Sea Bass, Swede & Chorizo with Wild Garlic Chimmichurri

I thought up this recipe at 2.30am - I think it actually woke me up! I had already planned to have a lovely crispy skinned, pan friend piece of sea bass, but the swede, sweet potato and chorizo sounded interesting. And I love Chimichurri which is an Argentinian green sauce usually made with parsley and oregano. I had some wild garlic leaves that needed to be used up, so why not? And it certainly looks impressive enough for a dinner party without too much work!

For the sea bass:

I rarely like frying food but sea bass, in particular, is lovely pan fried as you get a beautiful crispy skin. I don't know about you, but flabby undercooked skin is something I would give to one of the cats. Cooked like this is delicious. All you do is cut little slices in the skin (as above), season with salt and pepper and fry a tablespoon of oil skin side down. The whole time (about 5 minutes). It doesn't need to be turned over. Spoon the hot oil over the white flesh towards the end of cooking and when you take it out of the pan the skin will be lovely and crisp.

For the swede:

Half a head of swede
1 sweet potato
1 small cooking chorizo (about 80g), chopped
25g butter

Peel and chop the swede and potato and boil until tender. Crush with a fork - don't mash till smooth, you want it very roughly mashed. Add the butter with a generous helping of black pepper and stir through. Fry the chorizo in a small dry pan, there should be enough fat in the chorizo to cook it without oil. Add the crispy chorizo to the swede/potato crush and stir through. Serve in a chefs ring with the fish on top of it..

For the sauce:

A large handful wild garlic leaves
1 small clove garlic
1 shallot, chopped
1/4 tsp. chilli flakes
juice of 1/2 lemon
3 tsp sherry vinegar (or red wine vinegar)
3-4 tbsp. olive oil

In a hand blender, blitz the leaves, garlic, shallot and chilli flakes until finely chopped. Add the lemon juice, vinegar and enough oil to make a loose sauce. Chill until needed.

The sauce can be used with any fish or meat. I am looking forward to trying it with a nice fillet steak. Or maybe some crispy chicken..

Toffee Apple Cookies

Interesting little cookies I made today. I had no eggs in the fridge and was too busy to go out so I worked a way around it by using apples blended and chopped in the mixture. Pretty good! The toffee element is actually the topping which I used from a jar of Dulce de Leche which I bought when I was in the Canary Islands. I knew I'd find a use for it!

Dulce de Leche translates as 'candy made of milk' and is basically sugar and milk boiled together. It can be bought in England - but many people use the other method of boiling tinned condensed milk in water for 2-3 hours. (If you do this PLEASE make sure the unopened can is submerged in water and don't walk away and leave it. If the water boils dry the can will most likely explode!). Fortunately, you can also buy tinned and jarred caramel too. I believe you can also melt actual toffee sweets too - but I have yet to try that!

Ingredients:

85g packed brown sugar (I used muscovado)
120g butter, softened
1 tsp. vanilla essence
2 small apples, chopped finely
200g all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

Method:

Set the oven to 180 C. Line two baking trays with greaseproof paper. To make it stick and sit flat, sprinkle the baking tray with water first.

Put the sugar, butter, vanilla and one of the chopped apples in a food processor and process until smooth. Put into a mixing bowl and add the flour, baking powder and salt. Mix to get a sticky dough. Fold in the other chopped apple with a spoon or spatula.

Put a heaped dessertspoon of the mixture on the tray and press a little to flatten out (use wet fingers to stop them sticking to you). Repeat, leaving about an inch in between each cookie. Cook for 8 minutes. Remove cookies and press a small hole in the centre of the cookies using a (clean) thumb or the back of a teaspoon. Put back in the oven for a further 5 minutes until golden. They will still feel soft but that is fine. Put onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

For the topping, Get a piping bag and pipe the toffee sauce (or dulce de leche) on the top. If you don't have a piping bag a teaspoon will do fine - it will just not look quite as pretty.

Eat   -    Enjoy!!!

 

Aloo Saag Gobi Curry (Vegetarian)

Not being able to decide last night on whether I fancied Aloo Gobi (an Indian potato and cauliflower bhaji) or a Saag Aloo (an Indian spinach and potato bhaji) - I decided to make them both together. And came up with this recipe for Aloo Saag Gobi Curry

This is great as a side dish or as a main dish served with my easy flatbreads (recipe on the blog), and a nice tomato, onion and coriander salsa. Its down now as one of my favourite vegetarian recipes.

Ingredients:

1/2 head cauliflower, broken into smallish florets
250g spinach
1 tbsp. oil
1 onion, chopped finely
1-2 green chillies, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 inch piece ginger, chopped
1 tsp. ground coriander
1 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. turmeric
1/2 tsp. fenugreek
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
2 potatoes, peeled and chopped into 2cm pieces
3 large tomatoes, chopped
50ml water
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp. garum masala

Put the cauliflower pieces on a baking sheet, drizzle on a little oil and bake in the oven for 15 minutes at 180 C. Remove and set to one side. Wilt the spinach in a pan OR in a colander under a hot tap. Drain and leave to one side.

In a pan, fry the onion in the oil until softened. Add the garlic, chillies and ginger and cook for a further 5 minutes. Add the powdered spices apart from the garum masala and stir well. After a couple of minutes add the potatoes, tomatoes and wilted spinach along with 50ml water. Stir well and leave to simmer on a low heat for 15-20 minutes uncovered and stirring occasionally, until the potatoes are tender and the sauce thickened.

Add the roasted cauliflower, lemon juice and the garum masala and cook for 2 more minutes. Now you can serve hot with flatbreads and a tomato, coriander and onion salsa. Perfect!