Sarah Raven's Smoked Salmon Pate

One of the things I miss most whenever we move (and take forever to unpack) is my cookery books. I know my way round a kitchen and fridge so they are not considered essential enough to dig out with any immediacy. Then once I have found them I forget to use them for a bit and it takes a while to fall back in love with old favourites. Sarah Raven's Garden Cookbook is definitely and old favourite and particularly useful as it's arranged by month.

One of the things I miss most when I'm pregnant is pate although I'm pretty lax about what I eat I try to keep pate fish-based and homemade for the 9 months... it's not that long and if you find the right recipe then its a doddle to make and more delicious than any shop bought variety. So when I looked at a very old list of things I wanted to try from the Garden Cookbook I fell upon the Smoked Salmon Pate with chervil recipe and, as suggested, used chives instead of chervil, which isn't in season.

This pate is a cinch to make (in the magimix) and incredibly delicious to eat. Straight to the top of my lists for easy starters, nibbles and fish pates. I made it for some friends who then requested the recipe... twice!

Smoked Salmon Pate with Chervil
Serves 8 (I successfully halved this)

170g smoked salmon (You can use trimmings. I used smoked trout)
510g cream cheese
300ml double cream
60g butter (she says unsalted I say salted)
Lemon juice to taste, plus slivers of lemon to serve
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tbsp chopped fresh chervil, chives or dill
Black pepper
Warm toast, to serve

I made this in a magimix, made thin slices of toast in the oven and served it in a dish in the middle of the table for everyone to help themselves. If you wanted you could do individual ramekins which would maybe be better for 8.

1. Put the fish, cream cheese and double cream into a blender. Blitz briefly.

2. Add the butter, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, herbs and black pepper. Whizz until the mixture forms a paste consistency. Check the seasoning and adjust if necessary.

3. Pack into a pate dish or ramekins and put in the fridge for an hour or two to set.

4. Serve with warm toast, slivers of lemon and butter if you are a total glutton like me. 

Saganaki

I love feta cheese but I'm aware that not everyone shares my passion. My mother is one of these people yet it was she who suggested I try this recipe out on some friends who were coming to supper as she thought it looked like a delicious and unusual starter. Whilst babysitting for me one day a week she works her way through my cookery books copying recipes and making my tummy rumble by shouting out suggestions for what we should be eating even though she knows I'm on a diet.

So rather than going for my usual something-on-toast easy starter for supper the other night I decided to try out the suggested Saganaki from Sarah Raven's Garden Cookbook and it was really tasty and, if you had a round table, probably quite fun to help yourself straight from the dish with warm flat bread.

Saganaki

for 6

600g (3 packs) feta cheese, broken into rough 2cm pieces
20 large or 30 small cherry tomatoes
20 capers
15 Kalamata olives, halved and stoned
2 tbsp olive oil 6 sprigs of thyme or marjoram

Pre-heat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6. You can make this as individual parcels for cooking on an open fire - 100g feta, a few tomatoes, capers and olive pieces, herbs and oil on top, fold loosely and cook for 10-15mins but I did it in one big dish.

1. Crumble the cheese into a shallow, oven-proof dish, dot the tomatoes around sprinkle over the capers and olive pieces, drizzle with oil and sprinkle the thyme or marjoram over the top.

Saganaki - pre-oven

2. Bake in a hot oven for 15-20 minutes until the cheese is bubbling and browning on top. Eat hot or warm. I served with mini pitta bread but think the flatter the bread the yummier probably.

Chicken Noodle Soup

My sister-in-law came to supper last week. I had chicken thighs that needed using and I've only every seen her eat soup - so soup it was. You probably don't need a recipe for this but sometimes I find a recipe a reassuring starting point so here's my incredibly easy recipe for chicken noodle soup - adapt at will.

Chicken Noodle Soup

Serves 4

1 litre good chicken stock
450ml stock cube stock
6 chicken thigh fillets roasted (or leftover roast chicken equivalent), torn into pieces
Oyster or shitake mushrooms
Straight-to-wok Udon noodles
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp fresh ginger, grated
star anise
coriander
3 baby pak choi, torn into strips and washed

1. Pour the good chicken stock into a large saucepan and gently heat through for about 15 minutes adding the star anise, ginger, soy sauce and sugar.

2. While the stock is heating up, tea the mushrooms into strips, melt some butter in a small frying pan and gently fry the mushroom until golden. Then remove from the heat and put to one side.

3. When the stock is hot add the strips of  chicken, mushroom and pak choi and the noodles.

4. Add stock cube stock to taste (I ususally use most of it) and cook for another 5-10 minutes.

5. Serve in bowls and sprinkle with coriander.

There are sugarsnap peas in this soup.... I wouldn't bother next time

Somen Noodles, Prawn and Cucumber Salad

My sister is very good at buying cookery books as presents and one little gem she got for Joe is A Little Taste of Japan. My close family are obsessed with Japanese food, my mother having spent some time living there when she was tiny, and one of the things Joe has done for me over the past ten years is hand rolled sushi for me. Knowing this my sister bought him A Little Taste of Japan to broaden our at-home Japanese cooking horizons, so on Saturday night I was treated to sushi, sashimi and Somen Noodles, Prawn and Cucumber Salad.

Well I would have been if you could get all the ingredients in a mad dash at Waitrose in Shepherds Bush... which you can't. So we were missing a few things but this salad was delicious anyway and perfectly fine without them, or with the substitutions we made. Probably another great all-round dressing to liven up a normal salad with prawn or beef and we will definitely be having this again but next time I will venture to Thai Smile to see if I can get the things we were missing.

Somen Noodle, Prawn and Cucumber Salad

Serves 4 as a starter or 2 fatties

2 Lebanese (short) cucumbers
1 tbsp dried wakame pieces*
200g dried somen noodles
12 cooked king prawns, peeled. deveined and cut in half lengthways
3 spring onions, thinly sliced on the diagonal
shichimi togarashi (seven spice mix) to serve, optional*

Dressing:
½ tsp dashi granules*
125ml Japanese rice vinegar
60ml mirin
1 tsp Japanese soy sauce
2 tsp lightly grated fresh ginger
pinch of sugar
½ tsp sesame oil

* things we didn't have

We also couldn't find somen noodles so we used thin egg noodles which were yummy.

1. Cut the cucumbers in half lengthways, scoop out the seeds with a teaspoon, then slice the flesh very thinly on a slight diagonal. Put the slices of cucumber in a colader, sprinkle with salt and leave for 10 minutes before rinsing and squeezing out as much  water as you can. Chill.

2. Meanwhile soak the wakame in cold water for 5 minutes, or until rehydrated and glossy but not mushy. Drain well and chill... or skip this step if you too can't find Wakame.

3. To make the dressing mix the dashi granules with 1 tbsp hot water until dissolved. Add the rice vinegar, mirin, soy sauce, grated ginger, sugar and sesame oil and stir to combine. Chill.

4. Bring a large pan of water to the boil, then reduce and simmer. Add the noodles and cook for 2 minutes or until tender (or follow the instructions on the packet). Quickly drain and rincse under cold running water until completely cool.

5. Combine the cucumber, wakami, noodles, prawns and half the spring onion in a bowl. Pour on the dressing and toss well. Serve immediately garnished with the remaining spring onions and the shichimi togarashi.

Easy Smoked Trout Pate

I sometimes find that I have left over cream cheese hanging about the fridge from another recipe and as I try to always have smoked trout or salmon in the freezer a really yummy way to use the cream cheese (that does not involve bread and marmite) is to make pate. There are more exciting recipes which I will put up here eventually but this is great a great quick starter or lovely to have with hot toast and butter on a Sunday night. It's simple, easy, quick and delicious.

Easy Smoked Trout Pate

Serves 4 (as a starter)

2 smoked trout fillets (about 125g)
50-75g cream cheese
2 tbsp lemon juice
cayenne pepper
1 tbsp horseradish
Dill

I put this in little terracotta ramekins with a sprig of dill on top if I am making for a starter and serve with home made melba toasts. If it's just for us then in a small bowl for us to share is fine. You can add as much or as little cream cheese as you like - I often add 50g and then taste and add more if I feel like it at the time. I use a pinch of cayenne pepper but I know a lot of people who would like to add more so you can do that according to your taste. You can always sprinkle a tiny bit on the top if you have some who like it hotter than others.

1. Put all the ingredients in a blender, blend until the consistency you like.

2. Very important. Taste it - add more of whatever you like.

3. Decant into ramekins or bowl, cover and put in the fridge until you need it.

Watercress Soup

I'm not very good with numbers, although I have known this for years and have whole heatedly given myself over to my numerical incompetence every now and again it rears it's ugly head in the kitchen. When ordering the ingredients for the Salmon and Watercress salad last week I ordered 200g of Watercress rather than the necessary 100g which is why on the hottest day of the year so far I was to be found making Watercress soup. It was actually really tasty and because I put in the fridge after I made it, it meant that the next night I could just heat it up which was actually much nicer than slaving in the kitchen in the sweltering heat. This is incredibly easy...

Watercress Soup

Serves 2 or 4 as a little starter

4 new potatoes, peeled and quartered
1 yellow onion, roughly chopped
1/2 pint stock, can be chicken or vegetable, I used Hugh F-W's souper mix which I had in the fridge
75g watercress
Milk
double cream if you have it
Butter
Olive Oil
salt and pepper

You just need a big pan for this and a blender.

1. Heat the oil and butter in the pan and sweat the onion until translucent - 5 or so minutes.

2. Add the potatoes and cook for a further 5 minutes without letting them get brown.

3. Add the watercress to the pan with the stock, season and then cover the pan and simmer it gently until the potatoes are tender. About 10 minutes.

4. Switch off the heat and allow the soup to cool a little before pouring it into the blender and whizzing it.

5. Clean the pan and return the blended soup to the heat and add enough milk to give it a nice consistency.

6. Bring to simmering point and then remove the pan from the heat, test the seasoning and serve in soup bowls with a swirl of the double cream and a few bits of chopped watercress if you've got any leftover.

Sarah Raven's Watercress and Smoked Trout Salad with Horseradish

Trying to eat healthily is all very well but it can be a bit boring can't it? So Joe has been rifling through the cookery books for something that we don't usually have and came up with this from Sarah Raven's Garden Cook Book. It's actually from the March/April section but you can get all the ingredients now but I do have to hold my hands up for cheating right away. The recipe calls for freshly grated horseradish and I just couldn't be bothered to go and get any when I have some in a jar in the fridge. I've also halved the recipe as we were making it just for the two of us... double up and you'll get the original for 4.

WATERCRESS SMOKED TROUT SALAD WITH HORSERADISH
Serves 2

2 leeks
bunch of chives, chopped
100g watercress
2 smoked trout fillets (or hot smoked salmon)

For the dressing:
2 tablespoons freshly grated horseradish (I used 2 tbsp of jar stuff)
1/2 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
60ml groundnut oil
salt and black pepper

1. Cut the leeks into quarters lengthways, wash and boil or steam for 8-10 minutes. Drain well. Don't chop them up yet - it's easier to do that when they've been in the dressing.

2. Make the dressing by mixing together the grated horseradish, mustard, vinegar and 1 tbsp water, then add the groudnut oil. Season well.

3. Add the dressing to the leeks and leave for a few minutes. Add the chopped chives.

4. Lift the leeks out of the dressing and put them into a large shallow dish, roughly chop them as best you can, toss the watercress in the dressing and add to the dish.

5. Lastly add the smoked trout and serve. I cannot tell you how tasty this is.