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Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Lemon Possum



So full of fish and looking at the Sunday papers we found this baby! Woooo who are we to say no - I've just copied the below recipe from the Guardian site - we didn't change anything and with such a perfect recipe - why would you. We halved the amount to serve 4 which worked pretty well - and we had some biscuits left over for the next day

Lemon posset

One of the simplest and most delicious of all English puddings. It's remarkable that something that takes only minutes to make tastes so luxurious. Serve it as it is, with small shortbread biscuits as we do here, or with a few raspberries later in the summer. Serves six.

600ml double cream
150g caster sugar or vanilla sugar
Juice of 3 medium-sized lemons


Pour the cream into a large saucepan and add the sugar. Warm gently, stirring to dissolve the sugar, then bring to a boil and boil for exactly three minutes, without stirring. Remove from the heat and whisk in the lemon juice. Strain into a jug, then pour into six ramekins or small glasses. Cool, cover, and refrigerate for four hours before serving.

River Cottage shortbread

Makes about 24 biscuits.

175g butter, softened
90g caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
A generous pinch of salt
2 medium egg yolks
Grated zest of an orange or lemon
200g plain flour, plus extra for dusting

In a mixer, beat together the butter and sugar on a medium-high speed until very pale and fluffy - you want it to be almost white - scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula as you go. Lower the speed to medium and add the salt, egg yolks and zest. Beat for half a minute, then gently fold in the flour using a spatula. The dough will be very sticky.

With floured hands, scrape the dough on to a floured surface and pat into a wide, flat disc. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to a thickness of about 3mm and use a 6cm pastry cutter to cut out your biscuits. Use a palette knife to transfer to a nonstick baking sheet or one lined with baking parchment. Bake for seven to 10 minutes, until just golden around the edges but pale on top. Remove from the oven and sprinkle generously with caster sugar. Leave on the baking sheet to firm up for a minute or two, then carefully transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Use your biscuits to dip into the lemon possum - delicious

Mackerel Pate


Lovely Pate for your Plate

Mackerel Pate

There were 3 of us for lunch, and we bought 4 big fillets, so there
was one left over. I cooked it and turned it into mackerel pate, like
so:

Flake the mackerel into a bowl with about 1 oz softened butter. add
half a lemon worth of juice, some chopped capers, chopped dill and
chives and mix well with a fork. Serve on crusty bread. Yum

Big up the Mackerel Massive



Big up the Mackerel Massive

Lu and I went for a cycle this morning all the way to Dollymount
strand. We saw people digging for what we thought were clams but
turned out to be lugworms... anyway, somewhat bizarrely this gave us a
terrible craving for some nice fresh seafood. Wrights of Marino
provided us with 4 lovely big Mackerel fillets, and here is what we
did with them:


Fried mackerel in a coriander cream sauce with crushed dill new potatoes
serves 3
3 fresh mackerel fillets
10-15 new potatoes
1 tbsp coriander seeds, crushed in pestle and mortar
100 ml cream
2 oz butter
juice of 1 lemon
a few sprigs of dill
boil the new potatoes until tender. When they are done , crush (not
Mash!) them with a fork, and stir in the roughly chopped dill, a big
nob of butter and a little glug of cream, salt and pepper. Se aside
with the lid on, they will keep warm while you cook the mackerel.


melt a nob of butter and some olive oil in a frying pan. Turn up the
heat so that when you put the mackerel in, skin side down, it really
sizzles. Cook on both sides for about 4 mins each (if the mackerel is
fat- you will need to check if its cooked all the way through)

Put the potatoes in the middle of a plate, balance the cooked mackerel
on top, and set aside while you cook the sauce (don't worry, its very
quick)


In the same pan that you cooked the mackerel, melt the rest of the
butter. Get it really hot but be careful not to burn. throw in the
crushed coriander seeds, the lemon juice and cream. swirl the pan
around to mix, then leave on head for 20 seconds or so, until it
bubbles. Quickly pour over the mackerel and serve.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Waffle Omlettte

Waffle Omelet

No potatoes in your kitchen - hankering for a Spanish omelet? just replace your potatoes with cut up sections of potato waffles and you're set

Yum Yum