1 Simon: Braised Endives

I have been quite bad (very bad is reserved for very special occasions) and not released the review of Hwsgo's Braised Endives yet. This is partly system rebuild (the photos are elsewhere) and partly a wrestling with my conscience about whether I could claim a Simon that someone else (albeit someone very close) cooked. So this is a review, right, unless I get down the wire with the 'how many Simons did I manage to cook in 2 years (note the more relaxed timetabling slipping in there)' thing.

Hwsgo braised the endives (and has done so at least twice since, which is possibly a good measure of how good the recipe is) at the same time as grilling some nice fat Cornish sardines, neither of which took an excessive amount of time (less than half an hour). It was truly excellent and classic Simon: rich and comforting, with enough sauce to enjoy again with bread at the end of the meal. Oh, you wanted me to review the food? Later...

1 recipe: Smoked Haddock Baked with Potatoes (p?)

First difference between book versions spotted! I cooked this using Hwngo's book (first edition hardback, well-thumbed and -ahem- slightly foxed with various food products, aka much loved...) . My version suggests removing the fish bones with tweezers; his doesn't (I didn't; the chances of finding tweezers in a batchelor pad are... well, quite good actually, but I didn't want to ask...).

I'm starting to think that West Sussex is deeply conservative/ old-fashioned. Again I had problems finding good fish, so I went to the fish man at Tesco's yesterday lunchtime (he knows his halibut); no smoked haddock because he tends to get this in at the end of the week. I can only conclude that there are either a lot of weekend Simon cookbook users in the area, or there are still lots of people here eating fish on a Friday. Anyways, 3 packs of the thickest lumps of fish I could find later...

There are 3 layers of potatoes in this recipe and not a lot of cooking time (1 hour in total), so slice the potatoes very thin (mine were about 1mm) or risk having them crunchy at the end. I bought a whole bag of parsley but only used half of it; the recipe would have coped well with all of it. I overpoached the fish slightly and had a long job removing the skins; 15 minutes poaching instead of 20-25 would have made this an easier job and left the fish a little less flaky.

The layers worked well but I forgot to put potatoes on last and ended up with some decorative tomato slices on top. This didn't really make a difference, aside from putting some colour in the (yummy) brown crust. The result was edible. Not the most spectacular-tasting Simon so far, but a dependable cold-evening recipe nonetheless.

Hwngo made one of his excellent rhubarb crumbles. He says it's easy to make, but I think that really translates to 'easy to make if you have years of cooking experience'.

ROTW: Mackerel Souffle

One souffle. I think it's my first ever, although I have a niggling memory of attempting one in the crooked house (two feet different in nominally- parallel wall lengths in a single room).

That was... fun. Usually cooking is calming or meditative or sometimes badly stressing, but this one was fun. Probably something to do with all the changes; lots of stirring and whisking and grating going on. Nutmeg especially is a cool thing to grate: you think you've just run it over the grater a couple of times and nothing's happened, and then you lift up said grater and a whole pile of magically- grated nutmeg is just there waiting for you. Some foods are just special like that. Like the eggs: I had a box of Old Cotswold Legbar eggs in the fridge (I have a soft spot for rare breeds, although they're hardly rare now I can buy the eggs in Tescos), and was pleasantly surprised to see that inside those pastel- blue shells are lovely deep orange yolks. The only down was beating the eggwhites. Hwngo showed me that using a stick blended really works on this, so I used mine, and nada. White fluffy mixture, but not a peak in sight. And I couldn't rescue it from there: after 10 minutes of fighting it with a hand whisk, I gave in and made the mixture anyway. Then anxiously watched through the cooker's glass door for half an hour.

I wasn't expecting texture. I've always thought of souffle as a smooth dish, a rolling hill of smooth curves forming a chef's hat shape over the top of the dish. But there it is, in photographic evidence: a textured top (and one that, ta-da, didn't sink when I took it out the oven!). It tastes good too: like the best of soft omelettes collided with a soft cake; worth missing my yoga class for even. The nutmeg and fish balance off each other beautifully, and the only regret I have is that I wasn't a little more adventurous with the pepper; I've been a bit too heavy-handed with it of late (the pestle-and-mortar full of pepper is probably a hint about my culinary proclivities) but I think this dish could take it. Peppered mackeral souffle, anyone?

And I promise when I have both eggs and mackeral in the fridge, the last thing I'll think about cooking is a kedgeree...

ROTW tonight: Seabass wrapped in Ham

Hwsgo has been showing signs of jealousy lately, that recipe- of- the- week (ROTW) has been supplanted in my affections by the Sara-Simon project. Well ROTW, I still love you, I still want you, and just to show my absolute adoration of you, I'm going to cook you tonight. And tonight's ROTW is:

Sea Bass wrapped in Ham

* gutted and deheaded sea bass of 700g or so
* parma ham
* really good olive oil (Ed: not Spanish oliveoil then...)
* green beans
* lemon juice
* salt and freshly-ground black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 200C
2. Wrap sea bass tightly in parma ham. Leave no gaps.
3. Drizzle with a little olive oil and bake for 15 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, blanch some green beans for a few minutes in boiling water and then refresh in iced water.
5. Toss the beans with plenty of lemon juice, olive oil, salt and freshly ground black pepper. An edgy alternative is to use preserved ginger intended for sushi.

It took me 3 supermarkets to find the ingredients for this recipe. First I tried my local Waitrose; yes, they had seabass, both heads-on and filleted, but after hanging round the counter waiting to be served, I gave up and went to Tesco at Gatwick. Now the big T is usually pretty good: decent wine selection, lots of choice in most sections. But the fish counter: urrgh. I could smell it from the next aisle: it wasn't pretty, and neither were the sad grey lumps pretending to be seabass. So unwilling to backtrack to W, I went to the slightly-smaller Tesco between my work and my house. And found exactly what I was looking for: two fresh, headless lumps of seabass. You don't always have to travel to get what you want, although I may re-try this recipe on a weekend when I can get down to one of the fish suppliers on the coast. I'm a little sad about the beans though. They're from Zambia, the only other choice in W today being Kenya. I really dislike upping my food miles, so I'll just have to add green beans to my allotment planting scheme, and wait until they come into season again. So how did it taste? The beans were wonderful; spiced without being spicy, and curiously tasting slightly minty. The fish was firm and subtle, but I really wasn't sure about the combination of bass skin and ham, and I did spend a lot of time picking out bones: I suspect something a little less blokey and a little thinner-skinned, like cod perhaps, would work better in this dish. I think I may have to try this again.

Meanwhile, weight this morning is 168.6lbs. A small rise, but considering the amount of food and alcool consumed over the weekend, not much to write home about. Unlike the tapas. We spent a happy hour or so bouncing from bar to bar in the Tapas street in Granada, having plates ranging from fried fish to ham to seafood arrive with every drink whilst working our way through all the local beers we could find. True foodie happiness, and a wonderful foil to the elegant dinner in Seville the night before. Today's food intake is a little more mundane than that: 1 bowl SpecialK and milk, 2 SpecialK bars, 1 bag baked crisps, 1 machine hotchocolate and 3 machine coffees. But then, I am trying to lose weight whilst working my way through a cookbook, and needs must...