Jamie said cook... fish

Hwsgo cooked for me again. I'm not sure if he's being nice about the damaged wrist, or just terrified at the thought of my cooking, but once again he scurried round my kitchen making delicious things out of everyday green and vegetal stuff that usually just sits in the fridge and glowers at me for a week (what can I say: I've been busy working til late every day).

So today's dinner was stuffed, rolled and baked sardines with pine nuts and fresh herbs. Or rather, it was stuffed, rolled etc mackeral with etc etc because my local supermarkets have still not got their act together on the fish front. Again. So having looked at the beautifully displayed set of less-than-appetising swimmers in Sainsbury's (which is probably as good a metaphor for style over substance as we'll get this week), we trotted off into the place whose name we omit. Which to be fair has a good fish counter, with non-sunken eyes and a lady on it who was both civil and helpful about what we could substitute because they (and she was genuinely apologetic about this) didn't have any fresh sardines. So four little mackeral heavier, we went home to cook. Or rather Hwsgo went home to cook: I went home to watch the master at work and look helpful in the hope of being allowed to wield a big knife at something soft.

Hswgo modifed the recipe a bit. He'd been baking some glowering tomatoes that had been rapidly reaching the too-soft-to-fight state of their existence, so he used some of these, in the recipe, removing their skins because they were a bit too hot to handle. He also left out the garlic (I think) and the fennel (definitely), and toasted some fresh bread because its breadcrumbs were too soft. One cooking note though: since the mixture goes underneath the fish, it makes sense to prepare the mix before the fish instead of the order (fish first) suggested in the book.

Anyways, this all produced a most excellent lunch, evidenced perhaps by the complete lack of leftovers afterwards (and the lethargy with which we crawled from the table to the sofa to doze). Hwsgo told me a while ago about a Sicilian dish that he'd like to try sometime, and fromt he comments he made about this, it sounds like the Jamie fish recipe (modified) was very similar to it. It was, of course, delicious, and I suspect that Hwsgo was very wise in holding on the fennel: as it was, it was a perfectly balanced set of ingredients having a very civilised Sunday lunch together.

Key Lime... er Crumble

Hwsgo has been innovative in the kitchen. Perhaps my "try it and see" style of cooking is rubbing off on him after all. Anyways, he found himself without a lemon (a terrible sin in his household) whilst making an apple crumble, and substituted it with a lime instead.

It's quite a revelation. All the liminess of a key lime pie, but underlaid with the sweet crunch of a proper British crumble. It wouldn't work with nuts in the crumble mix, but with a 'normal' Jamie Oliver 8:4:3 (flour:butter:sugar) mix, it works intriguingly well. Although stewing the apples with a little water seems to have left the results a little on the damp side, it's a very tasty damp side.

Go, innovation, go!

Seedlings

I have delivered lots of seedlings to Hwsgo. They may die, but they probably won't. Apart from the Basil, which is midway through a typical basil sulk that it may or may not recover from. We really need an amalgum of our two homes: mine has radiators, double-glazing and big windowsills, but Hwsgo's has lots of light. Heat, light, water, food: doesn't take much to make a plant grow, but it's surprisingly difficult to get all these things in the same place.

Plants delivered are (so Hwsgo doesn't forget what he has): rocket (currently under debate), parsley (the stuff that looks like grass), coriander (2 types in 1 pot), basil, and sunflowers and sweetpeas for colour. I'm taking the chilli and lobelia back home for a bit more heat treatment, and I have tomatoes and tarragon still under observation there at the moment. Now I have empty windowsills, I'm tempted to grow on something more. A pot of strong mint would be good, some more coriander (can never have emough of that), and some more herbs seems about right. I already have carrot and radish seeds waiting to be put into veg buckets at home - will see how I do with them too. It's just a shame that my garden is too dark to grow much in it (neighbour: big trees). One day I'll move somewhere lighter.

Simon: Omelette Arnold Bennett (p195, 89, 187)

A complicated recipe. Oh boy, is this a complicated one. Not because the steps involved are complex in their own right, but because of the sheer number of things that you have to do at the same time. Although I suspect this can be simplified in practice: maybe we were just in a complicated mood.

The recipe uses two sauces, bechamel and hollandaise, mixed together. First, you have to find the sauces in the book: use the numbers above because the ones in the recipe don't work. And try to do things in order: the bechamel needs 30 minutes to steep, so do that then start poaching the fish, then make up the hollandaise. Yesterday, I messed up - we were cooking this as a two-hander, Hwsgo was around the hob, and my confidence as a saucier just went. I turned the heat up too high, didn't stop early enough, and the egg part of the hollandaise started to go scrambled. A trip downstairs to buy more butter and ten minutes later I'd produced an okay sauce, but it really wasn't a good moment for me. I guess, like transplanting seedlings, it takes a degree of concentration and sympathy for the thing being handled.

There's a lot of seasoning in this recipe (in each sauce and in the omelette mix too), so you need to be careful with the salt: it's easy to overdo it. There's also a lot of stuff going on at once, although having cooked this recipe, I see no reason why the sauces couldn't be made well in advance, leaving just the fish and egg mix to be concentrated on.

The omelettes are tasty and we enjoyed eating them, but we both agreed in the end that given the amount of work (and number of pans) involved, there are many other Simons that we'd rather have eaten for dinner. This recipe is definitely filed under "things that we're happy to buy in restaurants rather than making ourselves".

Simon: Onion Soup (p137)

So the first question is "why is it white". Or rather, "why isn't it brown". After a little cookbook-riffling from Hwsgo, the answer was clear: french onion soup is, as we suspected, brown because the onions are caramelised in a little sugar.

For a while, when I was working regularly in France, I searched hypermarches and small shops alike for a white French soup, possibly garlic, that my father had eaten there and wanted more of if he could get it. I think, on tasting, that this may be the soup in question. Despite the fact that I had, in a slightly wine-enhanced state, halved every quantity in the recipe except the white wine vinegar, this soup had a delicacy that seemed divorced from its origins as a pile of onions, a tub of chicken stock and some ordinary butter. Most of the time, the ingredients of said soup sat around doing their stuff (sweating, simmering, resting) during dinner: the only really active part of the recipe involved squishing them through a large sieve to remove the (now-exhausted) pieces of onion. And that, apart from a little discussion over just how high a heat a soup should be simmering on (Hwsgo seems to be amongst those cooks who manage to produce amazing things despite believing that there are only 2 settings on each cooker ring, i.e. low and blast it), was about all the attention that it needed.

So. A white, onionless, French onion soup. Absolutely delicious (under the over-vinegaring), especially with the giant cheesy croutons (gruyere is good) that Hswgo prepared for it, and one I'm going to try again soon (and not just because I have a glut of onions in the kitchen).

More shopping

Back now, from a trip to Cambodia (food yum) and Thailand (food also good, but not quite as yum as Cambodia) with a brief stop in Cairo (coffee good, food an interesting combination of sweet and savoury) and back to the weekly shop and attempts to (mostly) feed myself without either a) getting fatter, or b) creating things that even I don't want to eat. That, and continuing with the attempt to eat more fruit and veg.

And so to shopping. Two people, two shopping trolleys, two weekly shops. And for once, just once, I win! Hwsgo's veg to other food ratio was appalling - around 1:1 (under hot debate); mine, on the other hand, was a virtuous 16:6 (and that's only because the new potatoes and peppercorns both count as non-veg). That's 2.6 to 1.

Now I need to cook it. It's Saturday, and being a good slobby Saturday (give or take an hour's happy walk around the park), it's roast chicken and vegetables night. I've also been taking stock in my food cupboards - it's still January, and I have several things in the cupboards that didn't get eaten last year that I'm planning to eat up soon so they don't take up any more cupboard or (more importantly) head space when I'm working out what to eat. Some things (pickles, japanese ginger) will go into my lunchbox. Others will be part of specific meals. The jar of lentils will become Simon's lentilles aux petites salles and one of Jane Grigson's stock lentil dishes. The linseed will find its way into anything I can safely hide it in (like veg chilli): I've always seen it more as medicament than food anyway. The Mister Mash is self-explanatory, maybe used for a very lazy day. And the two boxes of specialised stuffing (cranberry and orange etc) will be mixed up with veg and stuffed into some baked peppers. The Thai basil leaves will end up in something suitably thai curried; the truffles, saffron etc will just stay in as stock cupboard items. The bocadelia sandwich paste that my parents brought back from Spain (on a small mixup between bocadillos, e.g. sandwiches, and boquerones, the fat little anchovies) will go into sandwiches and baked potatoes. And at that point, my cupboards will hopefully be optimised. Well almost. I'm not sure what to do with a large pot of Horlicks (although I should sleep well if I drink it), and that just leaves the large bag of chilli flakes and 5 different types of sugar (tea and coffee-drinkers keep leaving sugar in my cupboards). I'm sure I'll think of something.

Meanwhile, a small note to self. If, as today, I use the Jane Grigson recipe for Hummus, I need to remember to halve all the quantities except the chickpeas. I think she quotes the chickpeas at dry weight, rather than canned weight - if you try the recipe as set with canned peas, you end up with a very garlicky and unfortunately quite runny (til your partner throws in a bag of walnuts) mix. Also if you put the parsley into the mixer, then don't be surprised if the mix comes out green and looking suspiciously like pesto. Tasted okay though.

Addendum. Hwsgo has counted up his trolley items (which I also photographed, but will keep hidden to protect the not-so-innocent) and claims a 1:1 ratio. Based on some out-of-shot onions and not counting the wine. Hmmmm.

Breakfast fruit woes - and then there was juice!

So this morning I crawled out of bed (literally - I've got a bulged disc in my back) and wandered off for breakfast as normal. Cereal - check. Milk - check. Two non-5aday-items - check. Drat. On a 2-to-1 basis, that means that breakfast now involves 4 pieces of fruit or veg. And, having eaten an apple and an orange already this morning and contemplated with horror the thought of another pair of fruits before the fruit juice saved me, that's a rethink about breakfast.

So. Jam counts. Soft fruit counts. And -halleluja- so do fruit juice, smoothies and the red bits in red berry cereal. Which gives a small (and somewhat fruit-laden) set of breakfast options...

• Cereal/oats, milk (2nf) with fruit (raspberries, blackberries, frozen soft fruit mix, red berries etc), juice/smoothie and 2-fruit mid-morning snack (apple, orange, carrot etc).
• Bacon, toast (2nf) with 'shrooms, tomatoes, juice, 1-fruit snack.
• Toast/croissant (1nf) with jam/banana, juice.
• Kipper (1nf) with tomatoes, red pepper.
• Yoghurt (1nf) with fruit (berries, pear).

I'm still debating whether Pain Au Chocolat is a single non-fruit item or two of them. I think I'll declare it as one, before this all gets way way too confusing. On the plus side, a 2nf day will get me to 5 a day by lunchtime; on the minus side, I need to go and buy an awful lot more fruit.

Yeehah! I've just been to the 5-a-day veg portions list. Chickpeas count and so does onion. Hello, hummus...