Housewife Confidential » Food

Fish Cakes Recipe

Kat — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 14:00:31 +0000

A classic fish cake is a winner for weekday suppers in our house. Served with a big dollop of Greek yoghurt and either salad or veggies – my children can’t get enough of them.

I think if I were making them from scratch every time we’d have them far less often but I make a huge batch every few weeks and freeze the majority so they can be whipped out and reheated. When we have salad growing in the garden Milla and Monty will pick and wash the leaves ready for supper while I set the table – exactly the kind of relaxing scene I wish played out every evening.

I’ll often cook the fish and potatoes ahead of time and let them sit in the fridge overnight. Getting all of the elements lined up in advance is essential as once you start dipping there is no way to keep yourself clean!

I use a mix of fish and try to choose sustainable fish (find a list of fish to avoid here) and for this particular batch I used a mix of pollock and trout. There are so many lovely fish available it is well worth stepping away from the comfort zone and choosing something different.

Fish Cakes Recipe

600g of fish

1.2kg of potatoes, boiled (can use a mix of white and sweet potatoes if liked)

1 big bunch of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

For the coating: three bowls filled with plain flour, beaten eggs (about 2) and breadcrumbs respectively.

Oil and a small knob of butter for frying.

Cook the fish (wrapped in foil for about 15 minutes in an 180°C oven) then flake it using your fingers so you’ll find any bones.
Mash the potatoes, if you have one a ricer will make swift and fine mash.
Combine the fish, potatoes and parsley and mix well to combine.
Shape into patties, nice and fat about the size of a child’s hand (as modelled by Monty in the picture above).
With each fish cake you are going to coat it first in flour, then in egg and finally in breadcrumbs – I normally do this by rolling them around in the bowls.
Heat the oil in the pan – it needs to be sizzling hot before you get cooking or the breadcrumbs will just soak it all up. If you’re using it add your knob of butter when the oil is hot.
Fry the fish cakes on each side until golden.

Makes approx 20 – 24 fat child-sized fish cakes

To re-heat from frozen: pre-heat oven to 180°C. Place frozen fish cakes on a baking tray and cook in the oven for 20 minutes.

With thanks to Mr Kat for the pictures.

Soup Baby

Kat — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:30:30 +0000

Eating Watercress Soup.

Cranberry and Rhubarb Sauce Recipe

Kat — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:30:40 +0000

About half way through cooking our goose I decided I was going to create something other than the plain cranberry sauce I had planned. Ordinarily we’re so busy so a long lazy day of cooking is the perfect time to try something different.

I took a look around for a few flavours I thought would go with the meat and season and come up with a fruity combination of rhubarb, cranberry and satsuma. Luckily for me this is a marvellous combination which produces a sharp, sweet and delicious sauce.

Cranberry and Rhubarb Sauce

400g (a punnet) of cranberries

454g rhubarb, chopped

200g caster sugar

1 small satsuma, squeezed

120ml water

Put all of the ingredients together in a pan and heat gently until the sugar has dissolved.
Once the sugar has dissolved, bring the mixture to a simmer.
Simmer gently for an hour stirring from time to time.
The rhubarb should break up and the cranberries should pop.

Can be served warm or cold.

Makes enough for a feast and lots to go with leftovers.

To save either store in the fridge in an airtight container for a couple of weeks or pour into sterilised jars when hot and seal to keep for longer.

Lemon Chicken Tagine {Sponsored Recipe}

Kat — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:00:49 +0000

A happy coincidence that cooking and writing about this recipe coincided with having six children in the house for the afternoon. With high spirits and limited space I’m glad all of my prep was done long in advance.

It took ten minutes at most to get underway and then all I had to do was fix some couscous to serve. Really simple and eminently tasty although I’d probably add a green salad in the future. I couldn’t get hold of a tagine to cook it in so I used a cast iron pan with a tightly fitting lid.

As you can see the chicken was tender and falling apart. The sauce was intense yet subtly flavoured. It’s definitely been given the seal of approval by the children although couscous received mixed reactions.

Lemon Chicken Tagine Recipe

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
4 chicken quarters (or breasts diced)
1 level teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon ginger
1 tablespoon chopped fresh coriander
375ml chicken stock or water
4 quarters of preserved lemons
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Fresh coriander to garnish

Heat the oil in the Tagine Pot, and fry the onion and garlic gently for 3 – 4 minutes without colouring.
Cut the chicken quarters into two pieces, or dice the chicken breasts, and add these to the Tagine. Raise the heat slightly and brown evenly, turning the pieces frequently.
Add the turmeric, ginger, coriander and stock with some seasoning. Bring to a simmer.
Rinse the pieces of lemon thoroughly in cold running water. Then cut away and discard the fruit flesh. Cut the softened peel into thin strips, and stir these into the chicken.
Cover and cook very slowly for 2 – 21/2 hours. Remove the lid and boil the liquid rapidly for a few minutes to thicken the consistency, if necessary.
Garnish generously with the chopped coriander before serving.

Sticky Chipotle Pork Belly

Kat — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:00:30 +0000

I’ve been preoccupied by spicy pork since I had a delicious taco at the Wahaca concession at the ill-fated Alex James Presents Harvest. The other day I spotted a heavily discounted pork belly and figured it would be the perfect time to try out some ideas.

I had intended to use some chipotles in adobo after reading this post but when I opened the tin I found it was chipotles and tomatoes in adobo. Not ideal as we’re allergic to tomatoes so they went in the bin and I improvised from the store cupboard.

Having never cooked pork belly before I had a look at a few recipes which all suggested that a half hour at high heat either at the start or end of cooking was in order for crunchy crackling. I opted to do mine at the end but when I cam to check the meat the skin was crisp and glistening so I dodged that bit all together.

We were having a little celebration meal as Monty started pre-school last week. Candles and constructing your own meal are two of Monty’s absolute favourites so we turned our pork belly into wraps with guacamole and sour cream.

Slow Cooked Sticky Chipotle Pork Belly

Pork belly (around 1 – 1.5kg should easily serve 4-6)

2 tsp dried chipotle chillis – soaked and soaking liquor reserved

1 tbsp molasses cane sugar

1 tsp red wine vinegar

Rock salt

Oven preheated to 160°C. Roasting tin lined with tin foil (see my cheat’s way to rescue a burnt pan if you forget this!) should be just a smidge bigger then your meat.

Soak the chipotles for 15 minutes in hot water. Drain but reserve the cooking liquid.
Score the skin of your pork belly (being careful not to go as far as the flesh) so it has half inch wide stripes all over.
Rub salt all over the skin and into the cuts you’ve made. Set aside for a moment.
In a bowl or cup mix the chipotles, sugar, vinegar and enough of the soaking liquid to create a nice loose marinade.
Pour your marinade into your tin roil-lined tray spreading it out over the bottom.
Pat dry any water which has come out on the skin of the pork belly and put it into the tray. Wriggle it around so it gets nicely coated in the marinade. You don’t want it on the skin but it isn’t a major problem if you get a bit on, just wipe it off.
You can leave your pork belly to marinade for a couple of hours or pop it straight in the oven. The longer it has marinading the deeper the flavour can penetrate.
Put it in the oven and cook for 3.5 – 4 hours. Check it at around 3.5 hours and if the crackling needs a bit of help turn the oven up to 220°C for the last half hour.
Rest for 20 minutes then use two forks to pull apart the meat and place in a serving dish.
Enjoy this sweet sticky spiced meat in wraps, soft tacos, with noodles or however you like but most definitely with friends!

Strange Fruit

Kat — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 21:00:05 +0000

I had so much fun reading all of the fruity guesses which came in last week. There are so many fruits which I never knew existed.

But after much googling on your part and many guesses both serious and silly it is time to reveal that it is, in fact, not ‘some kind of massive fat apple’ (Bec), a papple or even the brilliantly named winter banana apple but an old classic:

♥

A QUINCE!

Sweetly scented and a complete pain in the wrist to cut. We have a tree I planted the year we moved in outside our back door which produced two beauties this year. Well done to everyone who got it right!

I have emailed the giveaway winner and will be making up a surprise package over the weekend.

Thank you to everyone who entered and to everyone who liked the facebook page. I had so much fun I think we should play this game again when the liker-counter creeps up to three hundred.

I have two new posts which you may like to read. First the Flip Flop Flip with information about a competition and second a little secret shopping in anticipation of the festive season. There’s also a new Baby Led Weaning recipe coming later int he week once I’ve made yet another bacth (somehow they keep disappearing before Mama’s camera comes out!)

Making Sourdough Starter and Bread

Kat — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:00:18 +0000

Today I’m over at Violet Posy’s Thrifty Christmas talking about making sourdough starter and loaves to give as gifts this Winter. While we don’t celebrate Christmas we do give gifts as part of our tradition and last year we gave sourdough.

How to make a sourdough starter:

What you need:

-Warm water – spring water is ideal but if you are using tap water boil it first and leave it to stand overnight (gets rid of the chlorine)

-Organic flour. I use unbleached bread flour but many people use rye flour or a combination of the two.

-A jar or glass bowl – scrupulously clean so nothing else gets into the starter.

-Non-metallic tools as the metal can give your culture a weird taste.

Day one: mix 50g warm water and 50g flour in the bowl. Cover with a tea towel and leave somewhere warm but away from hot spots.

Day two: stir in any liquid which has formed on the top. Mix in 50g warm water and 50g flour.

Day three – seven: normally you would throw out half of the starter at this point but as we want a large quantity we won’t. Mix in 100g warm water and 100g flour.

You will start to see bubbles form in your mixture and notice a smell. It can be yeasty but it is also not unusual for it to smell alcoholic or a bit like pear drops. So long as it doesn’t smell rotten you’re all good.

How to make a sourdough starter the easy way:

Buy a San Francisco Sourdough Starter £4.99 but you can be up and running within a couple of days, make unlimited quantities and it has a delicious flavour.

Feeding instructions:

Your starter is hungry fellow, if you keep it out of the fridge most likely it will need feeding daily. If you haven’t made any bread give it 50g of flour and 50g of water but if you have made bread you’ll want to give it a bigger feed of 100g flour and 100g warm water.

In the fridge he can go a few days without feeding but revive and feed 24 hours before making a loaf.

Making a loaf:

175g starter (which has not been fed for 24 hours, feed the remaining starter)

500g strong bread flour

Approx 200-300ml warm water

1 tsp salt dissolved in the warm water

Mix the starter and the flour together in a bowl.
Add the salted water a little at a time, mixing through until you have a supple and elastic dough. It may be slightly wetter than a regular dough and that is fine.
Oil the surface (don’t use flour), turn the dough out and knead for 10 minutes.
Put the dough in a glass bowl, cover and leave until it has risen by half (depending on the temperature and atmosphere this could be a couple of hours to overnight).
Once risen, take it out, gently shape it and place it in a well floured proving basket and leave until risen by half again.
Bake in the oven for 20 minutes at 220°C then turn down the oven to 180°C and bake for a further 20 minutes. You can add a tray of water to the oven to create steam which will improve the flavour.
The bread should sound hollow when you tap the bottom and smell delicious! Cool on a wire rack wrapped in a tea towel.

We currently make one loaf each day and it is so rewarding and nourishing I hope we never go back.

Peach and Raspberry Yoghurt Muffins Recipe

Kat — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 21:00:28 +0000

I have a weakness for making fruit muffins which I don’t indulge nearly enough these days. I was recently sent some canned peaches and they worked really well in these muffins. They also worked really well eaten straight out of the can. What? I couldn’t resist!

I’ve put the raspberries on top of my muffins, if you think they look too much like boobies (looks at Emily) then place them in a half filled muffin case and then cover with the remaining mixture so they end up in the centre. The addition of yoghurt in the mix makes the muffins really moist.

Peach and Raspberry Yoghurt Muffins

300g plain flour

1 tbsp baking powder

half tsp baking soda

2 eggs, beaten

175g golden caster sugar

250g yoghurt (I love Yeo Valley plain yoghurt for this)

125ml butter, melted

175g peaches, chopped (whereupon you will sing this song)

12 raspberries

Preheat oven to 180°C – makes twelve muffins.

Sift the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and bicarb) into a bowl.
In a second bowl mix the beaten eggs, sugar, yoghurt and butter then add your peaches (while singing).
Pour the wet mixture into the dry and stir through until just combined – no flour visible but still lumpy.
Spoon into muffin cases in a muffin pan.
Place a raspberry atop each muffin.
Bake for 15 – 20 minutes (test using a fork).
Cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then on a rack.

Variations:

Make spiced pear muffins by replacing the fruit for pears and adding a teaspoon of cinnamon to the dry ingredients. Make even richer by swapping the golden caster sugar for soft brown sugar.

Dam Plum Jam

Kat — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 23:00:28 +0000

Time was I’d spend entire weekends preserving fruit which we then made into hampers at the Winter Solstice and sent to our friends and family. Almost as soon as I was pregnant with Milla I lost all interest in cooking. A funny anti-craving of my pregnancies is that I have no inclination to create, make or cook. I literally have to force myself to do it. It takes some time but once the baby has arrived my creativity returns in an outpouring of pent up imaginings.

A few weeks ago I saw a post on our local Freecycle group for 3kg of damsons. I sent an email and couldn’t believe my luck when I was offered them. Monty and I set to work on the ‘dam plums’ as he called them (not quite believing me that they were not plums). There were plenty which had turned in the bucket and the juice which was sat in the bottom smelled like it would make amazing wine. Once we had sorted the good fruit into my preserving pan (one the most useful wedding gifts we received) he stood beside me as I set to work.

It’s actually only the second time I have preserved this year, last time I was making marmalade as my friend welcomed his daughter into the world. That post tells me two things: firstly I haven’t done nearly as much preserving as I’d like and secondly that I like sunlight streaming through jam.

Monty was an eager helper happily putting his finger in the jam on my test plate proclaiming it ‘yummy scrummy’. Milla is so excited by writing and words at the moment positively brimming with everything she’s discovering at school. She copied ‘damson jam’ neatly onto each label and it was only afterwards I recalled it was, in fact, jelly.

_____________________________________________________________________

I have to thank you all for the positive response to my baby led weaning project. I have had some lovely emails, comments and most of all tweets. I am especially touched by those of you sharing the video and recommending me to your friends, thank you.

I am working on fixing the issue with the main feed then I will be posting some more recipes later in the week.

Sage and Onion Stuffing

Kat — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 15:00:45 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I posted a picture of some stuffing from our Friday evening supper. Jen wanted to know more, here is a recipe for you.

I started making my own stuffing for my Mother who is coeliac and at that point believed I could never top the standard Paxo offering. Clearly I had a way to go back then!

These days I can’t even compare the packet stuffings to the real thing. You can make it as fancy as you like but for me there is nothing more satisfying than a simple sage and onion made quickly while a bird roasts in the oven.

If you haven’t tried making your own stuffing before I hope I can persuade you to have a bash. For a little chopping and mixing you can add a sublime level of taste to your roast.

I often find myself with the last couple of inches of a loaf of bread a little too stale for eating but far from useless. A quick whizz in the food processor turns them into breadcrumbs and if I’m not going to use them right away, I put them into the freezer until I need them.

Like most of my recipes I adapt the quantities to what I have available so if you have more or less bread than specified just adjust the onion accordingly and everything else will work itself out.

Sage and Onion Stuffing Recipe

150 – 200g breadcrumbs (about 5 – 6 handfuls or double your cooked onion by volume)

1 medium white onion, diced

1 small red onion, diced

1 large or 2 small shallots, finely sliced

1 sprig of sage, leaves picked and finely chopped

Zest of a lemon (optional)

1 large egg (up to 2 medium eggs), beaten

A big knob of butter plus a little extra to butter the dish

Preheat oven to 180°C

Whizz, chop, beat etc your ingredients as above.
Melt the knob of butter in a frying pan over a medium heat.
Gently fry your mix of onions until they are softened but not coloured.
Add the sage and mix through the onions for a minute.
Remove the onions from the heat and mix together with the breadcrumbs in a bowl.
If you are using, grate the zest of your lemon into the mix.
Mix well and add your beaten egg a little at a time, squeezing the mixture with your fingers until it holds together.
Spoon into a buttered oven-proof dish and press down with a spoon.
Bake for 20 – 25 minutes until the top is golden.
Serve with a smile.

Alternative servings:

Roll into balls and set on a buttered tray. Reduce cooking time to about 15 minutes although reduce or extend depending on when they look ready.
Use to stuff your favourite bird before roasting.