Category Archives: Recipe

Aug 25
1
escoffier

Velvet Sauce Fit for a King

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Fancy a posh fish pie…?

Fish fan extraordinaire, Rick Stein, has one of our favourite fish pie recipes. It’s just a bit decadent with a crisp breadcrumb topping and a hint of truffle oil. The recipe calls for a velouté sauce – one of the five ‘mother sauces’ of French cuisine, coined centuries ago by man of legendary moustache, and more importantly, the ‘King of Chefs’ no less, Auguste Escoffier. (The others for your history lesson, are hollandaise, béchamel, espagnole and – plain ol’ tomato). What’s luxe about a velouté is that it’s translated as ‘velvet’, which is just how your sauce should be. No pressure.

Rick’s tip is to fry the fish first so that it doesn’t thin the creamy sauce in the pie as it cooks. Our tip is get your butter, milk and cream from our obliging Guernsey cows.

COOKING TIME:
1 hour 20 minutes

SERVES:
4 – 6 hungry people

INGREDIENTS:

For the velouté:-
600ml fish stock
300ml milk
50g butter
50g flour
2 bay leaves
1 crushed clove
1 pinch freshly grated nutmeg

For the pie:-
200g onion, finely chopped
60g butter
30g parmesan cheese, grated
50ml double cream
Juice of ½ lemon
500g mixed seafood: ¾ fish fillet and ¼ shellfish or crustaceans, such as prawns, lobster or crab. You could use cod, monkfish, hake, pollack, or snapper, with crab, lobster, peeled prawns or scallops. Visit our own fish expert Jason Hamon at Surf ‘n’ Turf on the Castle Esplanade.
50g flour
30ml vegetable oil
10g butter
100g button mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 tsp French mustard
1 tsp truffle oil
For the crust
50g Japanese panko breadcrumbs (trend alert!) or fresh breadcrumbs dried out for 10 minutes in a hot oven
30g melted butter

HOW TO:

Boil the stock and milk together. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour and cook for about two minutes, stirring constantly and without browning.

When it starts to smell nice and nutty, add a third of your stock and milk mixture, and keep stirring until it thickens and is completely smooth (like velvet, remember?) Add another third and stir again, then add the final third and when smooth, stir in the bay leaves, clove and nutmeg and leave to simmer for about 30 mins.

Preheat your oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Slow-cook the onion in the butter for 10 minutes. Pour your sauce through a sieve into the sautéed onions and add the parmesan, double cream and lemon juice. A pinch of salt will bring out the flavours.

Cut the fish fillets into bite-size pieces and turn over in the flour with a bit of salt. Fry for 2-3 minutes over a medium heat using the vegetable oil and butter. Transfer the fish to your pie dish. Fry the mushrooms in the same pan, stir in the mustard and add to the pie dish.

Now time to add the shellfish or crustaceans to the pie dish. They can be raw or cooked, but if raw scallops or prawns are large, slice them in half. Drizzle the truffle oil over (sparingly as it’s pungent!)

Pour your exquisitely smooth velouté over the fish. Mix the panko with the melted butter, and spread over the top. Bake for 20 minutes.

Serve with samphire on the side for extra lushness. Fish pie poshed up.

Oct 08
0
healthy hearts

A Hearty Broth

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Raising awareness of heart and health issues at the Healthy Hearts event, Cooked whipped up a steamy storm. On the menu was a Vietnamese Pho  – a noodle broth and a perfect warming dish for an Autumnal day. And if you have a cold hanging around, a bowl of steaming hot pho will see it on its way.

Here’s the how to:

Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients
For the broth:
2 large onions
4-inch piece fresh ginger
2 (3-inch) whole cinnamon sticks
2 whole star anise
3 whole cloves
2 teaspoons whole coriander seeds
6 cups beef stock
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce
3 carrots, peeled chopped

To serve:
1/2 pound sirloin steak, thinly sliced and lightly seared
8 ounces dried rice noodles
3 spring onions
1 chilli
2 limes in wedges
1 cup bean sprouts
1 cup fresh herbs (coriander, basil, Thai basil, mint)

Here goes:

  1. Prepare the onions and ginger: Peel the onions and cut them into quarters through the root. Peel the ginger and slice it into quarters down its length. Char them over a high temperature.
  2. Dry-roast the spices: Chuck the cinnamon, star anise, cloves, and coriander seeds in the bottom of a dry frying pan and roast over medium-low heat for 1 to 2 minutes, until toasty. Watch out for scorching!
  3. Combine the broth ingredients: To the pan with the spices, add the stock, soy sauce, fish sauce, chopped carrots, and the onions and ginger.
  4. Simmer: Bring the broth to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce the heat to medium-low. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes to give time for the spices and aromatics to infuse.
  5. Freeze the beef: Put the beef on a plate, cover with cling film, and freeze for 15 minutes. The edges of the beef should feel firm to the touch, but not frozen through. This makes it easier to slice the beef thinly. Slice across the grain, and aim for slices no thicker than 1/4-inch. Once sliced, keep the beef covered in the fridge until ready to serve.
  6. Cook the rice noodles: Bring a second pan of water to a boil, drop in the rice noodles and cook according to package instructions. Drain the noodles and run them under cool water to stop cooking. The noodles will stick together after cooking, so divide them immediately between serving bowls.
  7. Prepare the rest of the toppings: Thinly slice the spring onions and the chilli. Cut the lime into wedges. Place the bean sprouts in a serving dish. Roughly chop the herbs.
  8. Strain the broth: Strain the solids from the broth. Discard the solids. Put the broth back over low heat and keep it just below a simmer. It needs to be hot to cook the beef later.
  9. Prepare the bowls: Add a few slices of raw beef to each bowl of noodles. Put the beef in a single layer so that the slices will cook evenly in the broth.
  10. Ladle the hot broth over top: Pour it evenly over the beef in order to cook it. The beef should immediately start to turn opaque. Add the toppings  – and get stuck in!

Pho to go, in a heartbeat.

Jan 19
0
alpine1

(Al)pining for Snow

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With winter firmly upon us in the form of driving wind and rain, we’re desperately dreaming of snowy climes. Yes we love to trudge through crisp pure snow, but mostly it gives us an excuse to pretend we’re in the mountains and to exploit the spirit of après ski. While the world goes detox dotty this month, we’re in hibernation mode and are resolutely in favour of cosy comfort food accompanied by a goblet or two of red wine. Sitting by the fire with one fork suppers, we’re indulging in traditional alpine fare to warm us up from the inside out.

A firm favourite is a super-easy potato dish from the Savoie region of France. This recipe serves four people and is perfect to pick at the next day… if you’re lucky enough to have leftovers. Serve with cornichons/baby pickled onions, charcuterie, crusty bread and a healthy big green salad!

What you’ll need:

  • 1.5kg waxy potatoes like Romano. We leave the skins on for ease and a bit of goodness.
  • 250g pancetta or bacon lardons
  • 1 large onion, sliced
  • 1 garlic clove, chopped
  • A knob of butter
  • 100ml dry white wine
  • 200ml half fat crème fraiche (you can use cream but this is a lighter version)
  • Sea salt but go easy as the bacon will be salty, and freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 whole Reblochon cheese. Slice it round the middle to make two rounds and then half so there are 4 semi circles. If you can’t find Reblochon, Camembert would do but it won’t have the nutty quality that’s the star of the show here.

Here’s how to create this beauty:

  1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 7.
  2. Par-boil the potatoes whole in a pan of boiling water until tender then drain and put aside.
  3. Heat a frying pan, add the knob of butter and fry the bacon, onion and garlic for 5 minutes or until the onions are softened. Add the white wine and cook until most of the liquid has evaporated, then add the crème fraiche. You should now have a quite splendid sauce.
  4. When the potatoes are cool, slice them thinly (about 0.5 cm) and place a layer into an ovenproof gratin dish. Cover with sauce and layer potatoes on top. Continue this process until you finish with a thin layer of sauce. Layer the lovely Reblochon slices on top.
  5. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until the cheese is oozy and golden.

Now put on your PJs, pour a glass and grab a fork. Et voilà, alpine fare extraordinaire.

Nov 24
1
Xmas-Pud

A Plump and Boozy Pudding

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The festive season is upon us with gusto, and we’re all cooking and baking our heads off. The most coveted item in the Ferguson household is our very splendid Christmas pudding, which is ceremoniously (and precariously after a tipple too many), carried aflame to the table to great rounds of applause. Created with ritual, and a marble, Stir-Up Sunday is a cherished day in a dark rainy November. The festive smell alone will have you dancing like the Fezziwigs.

It’s a rare occasion that we share our Cooked secret recipes, but since we’re all friends, here it is.

You will need:

175g currants

175g sultanas

300ml brandy (plus a glass for the chef)

175g white breadcrumbs

140g frozen Guernsey butter, unsalted

40g unrefined dark brown sugar

1 egg

Nutmeg

Butter, for greasing

Greaseproof paper

1.2 litre pudding bowl

A marble

Here’s how to make it:

The day before, give your fruit a good soak in the brandy until they’re delightfully plump and boozy. Make sure you stick your butter in the freezer too.

Now get your apron on, take your rings off and prepare to get stuck in. This is a sleeves-rolled-up kind of time.

First grate the frozen butter. Then tip all the ingredients into a big bowl and mix until it all comes together rather nicely (we use clean hands). Hey presto a pudding.

Grease your pudding bowl with butter, and put a disc of greaseproof paper at the bottom. If you feel like being fancy, place a slice of orange in the bowl before the mixture.

Put a circular double layer of greaseproof paper over the top of the bowl, big enough to allow the pudding to expand. Then cover with foil and make a ‘handle’ with string. Lift your creation into a big pan and pour in boiling water half way up. Enter the marble! Put it in the pan and it’ll rattle until a top up is needed.

Steam for 5 – 6 hours (open a window!) Leave to cool, remove the get-up and cover with cling film. Put it in the fridge, and feel very pleased with yourself.

To serve, re-steam for an hour or quick blast it in the microwave. For your moment of glory, give it a tot of brandy and set alight. Present to the table and await your applause. Ta-dah!