Smoked mackerel paté (in a Melba beach chair)

Cut 200 gr smoked mackerel as fine as possible. Mix it with 50 gr cream cheese, 30 gr sour cream, the juice of 1/2 the lime lime and 2 tsp dill. Put in the fridge.

Toast bread on 2 sides. Use a pointed sharp knife to slide the bread carefully and horizontally through the middle, into that thin strip of uncooked bread, cut the crusts off and then cut into strips. Place the untoasted sides back under the grill and make sure you keep an eye on the them, they will toast and curl quite quickly

Take the mackerel pâté out from the fridge and spoon a healthy dollop on the ends of each Melba slice. Add some cranberry compote on top and then a pinch of sliced sushi ginger. Finish with chervil or bean sprouts

PS Next time I'll use small cubes of beetroot instead of the  cranberry.                                                            

Recipe Food Urchin, Great British Chefs

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Phototitle: Lounging at the beach

Monkfish, green veggies

Dry the monkfish with kitchen paper.
Prepare any green vegetables you might have. I used sugar snaps, green asparagus, frozen peas, fresh broad beans and broccoli.

For the sauce bring 250 cl fish stock to the boil, with 150 cl Noilly Prat en 100 ml sweet dessert wine.  Reduce to 20%. Add 50 cl cream. Then whisk it 100 gr of salted butter (bit by bit)

Preheat the oven at 160 C.

Brush the fish well with olive oil and fry for 4 mins. in a very hot but dry pan.
Then transfer the pan to the oven. For 6 mins.

In the meantime boil the greens for 3 to 4 mins. Drain well.

Cut each monkfish fillet in 3 pieces. Serve as shown. First the sauce, then the fish and then the veggies.

Smoked wild salmon, dill potatoes

Peel and boil 4 small Roseval potatoes pp. (first cut off the bottom so they can stand).

Make a sauce of 2/3 mayo and 1/3 horseradish (from a jar). Add some capers and finely cut dill.

Coat the cooked potatoes lightly with the sauce.

Put them (lukewarm) on a a plate and drape smoked salmon over them. Finish with some more sauce and some dill.

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Dukkah-crusted salmon

Dukkah is a North-african mix of nuts and spices. Easy to make at home.

Mix 75gr hazelnuts, 150 gr almonds, 2 tbsp cumin seeds, 1 tbsp coriander seeds, 1,5 tsp fennel seeds and 2 tsp black  sesame seeds. Toast them in a dry hot pan till you can smell them, but do not burn.
Add a tsp sea salt and put the lot in the kichenmachine. Not too long or you'll end up with nutty butter.
Add 75 gr cooked bulgur and keep in a soup dish.

Then make a salad dressing of 40 ml lime juice, 60 ml olive oil, a pressed garlic clove and rings of a green pepper.

Instead of making a salad from just small (Lebanon) cucumbers and coriander leaves I added some leftover haricots verts and sugar snaps.

Beat 1 egg and put it in a soup dish.

Heat a frying pan with some oil. Turn down the heat.
Take the salmon fillets one by one and roll them trough the egg, then trough the spices and put them in the frying pan.
Bake each side for 2 mins, so 8 mins in total too keep the inside nice and pink.
Plate and decorate with bean sprouts.

(Inspiration Donna Hay)

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Grilled sardines

The sun was hot and my fishmonger had fresh sardines. A perfect combination.

All you have to to is to put them in a baking tin, cover them with some olive oil, crushed garlic, fennel seeds, lemon zest and pepper&salt. 

Add halved lemons and let the oven do the work (220°C, 10 mins or so)

The lemons become sweeter. Serve with parsley and start ...working. Because sardines are lovely, but have a lot of tiny bones.

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Steamed stuffed squid, fennel/orange salad

For this dish you can buy 1 squid pp, if they are big enough. Or 2 or 3 small ones if bigger is not available. I like to clean them myself, but you can always try and ask your friendly fishmonger to do it for you. In that case ask him to pack the tentacles and fins with the pouches.

For 4 persons you'll need:

4 small prepared squid pouches no longer than 15 cm
125g minced pork
Tentacles from the squid
50g peeled raw prawns
1cm fresh root ginger, finely grated
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp chopped coriander
¼ tsp caster sugar
1½ tsp sesame oil
½ tsp salt
Freshly ground Sichuan peppercorns

2 spring onions, chopped plus 1 spring onion finely shredded, to garnish

For the sauce:

2 tbsp dark soy sauce
2 tbsp sweet chilli sauce
2 tbsp rice vinegar or white wine vinegar
1 tsp sesame oil

Rinse out the squid pouches.

Roughly chop the tentacles and fins. Put them in a food processor with the prawns and minced pork. Blend to a coarse mixture. Or, like I did, just mix them with a fork. Scrape the mixture into a bowl, add the rest of the ingredients (except for the shredded spring onion and the sauce ingredients) and mix together well.

Spoon the stuffing into squid pouches. Secure the open ends with wooden toothpicks.

Set up a steamer with simmering water. Place the squid on a heatproof plate and put in a steamer when the water has boiled and turned down to a simmer. Cover the pan with a tight fitting lid and steam the squid for 20-25 minutes, until cooked through.

Meanwhile put the ingredients for the sauce into a small pan. Just before the squid are ready, warm the sauce through. Lift the squid on to a board and cut each one across into about 6 thin slices. Arrange squid on 4 warmed plates, spoon over some of the sauce and garnish with the spring onion shreds.

Recipe by Rick Stein

(Because my fish were so small I also made a salad and used the mandoline to shave a fennel bulb very thinly and did the same with a red onion. Got the parts out of a juicy orange and made a dressing of 2 tbsp orange juice, 1 tsp Dijon mustard and olive oil. Decorated the salad with some fresh mint and the green of the

fennel:)

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