3 Good Things: Pasta, Smoked Salmon, Egg

Posted on December 9, 2012 by Yvan Seth

This recipe has been devised in response to Hugh’s “Three Good Things“ challenge. I am, of course, endeavouring to add beer as a sneaky fourth “good thing”. I’m adding it as a subtle addition — much the way the chefs in the TV episodes will gladly include brilliant oils, vinegars, stocks, and herbs without giving them a headline credit.

Who doesn’t have a collection of dried pasta in the cupboard? Starting with a bag of dry pasta a variety of starchy dinners can be ready in about 15 minutes. Butter and garlic. Mushroom and bacon. Grilled vegetables and chopped tomato. Always a grating of pecorino romano or similar. An endless list of simple favourites… however I’m taking a different tack: pasta salad! Perhaps it is a bit naff? I’m going to try to avoid the soggy gloopy sort of salad you may buy in the supermarket when you’re in a hurry and really bring my three ingredients together in a perfectly balanced taste sensation. Well, that’s the plan.

Beer Mayonnaise

This is the hardest part, but I assure you making a quick mayonnaise is dead easy really. I prefer to stick to a recipe that uses two or three yolks, as I find a whole egg usually produces more mayo than I ever need. Using just yolks also gives you a nicely warm coloured mayonnaise. This is also where I’m adding my sneaky dash of beer, I’m using an incredibly zesty, hoppy golden ale for this that adds an intriguing zing to the flavour. There are many such ales around these days as the style is very popular. I’m using Revival from Moor Beer Company, it’s a great beer and this year it won the “beer of the festival” award at a CAMRA beer festival I help out at (I order the beer!) The Moor brewery is located in Somerset and Justin, the owner and brewer, takes special pride in producing seriously flavourful beers with a focus on naturalness and freshness. Anyway, on the the recipe…

Ingredients

yolks from 3 small, or 2 large eggs — deeper the colour the better!
- mine come from a stand out the front of a house just up the road
“sufficient” light flavoured oil
- I ended up using about 220g of plain sunflower oil
50g extra virgin olive oil or cold pressed rapeseed oil
- I’ve used rapeseed oil from our nearby Coveney Farm
2 tsp vinegar
- cider or white wine is best
some hoppy golden ale
- I’ve used about 5 tbsp of Moor Beer Company’s “Revival”
- You could tweak this by using different sorts of beers too, a rich double-IPA would work well too I think.
ground white pepper— to taste
- about 5 pinches in my case (just a tiny bit of what’s in the photo!)
salt— to taste
- about 3 pinches in my case (just a tiny bit of what’s in the photo!)

Separate the egg yolks into a large mixing bowl and, whisking continuously, gradually drizzle in the 50g of flavourful oil. When done whisk in the vinegar. Then continue with a drizzle of the lighter oil until you have a very thick mayonnaise that will form peaks, wobble a little when tapped, and stick to a spoon held upside down, etc. Whisk in beer a tablespoon at a time until a thick creamy texture is achieved, akin to a thick salad cream.

Finally add in white pepper and salt to taste, be conservative with the salt at this stage as the smoked salmon in the salad will be quite salty already. The flavour was pretty good, with a definite beery and hoppy hint to it. I’d be interested to try this again with something with more body, the Moor Hoppiness perhaps or a BrewDog Hardcore IPA.

Egg and Smoked Salmon Pasta Salad

1 pack of fusilli cooked, drained and cooled
- very important that this is “al dente” or your pasta salad will be a soggy mess
mayonnaise (from above)
- Add as much as you feel is sufficient. I used it all… but it was probably a little too much. Any leftover mayo could be used another day. It would probably be excellent with some beer battered fish.
1 small red onion — very finely chopped
- half a larger onion in my case
1 small garlic clove — chopped and crushed to nearly a paste
200g of sliced smoked salmon— roughychopped
- if you can find them smoked salmon “pieces”, aka “offcuts”, are just as good and often much cheaper
4 boiled eggs — cut into 8ths or 12ths
3 spring onions — finely chopped
a few sprigs of parsley — finely chopped

When I cook a pasta like fusilli I boil it in loads of water with a generous dose of salt, but I don’t bother with oil in the water (it never seems to do anything but make the pan harder to clean). When cooked I turn it out into a colander, drain well, drizzle with rapeseed oil, and toss until the pasta is evenly oiled. Set it aside to cool to room temperature, you can then refrigerate it for later if desired. In fact this is a recipe I’d typically prepare from last night’s leftover pasta.

Reserve a few prettier bits of boiled egg, some pinches of chopped parsley, a couple of tablespoons of green chopped spring onion, and a few bits of smoked salmon for garnish. Combine everything else except the mayonnaise in a bowl, use your hands to ensure the smoked salmon is well broken up and distributed.

Finish off by using a large spoon to stir through the mayonnaise, ensuring everything is well coated. Move the salad to a presentation bowl, scatter over the reserved garnish ingredients, and complete with a sprig of fresh parsley. Done! This will fill the bellies of about 4 hungry people, or stretch to 6 with some sides, or 8 or more if provided as a side-dish.

Serve with a a glass of the zesty golden ale used in the mayo. This is a beaut summer brunch on a lazy Sunday morning, or late lunch for the lazier. To make more of a meal of it serve as a salad alongside something grilled on the BBQ — salmon steaks perhaps?

When I do this again, which I certainly will, I’ll probably add something else to just lift it up a bit. Some roughly chopped capers perhaps, or gherkin. It could do with a little extra *zing*.

3 Good Things: Sea Bass, Cavolo Nero, Roast Peppers

Posted on December 8, 2012 by Yvan Seth

Almost didn’t get one in this week. Busy busy, and Saturday consumed by a very–unfishy venison–oriented day entertaining guests. However, one of the great things about fish is you can knock up something exquisite super-fast. So here’s my quick Sunday dinner…

I’ve picked my other two ingredients on both colour and flavour. With the deep green of the cavolo nero and the bright yellow and red of the peppers this creates a striking plate of food. The light flavour, seaweedy texture, and slight bitterness of the cavolo nero are near-opposite to the rich sweetness of roasted peppers (of which a little really does go a long way). The sweet/bitter combination compliments the lightly-oily creamy texure of sea–bass, which I have taken up another notch by adding a bit of smoke to it in the BBQ. To offset all this I’ve added a light zesty beer in the form of a German-style Weizen… in my quest to stick to British beer though I have picked one from Manchester’s Marble Brewery. This weizen has quite a light rendition of the typical coriander/orange/banana notes and a slight tartness akin to a twist of lemon juice.

Ingredients

2 Sea Bass
300g cavolo nero
1 red & 1 yellow pepper – or pre–roasted equivalent
- This is one thing I just can’t get used to, back home we call it a “capsicum”… and even after 6 years “pepper” continues to feel confusing and wrong. I’m fine with “aubergine” though (as opposed to “eggplant”).
2 tbsp butter
4 cloves of garlic
handful of fennel fronds
4 bay leaves
salt & pepper
A German-style wheat beer, aka weizen
- I’ve used the Weizen from Marble — a brewery in Manchester
- Something more sour could be even better, such as a lambic or geuze, but it is very difficult to get your hands on a British one. This style is only just starting to get some attention amongst UK brewers.

You can buy roast pepper, but I usually do my own on the BBQ. Simply place whole peppers over the flame, rotating now and then until part-blackened on all sides. Put aside in a dish covered with foil. When cooled you can simply rub the charred skin off and slice into strips.

Pre-blanch the cavolo nero. I’ve stripped it off the stems, simmered it for 4 minutes, let cool in a colander, then squeezed much of the water out by hand. You will have a hand–compressed lump of cavolo nero now, simply cut this into about 5mm slices and set aside for “the last minute”.

I’ve prepared a herbed–butter by grinding up 2 cloves of garlic, a few twists of pepper, and a couple of fronds of fennel in a pestle and mortar. When pasted I’ve added a couple of tablespoons of soft butter and thoroughly mixed the lot together.

The sea bass should be scaled and gutted but otherwise whole. I prefer the look of a whole fish, it seems a bit sad to serve up the poor creature beheaded. The head also contains some tasty morsels of flesh — sea bass chaps anyone? Make some cuts in the sides of your fish, then rub the fish down with a generous grinding of salt. Next rub the herbed butter all over the fish and into the cuts, pop a knob of butter inside the fish as well, reserve about a quarter of the butter for later. Also into the belly cavity stuff some more fronds of fennel, a crushed garlic clove, and a couple of bay leaves.

You now have several options open to you for cooking your fish. Simply pan-fried? Baked in a hot oven for 15 minutes? Or for the hurried: wrapped in foil on a bed of cavolo nero, roast pepper on top, add a splash of weizen then into a hot oven for 25 minutes — slide onto a plate and enjoy.

I’ve taken the plain baking approach, sort–of. My BBQ gets very hot inside with the lid down, near to 300C at peak. So I’ve heated the BBQ up full–bull and onto a hotplate spread some pre–soaked smoking chips. Lid down again and await the moment they begin to produce some smoke, then pop the sea bass right on top of the chips. Lid down again, wait 15 minutes, remove, brush off any woodchips stuck to the skin. Done!

(Yes, I am quite happy to do a bit of BBQing outside while everything is covered in frost. I’ve BBQed in the snow too!)

Now it is “the last minute”. Place the cavolo nero in a small pan and add about a quarter of a cup of weizen and toss this while heating just to the point that it simmers … now melt in the retained herbed butter and turn off the heat.

Onto a warmed plate place a bed of cavolo nero, onto this place a sea bass, drape with strips of roast pepper, drizzle with the buttery–weizen from the cavolo nero pan. Serve!

Dinner time, with a nice cool glass of weizen! We enjoyed our sea bass dinner with a side of leftover cous–cous salad and a home–baked bap.

3 Good Things: Apple, Venison, Bacon

Posted on November 24, 2012 by Yvan Seth

This recipe has been devised in response to Hugh’s “Three Good Things” challenge. I am, of course, endeavouring to add beer as a sneaky fourth “good thing”. I’m adding it as a subtle addition — much the way the chefs in the TV episodes will gladly include brilliant oils, vinegars, stocks, and herbs without giving them a headline credit.

I recently found myself with a whole fallow deer carcass so I have a “glut” of venison at the moment. I figured apple + venison, a rich game meat and sweet apple… seems a pretty classic match. Amongst all the various cuts are a couple of chunky roasting muscles from each haunch (the “thick flank” I believe), this recipe makes use of one of these — it weighs in at about 850g.

I uhmmed and ahhed a lot about the third ingredient. Of all the extra bits I’d put with this what would be the natural one to highlight? Which one will shine the brightest? It became a toss–up between sage and bacon, and I settled on the bacon — adding extra punch by picking smoked bacon! Apples and pork, apples and bacon. Classic!

I’ve chosen to use Russet apples for their firm texture and slightly nutty savoury flavour. As luck would have it the day before the “apple challenge” was announced we’d picked up one of each variety of apple available at our local farmshop. We tasted all of these with some cheese, apple slices make a great alternative to crackers! So we’d got a little bit of prior research in to make an informed decision about the choice of apple. The farmshop, Willingham’s Bushel Box, is at the farm where the apples are grown — so they’re supremely local.

So, I present: Apple and bacon stuffed venison haunch joint, with apple gravy, and apple salad.

Stuffing

150g sausage meat
2 rashers smoked streaky bacon — roughly chopped
1 small Russet apple — 5mm dice
sprig of roasmary
sprig of sage
2 garlic cloves
6 juniper berries
3 tbsp of a rich red ale
- I’ve used Hardknott Infra Red, a 6% and particularly hoppy red ale from Cumbria and a long–time favourite beer of mine.

Crush up all the herbs and garlic in a pestle and mortar, loosen up with a little of the beer. With remaining beer rinse the pestle out into a bowl and add the sausage meat, diced apple, and diced bacon. Thoroughly combined, using hands of course, and ideally set aside for a while in the fridge so the flavours can develop.

Roast

Stuffing mix above
Venison “thick flank” — about 850g, or similar roasting cut
5 or 6 rashers of smoked streaky bacon
4 small Russet apples — quartered, unpeeled
6 fat garlic cloves
Barding fat — pork back fat is the classic
250ml of the same red ale as used in the stuffing
Some plain cotton string
A large sprig of sage

Preheat oven to 220°C — or higher. (As I use very a heavy cast iron baking dish I pop that that in now too. My current oven is infuriatingly small, sticking a few kg of cold iron in it really sets the temperature back so I heat the pan up with the oven.)

Turn the joint of venison “ugly side up” and open it out along the grain of the meat. This is a combination of releasing the natural seams of the muscle and cutting into muscle butterfly–style. (I actually cut about 100g of meat out too to increase the size of the cavity. The offcuts are not wasted, they make a nice pre–dinner snack — dice it, mix it with left over stuffing: fry up as little patties!)

Line the middle of the opened out joint with about a strip of thinly sliced Russet apple rounds. Right down the middle lay two strips of streaky bacon, so they half lie out of the meat, put a “sausage” of just enough stuffing down the middle so that you can still comfortably wrap the meat around the lot (left over stuffing is expected — fry it up ad enjoy!) Wrap the stuffing by bringing the bacon up and over it. Lay the roast on 3 or 4 lengths of streaky bacon, which have in turn been laid on lengths of string of a suitable length to tie up the roast. It is difficult putting this to words, and it sounds more fiddly than it is by far! See the photos to get the idea:

Spread a bit of oil in the bottom of your roasting dish and place the roast into it bacon–side–up. Surround by wedges from 3 or 4 Russet apples, and the cloves of garlic which can just go in whole and unpeeled.

Into the oven for a sizzle! Do this until the outside has browned a little — 20 minutes in my case. Then reduce the heat to 180°C, baste with 3/4 of the beer, place the barding fat on top…

…and continue to roast until you reach an internal temperature of around 65°C (40 more minutes in my case). Remove from the oven and set the roast aside on a warm plate and cover with some tinfoil while it rests.

Now the apple gravy! This couldn’t be simpler. Carefully pour as much of the fat out of the roasting tin as you can, this can be discarded (or put to another use if you’re really thrifty). Remove everything remaining from the pan and place it into a food mill. Use the remaining beer to wash all you can out of the pan too. Mill it. Done! It should be a good thick consistency and beautiful rich, roasty, caramelised, beery, apple flavour. (It took quite some effort to stop myself just standing there eating this with a spoon!)

Salad

2 small Russet apples — medium dice
Half a medium brown onion — fine dice
1 tbsp Rapeseed oil
1 tbsp Cider vinegar
Pepper/Salt
3 or 4 fresh sage leaves — finely shredded

This piquant little apple salad cuts through the other rich roasty flavours in the plate — giving the whole meal a nice crisp lift. Simply toss it all together, adding pepper & salt to taste.

Serve!

Slice roast, place on warmed plate, apply gravy, add a pile of fresh apple salad. Enjoy! With a glass of Hardknott’s excellent Infra Red… duh :)

3 Good Things: Lamb, Aubergine, Coriander

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Yvan Seth

A slightly exotic twist on a good old roast rack of lamb.

For the second week of Hugh’s “3 good things” challenge I was slightly disappointed, but not surprised, that the challenge meat was not venison. Only because I’d recently butchered an entire fallow deer and currently have a fridge and freezer full of the stuff! Lamb however is a great favourite of mine so I’m not going to knock the excuse to have some for Sunday dinner. I popped out to our local butcher and asked for a rack, but specifically not “French trimmed” — that meat on the back of the bones is the best bit! Quite fatty, and not as tender as the fillet along the bottom, but oh so tasty. I trimmed off just about half an inch at the top to create a bit of “handle” bone (this is finger food!) and BBQed the trimmed strip as a “chef’s perk”. Anyway, this recipe will work just as well with a normally “Frenched” rack.

Rack of lamb is deeply nostalgic for me — growing up it was always a favourite kitchen treat, not to mention a favourite kitchen smell. Sometimes crusted, sometimes plain, often served with some mash. Always eaten with fingers — gnawing all the goodness from those little bones.

Lamb and aubergine are a well loved pairing, think moussaka. In Moroccan recipes coriander often plays a starring role in this combination too. So these are the ingredients I’ve focused on. Aubergine in the form of a rich baba ghanoush, rack of lamb, and a lifting zest of fresh coriander throughout.

Baba Ghanoush (Aubergine Purée)

Aubergine — I’ve used 3 medium ones
Garlic clove
Tahini — to taste
Light Olive Oil — to taste
Lemon juice — to taste
Salt — to taste
Ground corriander seed — to taste
Fresh coriander — to taste!

Sorry it’s all “to taste” — use your tastebuds :)

The most important thing is the char-grilling of your aubergines. Ideally use a charcoal grill. For the baba ghanoush to taste right it really must have that smoky/charred flavour. Unfortunately I only have a gas BBQ handy so I created a little “smoking pack” with some soaked woodchips, coriander seeds, and hops. About a large handful of woodchips will do. I’ve added maybe a tablespoon of coriander seeds, and a few pinches of hops — I have no idea if they contribute notably to the flavour. Grill the aubergines until they’re super-soft inside, a knife should run through them like they’re butter and the knife is red hot.

Scoop the flesh out of your aubergines and place into a saucepan and simmer off any excess liquid. You should be able to clear a spot in the bottom of the pan and not have liquid run into it for over a minute. While this is going on I grated in one garlic clove and added lemon juice a little at a time until I was happy with the flavour. Just a little acid, just a little salty. I want the smoky aubergine to shine out here and not be too overwhelmed by the other flavours.

Let the aubergine cool, you can do the next step when you’re ready to serve or it can be done in advance.

The next step is to simply place it in a bowl and energetically whisk in a tablespoon or two of tahini and a gradual drizzle of olive oil until you’re happy with the consistency and flavour.

Finally stir through the ground corriander seed and plenty of roughly chopped fresh coriander leaf – again, to taste. But I like the taste of coriander so I probably put about 4 chopped tablespoons into mine. (Reserve a little coriander for garnishing later.)

Glace de viande avec de la bière? (Reduced stock with stout)

Rich stock — made with roast lamb bones by preference, beef or game will suffice
Rich stout — I’ve used Williams Brothers “March of the Penguins”
Maybe a sprinkle of muscovado sugar

What is the correct term here? In essence we have a strong dark stock that has been reduced until it is thick and gloopy. No thickener used, it isn’t a demi glace.

Reduce your stock down until you have just a few tablespoons with the consistency of runny honey, I started with a stock that isn’t far off this point — it’s solid at 15°C. (Beware if using commercial liquid stock, this will probably end up tasting like a salt-lick — it is worth making your own stock in bulk and keeping it in the freezer in reduced form.) Now add a good rich stout, one that isn’t too bitter, and reduce back to runny-honey. Keep doing this, tasting each stage until you’re happy. I added 130ml of stout to about 100ml of reduced stock. (Ending up with 100ml of reduced stout+stock!) You may add a little sugar if you desire here, just a sprinkle of muscovado at a time until you’re happy.

Carefully keep this warm while you finish off the lamb, you can loosen it with a dash of stout if needed.

Rack of Lamb

A rack of lamb ;)
½ tsp salt
1 tsp ground coriander seed

I actually popped my rack of lamb into the BBQ while my aubergine smoke-pack was at its smokiest. Probably only about 15 minutes all up, but this nicely sizzled it a bit too as it gets quite hot under the hood of the BBQ. Alternatively you can pre-sizzle/brown your rack of lamb on a hot charcoal BBQ. Or do the usual trick: brown in a pan on the stove. When sizzled set the lamb aside for little while to cool, you can sizzle it and pop it back in the fridge even if you’re doing your charcoal grilling well in advance.

About half an hour before you’re ready to serve get your oven going nice and hot — about 220°C.

Combine the salt and ground coriander seed and rub thoroughly all over the lamb.

Put the lamb in a roasting tin pop it into the oven.

How do you like your lamb? Rare for me… so I pull it out of the oven after 15 minutes and check the internal temperature with a probe thermometer. It is a bit low… so another 5 minutes in the oven and it’s right. Aiming for mid-40s in degrees Celsius. It will want to rest for 10 minutes now.

Plate Up!

Warm plates are essential, or the reduced stock will set solid in an instant!

Drizzle a pattern of the stock & stout reduction on the plates.

Plop a blob of baba ghanoush in the middle.

Carve your rack of lamb into chops and arrange on top.

Drizzle with a little more gravy and sprinkle with some chopped coriander to complete the dish.

Enjoy! With a glass of stout — of course. Use your fingers!

3 Good Things: Beetroot, Halloumi, Walnut

Posted on November 18, 2012 by Yvan Seth

This beetroot recipe is a complete “winging it” sort of thing and I think it worked out well, but is in need of refinement. This post documents the creation of the following…

While this may look complicated, it is actually made up of parts that can be created at your leisure in advance and it comes together easily when you’re ready for tea.

The components that make up the plate are:

Roast beetroot – purée, and grilled slices.
Halloumi – grilled slices
Spiced toasted walnuts – whole, crumbled, and pasted

The outline below serves two – albeit with leftover beetroot purée and walnut paste.

Beetroot

Beetroots – 2 just-smaller-than-tennis-ball sized
2 tsp rich balsamic vinegar
2 tsp rapeseed oil
2 sprigs of fresh parsley
Zesty hoppy strong US-IPA-style beer
- I’ve used “SCANNERS” from London breweries Kernel & Brodies
- You want something around 7% ABV that uses heaps of punchy US hops
- Think of this as a herb!

Bake your beetroots and peel them, then let cool. The steps below can be done using pre-baked beetroot from the fridge.

Take 3 slices per-person from the centre of the beetroot, about 4mm thick.

Dice the rest, discarding any hard and woody bits, and put into a food processor. Add leaves from parsley, balsamic vinegar, and rapeseed oil. Emulsify and add the beer, dribble in until a thick but just-off-runny consistency is achieved. It should be pipeable, but not pourable.

Add salt to taste, it will need some!

Walnuts

(“Spiced” walnuts inspired by Gill’s nuts in the Beetroot episode.)

100g walnut pieces
10 whole walnuts (plenty, in case they break)
Seeds from 8 cardamom pods
1/2 tsp golden caster sugar
1/4 tsp sea salt
a few grinds of black pepper

Pre-heat oven to 180°C.

Dry-fry the cardamom seeds until aromatic (about 4 minutes on a low flame). Grind to powder with the salt and sugar.

Place walnuts in a pan in the oven for 10 minutes, by this time they should have started to sweat a little oil. Toss with cardamom mixture in a separate bowl then place back in roasting pan and sprinkle cardamom mix over the top. Stick this back into the oven for another 5 minutes.

When cool separate out the whole walnuts and put aside.

Split the walnut pieces into two piles, roughly crush one half.

Place the other half into a large mortar and pestle and grind to a paste, add in rapeseed oil until a thick just-pourable consistency is achieved. Add salt to taste. This is best off being a bit on the salty side, a bit like normal peanut butter, it will be used sparingly.

Halloumi

Cut into the biggest squares you can, sliced about 4mm thick. This can be difficult, halloumi normally has seams and gaps in it, you’ll need to survey these and work around them. (There will be offcuts… “chefs perks” or put them aside, diced they’re a great addition to salads.)

Lay the slices flat in a pan and marinate in a dash of the IPA mentioned above, give it a good 30 minutes.

Bring it all together!

Warm a couple of plates.

Get a grill pan on the stove and make it very hot.

Put the beetroot purée in a saucepan and warm – be careful here, it needs to just warm, it should not even get close to simmering! This will kill off aromatics from the IPA and make it bitter.

Pat dry the halloumi pieces, brush with oil, and place in the grill-pan. Leave for just about a minute. Remove to a standby plate using a stiff metal scraper – be careful the cheese will be floppy and possibly a bit stuck to the grill.

Oil the beetroot slices and put them in the grill too, these can grill for 3 to 5 minutes. Meanwhile start “plating up”.

Create a pattern on the plate with the purée, in my case a huge comma.

One at a time place a square of halloumi down with a round of beetroot on top, ovelapping as you go.

Use a squeezy bottle or piping bag (ziplock bag with the corner cut out works) to put a pattern of walnut paste over the top.

Place a single whole spiced walnut on the top of each beetroot round.

Scatter crushed walnut and some chopped parsley as you see fit.

Serve! Enjoy with a glass of the beer used in the recipe – of course!

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