Mediterranean fish stew

I've been cooking up this fantastic fish stew for a while now, it's so delicious I new I'd have to post the recipe but it kept getting eaten before I could take a photo!

I've finally managed to get a shot after cooking this three times in less than a month, thankfully it tastes so good that I could never get bored with eating it.This is one of those dishes that you can mix about a bit, you can use all kinds of vegetables and different types of fish too. I kept my stew quite simple using sweet peppers, celery and fennel, for the fish I used monkfish and cod. There are loads of things you could use such as courgettes, aubergines, or artichokes, for the fish you could use haddock, prawns, halibut, scallops etc. It's up to you...The secret ingredient in this dish is the fennel, it's the perfect partner to the fish and gives the stew a slightly sweet aniseedy backnote. It's flavour is subtle but it makes a big difference to the flavour.I like to serve this with good crusty bread a wedge of lemon, a glass of chilled white wine is a very welcome partner too.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
  
• A large onion, chopped
• A bulb of fennel, finely shredded
• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped
• 2 large sweet peppers (yellow or red) chopped into largeish chunks
• A glass of white wine
• A 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
• About 500g of fish, chopped into bite-size chunks (cod, haddock, monkfish, prawns, halibut etc)
• A handful of basil leaves, finely chopped (optional)
• A bunch of parsley, finely chopped

Method:

• In a large pan over a medium heat sweat the onion in the olive oil for two or three minutes
• Add the garlic, fennel and peppers to the pan, stir and cook for a few minutes more stirring occasionally
• Pour in the white wine and let it cook for a minute or so
• Add the tomatoes, season with salt then cover and let simmer gently for about 20 minutes or until everything is tender
• Add the fish and basil (if using) stir well and cover, leave for around fives minutes or until the fish is cooked though
• Serve scattered with the parsley with good bread and a squeeze of lemon
  

Salmon steaks with lemon and caper butter sauce

I awoke last Friday morning to find that a large white box had mysteriously appeared on my back doorstep, it took me a while -I was still half asleep- to work out it was the salmon that Able and Cole had sent me to try.Inside the box were two pristine organic salmon steaks surrounded by ice packs to keep them cool. I could tell it was top quality fish the moment I looked at it, the two steaks were perfectly cut and prepared, they looked really fresh too.

When I have ingredients of this quality I like to prepare them simply so as not to mask their flavour. For these steaks I prepared a lemon butter sauce from lemon juice and zest, butter, capers and salt.I gently fried the steaks in a little olive oil, I was worried they might break apart as I cooked them but in the event they held their shape perfectly. The flesh was succulent and tender, the flavour which was mild and delicate was perfectly complimented by the lemon sauce. I served the fish alongside some dill potatoes, quite simply boiled new potatoes tossed with chopped dill and butter.

Overall I was really impressed by the service and the quality from Able and Cole, as sadly few of us have access to a proper fishmonger nowadays it's good to know that it's still possible to buy expertly prepared fish and with the added bonus of it being delivered to your door. My only criticism -and it's only minor- is that for the price it would have been nice if they had cut the steaks a little thicker.

Salmon with lemon butter sauce and dill potatoes

Ingredients:

• 75g Butter
• A shallot or half a small onion very finely chopped
  
• A large juicy lemon, zested and juiced
  
• 2 tbsp chopped capers (rinsed if packed in salt)
• Salt
  
• 1 Salmon steak per person

For the potatoes

• New potatoes
• Butter
  
• Dill finely chopped
  
• Salt

Method:

• First make the sauce. In a small saucepan melt the butter and cook until it just begins to brown at this point add the chopped shallot and lemon zest and mix well.
• Next add the lemon juice and capers to the pan, stir the sauce and taste it should be quite sharp. Season with salt if you think it needs it.
• For the salmon heat a little olive oil or butter in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Season the steaks on both sides then add to the pan. Cook for 4-5 minutes per side turning halfway through cooking. The time will depend on how thick your steaks are so check they are properly cooked before serving, they may take longer or less time than mine did.
  

For the potatoes:

• Boil some new potatoes in salted water until cooked.
• drain and add the butter and dill, mix well and serve.

Serve the salmon steaks with the sauce poured over the top and the potatoes on the side.

Trout with lemon, basil, capers and olives

I love a good bargain, whenever I go to the supermarket I always take a look at the reduced price section to see what's going for a knock down price. Last week I'd obviously timed it just right, there was loads of fresh meat and fish being sold for mere pennies.

Most of my bargain haul went to the freezer to be cooked another day but I kept some whole trout aside, I wanted those for a simple stuffed trout dish. Like all fish dishes this one is quick to cook and simple to prepare, the only tricky part is filleting the fish but even that was a lot easier than I anticipated.

Trout with lemon, basil and olives.

Ingredients (serves four):

• 4 Whole trout, filleted (8 fillets).
• Sea salt and pepper.
• A fresh unwaxed lemon.
• 2 Tablespoons chopped capers.
• A good handful of chopped black olives.
• A large bunch of fresh basil.
• Olive oil
• You will also need some oven-proof string.

Method:

• Lay half four of the trout fillets out on a board and season well.
• In a large grate the zest of the lemon and add the capers olives and tear in the basil. Mix everything together.
• lay the lemon, basil, olive mixture over each trout fillet.
• Place the remaining fillets on top of the others so the filling is in the middle. A kind of trout sandwich.
• Tie each 'sandwich up with the string to make little parcels.
• That's it! bake in the oven on a medium heat for about 25-30 minutes.

It doesn't photograph well but trust me, it tastes good!

Smoked salmon linguine

Yesterday was one of those days where everything that could go wrong did go wrong. I'd been down the the bike shop to pick up some new parts for my bike and ask for some advice, the conversation went something like this,

Me: Are these easy to fit? I've never done it before and don't really know what I'm doing.
Bike shop man: Yeah it's easy, you'll have no problem at all.

So I took my shiny new bike parts home with me and set to work dismantling my bike only it wasn't quite as easy as the bike shop man had me believe. Things quickly went wrong, I got stressed and now my bike is in pieces dumped at the bike shop for them to sort out the mess.

While my bike was out of action I turned to something far less stressful than amateur mechanics -making pasta.Smoked salmon linguine is a regular feature in my house, it's cheap, quick, simple to make and most importantly of all delicious. I chose to use linguine pasta, I don't know why but it just seems to suit seafood, you could of course use any pasta you fancy.

Recipe: Serves 3-4

• 1 onion, finely chopped.
• 1,2 or more cloves of garlic very finely chopped.
• Butter for frying.
• 300g linguine or other pasta of you choice.
• 200ml Cremé fraiche (substitute sour cream or double/heavy cream).
• 150g smoked salmon chopped into small pieces.
• lemon juice.
• Black pepper.
• 1 bag (about 80g) rocket leaves.
• Good olive oil for drizzling.

Method:

• In a large frying pan on a low heat fry the onion and garlic, meanwhile put a large pan of water on to boil for the pasta.
• Once the water is boiling add your pasta to the pan and cook according to the instructions on the packet.
• While the pasta is cooking the onions should have softened, at this point add the créme fraiche and mix everything together. It will probably be too thick, it it is add some of the pasta water until you get the right consistency. Add lemon juice and black pepper to taste.
• Once the pasta has cooked stir the smoked salmon into the sauce, take the pasta out of it's cooking water and add to the pan with the sauce. mix well.
• Finally stir in the rocket leaves reserving a few for garnish.
• serve drizzled with olive oil and scattered with rocket leaves.

Panzanella - Italian bread salad

There has been a noticeable change in the vegetables I've been getting in my organic box recently. Now the weather is warmer and the days are longer it's goodbye to swedes, turnips, Brussels sprouts and winter cabbages, hello to tomatoes, peppers, courgettes and asparagus.

This week I got some fantastic sweet peppers and a bunch of beautiful tomatoes on the vine, the perfect ingredients for making Panzanella.Panzanella is an Italian summer salad which can contain all manner of ingredients but always contains tomatoes, basil, olive oil, vinegar and most importantly bread. Panzanella was originally a peasant dish designed to use up leftover bread, -isn't it funny how peasant dishes are almost always the most delicious?- to make this salad chunks of old bread are torn up and tossed with the other ingredients where it absorbs all the delicious juices and takes on a fantastic flavour.I don't think it's possible to find an 'authentic' recipe for this, by it's very nature it's made from whatever people had to hand at the time. My version uses tomatoes, peppers, olives, capers and mixed salad leaves. I also added some flaked trout fillets to make it more substantial, you could add salmon or chicken to equally good effect or just leave it out altogether.

the bread I used was an Italian ciabatta but any firm textured bread will do, just don't use anything too light and airy.

Roasting peppers gives them an amazing flavour

Panzanella recipe: (Serves one as a light meal, two as a side dish)

Ingredients:

• One large red or yellow sweet pepper roasted (see method)
  
• Two large tomatoes chopped into eight moon shaped wedges.
• A handful of olives, green or black.
• A tablespoon of chopped capers.
• Sea salt, extra virgin olive oil and white wine vinegar (or lemon juice).
  
• Mixed baby salad leaves, I used spinach, rocket and watercress.
• As much leftover bread as you want to eat torn into chunks.
• Flaked trout or salmon - optional.

Method:

• First up you need to roast you pepper, you can do this either in the oven, under the grill or if you have a gas hob like I do you can use that. Basically you need to char the skin, and I mean really char it, it should be black.
  
• What I do is stab the pepper onto a fork and hold it above the flame on my gas hob so the skin crackles and blackens, do this all over. I f you using an oven or grill the same rule applies, it needs to be black.
• Once your pepper is blackened all over place it inside a plastic bag and leave it while you prepare everything else, when you come back to it the skin will slip right off and the pepper will taste amazing.
• Next put the tomatoes, olives, capers, into a large bowl. Add as much oil. vinegar and salt as you like, personally I like mine quite sharp but it's entirely down to personal taste. The salt is really important here as it's the salt that draws the juices out of the tomatoes and peppers, this is the juice that will soak into your bread.
• Now to the peppers, remove them from the plastic bag and pull the skin away, it should be really easy. Slice the pepper open, tip any juice that has collected inside into the bowl with the tomatoes then chop the flesh and add that to the bowl too.
• Leave the salad to stand for at least 15 minutes, preferably longer so that the juices can be drawn out and the flavours can meld together.
• Just before you want to serve toss in the bread and salad leaves, mix everything well, check the seasoning and the oil/vinegar is perfectly balanced then serve. Top with flaked trout or salmon if you'd like.
  

Greek style roast cod

I'm not really sure what's "Greek" about this dish, it seems more Italian style to me, but then I didn't name it! What I do know is that it's delicious, it contains some of my all-time favourite ingredients, fresh basil, sun dried tomatoes and black olives.
To make it I sliced some potatoes and red onions and layered them in a baking dish. I then poured over a stock made from the basil and sun dried tomatoes blended to a paste and mixed with boiling water. This was poured over the potatoes which I then baked for half an hour.

Once the potatoes were cooked they had become infused with a the flavour of basil and tomato and smelt wonderful!

Finally I sprinkled the potatoes with chopped black olives, laid my fish on top each with a slice of lemon then baked it for a further 10 minutes.
One of the great things about this recipe is that it only uses one pot and I'm all for less washing up!

I should point out that although the original recipe calls for Cod I actually used a type of fish called Coley which is very similar. Not only is Coley more sustainable and not over fished like Cod, it is also substantially cheaper. I really can't taste much difference between them and I certainly reccomend it as an alternative. Another fish you could try is Pollock which is also very cheap and really tasty.

The original recipe is by Silvana Franco and can be found here.

Salmon with lentls, anchovies and capers

I got the idea for this recipe from a old issue of GoodFood magazine, it looked interesting and gave me the opportunity to use a box of Puy lentils that I bought a long time ago thinking they might come in useful. Well they finally did, at long last!
The idea is a simple one, lentils are cooked with garlic and sage which forms the 'bed' on which a fillet of roast salmon lies, this was dressed with anchovies, capers, parsley and lemon. I used roast tomatoes as a garnish as suggested in the recipe. I think it looks really classy and the tomatoes add a nice splash of colour where it could have looked quite dull.
Unfortunately it didn't really deliver on flavour which was surprising considering the anchovies and capers, I also thought the portions were way too small even after I had bulked it out with peas.
I think I will try this idea again but it need to have more flavour added and I've not quite worked out how yet...


Recipe here

Gruesome Grey Mullet

Although this picture looks a bit gruesome, like a fish spewing it's lemony guts, it is in fact a stuffed Grey mullet.Right now my culinary challenge is to expand my fishy horizons, there are so many fantastic looking fish out there that I have never tried So when I saw this Grey Mullet, even though I had never cooked or eaten one before I decided to buy it.
I was however assuming there would be plenty of information about it on the internet, as it turns out there isn't!
So I did what I do with a lot of fish, stuffed it with sliced lemon, parsley onion and butter and roasted it in the oven wrapped in foil.
It tasted great, I think this fish is highly underrated, it's a bit like Sea Bass and Silver Bream, oily and mild in flavour, well worth trying if you get the chance.

While I was looking at the fish stall I saw they were selling Catfish and a strange looking fish called a Garfish. If anyone knows what to do with them I'd love to know!