Planked Salmon with Fennel Two Ways and Burnt Aubergine Puree

Cowie has a long and distinguished history of buying me awesome cooking gifts, not to mention having built Cassius as well. So when she gave me a collection of cedar planks for Christmas I got giddily excited.

Planking is an old fashioned culinary technique where you cook your meat or fish on a dampened plank of wood, such as cedar, over hot coals. The wet wood emits puffs of steam and smoke that gently encourage the flesh above to yield whilst providing a smoky backdrop. (For more in depth information about planking have a look at this site or buy this book.)

The easiest, and possibly best, thing to cook on a plank is a fillet of salmon. You land up with an indecently moist piece of warm smoky fish that will make you wonder why you’ve been eating boring old poached or grilled salmon for all those years.

We cooked this with a fennel salad which we cevichified from Mark Hix’s book and some burnt aubergine puree that we bastardised from Ottolonghi. And all in a Cornish field with a small BBQ.

Ingredients:

1 cedar plank
1 salmon fillet big enough for two with the skin on
Salt
Pepper
Lemon zest
2 aubergines
2 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of yoghurt
Olive oil
1 fennel bulb
Mint
Juice of 2 lemons

Method:

Soak your cedar plank in water for anywhere between 2 and 12 hours. This will stop it burning.

Slice the fennel as thinly as possible. We didn’t have a mandolin on the camp site, surprisingly, so just make sure you’ve got a very sharp knife and haven’t drunk your own body weight in gin and tonic by this stage. Season with salt and pepper and then douse in the juice of 2 lemons.

Light your BBQ. When the coals have stopped flaming throw on two aubgerines and pierce with your knife. Let them burn, Ottolenghi-style, for 20 minutes or until steam is spurting out of the aubergines and the flesh is soft. Remove and leave to cool. Then scoop out the flesh, mash, and mix in the yoghurt, more salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon. You’ll be adding some smoked garlic later…

Descale the salmon and remove any pin bones. Then rinse in cold water. Pat dry. And then season like there’s no tomorrow. Add a few curls of lemon zest.

Place the plank on the coals and when it starts to smoke lay the salmon skin side up on the wood along with 2 cloves of garlic. Add the fennel to the grill and close the lid. Inspect after 10 minutes and turn the fennel. Judge the doneness of the salmon and continue cooking for as long as you like.

Remove from the heat and mash the smoky garlic into the aubergine. Dress the fennel ceviche with some olive oil, shredded mint leaves and check the seasoning. If you’ve got the inclination, remove the salmon skin and place on the grill to crisp up.

Serve the salmon from the plank with the two types of fennel and a saucy smacker of smokey aubergine puree.

The salmon was softer than an Andrex puppy’s downy ear and subtly smoked. Whilst the fennel was sharp and crunchy on the one hand and charred and sweet on the other.

After a scorching debut I think that planking may well be my new favourite cooking technique. We’ll have to push the boat out next time with some more adventurous recipes…

Further reading:

Epicurious on maple planked salmon
Accidental hedonist on Copper River planked salmon
Man Meat Fire
Cedar Grilling Company – they know a thing or two about planking
Cedar plank recipes from Tasty Timbers
Buy planks in the UK here
How to cut your own cedar grilling planks

Pork Neck Cooked in Chai Infused Milk

Sounds weird. And looks even weirder. But trust me. It works. Pork neck is the latest “Forgotten Cut” that I’ve stumbled across not selling very well in Waitrose. I bought a kilo of pork neck for around four quid and got very excited when I found out that some people regard it as a very special cut. It is richly seamed with fat, not unlike a good rib eye or a feather blade which means it is almost impossible to dry out. Like a blade, you can either cook it super fast or nice and slow.

Feeling inspired by Niamh’s pork loin cooked in milk from the River Café and Moro cookbooks, I decided to extend the idea a bit further. Niamh slow cooked her pork in whole milk with bay and cinnamon which I could almost smell as I read it. But what I was smelling quickly morphed into masala chai which I guzzled by the gallon in Zanzibar. I wondered what would happen if I dropped the bay and instead added cloves, star anise, peppercorns and lots of cardamom to my cinnamon. There was only one way to find out.

Ingredients:

1 pork neck
2 litres of whole milk
4 star anise
10 cardamom pods
1 tablespoon of black peppercorns
2 sticks of cinnamon
8 cloves
Knob of ginger
Salt

Method:

Stage 1. Season the neck fillet and sear until golden.

Stage 2. Place neck in a slow cooker with the spices and milk.

Stage 3. Simmer for 3 hours until the pork is tender.

Stage 4. Transfer pork into an oven dish and blast for 20 minutes to help the milk to caramelise.

Serve with rice and greens.

I wish it looked better. Unfortunately it doesn’t photograph well. So you’ll have to believe me when I tell you that it is delicious. The meat was moist, tender and full of porky flavour. Meanwhile the chai spices gave a very subtle flavour to the sauce with the cardamom leading the way, just as it does in spiced tea. I am now a big pork neck fan and am looking forward to experimenting with it in different recipes. Let me know if you’ve got any cracking ideas for it.

Further reading:

Pork neck with rosemary
Pork neck on the BBQ
Sticky Asian pork neck
Chinese roast pork neck
Grilled pork neck with tamarind dip
Thai pork neck with soft noodles

Monkfish Lasagne a la Rossini

This recipe is built around monkfish liver. Typically fishermen just lob the liver back into the sea. But this is a terrible waste. Monkfish liver is the foie gras of the sea and is every bit as rich. Because demand for the stuff is so low there isn’t a market for it, which is a real shame. Added to this is the ethical issue of whether it is OK to eat monkfish, given their increasing scarcity. According to the Chelsea Fishmonger anything from the Bay of Biscay is off limits, but nearer Cornwall it’s OK. For much more erudite monkfish liver information read his post here.

I didn’t just want to cook monkfish liver on toast. Or make a pate out of it. And as tasty as monkfish liver, bacon and pea-shoot salad with a poached hen’s egg sounds, I wanted to do something more interesting. And then it dawned on me. Given that monkfish liver is often compared to foie gras, why not create a monkfish version of Tornedos a la Rossini. So I drew a picture where the fillet of beef was replaced by a slab of monkfish topped with a slither of it’s own liver.

So I cycled to Chelsea so fast that I got stopped by the police as I crossed Park Lane. I explained that I was late for the fishmonger and that an important recipe depended on getting my hands on a very elusive parcel of monkfish liver. To my amazement the police backed off and sent me on my way with a slap on the wrist. The incident only served to make me cycle even faster as they had taken away valuable seconds. Despite being late my parcel awaited me along with a handful of Barba Di Fratte and an inspiring chat with Mat about the ins and outs of how to cook monkfish liver and the general state of the seas.

With wind in my sails I steamed back to Balham and set about cooking. Here’s what I did.

Ingredients:

200 grams monkfish liver
2 monkfish fillets
Pasta fresca
A bunch of barba di fratte
Lots of butter
1 lemon
Watercress
Glass of white wine
Salt and pepper

Method:

Stage 1. Make your pasta as per this post. Roll it out into thin sheets that you will later use to envelop your main ingredients. It needs to be wide enough to encase the monkfish from tip to tail and then be able to wrap back on itself.

Stage 2. Place your 2 monkfish fillets in a roasting dish. Season the fish and anoint with butter. Pour a glass of white wine around the fish and cover in finely chopped barba di fratte. Or if you can’t get your hands on this use samphire if the season is right.

Stage 3. Cover with foil and cook for 20 minutes in the oven at around 200’c.

Stage 4. Meanwhile slice your liver about 8mm thick and dust with seasoned flour. When you take the fish out of the oven fry your liver in a hot pan so the liver crisps up.

Stage 5. Pour the juice from the fish into a pan and reduce to a fragrant sauce, adding a touch of flour if necessary.

Stage 6. Then assemble your lasagne by laying a sheet of pasta on the bottom of the plate, followed by the fish and then some watercress. Then pour over some sauce and then top with two slices of liver. Then close the pasta and pour over more sauce. Season with salt and pepper, squeeze some lemon over it. And serve.

It was delicious. The liver is very rich so you need the lemon to lift it and the herbs to add a nuance of greenery. Monkfish liver has got a lot going for it and I am delighted with how this new recipe turned out. We drank a very fresh bottle of dry Riesling with this which worked very well.

Further reading:

A London Fishmonger Blog on monkfish liver
Mark Hix on monkfish liver, bacon, pea and egg salad
Monkfish Liver on Toast on Chocolate and Zucchini
Japanese Monkfish Liver (AKA Ankimo)

Cheeky Pig Wellington

After almost tripping over myself in excitement when I first cooked pigs cheeks in a bourbon and mustard glaze, I’ve been gagging to cook with them again. I love their sweet tenderness and strong piggy taste. And the fact that they cost 14 pence each doesn’t hurt either!

Whenever I see them in Waitrose with the little green “Forgotten Cuts” flag in them I always buy the lot. Sorry. I just can’t help myself. This is probably why you rarely find them. It’s because a few annoying gits like me always gazump them.

A dozen or so have been in Cowie’s parents’s freezer for a few months now. And with a whole weekend to play with I decided to do something special with them. Cowie and I have been discussing how to cook them so much that Cowie has been plagued by bad dreams about being attacked by evil cheekless pigs! So when I flipped through a food magazine and saw a recipe for “Beef Wellington” the penny dropped and I started sketching out my recipe. I decided to switch the mushrooms in the traditional duxelle for apricots and then bolster it up with some pig’s liver pate. See below for the recipe. I then did a quick google and didn’t get any direct hits – does that mean this recipe is a world first?

Wash and pat dry you pigs’ cheeks. Then season them generously with salt and pepper before colouring them in a hot pan. Try to avoid smoking your girlfriend’s parents’ kitchen out at midnight like I did. Then sling them into a roasting dish along with a few sage leaves and whatever booze you have to hand. I used a glass of Argentine Pinot Noir. Then put cover with foil and cook very, very slowly. I put them in the top left oven of the Aga which is normally used for plate warming and let them bubble away overnight. But if you haven’t got an Aga and are worried about leaving the oven on overnight then slow cook them for 3 or 4 hours on a very low setting.

Allow the pigs cheeks to cool and separate them from the juices.

Reduce the liquid to a syrup and add a handful of chopped dried apricots. This will become a sticky brown goo that will form the basis of the “duxelle”. Add 100 grams of pork liver pate to the brown goo and mix so that it becomes a paste. Season to taste.

Then lay a piece of cling film on a chopping board or work surface and line it with three overlapping slices of pancetta. Smear them with the “duxelle” and plop a pigs cheek in the middle. Then wrap them up into smart little parcels.

I then used an extra rasher of pancetta to hold it all together laterally.

Put these in the fridge and chill until you get around to rolling the pastry which must be done at the last possible moment to avoid soggyness.

With 40 minutes to go before you want to eat them, roll out you puff pastry and roll it around the parcels. Place on a greased baking tray and cook in a hot oven until the pastry has browned which will take around 20 minutes.

Serve to impressed guests with mashed potato, broccoli and mustard. The meat was more tender than anything I’ve ever eaten and the pastry was puffy and crisp. The apricot duxelle gave the pork a playful fruitiness that helped to take your mind off the richness of the pate and unctuous meat.

Who needs fillet of beef that costs and arm and a leg when you can create something that tastes much better and costs a pittance? If beef short ribs were the trendy cheap cut of 2007, lamb shanks in 2008 and pork belly in 2009, then I reckon 2010 is the year of the pig cheek.

Mince Pie and Brandy Butter Sausages

Bonkers. But delicious. The suet from the mincemeat, along with the butterfat make these sausages very moist, whilst the fruit and the brandy give them a sophistication that helps to elevate them out of the novelty category. Given that Santa and his band of merry reindeer have buggered off for the rest of the year, they also make a great way of using up any leftover mincemeat.

Start with a 60/40 mixture of minced belly and shoulder. Add two big spoonfuls of mincemeat and a spoon of brandy butter. Then add a glug of brandy. Mix together with some salt, pepper and breadcrumbs until the consistency feel sausagey.

Then pump into some natural casings and leave to rest overnight. Create mini links and serve to unsuspecting friends as mini mince pie sausages on the end of cocktail sticks.

We ate these after a long walk in the frosty Somerset countryside with a cup of tea. To my delight the idea turned out to be far less hair-brained than I had feared. The sausages were moist, sticky, full of festive flavour and universally approved of. The stewed fruit led Cowie to think they tasted like Devils on Horseback. So if you’re keen to use up your mince meat the last dregs of brandy butter, spare them the pastry treatment and ram them inside some pigs intestine.

Gareth from Bibendum suggests quaffing some rich Alsatian Pinot Gri with these, whereas Fiona thought they’d go down a storm with Tawny Port or off-dry Amontillado.

Top photo is from kyz on Flickr via creative commons.

This is part of a series of posts about experimental sausages and a potential sausage-fest

Fennel, chilli and chocolate sausages

Chocolate sausages?! Has Browners gone completely mad?

Pork goes well with chilli…

Pork also goes well with fennel…

Pork and chocolate is a combination that you’ll stumble across throughout Latin and South America…

So why not combine it all together?

The warmth of the chilli, the aniseed flavour of the fennel and all round depth from the chocolate build up to create a sausage that’s up there with my favourites.

Make your sausage meat using the 60/40 belly to shoulder ratios as I’ve mentioned elsewhere. Season liberally with salt. Then grate a generous amount of Willy’s Wonky Cacao into the mince. Then sprinkle with chilli seeds and finely ground fennel seeds. If you’ve got some fresh chillies to hand then finely slice them and add to the mix.

To continue the South American theme, Ancho chillies would work well, but if you wanted a smokier flavour then why not experiment with Chipotle chillies which are hard to get your hands on, but well worth the effort.

Mix it all together with some breadcrumbs and then extrude into some natural casings. Leave to rest in the fridge overnight and then serve for lunch along with some buttery mashed potato, iron rich greens and fennel gratin. The chocolate helps to give them depth, whilst the main sensation comes from the fennel and chilli, both of which are very grown up flavours.

As an adventurous alternative make a Mexican mole and serve with the sausages with some rice.

Gareth from Bibendum recommends drinking a bottle of Primitivo with these bangers, whereas Fiona the Winematcher suggests wolfing them down with some New Wave Tuscan red.

This is part of a series of posts about experimental sausages and a potential sausage-fest

Sichuan Sausages

Earlier in the year I had an inspirational meal at Chilli Cool. Having never had Sichuan food before, I was oblivious to the narcoleptic charms of Sichuan peppercorns which not only set your mouth on fire but numb it at the same time. I left feeling invigorated and keen to dabble with Sichuan pepper.

So I invented my own Sichuan sausage recipe. And would you believe it, the sausages are amazing. Here’s how you make them.

Mince a 60/40 mix of pork belly and pork shoulder. For 6 sausages throw in a handful of breadcrumbs. Then, in a pestle and mortar, grind 3 dessert spoons of Sichuan peppercorns to a fine dust. Add them to the pork. Then slice up a spring onion and add it to the party. Grate a whole thumb of ginger into the pork along with a a couple of cloves of minced garlic. Then sprinkle in a generous amount of chilli seeds and then as much Chinese 5 spice as you think seems right. Season with salt, or for added authenticity some MSG.

Mix the pork and spices together and then feed into sausage casings. Allow the sausage to rest for a few hours before cooking as this will allow the meat to settle and relax after the trauma of the sausage making process.

Amazingly a few wires got tangled up in the Brown kitchen and we landed up serving them with Brussels’ sprouts and carrots! The winter vegetables admirably stuck to their task. It prompted one of the funnier moments over Christmas when my Grandfather, who isn’t a fan of spice, said, “I don’t mind about the chilli because my mouth has gone numb”. There was something deeply surreal about the whole experience. And this odd situation allowed us to concentrate on the flavour of the sausages which whilst taking no prisoners, were a spectacular success.

My plan had been to take inspiration from “Dan Dan Noodles” (see photo above courtesy of scaredy_kat on Flickr via creative commons ) and cook them in a liquor of soy sauce, chillies and stock and then serve them with noodles and pak choi. They would also be great without their casings as meat balls in a Chinese broth. If you’ve got any suggestions about what to serve them with, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

And if you are thinking what wines would go well with a Sichuan sausage, then Gareth from Bibendum suggests drinking Argentine Bonarda and Fiona the Winematcher suggests a New Zealand Pinot Noir.

This is part of a series of posts about experimental sausages and a potential sausage-fest

WANTED: Washing Machine for Lateral Cooking Experiments

Normal cooking is boring. Hobs. Yawn. Ovens. Zzzzzzz. Microwaves. Grrrr. It’s much more fun using other bits of kit to cook with such as baths, irons, dishwashers and car engines.

We’ve had a lot of fun recently cooking in bizarre ways. Our experiments with cooking salmon in the bath tub and in the dishwasher have been roaring success. We now want to push the boundaries and try something that hasn’t been done before.

We want to cook pork belly in a washing machine. The flavourings and method are still in development. As it stands the pork itself will be surrounded by star anise, ginger, chilli, soy sauce and spring onion and then encased either in a cooking bag or a pillowcase like you would do with trainers.

We’ll then select a long hot washing cycle on a gentle spin and watch our pork go round and round in the drum of the machine, slowly becoming tenderised as it crashes around. Our hope is that it emerges as beautifully soft, deeply flavoured meat resembling pulled pork.

So if you work for Curry’s, Miele, Bosch, Zanussi or any other white goods company please can you send me a washing machine so I can cook some amazing pork!

And if you don’t then please help to spread the word to people who do. And if you’ve got any feedback on the cooking method, or any further ideas, please let me know. It’s got the potential to be a really fun project and I need your help.

(Image is from Flickr Creative Commons from G & A Sattler)

Sherpa’s Pie

I enjoy experimenting with ideas. Especially when it comes to food and even more so if it involves a healthy amount of punning, such as with Mussel Re:Laksa and Ham Hockusai. One idea that Gilly and I developed was around the idea of fusion food, but rather than being based on the cuisines of the Pacific Rim, it combines and merges the foods of the British Empire.

We thought it would be fun to take classic English dishes and give them an exotic twist. And on other occasions take exciting dishes from the old British Empire and give them a British spin. Our best example so far is Sherpa’s Pie which, essentially, is a lamb curry with turmeric mashed potato on top – a Himalayan twist on the classic Shepherd’s Pie. We loved it as an idea because it seemed to capture our silly concept perfectly. And I love it even more now that I’ve made it!

All you need to do is rid your mind of preconceptions and any niggling doubts about the lack of authenticity and embrace an interesting idea. Here’s how to make it.

Toast a sprinkling of fennel seeds, cumin seeds, coriander seeds and cinnamon. Then grind to a fragrant dust and add garam masala. Then add 3 finely chopped chillies, a large knob of grated ginger and some rock salt. Add some oil to form a spicy paste and then rub most of this all over your shoulder of lamb.

Add 10 quartered and deseeded tomatoes to the roasting pan along with 4 roughly chopped onions. Cover the tomatoes and onions in the rest of your paste and drizzle with oil. Roast in a hot oven for 20 minutes until the top has browned. When you open the oven door the smell should have you gasping for air and yearning for more at the same time. Turn the shoulder over so the spices on the underside turn brown as well. Roast at a high heat for a further 10-15 minutes and then transfer to a cooler oven (of if you’re not using an Aga turn the oven down). Let this burble away for 4 hours. When the meat starts to yield pour a jar of passata around the outside. Cook for another hour and then when you can see that the meat is yielding remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Now, boil a panful of potatoes in salted water and sprinkle around a tablespoon of turmeric into the water. It should turn the potatoes an alarming shade of yellow. Once cooked drain and mash with butter, milk and plenty of seasoning.

Pull the, now cooled, lamb shoulder apart and shred the meat. It should tease apart with a fork. Remove the bones and any superfluous fat. Transfer the meat and sauce to a casserole dish and test the seasoning. Then add a layer of spinach followed by the yellow mashed potato. Place this in the oven to heat through and mingle.

Serve with a bottle of Cobra beer.

I grinned throughout the cooking process and even more so when it came to eating it. I’m sure many people would be horrified by the idea of putting mashed potato on a curry. But I can assure you it worked brilliantly. Some have suggested using goat or yak for a bit of added authenticity. I will next time!

Mussel Re:Laksa

Following on from the pun-tastic Ham Hockusai, I thought I’d stick with the Oriental theme and attack the laksa. As ever, I hadn’t really appreciated what I was letting myself in for. Laksa, far from being a simple dish, is pretty complicated. For starters there are two distinct types: curry laksa which tends to be a coconut curry with noodles and asam laksa which is a sour fish soup with noodles (and not a type of tea).

It is commonly found across China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and increasingly across Australia. It derives a lot of its flavour from ground, dried shrimps.

I decided to make a curry laksa sticking relatively closely to a very authentic recipe I found, shamefully, on Delia’s website!

I bought my mussels from Moxon’s just outside Clapham South tube station and went in search of the other key ingredients in Balham where I managed to find everything except dried shrimp paste. Bugger.

After some excellent suggestions from Lizzie, Essex Gourmet and Kelsie Mortimer decided to mash up some prawns with a dash of anchovy essence, Worcester Sauce and lemon juice. It’s clearly not ideal, but it seemed to do the trick!

Here’s how I made my mussel and prawn laksa:

Empty a kilo of mussels into a colander and run under cold water. Pull out their beards and give them a good rinse. Leave them on the side as you’ll only need them a fair bit later.
Then you need to make your spicy paste. To do this grab a handful of chillies, two stems of lemon grass, a few shallots, a spoonful of turmeric, a knob of galangal (or ginger) and your home made shrimp paste (or better still, the real deal if you can find it). Add some liquid and blitz this in a blender and you’ll be left with a wonderfully orange, fragrant, spicy paste that will be the base of your laksa.

Then toast a handful of nuts in a hot wok so that they turn golden. Remove them and then fry your paste in a glug of vegetable or groundnut oil. The aromas should almost knock the pan out of your hand. Let this sizzle for a couple of minutes and then add a can of coconut milk and the same amount of chicken stock.

Allow this to simmer for 10 minutes and then add the mussels, a pack of prawns and enough vermicelli noodles for two. When they are almost done add half a bag of beansprouts and scatter with half of the toasted nuts. Season and then ladle into deep bowls.
Garnish with a wedge of lime, some crushed toasted nuts and Vietnamese mint if you’ve got it.

It was comforting, spicy, vibrant and a joy to eat. Slurping and guzzling sounds are a sure fire sign of culinary satisfaction! I sank back in my seat and sighed. Muscle relaxer indeed.