In a rare moment of dining alone, I took the opportunity to have some fish. Salmon leapt into my hands (not literally) and I tore home to prepare.
A sprinkle of salt, pepper, cumin and coriander both sides and then the fish goes into a hot pan skin-side down. Just as it starts to brown I flip the fish over and add bacon and greens to the pan. Once that pink colour has gone from the sides it’s off to the plate with a little olive oil. I love how the smoky crisp skin gives way to meaty, silky flesh. The contrast with salty bacon and mild greens. Lovely summer food.
As the green spear season trundles on, I continue to lavish attention on it by frying some slices of parma ham until crisp like shards of salt, and serving with steamed emerald asparagus from a local farm.
One of my absolute favourites. Regular readers may have twigged that I adore dishes that totally celebrate their ingredients, and allow each one to stand up and be tasted whilst adding to each other simultaneously. This is my take on a classic Caesar salad.
I hope Mr. Cardini will excuse me altering his recipe, but his core flavours are still there. As our house is veering away from raw egg at the moment, I can’t get the oil / egg emulsion so instead the sauce is a blend of garlic, good olive oil, white wine vinegar, worcestershire sauce, soy sauce and white wine vinegar. I add a few flakes of parmesan to help give the sauce some thickness, where the egg usually would help. I whizz all this up in a blender.
I’ve used turkey here, simply because it was on offer, which is griddled alongside some bacon until those pretty brown stripes appear. When done I whip those off to one side and then lay some thinly sliced bread drizzled with oil on the pan, soaking up meat juices and charring slightly. I then chop some cos lettuce, cucumber and tomatoes and toss this with the Caesar sauce. The rest of the ingredients go in, then top with parmesan. Crunchy, satisfying and tasty.
…Or it might be jambalaya. I’m not sure what the criteria is. It’s rice ‘n’ stuff in one pan, anyway.
My old chum chorizo makes a special guest appearance, but it’s the vegetables that do the work in this one. I fried the chorizo a bit to char the edges and encourage their spicy-sweet juices to leak out, then put them to one side. Then in go the veg: red onion, celery, carrot. After they’ve tenderised a bit, in go a courgette, some garlic and a pepper. After a couple of minutes I added some basmati rice and tossed that around to get up to heat. I wanted an alcoholic flavour so I added some Cinzano of all things at this point – slightly bitter, slightly sweet.
Then the chorizo went back, along with a pint of veg stock, some saffron and some paprika. Lid on, and left it for 20 mins or so. I came back to find a pan full of sticky rice and tender veg. Garnished with a little fresh parsley and shovelled away heaped spoonfuls at a time. Dinners in one pan rock!
