Otters Will Be Otters
This story from the Metro, shows how we should co-operate a bit more, where wildlife are concerned. Here’s the first few paragraphs.
When Brian Dodson set up a carp fishery from scratch he had no idea the business would be quickly ruined – by otters.
The 60-year-old discovered the carnivores had eaten his entire £250,000 stock after a river haven for the animals was built nearby.
He is now seeking £2.5million from the Environment Agency, which he claims failed to tell him about the scheme and prevented him building protective fencing.
Surely there should have been a middle way.
But then as the story says otters are carnivores and will get their food no matter what. There was a story a couple of years ago, where otters were taking koi carp out of a pond in a suburban garden in Birmingham. No-one knew that there were otters in the nearby canal.
I’m reminded of the tale I heard when I shared the driver’s cab in a High Speed Diesel Train from Edinburgh to Inverness.
The owner of an hotel close to the line, built a lake, which he stocked with fish for his guests. But just down the road was Loch Garten, where ospreys have made a home. And as ospreys are wont to do, they found the hotel lake and decided it was a good place for dinner.
The hotel owner cut back on his fishing, but apparently, he now promotes the lake as a place to watch ospreys feed.
Waitrose’s Fish Pies
I find them very confusing and I’ve written to the company.
I am a coeliac and some of your pies have gluten and some don’t. I of course must have the gluten-free ones.
This means that when I want a fish pie, I have to turn it upside down to check. The only ones I can eat are the Fish Pie for One in, I think, the Essentials range.
Perhaps a gluten-free symbol on the front would be the best solution.
In fact your ready meals puzzle me, as some that when I cook a similar dish from scratch don’t have gluten. But yours do!
I have been looked at rather strangely by some of your staff, as I go through all the meals looking for the gluten-free ones.
I shall be interested to see what they say.
Express Fish
I did my fish recipe last night.
I didn’t do any potatoes, but the food was on the table about ten minutes after putting the fish in the oven.
The biggest delay was waiting for the oven to warm up. Where is an AGA, when you need one? But I couldn’t get one up the stairs here and Jerry’s building might not take the weight.
Where Is A Cat When You Need One?
Last night I had poached smoked haddock and egg for supper. And very nice it was too, as it was a whole undyed fish from the fish counter in Waitrose.
The only problem, was the fish was too large for my dish, so I had to trim it. After I’d eaten it too, there was also a large piece of skin.
After living with cats since about the 1970s, I just didn’t have a handy pussy to make good use of the left-overs.
There are cats round here, but they don’t seem to come up to my end of the road.
It’s Friday So It’s Fish!
I tend to have fish on Friday, although I come from a family where there was quite a bit of anti-Roman Catholic feeling. My mother was from a Huguenot line and after what had happened in France in the eighteenth century, you could understand her family’s feelings. With my father it was a bit mixed, but he didn’t like the way the Pope Pius XII had not condemned the Nazis. If it’s one thing my father was, it was an anti-fascist. But then he’d been at the Battle of Cable Street.
But still we generally had fish on Fridays! A friend has said that her family did too, as that was the day the fish-man called. I know we had a fish-man, who brought fresh fish and perhaps he came on Friday.
I don’t always follow the tradition and C generally didn’t. But recently, I’ve found a few nice fish recipes and tend to cook one of them on a Friday.
Today was no exception and I cooked a variation of the Lindsey Bareham recipe of fish with peas and beans, that I often use.
I started by setting the oven to warm up to 200 °C, with a plate warming in the top oven. I also set some water to boil for the vegetables.
Warming Up The Cooker
Meanwhile, I prepared the fish, by taking it out of the packet and putting it in my expensive porcelain dish from a pound shop.
Fish Ready For Cooking
I generally do two pieces of fish, in case a hungry and beautiful woman should turn up, whilst I’m cooking. The only preparation I do is to put a tablespoon of Carluccio’s lemon-flavoured olive oil over each piece of fish. I always used to use a real lemon, but then I often forgot to buy one.
I also prepare the vegetables. The potatoes tonight were a pack of Waitrose’s ready-to-microwave ones, the beans were a pack of yesterday’s runner beans on special offer and the peas were frozen ones from the freezer.
The Peas and Beans Ready To Cook
The only tricky preparation was to cut the beans in half.
After the fish went in the oven, I put the beans in the boiling water and started the potatoes in the microwave. After a couple of minutes, the peas were added to the beans and by the time they’d cooked so had the potatoes. I then just gave the fish another minute or so until it was cooked and placed it on top of the green vegetables.
Fish With Potatoes, Peas And Beans
It really must be one of the simplest ways to cook fish and vegetables. Even I can get it right every time!
The washing-up isn’t too onerous.
Easy Washing Up
There’s nothing that’s actually too dirty and can’t be washed in the sink.
Poached Smoked Haddock With Poached Eggs
After my experience at the Hope Street Hotel in Liverpool, I thought I’d try to do this myself. I asked an honourable friend how to poach the fish and she suggested using the microwave. I then found this method on Yahoo.
If you don’t want to spend ages with the other recipes just put it in a shallow dish with a little milk and water (equal amounts) and a knob of butter on top then whack it into the microwave for three/mins full power.
Here’s what it looked like before it went in the microwave.
Smoked Haddock Before Cooking
And here it is after the cooking.
Smoked Haddock After Cooking
To poach the eggs, I used these mini-poachers from John Lewis.
Mini-Poachers From John Lewis
Here they are sitting in the pan.
Two Eggs Poaching
They can either sit or hang on the side. The eggs didn’t turn out of the poachers too well.
Poached Smoked Haddock and Poached Eggs
But they tasted alright and I suspect I’ll get them better next time.
By the way it looks like John Lewis is out of the mini egg poachers. Perhaps a lot of mothers are going to get them for Christmas. After all they only cost four pounds each.
A Dreadful Night
It’s raining hard here and I’ll be staying in for most of the night.
I did try to go up to the Angel to see if I could get some fish to make one of my favourite suppers, but a 30 bus turned up first, so I thought I’d try the littleWaitrose at Highbury and Islington. But they had power problems and the tills weren’t working. So I just bought one item for supper.
A Reduced Waitrose Fish Pie
At least it was reduced to £2,99. As you can see it’s a bit battered, but only in the damaged sense!
I do have some strawberries, so with a drink, it won’t be a bad supper.
The Only Four Fishcake Recipes You’ll Ever Need
I’m pointing to these recipes on the Times web site, so that I don’t have to keep the paper.
You’ll have to be a subscriber like me to read them. Three of the four recipes are gluten free and one would be if you had gluten-free breadcrumbs.
The First English Beans Of The Summer
Today I bought the first English beans of the summer. From Suffolk of course! I used them to cook fish with beans and peas.
I used Carluccio’s lemon olive oil again and it gives a subtle lemon flavour to the fish.
A New Take On An Old Favourite
I cook fish with beans and peas quite regularly, using Lindsey Bareham’s recipe. Tonight I gave it a new twist to make it easier. I first assembled and prepared all the ingredients.
Ingredients
Note that instead of using a lemon, which I often forget, I’m using Carluccio’s olive oil with lemon. A small pack of beans are trimmed and halved, the fish is laid flat in a dish and enough peas to fill a mug are taken from the freezer.
The fish is then sprayed with a couple of tablespoons of the olive oil and then put in an oven at 200 °C for 10-12 minutes. The beans are put in boiling water for a couple of minutes and then the peas are added. It’s probably better to taste them to get them right, but I’ve done this so many times, I just use my eyes. In fact, when I need green vegetables I cook a few this way.
You then serve the fish on a bed of the vegetables.
Fish With Beans and Peas
It tasted very good with Carluccio’s oil.
The great thing about this recipe, is that all you need to buy is the fish and the beans, if like me you keep the peas in the freezer.
I should say that I’ve served it for a lady a couple of times and they’ve been impressed. One even did the washing up!
But even the washing up is minimal with this dish.
The Anonymous Widower 