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...

Feta & Griddled Peach Salad (BBC GoodFood '101 Veggie Dishes' Recipe)

This one may sound a bit weird, but bear with me. It was actually one of the first recipes my girlfriend and I tried from BBC GoodFood's '101 Veggie Dishes' book, but I completely forgot to write it up and left it aside for months on end. Oddly, I cannot find this exact recipe on the GoodFood website (the two recipes that are up there both include chicken in one form or another), so hopefully I can get away with listing the ingredients and details of how it's made. We didn't follow the recipe precisely as specified anyway (it was written to serve four!) and it's not as if I'd be reproducing it word-for-word...

Ingredients:

• 1 Lime
• 2 Peaches
• 1 Red Onion
• 1 Bag Mixed Salad
• Approx 250g Penne Pasta
• Approx 150g Feta
• Fresh Mint (enough for approximately 1 tbsp once chopped)
• 1 tbsp Olive Oil

Preparation Time: about 15 minutes

Tools Required:

• Griddle Pan
• Medium Mixing Bowl
• Kitchen Knife

The Process:
Start the pasta off as per your preference. This should take about 10-12 minutes, so you can safely leave that going while getting on with other bits.

Cut the peaches into wedges and squeeze the lime juice over the pieces. Since I don't have a griddle pan, we had to make do with basically toasting our peach wedges under the grill. The peaches we picked up weren't especially ripe (typical supermarket stuff), so they didn't work out very well. They're meant to go on a high heat for only two or three minutes a side, which should leave them "nicely charred". This is probably easier to accomplished with a griddle pan and with ripe peaches.

Slice the onion thinly, cut the feta into manageable pieces and chop the mint. Mix them all together with the salad leaves, pasta and olive oil in your bowl. Serve up, topping with a little pepper if you wish.

The Results:
Mixing fruit with any kind of traditionally savoury dish always sounds wrong, but gammon has been served with pineapple for years, and my local pizza place offers both pineapple and peach as toppings, so maybe I need to open my mind to fruit in my main course.

This certainly turned out more pleasant than I was expecting. The mint softened the bite of the feta and rocket, either of which can be overpowering under some conditions. The pasta component was not a part of the original recipe, and was included here to bulk up the dish, as it just seemed a bit too light and salad-y... Though perhaps that's because we cut the quantities of the ingredients. We didn't mix everything up quite as well as we could, essentially ending up with a very layered salad topped with pasta and peach, but it's certainly a good dish to try during the warmer months of the year

Mojito Lime Quorn

This was a bit more experimental than some stuff I've done, but still on the simple side, because it used a ready-mixed Mojito Lime marinade, a ready-prepared salad, and ready-to-bake seasoned potato slices.

The marinade mix came from the Schwartz 'Grill Mates' line, but I chose not to follow the instructions completely (a) because this was Quorn, not meat, (b) because we didn't have all of the ingredients as listed and (c) because I'm like that, so there.

Note that these details are for the preparation of the Quorn fillets only, any accompaniment would be dealt with separately, according the the instructions on its own packaging.

Ingredients:

• 1 sachet Schwartz Grill Mates Mojito Lime Marinade Mix
• 50ml Oil (I used olive oil rather than plain cooking oil)
• 50ml White Rum 
• 2 tbs Balsamic Vinegar (original recipe specifies white wine vinegar)
• 2 Quorn Fillets

Preparation Time: about 30 minutes, including 15 minutes marinating time

Tools Required:

• Wide, shallow bowl
• Frying Pan
• Spoon (for mixing and basting)

The Process:
Pour the oil, rum and vinegar into your shallow bowl, then add the contents of the marinade mix sachet and stir thoroughly. Add Quorn fillets to the bowl, ensuring all surfaces are covered, spooning the mixture over the fillets where necessary, then leave for at least 15 minutes to marinate. I started with frozen fillets (all I could get my hands on at the time), and the marinating time allowed them to thaw slightly before being cooked, thus reducing their cooking time slightly.

Set the hob to a medium heat, then transfer the fillets into a frying pan. Fry for about 5 minutes a side, generously spooning over more of the remaining marinade after turning. The oil in the marinade is sufficient, so no more need be added to the pan.

The seasoned potato slices I mentioned at the start were baked according to the instructions on the packaging, and were put into the oven at the beginning of the process... the salad, obviously, didn't need cooking.

The Results:
The instructions for the marinade suggest discarding all but two tablespoons of the marinade, which is used for basting halfway through the cooking time. This strikes me as rather wasteful... then again, frying the Quorn fillets made it far easier to pour on additional marinade during the cooking process, so I was probably a bit trigger-happy with it. What can I say, I like a good, thick coating on meat, so I figured it'd be especially important on Quorn, which has very little discernible flavour of its own.

The results would be very different on any kind of meat or seafood, with much of the eventual flavour coming from the meat, regardless of how long it's marinated. With Quorn you get a sweet, sharp coating that isn't quite 'mojito' because the rum doesn't come through very well - either it doesn't mix in well or it was just burnt off in the frying pan. It's possible that balsamic vinegar has too strong a flavour in its own right for this recipe, but it certainly did the finished product no harm.

It turned out very well for such a simple process, and I'm very likely to try this again using Quorn nuggets, or possibly using the alternative recipe, for 'Honey Lime Marinade', which switches the vinegar for lime juice and the rum for honey. At the very least, the next time I try this mix, I'll try leaving the Quorn to marinate overnight, so it absorbs more of the flavour. Quorn, being rather more porous than most meat, will most likely end up completely saturated... which shouldn't be a bad thing...