Fresh Ideas

I'd like to say that life is getting back to normal here, after our French adventure, but what with one thing and another, it just hasn't.
However, it's definitely time to restock with some fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and fish. Even reading last month's blog back to myself leaves me with a feeling of Vitamin C deficiency!


So, this time I'm giving you some soup recipes, some starters, vegetable sides and a meat and fish dish with the aim of offering you a more balanced diet than last time.

To start, I've made an Asparagus Charlotte. This is a pretty little starter, featuring a smoked mackerel mousse surrounded by a guard of honour of new season asparagus tips. Very cheffy-looking- but simple to achieve.

Asparagus Charlotte

Ingredients:

1 bunch of asparagus (you will use the tips and save the stalks for soup)

3 smoked mackerel fillets

1 tub of cream cheese with chives

Juice of half a lemon

2 tbsp creme fraiche

4-5 spring onions ( chopped)

Salt and pepper

Chives for decoration.

1. Steam the asparagus over a pan of simmering water until just tender but not floppy. Plunge into iced water to keep green colour vivid.

Chilly asparagus!

Reserve the cooking water for soup.

2. Trim the tips. Again reserve the stalks for soup.

3. Slice the tips lengthways in half

4. Blitz the mackerel, creme fraiche, cream cheese and lemon juice in a food processor .

5. Add the finely chopped spring onion and season well

6. Spoon or pipe mixture into chef's rings or scone cutters and chill until firm

7. When ready to serve, unmould and arrange the asparagus cut side out in a guard of honour around the mousse.

8. Tie a chive around each one to hold it all in place.

Asparagus and Smoked Mackerel Charlotte

Hopefully, you now have some leftover asparagus stalks and poaching water to make soup. The next recipe makes a creamy asparagus veloute- made delicious with coconut cream:

Asparagus and Coconut Veloute

Ingredients:

1 bunch of asparagus (whole or just the stalks)

1 bunch of spring onions (chopped)

1 small pack of frozen peas

1 litre of vegetable stock (including the water used to steam the asparagus)

1 small tin of coconut cream

1 tbsp chopped dill

Salt and pepper

Oil for frying

1. Steam the asparagus until tender over a pan of simmering water.

2. Reserve the cooking water and add it to the vegetable stock to make up to 1 litre

3. Chop the asparagus and put it with the spring onions and peas in a little oil in a saucepan. Sweat gently for a few minutes.

4. Add the dill, stock and coconut cream and simmer gently for 15 minutes to let the flavours mingle

5.Blitz with a blender, adjust seasoning and serve.

Asparagus and Coconut Veloute

Next, I've made a vegetarian starter using halloumi cheese, aubergines, mushrooms and tomatoes.

Halloumi and Vegetable Tian

A tian is a layered vegetable dish named after the Provencal earthenware vessel in which it is baked. Originally, these were conical in shape but nowadays those sold in kitchen shops tend to be more like gratin dishes. I've recreated the 'stacked' look with roasted vegetables interleaved with halloumi, using a skewer to hold them all in place in the oven.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 portobello mushrooms

4 slicing tomatoes

1 large aubergine

250g halloumi cheese, sliced into 8 pieces

2 crushed cloves of garlic

salt and pepper

fresh thyme sprigs

olive oil for marinading and roasting

1. Remove the stalks from the mushrooms, slice the tomatoes thinly into 4 slices per fruit, slice the aubergine thinly (you are aiming for 12 slices if possible)

2. Mix the crushed garlic and thyme sprigs with 2-3 tbsp of olive oil

3. Put the mushrooms, tomatoes and aubergine slices into the oil to marinade. Coat well with your hands, adding plenty of salt and pepper. Add more olive oil as you need it.

4. Leave for 1 hour or so.

Marinade the vegetables

5. Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees.

6. Pan fry the halloumi briefly until you have a golden crust on both sides.

7. In the marinading dish, assemble your tians: mushroom cup first, then alternating layers of aubergine, tomato and halloumi, finishing with a tomato cap.

8. Secure in place with a bamboo skewer (or use chef's rings if you have them)

Hold the tians in place

9. Roast for 15 minutes until all the vegetables are soft and beginning to caramelize.

Halloumi and Vegetable Tian

I also used up any remaining aubergines in one of my favourite soups:

Aubergine and Butter Bean Soup

Anyone would think this smooth and delicate soup is rich with butter and cream- but in fact it is completely dairy-free and owes its silky texture to the butter beans which both thicken and enrich. The aubergines? Well, they lend a delicious, fragrant flavour to the ensemble!

Ingredients:

(Makes a litre and a half of soup)

2 medium aubergines

4 cloves of garlic

2 tsp honey

olive oil

juice of half a lemon

1 onion

1 litre of hot chicken or vegetable stock

1 400g tin of butter beans

salt and pepper to taste

1. Prick the aubergines all over, slice in half lengthways and lay cut side down in a baking dish lightly oiled with olive oil. Put the garlic cloves in too, in their skins.

2. Bake at 200 degrees for 15 minutes, then add the honey to the hot pan and swirl around. Continue baking for another 10 minutes or until the aubergines are soft and wrinkly. ( It happens to us all!)

3. Allow to cool enough to be handled, peel off the skin and chop roughly. Squeeze the garlic from its skin and do the same.

4. Soften the onion in some more olive oil in a saucepan, add the aubergine, garlic and drained butter beans and fry gently.

5. Loosen the sticky honey and aubergine juice from the pan with 2 cups of hot water. Add to the vegetables in the pan.

6. Pour on the chicken stock and simmer for another 10 minutes to amalgamate the flavours.

7. Blitz with a hand blender, adjust seasoning and serve with croutons.

Aubergine and Butter Bean Soup

Now for some main dishes- starting off with rabbit:

Rabbit in Cider

This is a version of the French classic 'Lapin Au Cidre'. Fresh rabbit is widely available in all supermarkets in France (including my local Lidl)- but I have found that this is not the case in the UK. If you can source it at your butchers, it is well worth the effort as the combination of rabbit, cider, cream and tarragon is such a good one. If not, the dish works well with chicken or pork too.

Traditionally, it is made the day before so the flavours mingle well and then the sauce if finished off just before serving- which makes it an ideal dish if you are serving to guests.

(Serves 4-6)

Ingredients:

1.8 kg of fresh rabbit, jointed

100g of smoked bacon lardons

200g of button mushrooms

2 carrots

1 onion

2 cloves of garlic (crushed)

70 cl of chicken stock

15 cl of dry cider

40g flour

10 cl of creme fraiche

90g butter

2 cloves

1 bay leaf

1 tbsp fresh tarragon

salt and pepper

1. Peel the carrots and onion and puncture it with the cloves

2. Season the rabbit and brown the pieces in 20g of butter, along with the lardons

3. Place in a casserole dish or slow cooker with the crushed garlic, carrots, bay leaf and onion

4. Deglaze the frying pan by boiling the cider in it and scraping with a spatula

5. Pour this over the rabbit, along with the chicken stock and cook for 1 hour in a casserole in the oven at 170 degrees or 3-4 hours in the slow cooker.

6. To finish the dish, add the button mushrooms either half an hour before the end of cooking, or as you reheat the next day. Remove the bay leaf and onion.

7. Make a roux with the flour and the remaining butter and strain in the hot cooking liquor. Heat, stirring constantly as it thickens. Adjust the seasoning. Add the cream and tarragon- and the rabbit pieces- and serve.

Rabbit in Cider

Next I braised some fennel to go with a fish dish. Usually I cook this recipe (Slow Braised Fennel) with olives and orange juice- but this time I left out the olives as I was serving it with Tapenade Crusted Fish.

Slow Braised Fennel

1  large bulb of fennel

250 ml orange juice

splash of white wine

salt and pepper

1 tbsp chopped parsley

1. Slice the fennel bulb thinly, reserving the feathery fronds as garnishes.

2. Place it in a slow cooker, or heavy bottomed saucepan along with the orange juice, wine, parsley and seasoning. Cover with a lid and braise until tender- about 20 minutes in a saucepan or 2-3 hours in the slow cooker.

Slow Braised Fennel

As I mentioned, I intended serving this fennel with fish. I chose firm white fish fillets (cod or hake) and placed them on baking parchment with a splash of white wine and some chopped parsley. I then sealed the parcels up like Cornish pasties, twisting the paper together to form a seal.

Wrapping up the fish parcels

Bake in a hot oven (180 degrees) for 20-25 minutes. Then lift out the fish pieces and spread each one with some olive tapenade. Top that with some breadcrumbs and finely chopped chive or spring onion and flash under a hot grill until crisp.

Serve with the fennel and other veg of your choice. (I usually bake some tomatoes on the vine along with the fish)

Tapenade Crusted Fish

Finally, with the leftover fennel I made another soup: 1 onion and 1 clove of garlic softened, 3 small potatoes (chopped), fennel slices, orange juice, chicken stock and parsley- simmered and then blitzed.

I usually sieve the finished soup to remove any fibrous bits of fennel or potato skin, add a little milk or cream and serve garnished with the fennel fronds which were saved as a garnish.

Cream of Fennel Soup

So, all in all I feel a bit healthier now. Lots of nice spring veg and fresh meat and fish working their magic.

I thought coming back to the UK, I'd find myself fresh out of ideas for the blog- but it seems the opposite is true!

Hope this week's blog has refreshed the parts that other blogs didn't reach..