Tag: Fish

Categories
Mains Recipes

Firecracker Salmon

Here’s a fairly quick and easy way to zing up some salmon fillets, using a fiery topping sauce made mainly from ingredients you might find stowed away in a kitchen cupboard or fridge.

I served the firecracker salmon over a bed of veg and beansprouts, flash cooked in the wok using the remainder of the fiery topping as a spicy and fruity stir fry sauce. The veg consisted of crushed garlic and chopped root ginger, with fine batons of carrot, celery and red pepper, a few sliced mushrooms and a chopped red onion. I also chopped in a bunch of coriander/cilantro leaves and wilted in some pak choi.

No carb accompaniments required, but see Customise It! below for another suggestion to accompany the salmon.

The stir fry was made in the time it took the salmon to cook in the oven, so no additional time is required. The finished meal you can see in my photo at the top of the post.

Servings

2 adult portions.

Timings

5 mins to prepare, 20 mins to cook.

You Will Need:

  • 2 salmon fillets

    For the fiery topping
  • 2 tbsp red chilli paste
  • 100g tomato passata
  • 2 tbsp fruit jam
  • 2 tbsp rice or white wine vinegar
  • 2 tbsp soy sauce

    To sprinkle
  • a handful of sesame seeds

Method

  1. Turn a fan oven on to 180C.
  2. Take a roasting dish and line it with a rectangle of tin foil. Drizzle a little of the oil on the foil and lay the two salmon portions down on it, side by side. Then lift up the edges of the tin foil and pinch them at the corners to form a little fence tightly around the sides of the salmon.
  3. Put the fiery topping ingredients in a clean screw top jar and close with the lid. Give it a really good shake to mix.
  4. Unscrew the jar and, using a basting brush, smear the topping over the tops and sides of the salmon. The tin foil parcel will help it stay on the fish while it cooks, and stop it dripping off.
  5. Place the tray in the oven when it is up to temp. After 10 mins, remove it and baste the tops and sides again with another layer of fiery topping. Place back in the oven for a further 10 mins.
  6. Remove and use a spatula to lift each portion of salmon on to a warm plate. Sprinkle over the sesame seeds to serve.

Customise It!

An alternative to the stir fry accompaniment would be to place some small potatoes with chopped onion and peppers on the roasting tray alongside the salmon parcel, then serve it all together. This way there is only one cooking pan involved, and the wok can stay in the drawer.

Here’s a cracker of a track I’ve been playing this week in the ADK Kitchen. I heard it by chance recently and it reminded me how good this band were in their day. I have always liked the guitar sound of Andy Gill in particular. This is What We All Want from Gang of Four.

Categories
Blog Drink Mains

Atlantic Coast Express

The next adventure on our foodie travels around Cornwall is a trip to Padstow, by bike along the Camel Trail.

Padstow, shown in my photo above, is a compact, picturesque and very popular little fishing port on the north coast of Cornwall.

The Camel Trail follows a disused railway line along the bank of the River Camel estuary all the way from Wadebridge.

This coffee stop along the route is housed in a refurbished railway carriage. It takes its name from the train service that used to travel this line back in the day: the Atlantic Coast Express. You place your order, then collect it when the toot-toot of the old steam whistle sounds.

There’s a relaxed vibe, with people chatting, checking the map, or just enjoying the views across the estuary.

It’s a good place for a spot of bird watching.

The cakes at Atlantic Coast Express are all locally sourced and look great. We shared a peanut butter chocolate brownie, giving us the energy boost we needed to complete the 5 mile ride into Padstow.

Padstow has been rather thrust into the foodie scene since celebrity chef, Rick Stein, set up his seafood restaurant here. It’s proven such a success that he’s followed it up with a cafe, deli and cookery school. Other restaurants and outlets have followed,  meaning the town now boasts a varied and quality food offering, whether sit-in or takeaway, to suit every taste and budget.

We bought these fillets of Cornish hake from the wet fish counter in his deli.

Arriving that evening at our next motorhome stopover, I cooked them in a foil parcel on the Cadac (my gas bbq). Ten minutes was all that was required, then a squeeze of fresh lemon and a few twists of black pepper. We served them up with Cornish new potatoes and broccoli.

A bottle of Cornish IPA was a perfect accompaniment to the meal, also biked back to the van in my pannier, from the Padstow craft brewery.

We had live music at our campsite last night, and this timeless classic is one of the tracks the band performed. It could be a motivational song when it comes to cycling, considering all the hills here in Cornwall! This is Jackie Wilson with (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher.

Categories
Blog

Arbroath Smokies

My foodie journey north in our motorhome has now reached Scotland. Climbing the east coast, we stopped in Angus to seek out the famous Arbroath Smokies.

The Smokies are haddock, caught fresh in the North Sea and unloaded from the fishing boats in little Arbroath Harbour (shown in my photo below), where they are then smoked.

Smokies are one of those delicacies that benefit from a Protected Geographical Indication, or PGI. This is a status that is given to regional speciality foods that use traditional methods unique to a particular location. It is designed to stop cheap imitations that are made elsewhere, or to lower quality standards, being passed off on shoppers as the real thing. Other famous examples of a PGI are French Champagne and Parma Ham from Italy.

In such exalted company, you would be excused for thinking that, nowadays, the Arbroath Smokie might be the subject of the full celebrity foodie treatment: perhaps a modern visitor centre with an audiovisual introduction, factory tour, cafe and souvenir shop with a coach park outside full of tour parties. Well, prepare for a surprise.

The process for catching, producing and selling the fish looks like it has hardly changed in decades. The centre of operations remains a modest-sized smokehouse and shop front on the harbourside, accessed on foot via some old narrow lanes.

The rear of the somewhat humble building still looks out directly on the North Sea. The whole operation is full of charm.

The service is friendly, with lots of free tasters over the counter, and the prices reasonable. We were momentarily tempted by the business’s other delicacy, Firecracker Salmon, which is local salmon smoked with a chilli kick, and which tastes amazing. However, we settled on a couple of Smokies to take away. The skilled shop assistant filleted them for us in seconds.

When we reached our motorhome stopover for the night, I wrapped the Smokies in a foil parcel and warmed them outside on the Cadac, for about 15 mins. The aroma that was released as the foil parcel opened was awesome. My main photo at the top of the post captures that moment.

I served them very simply in the evening sun, with a half of lemon to squeeze over, sweetcorn and some boiled new potatoes. They were delicious!

Coincidentally, around this time I managed to buy some tickets to see ABC early next year. With full orchestral backing, Martin Fry will be performing The Lexicon of Love in full, along with their other hits.

This tribute to a Motown legend just has to be the next track for the ADK Playlist, therefore: ABC with When Smokey Sings.

Categories
Mains Recipes

Korean Salmon Noodles

Here’s another tasty dish using the Korean Sauce recipe you can find in my Korean Pulled Pork Sandwich post. The Sauce is really is versatile and, once made up and in a jug in the fridge, it can spice up and make more interesting a variety of other dishes.

In today’s offering, it serves both as a topping for baked salmon, and as a stir fry sauce for veg, served over noodles as shown in my photo above.

Servings

A main meal for 2.

Timings

With a batch of the Sauce already made up, this dish takes a further 15 – 20 mins.

You Will Need

  • a jug of Korean Sauce – follow here for the recipe
  • 2 salmon fillets
  • 1 onion
  • a few mushrooms, chopped
  • half a green pepper, and half a red pepper, cut into strips
  • 1 pack of fresh beansprouts
  • 1 pad of dried noodles
  • a few scallions, chopped

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 180C. Grease a roasting tray and place the salmon fillets in it. With a basting brush, spread a few spoonfuls of the Korean sauce over the top of the fillets and place in the oven for 15 – 20 mins.
  2. Heat some oil in a wok and chuck in the onions, mushrooms and peppers. Stir fry until the veg is all nicely charred. Add in the beansprouts and a few spoonfuls of the Korean sauce. Stir again so that all the veg is coated in the sauce.
  3. Place the noodles in a pan of boiling water for about 2 mins, then drain.
  4. Serve the stir fried veg over a bed of noodles, topped with the salmon fillet. Garnish with chopped scallions.

Customise It!

Mix up the stir fried veg as you wish – bok choi, mange tout or carrot sticks would all be excellent. Sprinkle sesame seeds over if you like – they go really well with the Korean Sauce.

Next track for the ADK Playlist is from a band whose music I have been exploring recently. I always thought PSB stood for Purple Sprouting Broccoli, but now I know it also stands for Public Service Broadcasting. They make an interesting sound, incorporating samples from classic, archived audio files, with clear influences including David Bowie and Kraftwerk. Here’s a track to introduce them by, using Mission Control’s commentary on the moon landing. This is Public Service Broadcasting with Go!

Categories
Mains Recipes

Bomb the Basa

Basa is still a relative newcomer to our fishmonger stalls and markets. Being a good source of protein, rich in healthy omega 3 fats, and coming from a plentiful and sustainable supply, it certainly deserves our attention alongside the more traditional cods and herrings. You could even say it has earned its plaice (sorry, couldn’t resist that one). Being quite inexpensive and available in many supermarkets also helps.

I’ve cooked with it a few times and found that it tends to stay firm, holding its texture and shape where some other types of fish are more likely to fragment into flakes. This means it is quite receptive to marinades and toppings that add complementary tastes.

Servings

This will make a meal for two.

Timings

10 mins to prepare, 25 mins in the oven.

You Will Need

  • 2 basa fillets
  • 1 garlic clove
  • 2-3 cm piece of root ginger
  • 1 small green chilli
  • 1 small red chilli
  • half a lemon
  • olive oil
  • black pepper

Method

  1. Line a baking tray with foil and brush it with a little of the oil. This will ensure that you can remove the fish after cooking, to serve in one piece!
  2. Lay the 2 fillets on the foil. Top with finely chopped garlic, ginger and chillis. Splash on the lemon juice and a drizzle of oil, with a few twists of pepper.
  3. Cook in the oven at 180C for about 25 mins.

Customise it!

Stick with the holy trinity of garlic, ginger and chillis, but if you want to add some chopped spring onions that would be fine also. Fresh coriander (cilantro) would be excellent.

If you like fish with a buttery sauce, you could make up some of the lime and sea salt butter I made on this earlier post (see here, step 9) and melt some over the fish as you serve it. The lime and sea salt will work well with the chilli and ginger.

I served this with some new potatoes and steamed green veg, as the picture shows. I imagine it would also be really good with some stir fried veg or noodles, and a spicy sauce.

There are other Basa recipes around, but you will do well to beat this. Or, should I say, Beat Dis!

It’s an honour to add Bomb the Bass to the ADK Spotify Playlist.

Keep this frequency clear!

Categories
Mains Recipes

BBQ-Baked Fish

Our weather this weekend was just ridiculous – 30+ degrees C every day – so cooking out of doors was definitely on the agenda.

Fish baked on the barbecue is an idea I first came across in a recipe book by legendary outdoor chef, Keith Floyd. For me, this was a different way to cook fish and I have done this several times since.

Servings

This is a meal for two.

Timings

5 mins prep, 15 mins to cook.

You Will Need

  • Tin foil
  • 2 fillets of fish
  • handful of spring onions
  • juice of half a lemon
  • drizzle of olive oil
  • cherry tomatoes on the vine
  • sprinkling of herbes de provence

Method

  1. Start by tearing off a large sheet of foil, and brush it lightly with oil.
  2. Place a couple of fish fillets in the middle (I used cod loins, but other fish will do just as well)
  3. Give the fish a topping. This can change depending on what’s in season and what you have to hand. I had a good crop of spring onions from the garden, so chopped these over the fish, adding the juice of half a lemon, a drizzle of olive oil, and a few twists of black pepper.
  4. Then gather up the sides of the foil to form a parcel, crimping the edges together in a pasty-type shape.
  5. Place the parcel on the griddle plate of the barbecue and close the lid. Leave it for about 10 – 15 mins.
  6. We have a glut of cherry tomatoes in the garden at the moment, with all this hot weather, so I snipped off a vine and cooked this also on the griddle, alongside the fish parcel. I brushed the vine and tomatoes in olive oil and gave them a sprinkling of herbes de provence. They look great on the plate and provide a rich, squishy sauce to complement the fish.
  7. Take care when opening the fish parcel as there will be a sudden escape of heat. The flesh of the fish should be in flakes, and some parts of the underside will be lightly charred (see the photo above, taken as the parcel was opened). This is a really nice part of the dish, as it gives it a taste and texture you will not normally get when cooking fish in a more conventional way, like in an oven or a pan. Don’t overdo it though, or the fish will burn!

Customise it

There’s lots of scope for playing around with the topping – parsley goes well if you have it, and also a few capers.

My BBQ-baked fish and tomatoes was served with a few new potatoes and lightly steamed summer green veg, washed down with a glass of chilled Sauvignon Blanc – dining al fresco, of course!

As for the musical accompaniment to this post, the last time I blogged about a barbecue meal I opted for The Doors’ Light My Fire. This great track by The Prodigy was in close contention, so here it is in its own right, now added to the ADK Playlist. It’s the song every barbecue chef should be humming as they warm up their grill, and guaranteed to get the party going:

I’m a Firestarter!

Hey, hey hey!