Sourdough (again....yawn...)

Damn good sourdough though.  75 percent T45, 25 percent T110.  The perfect ratio.  Whew, I think I’ve cracked it.

Sea bream with Indian flavours... (i.e. fresh coconut and mint chutney)..

 

 My recipe for fresh mint and coconut chutney, Vineet bhatia's recipe for khidchi.  My recipe for spiced yogurt chutney and slow roasted tomato.  Crispy skinned sea bream.  Beetroot chips for texture.   Bloody gorgeous.

Chicken dinner....

Andy cooked.  Chicken (the gorgeous baby jobs – French, with a dry skin).  With celeriac puree, roasted celeriac and baked propper green skinned New Zealand pumpkin.  He made a sauce from the chicken juices along with wine and sage.   Yum.  Chicken dinner heaven.   Thanks babe!  Very very very delicious.  

Me and A were sort of recreating a Cadiz recipe with a red wine reduction and  fully cooked tuna, rather than the rare/raw versions that have become synonymous with fresh tuna.   Finished with rendered bacon, cooked off mushroom and red wine from the marinade sauce.... well.... the tuna had been marinated in this red wine overnight and the fish was so fresh it was almost jumping out of the water when I bought it.  The fish was a dream  to work with.  The result with sauce, very very very good.  Sour, sweet, salty, sharp with texture and full meaty flavour.  With fish.   WFT?  Very delicious.  

Tuna, marinaded and cooked before being added back to the sauce

The tuna with the sauce and baked potato.  AGREE!  NOT PRETTY. But it tasted unreal.

Again.....even when the chips are down...

Red Mullet (local of course) with reduction sauce from the bones, tarragon, roasted tomatoes, basil and roasted cauli (loving my cauli!).

Even when the chips are down…

Rump cap (picanha), rendered, cooked perfectly medium rare with rendered cap, onion puree with scorched cauli and basil.   Very very yum..

Thai Salmon with gluttonous rice cakes and steamed buns

So... it’s been a teeny weeny bit of a stressful time of late and I’ve been using up freezer stores because I cannot be naffed cooking the full monty from scratch.

It actually means we are eating very well indeed.  Tonight, for example. 

Crispy sticky rice cakes (home made) with a camamalised Thai sauce (home made of course,  and this one took bloody hours to make, however it was a month or 2 ago so I can just enjoy the flavours without thinking of the sweat).  Salmon and home made steamed buns, once again from the freezer, because I had them.  Green peppercorns (that hit of spice from fresh green peppercorn is something to behold in life).....

Very very delish.  I kid you not.  I'd have been a happy customer in a good modern Thai restaurant that accepted a Chinese steamed bun on the side as, in essence, a Thai dish with stuff and, frankly, bring that stuff on... this was gorgeous.  

Pasta - tomato, basil and burrata....

So.... Andy has some time on his hands.  He's doing a little cooking.  It's pretty cool.  The guy is sort a natural.  The results of his kitchen endeavours are so god damn tummy comfy.
Sooo... he made pasta.  Then incased de skinned cherry tomato into tortellini.  Yeap, that's rather cool. So then he cut pasta into fresh lasagne squares, to make an open lasagne.... yeap, that's rather cool.
But wait... there's more!! THEN he reduced a stock from smoked chicken bones I had left over ... hell yes, rather cool indeed.  AND, slow roasted tomato, cherry tomato and the the tomato skin.
The result?  Pasta.  Served with fresh burrata.  That meltingly creamy milky buffalo mozzarella that is so divine you just do not need to read about calories because it's too gorgeous.  A gift of life.  

And this dish Andy did?  With jamón ibérico, crispy cooked salami, basil, tomato skins but again that burrata melting through everything.... a highlight of my year so far food wise.  YUM.

My Goan spiced fish, spiced coconut milk pannacotta and raw lentil and apple salad.

So, yeah.  I’ve cooked this with variations time and time again.  It has become mine and Andy’s favourite Indian dish.  A little complex to make but I always do double and freeze the pannacotta mix and fish marinade so all I have to do is make the lentil salad, put the marinade on the fish and set the pannacotta after it’s thawed. 

This is the Indian dish Joey liked best too and I showed her how to make it.  It’s a classy act.  About 25 – 30 ingredients that come together in the most sublime way.  I’m always a little in awe of the result.

This time I diced some fuji apple and julienned kaffir lime leaf into the lentil salad (along with the usual tempered curry leaf and mustard seed).  Fuji are very crisp with low acidity and sugar.  They present themselves as a texture and were an addition to the raw lentil salad I’ll use again hence me popping this dish once more in my blog, note to self Nat, don’t forget the fuji!  Best version yet for me.  And crispy sea bream is the fish that works so very well with this dish.  Sweet flesh, crispy skin. Can't do better than that in fish to hold up it's own.