Balsamic Beetroot Soup

This is an easy, warming soup which uses up a bunch of lonely beetroot from the bottom drawer of the frdge. It was inspired by a recipe in the new HFW book "River Cottage Veg Everyday", but I pretty much completely changed the character of it based on what I had available.

Roast your beetroots with a few garlic cloves in the oven at 180 for about 45 mins to an hour, coated in oil and alongside some thyme leaves, a bay leaf, salt, pepper and a slosh of water. When ready, skin them and chop into smallish pieces.

Fry up an onion in a saucepan until soft, then add the beetroot and a pint (500ml) of stock. Bring up to a boil and then keep at a simmer on a low heat for ten minutes or so.

Season well with salt and pepper, then with a small dash of worcestershire sauce *, a squirt of lemon juice and a generous drizzle of balsamic vinegar. If the brew still tastes "unfinished", try a small blob of redcurrant jelly - it worked for me.

Shove the lot into a blender and process until smooth. Pour into bowls and finish with a swirl of cream and some fresh chopped parsley.

* btw, in case you didn't know, you can now get vegetarian worcestershire sauce if you are so inclined. I found this one on the internet, but am sure I also saw one in Waitrose the other day.

Simple Moules Mariniere

Mussels are a pretty good bet if you're looking for sustainable seafood, although it's worth avoiding those collected using dredging methods. The MCS have given them a range of ratings from 1-3 depending on collection method, 1 and 2 is the best place to be.

This is so incredibly easy to make, but you can make it a little harder (and much tastier) by pairing it with some Kingshill Bread!

Take both the mussels and the butter out of the fridge to come up to room temperature.

Thickly slice a white onion and smash/crush a couple of garlic cloves. Heat up a deep saucepan with some olive oil and fry the onions and garlic until soft. Add a finely chopped red chilli and slosh in a glass of white wine.

Pick through your mussels (1kg serves 2 people) giving them a sharp tap, or in my case stick a teaspoon through the opening and giving them a gentle nudge, to make absolutely sure they are safe to eat. If they don't close then they aren't safe - don't eat them.

Make sure the wine mixture is bubblingly hot, keep the flame up high, put the mussels into the saucepan quickly and clamp the lid down.

While they are cooking, slice up some bread and apply outrageous amounts of butter.

Keep an eye on the mussels, it should only take about 8 minutes to cook them but what you are looking for is all the shells to be open. Any that don't open should be thrown away as carriers of instant stomach death.

Spoon out the mussels between two bowls, spooning the oniony, winey sauce over the top. Eat with your fingers and don't spare the butter.

Baked Fish Italian Style

I used sardines in this recipe but I really think mackerel would have been loads better, just because sardines have lots of tiny bones which are hard to make out under the topping. 

I suspect white fish would also work well with this. I got the inspiration from a recipe in "Two Greedy Italians".

First of all gut, fillet and pin bone your fish and lay the fillets side-by-side in a well oiled baking tray. Cover with lots of breadcrumbs, chopped garlic, parsley, basil and a thinly sliced mild chilli or bell pepper. 

  
Drizzle over some olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Bake in the oven at 180 degrees C, for about 25 minutes.

This was lovely with a watercress, tomato and cucumber salad.

Baked Ling with Cauliflower Puree & Fennel Salad

This photo does not do justice to the
yumminess of this dinner, trust me!

When I first started this blog, I said it was going to be a warts-and-all sharing of my experiences, as I try to eat both interestingly and ethically. Today, I present a large "wart". On the positive side, I learned something I didn't know today and writing about it might spread the word, certainly it highlights the easy pitfalls a hedonethicist can fall into.

It really starts with an old, and rather silly, assumption: if you haven't heard of a fish, or don't often see it for sale at a supermarket, it's more likely to be sustainable than one that is really common. This idea could have worked in the past for some things: king prawns, cod, haddock, salmon, tuna and sea bass have all made their appearances on the endangered charts, whereas pollack, dab, cockles, coley and the like hadn't. Nowadays, it's a bit more complicated than that.

Ling, a fish I'd never cooked before, is listed by the MCS has having a sustainability rating of 4 or 5, depending on various factors. This is bad. I won't be buying it again unless it makes it up to 3. 
I emailed my supplier (the nice people at The Fish Society) for advice. It turns out this was their first shipment of ling and they were as surprised as me to see how badly it scored on the sustainability charts, as it isn't a fish in high commercial demand. They get theirs from Denmark, which should mean the fishermen abide by EU regulations; however, for the ethically concerned consumer, a different fish would be a better choice. The good news is that they are about to start selling pouting which they recommend as a "mega sustainable" alternative - can't argue with that!

The meal I made with the ling was yummy though, so I'm still going to post it. Another white fish could (and should) be easily substituted.

First things first, the cauliflower puree. Sounds all cheffy, but it isn't. Break up a cauli head into small peices and pop into a pan with a couple of bay leaves and some mace. Almost cover with milk and bring up to a simmer, leave it to cook until the cauli is tender (about 10-15 mins or so, prod it with a fork to check).

While that's cooking, finely slice a fennel bulb and cut a couple of carrots into thin batons. Pop into a bowl and in another bowl whisk up a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Pour over the dressing and mix really well. Put the salad into the fridge to marinate.

Lay your fish fillets onto a peice of foil (recycled!) and put a knob of butter on each one. Squeeze over some lemon juice, a sprinkle of salt and grinding of black pepper, plus a scattering of parsley, oregano and chives. Pop in the oven at 180 degrees until cooked - the timing is going to vary depending on how thick your fillets are, ours took about half an hour because they were still ever so slightly frozen.

When the cauli is done, whizz it up in a food processor with salt, pepper, some butter and as much of the milk as is required to give it a creamy, pureed texture.

The creamy puree, herby fish and crunchy fennel salad work wonderfully together; this is a really lovely mid-week meal.

Links
Marine Conservation Society - Good Fish Guide

Chicken & Broad Bean Risotto (Leftovers day 1)

Leftover roast chicken has lots of uses but I think risotto is one of the more obvious ones. Saying that, risotto is a bugger to get right and I'm definitely still learning the trade. 

For years I've ignored the requirement for some kind of special rice (arborio, carnaroli) and, fair enough, my risottos have tasted wonderful... but they took 3 hours to make. Here is an attempt with arborio rice, I'd say it took about 45 minutes. Yeah. Fair enough then. I'll pay for the stupid special rice in future.

I used up some of the stock that I made earlier in the week, if you made some you'll see it's all wobbly and a bit like jelly - that's a good thing. I had about 700ml, which went into a pan on the hob to heat up.


I chopped up a couple of onions and sticks of celery, heated up a large frying pan with oil and butter, and cooked them until they were soft - thinking about browning but not going brown. In went a teacup of rice, stirred until coated in the oil and butter and warmed through. Then a teacup of white wine, which sizzled and bubbled when added to the pan. I stirred that until the wine had disappeared.


At that point, in goes a big spoonful of stock (I think my ladle was in the dishwasher) and stir stir stir until it's all absorbed, before adding another spoonful. Keep going until all the stock is gone. The rice wasn't quite entirely cooked yet, the grains still had just a little too much bite to them, so I added a little hot water to finish it off.


I popped some broad beans on to simmer, ready to skin them. They are a beautiful peircing green when you take off their jackets, the only issue we had with them is that they were quite elderly beans, picked late off the plant, so they did have a slightly mealy texture to them. Lovely young peas or beans is what you really want.


Then stir in the leftover chicken, the broad beans and lots of grated parmesan.

Finally, when the risotto was hot through again, I stirred in some chopped parsley and seasoned with freshly cracked black pepper and a knob of cold butter.