鄭立勳。常滿。Bountiful。Mandy Cheng: 2021-02

Showing posts with label 2021-02. Show all posts

Mix veg smoked mackerel rosti

Mix veg smoked mackerel rosti, before baking

spring smoked mackerel

After fattening in winter, the smoked mackerel now are much bigger and more oily than those bought in autumn. Great to warm up to serve as such or use in making this rosti, fan grilled with bottom heat in the oven, a powerful function that produce a result similar to deep frying, without the mess and oil.

1. Remove flesh from mackerel, break into pieces.

2. Grate potato and carrot, season with salt, pepper, cornstarch and a little oil, mix well with mackerel.

3. On a baking tray, scoop mixture to form 6cm diameter circles, tidy the edges and keep at half cm high, tighten a little but do not press hard, keep a loose texture to cook easily and more crispy.

4. Bake with turbo grill/fan with grill and bottom heat, at 180˚C until golden, around 20-30 minutes depending on oven power and desired crispiness.

Dried lightly salted hake egg


hake egg

marinated hake egg

Dried salted hake egg

Saw this available at the fishmonger and decided to dry them as a snack for aperitif. Being homemade and kept in freezer for storage, they are just lightly salted, very pleased with the result.

1. Remove any extra membrane and vein, wipe dry.

2. Cover with 5% salted fermented rice, put a weight on top like a heavy baking dish, keep in the fridge for a 2 to a few days, turnover everyday.

3. Scrape away fermented rice, cook at low temperature in the oven at 90˚C, turnover every hour until hard, 2- 3 hours depending on size.

Beetroot blood orange pudding

Played with this combination of beetroot and blood orange again, this time in dessert, surprisingly tasty and warming, both for the eyes and the tummy.

1 beetroot

1 blood orange

30gm sugar

pinch of salt

2 eggs

30gm sugar

50gm butter

100gm flour

zest and juice of one lemon

1tsp baking powder

1. Cut beetroot and blood orange into quarters and into thin slices, mix with sugar and salt and rest for 15 minutes to soften.

2. Prepare the sponge cake mix.

3. In a buttered pudding dish, place beetroot mixture at the bottom, max 1/3 volume, pour cake mix on top. Cover with an inverted dish and steam for 2 hours.

Pancake with blood orange and black sesame spread

On pancake day, made some thin pancakes for breakfast, out of the normal fillings, this blood orange and black sesame spread (50:50 plain black sesame paste and cocomus) was the best. The full flavor freshness of blood orange paired well with the richness of black sesame spread.

Braised rolled lamb shoulder in spiced apple sauce

Using the stored green apple as a base to slow cook this rolled lamb shoulder in the oven, not much work and fantastic flavor.

1. Peel and cut 4 green apples into cubes, cover with water and bring to boil, season with salt, brown sugar, ginger, garlic, cardamom, clove, star anis, dry mandarin peel... as you like.

2. When apple starts to disintegrate, put lamb shoulder in to warm up for a few minutes.

3. Place lamb shoulder in a similar size baking dish, pour sauce to cover to 2/3 height.

4. Bake at 180˚C for 30 minutes, turn over lamb and lower temperature to 150˚C, bake for another 2 hours, turnover every half hour.

Pork shoulder in blood orange smoky pimenton sauce

While organic blood orange is still available to order, I keep on using it as an ingredient in dishes. Blood orange has richer dimension of flavor than orange, and partners well with a smoky aroma.

1. Season pork shoulder chop with soy sauce, salt, brown sugar, pimenton, quartered and thinly sliced blood orange and rice wine.

2. Stew pork with all the seasoning in a pan with lid on, 7 minutes each side for this 1 inch thick chop.

3. Take chop out to slice thin before serving, reduce sauce/adjust seasoning before pouring on the plate.

Wild eel with lemon zest and seaweed

Wild eel from Lake Neagh

I have not eaten eel for a long time because most are farmed. From the on line fish monger, I can get this eel being grown wild and sustainable in the huge Neagh lake in North Ireland. Ordered one to try, simply cooked with lemon zest and seaweed to check its flavor and texture, pretty good.

1. Season eel with salt, pepper and rice wine for a day.

2. Sear gently until all sides golden, add lemon zest, seaweed flakes, half a cup of water, stew for 2 minutes each side.

Chinese mushroom and bacon dish

Used Chinese mushroom, bacon from the organic farm to make a dish to celebrate CNY, easy to make and tasty.

1. Soak Chinese mushroom overnight, remove stalk and cut into thick slices, season with soy sauce, brown sugar, rice wine and some cornstarch.

2. Cut bacon into mushroom size pieces and carrot into slices.

3. In a bowl, arrange in a circular manner a slice of mushroom, bacon and carrot until all are used up, pour in any remaining seasoning.

4. Cover the bowl with a upside down dish, steam for an hour, turn over and serve.

Fermented oat porridge

Using the same method of making fermented rice with the 'white ball' starter, I do the same with a cooked thick porridge. Being more moist, the fermentation kicked in the next day and on the third day the porridge is both sweet, sour and more liquid.
It is kept in the fridge to slow down fermentation, re-heat to serve, great that there is no need to add honey to the porridge.

Blood orange marmalade

This year there is a good supply of organic blood orange, so for the first time I made blood orange marmalade.

Compare with the British favorite Seville orange marmalade, I found the blood orange version more flavorful. Both has the mild bitter taste from the peel, the juice of blood orange is more flavorful than Seville orange, which is only sour.

1. Juice blood orange and cut skin with pith into thin strips, need a few more oranges to make juice to cover skin well.

2. Season with sugar and bring to boil, simmer for 15 minutes with the lid on to keep all the fragrance in.

3. Repeat the above simmering and resting a few time until skin is soft and marmalade thick enough, adjust sweetness.

Light yogurt lemon cake

It is a tasty cake with a creamy texture without using cream nor butter, and super easy to make. Method is similar to making souffle, puff up a lot in the oven and will shrink on cooling.

2 egg yolks

50gm sugar

200gm Greek yogurt

juice and zest of a lemon

30 gm flour

2 egg whites, pinch of salt

1. Whisk yolks with sugar until fluffy, add yogurt, lemon juice and zest and flour, mix well.

2. Whisk egg white with pinch of salt until soft peak, fold gently into mixture.

3. Pour into well buttered cake dish, bake at 170˚C until golden, around 40 minutes.

Broccoli blue cheese bake

It is very convenient to bake veg in the oven, especially when there is other dish being baked, able to concentrate flavor without a watery result. I added a little blue cheese to add a slight touch of flavor, inspired by very popular broccoli blue cheese soup.

1. Cut broccoli into pieces, season with salt, olive oil and a little white wine/water, shake to mix well.

2. Place on baking dish in one layer, add cubes of blue cheese on top, bake at 180˚C until just cooked, around 20 minutes.

Hake in fragrance sauce

Hake in fragrance sauce, before baking

For me hake need be served with a sauce, not the type of fish that can be plain baked to enjoy the flavor and texture, a bit too dry. This combination of cardamom and soy sauce has great fragrance and is delicious.

1. Pound the seeds of cardamom, mix with soy sauce, brown sugar, white pepper and olive oil, season fish for half a day, or longer.

2. Wrap fish in baking paper, bake at 200˚C until cooked, around 20 minutes for this 1 inch thick slice.

Baked black sole

baked black sole

black sole

It is the season for black sole, around 500gm, good fine waxy meat, never as good as turbot, but pretty good.

1. Season with salt for half a day.

2. Dot some butter on top, bake at 200˚C for 10minutes, rest with door ajar for another 10 minutes.

Whole lemon pudding

Lemon pudding

Finally made a version similar to the famous Sussex pond pudding with a whole lemon inside, that needs steaming for 4 hours! I cheated using sliced lemon for a better visual effect, and used bread dough instead of suet pastry. Have to say the resulting pudding has a wonderful fragrant, stodgy rich texture and a delicious sauce, very interesting. If I make it again, I will use small containers with cut up fruit, cook a large batch at the same time, and serve one portion per person, faster to steam and prettier to serve.

60gm butter

60gm sugar

250 gm bread dough

a lemon

1. Brush butter on pudding dish, place half the butter and sugar in the bottom, add sliced lemon, then remaining butter and sugar.

2. Pour twice risen bread dough on top to an inch below the rim, cover with an inverted dish, steam for 3 hours.

Fennel, potato and lemon bake

Fennel, potato and lemon bake, before baking

Continue my experiment of baking vegetable with citrus fruit, inspired by recipes in the book Citrus. Baking lemon with vegetables provides moisture, a mild citrus undertone, and infused aroma of the zest, make the dish more refreshing in taste and look.

1. Cut fennel bulb, parboiled potato, and lemon into slices, season with salt, pepper and nutmeg, rest for a while to soften.

2. Place in a baking dish, dot the surface with slices of butter, bake at 180˚C until slightly golden, around 40 minutes.

Scallop in pine nut yogurt sauce

Scallop is in season now and I have to find new ways to serve it every week, for the fun of doing so. This time made a mild but fragrant creamy sauce that complement the mild flavor of scallop.

1. Pound a big tablespoon of pine nuts, zest of a lemon, a big pinch of salt until smooth.

2. In a small pan, melt butter and cook this pine nut mixture for a minute, add 4 tablespoons of Greek yogurt, mix well, check seasoning. Can add slices of chili for a spicy kick.

3. Sear scallop in half butter half olive oil until both sides golden, serve on top of sauce.

Monkfish in tomato ginger sauce

Monkfish is easy to please, being pure white, boneless and good firm texture, need a tasty sauce to go with it.

1. Season monkfish with salt & pepper for half a day.

2. Sear monkfish, tomato wedges and ginger slices together.

3. When both sides of monkfish are golden, add white wine to deglace, when reduced to half the volume, add soy sauce and a little brown sugar, simmer with the lid on until fish cooked through to the middle.

Savory sweet kumquat cordial

Sort of similar in taste to traditional salted kumquat drink, this is an instant version, a good healthy electrolyte drink. Can make it with lemon or lime too, using the zest only.

1. Cut kumquat into quarters, remove seeds, add 5% its weight in salt, mix well and let it rest to soften for a couple of hours.

2. Add juice of a lemon, simmer for 10 minutes, stirring gently.

3. Make a syrup with brown sugar, same weight as kumquat, in half the weight in water, bring to boil.

4. Add syrup to kumquat mixture, store in jars and keep in the fridge.

5 To serve, dilute to 15-20 times its volume in water.