A muse On Food

Welcome to my blog - here I will be posting ponderings about food and how my life interacts with it. I class myself as a foodie, I love buying, eating and mostly cooking food - by no means a chef, I am trying to improve year on year and take real inspiration from some of the great chefs cooking in the UK today. I have a feeling this is going to be a labour of love so please bear with me as my literary mind tries to keep pace with modern living

[amuseonfood]

Truffled mac and cheese, pulled pork. Saturday family dinner. #macandcheese #pulledpork #pork #truffle #saturdayfood #familymeal #food #foodie #foodblog #foodblogger #foodporn #foodpic #igers #amuseonfood #lovefood #lovetocook #lovecooking #amateurcook #americanclassicfood #italianamericanfood #picoftheday #instafood

[amuseonfood]

You know it’s a good day when the postman delivers a new @ricksteinrestaurants cookbook! #rickstein #ricksteinmexico #foodhero #legend #food #foodie #cookbook #amuseonfood #foodblogger #foodblog #lovetocook #lovecooking

[amuseonfood]

Japanese feast tonight. Sticky Asian pork belly, koro koro steak tataki fu (@harumikurihara recipe), sticky rice, first attempt at prawn gyoza... #japanesefood #asianporkbelly #korokoro #gyoza #steameddumplings #lovefood #lovetocook #lovecooking #amateurcook #amuseonfood #feast #harumikurihara #food #foodie #foodpics #foodblog #foodblog #foodblogger #instapic #instafood #igers #picoftheday

[amuseonfood]

Cavolo Nero, taleggio, @welbeckfarmshop sourdough toast, poached egg. Birthday weekend brunch for @gemmaprice1 at @delilahfinefoods - yum! #brunch #lovefood #welbeckfarmshop #delilahfinefoods #nottingham #sourdough #poachedeggs #taleggio #amuseonfood #food #foodie #foodpics #foodblog #instapic #instafood #picoftheday #igers (at Delilah Fine Foods)

[amuseonfood]

Gnocchi Gnocchi...(who’s there?)

Two recipes in one week - not entirely sure what’s happening!

Saturday’s main was confit cod with tarragon gnocchi, broad bean, pea and a herb oil.

This is a dish that I’ve cooked a few times, one I’m pretty happy with and one that I hoped may start me on an exciting little cookery journey. It didn't unfortunately, but more about that another time.

When it’s finished and presented, it looks like quite a simple dish and I think it is pretty straightforward and there are a couple of shortcut options if you'd prefer.

This recipe will serve 4 people. 

I’m no food economist so the recipe isn't written as well as you’d get in a cookbook (I haven’t started with a list of ingredients for example so if you did try it, you’ll need to read through first to get an idea of what you'll need) - hopefully it’ll be usable, I’ll try and improve as I write more recipes up.

First job is to make the gnocchi - this is also the first shortcut option, you could buy a pack of gnocchi from a supermarket - it would work fine although you won’t get the herb flavour running through it.

I use a Nathan Outlaw recipe for my gnocchi (he calls them potato dumplings but they're made in the same way as gnocchi so guess you can call them whatever you like!)

For this you need 3 good-sized baking potatoes, a tablespoon of parmesan, one egg yolk and 65g of ‘00′ grade pasta flour (you can get this from most supermarkets), a pack of fresh tarragon (leaves picked and chopped) and salt & pepper.

Bake your potatoes for about an hour and a half, until soft. Spoon out the potato from the skins into a large mixing bowl, add the parmesan and the egg yolk, mixing to bring all together.

Then add the flour and the chopped tarragon, salt and pepper to taste, folding together so it’s just all combined. This is a bit of a confusing instruction but you need to try not to work this too much as it can go a bit chewy.

Do all this while the potato is still warm (wear rubber gloves if that helps protect your hands from the heat) as it does make it easier to combine everything.

Bring a pan of water to the boil and a few at a time, pick off small amounts of the gnocchi dough, roll up into balls the size of a large marble and drop into the water. When the gnocchi rise to the surface, get them out with a slotted spoon and drain. 

When you’ve blanched them all, put them into a container and pour over a little oil to stop them sticking together and keep in the fridge until later.

While the potatoes are baking, make the herb oil. For this you need a packet of fresh tarragon and half a pack of flat leaf parsley, 90ml of extra virgin olive oil and 60ml of a good quality rapeseed oil mixed together.

Put the herbs into a mortar and pestle and bash until they’re well bruised. Add the oil in stages (just a bit at a time, no fixed quantity) then when all the oil is mixed with the herbs, put into a bowl, cover and leave to infuse.

After an hour or so, strain the oil through a fine sieve and if you have one, pour into a squeezy bottle (with a narrow nozzle )and put back in the fridge. (If you don’t have a bottle, just put back into a clean bowl).

For the broad bean and pea mix, you need around 100g of broad beans (like the other recipe, I use frozen here), about the same of peas, a couple of shallots and a sprig or two of tarragon.

Defrost the broad beans in cold water then take them out of the outer pod, drain on kitchen towel and put to one side. Finely chop the shallots and sweat on a gentle heat until soft then put to one side.

For the confit cod, you need 4 thick cod fillets (skin on), a bottle of rapeseed (or vegetable) oil, a few cloves of garlic (crushed) , the stalks from the parsley and tarragon that you picked earlier, fennel seed, sea salt and half a cauliflower.

This stage also has a shortcut. I added in the confit technique for a specific reason (again, more in a future post), you can bypass this and just grill the cod, for this, simply season well and grill under a hot grill - it’ll only take a couple of minutes so it’s a last minute task.

If you do want to try the confit method, first, put a good amount of salt over the fillets and return them to the fridge for at least half an hour - this firms the fish up a bit. 

A good hour before you want to cook the fish, bring the cod out and rinse the salt off under a tap, drying with kitchen towel. Place the cod into an ovenware dish, add the herb stalks, the fennel seeds and the garlic, then cover the fish with the rapeseed oil.

For the cauliflower, cut into medium sized pieces and put in a pan, covering with milk. Bring to the boil then simmer gently until tender (probably around 15 minutes). Take the cauliflower out of the milk and blitz either with a stick blender or in a food processor, adding a good knob of butter, salt and pepper until smooth. Pass through a fine sieve to get rid of any lumps and set aside.

To cook and assemble the dish, pre-heat your oven to low - you want it to be around 60 degrees or so (52 degrees is the perfect temperature but that’s very specific and tricky to manage in a home kitchen) - probably the lowest temperature setting you can use.

Put the cod into the oven and cook for twenty minutes until the cod is firm and opaque and a skewer pushed through 

Get the gnocchi out of the fridge and pan fry until golden brown all over and heated through.

In another pan, heat the frozen peas through, add the shallots and the broad beans, remove from the heat and put into a bowl, add a handful of tarragon leaves and a good drizzle of the herb oil.

Put the cauliflower puree into another pan and reheat, checking the seasoning.

To build the dish, I like to keep the three main elements separate, put an even number of the gnocchi in a pile, with a similar sized pile of the bean and pea mix next to it. Put a good spoonful of the cauliflower puree next to the other two elements, placing the cod on top of the cauliflower, resting onto the gnocchi. 

Drizzle a small amount of the herb oil around the plate and serve.

There’s a fair amount of work in this but it results in a nice and simple dish, full of flavour, light and fresh.

I think it’s worth the effort, why not give it a go!!

[amuseonfood]

Something’s a little fishy

Well, I can’t quite believe how long it is since I last wrote a post (as opposed to just lazily linking instagram pics through to tumblr) - so much so that I’m not even going to check, guessing it’ll have been a while...

I’ve been doing a little more cooking over the last few weeks and also got a bit of the bug back to write - fitting it in is never easy as I write far too many words (no 2000 word blogs for me!) and as such it tends to take too much time.

So, I will try and keep this relatively (for me at least) succinct...

Saturday’s cooking was making the most of my dwindling supply of Cornish fish in the freezer (next day delivery from either The Cornish Fishmonger or Fish for Thought, fresher than you’ll get from any supermarket).

Pretty simple cooking, taking elements from a couple of chefs recipes and bringing it together into something that worked fairly well I think.

Grilled mackerel with a citrus glaze, taken from a cook book by Brent Savage from his restaurant in Sydney, “Bentley” - simply bring honey and soy to the boil then add lemon juice & zest and sherry vinegar, cooking for a minute or so, set to one side.

Chorizo jam (taken from a Sat Bains recipe - that one pairs it with pork belly and scallop - works beautifully (as you’d expect!!)) wrapped in chargrilled ribbons of courgette. The jam uses chorizo (the raw, cooking type) and cooks down slowly with shallot, granny smith and apple juice - leaving you with just the right balance of heat, salt and sweetness, no need to add any more seasoning.

Courgette ribbons as easy as you like, use an ‘easy peeler’ on a courgette then heat up a griddle pan with a little oil, sear a few ribbons at a time, trying to get the charred lines across the courgette (I used a little too much oil and didn’t get quite the effect I wanted)

Once all the courgette is griddled, put a small amount of the chorizo onto one end of the ribbon and roll into cylinders - again, nice and easy.

Broad bean, pea and horseradish - I used frozen broad beans (keeps the freshness locked in according to birds eye), defrosted then taken out of the outer green pod - I know it’s a bit of a cheffy thing but frankly it looks loads better and tastes better too, none of the bitterness coming from the outer pod.

Frozen peas too, sweated out in a frying pan with a finely chopped shallot, add the broad beans and a couple of teaspoons of horseradish cream - I was a little unsure about the horseradish if I’m honest and didn’t use as much as I probably should as I didn’t want it to overpower everything else (it didn't).

Putting it in order, make the chorizo jam first and keep warm, chargrill the courgette in batches next, then start the broad bean / pea combo, wrapping the ribbons as that finishes off. Finally, grill the mackerel (it only takes a minute or two), then glaze with the lemon dressing.

I’ve assembled as below, I made it as a main course and it was a little small really, if I did it again I think it’d work well as a starter, less of the broad bean mix and probably three chorizo jam / courgette ribbons, still with the one mackerel fillet though.

So there you have it, grilled, citrus glazed Cornish Mackerel, courgette ribbons with chorizo jam, broad beans, peas and horseradish.

Nice and simple, bags of flavour - give it a go!!

 #brentsavage #satbains #mackerel #thecornishfishmonger #chorizojam 

[amuseonfood]

Delicious little lemon fudge puddings from @marcuswareing “At Home”. Creme fraiche was a little loose to rocher unfortunately! Rather sweet but blummin lovely! #lemonpudding #marcuswareing #dessert #sundaypudding #autumnwarmer #food #foodie #amateurcook #amuseonfood #lovetocook #lovecooking #foodpics #foodblog #instafood #condensedmilk #flavour #delicious #marcusathome

[amuseonfood]

Is it Christmas yet..? #brusselsprouts #brussels #sundaydinner #food #foodie #foodpics #amateurcook #amuseonfood #vegetables #notjustforchristmas #picoftheday #instafood #instapic

[amuseonfood]

Citrus glazed Cornish mackerel (from @thecornishfishmonger ), chorizo jam, courgette ribbons, broad beans and pea, horseradish. Simple, fresh, hanging onto summer... #mackerel #cornishfish #thecornishfishmonger #chorizo #chorizojam #simplefood #simpleflavors #myfood #mycooking #food #foodie #lovefood #lovetocook #lovecooking #eatmorefish #flavour #foodpics #foodblog #foodblogger #amuseonfood #amateurcook #picoftheday #instapic #instafood

[amuseonfood]

Starting to research the food specialities of #puglia and came across Pasticciotti... Doesn’t seem too dissimilar to a pastel de nata (and we know how much I love a pastel de nata) Think 11 months is enough time to practice in readiness for the wood fired oven that’s awaiting us!! #finallytakingthekidsabroad #italy #italyherewecome #italianfood #inspiring #family #friends #desserts #excited #experience #foodheaven #cantwait #food #foodie #amateurcook #amuseonfood

[amuseonfood]

Winner, winner, wild mushroom dinner..! Can’t put into words how happy I am to find out I’ve won this competition - very few get the chance to spend time in a 2⭐️⭐️ kitchen, I’m going to spend half a day @lechampsauvage followed by a meal for two! Have wanted to eat there for years and now I’m getting the chance and the experience of spending time with David! Blown away doesn’t come close - thank you @cuffcomms @lechampsauvage - what an amazing opportunity to have! #lechampignonsauvage #cuffcomms #competition #twostarchef #chefenvy #cheflife #michelinkitchen #twomichelinstars #wow #lechampignonsauvage30 #30thanniversary #whatanopportunity #superprize #chefroyalty #inspiration #beamingsmile #wordscantexpress #happyhappyhappy #luckychap #cheltenham

[amuseonfood]

Think I prefer this pic of the @thecornishfishmonger gurnard - especially with the ever present @cornishsea_salt hiding in the background #gurnard #eatmorefish #cornishseasalt #thecornishfishmonger #food #foodpics #instafood #instapics #foodporn #picoftheday #amuseonfood #foodie

[amuseonfood]

Pan fried Cornish gurnard (@thecornishfishmonger ), chorizo, lentils, herbs. #lovefood #lovetocook #lovecooking #lovecornwall #thecornishfishmonger #chorizo #lentils #herb #nikond3000 #macro #nofilter #amuseonfood #amateurcook #keeponpushing #flavour #saturdayfood #dowhatyoulove #maybeoneday #food #foodie #foodporn #foodpics #foodblog #instapic #instapics #instafood #igers #eatmorefish #picoftheday #saturdayfood

[amuseonfood]

Quick anniversary meal last night. Crab and pancetta blinis to start, pan roasted lamb loin with pesto linguine, romenesco broccoli, baby leek, tomato and @laverstoke buffalo mozzarella #anniversary #anniversarymeal #pasta #blinis #cornishcrab #italianfood #italianinspired #myfood #mycooking #lovetocook #lovecooking #food #foodie #foodpics #foodblog #amuseonfood #amateurcook #instafood #igers #rustic #simplefood #flavour #laverstoke #artisan #buffalomozzarella #greatingredients

[amuseonfood]

Don't half wish I could cook like this. Hot smoked salmon, porthilly mussels & chorizo, arancini, heritage tomato salad (rock fries not pictured), Rojano's Marvellous Medicine for dessert, so worth the time in development and a future classic I'm certain. As ever, eating like kings, treated like royalty... Till the next time @paul_dodd14 @paulainsw6rth @rojanosinthesquare @jackclements121 #rojanos #rojanosinthesquare #inthesquare #food #epicfood #chefenvy #lovepadstow #padstow #keeponpushing #porthilly #porthillymussels (at Rojano's in the Square)

[amuseonfood]

Risky one this, interpreting / imagining a @no6padstow @paulainsw6rth dish from a pic @gordongram posted.. Fragrant rice, pesto, pan-fried Cornish hake and Cornish scallops (partially hidden). Tasted pretty good, happy with that - no idea if it's anything like the Number 6 turbot dish though!! Only got until November to wait for another No 6 experience! #eatmorefish #interpretation #cornishfish #hake #scallops #pesto #food #imitationisflatteryihope #chefenvy #wishicouldcooklikethem #foodie #amuseonfood #amateurcook #alwayslearning #keeponpushing #lovetocook #iwish #foodpics #foodpassion #instafood #instapic #igers

[amuseonfood]

Gem's choice for dinner tonight, pan fried tuna with lime rice and asian salad. #fresh #tuna #asiandressing #food #foodie #mycooking #foodpics #foodblog #foodblogger #amuseonfood #lovetocook #eatmorefish #instapic #instafood