Sunday, March 22, 2009
Salmon and Prawns with Stir-Fried Vegetables
Whenever I'm too lazy to cook, we have something from my imaginary book of quick dinners. During the winter the main staple tended to be bangers and mash, which is a brilliant winter warmer that can be made quickly. The one thing to remember is to make biggish batches of gravy when you've got the time and freeze them for when you don't. But yesterday was a bright sunny day and we were really not in the mood for winter food. So what to do?Springtime quickies are a bit more difficult to come up with. It's not hot enough for the summer favourites of salad or sushi and too warm for stews and the like. But there is a way out...fish! It's quick to prepare (I promise, scaling gets easier with practice) and even quicker to cook. And served with some super fast stir-fried vegetables, it makes a lovely spring time dinner in about 20 minutes.
2 salmon fillets, cleaned (about 150g each)
250 g of prawns
a medley of your favourite vegetables, cut into bite-sized pieces (I used mushrooms, asparagus, broccoli, carrots and baby corn)
½ onion, sliced lengthwise
1 clove of garlic, sliced
¼ lemon, zest only
¼ tsp stock granules
2 tbsp butter
salt and pepper
oil for the pans
Pat the salmon and the prawns dry using a paper towel. Season the salmon with salt and pepper. Bring a small pan of water to the boil. Blanch those vegetables that may not get tender enough simply through stir-frying. I gave the whole baby carrots 5 minutes, the asparagus 3 and the broccoli 2, but this step depends entirely on your taste and the vegetables you use. When the vegetables are done, remove them from the water, drain and refresh in cold water to stop them cooking in their own steam.
Keep the veggie water boiling to reduce it, this will be the base of a little bit of sauce later.
Heat some oil in two frying pans, one over medium high, one over medium low heat.
Add the salmon fillets to the hotter pan, skin side down. Fry without disturbing (too much moving and prodding will prevent the skin from going crispy) for about 3 to 4 minutes.
The other pan is for your vegetables. Add the onion and fry for a minute. Then add the garlic and fry together for another minute. As my mushrooms wanted high heat, I then removed the onion/garlic mix from the pan, turned up the heat and added some more oil. I then fried the quartered mushrooms without too much stirring until they were golden brown, about 4 minutes. Return the heat to medium low.
Turn the salmon fillets over and, once again, fry without disturbing for about 3 minutes.
Add all the remaining vegetables to the mushrooms along with the garlic, onion and lemon zest and stir fry for another 2 minutes. Then add some of your reduced vegetable water along with the stock granules. Toss to coat the vegetables. Add the butter and toss some more. You should have a rich, thick glaze coating your vegetables. Season with salt and pepper as needed.
When the salmon is crispy, turn it over one last time and move it to one side of the pan. Then add the prawns to the pan. Fry on both sides until pink and slightly crispy.
When all is done, arrange your vegetables on a plate, add the salmon and throw the prawns on top. Drizzle with any pan juices you fancy.
Christine at 2:00 pm
Friday, March 20, 2009
Chicken Shock
I know this space is meant to be reserved for my own culinary adventures, but during my morning's web surfing I came across an item that I felt had to be shared with the world:
CANNED WHOLE CHICKEN!!!!!This is on of the few occasions in my life when I'm lost for words. Sort of. Things like Why? Yuck! Who in the world...? run through my head, but really, apart from such nonsense, I haven't got much to say.
Except, maybe, thank the gods, the inventors of this dish and Sweet Sue herself that the damn thing is at least "fully cooked".
Christine at 1:40 pm
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Aaaahhhh....
Success!
Christine at 1:32 pm
A few Thoughts on Coffee
I love the coffee in London! I find the great selection of high quality coffee and the near fetish-like devotion some roasters show for their beans really, really, really exciting. My coffee man in Dublin - Michael Kelly of Ariosa - had wonderful coffee and an infectious enthusiasm for quality beans. In fact, he was the one who converted me from a coffee drinker to a coffee lover, so I was very worried that I might be in trouble without him. I needn't have worried. While I still miss my weekly chat with him (and some of his rarer coffees - if you ever get a chance, try the organic Indian, it's divine for a flat white!), I have suffered no interruption in my supply of great coffee.My greatest find is Monmouth Coffee, a small chain with shops in Borough and Covent Garden. I tend to pop over to Borough Market on Fridays (a seperate post is coming next time I'm down there) and pick up my weekly supply of beans. If the weather is good, I also love to have a Macchiato and a cigarette sitting in the sun watching the world go by.
Michael in Dublin also recommended Square Mile coffee roasters. It's run by a friend of his who he promised to be just as obsessed with coffee as himself. I must admit I'm a bit shy when it comes to ordering coffee online. I want to see it and smell it at least once before I commit. But I should really given them a try.
Anyway, this wasn't originally meant to be a brief guide of the coffee roasters in my life. This post has its origins in a mistake I made this morning. Normally, I start my day with a nice, relaxing cup of coffee, a tall glass of juice and a bowl of cereal. -- Aaaahhh, the perks of being unemployed! ;o) -- Depending on my mood and the weather, I either catch up with the day's headlines from the Guardian, the Times Online and Die Zeit or I plonk myself down somewhere and read an actual paper, which is generally way out of date (the Christmas issue of the Observer anyone?). This is not to say that I see print media as outdated. On the contrary, to me it is a nod to the longeavity of their content. A good weekly publication to me is one that is still interesting months later. News age quickly and need to be consumed fast. The press give me the opportunity to get background information and analyses, which takes time and requires appreciation. I could rant on about this for ages, but this blog is meant to be about food, so maybe I'll take the news talk over to Pink Orange.
Now back to the coffee. This morning, I accidentally started doing some household chores before my first cup of joe. Big mistake! When I finally did get on with making coffee, I found that I had accidentally put my milk jug in the dish washer and just started a washing cycle. Disaster! Since my departure in Dublin - a slightly disorganised affair and a story for another day - I've had to make due with only one milk jug, so if that's unavailable, I have to use a mug. Being all into keeping waste to a minimum, I decided against using two mugs, but to simply steam the milk in and then just add the coffee to it. Another big mistake! When I finally sat down at my PC and took a sip, I remembered my dear friend Emily telling me "Never let the coffee drip directly into a mug full of milk foam, it spoils the taste". How right she was. The beans that had yesterday produced a lovely, velvety cream of goodness today hit me with an acidic bitterness and lack of depth that was astounding. I'm shocked that you can take freshly bought organic espresso beans from a quality roaster, freshly grind them yourself, brew them in an obscenely expensive Gaggia machine (thank you, Mulmi, that was a great housewarming/Christmas present!) and serve them with farm assured organic milk, but if you get the order of things messed up, the result will taste like Nescafé gone wrong. So, what's the lesson of the day?
I'll leave you with this bit of wisdom and head off to make a fresh cup of coffee. ... And wash out my milk jug. Have a good one.Christine at 9:17 am
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Re-Launch
Well, not really a re-launch...more of a revival. After a few years of living out my exhibitionist side on social networking sites, I've returned to blogging. Facebook is fun enough, but somehow I miss my monologues about all things edible. So I'm back.Initially I was going to come back with a bang - a complete redesign of this blog. Ditch the doily and bring in something fresh and exciting. But then I read a very interesting article about immobility as counter movement to the ever increasing speed of change, which made me change my mind. Don't get me wrong, I'm by no means a backward-looking reactionary. I love change. Nor do I fear speed. But the two need to be in sync with the rest of life. They are not values in itself. They do not need to be forced; they should just happen. And at the moment, the doily is not quite yesterday's news yet.
In fact, when it comes to food, the old, traditional, granny style has been the new, the hip, the done thing for a while now. This return to the past may soon be the past again - especially when we emerge from this credit-crunch (is it just me or does this sound like a candy bar???) induced recession and start to move headlong into the next adventure to forget the past/present. But while I'm frequently serving up bangers and mash, sticky toffee pudding and old fashioned meat and 2 veg (OK, maybe new-fashioned wannabe oldy), I'll stick to loving lace.
Christine at 3:59 pm
