Croatian Inspired Mackerel Angelhair

This recipe was inspired by my recent travels to Croatia down through the Dalmatian Adriatic coast, where seafood is the staple and everything is always always served with garlic and parsley in lovely lush crisp locally produced olive oil. This is a fresh summery pasta best served with a chilled rose' or sauv blanc while you lounge by the balcony watching the waves roll in.

You will need:
2 tins regular mackerel (300g each), well flaked
Angelhair pasta enough for two
2 - 3 cloves garlic, crushed & finely chopped into the finest extent you can get it
2 handfuls of flatleaved continental parsley, roughly chopped
3-4 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt & cracked black pepper to taste

Method:

1) Marinate garlic in olive oil and salt & pepper for 20 - 30 minutes
2) Boil paste till al dente. Drain.
3) Mix with olive oil/garlic while still hot, toss well
4) Add flaked mackerel & parsley, toss well.
5) Serve hot or cold with extra pepper or olive oil to garnish.

Salmon Wrapped in Pancetta - by Wendy

Please welcome another seasoned veteran on the food scene, with our well loved salmon, my next guest writer, Ms Wendy Curls.

Salmon wrapped in Pancetta

The original recipe calls for a pea puree, however as I am not a huge fan of peas I have always left this part out. The picture did have a certain aesthetic charm: imagine dusky orange salmon, pink, crisp pancetta on a pile of fresh green goo!

You will need:

• salmon fillets (If you can, cut or have your fillets cut into the rectangular size fillet you see in the supermarket)
• pancetta or streaky bacon
• new potatoes (pesto as a garnish)
• green beansbroccoli

1. Take your salmon fillets and give them a wee rinse under the tap. Sometimes they will still have scales attached and of course you might have to remove the skin. Pat them dry with a paper towel and sear each side on a low heat in a pan with a tiny bit of olive oil. Remove them from the pan and wrap them in the pancetta (my technique was captured by FB here: [video])
2. Bake in the oven for around 10 - 12 mins until the pancetta is crispy (not burnt).
3. Cook your veges until al dente (or however you like them) and serve the potatoes with pesto!

Enjoy!Blogger's note: You will also notice that Wendy forgot to mention the lovely side garlics she served on the occasion which kept the house quite aromatic for the rest of the week.

Okinawawa - by Pierrot

I am getting the feeling that I am not getting much inspiration for food as of late, so I have decided to introduce (sparringly) a few good friends as guest writers to this kitchen blog to give it a bit of kick.

Please put your hands together and welcome the first guest writer to my recipe blog, the magnificent Pierrot (right).

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Okinawawa

We all know that the staple foods of Okinawa, and the reason the Okinawans have the highest life expectancy in the whole world, is down to a combination of the unassuming but antioxidant-rich kumera (sweet potato), and an elaborate menagerie of endangered seafood. But what most of the world is completely unaware of is that those plucky New Zealanders, being champions of taking their abject poverty with good-humoured creativity, have managed to add to the Japanese culinary tradition by creating the most hardcore vinegar known to humanity out of the ostensibly useless juices drawn from kegs of mature Umeboshi (see www.ceres.co.nz). The nature of this vinegar is such that it must be used cautiously and sparingly. However if you stick to these, not conservative but measured principles, then you can use it to enhance the flavour of basic ingredients which normally call for a more subtle approach.

The following dish, cobbled together by one of Wawa’s most distant fans, combines the two essentials of Okinawan cuisine, and the one essential of Wawa cuisine (ie inexplicably good luck), and is simple and accessible enough for anyone outside of Bangladesh to whip up on a week night.

Ingredients:

1 slab of salmon for each person, with the skin on

Enough kumera for the number of people you are having over for dinner

A corresponding amount of Dijonnaise (a mixture of mayonnaise and Dijon mustard)

¼ of a red capsicum, finely diced

½ a red chilli, minced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 handful of Italian parsley, finely chopped

1 sprig of rosemary

4 sage leaves, finely chopped

3 tbsp butter

juice of half a lime

1 tbsp of Umeboshi vinegar

rocket

olive oil

salt and pepper

Perform the three following operations so that they are completed at the same time.

Salmon: Warm a fan-forced, grill-equipped oven to 180°C. Rub salmon with olive oil, salt and pepper. Place skin-side up on a cake cooler or similar attractively-patterned metal platform. Place in oven and cook until the sides of the fish turn a light pink, cooked salmon colour. The objective is to cook the fish slowly and evenly all the way through. Once adequately cooked, turn the grill to high, so that the salmon skin crisps up and comes away from the flesh. Remove from the oven. Peel the skin off the salmon and discard.

Kumera: Chop kumera into golf ball-sized pieces, place in a saucepan and add water up to half the height of the kumera pieces. Sprinkle with salt. Cook over a medium flame until soft enough to mash. Mash kumera with remaining water, adding Dijonnaise, a decent amount of chopped parsley, and ground pepper to taste.

Umeboshi sauce: Melt a small amount of butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic, chilli and sage, and fry for 30 seconds. Reduce flame, add the rest of the butter and stir until melted. Add capsicum, rosemary, lime juice, and Umeboshi vinegar. Cook over low flame for at least 5 minutes.

Spread mashed kumera on a plate. Place salmon on top of mashed kumera, so that the underside (which hopefully has taken on the pattern from the cake cooler) is facing upwards. Pour the desired quantity of sauce over the salmon. Garnish with rocket, parsley and ground pepper.

Serve with miscellaneous greens, for example lettuce, broccoli, blanched Asian greens or finely sliced pears (rocket being the only essential), because they’re good for you too. But go easy on the dressing, or better yet go without.

Eat it.
Do the washing up.
Go to bed early.
Don’t believe everything you read.

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Legal Note: The blog owner is not directly responsible for the content or the consequences thereafter caused by the trying out of the recipes posted by guest writers.

Sashimi & Potato Salad

You will need

• Baby potatoes, halved or in thumb sized chunks x 150g per serve
• Raw salmon, cubed x 70g p/s
• Egg mayonnaise x 35g p/s
• Wasabi powder x 1/4 tsp p/s
• Spring onions finely chopped x 1 sprig
• Rock salt x a pinch
• Nori finely chopped (garnish)
• Coriander finely chopped (garnish)
• 1 - 2 wonton skins
  
• cooking oil
  

Method

1. Boil the potatoes till tender, run through some cold water & let cool aside.
   
2. Thoroughly mix wasabi powder into mayonnaise, making sure any lumps are broken in (or someone could be in for a nasty surprise)
   
3. Brush wonton skins with cooking oil on both sides. Grill for 6-8 minutes or until the skin begins to form bubbles and turn golden brown. Remove from oven & cool. Crush gently & set aside. These are now affectionately known as wontoncroutons.
   
4. Toss potatoes and half the spring onions into wasabi-mayo til all coated
5. Top with salmon, sprinkle rock salt & wontoncroutons evenly, garnish & serve.

Home Grown Potatoes

Many people don't chose to grow potatoes even though its really easy to, simply because its so cheap to buy them these days and it takes up a lot of space. But given the amount of artificial fertilisers large commercial growers use these days, knowing that your own stuff is organic and safe is still a peace of mind. They all come in different shapes and sizes in your own garden, which is what food is really meant to be like, and it tastes bloody delicious.

I found these growing at the edge of mum's compost heap, hidden in the corner in the goat's pen and looked like the rabbits took a bite of one but decided it wasn't good enough... Being on a farm you can afford to have basically as many compost heaps as you'd like and as big as you'd like 'em.

I love finding this sort of stuff when just digging around the garden, it works with stuff like kumaras and jerusalem artichotes (as we had in Canberra last year). Its kinda like a growing time capsule - remembering the time when you last saw it many moons ago, it was a mulchy looking spawning rotting old spud and now its turned into a field of gentle white flowers, with little ruby gems hidden beneath, waiting to be devoured...