Learning to cook for two people has been a challenge for me. It’s the same effort to make food for eight as it is for two. But the Davinator and I are empty nesters 90% of the time. Rather than eat the same old stuff (steak, chops, chicken breast, swordfish) that is easily portion controlled, I’m trying to be creative with leftovers and also to cook things that are easily reheated or easily frozen.

Cooked fish, other than fish pie, doesn’t freeze well. But if you’re overwhelmed by fish greed (as we frequently are in our local fishmonger) then I’ve got a couple of recipes that will help you out with the leftovers.

My fab fishcake recipe below calls for 500 grams of cooked fish and 400 grams of potatoes. It makes 5 generous fishcakes (even the Davinator could only eat 2). But you can flex this recipe to the amount of fish you have. Essentially, it is 125 grams of fish to 100 grams of potato. I used the leftover wild sea trout from this recipe ‘here fishy fishy‘ but you could use salmon, cod, haddock: basically any cooked fish. Although I’ve never had a tuna fish cake……I’m sure it would be edible.

If you’ve never made fish cakes, don’t be nervous. We’re going to combine fish and cooked potatoes with a binding sauce, dip them in egg and bread crumbs then fry them. Sounds like a lot of steps but the end result is worth it.

I’m not going to explain here how to cook the fish – either poach in milk or oven bake in foil as per the link above. Most fish cakes call for rustic mashed potato (mashed but drier and with lumps as opposed to creamy mashed). I use smashed roasted potatoes. It adds a couple of steps but the added taste and texture are worth it.

I’m not a potato zealot. I accept the theory that different kinds of potatoes are good for different things but I must say I’ve never really noticed. If you care a lot, use the same type of potatoes you would use for roasties. I used some new potatoes I had in the kitchen and left the skins on. Because I did the smashed roasty approach, they added some nice texture.

Ingredients & Instructions

For the sauce

• 125ml (1/2 cup) mayonnaise(see this link to make your own)
• 1 tablespoon capers roughly chopped (drained)
• 1 heaping teaspoon of Dijon mustard
• 1 small shallot or 2 spring onions, very finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

Adjust the proportions for the amount of fish you have. Combine the ingredients, cover with cling film and refrigerate until you’re ready to make the fish cakes.

For the smashed roasty potatoes

• 400 grams potatoes
• salt
• olive oil
• black pepper

1. Peel the potatoes or scrub well if using new potatoes and leaving the skins on. Cut the potatoes into chunks no bigger than 3 cms (bit larger than an inch across). Put in a pot of cold water, add a generous amount of salt. Bring to a boil and cook for 8 to 10 minutes. You’re not done cooking them and you don’t want them to disintegrate in the next step.
2. Preheat your oven to 220C (400F)
3. Drain the potatoes and return them to the empty pot and place it over a low heat. You want to dry off the moisture. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil, black pepper to taste and remove the pot from the heat.
4. Cover a baking sheet with foil. Coat the foil with cooking spray – preferably an olive oil type or lightly coat with olive oil. Put the potatoes on the covered baking sheet and arrange in a single layer. Take out your potato masher and give them a bit of a crush. Drizzle with a bit more oil and place in the oven for about 15 minutes. They will have some nice browned bits on them.

The potatoes are yummy. You could stop now and just eat the potatoes with the fish and the sauce. But where’s the fun in that.

Assembling and cooking the fish cakes

• one large egg
• 1 tablespoon fresh chopped chives
• 1 tablespoon fresh chopped parsley
• 90 grams of bread crumbs
• flour for shaping
• neutral oil for frying

1. Combine the fish, the potatoes, the chives, the parsley. Mix together with your hands. You want to bring it together but not reduce it to mush. Add enough of the sauce to help hold it together. You should be able to form a ball with the mixture.
2. Beat the egg and put it in a shallow plate or bowl.
3. Lightly flour a board.
4. Gently form the fish cakes with your hands on the floured board. Think hamburger shape and size (or a flattened hockey puck if you’re from my home state of Michigan) and about an inch thick (2.5 cms). Dip in the egg, then the breadcrumbs and coat well in each. The easiest way to coat in breadcrumbs is to gently flip from one side to the other and then spoon crumbs over the edge. If you’re feeling good about the consistency then trying rolling on the edge in the breadcrumbs. Cover with cling film and chill for 30 minutes. The chill down is to help with the consistency but I often omit and go straight to the shallow frying.
5. Heat a large shallow non stick skillet over medium heat. Add oil so there is about half a centimetre in the bottom. Corn or canola oil has the least taste. A tip – add a tiny amount of butter to the oil, it will spatter less. The oil should be hot so that the fishcakes sizzle a bit when you put them in but not smoking.
6. Cook each fish cake for about 5 minutes per side. Remember all the ingredients except for the egg coating will have been cooked so you’re warming the fishcake.

Then enjoy with the remainder of your sauce, some slices of lemon and a green salad. Or asparagus from your garden.

Enjoy

It has been a busy 6 weeks for the Davinator and Mama Dolson. Travel, work and welcoming the first guests to our ‘informal’ bed and breakfast was all consuming for most of May and June. More on the ‘B&B’ in another blog post.

We are blessed with a great local fishmonger in our town – The Fish Shop . They have amazing fish – so we eat more fish. This is good. But they have amazing fish – so sometimes we buy fish that are too big for two people. Like the lovely wild sea trout in the photo above. When we succumb to our fish greed, I try to use all of the fish at least.

This sea trout gave the two of us several tremendous meals. I cooked it in a foil bag in the oven, then made fish cakes with some of the leftovers and finally made potted fish with the last of the leftover fish. All will be explained below.

Fish in foil

Less is more when confronted with a magnificent whole fish like this wild sea trout. Never frozen and less than 24 hours from ocean to my kitchen, I want to let the lovely delicate taste speak for itself. This method has you wrapping the whole fish in foil with herbs and lemon, sealing it and baking it. A couple of simple steps and you’ve got a great main course.

Ingredients & Equipment

• A whole fish, |2 kilos or less, cleaned and gutted. Leave the head on or remove it based on your preferences, not everyone likes to look dinner in the eye.
• A bunch of fresh parsley
• A lemon, cut into thick slices
• Olive oil or neutral cooking oil
• Large sheet of foil
• Baking sheet or a shallow roasting plan

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 200C (190C fan).
   
2. Rinse your fish gently with cold water and pat dry.
   
3. Brush one side of the foil with oil.
   
4. Lay the fish on the oil.
   
5. Rough chop the parsley, stuff the fish cavity with the parsley and lemon.
   
6. Seal up the foil packet; bring the long sides together and fold over several times. Then fold up both ends towards the middle.
   
7. Put the sealed foil packet on the baking tray and place in the oven. Bake for about 45 minutes for a larger fish (say 2 kilos) but a minimum of 30 minutes in a preheated oven for any whole fish big enough to serve 2 or more people.
   
8. Remove from oven, unwrap and serve promptly.

Enjoy with boiled and buttered new potatoes and fresh asparagus. Links below to recipes to use up your leftovers.

Here’s a link to Fabulous Fishcakes to use up your leftover fish. And likewise to Potted Fish.

We are blessed with a great local fishmonger (The Fish Shop – Camberley) and we eat a lot of fish. This recipe requires some prep work and about 15 minutes of intense cooking. It makes a hearty dish for six people. It’s so yummy the Davinator has been spotted sopping up the last of the sauce with a piece of bread.

You can adjust the mix of seafood – not everyone likes mussels, for example. The shellfish – clams and mussels – do add layers of flavour and I strongly recommend including in the dish. But if you can’t get them, or are nervous about cooking them, you can omit.

This recipe also cooks well with frozen seafood (defrost in advance) if you don’t have access to fresh seafood. I keep a bag of frozen squid rings in the freezer (because you never know when you might have a calamari emergency) and I used the frozen squid in this recipe.

I don’t make my own pasta (yeah – I know you’re all shocked) but for this recipe I like to buy the best quality linguine – squid ink if I can get it. It so happened I couldn’t this time, but it deserves high quality pasta.

Ingredients

95 mls olive oil, plus the oil from the anchovies below

1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes (or more if you like it hot)

500 grams of small clams, scrubbed

500 grams of mussels, scrubbed and de-bearded

1 x 400 gram can of high quality tinned tomatoes

225 mls clam juice or fish stock, if making fish stock from bouillon, make it strong

225 mls dry white wine

1 large bunch of fresh parsley, discard stems, chop leaves and divide in half

I small flat tin of anchovy fillets, drain and reserve the oil

1 teaspoon dried thyme

Salt and pepper to taste

450 grams, peeled and deveined shrimp

225 grams of squid, cut in rings (I use frozen and defrost in advance)

500 grams top quality linguine, squid ink if you can get it

2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

Instructions

Okay, it looks like a lot of steps between you and food. Objectively, yes there are a lot but they are done quickly. I’ve done the steps in the order I do them which is all about not wasting any time. Your guests will be sitting at the table with knives and forks in their hands and napkins tied around their necks.

1. Put a large pot of salted water on to boil. When the water is boiling, add the linguine and cook until al dente – about 75% of the recommended cooking time. Reserve a mug of water from the boiling pasta. Drain the pasta. Do not rinse it. Put it back in the cooking pot and put a lid on the pot.
2. Meanwhile, get out a Dutch oven – a big deep heavy cooking pot. I use my big le Creuset for this. Get the olive oil and the oil from the anchovies really hot. You’ll know it’s ready because it will smell sweet and sort of shimmer on the surface. Throw in the chilli – cook it for about a minute. Reduce the heat to medium-high. Add the clams. Cover, shake, give it about two minutes on the heat.
3. Add the mussels. Cover, shake and cook for 3 to 4 minutes. Check, all of the shellfish should be open. Remove the pot from the heat.
4. Using slotted spoon, move the clams and mussels to an oven proof dish, Cover and stick in a warm oven for now.
5. Add the tomatoes, the clam juice or fish stock, the wine, half of the parsley and the thyme to pot. Return to a medium high heat. Bring to a high simmer and allow the sauce to reduce by about a third.
6. Put the shrimp and squid in the pot and stir. Add the drained the pasta and stir well. Cook for about 3 minutes – you’ll know because your shrimp will be pink and opaque. Stir in the lemon zest and the rest of the parsley.
7. Take the clams and mussels out of the warming oven. Quickly throw any cooking juice into the sauce. Serve up the pasta and add the shellfish on top.

The Davinator likes a nice red wine with this dish – the shellfish and the spicing mean it will stand up to wine. Personally, I prefer Muscadet but to each his own. And a serving suggestion – it’s always good to have some nice bread on hand for those who want to soak up all the sauce.

It was an impulse purchase of a kilo of dried black eyed beans (black eyed peas to Americans) that inspired me to make my own baked beans. And since the very first batch not a single can or jar or snap pot of Heinz has been seen at Braybourne House. My recipe has been through several iterations and I am confident in calling it ‘my own’.

I’m not waging war on convenience food -it is essential in a busy life. But understand what you exchange for convenience; it’s not just money, it’s taste and quality as well.

There I was staring at that kilo of dried beans thinking – what was I thinking? What should I do with these? An hour or so spent browsing the internet resulted in me rejecting many many recipes. I was astonished at how many American recipes for ‘slow cooked beans’ or ‘crockpot baked beans’ used tinned baked beans. Basically, the recipes just sexed up the canned beans.

This recipe starts with the true basic ingredients; a pork hock and dried beans. You can cut out steps by using a ham hock and tinned beans. My version has you cooking the pork and soaking the beans overnight – so starting from scratch doesn’t add much if any prep time.

If you want to make beans on Saturday, you need to have your ingredients and start your prep on Friday night. A slow cooker works well but you can also put these in a cast iron Dutch oven (big heavy stock pot) and put them in the oven. Instructions for both methods are below. You could cook them on hob, but then you’d need to be around to stir them regularly. Nobody has that much time on their hands.

Elapsed time is long but actual time spent prepping etc is very low. It’s a recipe that makes a lot of beans but they freeze beautifully. I freeze lots of containers with two servings. So that’s for two with breakfast but only one for the Davinator with a jacket potato or on toast.

You could do this as a vegetarian dish. Omit the bacon and the pork hock, use a couple of vegetable stock cubes to add some flavour during the slow cooking process. Add these midway through the cooking process. Salt and beans are not friends until after the beans have fully absorbed liquid.

Ingredients

One pork hock (it’s the ‘shank’ part of the leg, sometimes described as a pork knuckle). Or a ham hock. If using the ham hock, do not roast it)
600 grams of dried beans
100 grams of bacon lardons
2 small onions
3 cans of tomatoes (400 grams each)
3 tablespoons of black treacle, molasses or brown sugar
2 teaspoons dried mustard powder
2 teaspoons black pepper
1 teaspoon celery salt
1 teaspoon chili flakes

Salt to taste but only when cooking is finished.

Instructions

1. The night before prep your beans and pork.
2. Put the oven on about 125C. Place the pork joint in a roasting tin. Score the skin deeply in a number of places. Use a small rack if you have one to put the pork on. The pork can cook for 8 to 10 hours but a minimum of 6 hours. So put it in the oven when you go to bed and take it out the next morning.
3. Now the beans. I use the ‘hot soak’ method for my beans. There are three ways to prep dried beans and they tend to divide otherwise mild mannered cooks. Hot soak gets rid of the most sulphur and its sulphur that gives beans a bad reputation for shall we say digestive effects. Hot soak also works nicely overnight. Here’s a link to an assessment and detailed description of the various methods from the Bean Institute.
4. Put the beans in a big deep pot, cover with twice as much cold water as there are beans. Bring to a simmer. Simmer for about 3 minutes. Turn them off and leave them overnight.
5. Now you can go to bed and try to get over the knowledge that there is a Bean Institute. And they care a lot about beans.

Next day…….

1. Get out your slow cooker or Dutch oven. If using the oven method, preheat your oven to 150C.
2. Put the lardons in the bottom of the pot.
3. Peel the onions, halve and place in the pot.
4. Drain the beans, rinse, pick out any bad ones. Add the rinsed beans to the pot.
5. Add the tomatoes, molasses and spices. Stir into the beans. Adjust the amount of water so the mixture is covered with about 3 cms of liquid on top. I usually rinse out the tomato tins and use that water.
6. Take your roasted pork shank and nestle it in among the beans. If you’re feeling decadent, deglaze the pork roasting pan with hot water and add the juices and pork fat the beans.
7. If using a slow cooker or crock pot; put the lid on it, turn it to high and leave it for 3 to 4 hours. Likewise with the oven method; cover it and put it on the bottom shelf of the oven for 3 to 4 hours.
8. Check the beans for ‘doneness’ after the initial cooking time. The meat should be falling off the bone and the beans soft, approaching creamy. Turn the heat to low and cook for another hour. Leave the lid off if it seems like there is too much liquid.
9. Your beans are nearly ready to eat now. Carefully remove the pork shank, remove the skin, bone and cartilage and shred the meat. Return the meat to the beans and stir it in. I usually find and remove the onions as well. Add salt to taste at this point.

Enjoy! Thank you to my Twitter friend Anne (@anneforensics) who noticed the hand crafted baked beans in my cooked breakfast tweet and asked for the recipe.

Salad Nicoise – my ‘go to’ lunch when I want to get on the Davinator’s good side.

Every cook needs people who eat.  It’s like leading and following; what kind of leader are you if no one follows? What kind of cook are you if no one is eating your cooking?  Cooking only for Instagram?

My consumers are family, friends, co-workers, fellow volunteers at SmartWorks,  my pilates instructor and her family not to mention my fellow Pilates students.  But my prime consumer and best critic is the Davinator (my husband Dave).  On the one hand, he has never met a baked good he didn’t like.  On the other hand,  he has great ideas about what he wants to eat and has learned to offer frank feedback (or get the same thing again).   I hate to be old fashioned but being a good cook is unlikely to attract a man but it certainly keeps them around.

I digress briefly for an anecdote.  A merchant banker of my acquaintance (probably 5-10 years older than me) told me that he married a terrible cook.  I think that this was a fairly traditional It girl marrying merchant banker story.  Assessing that this inexperience and not bad training, he cheerfully ate whatever she cooked and only offered the mildest and most gentle of suggestions.  He believed that encouragement would get him further than criticism.  Apparently, it was three years before he would come home to a reliably decent meal.  I said ‘did she ever figure it out?’.  He seemed puzzled by the question.  End anecdote.

The Davinator’s favourite salad is Nicoise.  It is a great showcase for summer produce so fits well with our ‘eat locally, eat in season’ ethos.  It also helps with using up the Abel & Cole weekly organic vegetable box.  Well maybe not the tuna but all uncooked tuna you get the UK has been frozen and comes from a distance.   I use fresh tuna but use canned tuna if it suits you for cost or convenience reasons.  Nicoise is very flexible, so feel free to adjust the dressing (there is a ‘standard’ vinaigrette and a dijon vinaigrette below) and add or subtract ingredients as you wish.  Change it enough and it’s something else, of course but it might still be amazing.   This is my ‘go to’ recipe for Salad Nicoise.

Ingredients – salad

• 450g  fresh tuna, about 2.5 cm or 1 inch thick
• 400g new potatoes (approximately 8 to 10 if small, if big, be prepared to chop)
• 120g cherry tomatoes, halved (8 to 12 cherry tomatoes)
• 120g young fresh green beans
• 4 small lettuce hearts to 2 cos lettuce heads
• 1 bunch of spring onions
• 4 eggs, to be cooked
• 6 anchovy fillets (from a jar or tin)  chopped into 2.5cm or 1 inch lengths
• 16 pitted black  olives in brine
• 8 basil leaves (optional)

Marinade/vinaigrette dressing

• 105ml/7tbsp olive oil
• 3 tbsp red wine vinegar (or balsamic)
• 2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped small
• 2 tbsp fresh chives, chopped small
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped (optional, I omit because of Davinator’s allergy to all of the lily family)
• 1 tsp fine salt (not kosher or rock salt)
• 1 tsp black pepper
  (note that most vinaigrette dressings are roughly 2 parts oil to 1 part vinegar or other astringent ingredients)

Marinade/Dijon vinaigrette dressing

• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped (can omit)
• ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp fine salt
• 1 tsp black pepper

Preparation instructions

(I’m trying to write for non-experts so apologies if I’m explaining things you know how to do).  This is my suggested order for preparation.

1. Tuna. Whisk together all of the ingredients for the marinade/dressing and put in a shallow baking pan.  Put the tuna in.  Turn it once or twice while you are doing the rest of the preparation.
2. Potatoes.   Scrub your new potatoes, do not peel them.  If you’re blessed with new potatoes the size of a cherry tomato (or indeed not much bigger than a cherry) go straight to the boiling phase.  If not, you want to cut into chunks not much bigger than one inch square.  Once cut, put in a pan with plenty of water and some salt (just throw the salt in but at least a teaspoon and more if you want).  Bring to a boil.  Boil for 12 minutes then take off the heat, cover and leave in the hot water until you’re ready to assemble.
3. Green beans,  Top and tail your green beans.  Get a pan of water boiling, add salt (see above for potatoes).  Throw in the beans, cook for 3 minutes.  Quickly drain the beans, then put in a bowl with ice water to quick cool.  (This is known as blanching and it keeps the beans a lovely bright green colour).
4. Eggs.   Get a medium sized saucepan, fill with water, bring to a boil.  Pierce the bottom (less pointy end) of each egg and quickly add to the boiling water.  Here’s an egg piercer, it keeps fresh eggs from cracking when cooked using this method.  It’s on my favourite gadget list.  Cook the eggs for 7 minutes, then run under cold tap water.  Some chefs would say 6 minutes, but I find this undercooked for most people.   When the eggs are cool, remove the shells.Obviously, you can do steps 2 through 4 well in advance and refrigerate your ingredients.
5. Prep the salad ingredients on individual plates: lettuce, halve the cherry tomatoes and distribute across the plates,  chop the spring onions very fine and distribute on the plates.
6. Prepare a heavy skillet or cast iron pan, bring it to a relatively high heat.  Cook the tuna steaks, to taste.  I like mine rare so 3 minutes per side.  The Davinator is a ‘well done’ merchant so 5 or 6 minutes per side for him.   While it’s cooking,  distribute the potatoes, tomatoes and green beans on the plates.  Cut an egg into quarters the long way for each plate.
7. When the tuna is cooked, add it to the plates.  Garnish with the olives, anchovies and torn basil leaves.  Whisk the marinade again (or make some more) and dress the salads.

The Davinator likes to have a some toasted sourdough rye bread with butter with his Salad Nicoise but any bread is a good accompaniment.

Good gadgets that help out with this recipe

None of these are mandatory for the recipe but each is a help.

I mentioned the egg piercer above.  The best way to make reliable boiled eggs (soft, medium or hard boiled) is to put them in boiling water (using a slotted spoon) after piercing them.  They won’t crack if they’re pierced before being put in the boiled water.  You can also bring the eggs to a boil starting with cold water and eggs in the pan (also won’t crack) but this method is much more difficult to time accurately.

Great for boiled eggs, allows for accurate timing.

I find that fresh herbs make a difference in this recipe (not always by the way).   I chop mine with a mezzaluna (Italian for half moon), its a lot quicker and more effective than chopping with a knife.

My favourite tool for chopping fresh herbs

I’ve got a grilling skillet that I only use for cooking tuna.  It probably is good for steak (Davinator cooks the steaks btw) and sausages but for some reason I only get it out for tuna.  And it does make those attractive stripes.

Nothing quite like it for searing tuna.

Keep cooking! And eat more vegetables.

I don’t like beetroot (beets for los Americanos).  It tastes like dirt to me – just saying. But there are some in my household who do love beetroot and I cook it for them.

Here’s my go to borscht,  based on a Martha Stewart recipe. Like all soup recipes, it’s flexible so you can add and subtract vegetables and seasonings based on what you have on hand and what you like. Other than the beetroot obviously.

My top tip for working with beetroot – wear thin rubber globes and put a layer of cling film or plastic wrap on anything you don’t want stained a red and purple.  People will be thinking there’s been a murder in your kitchen if you’re not careful.

The beetroot and other vegetables must be roasted before being included in the soup, so leave time for roasting.

Make this recipe vegetarian or vegan friendly by eliminating the bacon and serving with some fried chunks of tofu on top.  Also be careful with your stock cube.  Many commercial stock cubes – even the vegetable stock – can have animal products in them.

Ingredients

1 kilo of beetroot – scrubbed, peeled and cut into chunks about 2.5 cms square

500 grams of potatoes – scrubbed, peeled and cut into chunks about 2.5 cms square

500 grams of carrots – scrubbed and cut into chunks

8 rashers of streaky bacon

2 large shallots

Generous slug of cooking brandy

2 tablespoons high quality olive oil plus another tablespoon and a pat of butter

5 sprigs fresh thyme

Coarse salt and pepper to taste

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

1 litre of high quality vegetable stock

Sour cream, creme fraiche or greek yogurt for serving, plus fresh chives or parsley

Instructions

1.  Preheat oven to 180c fan or 200 non-fan.  Combine beets, potatoes and carrots with  2 tablespoons of olive oil and thyme in a roasting pan or pans – in a single layer.  Cook for 45 minutes until the potatoes are cooked through.
2.  About 10 minutes before vegetables are finished roasting, chop shallots and cut the bacon into small chunks.  Saute in remaining olive oil and butter over medium heat in a soup pot until lovely and soft.  Add the cooking brandy, and cook over high to cook off all the alcohol.    Get the vegetable stock ready.
3. Combine roasted beets, potatoes and carrots with the bacon and shallots and vegetable stock  in the soup pot.   Bring to a simmer over medium high heat.  Cook until all vegetables are tender.
4. Puree with a soup blender for a super smooth texture or use your potato masher for a coarser texture.
5. Stir in the vinegar.  Put in the bowls, add the Greek yogurt and chives, pair with some of Mama Dolson’s famous rye bread and enjoy!