This made a nice lunch for two but would be equally good as a little starter for four. I got the idea from a James Martin recipe in James Every Day, but as usual just had to ring in the changes. It was really tasty and extremely light, for something more filling I'd consider adding a slice of toasted ciabbatta.
First you need a red pepper or two, cut in half and place face down on a tray with some olive oil, salt and pepper. Pre-heat the oven on to 200°C and put the peppers in on the top shelf for about 15-20 minutes.
Meanwhile, finely chop a couple of spring onions, a handful of fresh coriander and half a red chilli and put in a bowl with the juice of half a lemon, a glug of olive oil, salt and pepper.
Once the peppers are cooked, peel off the skin and then very finely dice them. Add them to the other dressing ingredients in the bowl.
Share out some mixed salad leaves between two plates with a few extra coriander leaves mixed in. Take half of the red pepper mixture and mix it in with the leaves using your hands.
Season your scallops with a little salt and pepper. Heat up a dry, non-stick frying pan until really hot and, keeping it on a high heat, lay your scallops in the pan. Count 30-40 seconds and then turn them over and count another 30-40 seconds.
Arrange the scallops on top of the salad and spoon the rest of the red pepper mixture over the top.
Fish is always a quick dinner and, if you're ok with sorting out the bones yourself, a whole fish is the tastiest of all. Lemon Sole has an mcs rating of 2, or at least the ones caught off the cornish coast are, so no need to feel guilty either.
This is a really tasty sauce to serve with lemon sole, and an uncharacteristically close rendition of a recipe for me, this time from The Abel & Cole Cookbook, I love this book and all the recipe ideas are cleverly grouped by seasonal ingredients. I've used it a lot and can really recommend it.
So, first put some jersey royals on to boil. Or whatever you want to serve with this, personally I couldn't wait to get my teeth into the jerseys, they are so lovely (just in case anyone doesn't know - jersey royals are a very special type of potato grown in, and only in, Jersey!).
Sprinkle a liberal serving of flaked almonds into a dry frying pan and heat until toasty brown. Put them to one side and add oil and a knob of butter to the pan to heat up, at the same time pop the oven onto its lowest heat.
Lightly coat the lemon sole with plain flour, put into the frying pan and cook for a couple of minutes on each side. Pop them into a baking tray and bung in the warm oven, turn it off though as you don't want them to keep cooking, just to stay warm.
Get some spinach (or whatever veg you're having) on to steam.
Back to the fish pan: be warned this sauce evaporates faster than last month's paycheck, so you need to be on the ball. Make sure the pan is really hot then chuck a glass of white wine in, let it bubble away for a bit and deglaze the pan with a spatula. Squeeze in the juice of half a lemon, and add a heaped teaspoon of capers that you've chopped up, all of the toasted almonds, another knob of butter and a load of fresh parsley.
Turn the heat right down and get the fish, potatoes and spinach onto plates. Spoon over the sauce and eat immediately. Yum.
This was inspired by a Balinese curry recipe I found in Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey. My dinner didn't end up resembling the original too much, it was pretty tasty though.
This does involve a fair bit of slicing and dicing, so maybe one for a quiet evening rather than when you're in a rush. It fed two for dinner with enough left over for lunchboxes the next day.
So, step one, thinly slice a purple onion and as much garlic as you like. Step two, dice two large or 4-5 ordinary tomatoes, a fat thumb of ginger and as much fresh chilli as you like. Step three, slice an aubergine into big bitesize peices.
Finally, step four, skin, de-bone and dice a couple of chicken legs (or buy pre-prepared chicken leg meat, or just breasts) and lightly coat with a little cornflour. That's it, all the tough prep work is done!
Get your rice on to cook - I can really recommend getting a ricebot (aka electric ricecooker, preferably with a delay timer function). My favourite rice for steaming is Japanese short grain.
Heat up a large frying pan on the hob with a little sesame or vegetable oil and fry the chicken peices until you can't see any pink on the outside, then add the aubergine and continue to cook until the chicken is cooked through and the aubergine is softened but still has a little bite to it. Take them out of the pan and put to one side.
Reusing the same pan, add a little more oil and stir fry the onion and garlic until softened, then add the tomatoes, ginger and chilli along with a smidge of shrimp paste. Give it a couple of minutes before adding the chicken and aubergine back to the pan, along with a massive pinch of lime leaves, a big squeeze of lemon juice, 2 tbsp of soy sauce, a decent scraping of palm sugar and a splash of water.
Five more minutes in the pan at most and it should be ready, mix in a big handful of coriander and serve with a nice mound of steamed rice and, if you like it, some hot chilli sauce.
What to do on the third day of using up leftover roast goose (or turkey or chicken)? Make a risotto of course! Easy leftover using-up strategy.
The prep is key here, so start by roasting a peeled and cubed squash until soft along with a handful of chestnuts, and chopping up your goose meat into small peices.
If you have leftover squash then use that, you could also use half of a vacuum pack of pre-prepared chestnuts if you like. Depends what you've got handy! Keep them hot in the switched-off oven if making the risotto right away, otherwise be prepared to reheat them before adding to the risotto.
As with so many recipes, kick off the risotto by finely dicing an onion, a couple of celery sticks and a fat clove of garlic or two. Warm up a splosh of oil and a big hunk of butter in a deep frying pan and gently saute them until soft.
At the same time, put a pint / 500ml stock in a saucepan on the heat to stay hot.
Add half a bag of risotto rice, about 250g, (to serve 4 people or 2 with leftovers) stir it in and let it sizzle for a few minutes before adding a wine glass of vermouth (or white wine). Stir until all the wine has been absorbed. Then, a ladle at a time, add the stock to the rice, stirring and stirring each time until it's all been absorbed into the rice. One thing I've found is that this goes much faster and works better if you keep the pan pretty hot, the stock should bubble a little when you add it to the pan.
Just as you finish the last ladleful of stock, add the squash, chestnuts, goose and lots of thyme leaves. Stir through to mix and then grate a load of parmesan into the dish, along with a few knobs of butter, some fresh chopped parsley, a squeeze of lemon juice, ground pepper and salt if needed.
Serve with a smile of satisfaction at thriftiness well executed.
