More family dinners: leek & ham gratin, cod & chorizo stew

Thought I'd try something different: leek and ham gratin with rosti topping (Delicious mag). Was OK, but not brilliant.

1) I misread the instructions which say to chop the leeks in thirds. I just cut them into rings.
2) the additional surface area to the cut leeks then soaked up all the butter so there was nothing to make the white sauce with.
3) maybe my cloves were a bit strong, but the sauce was quite heavily garlicky!
4) the rosti topping was really dry - I was a bit stingy with the butter as I'd used more of it earlier.

I think I'd try it again but with a mash topping. The rosti were a faff that didn't turn out to be worth it.



Thought I'd try something else different: cod and chorizo stew (BBC Good Food). Ding - winner!

The only thing I did differently was to add a bit more paprika when cooking the onion & chorizo, and add a dollop of sun dried tomato paste. It all worked brilliantly. Would try it again, especially with a cheaper fish like basa. Family had potatoes and I had cous cous (not enough potatoes...) - both worked.

Fast fish pie

Happy to report another success - a quick and easy meal that's turned out delicious and, this time, healthy. BBC Good Food's Fast Fish Pie lived up to its name.

The recipe starts with celery and garlic, adds fresh cherry tomatoes, then stock (or wine) and tomato puree along with the fish, plus tarragon to finish. I used mixed fish (hake, smoked haddock, salmon) rather than the white fish plus prawns in the recipe, and dill rather than tarragon as I had none in the cupboard. My stock is baby-friendly (low salt) Heinz but with the smoked fish it was fine. A good grinding of fresh black pepper finished things off beautifully.

I made cheesy mash without spring onions (again, none in and not worth buying just for one recipe), and served it with the fish mixture rather than making a pie. It means forgoing the crispy top, but you get your dinner quicker and have one less dish to wash up, so that's a win in my book.

I have to say that the 10 mins prep was a bit optimistic for me. Chopping celery, garlic and tomatoes, making stock, and prepping potatoes were just about quick enough, but skinning the fish and checking for bones was time consuming for a non-expert.

Update: to make it even faster I used fish pie mix and a tin of tomatoes, and swapped the normal tomato puree for a sun dried one (Sacla). I also chuck in some frozen peas.

In general it's a pretty healthy and diet-friendly dish. I didn't use as much oil as suggested, but braised the celery with some of the stock, and I could easily have omitted the cheese from the mash - in fact I mashed in some leftover cheese sauce from another dish, giving it good anti-food-waste credentials too. On that note, as the tomatoes and celery are cooked, you can use up ones that might be a bit too past their best to eat raw, and other veg such as carrots or broccoli stems could go in too. To give it a trio of haloes, it's also pretty budget-friendly as you can eke out the fish with more veg, and/or choose cheaper fish or even offcuts.

Overall, an extremely tasty dish, and one that can easily be batch cooked into larger portions. Definitely a keeper in our menu rotation!

Dill roasted salmon with new potatoes

Searching for inspiration before going shopping, Delicious magazine came up with the goods.

Ingredients

• 500g baby new potatoes
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Half a red onion, thinly sliced into rings
• 2 skinless salmon fillets
• Juice and grated zest of 1 orange
• Handful chopped fresh dill

Method

Preheat the oven to 190°C/fan170°C/gas 5. Put the potatoes in a large roasting tin with the olive oil and some sea salt. Roast for 15 minutes, then scatter over the onion and cook for a further 15 minutes.

Turn the oven temperature up to 220°C/fan200°C/gas 7 and nestle the salmon fillets between the potatoes and onions. Drizzle over the orange juice and sprinkle with the orange zest, dill and a good grinding of black pepper.

Roast for 8–10 minutes, until nicely browned and cooked through. Serve 1 fillet per person, with steamed or stir-fried greens.

Didn't have an onion (list making not my strong point) - not the end of the world, but caramelised in the orange juice it would have been a nice addition.

Something different

A friend lent me a Patrick Holford cook book - not to follow the diet, but just for a few different recipes. We tried:

Chicken with creamy tomato sauce: bake chicken breasts on cherry tomatoes, at the end remove the chicken and stir some creme fraiche into the tomatoes to make a sauce. Delicious, and would be better (OK, and more calorific) with more flavoursome chicken thighs. We broke the Holford principles by having it with mashed potatoes and braised cabbage. But a good easy recipe.

Smoked mackerel and lentil kedgeree: basically make a dhal with red lentils (225g) and an onion, turmeric and curry powder plus stock (690ml), then add flaked smoked mackerel and quartered boiled eggs. The dhal was a bit runny but only because I let it get a bit burnt on the bottom and then added more water to rescue it. With the stock and the mackerel it was a bit salty. Next time I would pay closer attention and stir it more to end up with a thicker dhal, and add some fresh coriander. And again, contrary to the low carb idea, it would be yummy with naan bread...