Quick and easy salsa cruda

It's summer, and I love hot, slightly sweet and fruity stuff in this weather. This quick and easy salsa cruda ('raw sauce') takes only a few minutes to make - although tastes better the longer you leave it.

Three tomatoes, chopped roughly
Half a sweet pointed red pepper, chopped roughly
Half a red onion, chopped roughly
1 red chilli, de-seeded and veined, finely chopped
splash of orange juice
1 tbs tomato pureé
1 tsp raw cane sugar
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp oregano

Put all the ingredients in a blender, and pulse a few times. You don't want pureé, so not too much. If you've got some handy, add some fresh coriander ripped up both before and after pulsing in the blender. It'll taste better after a couple of hours in the fridge (get it out half an hour before serving though). Will keep ok for a few days. It's lovely spooned over some pan-fried fillets of any firm, meaty fish.

Fish en papillote with tray roasted vegetables

Another great recipe for river cobbler, although it'd work with any firm meaty fish fillets. The fish cooks in the bag, and when you open it at the table you get all the gorgeous vapours released. Divine!

2 fish fillets
lemon slices
2 sprigs of rosemary and/or thyme
Sea salt and white pepper to taste

For the vegetables:
1 small sweet red pepper, torn up into small chunks
1 courgette, medium-sliced diagonally
1 small red onion, medium-sliced
A handful of baby plum tomatoes
lemon slices
two garlic cloves, bruised
two sprigs of rosemary and/or thyme
olive oil

First, preheat your oven to 185C. Put all the vegetable ingredients into a shallow baking tray, mixing everything together and laying the lemon slices on top. Roast for about 45 minutes.
For each fish, cut out one 30cm square of foil, and one of greaseproof paper. Rub a little oil on the greaseproof paper so it doesn't burn, and to help it stay in place with the foil. The foil will form the inside layer of your parcel. Place a fillet, sprigs of herbs and a couple of lemon slices on one half of the foil square. Fold over, and start at one end, folding over to make a seal all the way round. Repeat to make a tighter seal and press down all round with a rolling pin or similar.
Put the parcels on a baking sheet and into the oven with the vegetables for fifteen minutes (turn the oven up to 200C and move the vegetables down to the bottom of the oven if necessary).
Serve on warm plates with cold white wine

Baked fish and potatoes and a leek and green peppercorn sauce

It's the return of the fish-plus-spuds-plus-leeks combo! I made this with River Cobbler fillets, but it would work with any firm white fish fillets.

Serves 2

2 large fillets of hake, cod, cobbler
Pinch of sea salt and white pepper to taste

2 baking potatoes
sea salt

For the sauce:
2 small leeks, finely sliced
1 shallot, finely sliced
150ml single cream
1 tsp English mustard
1 tsp green peppercorns
1 splash of rosé wine
Juice of half a lemon
handful of chopped curly parsley
20g unsalted butter

Put the potatoes (in their skins) in a large pan of water and bring back to the boil. Parboil them for ten minutes, then dry them off, rub the skins with sea salt and put them on the rack in an oven pre-heated to 200C. Bake them for about 25 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the sauce: put the butter and the bruised garlic in a pan and turn it to a medium heat. Discard the garlic when it has turned golden brown and flavoured the butter. Add the leeks, shallots and peppercorns and cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally so the leek doesn't colour. Add the lemon juice and the wine and cover for a minute to let the flavours infuse. Uncover and add the parsley, mustard and cream. Mix together well and cook covered again for a couple of minutes. Once the cream has come to the boil, take off the heat.
Meanwhile, wrap the fish fillets loosely in foil along with a pinch of salt and white pepper and some of the parsley, finely chopped. Bake in the oven with the potatoes for fifteen minutes.
To serve, press down on the top the potato with the edge of a spoon handle or similar so it splits open, lay the fish next to it and spoon the sauce over both.

Chunky potato wedges

These are great with the seared tuna steak (posted a while back) and some nice tangy salsa.
Serves 4 hungry people as a side

4 large baking potatoes, washed
several lugs of olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
(if you're doing the seared tuna thing, use some of the tuna spice rub on these spuds!)

Bring a large pan of water to the boil. Place your potatoes in it, and parboil them, skins on for about ten to fifteen minutes. Doing them in the skins keeps all that lovely earthy potato flavour locked in. Carefully lift them out, pat dry with some kitchen towel and cut them into big chunky wedges – cut lengthways you'll probably get eight wedges out of each. Pre-heat an oven to 200C.
Lay the wedges (standing up, ideally) on a baking tray and rub them all over with the oil, salt and pepper (and a big pinch of the tuna rub mixture if you like). Roast them for about 25 minutes or until golden brown, giving a shake about from time to time.

Also good as a snack with ketchup, or good homemade mayo.

Grilled aubergine antipasto

This antipasto is great in sandwiches, on pizzas, in salads, or just for getting carried away and nomming the whole jar without realising.

1 aubergine, cut in half lengthways then diagonally into half cm thick slices
Juice of half a lemon
a lug of groundnut oil
Table salt
Olive oil (or a mixture of olive and vegetable oil - quantity needed will vary depending on size of aubergine and the storage jar, but it'll be a few good lugs)
Handful of dried herbs (thyme, oregano, whatever's handy. A sprig of rosemary would be nice)
2 cloves of garlic, bruised and cut in half

Rub the aubergine slices with lemon juice, which will stop them discolouring. Then sprinkle them all over liberally with ordinary table salt - don't use posh Maldon sea salt flakes!
Leave them for fifteen minutes while the salt leaches out any bitter flavours, then wash off the salt and dry the slices thoroughly on kitchen towels. Rub them with groundnut oil. Get a cast iron griddle pan really hot, and cook the slices in batches, turning once - do until stripes appear on each side (about 45 seconds each side).
Leave the slices to cool, then put in a jar with the garlic and herbs and cover completely with the olive oil. Will keep in the fridge for four or five days. And when you've eaten all the aubergine, the remaining oil will also taste fantastic!

Mushroom and gruyere parcels (quick version)

These bite size delights work equally well at parties, or crammed into a car full of people on the way to a gig. Very simple to make, even a bass player can do it!

Makes 12 parcels

12 chestnut mushrooms
100g gruyere cheese, grated
dash of dark soy sauce
salt and black pepper to taste
375g ready-rolled puff pastry

Pre-heat your oven to 190C.
Take each mushroom and remove the stalk, then make a couple of cuts inside across the gills and splash on a drop or two of soy sauce. Cut the pastry into 12 squares and place a mushroom on each. Put some grated cheese on top of each, with salt and pepper to taste. Carefully fold up the pastry around each mushroom to make a little parcel, leaving some gaps so the moisture can escape. Place your parcels on a greased baking sheet and bake them for about 20 minutes until golden brown. Delicious hot or cold!

Stuffed squid in the style of Keith Floyd (RIP)

I cooked this yesterday, when we heard that the wonderful, inspirational Keith Floyd had died. Seafood and wine seemed a fitting tribute to the great man, so I donned a Floydian bow tie, opened a bottle of red and got stuck in. Thanks to Liz on camera duties! Serves two.

Six small squid, cleaned and prepared
Plain flour (‘00’ grade if possible)
Salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper
Enough vegetable oil to fill the bottom of a frying pan to about 4mm depth

For the stuffing:
Handful of breadcrumbs
Handful parmesan cheese, grated
1 small mild chilli
2 large handfuls of spinach
1 small onion
1 clove of garlic
1tbs curly parsley
3 canned anchovy fillets

For the vegetables:
Six baby plum tomatoes, quartered
1 red pepper, torn up
1 small aubergine, sliced diagonally
1 small courgette, sliced diagonally
4 canned anchovy fillets
olive oil
juice of half a lemon
large splash of red wine
salt and pepper to taste
big pinch each of thyme and parsley

First off, pre-heat your oven to about 170 C, and put all the vegetables in a large roasting tray with the herbs, lemon juice, olive oil and seasoning. Mix everything together, lay the anchovy fillets on top and splash the wine over it. Drink some wine too. Put the tray in the oven and have another sip of wine. You want the vegetables to cook slowly, about 25 minutes or until they look just nicely roasted.
Next make the stuffing. Wash the spinach in a large metal colander and pour some boiling water over it to wilt it down. Press the water out of it with a spoon and chop it up. Finely chop all the other stuffing ingredients, and have another sip of wine. Mix the stuffing well together and divide it up so you’ve got some set aside for each of your squid.
Take your cleaned squid (and another sip of wine), and if you like, score the flesh lightly with a sharp knife. Reserve some of the tentacles for decoration (you can put some of these chopped up in the stuffing mix too. Damn, I probably should have done that earlier, never mind, have some more wine), and stuff them full of the spinach and breadcrumbs mixture.
Put the flour, salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper in a bowl. Lightly coat your squid in the flour. Heat the vegetable oil in your frying pan until it’s quite hot – drink some more wine while you wait for it to get hot enough, and check how your vegetables are doing.
Shallow fry the squid, turning them occasionally. Put the reserved tentacles in too – they won’t take as long – and they’ll look lovely as garnish. Cook them for about ten minutes, until golden brown – not too long, or they’ll become tough and rubbery. Serve on top of the roasted vegetables, and enjoy the rest of the wine. Cheers!

Smoked salmon and grilled aubergine feta salad

Get all summery with this light supper salad. If you want a bit more of a kick to your balmy summer evenings, just up the chilli sauce quantity, or sprinkle some dried chilli flakes (which looks pretty as well)...

Serves two

Make the dressing:

1 tbs lemon juice
1 tbs groundnut oil
1 tsp sweet chilli sauce
1 tsp clear blossom honey
1 tsp finely chopped parsley
Pinch wild thyme

Mix well...


For the salad

Four handfuls seasonal salad leaves
50g feta cheese, cut into 1cm cubes
50g smoked salmon, torn roughly into strips
2 or 3 baby aubergines, or one large aubergine
A lug of groundnut oil
Pinch of sea salt
Black pepper to taste

Put a cast iron griddle pan on a high heat. Cut the aubergine lengthways
or diagonally into 5mm thick slices, and rub with the oil, salt and
pepper. Toss all the other ingredients together with most of the
dressing (reserve a little to drizzle over at the end), and arrange in
individual bowls. Grill the aubergine slices for a minute or so each
side, so you get nice charred marks across them.
When done, lay the slices over the top of the salad, and drizzle over
the remainder of the dressing.

Warm salad of smoked mackerel and celeriac

This is a fairly quick light supper. Serves 2

1 small head of celeriac, cut into half inch cubes
1 small red onion, finely chopped
1 red chilli, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
pinch of thyme
two smoked mackerel fillets, skin removed and cut into chunks
olive oil
50 ml water
salt and pepper to taste
2 tsp Dijon mustard
salad leaves - whatever mixture you like

Heat a couple of lugs of olive oil in a large, heavy bottomed pan. Add the onion and celeriac, and stir well to get coated in the oil. Cover and cook for a few minutes, giving the pan an occasional shake. Add the chilli, garlic and thyme and cook for another couple of minutes.
Add the water and mustard, cover and cook on a slow heat for about ten minutes, until the celeriac is getting tender. Uncover, to reduce the liquid. When it's thickened nicely, stir in the mackerel chunks just to warm through. Season to taste.
Serve tossed through the salad leaves.

Liz's Rainy Day Sundae

Liz came up with this wonderful comforting dessert after we'd got soaked through in Kensington Park one Sunday afternoon. Indulge. Enjoy.

Per serving:

As much Baileys ice cream as you dare

2 or 3 Oreo cookies, broken up

A scattering of Maltesers

Chocolate sauce drizzled on top

Your taste buds will love you forever...