Tummyrumble

Kick-ass surf and turf paleo salad

Surf and turf salad? Well, I had to call it something... Last night we were running a bit short on carnivore supplies, all we had was a bag of frozen mackerel fillets and a pack of greenback bacon. Having been hit with the latest version of office flu, going to the shop wasn't really an option.

Oh, what to do? Since we always have so much greens and veg at home after jumping on the paleo bandwagon yet another kick-ass salad sounded like a good option. Wait, mackerel and bacon in a salad, I hear you think... Yes! Who dares wins! And with the dressing described below, this is a winner.

The dressing is inspired by the "fish fragrant aubergines" recipe that turned out to work so well with our pan fried herring spicy style, so this isn't conjured up completely from thin air...

Ingredients (stuffs two hungry paleoites) 

6 rashers of bacon, fried and chopped
4 fillets of mackerel, baked and shredded
1 bag of rocket (your bag size may vary... use enough for two!)
1 bag of spinach
2 romano peppers, chopped
1 leek, sliced
10 radishes, sliced
1/2 cucumber, sliced
10 cherry tomatoes, halved

For the dressing:

1 clove of garlic, minced
1 thumb sized ginger, grated
1 red chilli, finely chopped
4 tsp sesame oil
2 tsp honey
1 tsp soy sauce
juice of 2 limes
salt and pepper to taste
top up with olive oil to taste

If I had had some coriander I'd have chopped that up and added to the salad as well, but no such luck in our flu challenged kitchen larder.

Method

Put your oven to grill, put some olive oil on the mackerel fillets and place them skin side down on a tray (juices and oils will come off, so make sure it can hold it lest you get funky residue in your oven...).

Season with salt and pepper, then bake in the oven for 7 minutes, turn them so skin side is up (you want that skin to go crispy), season a bit more and bake for another 10-12 minutes or until skin starts looking a bit charred. We did these from frozen, so your cooking time may be different.

Meanwhile:

Fry and cut the bacon in strips. Leave to cool a bit.

Cut up all the veg that needs chopping using your best salad style knife skills, add all leaves and veg to your salad bowl.

Mix all the dressing components together in a small jug.

When the mackerel is done, shred it or cut it up in strips across the fillet. Place the bacon and mackerel on top of the veg, pour the aromatic dressing over it and mix it all up.

Serve, enjoy.

Kick-ass thai inspired peri peri salad dressing

As a consequence of the low carb lifestyle we eat quite a lot of salads in our household, usually with a couple of big and juicy rib-eye steaks sliced on top.

When it comes to salad composition, a really simple one with just spinach, rocket, sugar snap peas, halved cherry tomatoes, grated or ribboned carrots, thinly sliced spring cabbage, avocado, thinly sliced red onion and chopped coriander is a favourite. 

Dubbed the "kick-ass" approach to salad (combining greens with some high energy stuff supplying necessary and healthy fats, a term that I think that originated over at Mark's Daily Apple), it is not more than approriate to serve it with an equally kick-ass dressing.

To spice it up a bit we usually make a thai style dressing with a big chilli hit. However, recently we were introduced to African Volcano peri peri hot sauce (@AfricanVolcano) by the maker Grant Hawthorne (@GrantHawthorne), so last time we decided to replace the traditional finely chopped chilli with some of that.

Result? Incredibly tasty.

The African Volcano peri peri hot sauce is made with priority on flavour first and heat second. It is certainly not the hottest hot sauce I've tried (looking forward to a rumoured version  with more zing and chilli kick) but it definitely is up there with the tastiest.

Tip: try dipping biltong in it... Seriously addictive! Caution, if you decide to try this you need to realise that you will run out of sauce and biltong very, very quickly!

In order to get the most out of the peri peri, Grant likes to point out that fresh lemon juice is required. Maybe that's why it goes so well in this otherwise pretty classic thai salad dressing where lime juice is an important ingredient.

A marriage made in heaven, as they say.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons fish sauce 
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice 
2 minced garlic cloves 
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 small red onion very finely chopped 
1 tablespoon African Volcano (if you don't have this, use finely chopped red chilli) 
salt
fresh crushed black pepper 

Method

Just mix it all together. Pour over salad. Mix. Done.

Here's a bonus tip though.

When we make our kick-ass rib-eye steak salad (as per above), once you have fried and rested the steaks you will have a fair amount of steak juices.

Pour all of it from the frying pan, and the plate you rested the steaks on, straight into the dressing mixing bowl and give it a stir before you pour it on the salad.

Waste not, want not, and those steak juice are full of delicious meaty flavour.

Right. Time to go chuck the chicken wings that have rested cosily in African Volcano marinade over night in the oven and see if the marinade is as fantastic as the sauce.

(Full disclaimer: I was given one bottle of African Volcano sauce, and one bottle of marinade, to play aorund with and see what I thought. You now know what I honestly thought so far. Check @manne on Twitter if the chicken wings enjoyed their encounter with the marinade.)

The Cube is right outside my office [Sponsored Video]

The Cube, unique pop up restaurant by Electrolux previously featured in other major European cities, is setting up shop right outside my office on South Bank.

Check out the amazing view of the Thames and Big Ben from that tiny elevated space...

This:

We wrote a bit about it on the Bookatable blog a while back. It's truly a unique concept.

You might wonder why Electrolux is sponsoring The Cube, but the food connection is quite plain and simple: they power a lot of professional restaurant kitchens, and I guess they want to do more...

Being in London for a mere 3 months, it's bound to book up quickly. Me being a notoriously bad planner, I hardly think I'll be able to get a ticket. This is one of the few foodie events I'd really like to do this year though.

(Full disclaimer, that video is part of a paid campaign run by Unruly Media. I urge you therefore to click the links and put some money you don't have to pay forward to my web hosting! I genuinely want to go though, wouldn't put this here if I didn't. Trust.)

Anchovy butter adds some sparkle to the week night dinner

This will be short and sweet. I just discovered anchovy butter, and I'm in love. Like when I first tasted salsa verde, I want to put it on everything!

One huge benefit of W being between contracts is that she finds time to experiment in the kitchen. She is a great cook, and she has a great knack for finding fun recipes and adding a few twists of her own.

W also has a big love of anchovy so I can understand this idea caught her fancy...

When I was a kid we always used to have flavoured butter at home, to put on vegetables, steaks or slices of bread fresh out of the oven.

Delicious. And makes a week night meal feel so much more special.

Ingredients

200 grams soft butter
8 anchovies in oil
2-3 garlic cloves
1 tsp dried chilli flakes
1 tbsp lemon juice
a small handful of parsley 
salt and black pepper, to taste

Method

Add all the ingredients to a food processor, or if you like us have one of those hand blender things dig out the attachment that finely chops and combines. Keep blending until all ingredients have combined to a smooth paste. Add some salt and pepper to taste.

Done. Nothing to it.

Either keep it in a tub in the fridge, or if you want to be a bit more fancy use a sheet of cling film to roll it to a log (see photo here) from which you later can cut thin slices. Looks a whole lot nicer when serving your food.

Used it tonight with a fantastic rib-eye steak and some buttered greens. Sugar snap peas sauteed in butter for a few minutes (while the steak fried on one side), then added in some kavolo nero (don't forget to remove the wooden stalks!) and cherry tomatoes and a few table spoons of water and put the lid on to steam it while the steak fried on the other side.

As you can see in the photo, a little bit of feta cheese helped upping the fat content.

Cheesed up butternut squash with a kick

Sunday night fridge raid that turned out to be a stonking success.

Ingredients (for 2)

1 butternut squash
1 bulb of garlic
1 romano pepper, finely chopped
1 red chilli, finely chopped
8 cherry tomatoes, quartered
150 gr goat's cheese, crumbled
100 gr pancetta/lardons for the non vegetarians
dried thyme
a few capers
olive oil
butter

Garnish

1/2 lemon
Tracklements Chilli Jam

Method

Set your oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Cut the top off the garlic bulb and place on an oven proof tray, drizzle with some olive oil.

Cut the squash in half length wise and spoon out the seeds and thready goo in the center. Place on an oven proof tray, sprinkle the chopped chilli on top and place a small knob of butter (about a tablespoon) in the center cavity of each squash. Drizzle with olive oil.

Put garlic and squash in the oven, set a timer to 30 minutes. Timing wise, the garlic needs 30 minutes to go all soft and sweet and mushy. When roasted, all the sharpness leaves the garlic so don't be nervous about using the whole garlic for this. Depending on the size of your squash it needs 45 minutes to an hour to reach the right softness.

Meanwhile, fry the pancetta and set to cool a bit.

Mix up the cheese, romano pepper, cherry tomatoes, capers and thyme (to taste, a teaspoon should do it) in a bowl.

When the timer beeps, take out the garlic while leaving the squash in the oven.

Remove all the now mushy garlic cloves from their peel, mash them up with a fork and add to the cheese mix with the pancetta and make sure it is well mixed together.

Take out the squash and before you spread the cheese mix on top, take a spoon and spread the melted butter all over the squash.

Cover the squash with the cheese mix and put back in oven for another 12 minutes or so.

When done, squeeze some lemon juice over the cheese cover, and add a dollop of the chilli jam.

Serve with crispy kale chips, which are perfect to make for those final minutes when the cheese melts all over the squash. Enjoy.