First time sushi

So there is a bit of salmon leftover and time to try sushi and sashimi .
Down to Fresh Market to get some Clearspring sushi price, but balk at paying big bucks for the wasabi - this comes back to haunt me.
Dig out some roasted seaweed bought a few years back in one of my Asian superstore lucky dip - can't make out any date on it but it doesn't smell too bad.
Time to follow the sushi recipe which mainly involves a rice cooker. Don't have one so wash the rice four times instead of the recommended three then stick into the smallest pan at lowest heat.
Prep the seasoning which as far as I can tell is rice vinegar reduced, sugar and a bit of salt. Go low on the salt which will again come back to haunt me.
The rice is sitting there now  time to tackle the salmon. This is where it gets weird. I've eaten raw salmon many times at restaurants, but serving it up it's like I'm worried there's some Secret Sauce these restaurants apply to raw fish.
But there can't be so sharpen up the knife and slice that baby on the bias.
Now I'm waiting on the rice to cool down, though a little voice is saying to put the fish on the hot rice to at least partially cook it. I resist but stick the rice in the freezer as the family are hungry Right Now.
Ten minutes later and it's sushi chef time - roll a rice ball, press into the salmon, wrap with seaweed, repeat.

Oh yes, season the rice with the vinegar and sugar reduction - precisely.

So how did she eat? Okay is being generous:

•  The rice was simultaneously grainy and mushy.
•  Too conservative in the seasoning so extra soy was needed. 
• The portions were 3 bite rather than 1 bit sized.
• The raw salmon was delish.
• The wasabi was sorely  missed, especially as I have a jar of raw horseradish expiring in the fridge that would have made a noble substitute
• A lot cheaper than any other sushi sources

Next time the sushi will sing

The Knowledge of Salmon

Since this blog overtook Nigella Lawson (google "bacon pavlova", preferably from my google account) I've decided to scale back on the minutiae of my kitchen. Thus Thursday's spaghetti carbonara, despite being photographed, and including the heretical notion of cooking pasta in other than a giant pan at a  rolling boil
Similarly,
Friday's veg+tinned salmon+gram flour fritters miss out. Though those babies are a bit of staple Chez Cattanach and are probably more worthy of a post than lobster ravioli.

Back to the salmon. Allegedly peasants of the 19th century used to revolt amongst other things at being fed too much salmon (similar stories exist regarding lobsters and oysters in America). Then salmon became scarce and thus desirable before being farmed and ubiquitous.

The problem with farmed salmon is it is yuck -flabby and luridly coloured. Meantime, wild salmon has become practically unobtainable.
Luckily for the committed pescavore Clare Island organic salmon is available from Kish Fish in Coolock and that fishmonger guy at Temple  Bar market.
Now it`s not cheap, nor sustainable for a farmed carnivorous fish, but it is damned tasty.
Without further ado, here are the salmon darnes baked in tinfoil with butter, fennel leaves, lemon slice and a splash of good Reisling. Served with Vichy carrots (butter, sugar and rosemary, cut on the bias - Harold McGee, does the bias cut *really* matter?). And potatoes served "as gaeligae"

Further uses for Smoked Haddock - Simple Fish Pie

Time for a one-pot wonder that won't interfere with the Wales England game -fish pie.
First off boil up some potatoes,

the sweet potato provides a bit of moist richness allowing a bit less butter.
At the same time poach the smoked haddock in milk with some aromatics

is 

 The trick here is to turn the heat off just as the milk begins to simmer.  Time to check out the rugby where, horrors, England are in the lead (I'm quarter Welsh and not just being knee-jerk anti-English).
Half time and it's mashing time - skins and all.

Meanwhile the fish is looking a bit meagre so time for some secret ingredients

The parmesan rinds  have been evicted by my wife, but one at least is reasonably mould free so it will go into the bechamel, which will begin with lightly sauteed leeks and diced chorizo

Get that sweated off a bit in a good bit of butter then a few handfuls of flour before stirring in the poaching liquid and parmessan rind

 Flake the fish (because it is barely cooked, the skinning gets a bit messy)

Time to asssemble in freezer friendly portions

Pop in the oven and just in time to see Wales deserved victory.
Game over, and just time to wash and prep the last of the spinach from the garden.

mix the spinach with a little cream and grated nutmeg for a certain je ne sais quoi and dinner is served:

(a note on portions, I was aiming at at 3x3 servings but my wife felt a little short changed)

Valentine's Day

All afternoon off to prepare tonight's romantic dinner. And mind the two boys and however many of their friends drop in.
First stop is the ever excellent Connolly's of Finglas, the smallest and best fishmonger in Dublin (lads, when this blog goes stratospheric a few fresh John Dorys will guarantee plenty of fish recipes, if you get my drift).
Result, some fresh tuna. I toy with the idea of gilding the lily with some scallops or prawns but decide to go large with tuna, since larger boy will be over it like a rash.  Haven't had tuna for a while as it's not sustainable, mmkay?
But romantic meals call for indulgence, stuff the planet and sod the grandchildren, so something endangered is getting eaten tonight.
On the bike home the meal starts to come together - seared tuna, a Vietnamese type noodle salad, chilli jam and, get this, tuna tartare as well! I'll serve a chilli jam seperately so the other parts can be child-friendly.
Then a Tiramisu to follow.   No sense getting over elaborate, I've done the seared tuna many times before and how hard can any of the other components be?
First off, pick up smaller boy and forage the remaining ingredients in the Fairview locale. Ta da!

That was Fresh Market for the veg, Kennedy's for the Italian stuff (refer to Connollys above regarding sponsporship opportunties).
Now some might say it is a bit sad photographing and blogging about your shopping, but it could have been worse - I found another bag of stuff after putting the above away and only just resisted the urge to lay everything out again.

First up is the chilli jam. I can't find any definitive version of it so have to wing an amalgam: 2 dutch chillis, 1 red onion, garlic and ginger and some tomato puree.
Larger boy wants to help, so what better test of knife skills and hand hygiene than chilli and onion brunoise?

Sweat them off for a 20 minutes then add the wet ingredients and let stew down (not going for a pectin based "proper" jam).

Quick taste and it's surprisingly hot.  I presume all that fat and sugar has extracted all the essential chilli oils, so maybe deseed the next time. While she's cooking down time to get the salad ready.  Ideally it would have been the Tiramisu first or next but to start it I need to free up a mixing bowl currently soaking the rice noodles.
(aside here - the chef at Saba had this top tip to soak noodles in warm or even cold water rather than boiling them. I've been getting mixed results with this even after going beyond his times, and to cut to the chase, these noodles end up being described as "crunchy" after 40 minutes in warm water).
Here's the salad ingredients:

And here, gulp, lurks the mandoline, like a flesh shredding ski-jump of doom

I am slightly apprenhensive about this as I want to julienne the carrots and cucumbers so won't be able to use the guard, and will have the vertical blades deployed as well as horizontal.
Plus, this has only just healed after 2 weeks

and I've just gone and done this to my right (dominant) hand.

Wonder how busy casualty get's on Valentine's Day?

Somehow survive and produce this

This gets salted, left for 30 minutes, rinsed then squeezed in muslin and blotted on kitchen paper. Incidently, highly recommend a bit of muslin in the kitchen as it comes in very handy for draining frozen spinach, drying salads etc.  Just make sure and have your spell checker on to avoid a visit from Al Quaeda.

That done, mix in the noodles and chillis and basic Thai dressing (pak choi and coriander   parsley go in just before serving to stop them getting too soft).  Basic dressing is the trinity of chilli, garlic and ginger, mixed in sesame oil, fish sauce, sugar, lime juice and/or rice vinegar.  I'll use the same dressing to briefly marinate the tuna steaks before cooking.
So here's the dressing, start of the tartare and Marsala wine reduction: schedules are slipping and it's time get the Tiramisu assembled.
A bit of cursory research finds some child friendly variants, but none appeal so it's going to be old school.
What could be more romantic than small children+alcohol+coffee+raw eggs?
So the kids help make a raw custard with mascarpone and egg whites folded in. Once again the dread yolk spot sullies the whites, but I definitely get it out this time (or do I?)

The instructions are to dip the lady's fingers in the Marsala and coffee, but "not too much". Myself and larger boy attempt this but its the blind leading the blind and we run out of reduced Marsala half way through so have to quickly (i.e. incompletely) reduce some more.
The end result, after less than the recommended hour plus chilling, is a worthy candidate for cooksuck.com

(A dairy based simulation of the Trilobite extinction event)

Back to the entree to save the day. One of the 3 tuna steaks has been firmed in the freezer to be roughly minced and mixed with half a cucumber and 1 shallot:

Time to press the marinated tuna steaks into sesame seeds, sear on the trusty cast iron pan then assemble with the cunning use of my solitary timbale. Voila!

One of my better presentations, the only let down has the jam which I attempted to pipe into artfully casual swirls but instead ended up sploging like ketchup. But it eats well, particularly with a fine 2007 Sonnenuhr Trocken Riesling from Lilac Wines.
Cheers!

Oleg King Chef, Pastry Volcano

And now a word from our pastry chef, who will be showing how to make a pastry volcano.
First make a sweet shortcrust pastry, then roll it out:

Then add the lava (jam and chocolate)

Now fold it up into a volcano

Garnish with extra jam and icing sugar

Bake for 30 minutes et voila!

Lobster Ravioli

My Signature Dish in colour at last!  I've no idea how Gordon Ramsay does his take on this but it's a good way to eke out the lobster by serving it with a bisque.
Step one, prepare your lobster. I've got it down to about 20 minutes.

Now make the pasta, I'm going to cheat and use the bread maker, so this

becomes this in 20 minutes with no mess!

while this is resting in the fridge time to fry up the lobster shell with some aromatics

(those are fennel, peppercorns, bay leaves and single chilli).
 Fry that off in butter and oil at a high temperature then chuck in half a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and dried shrimps. No Pernod this week, and I didn't manage to ignite the wine, so a bit less theatre.
While that's simmering away, time to roll out the pasta and cut into circles. I used 200g of flour and 2 eggs, leaving enough to make tagliatelle for the non pescavorious smallest boy.

roughly chop the lobster meat, mix with a little cream and fennel and there's enough for 7 ravioli. Unfortunately  that picture didn't come out so it's straight to the end result.

Added half a tin of tomato to the bisque then finished off with some lumpfish roe for added ponciness. Serves 3.

And I've found if not Gordon Ramsay's Lobster ravioli but a very young and cool Marco Pierre White being assisted by a submissive and deferential Ramsay sporting a bad Flock of Seagulls haircut: http://gourmetguys.co/marco-pierre-whites-lobster-ravioli/

Bacon and Raspberry Pavlova

Not in the same dish - that would be a bit too Regret Rien, but a couple of unhurried dishes since we're stuck at home. Plus the eldest boy is obsessed with meringue, so how hard could it be?
I tend to avoid puddings because they seem to be cheating rather than cooking - bung enough sugar, cream, fruit, chocolate together and how can it fail to be delicious.

Do a bit of research on meringues from the venerable Katie Stewart's Complete Cookbook and follow it to the letter - scald the mixing bowl, wipe with lemon and separate the whites the night before when disaster strikes. Separating the final egg old school using the half shells when the tiniest bit of yolk escapes. I'm frozen in dread like the scene in 28 Days when the drop of blood falls in Brendan Gleeson's eye. I try and remove the miniscule contaminant but know deep down that things are careening out of control. But I'm damned if I'm throwing out 4 egg whites and starting again. You can take the boy out of Scotland...
I return to my comfort zone by soaking the marrow fat and split peas for the bacon soup.

I'm a bit obsessive about soup, often basing meals on what soup can be made out of it, sometimes even making the soup before the main dish has been eaten. Tomorrow's plan is for a traditional Irish bacon and cabbage, with pea and ham soup on Leftovers Monday.

Next day it's back to the meringue and I get the eldest to whip the eggs. They seem to wipe up okay, so I decide to gild the lily a bit and add ground almonds and cocoa powder to the egg whites.  I try and forget about the yolk but it's there at the back of my mind.
Now I need to make it into a nest somehow. Hmm.  Make a vague attempt at this in a well greased spring loaded cake dish.  In hindsight those peaks aren't very stiff are they?

Put it in the oven for 1.5 hours at 150C, and this is what comes out after a further hour drying off in the oven:

Okay, we seem to have lost the nest, but it looks and feels okay. However, it is firmly glued to the base, so I have to saw it off with a bread knife:

Hmm, Eton Mess anyone?

While this culinary disaster is unfolding, the main course is proceeding much less dramatically.

Bacon done, peas nice and mushy and sweating off some turnips (swedes) with onion and garlic. NB the bacon is on the bone, a more conventional Irish bacon joint would be boned, but I like me stock, so there is a bit of extra work defleshing the joint

before it's bones and stock meet up with the peas and veg for their party in the pan

So that's Monday taken care of, time to get back to today's dessert. This time smallest boy is enlisted to whip the cream, enriched with juice from the defrosted raspberrys. I cut a whole in the middle of the meringue and fold the crunchy bits (and discard the overly chewy bits) into the cream which goes into hole. Then topped with the drained rasps and a soupcon of grated dark chocolate. Except smallest boy got carried away and it's quite a lot of grated chocolate.

Okay, so I have issues with presentation. How does it eat?
Alright I guess - the kids love it but you wouldn't want to be seeking to impress more discerning critics.
The meringue is heavy, that sliver of yolk had it's effect alright. Also, the grated chocolate plus the cocoa powder was just a bit too much chocolate, if such a thing is possible.

Ah well, I still have banoffi pie as my go to desert.