Cod, Chermoula Crust, Roasted Butternut Squash & Brown Rice Pilaff with Samphire

Recently I have hankered to eat fish. After a never-ending winter, I am dreaming of warm days, preferable spent by the sea eating freshly caught fish and vibrant salads (one can dream!). This recipe sort of bridges that gap, as fresh fish is swaddled in a moreish crust and the combination of cod, creamy squash and a buttery, nutty pilaff are deeply comforting on a winter's day.

The inspiration came from a delicious supper I had this week cooked by my friend Letizia. After a first course of pasta (of course, she’s Italian) we were served a piece of haddock, bought from her local fishmonger, baked in a lightly spiced crust with an incredibly creamy pumpkin mash. Very simple but so satisfying. On asking her what I should cook for a house supper the next day, she said ‘this’. So I did, chopping and changing with my own recipe and additions.

My fabulous fishmonger supplied the best and freshest cod fillets I have ever eaten. The flesh was pearly white and so clean tasting and a million miles away from the packaged cod you buy from a supermarket. From the grocer next door I found some samphire to add to a brown rice pilaff and a large bunch of flat-leaf parsley, fresh garlic and green chillis to make a chermoula crust for the fish.

Served with some roasted squash the result was delicious, comforting and everyone loved it.  For pudding Ellie made her signature Vanilla Crème Patisserie and Fresh Raspberry Jelly Cups which were heavenly. 

Cod with a Chermoula Crust, Roasted Butternut Squash & Brown Rice Pilaff with Samphire

Serves 4-5

For the squash…

• Preheat the over to 200C. Half one large Butternut Squash lengthways. Slash the flesh and top with 2 tbsp Butter, Seasoning and a drizzle of Oil. Roast in the oven, cut-side up, for 1hr.
• When soft and golden, taken out of the oven and scoop the flesh out into a saucepan, removing any seeds along the way. Crush slightly with a fork and add a dash of Milk, some Butter and Seasoning (it may need a little sugar also). Reheat when ready to serve. 

For the pilaff…

• Melt 50g Butter in a small heavy based saucepan or casserole. Add 1 Onion, finely diced, a tsp Salt, and gently sauté until translucent. Add 1 Tbsp Curry Powder and 2 Garlic Cloves, finely chopped and cook for 1 min. 
• Add 300g Brown Basmati Rice and stir to coat the grains.  Then add 500ml Chicken Stock, place a lid on top turn the heat to low. Cook for about 40 mins, until the rice is cooked but retains a bite. 
• Just before serving add a large handful of Sampire which has been rinsed and drained, pop the lid back on to let it steam for a couple of minutes, then serve.

For the fish…

Preheat the oven to 190C

• In a food processor whizz 400g White Bread, 1 large bunch of Parsley, 1 chopped Green Chilli, 4 chopped Garlic Cloves, 1 tsp Smoked Paprika, Juice and Zest 1 Lemon and some Salt & Pepper.
• Arrange 2 large Cod Fillets (enough to serve 4 depending on how hungry you are) in a baking tray, skin side down, and press the crust onto the fish.
• Drizzle with Olive Oil and roast in the oven for approximately 20 minutes. It will be ready when a butter knife easily pushes through the flesh. 

Almond French Toast, Slow-cooked Lamb & Creme Bachique

 This mothering Sunday I decided to opt for the classic: French Toast. Is their anything better than a hunk of golden, buttery, eggy bread doused in maple syrup? No siree. Crispy bacon takes it up a notch. But I like to keep it simple with a sharp raspberry compote and a dollop of yoghurt. As I can't resist playing, I also dipped the bread in flaked almonds before frying so that they toasted while the bread caramelised in a nod to my mum's favourite Croissants aux Amandes. It worked really well and she loved it.

So did Amelie. She managed to jump paw-first into the action and ended up in prime toast-licking position. The little minx.

 Breakfast cleared away and my next task was lunch. I did our family’s no-recipe, easy peasy and incredibly melt-in-the-mouth shoulder of lamb.  The hardest part is remembering to put it in the oven as soon as you wake up (after a lazy Sunday lie in of course). Whilst the oven is heating to max, put a shoulder (or two) of lamb into a roasting tin, score the skin lightly and drape/drizzle the contents of two tins of anchovies over the lamb with lots of cracked pepper. Don’t worry if you hate fish as they merely act as a seasoning and  all fishy flavour is surrendered to the rich lamb-y juices. 

From this...

...to this

When the lamb has been in the oven for 20 minutes, spread the melting anchovies over all the skin and turn the oven down to low i.e somewhere between 80 – 100°C or at the bottom of an aga, and cook for anything between 4 – 8 hrs basting occasionally until it is almost falling off the bone. All this dish needs is, potatoes boulangere (with plenty of onion) and any seasonal green vegetables, perhaps coated in a white sauce if you are feeling greedy. I love adding a heavy hand of gremolata at the end.

Heavenly Creme Bachique

For dessert I made Diana Henry's Creme Bachique which is just SO GOOD. If it was an English dessert it would be called 'Wasted Custard' or 'Boozy Cream' due to its alcohol content - but Creme Bachique just sounds so much better. It is in fact a very elegant dessert, albeit one that takes half a bottle of dessert wine - the better the wine, the better the result as the flavour really shines through. I used Royal Tokaji 5 Puttonyos Aszu, a beautiful sweet wine from Hungary which somehow had survived Christmas untouched. Henry recommends a Sauternes.

Strangely I managed to make far more mix than could fill the 6 x 125ml moulds suggested and they didn’t completely set (see my sorry picture!) so I have contacted Diana to see what could have happened. She has very kindly agreed to investigate. Additionally she said she created this dish merely from reading about it in an old French cook book sans recipe - how clever is that? I love that there are still so many undiscovered recipes - and this one beats the creme caramel norm hands down. Anyway, imagining it is my mistake, here is her original recipe:

Creme Bachique by Diana Henry published in House & Garden April 2013

• First make the caramel by dissolving 115g Granulated Sugar with 3 tbsp Water over a low heat. Turn up the heat and boil until it turns to a dark caramel. Slowly add 100ml water (be careful, it splutters) and  leave to cool.
• To make the custard, preheat the oven to 130°c. Whisk 2 Eggs, 6 Egg Yolks, 100g Sugar & ½ Tsp Vanilla Extract in a large bowl.
• In two separate saucepans, heat 475ml Double Cream & 250ml Sweet White Wine until they begin to simmer.
• Slowly whisk the wine into the egg mixture, followed by the cream.
• Strain through a sieve into a jug and then pour into six buttered, metal, dariole-type moulds, sitting in a roasting tray.
• Pour boiling water up to halfway around the moulds and cook for 35 minutes until set with a slight wobble.
• Cool in the water and then chill for 4-6 hours.
• To unmould, run a knife around the edges and dip in boiling water. Spoon the caramel over each and enjoy.

With thanks to my dad'd delicious rum cocktail which helped write this post - after a
long stretch of inedible cocktails, he finally got his signature punch. So proud.  

Apple Tart

Last week I spent swishing down the slopes in Verbier, Switzerland. Not only is this bowl-like valley beautiful, the skiing is fantastic and it is a food-lovers heaven. It takes a lot to entice me out of bed on holiday at 7:30am when it is minus degrees outside, but when I knew there were fresh pastries within a five minute stroll down a snow-lined track. Well, I pretty much leapt out of bed everyday. And my god the pastries at La Boulangerie Michellod were good – flaky pain au chocolats oozing generous rivers of swiss chocolate, dainty balls of pain au sucre, the seasonal galette du rois (complete with paper kings hat) and rows of glazed fruit tarts.

Suffice to say, coming back to grey England was a shock to the system. My body wasn’t quite ready to bypass the sweet treats I had got used to on holiday so I thought I’d take inspiration from the bakery, and make an apple tart to have after roast beef with my family on Sunday. I also dusted only the edges with icing sugar like they did out there- it makes the galletes look even more festive.

Apple Tart

(sweet almond pastry taken from Laduree: Sucre the Recipes)

For the tart base –makes 450g pastry

Place 120g very cold Butter in a mixer and work to homogenize. One at a time add the following ingredients:  70g Icing Sugar, 25g Ground Almonds, a pinch of Sea Salt, a few drops of Vanilla Extract, 1 Egg and 200g Cake Flour until it makes a dough. Refrigerate for 2 hrs.

Roll out the 350g pastry and line a 24cm tart tin. Chill for 1 hour and preheat the oven to 180C.

Bake the tart blind for 15 mins. Brush it with egg wash and return to the over for 5 minutes.

For the filling

Slice 2-3 eating Apples finely. Arrange in a circular pattern in the tart shell. Make a custard by whisking 2 large Eggs, 300ml Double Cream, 1tbsp Calvados (opt), 3 tbsp Sugar, 1 drop Vanilla Essence. Strain over the apples. Return to the oven for 30-35 minutes. Cover the top with foil if the pastry looks to be getting too dark. Serve warm with ice-cream. 

Duck, Mint and Pomegranate Salad

Recently I had a delicious salad at the restaurant Eight over Eight which combined duck with mint, crunchy Asian leaves and watermelon all bound together with a light Asian dressing.  With this as my inspiration I made a similar salad at home this weekend, instead opting for pomegranate seeds, which gave the salad a lovely sweet-sour bite. It also looks suitably Christmassy!

This is barely a recipe:

Serves 2:

In a bowl combine; shredded duck meat (I used 1 confit duck leg but a thinly sliced seared duck breast would also work), the leaves from several stalks of mint, half a chopped cucumber, 3-4 sliced spring onions, rocket and the seeds and juice from ½ a pomegranate. Make a dressing with the juice of 1 lime, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1 chopped clove of garlic, 4 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp sweet chilli sauce, 1 tsp fish sauce, 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar. Toss into the dry ingredients and serve. 

London, A Supper Club and Roast Chicken with a Gratin of Aubergine, Courgette & Parmesan

I now live in London, work as a chef, and live in a cosy house with a gorgeous kitchen which…I never use! Apart from a bumbling foray into miniature fluffy lemon puddings for our first house dinner party (bumbling because the absence of scales required guess-timation and miniature because the absence of a baking dish meant using a muffin tin – as luck would have it the mix turned into divine little cakes which we served with a healthy dollop of mascarpone). As I am now working as a chef at a catering company, my days are filled with tasting, tasting and more tasting, so that when I get home all I feel like it something very fresh and cleansing like rocket with maybe some smoked mackerel, avocado and a my trusty agave/mustard dressing.

Last night I helped host a trial supper club with Christiana, a friend from Ballymaloe…it’s called the Whisk and Spoon and was an utter success and so much fun. Sticking to seasonal, warming food we served little glass bowls of pear and parsnip soup with wild mushroom crostini, boeuf bourguignon on creamy mash and a salted caramel tart tatin with homemade vanilla ice-cream. This time we did it for friends but watch this space for future dates…

However, today was the first time I felt enthusiastic about cooking something just for me. As it’s Sunday I felt roasted meat was needed i.e. two chicken thighs cooked on the bone with a sprinkling of Maldon to crisp up the skins. I also made a gratin by cooking aubergines until soft with red onion, garlic and plum tomatoes, stirring in parmesan and topping with ribbons of courgette and more parmesan. The gratin goes wonderfully gooey and crispy from the cheese - delicious with the tender but plain meat. I could never get away with serving this at home (too many aubergine-haters and roast potato fans) which is why cooking for oneself is never a bad thing!