Month: October 2010

Categories
fish peas potatoes

fish pie

fish pie

During his TV series In Search of Perfection Heston Blumenthal crafts his perfect fish pie. I love a good fish pie, and I’m sure this one is superb although as with many of his recipes it requires oddities, not limited to oyster juice (?), hay-smoked haddock and agar-agar powder. I don’t quite fancy this level of faff, but recall that during the TV programme the potato topping he made sent him quite giddy. His face said “turn that camera off and I will eat the whole bowl of this right now”, so I thought I’d lift the mash on to a more basic fish pie recipe. I turned to Marcus Wareing’s, as featured in a Guardian round-up of student recipes.

The fish filling was smooth and comforting with lovely smoked haddock and the refreshing bite of peas. But the mash was something else. Almost milkshake-smooth with a lovely savoury tang – it comes highly recommended. It’s nowhere near as complex as some of his recipes, so give Heston Blumenthal’s potato purée a whirl.

Fish pie (makes 4 pies):

For the pie filling:

1l milk

400g smoked haddock

2 bay leaves

Sprig of thyme

1 tablespoon butter

2 tablespoons flour

Nutmeg

50g frozen peas

For the potato purée:

250g Charlotte potatoes, peeled and cut into 5cm slices

75g unsalted butter, cubed

50ml milk

2 egg yolks

40g Comté cheese, grated

1 tablespoon wholegrain mustard

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 dessert spoon creamed horseradish

  1. To make the filling, bring half the milk with bay and thyme to a gentle simmer. Add the haddock and poach gently until cooked through, about 6 minutes. Put the fish to one side and discard the milk.
  2. Melt the butter into a saucepan and add the flour. Use a wooden spoon and beat into paste. Allow to cook for a minute or two and gradually add the rest of the milk until it forms a lovely smooth sauce. If it’s not looking great, turn up the heat and go mad with a whisk. Determination will pull it together. Continue to stir for another few minutes to thicken. Season and grate over a few strokes of nutmeg.
  3. Remove from the heat and stir in the peas. Flake the haddock in (good chance to get rid of the bones here). Pour into the dishes you will eventually cook them in and leave to cool – this will let the mash sit on top a little happier.
  4. For the mash, rinse the potato slices in plenty of cold water to remove excess starch. Boil in 80°C simmering water for 30 minutes, then drain and cool the slices under cold water. Put into boiling water, salted this time and simmer for 15 minutes until completely soft. This two-stage process ensures it is cooked completely through and avoids the possibility of a grainy purée.
  5. Drain the potatoes again, pop them back in the pan and let them dry thoroughly by shaking over a low heat. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
  6. Place the butter in a bowl. Pop a fine sieve over the top and using a spatula force the potato through the sieve, then fold through the butter.
  7. Simmer the milk in a pan and incorporate the buttery potatoes. Add the remaining ingredients over this low heat and check for seasoning.
  8. Pipe the mash over the top of the pie and bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until the potato is lightly browned on top.
Categories
cooks kitchen gadgets prize

competition – win a heston blumenthal thermometer [closed]

This competition is now closed. Many thanks for all your entries. The winners have been notified by email.

this image copyright HestonBySalter.com

Anyone that has read more than one post in this little recipe binder will realise I have more than a passing interest in the life and works of Heston Blumenthal. It’s fine to stare and snicker at his wackier side – “snail risotto, how quirky“, “bacon and egg ice-cream, who eats that?” – but that is to miss the point. It’s more about process – thinking about why flavour combinations work the way they do, and challenging preconceptions in the kitchen. By putting these things under scrutiny it opens up other pathways and leads to exciting new methods and tastes.

But I’m waffling. You came here for the swag, right? The fine people at Salter have devised a range of Heston Blumenthal kitchen tools. But this isn’t some Anthony Worral-Thompson slap-the-beard-on-it shovelware. This was researched over months with the great man himself hands-on. The result is a functional and stylish clutch of gadgets.

I’ve been using the digital meat thermometer for a little while now (such as for this recipe) and it’s a great piece of kit. It updates fast, has a clear screen and the ‘pen’ casing is very handy, so you can stash it in a top pocket while you’re cooking. It’s a great product that any Heston fan would chew their own arm off to have.

But guess what! No limb-munching required to get one of these superb digital meat thermometers. And they’re not even in the shops yet, so you can be among the first to have one. To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment below answering the question:

What is your one essential piece of kitchen gadgetry?

  • Competition closes 10pm 31st October. Comments posted after then won’t be counted.
  • I’ll pick the winners at random using some fancy random number generator.
  • Entrants must be 18 years or older.
  • If the winner hasn’t replied within two weeks, someone else will get it.
  • Only people from the UK please. Additionally, I’ll only post to a UK address.

PS. Want to win more stuff? Head over to Growing Direct where they are giving away a gorgeous notebook!

Categories
cauliflower curry curry powder lentils turmeric yoghurt

gobi tarka dall

I can’t get enough cauliflower, and am always quick to toss out a few recipes for those that think it dull and dreary. I was dead pleased to see an article in the latest Delicious magazine devoted to the joys of the cauli. It’s not just for cauliflower cheese, y’know.

Gobi tarka dall (based on a recipe by Debbie Major):

150g puy lentils

300ml vegetable stock

2 teaspoons cumin seeds

1 large cauliflower, broken into florets

1 medium onion, chopped

6 garlic cloves, grated

1 teaspoon ground cumin

½ teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon Madras curry powder

200ml coconut milk

1 tin of tomatoes

1 tablespoon Greek yoghurt

Bunch of fresh coriander leaves

For the tarka:

2 tablespoons sunflower oil

1 teaspoon nigella seeds

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

3 cloves

  1. Rinse the lentils thoroughly then simmer them in the stock for 20 minutes until tender. Set aside.
  2. Heat a little oil in a pan, and drop in the cumin seeds. After 30 seconds or so they will spit and jump about so throw in the cauliflower and get some dark brown scorches on them. Remove to one side.
  3. In the same pan fry the onion until soft (about 10 minutes), then add the garlic. After a couple of minutes stirring add the cumin, turmeric and curry powder. Cook for a further minute, then add the coconut milk, tomatoes and cauliflower. Simmer for fifteen minutes, until the cauliflower is tender.
  4. Stir the lentils into the curry and season well with salt. Leave to simmer so everything is piping hot, then turn off the heat stirring in the yoghurt with some vigour (this will avoid separation). Throw some coriander over the top.
  5. For the tarka, get the oil sizzly hot and add the spices. After a minute’s crackling turn the heat off and toss the lot over the curry. Serve with soft and puffy naan bread.
Categories
cake chocolate peanut butter

peanut butter cheesecake

Nigella is back, with as camp a parade of gluttony and swank as you would expect. As usual her recipes swell with “of course you should put x and y together, it’s so obvious” and impressive shortcuts.

An absolute pig of a dessert was served up in the series opener, peanut butter cheesecake. She seemed to offer about a dozen warnings along the lines of “well, this is only a treat” and “all things in moderation” leading me to believe that Compliance had a fit when she presented a recipe that featured 6 eggs, sour cream, cream cheese, peanut butter and chocolate. Peanut butter seems to be one of her things, and why wouldn’t it be? That combo of sweet and salty is irresistible.

Surprisingly, it’s nowhere near as rich as you think it’s going to be. Indulgent yes, but this just means a pleasingly sweet and creamy texture with that one-more-piece-ness of salted peanuts. It’s great fun, and dead easy to make, so it comes highly recommended. It’s made a million times easier with a food processor, so use one of those if you have access to one.

PS. Nigella Lawson’s recipe is written out in her own words here.

Nigella’s peanut butter cheesecake:

For the base:

200g digestive biscuits

150g dark chocolate

50g butter

50g salted peanuts

For the filling:

500g cream cheese (at room temperature)

3 whole eggs

3 egg yolks

2 tablespoons sour cream

200g caster sugar

4 tablespoons smooth peanut butter

For the topping:

250ml sour cream

100g milk chocolate

30g brown sugar

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 170°C.
  2. Whizz up the base ingredients to dust. Press and pack down into a spring-form tin and leave in the fridge to firm up while you get on with the filling.
  3. Whizz together the filling ingredients until super-smooth and creamy. Pour over the base and pop in the oven for 50 minutes or so, until it has just set on top. (As Nigella put it, “so there is still a hint of inner thigh wobble”). Leave it to stand and cool slightly before adding the topping. It may crack at this point but it doesn’t matter.
  4. Melt the topping ingredients together in a saucepan and pour over the cake. Pop back in the oven for 10 minutes to let the topping set. Take it out and pop in the fridge for a couple of hours or until needed.
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