Come Dine with Merlotti - Mackerel Pate

From Bon Appétit

This is a really simple recipe and perfect for making the day before if you want to get ahead - which is exactly what I did for my CDwM night!

You'll need:

mackerel fillets (I buy the ones with the peppercorns on as you don't have to add as much seasoning then!)
creme fraiche
salt
lemon juice
melted butter

Now, I mentioned that this was incredibly easy, and it is, so the recipe isn't really a recipe so much as a combination of ingredients! You throw it all into and blender and turn on until the desired texture is achieved!

Put the fish fillets, minus the skin, into the blender and blitz.
Add 1 large dollop of creme fraiche for every 3 fillets you use as the mackerel is very oily anyway.
Blitz again until combined. If you prefer a looser texture, then add a little more creme fraiche, but remember, it's easier to add more than take-away once combined!
Taste, add a squeeze of lemon and season with salt as preferred.

To serve, either use two spoons to make quenelles, or for ease, push into ramekins, ensuring the top is quite flat and there are no large air pockets. Cover with the melted butter and chill.

I always serve with shop-bought brown seed bread, toasted, and a green salad with a dash of oil and balsamic vinegar. Delicious!

Day 1: Lemon butter fish with pepperonata

Lemon butter fish with pepperonata

recipe: Janine Ratcliffe

Olive Magazine, August 2009

According to the recipe, it should take 30minutes, serve 2, and is classed as 'easy'.

Ingredients

olive oil
1 red pepper, sliced
1 yellow pepper, sliced
1 onion, sliced
1 tbsp raisins
1 tbsp capers, drained and rinsed
2tsp demerara sugar
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
25g softened butter
1/2 lemon zested and juiced
2 firm white fish fillets, such as haddock or pollack

Method

Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a shallow pan. Add the peppers (I found that only about 2/3 of each pepper was necessary and about half a large onion) and onion and season with salt. Put a lid on - I used a cartouche - and cook gently until softened but not coloured. Add the raisins, capers, sugar and vinegar, stir well and cook for 10 minutes until the liquid has reduced.

Mix the butter with the lemon zest and a squeeze of the juice and season. Spread over the fish and then grill for 4-5 minutes until just cooked through. Serve with pepperonata and salad. I used little gem lettuces as per the picture!

What it should look like...

Original photograph: Lis Parsons

What mine looked like...

The facts:
Yes, it was very easy to make within the thirty minutes and served two, although the very hungry husband, having been out on a long run, would have preferred a little more! Some crushed new potatoes might have done the trick.

As mentioned, I used a little less pepper and onion but ended up with a good balance of fish and pepperonata. The picture in the magazine showed that there was quite a lot of 'sauce' in the pepperonata, but I found that just the the 1tbsp vinegar and 2tsps sugar didn't produce as much as that. Perhaps double these quantities and a splash of olive oil would have created more?

Taste:

Excellent! The flavours worked well together and the lemony fish and sweet'n'sour peppers complemented each other. It definitely needed a different texture, which the crunchy little gem lettuce gave. I'd definitely make this again, but with a little more sauce and something to 'fill-up' the husband!

The Company Shed

Review
The Company Shed

Venue

As the name implies, this restaurant really is a shed! It's at the end of the 'seafront' in West Mersey, Mersey Island. Don't be fooled into thinking this restaurant will serve typical seaside fayre though; its the fresh fish platters its renowned for and you won't be disappointed. The vinyl tablecloths, mismatched chairs and tables and 'bring your own everything else apart from fish' really do add to its charm and memorability!

You arrive and ask for your name to be added to the chalk board inside. Then you sit in the sun with a good book and wait to be called. The 40 minute wait will always be worth it. We popped inside and asked for a couple of glasses to go with our bottle of wine we'd taken along! A perfect pre-dinner drink!

Appearance and Taste

As you can see, the fish is all fresh and you can choose from a simple range of fresh cold dishes, substituting different types of fish, or a few 'hot' dishes. All dishes are very well presented, on plates rather than the huge iced platters you see in more expensive restaurants but here there is no need for the ice as the fish really is that fresh!

And the taste? Well, it's clean, salty and fresh. The fish actually has its own individual taste, rather than the 'fishy' taste you might normally get. I know that sounds a bit odd, but it is true! It even invited me to try crab claws and greenlip mussels! The hot dishes all also looked fantastic and the scallops were great. Cooked to perfection with a bacon and tomato salad and warm dressing, it was simple, but tasty.

We took our own bread and butter, a must I feel, if only to go with the smoked salmon. We also took a chilled bottle of white and a jar of mayonnaise! Delicious!

Value for Money

The fish platters were about £9 and the hot dishes about £6. We shared a platter and had a plate of scallops each - we wanted to try other dishes but both fancied the scallops as they came recommended. Excellent.

Fish Cakes

If you're looking for something quick, easy, and out of the store cupboard, then read on...

These fish cakes are really quick and easy: I simply follow Delia's 'Cheat' recipe and add in my own bits and pieces as I go! It's a case of mushing up mashed potato, tinned fish, capers, cornichons and whatever else you'd like. I used tuna rather than salmon and left out the spoon of chopped watercress. I also covered in (shop-bought - ssshhh) natural breadcrumbs rather than semolina.
The most difficult part is frying them; I find that you need a good layer of oil that the fishcakes can sit in, rather than just a little to line the pan. And heat the pan til very hot, then turn down once browned to heat the middle. You could always pan-fry first and finish in the oven if you prefer.

I served mine with a tomato and onion salad smothered in dijon mustard dressing.

Walkers' Taste Test

The Walkers' Taste Test

As you may have noticed, Walkers Crisps are trying out 6 new flavours and asking us to vote on our favourite. Now, being a non-discriminatory foodie, I thought that, in the name of research, I should test them all and let Walkers know of my favourite. As I considered eating 6 huge bags of crisps, my mind drifted to the effect on my hips and bum, so thought it better to create an 'event' and share the tastes, and calories, with my friends! Helen was specially over from the USA (not specially for the taste test! That would be real commitment!) so it was a novelty for her to be eating crisps again instead of chips!

First things first - I had to introduce the idea to my friends as part of a 'girly' day we were having. I'd thought about how best to do this: Get them drunk first? Suggest it was in the name of research? Beg them that I needed a new blog post? In the end, I simply suggested it might be fun to have a taste test of the new flavours and they all agreed with relish! In fact, everyone we told thought it was a great idea!

Secondly we had to find the crisps. An easy task you might think? Well, think again. Despite Walkers advertising this promotion everywhere (television, front of all normal packs of crisps, front of multi-packs,) we struggled to 'find' the 6 new flavours. We tried many high street shops, including major supermarkets, and eventually, after visiting 10 shops - no lie - found that WHSmiths was the ONLY place to stock any at all. After rummaging through their boxes,we left with 5 out of the 6 flavours. I even asked if they had any extra deliveries of 'Fish and Chip' flavour in the back, but no, they had all sold out. This, apparently, was the general theme of all we talked to - Fish and Chips were certainly the first ones people were trying.

We now had the crisps and over the course of the afternoon, had devised a 'strategy' and system for the evening! Excitedly, we made our way home, labelled each identical bowl on the bottom with the given flavour, poured in the crisps, swapped them all around and numbered each bowl visibly. Now to the experiment. My friend did ask where the score cards were but we made do with pieces of paper and a pen each.

We scored each new flavour in 4 different categories. The first was Appearance marked out of 5. The second was Smell, again out of 5. The third was Packaging - this could only be added after we had identified each flavour, out of 5 again. The fourth category, and obviously most important, was the taste. This was marked out of 10. Everyone made their own notes as we went along, and finally had a 'guess' at what each flavour might be!

The Flavours:

Onion Bhaji, Cajun Squirrel, Crispy Duck and Hoisin, Builders' Breakfast, Chocolate and Chilli, (Fish and Chips - results to follow!)

The Strategy:

Take each bowl in turn
Assess the appearance, smell and taste of each one, in that order
Drink in between each crisp test - purely to eliminate each old flavour so the new one is more apparent (?!)
Make final comments and adjustments to flavour matching
See if we were right and add scores to find a winner!

Even the shadow joined in - he initally went for the Onion Bhaji, but settled on Cajun Squirrel!

The Comments:

On the whole, given a bowl of cheese and onion or salt and vinegar, we'd have picked those every time. That wasn't, however, in our remit, so...

Bowl 1 - The appearance was much darker than the others and this put us off a bit. They also looked much greasier. The smell was quite sweet and when tasted, gave a certain spicy 'kick' at the back of the throat. One comment on the taste was simply 'Yuk!'

Bowl 2 - These were rounder than the others (!) and had speckles and flecks of colour. They smelt herby and spicy with a definite 'sausagy' hint, that led some of us to an obvious conclusion on the flavour. Read on to see if we were correct!

Bowl 3 - The appearance of these was noted as 'golden' and they looked delicious. Again, they were flecked with little specks of red but this time, had a strong smell of 'curry'. We agreed that the smell, however, was actually much nicer than the overall taste. 'Old Socks' was one noted flavour, though how they know what old socks taste of, we will never learn.

Bowl 4 - These were quite pale in appearance and many more of them had a 'skin' edge to them. They smelt sweet and saucy with a hint of cucumber and tasted similar.

Bowl 5 - These looked very appealing in terms of colour and shape as they were all quite 'uniform'. The smell was not particularly pleasant with eggy undertones. The taste was noted as 'smoky'.


The Verdict

Bowl 1 = Chocolate and Chilli (4/5 guessed correctly)
Bowl 2 = Cajun Squirrel (the sausage flavours threw us on that one! 2/5 guessed correctly)
Bowl 3 = Onion Bhaji (4/5 guessed correctly)
Bowl 4 = Crispy Duck and Hoisin (4/5 guessed correctly)
Bowl 5 = Builders' Breakfast (2/5 guessed correctly)


The Scores

Now, would it be fair to give the results without having tasted all 6 flavours? Of course not. I am currently trying to get my hands on a bag of the Fish and Chip flavour, and will complete the remaining test at the first possible opportunity. Post to follow. Our friend from America will not be present, but don't worry, a substitute has already been found and is raring to go!

All we need now are the crisps themselves!

"Calories don't count in the Cold" according to Chris Evans, Drivetime, Radio 2

It's a good job, that's all I can say!

I've been lucky enough to have another snow day at home thanks to school being cancelled. Hurrah! So, again, I was up early and pottered around. Managed to get a bus into town and got enthralled walking around the food department of M&S. Now, don't think me odd, but I do love just wandering around their aisles and looking at all the yummy food. They're tending to move towards adding actual ingredients to their shelves now as well as simply ready-made stuff and even had lots of recipe cards out, to which I quickly helped myself, before making another tour of all the shelves to ensure I had got each and every one!

Tonight's meal will be a combination of one of those very cards and my own version. It should turn into a risotto of some sorts. Will keep you posted.

Last night, it was fish pie. I hadn't made this for a while and even went so far as to buy prawns to add to it, as requested by my boyfriend. Normally I leave them out - don't know why, just always have!

Hannah's Fish Pie

fish - I used pieces of smoked haddock, cod and prawns, but you can chuck in your favourites!
milk
plain flour
butter
salt and pepper
cheese - grated - some for the white sauce and some for the top!
peas
wholegrain mustard
mash
squeeze of lemon

First, pop all raw fish into an oven-proof dish and cover with milk. Put into the oven at 180 until the fish is just cooked. If in doubt, remove it from the oven a little beforehand.
Using the milk from the fish, make a bechamel sauce - white sauce - roux, whatever you'd like to call it:

In a pan, mix a blob of butter and a splash of flour in the quantities such as you get a smooth paste! (I do mine by trial and error - a blob of butter, then add flour til it comes together, you can always add a drop of oil if it goes powdery!)
The trick to getting a smooth sauce is not to have the milk hot, but to have the pan hot and add it a little at a time. So, splash by splash, add the milk, whisking the mixture continually. It will thicken and look much as it did at the start for the first few splashes, but will gradually become runnier.
If you use up all the milk from the fish, add a little more!

When the mixture has a thick, creamy consistency that clings to a metal spoon and drips slowly, add a few teaspoons of wholegrain mustard to taste, salt and pepper and some of the cheese. Mix together.
In an ovenproof dish, flake the fish, add the peas and prawns and pour over the sauce, mixing a little to combine. Be careful not to mix it so much that the fish 'mashes'.
Spoon the mash over the top and sprinkle over the remaining cheese.
Pop into the oven at around 180 for 15 minutes or so, until the cheese has browned. Everything is cooked so it just needs time for the peas and prawns to heat through and the cheese to brown and bubble!

You could even make it up earlier and finish it off in the oven when ready.