#11: Pan-fried salmon and soba noodle soup

'Comfort food'. To me, that's always conjured up feelings of warm but heavy food. Perhaps its due to a heritage where potatoes and bread accompany nearly every meal, sometimes together (chip butty anyone?). 'Comfort food' means pasta, jacket potatoes with piles of butter and cheese, slabs of french toast, hash browns, and - of course - stew. Soups, however, are typically the one dish which falls outside of this 'heavy' category, and as the days get a little cooler here in Perth, I'm drawn once again to comfort foods and soups in particular.

Soba is traditionally served either cold with a dipping 'sauce' or hot in a soupy broth like in this recipe. I like it either hot or cold, but, with my desire for some 'comfort' in this dish, I opted for a hot soup with pan-fried salmon and spring onions. The broth here is water-based, although other recipes suggest a chicken-stock base. My decision was based solely on having forgotten to buy chicken stock (and having none in the house).

Serves 2. 1-2 hours marinading time & 20 minutes cooking time.

 

For the salmon:
2 fillets of salmon
2-4 tablespoons honey
2-4 tablespoons soy sauce
Lots of black pepper

For the noodles:

180g dried soba noodles
4-5 spring onions
2 large slices fresh ginger
5 cups water
1 tablespoon mirin
2-3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil

1. Around 1-2 hours before cooking, place the salmon in a bowl and cover with the honey, soy sauce and black pepper. Put aside to marinade.
2. In a saucepan, bring to the boil the water, mirin, soy sauce and sesame oil, along with half of the spring onions (chopped finely) and the ginger. Simmer for 10 minutes.
3. With 5-10 minutes before serving, heat a pan of sesame oil and place the salmon in. Cook to your personal preference, I like my salmon soft and light pink on the outside but fleshy and deeper pink on the inside which takes around 7 minutes on a hot ring.
4. Remove the ginger slices and add the soba noodles from the broth and add in the soba noodles. Bring the pot to the boil again and then let simmer for around 4 minutes.
5. Serve up the noodles and soup in bowls, adding the remaining chopped spring onions as a garnish. Finally, place a salmon fillet on top.

#7: Twice-roasted lamb shanks with mint mash and carrots

This dish, I'll be honest, was a dual-effort. I love cooking with my husband - glass of wine in hand, sharing the details of our respective days. We don't do it as often as either of us would like: football practice, work and social commitments get in the way. But when we do get together in the kitchen, I relish it. 

This is a much simpler dish than the convoluted name implies. For people who work all day, the concept of slow cooked meat is a little abstract - it's just simply not possible! (Edit: as Annika points out below, it is possible with a slow cooker, but we've currently not got one of these.... maybe that needs to be an upcoming purchase) We got around this by roasting the lamb on a low heat for a number of hours on the Tuesday night before cooking it again on the Wednesday night - slow roasted meat on a working person's schedule.

serves 2


2 lamb shanks
1 onion
A few sprigs of rosemary
6 cloves garlic
Half a bottle of red wine
3-4 medium potatoes
4 carrots
Sprig of mint
Knob of butter

DAY ONE:

1. Slice onions into rings and place these, with the cloves of garlic, in the bottom of a heavy casserole or roasting dish (ideally with a lid, otherwise use foil).
2. Place the shanks on top, pour in half a bottle of wine, some large sprigs of rosemary, and some cracked pepper.
3. Roast on a low heat (around 100^oC) for three or four hours. Keep the meat, onion and gravy mix in the dish overnight.

DAY TWO:

1. Put the meat back in the oven at 150^oC for 1½ hours, then put the heat up to 180-200^oC for the final 30-40 minutes.
2. At this point, you should:
• put the potatoes on to boil - they should boil for 20-30 minutes, until a blunt knife slides into the flesh easily. For this meal, we didn't peel the potatoes first, making a mash with a bit of rustic appeal.
• put the carrots (similarly with the skins and tips still on) in the oven to roast for 30 minutes, doused in olive oil and plenty of black pepper.
3. Remove the meat from the oven and let it sit for a few minutes while you make the mash.
4. When the potatoes are ready, drain them and mash them with diced mint and butter. If the mash is dry, scoop some gravy from the meat dish in to moisten it.
5. Serve the meat up with the rosemary and the soft onion/gravy mix. Remove the carrots from the oven and serve them up with the mash.

I recommend this with a hearty red wine. We went for a Willoughby Park Cabernet Sauvignon, one of my favourite bottles from one of my favourite vineyards here in Western Australia.

#5: Baked beans on, well, anything.

And just like that January was over. Seriously, I feel like this year might fly by rather quickly. I've been particularly busy with work this past month, which might account for why time has been moving so fast for me: that's the real meaning of Einstein's Theory of Relativity, or at least, that's how I choose to interpret it during particularly busy periods in my life.

As a result dinners have been slightly lazy. If you thought last week's salad was lazy, wait until you read this recipe! This is the quite probably the easiest recipe in the world, and most of the ingredients (and definitely all of the essential ones) can always be found in my cupboards. It’s lazy, and fast, and requires the minimum of forethought. Perfect.

I eat these beans on toast, on a jacket potato, as a side to pork or chicken, or – as I discovered this week – as the tastiest filling in a beef burger. The recipe below makes enough for 2 or 4, depending on what you’re serving it with. Any leftovers keep perfectly well in the fridge for a day or two, and the flavour only improves. If I’m making these as a side to a meat dish I’ll typically make the beans up at some stage early in the cooking process, and then just reheat them before serving up – it sounds lazy, but giving them some time to sit makes the sauce a tad thicker and fuller.

Pictured below is a fuller version of this recipe, but this week's dish was a true pantry-basic, and I just used what was in the house. I used half as many beans as normal, and the result was just a slightly sloppier mixture, but just as tasty.

Serves 4, or 2 with a decent amount of leftovers.

10-15 minutes cooking

1 tin tomatoes (chopped)

1 tin beans (mixed or bortolli work best for me)

1 pinch cayenne pepper

Plenty of pepper and paprika

Dash of Worcestershire sauce.

Put in a pan and cook on a medium-low heat for 10-15 minutes (until beans are all soft and the sauce is thickening). Serve.

#4: Goats cheese, peppers, spring onion & rocket salad

The motivation behind the 52 dishes challenge was to force me to be more creative in the kitchen. It's been fairly successful on some occasions so far, but sometimes that's not really an option. This past week has been a busy one, and I've barely been in the house. On top of that, it's been rather warm, and I've learnt my lesson about trying to cook up a storm in the kitchen when it's nearly 40 degrees outside.

I'd planned to make a couple of small quiches for lunch, but then the thought of turning on the oven was more than I was happy with. I took the same ingredients and just threw them on top of some spinach instead, which was just as satisfying in the heat!

Serves 2

5 mins preparation.

Big handful spinach

1 yellow pepper

3-4 spring onions

75g goats cheese

Chop veg, crumble cheese and pile it all up. I top it off with black pepper and drizzle a tiny bit of siracha sauce on the side for a kick, although this is actually tasty enough without.

One seriously lazy lunch.

#3: Chicken, bacon and halloumi burger

In retrospect, this wasn't the best choice of meal for a thirty-nine degree day. The burgers were delicious, but I do regret standing over a hot hob and grill when simply sitting still was difficult enough. 

Serve with gallons of iced water. 

Serves 2

5 mins preparation, 15-20 mins cooking

2 ciabatta rolls

chicken breast (one large, butterflied into two, or two little ones)

4 rashers streaky bacon

6 slices of halloumi

1 tomato

Lettuce leaves

Mayonnaise & ketchup

1. Cook the chicken breast over a medium-high heat and the bacon under a medium-hot grill - turn both occasionally.  After around 10-15 minutes, place the sliced halloumi in the pan with the chicken, and turn occasionally.
2. Stack the cooked chicken, bacon and halloumi with the tomatoes, lettuce and sauces in the sliced ciabatta rolls.

Enjoy.

#2: Bruschetta with pancetta and pan-fried nectarines

It's been hot here in Perth this week, and the prospect of eating a hot meal has been the furthest thing from my mind most days. This dish was therefore conjured up as I sat on the bus home trying to conceive of a meal that was a bit more substantial than a salad, yet wouldn't require me to consume vast quantities of potatoes or pasta.

It's a very easy dish and it requires no real culinary skills beyond thinking up different toppings.

Serves 2

5 mins preparation, 10 mins cooking

Ingredients:

2 small turkish bread, ciabatta or focaccia rolls
4 tablespoons basil pesto
2 handfuls rocket
6-9 thin slices of pancetta
1-2 nectarines

olive oil and balsamic vingear

Method:

Slice the rolls in half and put under a medium-to-hot grill with a drizzle of olive oil, toasting both sides. While these heat up, slice the nectarines and place in a small frying pan, over a low heat, with a dash of balsamic vinegar. Using tongs, turn these to ensure they're softened all over.

Make up your bruschettas by coating each toasted roll with pesto, then layering rocket, pancetta and the nectarines. I then throw a little bit more balsamic vingear on top before serving up.

#1: Honey, soy & ginger pork chops

I received Dinner, A Love Story from a friend for my birthday last year, and have been enjoying both the writing and the recipes over the past few months. This recipe was inspired by one from the book, bourbon pork chops, which I had tried and loved. I made my variant of these sticky pork chops for my book club group on our debut meeting.

I like to marinade my meat in the bag it comes in. It's not fancy, but it keeps all the juices together, so I can simply tip the contents into a deep pan, cook the meat in the marinade-and-juices mixture, and then serve the sauce/gravy with the meal. Pro tip: don't leave that bag anywhere within reach of your puppy, as you'll spend a good ten minutes chasing her while she dances happily around the garden with the meaty-bag dangling out of her mouth. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Photo courtesy of my friend Rachel

Serves 4

5 mins preparation, 2-4 hours marinading, 20 mins cooking

Ingredients:

4 pork chops

4 large tablespoons of honey

2 cloves garlic, crushed or minced

a generous dousing of soy sauce

Method:

Rub the honey and garlic into the chops, and place them in the marinading container. Pour plenty of soy sauce in, such that each chop is wet. Leave to marinade for 2 to 4 hours.

On the hob, put the meat and juices into a large, deep frying pan and cook, turning occasionally, on a low heat for twenty minutes or until cooked through (test with a skewer or sharp knife)

Serve with: 

Roast potatoes and salad.

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I suppose in many regards this blog was inspired by the narrative of Dinner, A Love Story. The 52 dishes challenge that I've set myself for 2014 is an attempt to get back in the kitchen. I've definitely neglected meal times over the past year or so, and my poor husband has carried most of the load with regards cooking. I know that cooking daily isn't a realistic goal for me at the moment, but whipping something up each week, and maybe trying something new now and then - that's definitely a challenge, but one I could possibly attain.

Thus '52 dishes', one each week of 2014 - I'm not promising anything spectacular, but I'll be blogging each one here.

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