Summer Catch

26/07 SUMMER CATCH

Returning to something after a time away is always approached tentatively. Seeing your past again. Returning home. Restarting a project. Can seem daunting. But you have to start somewhere, and where better than in the midst of summer. Not a scorching, skin melting summer - a light breezy ethereal afternoon.

This dish is inspired by the soothing comfort retreating to a cool room after a day in the sun. It is both light yet filling, cool and full of heady flavour. Paired with a bottle of wine and some company there isn't much else I would rather - altogether cheekily playful.

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

2 Salmon Fillets
1/2 Cucumber
1 Romaine Lettuce
1 Avocado
1/2 Fennell (or celery if preferred)
Bunch Fresh Dill
1tbls Hot Mustard
1tbls Mayonaise
1/2 tsp sugar
1tbls Gin
Preserved Lemons
Salt + Pepper
Olive Oil


What I did - 

Nothing too involved, simply salt and pepper the two Salmon fillets. Place a couple of slices of preserved lemons (or thin fresh if you don't have - I mean who really does) on top and then lightly oil. Wrap the top of each fillet with a leaf of lettuce - this will help the fish heat all the way through but retain the moisture.

grill under a hot grill for about 20 minutes until the lettuce is charred and the fish coral-pink. Leave out of the grill to cool while you prepare the salad.

Which is so easy it barely needs instruction. Shred the lettuce into a bowl, scoop curls of avocado, slice the cucumber and fennel (medically thin) and then dice the dill over the top. In a jar shake the mustard, mayonaise, gin, sugar, pepper violently together until it has emulsified into a pale gold.
Turn the dressing through the salad well and spread in a serving dish.

Add the two Salmon fillets to the top. Eat relaxed, on the floor (indoor picnic) with a glass of wine.
Summer bliss.

JG

Rapid Retro

30/03 Part 1: P-COCK-TAIL

This is the first part of my super easy - campishly retro - instant suppers. I know that both of them may make some people squeam in their chairs reading, if only for the raw factor. Trust me i have gone much farther, raw meat. But if thats not your thing, not to worry.

To be honest the prawns are pre-peeled, pre-cooked and pre-packed. This makes them laughably easy to pre-pare. But there is something about either of these simple and quick plates that is so nice to sit around and pick at with a glass of wine and some delicious reality show to indulge.

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

200g Peeled Cooked Prawns
2 tbls Tomato Sauce
2 tbls Mayonaise
1tsp Japanese Chilli Powder
1 spritz lemon juice

What I did - 

This hardly constitutes a recipe. In fact it is just a matter of opening a packet (don't feel any shame) and squeezing out some sauces.

Scatter the little pink bodies of the prawns on a plate and give them a light spritz with a lemon quarter. In a small bowl mix the mayonnaise and the sauce until you have a bowl of pink 70s kitch. Sprinkle the chilli powder over the pink sauce.

Have a dry martini at hand and slowly make your way through this little camp dinner.

JG

Part 2: SAH-SHIMI

This is the less glamorous sister of the prawn cocktail, and a decade later. Now enter the aggressive, fast-talking falseness of the 80s. Sashimi - instant, delicious, expensive to buy out. Super cheap and easy to make at home. Just please make sure the fish is good quality and fresh. No one likes that kind of fish fingers.

I have since discovered Tuna which makes a far nicer dinner. Also there is a strength to the flesh which cuts much easier than salmon. So in this case use this recipe more like a guideline then an actual rule.

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

300g Salmon
50g Okra
Wasabi
Light Soy Sauce (preferable salt reduced)
Chilli Powder
Salt + Pepper
Sesame Oil

What I did* - 

Again this is hardly a recipe. But a simple, easy and overwhelmingly delicious supper. Take the tuna or salmon steak and lay if on a chilling board so that the grain is fanning away from you. Slice the fish as thin as possible without tearing it. Lay it gracefully (more than pictured) on a plate and drizzle very lightly in sesame oil.

In a very small bowl spread two or three (tolerance depending) smears of wasabi and top up with soy. Also good with that incredible Japanese chilli powder, you know the one in every Japanese restaurant. Serve with something picky, crunchy and salty - in this case small pieces of over roasted okra. Cook small chunks with liberal amounts of salt until there is no trace of moisture left.

*I mean no offence to anyone who knows better, this is just what I usually do as an instant supper.

JG

Overcast Light

26/09 OVERCAST LIGHT

Food for thought? Food for fuel? Food for fun. Because to be honest, when the going gets tough, the tough get seriously hungry. This is always the case when it comes to uprooting your life, and this meal is an all in one pre- and post-adventure comfort. It really is just a way to plate up nearly all my favourite ingredients at once (as is the case here, often ready in the fridge).

This particular one holds particularly fond memory in my mind. The blissful last week in Australia, where everything was perfect because it was coming to an end (for now). There was one day where I should have been preparing, but instead shared this and a bottle of grigio in the overcast warmth - my kind of heaven. This is always going to be a plate of overcast happiness.

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

1 Salmon Fillet
3 Eggs
100ml Milk
1 Broccoli
1 Avocado
200g String Beans
70g Goats cheese
Lemon
Salt + Pepper


What I did - 

Really not a stressful cook, just one to do when you have some time at home to juggle the different ingredients. Start by throwing the salmon fillet under a hot grill for about 15 minutes with some lemon, salt and pepper. It doesn't need to cook through, just catch enough to colour on one side.

Whisk the eggs together until pale, add the milk and a chunk of the goats cheese and beat again. In a small baking dish, flake the salmon in the bottom. Pour over the eggs, sprinkle with salt and pepper again and throw into the oven for about 20 minutes at 200degrees. The heat needs to be high so that the eggs inflate around the fish.

While the bake is on, steam the broccoli and beans, or blanche them for 5 minutes. Really don't cook these through, keep them crunchy and hot. Drain/take them off the heat and add to a large salad bowl. Crumble the remaining goats cheese over, gouge out the avocado and squeeze the life out of the lemon. Quickly tumble through the bowl, the heat from the vegetables will melt the cheese with the soft avocado and lemon. It should end up a white-flecked bowl of sharp greenness.

Once the eggs have inflated appropriately, like a blimp, take the dish out of the oven. Serve direct from the dish at the table. Have your guest deal with the wine. Immediate perfection.

JG

Swimming Upstream

02/02 SWIMMING UPSTREAM

Returning home, to an old way of life can often be as isolating as being in a completely alien city. It takes time for your mind to adjust, for your body to settle and your sleep to synchronise to a new moon. With time away the old and familiar become foreign whereas constantly experiencing the new is common - if not always easy. There may always be a Starman waiting in the sky and if food is the one thing that can bring us back, this is the man who fell to earth.

All the elements here are from different meals since returning home, thrown together to help battle the intense seasonal change from minus five to over thirty degrees. The ingredients here are collectively light and hydrating, tied together with a sharp spritz of lemon. The only thing needed to help your body cope with the heat is a frozen glass of wine. We are all salmon fighting the current, but sometimes its best to let it take you home.

Ingredients (all approximate) - Cold from the Fridge

1 Salmon Fillet (steamed)
2 Heads Broccoli (steamed)
1 Wedge Lettuce
1 Egg (hard boiled)
Lemon
Salt + Pepper

What I did - 

Most times in summer the desire to cook is completely absent, so the simplest way to prepare this is to use all the old leftovers. The ingredients don't have to be exactly the same as here, but the combination of fish, an egg, a lettuce and steamed vegetable is perfect - all served cold from the fridge.

Peel the last few green leaves off the decaying iceberg lettuce, or nice fresh one if lucky. Folded them in half and sliced them into long thin strands, this helps keep them sharp as you pile on the other softer ingredients. Arrange the strands into a welcoming nest.

Dice up the head of broccoli so that its a fine green scattering which can be used to fill the lettuce nest. The salmon had previously been steamed for about 15 minutes and then the leftovers steeped in lemon juice overnight. This makes the pale pink flesh easy to flake apart and add to the green nest.

If there isn't a hard boiled egg in the fridge, quickly boil one for four minutes and then crack the shell off. Crown the fleshy salmon with the yolk before dusting in crystalline salt flakes and pepper.

These ingredients are all orphaned, but together help bring you back home. There's no place like it.

JG

Technicolor Salmon

02/10 - TECHNICOLOR SALMON

A very good friend of mine told me that what you eat should be as colourful as possible. Not meant as hyperbole or metaphor, a literal philosophy that a plate should be full of colour. And in a bizarre way somehow makes perfect sense. Cooking with colour means that the wider spectrum in what you eat, the better, more balanced, all the health blah blah you need - but mainly it always looks and tastes better.

So technicolour dreams in my head and the sun menacingly hot - the horror, the horror - I was stuck with a pair of pink salmon fillets. Of course when you use pink more is always more, think Madonna's confessions era, so i gathered all the ingredients I had and created a camp summery lunch. Nothing too complicated, chucked together in about 15 minutes. Just enough time to start a second glass of rose.

Ingredients (all approximate) -

2 Small Salmon fillets (maybe 200g each)
1 slosh of thick Soy Sauce
1 tsp honey
1 pinch chilli flakes (or paste)
1 tsp wasabi
Salt+Pepper

Red Cabbage (couple of leaves)
Olive oil to griddle

Coriander to garnish (if you're feeling fancy, this salmon had to get ready for its close up)

What I did - 

The first thing to do is drown the salmon in a marinade. Put the fish in a tupperware container and just added everything to that. I go by the marinade rule of some salt, some sweet and some spice - and never hold back. So I used the salty soy, the sweet honey and the wasabi/chilli for spice. Massage everything together, use a spoon if you're not down for sticky fingers, and let sit in the fridge until time to cook (max couple of hours).

The easiest way to cook the fish (and avoid salmonella-ella) is to throw it under a blistering grill until they come out dark and gleaming - say 10 minutes or so. Also be sure to pour all the marinade over the top, most will run off but what sticks will caramelise like toffee.

While the salmon is grilling I got the rest of my pink going, the charred red cabbage. Okay so not strictly pink, more a deep purple. I use a cast iron griddle, preheated as hot as possible - always keep it dry, don't oil it like a frypan. Slick the cabbage leaves with a little oil and then throw them on the griddle until they start smoking. Flip the leaves after a few minutes and grill the other side until both have black scorch marks - embrace the charring.

That is essentially it, not much really, but has everything I was craving in the heat. I served the salmon on top of the cabbage to enhance the scorched pinkness. I only put the two together because I was had the urge, but happily the salmons sweetness brings out the same in the cooked cabbage, and the mild cabbage tones down my heavy handed marinade.

So all I did was marinade, grill and scorch two ingredients yet the technicolor-table idea was never far from my mind. Indeed I downed a bottle glass of rose in the process, and another when eating. All that was missing was the summertime gaiety of a noel coward play. I hope we all have a fabulous meal to brace for the imminent glare of summer, I've found mine ;)

JG