slice up because they also needed to be deseeded, and that's the gooiest portion of the tomato. On the upside, none of the slicing needs to be especially fine, and all I did with the artichoke hearts was drain them and halve them. I made a lot of extra washing up by using bowls and plates to store things once prepared, so I could simply line them up and add them into the wok as I progressed. The frozen peas were measured out, then stored in the fridge till needed. One of the lemons was juiced, while the other, which only needed cutting into wedges, was set aside.

I also dealt with the stock before the main part of the cooking, putting just over a litre of water into a saucepan, dropping in the three vegetable stock cubes and bringing it to the boil. Stirring occasionally to help the stock cubes break up, I then made a start on the main event.

The wok received a spraying of cooking oil before turning on the hob to a medium heat. As a side note, I'm slowly learning how to set temperature levels on the hob - high and low being obvious, but 'medium' sitting somewhere below the median - so just about every stage of this recipe proceeded as intended. First into the wok were the sliced onion and the crushed garlic, these being cooked gently - and kept on the move to prevent them sticking to the wok - till the onions started turning golden (a little over five minutes). I did splash a spoonful or two of the stock in early as I suspect I didn't spray in quite enough cooking oil.

Next up came the peppers, with the whole lot continuing to stir-fry for about another five minutes. The next stage starts out with a flurry of activity before settling down for a long simmer: the tomatoes, rice (added dry) and the spice mix go in next, along with a small amount - about a tablespoon or so - of the lemon juice and then stirred up. The final part of this stage is adding the stock and, since I wasn't quite sure of myself on this point, I ended up adding it gradually rather than all at once. I ended up not using all of it, as the extra was just a precaution, but very little was left over. This then needs to simmer down for around a quarter of an hour or so, to allow the rice to absorb water and cook. It's worth giving it all a stir once in a while, as I did find that my rice sank to - and then stuck to - the bottom of the wok.

The final stage starts by adding the frozen peas and chopped artichoke, then simmering for another ten minutes or so, leaving you with something resembling paella, rather than a chunky vegetable soup - you want it moist, but not waterlogged. The last thing to be added to the wok, preferably in the last couple of minutes before serving, is the flaked haddock. After that, it's simply a case of serving up, seasoning to taste, then chopping the remaining lemon into wedges to squeeze over the top.

The Results:
Given the time I'd put in to preparation before I started, I was pleased to find this all progressed very smoothly. Because my worktop space is fairly limited, I'd dotted bowls and plates around the available space, piling them up as I emptied them into the wok. My biggest concern was getting the hob temperature right for boiling off the excess water to ensure the correct texture/viscosity in the end result, but the only problem with the simmering stage was that I didn't keep the rice moving, so quite a bit ended up as a congealed, crispy mass at the bottom of the wok... but even that wasn't a complete disaster, as Courtney likes crispy congealed rice.

The original Slimming World version of this recipe suggests garnishing with shredded parsley, but that's not something we tend to have in stock as it's not something we use a great deal of - it seems like a huge waste to buy some only to tear up a small amount to sprinkle over something like this. I seasoned mine only very slightly - a little salt and a touch of pepper - as I wanted to try it with as little extra flavouring as possible. I was a little concerned, for example, that smoked haddock might have too strong a taste in its own right, but that turned out OK - blending in without losing its own flavour. While the tomato pretty much fell apart, becoming part of the sauce and leaving only the strips of skin, the other veg held together well, maintained some of their bite and kept their individual flavours to a degree. Adding a squeeze of lemon juice didn't do much, and I suspect a sprinkle of fresh parsley may have been a worthwhile addition after all. I'm not entirely sure what the difference is between 'paella rice' and the arborio rice I used, but I can't imagine the results would have been massively improved by using the 'correct' rice.

Aside from all the preparation work and small amount of waste due to the rice getting stuck to the bottom of the wok, this was a simple recipe that turned out very well and restored some of my kitchen confidence. The recipe in the book isn't exactly comprehensive, assuming a certain amount of experience, but I was able to read between the lines and keep things progressing, without getting stressed out by re-reading the same lines over and over, trying to discern what I might be missing.

This is, at heart, a vegetarian dish, so it would be perfectly acceptable in its unadulterated form, yet it could easily support other white fish, or perhaps a full-on meaty component... as long as it's not something too strongly flavoured in its own right.

The quantities specified are meant to serve four, but we both had fairly generous servings, and Courtney took the leftovers for today's lunch. She had it cold, and reported that it was still quite flavourful, though she felt a bit of extra salt and pepper would have improved it, and hadn't taken any with her. She also reckoned it had reached the consistency where it could be turned into rice balls or patties, so that's perhaps something to investigate further in future.

Snapped prior to the addition of a little salt and pepper...

Sriracha Tuna Melt

I am a big fan of the tuna melt and, despite having previously only done one write-up for a very cheaty home-made version and one shop-bought frozen version, it's something I have made for myself, from scratch, quite a few times by mixing up a tin of tuna, some mayonnaise and some capers, then slapping the result into what would otherwise be a humble toasted cheese sandwich.

This week, while I've been away from work due to a lingering illness, I had a moment of inspiration while searching my fridge for the capers: I noticed a small, squeezy bottle of Sriracha sauce (acquired from Yo Sushi months ago, as a result of ordering one of their specials) and wondered what that would taste like in a tuna melt...

...And so, here's the first post of 2016 - a quick, simple and spicy variant on an old favourite. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• Bread (2 slices per melt, I used Kingsmill 50/50)
• Tuna Chunks (160g tin - 120g drained - makes 2-3 melts, depending on how generous you are with the tuna mix)
• Mayonnaise (1.5 to 2 heaped tablespoons, depending on your preference and how high you heap)
• Siracha Sauce (about 2 generous teaspoons, but basically according to your preference)
• Mature Cheddar Cheese (grated or sliced according to your preference, I used Tesco ready-sliced from a 250g pack, but had to use just over 1 slice per melt due to the size of bread)

Preparation Time: Less than 10 minutes in total

Tools Required:

• Tin Opener (duh)
• Toaster (duh, again)
• Small Bowl
• Mixing Implement of Choice (such as a fork)

The Process: 
Preheat your grill to about 170C. Open the tin of tuna, drain thoroughly, then empty into the small bowl. Add mayonnaise and stir, then add the Sriracha sauce and stir in so it's all nice and even. Toast a slice of bread for the base of the melt, then spread the mix over evenly. Top with cheese, then place under the grille and start another slice of bread toasting for the top of the melt. While the timing may not be perfect for everyone, I've found that my toaster, on my preferred setting, finishes toasting at precisely the right moment for a nicely melted cheese topping, so the moment the second slice pops up, I took the melt out from under the grill and topped it with the second slice of toast.

The quantity of tuna mix makes at least 2 melts, so the most efficient way of doing it would be to make 2 simultaneously: toast 2 slices of bread, add the mix to both, top with cheese and pop both under the grill while toasting another 2 slices of bread.

The Results:
My only concern, going into this, was whether cheese was still a suitable accompaniment for a tuna melt imbued with the spicy power of Sriracha, but I needn't have worried. Just as supermarkets have so-called 'Mexican Cheese' which is basically cheddar with added chilli, the combination if spicy Sriracha and sharp mature cheddar is excellent. I'm not sure whether capers might still be able to add something worthwhile, or whether they would clash with the Sriracha, but I suppose there's no harm in finding out at a later date...

And if you're not a fan of the tuna melt, this concoction works equally well as the filling for a baguette, or if you fancy something hot in temperature as well as in spiciness, I'm sure it could be used as the topping of a baked potato.

Spicy Tuna Melty Perfection!

Experiments with Gousto #3: Honey-Soy Glazed Salmon & Summing Up

Regular readers of this blog will no doubt have come to the conclusion that I'm pretty fond of salmon (always assuming I haven't already outright stated that I am). I've also tried to do a glazed salmon on two previous occasions already, and it's never quite gone according to plan. For whatever reason - whether something I'm doing wrong, or perhaps some quirk of my fan-assisted oven - a glaze never actually glazes, it always remains a liquid of approximately the same viscosity as when it first went into the oven. I was hoping that, by following this recipe, I'd break my run of bad luck but, sadly, it was not to be. The Gousto honey-soy glaze, if anything, became less viscous while in the oven... though, on the upside, it worked very well as a marinade - the salmon soaked up more than I would have expected. It is clear from this recipe that something has always been lacking in my previous preparations of a glaze, but I'll have to keep trying and experimenting with other recipes, cooking methods and timings.

On that subject, it was also nice to have a timing for the oven which actually gave the correct result - salmon which was neither undercooked and still slightly raw inside, nor overcooked and dry. I'd have to say that this was the best bit of salmon I've ever cooked - utterly melt-in-the-mouth succulent, and with a subtle kick from the honey-soy sauce and its little chunks of ginger. I even broke my tradition of scraping off the skin and leaving it on the plate, largely due to having been pleasantly surprised, not too long ago, by crispy salmon skin nori at Yo! Sushi.

This is also the first time - in my life - that I've ever made mashed potatoes from scratch. It's actually a point of some amusement (not to say outright ridicule) among both my family and my girlfriend's that I generally rely on instant mash, despite the simplicity of making it fresh. I think I did reasonably well with all the vegetable peeling required by all of these recipes, but I was especially pleased by the way the mash turned out, despite not giving it my fullest attention all the way through.

I think the mash could probably have used some more of the wasabi paste - the half-pot I used certainly added some zing, but it wasn't consistent throughout the mash. To be honest, though, by that point I was a little rushed, and I found that some of the mash had started sticking to the saucepan. Further delays to mix in more of the wasabi would probably have ended up burning some of the mash and, seriously, what kind of muppet burns mashed potato?

Courgette seemed like quite a strange addition to this allegedly Japanese cuisine (that's what it claims on the front of the card), but it's certainly no stranger than a dollop of mashed potato, with or without added wasabi paste. The instructions for chopping it up seemed counterintuitive: quarter lengthways, then cut into 3cm pieces? The card suggests there's a tutorial on Gousto's YouTube account, but the only courgette video I found was how to make it into ribbons... Perhaps the chopping video will come along later.

I did forget to sprinkle on the toasted sesame seeds at the end but, let's face it, I've made at least one cock-up on both of the other recipes, so I'm just glad it was such a minor omission on this one! It also feels like a rather stupid mistake, considering the fun I had toasting them, and watching several sesame seeds make a bid for freedom from the frying pan. I'll probably be finding the damned things all over my kitchen for the next few weeks.

The last few steps of the recipe required some overlap, and splitting my attention between the frying courgette chunks, the boiling potato chunks (and, later, the mashing of said chunks), all while keeping an eye on the time for the salmon in the oven. While I've had to split my attention between several cooking tasks in the past, I'm neither comfortable nor confident in doing so... but, on this occasion, it didn't go too wrong.

In choosing this recipe, I'd made something that was wholly for me - my girlfriend had to fend for herself on Sunday evening, so this was also a test of how well we'd work together in the kitchen while engaged on entirely separate tasks... and I think we did rather well. It did take me rather longer than it should have - I think a little over an hour rather than the estimated 40 minutes - but I suspect my speed on certain tasks would improve with practice.

Third time lucky on photos? Although my presentation is perhaps a little lacking...

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So, summing up, I'd say my experience with Gousto was very positive. The step-by-step guide to each recipe was clear and easy to follow, even if some of the steps seemed to me to be out of their proper sequence. The results of each recipe are unquestionably excellent, and I'm very keen to try my hand at another set of recipes... though that'll probably have to wait until I have some time off work, because I've not once managed to keep to the estimated timing for the recipes, meaning I was eating later than usual on each occasion. Their setup - and the whole delivery angle - doesn't quite suit my current schedule/lifestyle, but I can see it being exceptionally useful to some folks, not least because it makes it so easy to break out of the rut of ready meals or excessive weekly repetition.

There were only two real problems with the three recipes I picked out for this experiment: on the very first recipe, a redundant ingredient was listed and supplied, and on that same recipe, a hole was punched in the card right in the middle of a block of text. As long as those sorts of problem are isolated incidents, Gousto is a service which is easy to recommend. Every other problem I had with the recipes was of my own making - the frequency with which I forgot to add things was a little ridiculous, and I wasn't quite prepared for some of the work required, in terms of both kitchen equipment and culinary experience.

As as aside, I may not have had a 'Fishy Friday' last week, but I had a very fishy weekend - trout for lunch and sushi (not home made) for dinner on Saturday, then salmon for dinner on Sunday. I possibly could have organised things for a bit more variety but the fishy recipes were the highlight of last week's batch from my point of view.

If you think you might fancy giving Gousto a try (and are within the UK mainland), please feel free to use my referral code GORDO45552 for an introductory discount. Yes, that also gets me a discount on my next order, but further deliveries are currently on hold while I complete this first set of recipes and consider how this system fits in with my current... erm... 'lifestyle'.

Experiments with Gousto #2: Smoked Trout & Root Slaw

This second of three recipes from Gousto required no cooking whatsoever, only chopping of veg, larking about with dill and mixing a couple of things - perfect for a quick lunch, right?

Of course, being a household which is half vegetarian (and not pescatarian), only half of this dish was suitable for both of us so, while I was busily preparing the slaw and the honey mustard and dill sauce, my girlfriend cooked herself a couple of Quorn 'Turkey' burgers to accompany her share of the slaw.

The front of the card reckons only 20 minutes to prepare this, but I suspect that was timed against someone who is (a) very good with a kitchen knife and (b) generally pretty darned quick in the kitchen. Me? I took about 40 minutes... If Gousto can create a faff-free cookbook, I can damn well put the faff back in.

I'd actually started out with a good idea: the recipe calls for the carrot and beetroot to be grated, and for the apple to be cored and diced. While I'm lacking a corer, I was able to remove the core from the apple reasonably quickly using a kitchen knife. After that, I decided to get some more experience with our mandolin and Julienne the lot, rather than faff about with a grater for some ingredients and do my usual terrible job of dicing with a knife for the rest. Either one is likely to leave me with shredded fingers, and I'd already given myself a long, shallow cut on one finger cleaning the food chopper I'd used on the mushrooms in the first recipe.

That said, I somehow managed to very nearly do myself an injury or two with the mandolin, and that takes some doing!

The instructions are clear and simple, with nothing obliterated by punched holes this time. Even so, I managed to cock up, and left the olive oil out of the honey mustard and dill sauce, despite having it standing at the ready while I was preparing everything.

Getting the dill ready can hardly be called 'faff-free'; I probably spent at least twice the time any sensible person would have taken to strip the leaves from the stalks, and my chopping of said herb would probably cause great upset to any trained chef.

Nevertheless, and yet again, this recipe survived all my culinary shortcomings and turned out rather nicely. I got a double-helping of trout into the bargain and, while mine was left in fillet form, rather than artfully flaked as per the Gousto photography, its appearance was never going to affect the flavour.

This is definitely something I want to try again, not least to get the damned honey mustard sauce right - how anyone can neglect to add one of only four ingredients in a sauce is truly beyond me, and yet that's precisely what I managed to do. That said, I'm not certain that olive oil is necessarily as common in the average kitchen as Gousto clearly believe, because that ingredient was not one of those included in the package. I reckon they would do well to reconsider that, though I suspect it would bump up the price of a box...

I'm constantly surprised by how flavoursome a salad can be, and the root slaw turned out lovely - I'm not sure I've ever eaten raw beetroot that wasn't at least pickled, so it was good to find that I enjoyed it just as much in its raw form. I didn't even add any salt or pepper as seasoning though if (when?) I do try this again, I'll certainly give that a try to see what difference it makes.

My only other thought is that there was perhaps too much dill, even if I'd made the sauce correctly and it was distributed more evenly across two separate servings of trout, in the slaw and as a garnish on two proper portions of this dish... But if the only significant complaint here is "too much dill", I think we can safely say this is a winner.

Also, it's good to know how to make a good, simple honey mustard and dill sauce (and this one is certainly both good and simple!) since that can be applied to other dishes. Likewise, the slaw can be used as part of a cold plate during summer months, and would go well with a number of other sources of protein (including, I gather, Quorn).

This time, I only managed one shot before the camera's battery died...
but I think it's a good photo this time!

If you think you might fancy giving Gousto a try (and are within the UK mainland), please feel free to use my referral code GORDO45552 for an introductory discount. Yes, that also gets me a discount on my next order, but further deliveries are currently on hold while I complete this first set of recipes and consider how this system fits in with my current... erm... 'lifestyle'.

Fishcake Roundup

I have a funny relationship with fishcakes.

And when I say "funny", I mean either they're completely underwhelming or they make me unwell.

But, what's important here is that I don't let that put me off fishcakes. I keep trying them. And so, here's a post about a pair options from The Saucy Fish Co's new range of 'Saucy Centres' fishcakes!

Salmon and Hollandaise
Described as 'Succulent salmon and cod with a creamy Hollandaise sauce bound up with real mash in a crumbly golden coating', these weren't so much underwhelming as a clear disappointment. First off, the ratio of salmon to cod is very much in favour of the cod, almost to the point where it's pretty misleading to call them 'Salmon and Hollandaise Fishcakes'. Even the image on the box shows very little salmon in comparison to the rest of the filling. Worse than that, though, the cod plays second fiddle to the mash. Granted, that's par for the course with fishcakes these days - what was once included for binding purposes has become almost the main ingredient, simply because it makes them cheaper to produce.

The worst aspect of this fishcake is the Hollandaise sauce. I have to confess that I bought the two different kinds of fishcake listed here at the same time, and wasn't really paying attention when I decided to cook these ones first. I knew one had a cheesy sauce and, to be honest, when I was eating these, I assumed I was experiencing one of the most disappointing cheese sauces I've ever encountered. It was only later, when I looked at the packaging again, that I found I had experienced the most flavourless Hollandaise sauce I've ever encountered.

These are a great idea, but the lack of the alleged prime ingredient pretty much ruins the execution.

Smoked Haddock and Davidstow Cheddar
The moment I opened the package, I knew I was dealing with smoked haddock - the aroma is unmistakeable... and reminded me how much I enjoy smoked haddock. Just like the salmon version above, the packaging doesn't show off a mass of haddock pieces and, sadly, the photograph is accurate. Once cooked, the smell of haddock is dramatically reduced, and the flavour is all but overwhelmed by the mash.

When I wrote about The Saucy Fish Co's basic packaged smoked haddock fillet with Davistow cheddar sauce, I noted that the sauce was disappointingly light on apparent cheese flavour. There was some improvement in these fish cakes - the sauce does add to the experience, but it's still nothing special.

Again, it feels like these were made to fit a very strict budget, with mashed potato being the main constituent. It is great mash, but it should only be there to bind the fishcake together, not as a cheap filler.

My area doesn't offer a great range of Saucy Fish Co. products and, while none of the options I've tried have been outright terrible, some of them have been quite disappointing. I like the idea of a piece of fish coming packaged with its ideal accompanying sauce, but when that sauce is underwhelming, the whole product suffers. Their fish fillets can be a little on the small size, but the fish content of these fishcakes is shamefully low, and neither sauce really added a great deal to the experience.

There seems to be a bit of a trend at the moment of putting sauce inside a product (did it start with the likes of Gü puddings, or were similar things available before they sprang up? Could it perhaps be said that these fishcakes were inspired by jam doughnuts?) and, while I like the idea - because it generally means less mess when cooking, unless the product splits open - the end result never quite meets the expectation.

On the upside, neither of these fishcakes ended up making me ill, so they have restored a small measure of my faith in fishcakes...

The Saucy Fish Co. Sea Bass Fillet with Beurre Blanc & Dill Sauce

When I picked up a couple of The Saucy Fish Co. options at my local supermarket, I managed to write up the smoked haddock fairly quickly. It had always been my intention to write about this one soon after but, for whatever reason, I kept putting it off. So long, in fact, that I had to buy another just to remind myself what it actually tasted like... and even then, I've left it a good two or three weeks after eating it before buckling down... I wonder if that's a subconscious review, in itself...

What you get for your money in this package is a decent portion of sea bass and a fairly large sachet of the Beurre Blanc and sill sauce. This sauce, says the packaging, can be served hot or cold... though, since it's being added to hot fish, it's not as if it's going to stay cold for long, even if you choose not to actively heat it (1 minute in a cup of boiling water) beforehand.

Interestingly, this particular product can be pan fried, oven baked or grilled, making it a very adaptable bit of fish. Even better, the slowest method - oven baking - still only takes about 15 minutes at most, so you're assured of a very quick meal. However you choose to cook it, the fish is light and tasty.

The sauce was rather a surprise to me... since it's called 'beurre blanc', I was expecting something plain and buttery, with the dill adding most of the flavour. Perhaps I should have paid attention to the ingredients list... What I actually got was a piquant sauce that very much had a flavour of its own - so much so, that I barely noticed the presence of dill. Most of the sharpness, I'd guess, came from the combination of white wine vinegar and lemon juice. Definitely a pleasant surprise, when one is expecting a mouthful fish and mostly bland, creamy sauce.

The only significant downside is that, considering the three suggested preparation methods, and The Saucy Fish Co.'s raison d'être - matching fish to its most complementary sauce - it's somewhat disappointing that they don't also offer serving suggestions. By default, I tend to add mixed (frozen) veg and either chips or potato waffles to my dinners to round them out... somehow that just didn't seem appropriate to this fish, though, and couldn't be bothered to trawl though the interwebs for ideas (tip: new potatoes, mash, roasted tomatoes and/or green beans seem to be popular choices).

Around my area, The Saucy Fish Co.'s products tend to be on a permanent '2 for £5' offer, when I can actually find them, so I tend to pick up one of these and one of the haddock option every time I see them. They're a good product, well-priced and those I've seen tend to be of a reasonable size for the money (except the salmon - that really is miserly!)

Tuna Melt (The Cheaty Way)

Yes, gentle reader, if there's one thing you can be sure of with this blog, it's that whenever you're in the kitchen, slaving over the simplest of dishes and thinking "there has to be an easier way of doing this!"...
I know that feel, bro.

So when you get a hankering for a tuna melt, for example, but can't face the idea of cracking open a tin of tuna, risking that so-close-to-its-use-by-date mayonnaise, chucking it all together with some chopped veg, slapping it on some toast, and then chucking it under the grill, know that I have been there (apart from the mayonnaise bit - I never buy the stuff because I'd never get round to using it!)... and now I have a workable solution.

This might as well be a follow-up to my cheese'n'leftovers on toast post, because this is basically cheese'n'leftovers on toast... but with the added fun of shop-bought, ready-made tuna and sweetcorn sandwich filler separating the toasted slices of bread from that noble Cheddar.

I've been trying to think up a pun about capers, because I added some of them, but I guess I'm just too tired...

On with the 'recipe'...

Ingredients:

• 1 tub of Tuna and Sweetcorn sandwich filler (of the sort that can be found in Tesco, Sainsbury's, Iceland, etc. Generally around 170g, permanently on special offer)
• Half a Small Onion, chopped
• 1 teaspoon Capers (I used Waitrose Cooks' Ingredients 'A Spoonful of Nonparielle Capers in Brine', which I washed off prior to use)
• A Decent Amount of Cheddar, sliced, diced or grated, as per your preference
• Black Pepper, ground as a topping.

Preparation Time: about 10 minutes

Tools Required:

• Really?
• Seriously, I cheated the hell out of this one
• Erm, OK... How about... a Toaster? (or you can just toast the bread under the grill)
• Small, Sharp Kitchen Knife
• A Teaspoon maybe?

The Process:
First off, toast the bread to your preferred level of burnt. If you're using a grill to toast your bread, keep it going once it's done. If not, pre-heat the grill to about 150C. While that's happening, crack open the tub of Tuna and Sweetcorn sandwich filler. Make ready your cheese by whatever method you prefer... for this experiment, since I had no ready-grated cheese, I decided to cut a few slices, then chop them up into little bricks - a knife is far easier to clean than a grater, after all. Chop up the half onion as per your preference, then dump into the tub and stir in. Take your teaspoon of capers (washing if necessary) and add them to the mix. By the time it's all churned up nicely, the toast should be done.

Spread the embellished sandwich filling upon your golden slices. Sprinkle your bits of Cheddar atop the melange, then grind some pepper on top of that before sticking it under the grill for five or so minutes.

Results:
Since you may wish to assume a bias in my writing herein, I must confess a particular fondness for two things related to the topic at hand:

• Tuna Melts
• Finding easier, more efficient ways of doing things

This satisfied on both counts and, additionally, in that it was a really tasty snack dinner this evening. I know onions are pretty much a mainstay in a good tuna melt, but I'd never have thought to add capers.

Largely, this is because I have no idea how to use capers in cooking, and only bought them in the first place because they're listed in a recipe in that Rachel Khoo book I got for my birthday.

Not quite sure what they added to this... their flavour is noticeable... kind of like a very mild olive, only not. Whatever it was, the capers and the pepper added a certain amount of bite, and the overall effect was a nice change from my usual cheese on toast. It'd be just as easy to do this as a 'proper' tuna melt - that is, a toasted sandwich - but I fancied the 'two-halves' approach on this occasion.

What's really good about this is that it's another, slightly off-the-wall use for those tubs of Tuna and Sweetcorn sandwich filling, which tend to have ridiculously short shelf-lives, even refrigerated. The furthest Use By date I've ever seen was only about two days from the date of purchase, which seems even more strange when you consider that the Egg and Bacon sandwich fillings are labelled as lasting anything up to a full week.

Time for some cheesy, fishy capers, I'll warrant...
(got there in the end...)

The Saucy Fish Co. Smoked Haddock with Davidstow Cheddar & Chive Sauce

Regular readers may recall that, while this is the first time I'm trying an actual Saucy Fish Co. product, their advertising gave me an idea way back in January of this year. At that time, they were advertising quite prolifically, but their products weren't widely available in my neck of the woods.

More recently, a meagre selection of their fish-and-sauce packages have turned up on local shelves, so I figured it was only fair to give them a try. One observation I'd make straight off the bat is that the so-called 'salmon steak' that comes with their chilli, ginger and lime sauce is basically the size of a fish finger. I know good salmon is expensive, but that's just insulting, even as part of a 2 for £5 deal at Sainsbury's.

I picked up both of the other options on offer, this smoked haddock (an old family favourite that I haven't had in quite some time) and a sea bass fillet with another, similarly cheesy sauce. Their concept is just that simple, in their own words: "When you fancy a nice bit of fish, you want the right sauce to go with it. So we've matched our top-quality fillets with a delicious sauce inside an oven-ready bag - for a lip-smacking fish-dish that's ready before you know it."

Ignoring the way my teeth grated at a sentence begun with a redundant and superfluous "so", this particular package is somewhat like the Birds Eye "Bake to Perfection" range in that everything is contained within a bag that you literally just stick in the oven for about a quarter of an hour. They even go so far as to add a serving suggestions - creamy mash and peas, in this case - to make things easier still. Allergens are listed alongside the ingredients, though I'm tempted to suggest that 'fish' is a somewhat superfluous addition to that list. Then again, this is the age in which a fast-food restaurant can be sued for not warning a customer that it's fresh coffee was hot, so perhaps they're being prudent.

While their portion of salmon was miserly, the haddock fillet in this was a normal-sized thing, so I have no complaints there. In fact, the fillet was larger than the bag, and so had been folded over itself. Not ideal for something being cooked in a bag, but it worked well enough. The sauce in this isn't so much a sauce as it is a herb-y butter and, where supermarket own-brands and the likes of Birds Eye would tend to give you just one medium-sized 'knob' of their butter, The Saucy Fish Co. pull out all the stops and add four or five smaller servings which rattle about the fish in the bag. The end result seems to be more than the usual amount of sauce, but its appearance is nothing like the photograph on the packaging.

What the photo shows is a smoked haddock fillet topped with a thick, opaque sauce, something akin to the Mornay sauce used for Croque Madame Muffins. What you actually get - pretty much as I expected - is a runny, mostly transparent melted-butter-with-herbs affair. Some of the Davidstow Cheddar seems to stick to the bag and is rather difficult to remove while it's hot.

So, ultimately, this saucy fish was a bit of a let-down. Make no mistake, the fish is excellent, and the sauce does taste good... but the end result is not dissimilar enough to a regular smoked haddock fillet that's been slathered with butter and topped with herbs - the cheese component is barely there.

That having been said, once again, The Saucy Fish Co. has inspired me to try making something from scratch, adapting the Mornay sauce recipe to use Cheddar and the herbs, etc. listed in the ingredients, hopefully resulting in something that looks much more like the photo on the packaging.

I guess that's a success of a kind...

Adventures in Omelette #5: Salmon, Dill & Feta Frittata

Basically the same as the last one, except slightly bodged, so I won't go into great detail.

The biggest mistake was the choice of tinned salmon... It was vile-looking and oily. By the looks of it, a large chunk of meat, skin, bone and all, was cut out of a salmon, rolled up, cooked and shoved into a tin. Whole vertibrae were in there, let alone the spiky bones. About a third of the volume of a small tin was cast aside for looking nasty. It seems, perhaps, that I should have done a bit more research, as the packager in question has "tinned salmon" and "skinless and boneless tinned salmon". Next time I shall endeavour to find the latter... or use the ready-flaked salmon one can find in plastic trays.

Next up was the omission of onion and pepper... The former led to a rather flat frittata simply because there wasn't enough bulk in the mixture. The latter left some mouthfuls tasting a little bland.

Finally, I was a bit crap with the hob - since I cooked this one at my parents' place, and I'm not as familiar with their hob as I am with my own, I ended up setting it far too high. The first clue I got to this mistake was the loud hiss and almost instant cooking of the mixture as it hit the base of the pan.

Still, it wasn't an unmitigated disaster, and my parents said they liked it.

Oh, and I remembered to take photos of this one...

Turned out a little flat in the centre... but that might have been either the frying pan or the hob. The grill certainly did a good job, though.

Adventures in Omelette #4 - Tuna, Onion & Feta Frittata

After the flagrant underachievement of my last post, I figured I'd try something a bit more complicated this time. I'm not going to get drawn into a discussion about whether or not this counts as an omelette. Sure, the preparation method is a little different (unless you commonly put your omelette, half-fried, under the grill to finish it off), but this is basically an omelette by any other name... Or, more specifically, an other name: Frittata.

In many cases, the only differences between an omelette and a frittata are the thickness of the finished product, and the fact that some people seem to assume an omelette gets folded... Weird...

This is one of those fine examples of finding an interesting recipe in a book, and then basically shoehorning in the contents of my fridge rather than buying the precise ingredients. So...

Ingredients:

• 4 Eggs
• 1 Onion, chopped
• 80g Feta (approximately), crumbled
• 1 Small Tin of Tuna, drained and flaked
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil

Preparation Time: A little over 10 minutes

Tools Required:

• Bowl for mixing
• Fork, also for mixing
• Knife, for to chop onion
• Hob & Grill
• Frying pan

The Process:
Start up the hob on a medium-low heat and pour in a tablespoon of olive oil. Also start up your grill, set to about 180C.

Beat the four eggs together in the bowl, chop your onion as finely as your preference dictates, then add to the eggs. Open and drain the tuna, flaking it into the mixture with the fork. Crumble in the Feta, stir thoroughly, then add salt and pepper to taste. It's worth noting that Feta is quite a salty cheese so, unless you're a massive fan of salty foods (and have no fear of hypertension), you could probably do without any extra. Stir it all in, then pour into the frying pan which should be up to temperature by this point. Leave to fry for about 4 minutes.

When the frittata is mostly set, take it off the hob and slam it under the grill for another 4 minutes, by which time it should have fluffed up nicely.

The Results:
According to the recipe I started with, this should serve two (albeit with added salad) but, being a complete porker, I finished the whole thing myself. The main problem here is that the average small tin of tuna contains rather too much tuna. The next problem is that my frying pan is just too darned huge to make a decent, thick frittata.

On the whole, though, this turned out pretty good. I do kind of wonder if perhaps I should have fried the onions on their own for a short while before adding the rest of the mixture to the pan. They weren't completely raw, and their crunch was quite a welcome addition to the medley of textures, but they did seem a little underdone. While I was preparing this, I had an impulsive whim to add some dried chilli, but decided against... and kind of regret it because, even when I got a mouthful with a decent pepper hit, it didn't really have much impact.

The good thing about finishing this off under the grill was that it gave the Feta more of an opportunity to melt and blend into the egg. It also really does make the whole thing fluff up nicely - which will be a strange experience for anyone like me, who had never before grilled a half-cooked omelette.

Apologies for the lack of photos this time - I really have been trying to get a shot of everything (interesting) I cook but, this time, I was just too hungry...

Salmon with Chilli, Ginger & Lime Sauce

The problem with some food advertising is that it gives me ideas...

Ideas that, were I to stop and think, would lead me to suspect I'm turning into something akin to those dangerous scientists from Sci-Fi stories. You know the type - too wrapped up in the discovery that something can be done to wonder whether it should be done.

Yes... Once in a while, the urge to try something wacky overcomes my basic need to prepare something quick and - above all - definitely edible, and I end up doing something completely stupid for dinner.

But I digress.

Recently, the Saucy Fish Company have been advertising quite a bit on television and, I have to say, their wares look very tempting. Not only do they sell sauces, they sell fish along with an 'ideal accompanying' sauce, including a range of 'cook in the bag' options, along the lines of Bird's Eye's 'Bake to Perfection' line. One of the options they describe in the advert is salmon with chilli, lime and ginger. I had one of those 'lightbulb moments', realising that I had some salmon in my freezer, some chilli peppers drying on my kitchen windowsill, a bottle of Waitrose lime juice in my fridge, and several sachets of 'Very Lazy' ginger paste in a cupboard. What could go wrong?

Well, based on that previous attempt at a ginger glaze that didn't glaze, quite a lot. But did I let that deter me?

Ingredients (quantities are approximate, and for roughly 1 serving):

• Dried Chilli Pepper (about 1/4 of the pepper)
• Very Lazy Ginger Paste (2 sachets)
• Maple Syrup (2 tablespoons)
• Lime Juice (3 teaspoons)
• Salmon Fillet

Preparation Time: Approx 10mins to prepare the sauce, 15 minutes to bake

Tools Required:

• Sharp Kitchen Knife
• Small Dish or Cup
• Stirring Implement
• Kitchen Foil
• Baking Tray

The Process:
Preheat oven to approx 200-210C (for fan assisted... about 230C if not). Cut approximately 1/4 of a dried chilli pepper into small pieces and mix in with 2 sachets worth of ginger paste. Add 2 tablespoons of Maple syrup and 3 teaspoons of lime juice. Stir thoroughly, till the resulting paste is smooth.

Lay the salmon fillet on enough kitchen foil to wrap around the fillet and cover it completely. Pour (or spoon) the sauce over the top, then close up the foil, place it on a baking tray, and stick it into the oven for about 10-15 minutes.

The Results:
Actually, this wasn't half bad. I did sneak a taste of the sauce before adding it to the salmon, just to see how it was coming along, and adjusted the quantities according to whatever I felt was lacking. It didn't glaze (even after sticking it under the grill for another couple of minutes, just as an experiment), but I suspect I should have used some kind of honey rather than Maple syrup. Alternatively, grilling for longer might have worked... certainly, the run-off had not only glazed, but started burning... which is vaguely promising.

This home-made sauce isn't as smooth or as clear as what I've seen of the Saucy Fish Co's version, and I - perhaps foolishly - didn't include any of the seeds in the sauce, so the chilli didn't have as much of a kick as it might have done, but this is certainly something I shall revisit and attempt to refine in future.

Iceland Ultimate Snacks Tuna Melt Panini

You know, I'm just going to have to accept that Iceland's 'Ultimate Snacks' line is going to be a permanent and regular exception to my 'Keeping Away From The Microwave' ideal. Here, we have a freezer-friendly, ready-made tuna melt, made with red onion, which is ready to eat - from frozen - in a mere two minutes. I believe it would be doing a disservice to any blog named 'snacks & the single man' to exclude the range entirely because, cooking method aside, it fits the concept admirably.

Or does it?

On the whole, I'm going to be quite positive here. For just £1, you get a decent-sized panini which is, indeed, ready in two minutes. Whereas with the sausage and egg muffin, you have to cook it in two stages - contents first, then the whole - this one only requires that you turn it over halfway through. I'd guess this is mainly to ensure good ventilation, since its plastic bag is perforated.

While the texture of the panini's crust is never going to be the same from frozen as it is when fresh (it actually turns out soft and rather rubbery), it's really not too bad, and certainly doesn't come out soggy, which can so easily happen with dealing with bread products in a microwave. The flavour of the bread is good, and the filling actually tastes amazing - the tuna and cheese blend nicely, the red onion component is a distinct enough flavour without becoming overpowering and, hell, you can even tell there's black pepper in the mix without having to examine the ingredients list. In short, it tastes like a really good tuna melt.

But is that enough? When you look at the photo on the packaging, what you see is a panini that's full to overflowing with tuna, cheese and onion - like you'd make yourself, or the sort of thing you could buy in a high street sandwich shop or café. Sadly, the packaging is very misleading. The product contained therein has nothing like that quantity of filling - comparatively speaking, it's an almost insultingly thin smear of filling within the panini. I'd estimate that the only way they could get a photo like the one on the packaging, using the same amount of filling, would be to have piled it up around the two visible edges of the panini.

It's one of those things you must deliberate and weigh in your own hearts, stomachs and wallets. If you were to buy the components, and make one from scratch, I honestly doubt you could make a better tuna melt at a unit cost of £1... It's quick to cook, tastes amazing, and is incredibly cheap... but does that make up for the meagre quantity of filling?

Personally, I'd say it does... There are always caveats with ready-made products, but purely in terms of flavour, this is one of the winners in the 'Ultimate Snacks' line.

...But I'm adding 'tuna melt' to my list of 'Things to Try to Make From Scratch', just in case.

Young's Salmon Fillet Dinner

There's no denying that ready meals are convenient. They're there to be chucked into the oven (or Microwave, for very lazy people) after a hard day's work, ready to fill you up for the evening... but they also tend to be one-note products. Pasta bakes, lasagnes both meat and veg, fish pies and the like. All very well, and generally quite tasty... but they're not exactly 'full home cooked meals' in the traditional sense.

Young's have been doing complete 'Fish and Chips' packages for quite a while, but I'm pretty sure I've only seen these boxes very recently. The blurb promises "Wild Alaskan Salmon with sliced potatoes, carrots and peas in a creamy watercress sauce" and let's face it, gents, if a family member happened to call in the early evening, and enquired after your post-work dinner plans (as family members are wont to do), you know there's going to be a note of disappointment in their voice if you tell them you're going to heat up yer average ready meal... but tell them about wild Alaskan Salmon, all that lovely veg, and any kind of sauce, and it sounds like you're doing something really special. The box further points out that this meal includes one of your recommended five servings per day of veg, and that it constitutes a mere 332 calories, for those who are watching their waistlines.

The amazing thing about this package is that it's even microwaveable and, taking that high-tech route, it's ready in under ten minutes.

Not that I microwaved mine. Oh, no... I'm a conscientious objector to the idea of cooking salmon in the microwave. Defrost it, fine... but to cook, it has to be the oven. Or the grill. Or... well, I'm sure there are boil-in-the-bag options out there...

So, a not-inconsiderable 45 minutes later, I was tucking in to my salmon fillet dinner, and feeling much comforted by the fact that it neither looked nor tasted like yer average ready meal. I have to say that I was a little concerned by the directions - it does literally just say to slap it in the oven, film pierced, for 45 minutes... and yet it's a decent-sized salmon chunk, mixed veg and a sauce (frozen in a lump around the fish at first). How could it possibly work to just roast it all, en masse?

And yet, gentle reader, it does work... and it works fantastically well. This is probably one of the healthiest, most balanced ready-meals I've had in quite some time, and it almost felt that I was eating a meal prepared by my mother, rather than something I picked up at the local Iceland. Salmon, when frozen, has an awful habit of turning out soggy, but this fillet was perfect - soft, crumbly, full of flavour. The veg that I feared would be burnt to a crisp, or at least very dry, after three quarters of an hour in the oven were still moist, and the thinly sliced potato was done to perfection.

The only disappointment, for me personally, was the sauce. When it comes to salmon, I always prefer a good Dill sauce (which, as an aside, is very difficult to find locally). Watercress ain't the most flavourful thing on the planet, and the sauce, while creamy, didn't exactly excite the tastebuds. It also kind of melted everywhere in the container and, while I'm not exactly OCD about keeping my foodstuffs separate on the plate, I do prefer to choose what I mix with what... Nevertheless, as a 'complete meal for one', this is a roaring success, and one I'm very likely to pick up again in the near future!

Ginger-Glazed Salmon & Wasabi Mash

No idea from whence this idea was sprung, but it occurred to me only today. Naturally, the Wasabi mash part is a previously documented idea, and I'm no stranger to sticking a salmon steak in the oven so, really, the defining element is the ginger 'glaze'.

I should possibly mention that, when I prepared the Sparky Onion Gravy at my parents' house recently, there were several differences in the ingredients and the process - namely, normal onion, mild chilli powder, cornflour and a ready-made ginger paste. The end result was an entirely different gravy (normal onions being far sweeter, mild chilli powder kinda defeating the object of the recipe), but it turned out rather well, and the recipe will now stand as a milder variation on the original, for those times when a head-explodingly spicy onion gravy is not wholly appropriate.

But I digress.

The ginger paste is really what got the ball rolling on this idea. I have a stack of salmon steaks in the freezer compartment of my fridge and, since they're no use for sushi or the Teriyaki stir-fry due to being heavily waterlogged, I tend to bake them. While I was last out food shopping, I saw all these pre-prepared 'such-and-such with thingumy glaze' main courses, and thought to myself that the ginger paste should be able to make a no-brainer ginger glaze for salmon... But was I right..?

Ingredients:

• Instant Mash (Sainsbury's - half a sachet per person)
• Clearspring Wasabi powder (2 teaspoons should be sufficient, possibly per serving)
• Salmon steak (1 per person)
• 'Very Lazy' Ginger Paste (1 sachet per steak)

Preparation Time: About 10-12 minutes

Tools Required:

• Bowl
• Stirring Implement
• Baking Tray
• Foil
• Kettle

The Process:
Preheat your oven to something in the region of 180degrees Centigrade. Open the sachet(s) of ginger paste and spread the contents over the top of the salmon steak(s). Wrap loosely in foil, place on a baking tray and into the oven for about 10 minutes. Towards the end of this time, stir the Wasabi powder into the instant mash powder, ensuring it's all lump-free before adding the appropriate amount of hot water. Stir until the instant mash is ready.

By this point, the salmon steak(s) should also be ready, so serve everything up... and enjoy...

The Results:
Well... Try to enjoy, anyway. This was not a roaring success, except inasmuch as the Wasabi mash was pretty good (probably far better suited to the sausage and mash idea, frankly), and the salmon was not half bad, considering how soggy it was when thawed (seriously, I had to wring it out before I could even think about slapping that thing in the oven!). The failures were that the ginger didn't glaze - I suspect grilling would have been the better option, and it's certainly what I shall try next time - and the salmon and ginger just didn't connect with the Wasabi mash... in fact, it clashed quite horribly.

It wasn't completely inedible - far from it - but, rather than being "a party on my tongue" (yes, sorry, I like those jokes almost as much as the S&M 'pun'), it was more like a 3am brawl in the pouring rain outside a club in west London. The mash was creamy, but bitter and spicy. The ginger-topped salmon was cooked to perfection (if I do say so myself - moist, but not soggy, and it came apart delightfully) and the sweet, ginger kick would probably have been truly awesome if it had actually turned into the glaze I was hoping for. Maybe grilling would do it, maybe I'd need to add something to the ginger paste to help it along... Who knows?

Further experimentation is called for...

Link of Awesomeness #1

Tonight, I link to the foodie blog of a friend, rather than repeat its contents, for the finally-revealed secret recipe behind the Arbroath Smokies served at the awesome north London fish restaurant Two Brothers. It is a recipe I shall be trying myself - not to mention hopefully spring on my family - at the earliest opportunity.

Please, if you love your tastebuds, pop over to Crumbs123 and allow them to experience the wonder that is Tony's Arbroath Smokies.

This recipe does turn up elsewhere on the interwebs, and there's some debate as to whether the smoked fish should be Haddock or Mackeral... We tried Haddock, and it was amazing. It's a really easy recipe - the most difficult part is peeling the tomatoes - and cooks very quickly under the grill.

Birds Eye "Bake to Perfection" Wild Pink Salmon Fillets

Funnily enough, I'm no stranger to baking salmon... I'd done it a couple of times before this blog existed, simply because it's a reasonably easy way to prepare the fish in steak form. Season to taste, wrap it loosely in foil, then slap it in the oven for a while.

However, when these things came along, in their "Bake Perfect Bag" ("real foil to lock in flavour", the packaging states emphatically), I figured they had to be worth a try... if for no other reason than to give me ideas for making something similar from scratch.

The idea behind "Bake to Perfection" is that you take these bags straight out of the freezer and put them into the oven. Everything that's needed to produce the perfect salmon steak is inside the bag. Essentially, this appears to be a generous serving of lemon and dill infused butter. As it cooks, this butter is intended to melt over and seep into the salmon, while being safely contained in a bag so it doesn't spill away. The fact that it's a foil-based plastic bag means you can keep a close eye on the fish as it cooks.

And I have to say that, compared with cooking the salmon separately and then adding dill sauce, or any kind of buttery accompaniment later, these things are awesome. I don't know that the butter truly gets into the salmon, or if there's just enough of it on the outside to influence the flavour. It certainly separates itself from the dill, leaving a nice layer of the herb sat on top. And, while the dill is the second most evident ingredient in the butter, the lemon flavour is very apparent. It's very well-balanced, though. Neither flavour overpowers the other, and the pairing complements the salmon perfectly.

Having tried this, I'm tempted to experiment with a block of garlic butter I picked up a while back, and the salmon steaks I still have lurking in my freezer... it's just going to be a matter of deciding what to add to that garlic butter (other than dill, which would be rather obvious) and ensuring it's all well enough contained in foil when I start it cooking.

Birds Eye have added to their range with a "Bake to Perfection" Chicken with Chasseur sauce... so I expect to be sampling that sometime soon...

You Won't Believe It Is Sushi..! For Reals!

Because why else would I decide, upon a whim, to lark about with fish fingers? Come on, surely you remember that someone bought me an 'All You Need to Make Sushi at Home' kit? I only mentioned two posts ago.

Seriously, I shit you not. Get ready for one of the most fiddly and intricate Snacks this blog will ever behold!

Please note, though, that I love sushi, and I have the utmost respect for the chefs who train for years to prepare it for my delectation. My little foray could quite possibly be an insult to them all... but I prefer to think of it as an homage (and I'm such a reverse-snob, I had to grit my teeth to type 'an' before 'homage' there). And, let's face it, how cool is it to be able to put together sushi in your own home, even knowing that it's going to be a bit cock-eyed compared to the stuff you'd be presented with in a restaurant? After all, it's cock-eyed because that's how I made it.

The quantities alluded to vaguely herein should be more than enough for two people, possibly three.

Ingredients:

• Sushi Rice
• Sushi Nori
• Wasabi (can be purchased in several forms, I used Clearspring's Wasabi powder)
• Rice Vinegar
• Mayonnaise
• Light Soy Sauce

For California Rolls:

• Seafood Sticks
• Avocado
• Cucumber (optional)

For Vegetarian Rolls:

• Cucumber (this time - peppers, carrot, celery, baby corn, all kinds of veg can be used if you can turn it into long, thin strips)

For Nigiri/Sashimi:

• Small Salmon steak
• Small Tuna steak
  

For Tamago:

• 2 Eggs
• 1 tablespoon Sugar (I'm not kidding)
• 1/2 teaspoon Light Soy Sauce
• Butter (approx 1/2 tablespoon worth)

For Maki:

• Salmon Caviar
  

Preparation Time: Didn't keep track, but probably not as long as it felt... Maybe about an hour or so in total.

Tools Required:

• Sushi Mat
• Cling Film (optional)
• Knife
• Spoon or similar for spreading rice
• Frying Pan
• Saucepan
• 2 Pots or bowls (one fairly large, one small)

Process:
Start with the rice, as that takes longest to prepare and needs washing before use. It's a particular kind of rice - short grained, and very glutenous and sticky - so make sure you get something that's specifically described as sushi rice. Pour 250g into a bowl and wash with cold water, repeating a few times before draining in a sieve. Put 330ml of water into a saucepan and add the rice. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes with the saucepan lid on. Take off the heat and leave to stand for about 20 minutes, leaving the lid in place. Add 2-3 tablespoons of rice vinegar and stir in, then leave for another 10 minutes. It might even be worth refrigerating, because it ideally needs to be cool when you start adding the fish.

While all this is in progress, make a start on the Tamago omelette. Break two eggs into a bowl and beat. Stir in a tablespoon of sugar (really, I'm not making this up) and half a teaspoon of light soy sauce. Put the frying pan on a medium heat (this is the general omelette lesson I needed to learn months ago!) and melt the butter all over the pan. Pour in the egg mix and fry until the egg becomes mostly opaque. Flip (or, y'know, turn it with a spatula if you're not one for living dangerously) and cook through. Once it's done, remove from the heat and set aside to cool. Again, this might be worth refrigerating. When it's cooled off a bit, cut into strips of about 2x10cm.

Next comes the Wasabi. If you've purchased it in some ready-made form, all well and good. If using a powder, it'll go something like this: Add one part warm water to two parts Wasabi powder in a small bowl or pot and stir into a paste. Leave to cool. Simple, huh?

Then we have the fish. Basically, all you do for either the Nigiri or the Sashimi is cut the small Salmon/Tuna steaks into small slices, say about half to three quarters of a centimetre thick, then cut down into chunks of about 2x5cm. The most important thing to note is that the fish really must be bought fresh, not pre-packaged, and certainly not frozen! I cannot put enough emphasis on this. Where's the damned flash tag when you need it?!

It might also be worth pre-preparing your Nori sheets. Some will be kept as complete sheets for the rolls, some will be cut into strips - fairly long and thin for the Nigiri and Tamago (say about 1cm wide), wider strips for the maki (about 3cm maybe?).

Finally, have a large-ish pot/bowl containing a mixture of warm water and Rice Vinegar. This acts both as a lubricant for spreading the rice around and a means of preventing the rice sticking to your hands as you manhandle it.

California & Vegetarian Rolls:
Cut the avocado into quarters, removing the skin and stone. Cut the quarters into thin (2-3mm) slices. Place a sheet of cling film over the sushi mat (not utterly necessary but, depending on your preferences, it may make things easier), and a sheet of Nori on top of that. Take a couple of tablespoons full of rice and spread evenly and thinly over one end (using the water/rice vinegar mixture to keep your chosen spreading implement lubricated), taking up about 2/3 of the sheet, with the empty third being furthest from you. Spread a thin line of mayonnaise about 1/3 along the rice. Add the fillings (seafood sticks, avocado - and, should you so wish, cucumber cut into long, thin sticks - for the California Rolls, or chopped veg for the vegetarian rolls) on top of the mayonnaise. Roll up the mat (taking care to pull back the cling film, if used), tucking in the near end to start the roll. Wet the bare end of the Nori and roll over to seal. Squeeze the roll firmly, then remove from the mat and cut into 6-8 pieces (depending on how large you like your sushi rolls). Lay out on a plate or tray and, if not eating them immediately, place in a refrigerator.

Fish & Tamago Nigiri:
Lay out a sheet of cling film on the sushi mat and wet with the mixture of water and rice vinegar. Take about 2 tablespoons of rice and lay out in a line. Roll up in the cling film and sushi mat to create a long, thin, densely packed strip of rice. Remove from the roll and cut into chunks of about 4cm. Add a dab of Wasabi paste then press one of the salmon/tuna chunks down on top, thus spreading out the rice underneath. Wrap with one of the longer, thinner strips of Nori, wetting the tail end to seal.

The process is essentially the same for the Tamago but, since the strip of omelette is about twice the length of the rice block, you just fold it over before wrapping with a thin strip of Nori. Add all to the plate or tray with the rolls, and refrigerate if necessary. You'll probably only end up using about half the omelette, but it's a tasty enough snack in its own right and you'll probably end up snaffling some of it as you prepare the Nigiri. Any excuse will do, but the old favourite "it's a curved bit" is good for starters.

Maki:
The simplest of the lot. Prepare and cut another long, thin, densely packed strip of rice as for the Nigiri/Tamago. Round off the blocks, then take the wider strips of Nori and wrap them around the rice to create a kind of bowl. Spoon in a serving of Salmon Caviar, and add to the plate or tray with the rest.

Serve with picked ginger and a mixture to your taste of light Soy sauce and Wasabi.

The Results:
Well, I wasn't kidding when I said it'd be cock-eyed, so I can see why it takes years of training to perfect the art of making sushi. While the fish, even though bought less than an hour before preparation, wasn't as fresh, tasty or melt-in-the-mouth as the stuff you'd be served in any halfway decent restaurant, it certainly wasn't terrible. I'm not a big fan of seafood sticks - the melange of seafood just doesn't taste good on its own, as far as I'm concerned - and Salmon Caviar is certainly a taste I haven't quite acquired yet, but the overall mix of sushi was pretty darned cool for my first home-made effort.

It is an awful lot of effort, though, and I did find my concentration flagging many times during the preparation. The fiddliness of the rolls means a lot of practice would be required to get them bang on, and making a selection like this felt like a really long, drawn-out process.

I'm certainly intending to try it again sometime, but likely over a weekend, for lunch, having picked up the fish first thing in the morning.