Haddock, leek, herb-mayonaise

Sea Bass with Orange and Ginger Butter

Start with the sauce. Bring  40 cl  orange juice to the boil after adding 1 tsp of gingerpowder. Reduce and  thicken  to about 20 cl. Add 5 cl cream and boil again. Then, on a very low heat whisk in 100 gr cold butter in small cubes, one at the time. Reheat later.

Put a tomato 20 sec in boiling water then cool under the cold tap, take off the skin, remove the seeds and dice the rest

Put 1/2 a paprika under the grill till blackend. Take off the skin. Cut into strips. 

Wash a cucumber. Cut 5cm off, remove the skin and slice the flesh (but not the seedcore) in 'matchsticks'. 

Do the same with the green skin of a courgette. Put the courgette matchsticks on a shallow plate and cover with olive oil to keep crisp. 

Cut a thin slice of mango into matchsticks. Do the same with 1/2 red onion.

Fry the fish, I used red snapper (the recipe from Bernard Bach was for red mullet, but in my opInion any nice fish will do) skin side first till crisp then turn for another minute. Warm the sauce.

Plating: start with the the onion, the paprika, mango, cucumber,courgette and some coriander leaves. Fish on top, skin sid up. Then some sauce, in which you sprinkle the diced tomatoes. 

Bit of paprika powder will add some colour.

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Strawberry soup with lime sorbet

Use the blender to pulp 500 gr of strawberries with some sugar, a squeeze of lemon juice (to preserve the colour) and a gluck of creme de cassis. 

Add some pieces of strawberry and keep in the fridge for at least 6 hours. 

Serve with a scoop of lime sorbet and a sprig of mint. 

One or two turns of the pepper mill will enhance the flavour. 

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Roast chicken for 3 days

In the past few weeks we read several times about  the recipe for roast chicken from Thomas Kellers. When  Felicity Cloak mentioned it again in the Guardian, where she always compares '5 ways to cook the perfect .....' I decided to try it myself. The main idea is to use a very hot oven and no liquid. At all.

So I rinsed the chicken inside and out. Dried it with kitchen paper. Trussed tightly with kitchen twine (important) . Waited till the oven was 230C. Added salt and pepper, put it in the oven for 40 mins and waited.
Took it out and let it rest for 15 mins
Felicity was a bit disappointed that, although the skin was indeed very crisp, the meat was a bit dry. Well this one was perfect. I put some thyme on it and served the breasts with the juices, a bit of butter, some mustard and a simple salad. Delicious.



But that is not the end of it. We still have the thighs for another meal. And the carcass, still full of juicy bits. Which we used for fajitas, with avocado, red onion and bell pepers

  Last but not least we used the carcass to
  make a rich chicken stock.
  Reduced it and used an icecube form to freeze
  for later use. 
           
  So the one chicken gives you 3 lovely 
  meals and homemade chickenstock
  for sauces

Instead of fajitas you can make nems:

Before using the carcass to make stock, take off all the meat. Cut the meat finely. Cut the white of a lemongrass finely, grate a tsp ginger. Mix with a teaspoon of soy-sauce, tsp of oyster sauce, tsp of caster sugar with a tbsp white wine vinegar. Marinate the meat in it for half a day or longer. Divide a celery stalk in 4 cm parts and cut these lengthwise  finely in strips. Do the same with a piece of paprika (bell pepper). 

At dinnertime mix the meat with the veggies. Dip a sheet of rice 'paper' in hot (not boiling water. Dripdry. Put some coriander leaves on it. Wet a second sheet and use it to cover the first. 

Put 2 tbsp of the meatmix on one half of the ricepaper.Roll it as tight as possible for a bit. Then fold the sides inwards and continue rolling.

Boil some water and get a bamboo steaming basket. Steam for about 5 mins. Serve with sweet&sour chili sauce.

< And finally we had the thighs with some spicy nasi goreng. I'm sure you can Google that recipe.

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Gravad Lax

If you do not have IKEA near you, go out and buy 2 nice thick (as they will lose 40% height) pieces of salmon (about 500 gr each), skin on. You will also need coarse sea-salt, caster sugar, white pepper and  lots of dill.                                                                            
                                                                          

                                                                      Make sure there are no bones left. Chop 
lots of dill, mix with 75 gr seasalt, 50 gr 
caster sugar, 2 tbsp crushed white 
peppercorns. Put one salmon fillet skin
side down. Cover with the mix. Place the
other fillet on top, skin side up.
Wrap in cling film. Put in a soup plate (it will lose lots of liquid). Put something heavy on top to flatten the fish. Leave in the fridge for 2 days or up to a week.
Turn twice per day.


You van make a classic sweet dill mustard sauce (like you can buy at IKEA) but we prefer this less sweet one: mix 2 tsp horseradish (from a jar) with 2 tsp finely grated onion, 2 tsp Dyon mustard, 2 tbsp white vinegar, 1 tsp caster sugar, bit of salt and 120 ml crême fraiche. Add 2 tbsp finely cut dill.

When it's time to serve, remove the cling film 
and the salty dill-mix. We even rinsed the
cured salmon and dried it with kitchen paper
to make it less salty.
Serve thin slices on a bed of salsify. Add the sauce.
Some capers, finely chopped onion and coarse brown bread
can be added as well.

Follow me on Instagram: peterschoenmaker7 and have a look at my Kindle book

 'Breakfast in Gascony" on Amazon

Alternative presentation for round plates:

Porc fillet, polenta,ratatouille, broad beans, tomatoes confit

If you have finished a nice beefstew there often is some very tasty thick liquid left in the pot. Which we decided to use as a sauce. In the fridge were some ratatouille, broad beans and haricots verts left and we also had some oven dried tomatoes. We only had to buy a pork fillet and could start cooking.

(If you like it: put the oven on 80C. Boil some water and drop 2 tomatoes in for 30 seconds. Get them out with a slotted spoon (keep the water) and hold them under cold running water to stop cooking. Remove the skin and cut into 4 parts. Remove the seeds. Put in a small oven dish, sprinle with sea salt and thyme leaves, Add olive oil till almost covered and 2 garlic cloves (in their skin). Put in the oven for 3 hours.) 

For the rice bring 4 small  cups of water to the boil and put in a small cup (it will increase in volume!) of polenta. Keep stirring on a low heat for about 3-4 mins. Pour into a shallow plate and see how it swells up while it cools.

Go and find something else to do.

After 150 mins. shell the broad beans.

Cut the polenta into 'fishfingers'. 

Fry the fillet in some oil and a dash of butter till nice and brown on all sides, turn down the heat and let them cook for about 20 mins. The inside should not be raw, but can stay pink.

After 10 mins add 1 or 2 polenta fingers to brown

Boil the tomato water again and cook the haricots verts for 5 mins. After 4 mins add the broad beans.

Warm the left over stew-liquid (and ratatouille if you have some).

Let the meat rest a bit and cut the fillet in 4 parts.

Serve as shown above. The oil from the tomatoes is now garlicky, so keep in a jar for later use

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Apricot and pancetta salad

 

This morning they were caressed by the first sun, still ripening on their tree. At

7 am they were carefully picked by a farmer and at three hours later we bought them at the local market. The fist delicious apricots of the season (which is rather short).

Most of the work is taking the skin of. Unless you dip them a couple of seconds in boiling water, like a tomato. Then cut them in 6 parts.

Start the dressing with 2 tsp mustard and 2 heaped tsp apricot jam, mix with 2 tbsp wallnut vinegar. Add about 6 tbsp olive oil. Whisk.

Then fry some pancetta (or Serano) in a dry pan till crisp.

Enjoy the first bites of summer

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