If you’re feeling a little guilty about the over indulgence enjoyed by all the family over the festive period, then this recipe is for you. It’s positively virtuous. READ MORE
Oat baked salmon fish fingers
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If you’re feeling a little guilty about the over indulgence enjoyed by all the family over the festive period, then this recipe is for you. It’s positively virtuous. READ MORE
I read a blog about a very large family in the US. I daren’t tell you who they are. I can’t link to it in case the blogger loses her temper and contacts me. I know for a fact she does that kind of thing. She’s THAT fearless. I bet she approaches teenagers in the park and asks them to stop smoking and swearing too. I am utterly fascinated by her. She has over 10 children, cooks from scratch every day and always seems so patient in her blog posts. The perfect Mum. Much like the one in Topsy & Tim.
Don’t even get me started about Topsy and Tim’s Mum. If you haven’t seen this programme check Cbeebies out. T & Ts Mum is perfect. She never shouts, hugs her children when they break her vase, plays fun games like dens when the rest of the house is going to rack and ruin, plus she always smiles at her husband when he arrives home rather than asking where he’s been or why he’s late or if he picked up a bottle of wine on the way home because it really has been one of those days. And she’s thin. Oh and she never checks Facebook on her phone when the kids are about. I hate her.
Anyway, this other Mum, the blogger one. It can’t be true can it? Her patience and general Zen like state. No one is that nice. Imagine 10 kids! Imagine the amount of abandoned socks, the volume of plastic plates that never properly dry in the dishwasher and thus make double the work and have to be dried AGAIN on the rack. Imagine the amount of times she has said ‘do not lick your brother’s arm’ or similar. She must be on the gin every night. Either that or she’s a liar. Maybe the blog is an alternative reality for her. A fictitious diary of the mother she wants to be. Oh I do hope so. She makes me feel inadequate.
Anyway, here’s a really lovely quiche recipe. It’s not that hard, but if it’s a bottle of wine day then maybe buy the pastry.
Lots more recipes like this in my book, Recipes from a Normal Mum, out now… on Amazon, with The Book People, at Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Waitrose (where it’s book of the month) and many smaller outlets.
One year ago: Oaty peanut butter cookies and Stuffed picnic loaf and Melting meringue kisses
Two years ago: Halloumi, bean and asparagus salad and Lemon & coriander turkey burger or Birthday cake for a princess of prince
Three years ago: Honeyed apples in sweet almond pastry and Lemon cupcakes or Rye bread
Four years ago: Salmon and sweet potato fishcakes and Victoria sponge cake and Carrot fritters
Salmon and asparagus quiche
Ingredients
To make the pastry using a stand mixer, use the flat beater to make the flour and butter into breadcrumbs at a low speed. Add black pepper and then on speed 1 add icy cold water until the pastry JUST comes together. Or to make the pastry by hand, rub the fat in to the flour, add pepper and then add icy cold water until the pastry just comes together using a blunt knife to full together. Pat into a flat circle shape, wrap the pastry in clingfilm and refrigerate for an hour.
Line a 23cm quiche tin with a loose bottom with the pastry, rolling to about 3mm thick, using a little extra flour for rolling. Trim the edges (roll a rolling pin over the top for a quick way to do this) and chill or freeze if possible for another 30 minutes. Then pop greaseproof paper into the shell, fill with baking beans or uncooked rice and bake in a preheated 200C/Gas 6 oven for 20 minutes. Then remove the beans and paper and bake for another 10 minutes until the bottom of the pastry shell is fully cooked. Remove from the oven.
Place the salmon onto the pastry shell then take the asparagus and break off at the bottom of the stems – you’re aiming to let the asparagus naturally break at the point where the asparagus stops being delicious and crisp and starts being woody. Chuck the woody bits away and keep the crisp asparagus stems with the feathery tops. Whisk together the eggs and cream, pour over the salmon then place the asparagus over the top. Lastly grate the cheese over the top and bake for about 20 minutes until golden brown and well set. Leave to cool on a wire rack or serve warm.
I left London 5 years ago and still I find it hard to go back. Like seeing an old flame who still slightly tugs at your heart strings, when I visit it hurts a bit. It was my choice to leave, but the love affair wasn’t really over when I did. I still need closure. Maybe we need to have a big argument?
Worst of all I feel like an imposter. I am slower and fatter now, my clothes are from big out of town supermarkets and my internal London A to Z is sketchy through the mists of time. I still stand on the right, but I don’t run up the escalator stairs in an inpatient rush to save time and get fit. I was the poster girl for Busy.
One habit I have lost since the big move Up North is scanning every food item before I throw it in my basket. (Basket? Who am I trying to kid? It’s trolley world up here with two small boys who hoover up a packet of cereal a week between them.) I used to religiously check for fat content, calories and carbs; I’m not sure what eating plan I thought I was following. The paranoid one perhaps? Here is a delicious dish that would have suited me right down to my busy London ground when I lived there, for it is ready in 20 minutes flat. I would never have eaten it though, too many carbs, too much butter, probably too many calories…
One year ago: Obviously good flapjack and Joyful banana, butterscotch and fig traybake
Two years ago: Light and sweet carrot cake and Rhubarb and ginger chutney
Lemony salmon, courgette and pea pasta
Enough for 2 or just increase pasta and veggie content to make enough for 4
Ingredients:
Right, before anyone forgets their manners and comments on this post that they need exact quantities and this is a waste of time of a recipe, my advice is… live a little on the wild side and use your hands to measure things. It’s liberating. Plus this was an experimental supper that went very well so I didn’t weigh stuff out. Sometimes I like to live my cooking life by the seat of my pants.
Call this Holly’s 2o minute meal pasta if you like… time yourself, it’s easy and moreish. Boil the kettle then pop the pasta on to boil in a large pan of just boiled water with a pinch of salt. Meanwhile melt the butter in a frying pan and add the courgette, peas and the zest and juice of the lemon. Fry on a lowish heat until the courgettes have sucked up all that buttery lemony goodness and the peas look soft and cooked through. About 5 minutes. Then add the salmon, stir and take off the heat. When the pasta has boiled drain it and throw into the frying pan of lemony goodness. Then stir well to coat the pasta and to let the residual heat cook through the smoked salmon. Pop in serving dishes, add the parmesan and black pepper and enjoy. DON’T think about the carbs or the butter. This way madness lies.
Mini potato cakes with a smoked salmon crown are the ultimate in posh party grub. There’s something deeply satisfying about the squidging and squashing of the potato cake mixture. And if you have access to a toddler with small hands you could make Borrower size ones.
Here’s a little video of the recipe:
Make 12
250g Vivaldi salad potatoes, parboiled and grated
20g parmesan, finely grated
Zest of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon flour
½ medium egg, beaten
1 tablespoon rapeseed oil
60ml soured cream
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
Freshly ground black pepper
70g smoked salmon, sliced
Whole fresh chives, to garnish
Firstly take 250g of Vivaldi salad potatoes, pop them into a pan of cold water and then bring them to the boil and simmer for between 8 and 10 minutes until they’re tender and cooked through. Drain them and then put them back into cold water to cool them quickly. Grate your cold potatoes (reason I use salad potatoes for this is because they’re going to hold their form better when you’re grating so you won’t end up with mashed potato.) Then add 20g of Parmesan, the zest of a lemon, plain flour and the beaten egg to the potatoes. Mix well.
When you’re forming these little rostis it’s a good idea to have some water to hand because having damp hands really helps to form them well. Squash a tablespoon of the rosti mixture between your hands, then fry in a tablespoon of rapeseed oil until golden brown. Let the rostis cool, then add a little sour cream, a bit of smoked salmon and some chives. Eat feeling very posh indeed.
I love fishcakes, from posh gastro pub ones to the mush they breadcrumb and fry from the local chippy. There’s something perfect for me about eating fish in such a low admin format. No bones, no skin, just the best bits combined with mash. My Mum and Dad bought us some delicious salmon from M & S recently. Given that the salmon we usually buy is from Asda this was something of a treat. If only for the amazing packaging. Each fillet individually vacuum wrapped. Genius.
As the M & S salmon was so special I thought it deserved more than your average white mashed potato fish cake treatment, so turned to the wonderful sweet variety – so loved by babies. The combo works well flavourwise, even if it does look a little radioactive.
Ingredients:
Peel the sweet potatoes, chop and boil until tender, then drain and leave to cool in a sieve (and also for the steam to evaporate.) Then mash. Add the salmon, spring onion, dill and salt and pepper and mix gently with a metal spoon until combined. You’re looking for a mixture that’s more fish and onion than sweet potato. The potato is mostly a binding agent.
Pop the oven on to Gas 6. Next get a production line going. You need 3 small plates, one with the flour on, one with the beaten egg on and one with the breadcrumbs on. Divide the mixture into 4 and mould each quarter into fish cake shapes. They can be a bit tricky to handle as they have so little potato but it’s worth it. Dip each fish cake carefully into the flour first, then the egg, then the breadcrumbs. Pop each one onto a baking tray. As a teenager I worked for a few weeks in a factory putting the fake credit cards into cheap purses and handbags (to buy my Reading Festival ticket) so feel I have a natural talent for fish cake production line dipping.
Oven bake for 20ish minutes until the breadcrumbs are starting to go a golden colour and the cakes feel firm to the touch, then serve with what Mr B calls ‘a medley of green seasonal vegetables.’ I think Charlie would have liked these fish cakes but unfortunately he was already in bed and we snaffled the lot.
Holly Bell 