I Can Only Take So Much Lettuce
For lunch today, I had some smoked salmon and one of Waitrose’s potato and egg side salads. I don’t eat all the lettuce, but all the others bits like tomatoes and cucumber do get devoured.
So why do we put so much lettuce in a salad? Perhaps, it’s to feed our pet rabbits? I don’t have one!
Saving Fish With Flies
A large amount of the fish caught in the sea ends up as animal feed. The Sunday Times reports how in South Africa, a process has been developed to create chicken feed from maggots fed on blood from abattoirs. Sounds gruesome!
But if it means we take less fish from the sea to feed animals, it’s surely better.
Pan-Fried Fish with Lemon Hollandaise Sauce
This recipe is double-nicked, in that I got it from Fish Fanatics and they got it from the Seafish Industry. I’ve just cooked it with the disaster-prone flour and it was definitely worth stealing. But as the real beneficiaries are the fishermen and their industry made up the recipe, does anybody really care?
The ingredients are as follows and the quantities serve two.
- 2 sole or plaice fillets, defrosted and skinned. I actually used haddock, line-caught of course
- 30g (1oz) plain flour
- salt and freshly milled black pepper
- 1 15ml spoon (1 tbsp) olive oil
- 30g (1oz) butter
- 125ml hollandaise sauce
- 1 15ml spoon (1 tesp) lemon juice
- fresh chopped parsley, to garnish
The method is as follows.
- Dip the fish in seasoned flour. Shake off any excess.
- Heat the oil in a frying pan, add the butter. Cook each fillet for 2-3 minutes on each side or until golden brown.
- Add the hollandaise sauce and lemon juice. Simmer for 2-3 minutes.
- Garnish and serve with potatoes and green vegetables.
Fish Paste Sandwiches Updated
I’ve just made myself some sandwiches for the journey to Ipswich for the football today.
Fish Paste Sandwiches Updated
The bread is Genius, the pate is from Pinney’s of Orford, the butter is Benecol and the cucumber is an organic one from Waitrose.
So different to the fish paste sandwiches that were a treat on Sundays in the 1950s.
Lindsay Bareham Does It Again!
This is another of Lindsay Bareham’s Dinner Tonight recipes, from The Times on Thursday, and again it’s gluten-free.
The ingredients are as follows and the quantities serve two.
- 2 pollack fillets
- half a lemon
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 200g green beans
- 150g frozen petits pois
- Best olive oil
The method is as follows.
- Heat the oven to 200C/Gas Mark 6.
- Place the fish in a small roasting pan, splash with 2 tbsp olive oil and squeeze the lemon juice over. Season with salt and pepper.
- Roast for 6-10 minutes depending of the thickness of the fillets.
- Whilst the fish roasts halve the beans.
- Drop them into a pan of vigorously boiling water. Add a generous seasoning of salt and boil for 1 minute.
- Add the peas and boil for a further 2 minutes or until the peas are tender and the beans still al dente. Drain.
- Return the beans to the pan with 1 tbsp of your best olive oil. Toss thoroughly then pile in the middle of two warmed dinner plates.
- Drape a fillet of fish over the top, add the juices and a swirl of your best olive oil.
- Serve immediately offering sea salt flakes and the pepper mill.
I do wonder if Lindsay realises that most of her recipes are gluten-free.
But what the heck I’ll keep looking for them and trying them.
You May Get the Man Out of Suffolk, But You Can’t Get Suffolk Out of the Man
I wasn’t born in Suffolk, but according to my father I was conceived on the floor of the Ordnance Hotel in Felixstowe. But for the last forty years or so, I’ve always had strong associations with the county and of course I still support Ipswich Town.
But Suffolk gets under your skin and every time I go to the local de Beauvoir Deli, I’m reminded of my history, as they sell products from Pinney’s of Orford. C and I must have had upwards of fifty happy meals in their Oysterage in Orford. I think C would approve that I’ve just bought some of their smoked fish pate for my lunch, which I’ll eat with s0me Genius toast.
Smoked Fish Pate from Pinney's of Orford
Walking a Lady Back to the Bus
Mary, an old friend for about thirty-five years came to see me today and we got some more of the boxes unpacked and few pictures up on the walls. As someone, who has earned her living from preparing food professionally several times in her life, she also tried to help me fathom out the cooker. In the end we baked some haddock, with onions and tomatoes. And it was very delicious too! Or at least we both thought so! But then I’d cooked it and she’d worked the oven.
She had to get back to her car to get home, so about seven-thirty I walked her back to get the bus back to the Central Line. Mary is about two years younger than me, so as we walked along, I asked when was the last time, she’d been properly walked back to get the bus home. She thought it was perhaps when she was about 19. After we’d said good-bye, I reflected on when was the last time I walked a lsdy to the bus. I may be wrong, but I can’t remember it since about 1966, when I walked a girlfriend to get her bus back to Aigburth in Liverpool. In all the time C and I were together we either went home together or drove in a car. I may have walked the odd lady to a tube or train, after a business meeting or because we were working together, but to a bus, never!
It was all so relaxing and very pleasant really!
Baked Haddock with Cheese
I usually cook haddock with tomatoes and onions, but I felt I needed something simple and quick. After searching the Internet I found this recipe.
The ingredients I used were.
- 1 cupful of goats milk
- 1 tablespoon of gluten-free flour
- 50 grms of butter
- 2 or 3 haddock fillets
- 1 cupful of grated cheese.
- salt and pepper to taste
These quantities make enough for perhaps a friend and myself, but as I was hungry, I made it for one.
The method was as follows.
- Melt the butter in a saucepan.
- Add the flour, mix with the butter and when smooth add the milk, salt and pepper.
- When thickened add the grated cheese and stir constantly over a low heat until the cheese is melted and the sauce is smooth.
- Meanwhile arrange the haddock fillets in an ovenproof dish and pour the cheese sauce over the top.
- I then baked it in the top of the bottom oven of the AGA for thirty minutes.
A Picture of my Lunch for Kazakh Jock
This was the lunch I took to the football at Ipswich.
My Lunch
The filling is the finest Loch Muir smoked salmon. The bread was the last part of a Marks and Spencer gluten-free loaf.
I ate it with Tam, but he didn’t want much, as he’s a statue!
The Anonymous Widower 