Salmon and Prawn Laksa - It is Just a friggin' Soup.

I've been wanting to make laksa for some time now, but 'exotic' ingredients, like rice noodles, are often hard to come by in this neck of the woods. Let alone, laksa paste or lemongrass. So most of the time improvising is on the agenda. But that is okay, because I'm an improvisatrice extraordinaire, even if I do say so myself.
I can't think of a time that I have ever had the honour of eating laksa, but looking at recipes on the web, I could 'imagine' the flavours. A choice had to be made though, last Monday, whether  it was going to be a fish based, chicken or vegetarian laksa. I opted for this recipe from BBC GoodFood .
While I had foraged the not-too-far shops over the last month or so, I had most ingredients in the house, except for laksa paste or Thai red curry paste, but in the freezer was a small (very small) plastic container with homemade Malaysian curry paste

Here is how I set to work.
Ingredients - serves 3 as a main course

• sunflower oil, 2 to 3 tbsp
• butternut squash, the neck only, peeled and cut into 1.5 to 2 cm cubes
• courgette, one that has been laying around the kitchen for a while (but you can use a fresh and firm one too), de-seeded and cut into similar size cubes as squash
• laksa, Thai red or homemade Malaysian curry paste, 2 to 3 tbsp.
• lemongrass stir-in paste, a squirt
• 1 tin of coconut milk, 400 ml
• chicken stock, 600 ml, more or less ( can be made from a stock cube)
• rice noodles, 150 gr, soaked in boiling water and drained (according to the BBC Good Food website). Don't use this cr*p, because they become too mushy :

• fresh beansprouts, 300 gr
• salmon, 300 gr, sliced or cut into chunks
• king prawns, the frozen kind, but defrosted. 1 handful (a shovel sized hand)
• fish sauce, a splash
• juice of half a lime
• chilli, red or green or yellow, as many as you like and as hot as you can stand, sliced into rings
• a small bunch of coriander, roughly chopped.
• 3 spring onions, sliced on the diagonal.

Preparation

• Heat  the oil in a pan and sautee the butternut squash for 5 minutes
• Add courgettes and cook for another 5 minutes while regularly stirring. 
• Spoon in the paste of your choice, together with the lemongrass squirt and coat the vegetables, cook for a few minutes.
• Pour in the coconut milk and stock, simmer for 10 minutes
• Add noodles, beansprouts and fish, simmer for another 2 minutes or till the salmon has lost its translucency.
• A splash of fish sauce.
• Turn off the heat and add the prawns. If you use the kind I used they are already cooked and just need heating through.
• Stir in the lime juice, some of the coriander, chilli and spring onions, keeping some behind to sprinkle over the served dish.

And there you have it.  It tasted just as heavenly as I imagined.

If by any chance my recipe scares you, I won't be offended if you use the one from the Good Food website. Well, maybe just a little bit.

Patricia xxx...x

Mushroom and Chorizo Ragout with Creamy Polenta

It's been a few years  (8, at least)  since I last made polenta. But the idea must have been on my mind because a couple of months ago I bought some in the wholefood shop in Kenmare. I stored it safely away in the pantry in case of an apocalyptic event.
That apocalyptic event happened on Monday when I ran out of steam after I sliced about 6 kg of cucumber, plus onions, salted the bejaysus out of them, ready for pickling the next day.
Starving I was.  Right, I have mushrooms.  I'll make an autumnal  mushroom ragout and thus I set to trawling the internet.  I used this recipe as a guide, adapting as I went along.
I used only fresh mushrooms and not my dried porcini as they are for another apocalyptic event. I also added 4 of our homegrown chorizo sausages.

My recipe went as follows.
For the ragout.
Ingredients - serves 2 to 3

• sunflower oil, 1 tbsp (or thereabouts)
• 4 chorizo sausages (or other, of good quality)
• 2 shallots, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• thyme, a few sprigs - hard stalks removed.
• butter, 1 tbsp
• 3 portobello mushrooms, sliced
• 200 gr closed cup mushrooms, quartered
• 250 gr chestnut mushrooms, halved
• tomato concentrate, 1 heaped tsp
• white wine, 100 ml
• chicken stock, 200 ml (from a cube is fine)
• 1 tbsp cornflour in 1 tbsp of cold water
• freshly chopped parsley,  a few sprigs
• seasoning, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preparation Use a pan large enough to receive all the ingredients at one stage or another.

• Heat the oil in a pan and brown the sausages all around. Please don't turn them into lumps of coal, so brown them on a low to moderate setting. 
• Remove from the pan when cooked through. Set aside.
• In the remaining oil, sautee the shalots with the whole, but crushed garlic cloves and add the thyme
• When the onions are translucent, add in the butter.
• Turn the heat up a notch and sautee off the mushrooms.
• Then stir in the tomato concentrate and let it cook for a minute.
• Next in is the white wine. 
• Let it reduce before adding the stock.
• Cut the sausages in disks and add to the pan.
• Let this all simmer for about 5 minutes or until the liquid has reduced somewhat.
• This is where I then add the cornflour if the sauce is too thin. Let it cook through for a minute.
• Season to your liking and stir in the chopped parsley.

Oh the polenta !

I didn't even know instant polenta existed, therefore I used the guidelines on the packaging. I suggest you do the same.

• 750 ml water to 120 gr polenta
• chicken stock cube, bay leaf and sprigs of thyme
• 1 tbsp butter
• a splash (100 ml) of cream - I used double
• a couple of handfulls (depending on the size of your hands, I've got shovels) of grated parmesan cheese.  
• black pepper

Preparation

• Bring the water with stock cube and herbs to the boil
• Reduce to a simmer and pour in the polenta in a steady stream while you whisk with a whisk to prevent lumps.
• Revert to a wooden spoon and stir, this time to prevent sticking to the bottom and consequently burning your polenta !  Low setting.
• Now, my packet said 30 flippin' minutes. Luckily, it was ready in 10 to 15.
• Take off the heat and mix in the parmesan, butter and cream.
• Season with black pepper and serve.

Don't let my long-winded post put you off, or the seemingly long list of ingredients, because it was a doddle and ready in half an hour.
The flavour was as rich and intense as the colour of the ragout. And boy did it shout autumnal!

Patricia xxx...x

Sausage and Bean Casserole

This is a recipe for a quick one pot wonder.  I say quick because you can have it on the table in half an hour.  And no, I'm not trying to be a Jamie Oliver, even though I like his cooking style very much. Sometimes I have to prove to myself that I can rustle up something delicious without spending ages on the prep and cooking. I am the slowest person I know.

The French charcutier who has turned one of our pigs into delightful morsels of cured meats also made lots of sausages and while they are all very tasty, I really like the chorizo sausages. Especially for a dish like this.
You can use any good quality sausage, of course, but if you can add some cubed chorizo salami to the pot for extra smoky flavour, it makes all the difference.

Ingredients - 2 people

• 4 fresh chorizo sausages
• sunflower oil
• 1 onion, peeled and chopped
• 2 fat cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped or grated
• half a red pepper, cut into 1.5 cm pieces
• half a green pepper, same as above
• chilli pepper, take one that suits your palate, super hot or just mild, sliced
• 1 star anise
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 sprig of thyme
• 1 tsp cumin, powdered
• 1 tbsp sweet paprika
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp concentrated tomato paste
• 1 tin +/- 400 grs kidney beans, drained
• 1 tin +/- sweetcorn, drained
• 100 ml water or stock
• Seasoning (salt, pepper)

Preparation

• Heat some oil in the pan and brown off the sausages on all sides. Give this time and do it over a low-ish setting. Add the oregano and thyme to this.
• When they are cooked through, take the sausages out of the pan and set aside.
• Depending on how much oil is left in the pan, you can add some or not. 
• Sauté the onions with the garlic until they're almost translucent.  Then add the peppers and chilli.  
• Sauté for a few minutes longer.
• Stir in the tomato paste and spices. Let it cook for a minute or so, but don't burn the spices.
• Add the beans, sweetcorn, stock or water and sausages.
• Simmer, with lid on, until everything has heated through.
• Season to taste.  I always add a good portion of coriander leaves, because I like it.
• Serve with crusty baguette or oven roasted sweet potatoes or both.

Fast food cooked at home.

Patricia xxx...x