Salmon by Request

Over the Christmas period we were joined at Holly Grove by the Handyman's children, T and S.  T is a burgeoning cook and was keen to help me out in the kitchen on Christmas Eve.  The joy of cooking with an enthusiastic young cook is about sharing all you've learnt over the years and learning from their experiences and thoughts on food and cooking.

During our epicurean chatter T was keen to find out a bit more about cooking fish.  He's lucky enough to have a daily market close to his student flat and had seen the variety of fish on offer but was wary of buying any until he has mastered a few simple recipes.  So I promised a simple and tasty fish recipe for him to try, and here it is:

Baked Salmon with Thread Noodles and Broccoli
Serves 2
Ingredients
2 salmon fillets
2 small knobs butter or 1 tsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, peeled and finely chopped
quarter tsp ground coriander
couple of glugs dry white wine or fresh orange juice
couple of twists of black pepper

Method
Cut 1 piece of cooking foil, large enough to create a parcel for 1 piece of salmon.  Lightly butter or oil the foil.  Place the salmon skin side down on the foil and fold up the edges of the foil.  Add a knob of butter, half of the garlic, half of the coriander and a glug of wine or orange juice to the salmon and close up the parcel.  Repeat with second salmon fillet.

Place parcels on a baking sheet and bake in the oven at 180C for 15 to 20 minutes.

Meanwhile cook the noodles and broccoli and serve the salmon on top of the noodles with the juices from the parcel drizzled over the top and the broccoli on the side.

A quick, simple, healthy and tasty meal for two.  Go on T give it a try!

Chicken(less) Noodle Soup

First Time Lucky!

Amongst the blogs I follow is Tinned Tomatoes where Jacqueline co-hosts a monthly challenge, No Croutons Required, so this month I decided to try my luck.  The ingredient selected for the October challenge is noodles.

I have a great recipe from my Dad for chicken noodle soup, but then I noticed that the challenge is to create a vegetarian soup or salad; so what about chicken noodle soup without the chicken?  Worth a try?  And how to make it as tasty as the original?  And what seasonal produce can I incorporate?  Well, let's see what transpired...

 

Mushroom and Noodle Soup

Ingredients

1tbsp rapeseed oil or vegetable oil

1 onion, peeled and diced
1 leek, cleaned and sliced

2 carrots, peeled and diced

1 small swede, peeled and diced
250g mixed portabellini and chestnut mushrooms, thickly sliced

half tsp chilli flakes
2.5 pts vegetable stock
2 tbsp mushroom ketchup

1 portion fine egg noodles

salt and pepper
fresh parsley, chopped

Method

Heat the oil in a large saucepan.  Add the onion and leek and cook gently until transluscent.  Add the carrot and swede and continue to sweat gently with the lid on for about 5 minutes.  Now add the mushrooms, put the lid back on and cook until the mushrooms have reduced in volume.  Add the chilli flakes and stir well.

Pour the vegetable stock and mushroom ketchup into the vegetables and bring to a simmer.  Simmer for about 30 minutes until the vegetables are tender.  Break up and add the egg noodles and simmer for a further 5-10 minutes until the noodles are soft.  Add the parsley and stir.  Season to taste with salt and freshly ground pepper and serve with vegetable spring rolls.

Note: I made my own vegetable stock, though you can use vegetable stock cubes, just be careful when
seasoning the soup as the stock cubes can be salty.