Choose the Right Fish for Your Dish

I’m joining the masses and getting stuck into the big fish fight. I honestly cannot believe how disgusting some of the lengths that are being gone to when it comes to fishing. Did you know that often 80% of a fisherman’s catch will be thrown back into the sea, dead? Not only are they ravaging fish stocks unnecessarily they are destroying the sea beds and everything in its path.

What I hope to do here is give you a few pointers on how we can all help the fish stocks by shopping, cooking and eating responsibly.

First of all most supermarkets will have responsible fishing policies but still please always make sure you keep an eye out for the Marine Stewardships Council logo. This means that it is a sustainable fish and in good supply. Next try and mix things up a bit and don’t just go for your standard Cod and Haddock, although sustainable at the moment it may not be for long if we carry on with it as our nations favourite. Not only will you be helping the fish stocks you might just find out that you’ve come across a hidden gem or a new favourite. And don’t be happy to stop just there. There are loads out there to choose from such as Anchovies, Crab, Dogfish, Flounder, Swordfish, Pollock and Hake to name a few. The recipe I’m doing today is a Hake dish and I just can’t get enough of it! This recipe consists of a Hake fillet, covered with home made pesto, wrapped in parma ham with a confit of tomatoes. Tastes and smells amazing! Hake is quite a mild white fish with a fairly firm flake, but if it’s not available I’m sure you could substitute for some sea bass or pollock. 

Now this is another recipe that’s minimal effort, maximum flavour. The delicate, mild flavours of the fish works fantastically with the ham and pesto. When oven cooked the parma ham crisps up at the edges and surrounds the flaky, yet firm fish, and the layer of pesto in between really gives it that extra punch of flavour and some added moisture. When cooking this dish I recommend that you do the tomatoes first and set aside, then put back in the oven for the last 5 minutes of the fish cooking to heat up. Reason being, the smell and flavours of the garlic and rosemary oil are outstanding, use this to grease your fish tray before cooking as it really does just give it that little extra oomph! 

 Give it a go! I doubt I will have any unhappy bloggers on this one…

Hake Fillets wrapped in Parma Ham with a Confit of Tomatoes and Homemade Pesto

Ingredients

For the Pesto:

50g Pine Nuts, toasted in a heavy pan with no oil

A large bunch of fresh Basil (about 50g)

50g Parmesan, chopped or grated

75ml Olive Oil

2 Cloves Garlic

For the Rest of the Dish:

120g Cherry Tomatoes, on the vine

2 Sprigs Fresh Rosemary

6 Cloves Garlic

100ml Olive Oil

2 x 120g Hake Fillets, skinless and boneless

8 slices Parma Ham

4 tsp. of the homemade Pesto

Course Sea Salt and Cracked Black Pepper, to season

1. Preheat your oven to 200°C/ Gas mark 6.
2. Crush the garlic with a large knife and remove the skins and placed in an oven proof dish alongside the rosemary and tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper and pour the oil all over. Cook for around 15 minutes.
3. Next put all the pesto ingredients in a food processor and blitz until smooth. You can keep the pesto for a few weeks in the fridge. Just put in a jar and cover the top with oil so it will stay fresh.
4. While the tomatoes are cooking you can prepare your fish. Place 4 of the slices of parma ham on a chopping board side by side and place the hake on top. Spread about 2 tsps of the pesto over the top of the fillet then wrap the ham around it and repeat for the other fillet.
5. Once the tomatoes have cooked, (I’m sure you can smell it by now!) set aside and take some of the oil to grease your oven tray for the fish. And put a light covering on top. Cook for about 15-20 minutes, putting the tomatoes back in for the last 5 minutes.
6. Serve with a dressed rocket salad and a little of the oil drizzled over the top and enjoy!

Take a look at the Marine Stewardship Councils website to keep you right when choosing your fish. Theres also a lot of great recipes on there! http://www.msc.org/

The Wonderful World of Black Garlic

The latest ingredient that everyone should be using is Black Garlic, and if you don’t know about it, find out about it!! I can guarantee you will not be disappointed! It’s much sweeter than normal garlic but with all of the flavour, AND doesn’t give you the dreaded bad breath, so popular you still can be. Or if you find you’re not so popular, this recipe could be a great way for you to impressJ. It has a sweet yet savoury flavour as the garlic has been fermented and dried over a 4 week period and gives you all the flavour and twice the goodness when compared with raw garlic. It is packed with double the antioxidants of normal garlic, may have cancer prevention properties and of course, it’s good for your heart. The garlic looks the pretty much the same from the outside but open it up and it has a pure black jelly like appearance, and can be eaten raw. It’s so versatile and can be used in a number of dishes which I have tried out myself. I selected this one to share with you as I felt everyone would enjoy it. Black garlic is much less pungent and acidic but still has all the flavour! It doesn’t come at a price either, you can buy it in Tesco for around £1. Black garlic was initially used a lot in Asian cuisine but finally it has hit us here in the U.K. It was very much seen as a super food, added to a number of different foods and drinks as a supplement and some have even claimed you can live longer. Really, where can you go wrong? All of this and its delicious!  If you want a recipe to impress and a great way to play around with black garlic I highly recommend this one… even if I do say so myself. It’s a great mix of fine flavours and so simple, although it may seem you have gone to a lot of effort. The black garlic makes for a great sauce in this dish as it melts ever so slightly, which really compliments the chorizo, and really, you can’t go wrong with scallops… ever! Just please don’t over cook them, and make sure you remove the muscle as it will go chewy when cooked. It’s up to you whether you prefer to keep the roe or not, but it can look quite pretty and tastes great. This recipe makes quite a striking plate as it really has a great colour contrast with the dark black sauce, red chorizo sausage and the bright scallops which pick up an orange tinge from the chorizo oil and the varied size adds a nice texture. The herbs also add a touch of colour and when placed along side the creamy cabbage it really compliments the flavours.

 I’m so glad I have finally discovered the wonders of black garlic, and now no need to order online. I really hope you feel the same about it too. You should trust me on this one as I feel it has endless possibilities!

Scallops and Chorizo with a Black Garlic Sauce

Ingredients

250g, approx, Savoy Cabbage

200ml Cream

3 Cloves White Garlic

85g Chorizo Sausage, finely diced

5 Cloves Black Garlic, peeled and very finely sliced

125g Small Queen Scallops

125g King Scallops

Juice of half a lemon

1tbsp. Sherry

1tbsp. fresh Parsley, chopped

1tbsp. fresh Chives, Chopped

Pepper, to season

1. Firstly get you cabbage onto boil and leave for about 10 minutes. You don’t want to over cook it! Mix the white garlic in the cream and leave in the fridge until needed.
2. Heat a pan with no oil and fry the chorizo for 1-2 minutes. The chorizo releases oil here and gives off a really nice colour.
3. Once the chorizo is heated through add the black garlic, scallops and heat for about 3 minutes - basically heating them through until slightly opaque, then add the lemon juice and sherry and turn up the heat for about a minute.
4. In a separate pan start warming your cream to thicken it up.
5. Drain your cabbage, mix the cream through and season well with quite a lot of pepper.
6. Add the herbs to the chorizo dish for less then a minute so they don’t wilt too much.
7. To serve, pour the chorizo and black garlic sauce onto a plate, topping with the scallops and lay alongside the cabbage.

For more information on black garlic go to: http://blackgarlic.com/

Korean Cuisine is the Next Culinary Charm

I love to experiment with new foods and apparently Korean cuisine is the next big thing, so I thought I’d give it a go! It seems everyone is jumping on the band wagon with this one including the likes of Nigella, where some ingredients are used in her new cook book and restaurants in London and even Glasgow and Edinburgh!

Korean food is mainly based around meat, rice and vegetables – not just barbecued meat! Royal cuisine used to be the more traditional way to cook, where side 12 dishes were served, and was more well know across Asia after a popular soap called “Jewel in the Palace” was aired in 2003. A true story based on a 15^th century palace cook. Since then the Korean cookery style has been reborn and is becoming more popular at dinner tables world wide. The cuisine is often considered to have a very strong taste and they use a lot of preservation methods. This was started to get them through tough winters, and how they discovered a well loved dish, Kimchi which started off with a base of cabbage or radish and fermented over time. The royal cuisine and cooking for the king lost its appeal after the last monarchy of the Joseng Dynasty. This allowed the culture and cuisine to flourish into what it is today which involves spicier and more arousing flavours than the mild royal foods. The end of the Joseng Dynasty was a crucial period for the Koreans to identify and modernise the cuisine.

Many of the Korean food products are used for their health benefits and medicinal properties and are grown, fermented or all tended to by hand in very traditional methods. For example the popular product ginseng is grown over years and another crucial Korean ingredient for many dishes, soy bean paste, is created using 65 steps, traditionally, by hand and fermented for up to 6 years. I love the way they tend to their food and take the time and care to create something wonderful, especially over such a long period of time! I think that’s something that the British culture could adopt to cook and prepare foods with effort and love. 

Although I’ve spoken about traditional Korean foods such as kimchi, ginseng and soy bean paste I wanted to provide you with a background to the culture and try something different and follow the modern route of Korean cuisine. Like I said, it’s going to be big! This dish has a lot of strong flavours but can be easily adapted to your taste by adding more heat and spice, fruit, or even use a light or reduced salt soy sauce to cut down a bit on the saltiness if you wish. Once the sauce is made it can be kept for several weeks in the fridge, and if you can try and make it in advance as it really does allow the flavours to flourish.

Try it out and we’ll see if it does catch on.

 

Bulgogi

Ingredients

250ml Soy Sauce

40g Sugar

3 tbsp. Sake

3 tbsp. Sesame Oil

8 Cloves Garlic, crushed

2 tbsp. toasted Sesame Seeds

1 Asian Pear (or 2 regular if not available)

1 Apple

350g thick Rump Steak

4 Spring Onions, Chopped finely

1 Carrot, chopped

100g Mushrooms, chopped

1. Mix the soy sauce, sugar, sake, sesame oil, garlic and sesame seeds in a bowl until the sugar has dissolved. Blitz the pear and the apple in the food processor and add to the sauce.
2. Put the steak in the freezer for about 15 minutes and slice thinly lengthways. This makes it easier to get a clean cut.
3. Marinade the sliced steak with the sauce for 24 hours, or if you don’t have time try for at least 2 hours.
4. Once marinated fry the meat in a pan along with the remaining vegetables and a little of the sauce.
5. This dish can be served with rice or in lettuce wraps – very tasty but a little more difficult to eat.