BBC Good Food Asian Steamed Fish with Shiitake Mushrooms and Noodles

There is definitely no such thing as a free lunch.  Where I work, the pork pies are one of the favourite features of a working lunch.  I'm really fussy when it comes to pork pies and will only eat them if they don't have jelly in them.  In some ways that's good because it stops me from eating them too often.  I only really like the pastry bit but when in polite company, it's not really the done thing to hoick out the pink (or more often grey) nugget of 'pork'* and scrape out the jelly bit.  But the work pork pies are pretty good.  Pink meat*.  Crusty-ish pastry.  No jelly.

So of course I had one.  Or a half anyway.  My boss kindly showed his chivalrous side and let me have the only diet Coke to make up for a less than healthy lunch.  But even that did little to negate the impact of my poor lunch options and my need for a consolatory Flake in the late afternoon.  Hence why I ended up with a super-healthy fish dinner tonight.

I wrote yesterday that I'm still having trouble letting go of the Olympic Food Challenge.  Three days on, and I was really tempted to do another foreign recipe, but I ended up saving the Chimmichurri Steak (inspired by our esteemed OFC Coach Ewan**) for tomorrow night and cooking a country-agnostic fish dish instead.

Overdid the veg - the fish and noodles are in there somewhere!

Having not quite managed to let go completely, this allowed me to make a second use of the steamer I bought to make Nepalese Chicken Momos for the OFC.  I need to embrace my steamer and make good use of it before it manages to disappear into the black hole that my tupperware dishes have fallen into.***

The dish is pretty simple in that you just pop everything into the steamer for ten minutes, and hey presto healthy, tasty, low fat dinner for one.  The downside is that it is a pretty expensive dish what with the mushrooms, ginger, chillis etc which you can generally only buy in multiples and not in quantities for one - so something that you would possibly only afford once in a while.  It does use Pollack however which is pretty cheap in the fish stakes (no pun intended!).

I still have my head very firmly buried in the sand about just how much I've spent in this past year buying food I wouldn't normally buy just to complete this 'challenge'.

That point has actually given me some inspiration for my future ramblings over on my new blog which will be coming online in October.  I'll also be doing a bit of guest blogging elsewhere - more on that shortly.  In the meantime, I'm thinking about how to best let go of this blog.  I'd like to do so with some input from the lovely people who've taken the time to read my blog.  At the moment, I've had just over 35,000 page views since started.  This has blown me away and so I feel I should draw a definite line at the end of the year and celebrate the finish.  So I'd like to invite anyone who has read this to ask me a question about the blog.  If you visit 'The Last Post' page and leave a comment then I'll do one final post after 26th September (day 366) where I'll answer them all.

PS In lieu of me posting a flag today, I'll leave you with this cartoon I pilfered from FaceAche on the subject of Tupperware.  This sums up my relationship with plastic boxes perfectly.

PPS: The recipe for the fish can be found here


*factory floor sweepings in most cases
**I stole the asterisk thing from Ewan as I use to many bracketed comments in my stream of nonsense (it's not quite a stream of conscience)
***the husband sneaks things he deems to be clutter into the bin when he thinks I've not used them recently and I might not notice they are missing.  I then end up buying new boxes to replace them.  He then throws them away so I buy more....you get the vicious circle...

Olympic Food Challenge: Toiyo and Paw Paw Salad - Solomon Islands

It's finally here.  Day one of @EwanMitchell's Olympic Food Challenge.  Despite having a good few months of notice that this day was coming, I still got caught napping, thinking that we were starting tomorrow.  So I got my knickers in a bit of a twist for only having enough ingredients to do one dinner, no time to shop on the way home tonight.  The dog ate my homework, Miss!  And all that jazz.

It's paw paw - not carrots.  Honestly!

I do have a list of recipes for my countries, neatly organised into an excel spreadsheet with links to the websites (I never made it to the library to look for books) and notes about accompanying dishes and anecdotes for the blog posts I'll be writing.  But I still haven't put them into an order.  The Ocado man is coming on Friday and I have no clue what to buy still.  Other than our usual staples.  Most of which don't fit in with the countries I've got on my list.

Nor have I solved the problem of where to buy cassava from (I really must check out the fresh section at Morrisons on Friday).  I have a feeling I'm going to have to improvise a lot.  As I did tonight in order to deliver my first dish.

The Solomon Islands are group of over 1,000 islands located to the east of Papua New Guinea.  Despite having heard of Guadalcanal before (in relation to WWII) I never new the islands existed before they popped up on my list.  Their head of state is none other than our own Queen.  Population of approximately 523,0000 (thank you Wikipedia!)  You can find out more about their Olympic progress here.

Despite a largeish population,  I found tracking down recipes online harder than for some of my other listed countries.  There was one really good blog about a lady who lived in the Solomon Islands for a while.  And many of her stories reminded me of a holiday that the husband and I had in St Vincent where my father is from (even though it's half a world a way).

When you're from the 'Western World' it's a whole other ball game in so many ways.  Especially when it comes to food.  When we first booked our trip to St Vincent I was looking forward to feasting on all manner of exotic fruits, fresh from the tree.  Two years previously we'd 'done' Antigua for our honeymoon, staying in the Americanised Sandals compound.  But going 'native' is very different.  My father owns several banana plantations and gave us some fresh-from-the-plant bananas one day.  They tasted bizarre.  But that is how a banana should taste when it's left to ripen on the tree.  Not how they do in the UK where they've been plucked from the tree whilst still green, transported thousands of miles and then artificially ripened in a massive warehouse somewhere.

Solomon Islands Flag

Likewise mangoes.  I love the sweet-sharp taste of a 'decent' mango.  Yet when you eat a ripe sugar-mango straight from the tree, it's the most sickly-sweet fruit I've ever tasted.  I picked one that was green as you'd find them in the supermarket in the UK.  My aunt nearly had a fit.  Yet it had a more familiar taste to me.  I was then shocked to hear that my aunt and uncle who had several enormous mango trees in their garden, bowing down under the sheer weight of their fruit, would just leave most of the fruit to fall and rot.  Such a waste.  I calculated that if I paid £2 for a mango in the UK, the tree probably hand about £500-worth of fruit on it.  But they had so much and no market for it, it just went to waste.  I guess in the same way as you often see people with amazing traditional apple trees, just allowing the fruit to fall and rot.

Of course, the exotic fruit and vegetable import industry in this country dictates the state of ripeness we get our fruit and veg in.  So the recipe I chose from the Stilettos in the Solomons blog was doomed from the start.  It was a slightly tenuous Solomons recipe anyway because it was inspired by a Thai dish eaten in Hawaii, but adapted to use local ingredients.  The key ingredient being green paw paw. So I cheated and used a ripe paw paw instead.  I did manage to source a Kaffir lime which I assume is the same as a Bush Lime (they look the same).  Stupidly I only bought one which I used in the dressing so had to use a regular lime for the garnish.

The recipe suggests substituting red cabbage for the green paw paw, but I wanted to try it with the fruit so just went for regular, ripe papaya.  I've never liked papaya so the dressing made a welcome mask for the bland flavour of the fruit.  Again, I wonder how they'd taste eaten fresh from the tree rather than with after gaining a whole bunch of food miles. In all honesty, I didn't much rate the smokey undertones of the sesame oil.  It was different.  It worked.  But it isn't something I'd do again.

I added a handful of coriander (wilted by the intense sunshine in my back garden) and some mint to give it some colour and additional flavour.  The crunch of peanuts was a welcome contrast to the soft flesh of the paw paw and the rather excellent slab of tuna I'd managed to procure to go with it.

I chose to serve it with a simple piece of griddled tuna (seasoned with salt, pepper and lime juice) as I understand that Toiyo is commonly eaten in the Solomons so hopefully I'm not going to lose too many OFC points for not staying true to the original dish.

All in all, an interesting start to the nineteen days.  Do check out the recipes from my fellow participants.  You can find out more over on the OFC blog.

Leith's Warm Sushi Salad

I lost my sushi virginity at the relatively ancient age of 23.  I was going through a difficult time and a good friend phoned me and told me he'd take me out for a swanky dinner in London to cheer me up.  I was cheered merely by his call because I had a little crush on him and the thought of dinner together made they dark day suddenly seem rosy.  He asked where I'd like to go and being completely indecisive and not knowing London very well, I said I'd leave it up to him.

He met me from the tube and walked me past many fabulous restuarants around Long Acre and Covent Garden before arriving at the doorway to a Japanese restaurant.  He asked if this was okay and not wanting to seem fussy/difficult/demanding I nodded a hesitant consent and stepped inside.

I'm not *that* old but I swear a decade ago, you couldn't buy Sushi in the local Tesco Express (did they even exist then??) so the concept was still novel to someone as green and naive as I was then.  He's a very traditional, slightly posh chap so I left the ordering up to him.  A nine course taster meal at £40 a head.  A lot of money in those days when you've not long left uni, have a huge student loan to pay off and can't actually afford to buy yourself a winter coat, let alone go Dutch on a meal (plus the drinks) like that.

I did at least know that I'd be expected to eat raw fish, but nothing prepared me for the arrival of caviar the size of Maltesers and something that looked remarkably like fish eyes.  I did manage to enjoy some bits like the gorgeous tempura prawns and the vegetarian sushi.  But it was spoiled by him betting me that I could eat the rather odd ball of pea-green paste on the side of one dish without my eyes watering.  The deal was that if I won, he'd pay for us both.  And if he won I'd settle up.

Of course, I lost (I just about held onto my dignity before I had to dash off to the ladies to fix my mascara) and whilst I was gone, he proceeded to order a rather expensive bottle of wine to toast my first foray into the world of Japanese food.

Needless to say, the bill hurt more than the wasabi and maxed my previously just-shy-of-the-limit credit card right out.  I spent the rest of the winter without a coat.

Luckily, it didn't put me totally off sushi and I'd love to have that meal over again so that I could appreciate it.  And in case you were wondering, we are still friends.  We don't speak often and see each other even less, but I count him as one of those people you can call on in a time of crisis or happiness.  Life and work just gets in the way far too often.  Last time I saw him I accidentally locked him outside of a meeting room in the snow.  It wasn't revenge, honestly!

Sharing that tale makes me wish I could go back in time and give that me a hug and tell her that things got better and a lot different and that she'll become a survivor.  What doesn't kill us only makes us stronger!

Anyway enough of the deep stuff!  The Nori, sushi rice and the wasabi I used when I made my own sushi back in January has been clogging up my store cupboard and so this recipe seemed like the perfect alternative to all the faff of trying to make perfect sushi shapes.

When I made it, it didn't look like much but it was really filling.  It's probably double the amount of sushi you'd get in one of those pre-packaged lunch boxes.  And I bet if you found it in a restaurant it would be called something trite like 'Deconstructed Sushi' and come with an astronomical price tag.

Serves 4 - Adapted from Leith's Simple Cookery

• 225g/8oz sushi rice
• 4 tbsp sushi rice seasoning (I used Clearspring)
• Wasabi paste
• 1/2 cucumber, peeled and diced
• 225g/8oz smoked salmon, sliced (I used Waitrose Smoked Salmon Trimmings)
• 1 avocado pear, diced
• 2 sheets Nori - shredded
• Japanese Pickled Ginger to serve (I didn't have any of this so decorated with bits of salmon)

1. Cook the rice according to the package instructions.
2. Mix the sushi seasoning with enough Wasabi paste for your taste and mix with the rice.
3. Stir through the cucumber, avocado, smoked salmon and most of the shredded Nori.
4. Divide between serving plates and garnish with the shredded Nori and ginger

Mary Berry's Salade Nicoise

One of our senior managers' favourite phrases is 'Every day is a school day'.  And today, I've learned why hardboiled eggs sometimes stick to their shells when you try to peel them.  I only learned this after nearly ripping my poor little boiled egg to shreds as I was trying to assemble my salad.  It didn't make for a very photogenic picture (I will never be a good food stylist anyway!), but it was tasty, nevertheless.

I noted down to make a Nicoise a few weeks ago when rummaging through my Leith's book for ideas.  Given the sunny weather over the weekend, it seemed an appropriate choice for tea tonight.  And thankfully the awful grey, wet morning gave way to a lovely sunny evening which meant eating salad didn't seem like so much of a bad choice.

There are so many variations on a Nicoise, that I plumped for Mary's version just because the book was close to hand at tea time.  All classic recipes have their variations.  I found some use potatoes (I didn't go with this as I'm trying to watch my calorie intake), others used sun-dried tomatoes (in all honesty I would've preferred this as I don't like fresh tomatoes, but again it was all about the calories).  There are also many different opinions on the dressing.

It may not be beautiful but it tasted good!

What I knew from somewhere deep in the depths of my brain, however was that is based around tuna, has  french beans and black olives and then other random salad vegetables thrown in.  Even the tuna is a contentious issue.  From the five recipes I looked at, four used tinned and one used fresh.  I would've preferred fresh, but because I keep buying tuna when I see it on special in the supermarket and putting it in different places in the store cupboard, a recent stocktake revealed seven tins so it seemed madness to waste more money buying fresh.

Some recipes used Cos lettuce, one used Iceberg, one used spinach.  I plumped for Little Gem as they were on offer in the supermarket.  Because I was after traditional here, I braved both fresh tomatoes and anchovies.  Mary adds cucumber to hers.  I went with this purely because I love cucumber and it's really low in fat (although I'm not sure it's traditional).  She uses a mild white onion.  I had half a red one left over so in that went, rather than wasting another onion.

And then the egg.  I don't like hardboiled eggs when the yolk is set.  Never have.  I love the white bit, but I hate the powdery texture of a fully set egg yolk.  Especially if it's got that nasty grey ring around the outside.  So for me, it was important to have my egg with the white just set enough but the yolk still runny enough to dip soldiers in.

I already knew to add salt to the water to make sure that the egg doesn't burst.  And you can stop the nasty grey ring by running the cooked eggs under cold water (not environmentally friendly!).  I also tend to cook my eggs from cold - I've figured out that 15 minutes over a medium heat works best (or about 9 minutes if you put them in boiling water).  Being environmentally friendly on the washing up front, I also through my beans into the same pan at the 10 minute mark.

Unfortunately, however, trying to peel my really fragile boiled egg (remember the middle isn't set so it's really delicate), I was disappointed to find the shell was ripping off bits of white with it.   I persevered and made it look just about respectable enough for the picture.  The minute tea was over (and I'd recovered from having to eat both tomatoes and anchovies in one sitting) I was Googling a solution to the problem.

And it turns out that my eggs were too fresh.  Apparently they need to be a few days old.  The trouble with that is, how can you tell with shop-bought eggs?  Yes, they have an expiry date.  And yes, horror of horrors, before I started this blog and got through a mountain of eggs each week, I would often use eggs that were a week or two out of date (and I'm still here to tell the tale!).  But how can you work out how long has elapsed between it being laid and ending up in my shopping trolley?

So next time I want really good hard boiled eggs (a rare occurrence anyway), I will make sure I use some that are near their expiry date rather than ones I've just bought.  Or just peel really carefully and know that I'll have ugly looking (but great-tasting) eggs.

As for the recipe, I deviated a bit from Mary's instructions.  And so I'd suggest just doing a bit of research and picking a recipe that works for you.  I really liked the meal, even with the fresh tomatoes but I think I'd try with the sun-dried ones next time for the intense taste.  And potatoes on the side because I'm still hungry.  Blooming diet!

Thai Salmon Fishcakes

If I want a birthday or Christmas present from the husband, it has to be something that you can buy on the internet.  Even better if it comes from Amazon because he can get it on Super Saver Delivery and it doesn’t cost him anything.  This is because he doesn’t like having to talk to people.  It’s the exact reason why if he wants a takeaway when I’m away for the weekend, he’ll phone me and get me to phone the takeaway of choice.  I am so grateful that you can order from Dominos online so every once in a while he manages to feed himself without any input from me.

So last year, I asked for a copy of the Domestic Sluts handbook , which he actually went and bought from Waterstones(!) – probably because he only remembered the day before my birthday that he’d not bought anything and there’s no overnight delivery when your birthday is December 21st.  I came across their website/blog through Twitter when they tweeted about something or another.  It makes great reading, however, it’s become increasingly clear that there is still a wide (financial) chasm between being a Domestic Slut and a Slummy Mummy (which is what I am).  I do honestly mean to get round to reading the book one day, but with so many recipes to thumb through and my own blog to write, it’s still sat on the shelf having only been flicked through.  Like most good websites, I’m more likely to read the online offering than the hard copy version these days – a sad reflection of having a jam-packed life.

As it contains recipes, it is in amongst the cook books, but they’re all very ‘social’ recipes and as I’ve not done any socialising since long before Miss A arrived, it hasn’t warranted use.  I hope it will one day.  But in keeping up with their tweets, tonight’s recipe is courtesy of the Sluts website – Thai Fishcakes.

I’ve mentioned before that my inability to know how to make a chilli dipping sauce was one of the catalysts for starting this challenge.  Thai fishcakes are something I’ve wanted to make to force me to learn how to make the dipping sauce.  I ended up cheating and using shop-bought sauce because I didn’t have enough chillis to hand.

As the website says, the recipe is embarrassingly easy (and they don’t get you to make your own dipping sauce, so no guilt there from me).  I will say that before cooking, the mixture looks disturbingly like the innards of sausages that are made from ‘reclaimed meat’ with a few fancy herbs and spices mixed in.  But once cooked, they look far more pleasing.  Served with a sweet chilli sauce, a squeeze of lime and some healthy brown rice (that didn’t make it into the picture), it makes for a really pleasant – if sluttishly expensive – meal.

Will I make again?  Possibly although I preferred Lorraine Pascale’s salmon and sweet potato fishcakes.  But if I ever get round to making my own chilli dipping sauce then at least I know what to road test it with.

BBC Good Food Spaghetti with Tuna, Capers and Chilli

I think the reason the husband stopped cooking for me stems back to the very early days of our relationship.  I've mentioned before how I was bowled over by him wanting to cook for me on our first date and was touched that he made the effort to cook from scratch (well he used shop bought pesto) rather than just getting and M&S ready meal.

A few weeks later he offered to cook me his signature dish.  I was impressed.  It's not to say I'd never dated anyone who could cook before - my first long term boyfriend was a whizz in the kitchen, but only at about 3am as he operates on a different time zone to the rest of the UK - but to be offered a signature dish was upping the ante a little.  Or so I thought.  The dish was hot pasta with mayonnaise, chicken, tuna, bacon and sweetcorn stirred in.  I am totally okay with people telling me I'm fussy and ungrateful over this, but I'm sorry, I just didn't like it.

See I have a problem with the idea of tuna with lots of things.  For me, tuna comes as a lightly griddled steak, seasoned with black pepper and lime and still pink in the middle.  Or if it's out of a tin then it should be mixed with mayo and either in a sandwich or on top of a jacket potato.  If I'm feeling adventurous, then  I'll have it in a pasta salad.  But always with cold pasta.  There's just something in my head that can't compute tuna and hot pasta.  Or tuna and cheese - I'm sure tuna melts are very lovely but I'd rather fritter away my lunch choice on something else rather than risking the disappointment of not liking a tuna melt.

So tonight's recipe choice was selected to try to get me to get over my fear of certain tuna dishes.  Originally I'd picked up a recipe for tuna, asparagus and cannellini bean salad.  It sounded lovely and seasonal until I realised that actually, it's exactly the same as another recipe I tried a while back except the green veg in that one was fine green beans.  Although one was from a recipe book and one was from the Good Food website, they were exactly the same, right down to the quantity of dressing.  I smell a rat here.

As that felt a bit cheaty, I ended up choosing this recipe which calls for hot spaghetti to be tossed with cold tuna, capers, raw red onion and garlic, chilli and lemon.  I wimped out on the raw onion and garlic front and sauteed them for a couple of minutes just to take the harsh edge off of the taste.  I need to make sure I overdo the mouthwash tonight and tomorrow morning so as not to offend anyone.

Once served, the dish looked absolutely nothing like the picture from the website.  Now I appreciate that I'm not a skilled photographer or food stylist and I don't have a photo studio to hand with which to photograph my dinner.  But if you look at the two pictures side by side and read the recipe, you'll note that whilst the BBC one is artfully scattered with green herbs, the actual recipe makes no mention at all of using herbs.  Nor does it mention seasoning.  Which I found really helped this dish along.

Guess which one had a pro food stylist?

It wasn't bad and hot pasta and tuna is okay.  I definitely won't make this particular recipe again as I found the pasta really bland.  I should have trusted my instinct and seasoned it in the pan before mixing in the ingredients.  Maybe because it's an Olive magazine recipe, they just assume that readers will automatically season the pasta and they don't need to spell it out like Good Food do for their readers.

Same with the herbs.  Maybe if I was clever enough to read Olive, I'd automatically garnish all my dishes with green stuff.  Ho-hum.  If you want to try the recipe yourself, you can find it here.

Lorraine Pascale's Paprika Baked Fish with Lemon, Chorizo and Thyme

Now that the weather is warmer and evenings lighter, I felt it was time I went for a nice summery fish dish as it's been a while.  Pascale's recipe seemed perfect as it combines the fish with chorizo - the top savoury ingredient in my tag cloud (make that the current total plus another one!)  So far, I've loved the way she uses so many different flavours in her recipes but they all come together to make a really tasty dish.

This recipe wasn't shy in its ingredient list.  Fish, chorizo, lemon, cherry tomatoes, thyme and paprika all jostled for attention.  Sadly, in my case, the fish lost out and was just a random, tasteless piece of protein to bulk out the dish.  Maybe it was because I used frozen fish that it was so tasteless and perhaps the luxury of being able to nip to a local fishmongers would significantly improve the fish in the recipe.

I had seasoned it to what I thought was within an inch of its life and had been a bit heavy-handed with the paprika.  But on eating, there was this tiny layer of tastiness followed by the overwhelming blandness of the fish.  And it wasn't even a welcome blandness that some heavily flavoured dishes need as contrast.  It was just 'blah'.

Spot the fish

To be fair, you can get similar with chicken.  One day you'll cook a recipe and the chicken will be beautifully moist, with just a hint of its own flavour to work against the intensity of whatever the rest of the dish is spiced with.  Another day, chicken bought from the same location (but obviously has come from a different bird) can ruin a dish with its complete lack of subtle flavour.  And before I get any veggies (lovely as they are) jumping up and down telling me that it's wrong to eat meat, I have the same complaint about carrots and tomatoes too :)

It's a recipe I'll try again but I would definitely make an effort to buy my fish fresh and eat it on the day.  Probably one to try when I'm on holiday and I can go buy fish from the quayside and whack it straight into the pan.  Or maybe not because I wouldn't have a clue how to fillet it.  *Note to self, Google fishmongers in Scotland*

I made a small addition to the recipe.  Pascale suggests serving it with saute potatoes or crunchy chips.  Because I am time poor, I cooked my potatoes alongside the dish - halving baby new potatoes, frying them cut side down in the pan with the chorizo and baking them in with the fish to finish off.  This worked really well as they picked up some of the flavour from the chorizo when frying.  Definitely a good twist to the recipe in my humble opinion.

This is my adaptation:


Serves 4

• 175g chorizo, cut into chunks
• Handful of chopped fresh thyme
• 4 white fish fillets, such as haddock, cod or pollack (preferably sustainably caught), skinned
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 pinches of smoked paprika, or to taste
• Grated zest of 1 lemon
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 10–12 cherry tomatoes
• 5–10 cloves of garlic, peeled
• 450g baby new potatoes - halved lengthways

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas mark 6. 
2. Put a frying pan over a high heat, add the potatoes (with the cut side down), the chorizo and the thyme and cook for five minutes.
3. Put the fish in a roasting tin, season with salt, pepper and paprika and sprinkle over some of the lemon zest. Drizzle over the olive oil and sprinkle the tomatoes and the garlic around. 
4. Scatter the chorizo and potatoes around the fish and bake in the oven for 12–15 minutes until the fish is opaque and shiny inside. Serve with a crunchy green salad.

Nigel Slater's Posh Cheese on Toast

If you're a regular reader, you may have figured that sometimes my husband drives me more than a little nuts with his 'discerning' tastes.  We're like chalk and cheese.  We argue about anything and everything.  But for some reason, after seven years of marriage and nearly nine years, we still manage to rub along together.

There are moments when I really love him.  One such recent moment was a couple of days before Christmas.  We'd not had the best time a few days before with lots of tantrum throwing (the adults this time, not Miss A) and rather unusually, I was permitted the choice of evening telly viewing (before 9pm and probably because there's no football two days before Christmas) so I decided on Nigel Slater's Simple Christmas.

The husband abhors cookery shows.  He despaired while I was on maternity leave as I was constantly Sky plussing back-to-back episodes of CDWM.  The only thing he will remotely tolerate is Celebrity Masterchef.  But it seems only the series when Lisa Faulkner was in it.  I'm sure that's something to do with her previous days as a lads mag starlet.

So I was mightily surprised when he seemed to be actually paying attention to Mr Slater.  And then came the moment when my heart burst with love for him.  You see Nigel was making 'Posh Cheese on Toast'.  It came out from under the grill all hot and bubbly with cheese that you knew would just stretch like soft elastic when you tried to separate bits of bread.  The toast, charred crisply around the edges.  'Do you think I'd like that?' asked the husband.

Call me mean, but I had to chuckle to myself.  The husband won't eat fish at the best of times.  He'll eat Birdseye fish fingers, but offer him a fish supper and he'll go for  steak and kidney pie and a battered sausage.  Even when we've been to Whitby, the home of fish and chips by the sea, he still had a pie and chips.  So despite having seen Nigel flake in a couple of mackerel fillets, he still assumed he might like this recipe.

Give me Cathedral City any day...

He also likes his toast barely brown.  In fact some days (bless him), I think I could just get away with giving him stale bread and telling him its toast.  We have a constant battle over the dial on the toaster with me preferring level five (just this side of charcoal) and him level one (barely warm).

So tonight was the night for me to try this.  Of course, I just made his Double Gloucester on toast first, left him to that and then nuked my own 'posh' cheese on toast a bit later.  And I'm sorry to say, I'm not a fan.  When I want cheese on toast, that is what I want.  Cheese.  And toast.  Not faffed with.  No Worcestershire sauce or anything faffy like that.  Just fat, gloopy, slightly toasted bits of cheese on thick white, burnt-around-the-edges toast.

Don't get me wrong.  I love a good Croque Monsieur or a Croque Madame.  I've never had Welsh Rarebit (*scoots off to add to the list of things to try*) but fish and cheese on toast?  I'll take a rain check next time.  I may have overdone the topping.  It seemed too little to share between two bits of bread, but slightly too much for one.  I couldn't taste the horseradish - but that was my bad for being a wimp and not wanting to overpower it.

I'm sure if I was on a day when I was really in the mood for fish then it might have worked for me.  Today was not one of those days.  And now I have to figure out what to do with the two remaining mackerel fillets currently stinking out my fridge.  Watch this space...

You can watch the video for this recipe here

Greek-Style Calamari

Today's recipe comes from a book called EatWellLiveWell with Gluten Intolerance which I bought from Holland and Barrett.  A few years back, the husband went to one of those Chinese herbalist places and they decided his general malaise was best treated with a really expensive cocktail of stewed forest floor sweepings.  Which smelt and tasted disgusting.  On top of that he should follow a wheat-, dairy-, tomato- and taste-free diet.

The stuffing

I spent weeks trying to perfect bread that lasted more than thirty minutes before going rock hard and didn't crumble the minute you tried to cut it.  We were introduced to the single gluten-free delight of Black Farmer sausages.  And I bought several recipe books on the subject, all of which are much thumbed but never used because the husband won't entertain anything containing pulses, fish, or vegetables and if there was a chicken dish he might eat, he'd only eat it with two slices of real bread which kind of defeated the object.

So in the original spirit of this blog, I decided I should at least try a few of the recipes myself.  The first being the afore-mentioned calamari.

Now I've only ever eaten my calamari deep fried and usually with a huge pile of aioli on the side.  One of my favourite tapas dishes.  Along with patatas bravas.  And the Spanish equivalent of Melanzane Parmiagana.  And those little meatball things.  And tortilla.  And mini paellas.  Okay, okay, I love tapas already!  Anyhow, this appealed as it was something different with squid.

Squid always reminds me of my first proper date with the husband.  The first time I spent the evening with him, he cooked for me at home (chicken dusted in flour and chargrilled chicken spice then fried served with pasta tossed in pesto; no pudding) because he spun me a line about how it was nicer we could sit in and talk to each other rather than sharing a restaurant with loads of other people.  In hindsight, I now reckon this is because he's 'discerning' in what he eats.

The next night, we went out to an Italian in Richmond-upon-Thames.  I ordered calamari for my starter.  It never occurred to me that the then boyfriend-to-be would baulk at the idea.  Nor that I too would end up baulking at my starter.  Because this was the first time I'd been served whole baby calamari.  Tentacles, eyeballs and all.  Deep-fried with a pile of garlicky aioli on the side.  I wanted to throw up.  Or at the very least hide them in my handbag.  But of course, wanting to make a good impression with the posh Tory Boy-type (or so I thought) who was wining and dining me in Richmond, I soldiered on and ate every last rubbery one.

The finished calamari (scuse the crap in the background!)

Months later when it had become increasingly evident that the husband has a limited palate, I broached the subject of the calamari.  "I couldn't believe you ate those" said he. "I nearly didn't ask you on a third date because I thought you were some strange freak for eating squid brains.  I wanted to throw up"  Ah, the things we do for love!

Anyhow, Ocado (or Waitrose - can't remember which) sell frozen squid tubes which I figured was more convenient than having to faff around and go to the fish mongers.  I'm not sure whether it was the cooking or the freezing of said squid that made it a little rubbery.  Or if it was just a rubbery squid in the first place.  But it has a weird and very firm texture that I didn't really warm to.  I've had 'regular' calamari with the same texture before and often wondered if it was the cooking method or that some calamari are just tougher than others.  Like how you sometimes get a tough bit of chicken or beef, no matter how carefully you cook it.

As for the filling, it was pretty tasteless.  The recipe didn't mention seasoning the stuffing or the sauce with salt and pepper.  It really needed it.  The delicate apricot flavour was overpowered by the rich tomato sauce.  In fact, the stuffing was completely devoid of taste if eaten with the sauce, but alone, the delicate herbs, onions and pine nuts came through.  The lemon zest and apricot still didn't.


This one is probably something that if I was a fan of squid, I'd experiment with.  But it didn't even make my world tremble enough to make me want to try it again.  I wish my world had been rocked.

Recipe - Serves 4

1kg cleaned squid tubes

Stuffing

• 2tsp olive oil
• 2 spring onions, sliced
• 250g cold, cooked basmati rice
• 4tbsp pine nuts
• 4tbsp finely chopped dried apricots
• 2tbsp chopped parsley
• 2tsp finely grated lemon zest
• 1 egg, lightly beaten

Sauce

• 400g tinned tomatoes (the recipe uses fresh but this is too faffy for a school night for me)
• 2tsp olive oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 3tbsp good-quality red wine
• 1tbsp chopped oregano

1. Preheat the oven to 160c.  To make the stuffing, mix together all of the stuffing ingredients in a bowl.
2. Wash the squid tubes and pat dry inside and out with paper towels.   Three-quarters fill each squid tube with the stuffing.  Secure the ends with toothpicks or skewers.  Place in a single layer in a casserole dish.
3. To make the sauce, heat the oil in a frying pan.  Add the onion and garlic and cook over a low heat for two minutes or until the onion is soft.  Ad the tomatoes, wine and oregano and bring to the boil.  Reduce the heat, cover with a lid and cook for ten minutes.  I would advise seasoning to taste with a tsp of brown sugar and salt and freshly ground pepper.
4. Pour the hot sauce over the squid, cover and bake for 20 minutes or until tender.  Remove the toothpicks before cutting into thick slices for serving.  Spoon the sauce over the top just before serving.

Mustard and Herb Baked Salmon

Can you believe I'm *ahem* thirty-something and have never cooked a piece of salmon before?  Well I've put salmon into things like fishcakes and 'luxury' (said a la Come Dine with Me with a Dave Lamb fake Midlands accent) fish pie and smoked salmon bagels.  But I've never actually taken a piece of salmon and cooked it as a dish before.

I've eaten it plenty of times when my family have been 'being' good.  But it's really not my fish of choice. Give me a nice piece of yellowfin tuna or some monkfish.  Even haddock or cod.  But there's something about salmon that's never means it's never really jumped out at me as a fish to buy and cook myself.

Back last month, I made Lorraine Pascale's salmon and sweet potato fish cakes, currently the second most popular post on my blog so far, and had a spare piece of salmon left which I froze with the intention of trying this recipe.

It worked well because every Wednesday, without fail, the husband has chicken sprinkled with Schwarz chargrilled chicken spice, a pack of Uncle Ben's Express tomato rice, two bits of buttered bread and some instant Bisto gravy (his choice entirely - nothing to do with my culinary skills; he was eating this meal several nights a week before I met him!) so as I work a long day (early start, late finish) it's good to have a really quick dish for tea and this one went well alongside the baked chicken.

The topping is really quick and simple to make and smelled beautifully fresh and healthy.  To make it even quicker, I used Garden Gourmet parsley so there was no faffing around chopping herbs.  Just stick a few spoonfuls of various things into a bowl, give it a stir, put it on the salmon and into the oven.

What I liked most was that you could actually taste all the different flavours in the topping.  The parsley was distinct, the mustard cut through nicely and it was accented by lime zest with the salt and sugar enhancing the sweet/savoury taste.

Tasty dinner, poor perspective!

The topping also kept the salmon really moist because whilst juggling lunch box making and zapping rice in the microwave (sigh), I forgot that the salmon was in the oven for 20 mins yet it was still nicely cooked and not at all dry in the middle.

Did it work with the salmon?  I'm not sure.  I enjoyed the dish but the topping was really flavoursome and when eaten with the fish, the delicate salmon flavour was overpowered.

I think it would have worked better with a fish that had a less defined taste.  Or, indeed, on top of chicken.  But a nice, easy, tasty dish for a harassed mum of two - sorry, mum of one, wife of one who set herself a daft cooking challenge on top of a demanding full time job, a demanding child and a demanding toddler.  I mean...  I'm sure you get my drift.

Will I make it again?  I'd probably cook it for guests if we ever had any and if the husband wasn't present as I don't think he'd like the sweet/savoury combo even if it was on chicken.  I might road test it on the child one day and I'd give it a whirl for a quick healthy tea if I had some leftover salmon.

Recipe - Serves 4

• 100g dried breadcrumbs
• 1.5 tbsp soft brown sugar
• zest of 2-3 limes
• 2 tbsp Dijon mustard
• knob of butter
• 1 bunch fresh parsley, chopped
• 4 salmon fillets
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 200c (180 fan), 400f, Gas 6.
2. Mix the breadcrumbs, sugar, lime, mustard, butter and parsley together in a small bowl
3. Place the salmon fillets in an ovenproof dish.  Divide the topping between the four salmon fillets and squish down on top.
4. Bake for 10-15 minutes depending on your preference.
5. Serve with potatoes and green veggies.

Hearty Paella

This weekend has seen me visiting the Mothership.  I phoned her up in the week and said 'I'd like to cook paella on Saturday night please?' 'Why?' asks the Mothership. 'For my blog.  I've only ever eaten paella at La Tasca (more on this shortly) so I figured I'd make it for tea for everyone.' Cue confused silence.

Paella with the world's most giant lemon wedges

'It's for my blog, the 366 recipe challenge.  You know the one I explained to you when we came to stay in November and I asked you to let me make a pie so I could learn how to make decent shortcrust.'  'What challenge?' 'The one where I cook something new every day for a year.  I'm four months in now.' 'Oh I don't have time to read about it.  Who's doing this challenge?' 'Just me.  I decided to challenge myself because it's not like I have anything better to occupy myself with' (said with a heavy hint of irony).  Further bemused silence.

I gave up trying to explain the challenge and justify myself.  I then went for the angle of it being nice having someone else cook tea for a change and I think this appeased her slightly.

So why, I hear you ask, have I only ever eaten paella in La Tasca?  Well I've been to some amazing tapas restaurants in London; a favourite being the one in Spittalfields Market.  But we spent so much time sampling all the different types of tapas that we never got round to a proper main course.  At weekends, visiting Borough or Camden markets, I saw some amazing paella on offer by street vendors.  But when you're accompanied by someone who is 'discerning' in what he eats there was no chance of eating something so amazing.  And the one day I managed to get to Southwark Cathedral by myself on a half-day from work; they guy with the paella wasn't there.  Ever since then I've been meaning to try making it myself but life just got in the way.  Until today.

After perusing several different interpretations, I went for Lorraine Pascale's recipe from Home Cooking Made Easy.  I've enjoyed several meals from this book since I got it for Christmas and felt it was as good a place to start as any.  It seemed pretty simple and one of the plus points for me was that it didn't have mussels in it.

Don't get me wrong.  I love mussels.  They just don't love me.  I've eaten them five or six times in my life and every single time, I've ended up acquainting myself with the bathroom ceramics.  Once or twice would be unlucky.  This many times leads me to believe that I possibly have some weird allergy.

Of course, despite knowing this, on the way out this morning, my mother piped up with 'Oh I'm really looking forward to having mussels in the paella tonight'.  Cue inward groans from me.  Sadly, I couldn't find any fresh ones in shell for that characteristic look, so I settled for some fresh, mixed seafood (prawns, squid, mussels) and some tail on king  prawns.  I was also suprised that this recipe uses chicken breast as I believe the more traditional recipes use whole chicken thighs.  But not wanting to do anything too removed from the recipe, I did as instructed.

The overall result was pleasing.  I used white Merlot instead of sherry.  I wish there had been more direction on the measurement of smoked paprika because I personally felt it could've done with some more.  A small test bit tasted okay, but a whole bowlful tasted nice, but slightly lacking.  If (or when) I make it again, I'd use double the chorizo, more squid and if I was making it for other people, I'd use shell-on mussels.  I might also throw in some thinly sliced red and green pepper too.  Not sure how authentic that is.  I also found that I needed to add about another 200ml stock as after five minutes, all the liquid had been absorbed.  But that may just be the rice that I had.

Best of all was that for once, everyone had the same thing for dinner.  Well except for Miss A who had hers avec jus d'orange (food stirred into her juice cup before consumption!) There were no sulky faces and much to my dismay, everyone wanted seconds - I was hoping to polish off the rest myself!


Ingredients:-

• 2 chicken breasts, cubed
• 100g chorizo, sliced into rounds
• 4 cloves finely chopped garlic
• 2 tsp smoked paprika
• 12 big shell on prawns
• 300g mixed seafood (mussels, prawns, squid rings, scallops etc)
• 300g arborio paella rice
• 2 tbsp olive oil 
• 400ml good chicken stock (I used 600ml in the end)
• 225ml dry sherry or dry white wine
• 4 spring onions, sliced into 1/2 cm chunks
• 150g frozen peas
• handful flat leaf parsley
• lemon wedges
• salt & pepper

1. Heat oil in a frying pan, cube & season chicken and start to brown in frying pan
2. Add chorizo and fry for a couple of minutes
3. Add chopped garlic and paprika and fry for a further minute
4. Pour in 150ml of sherry or wine and bring to the boil
5. Add 300g of arborio rice
6. Pour in 400ml of chicken stock and bring back to the boil then turn the heat down to a simmer for approx 30 mins.  Add a lid to the pan half way through, about 15 mins (Lorraine's Tip: if you dont have a lid that fits cover with a baking tray)
7. In a second pan heat some more oil and add the spring onions, then toss in the whole prawns & fry for about 3 minutes
8. Add the peas and the remaining alcohol and boil off for a couple of mins
9. Now combine the prawns, seafood, onions & peas into the pan with the chicken, chorizo & rice
10. Season with salt and pepper and stir through, then leave, don’t worry if some of the rice sticks to the pan, the Spanish appreciate this ‘Socorrat’ as the best bit!
11. Garnish with roughly chopped fresh parsley and lemon wedges and serve in the pan

Tuna and Cannellini Bean Salad

Despite my constant derision of my husband for being fussy, I must confess that I too am a creature of habit.  Especially when it comes to lunch in the working week.  Years ago, when I was working in London, I'd eat the same Boots Shapers bacon and mushroom pasta five days a week.  When they stopped making it, I switched to peanut butter and banana sandwiches.  

I moved jobs.  We alternated between two sandwich shops.  Despite the huge selection, I would always have Coronation Chicken from one shop and a toasted Spinach Fiorentina Ciabatta from the other.  Another job change (and an impending wedding) saw lunch became jacket potatoes with tuna and a pile of cucumber on the side.  Something I generally stick to at my current job too.

Lots of healthiness

But now, I've been seconded to one of our other sites, I'm in crisis.  They don't have a canteen.  It's in the back end of beyond, with the only hint of civilisation being the family of ducks that inhabit the litle pond outside the front door.

Up until now, I've stuck to buying my lunch because with a full time job, a toddler and having to cook three different dinners and pack two other lunches on a daily basis, I really can't be faffed to make my own lunch once all that's out of the way.  So, my options are to cadge a lift to the local bakery and buy some overpriced, tasteless sandwich and resist their tempting sausage rolls and cakes (tried this once, never again) or to drive to the local motorway services and pay for an overpriced tasteless sandwich from Costa - but get a decent coffee whilst I'm at it.  Or make my own lunch.

Hmmm…  Well in the spirit of trying new things, I had a leaf through some recipe books this morning and found a recipe in the 'Diabetes Cookbook' by Bridget Jones (no, not 'The Bridget Jones') which fitted the bill.  My mum bought me this book as the hubby has Type 2 Diabetes but I would have an uphill battle to get him to eat anything out of it other than what's in the cake section.  But it's got some lovely, healthy recipes in it that fit right in with dieting.

Ready for work. Ate the rest straight from the bowl!

I've adapted it a little as it has tomatoes in it and as you may well know from my missive about Chilli Jam from Sunday, I have issues with tomato innards.  So I plumped for sun-dried tomatoes instead.  

Although it was originally intended for tomorrow and Thursday's lunch, I ended up scoffing the second portion for tea tonight.  Have a feeling this will be my regular lunch now while I'm on secondment.  Unless anyone starts a regular Costa run….

Recipe - serves 2

• 1 can tuna chunks in brine, drained (I used this to keep the calorie and fat content down)
• 50g sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil, drained and roughly chopped
• 400g  tin of cannellini beans, drained
• 75g fine green beans, trimmed
• 1/2 red onion, finely sliced

For the dressing

• 1 dsp olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1 dsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tsp wholegrain mustard
• juice of half a lemon (I used lime, but found it a bit too sweet in the end)
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Lightly cook the green beans in boiling salted water until tender (approx five minutes).  Cool under running water to help retain their colour.
2. Whisk the ingredients for the dressing together in a small bowl.  Taste and adjust the seasoning as necessary.
3. Combine all the salad ingredients with the dressing and serve.

Rachel Allen's Sushi

Today has been one of 'those' days.  Nothing terrible happened, just a day full of those petty frustrations such as a child who thinks sleep is for wimps and it's okay to watch the CBeebies Christmas Pantomime for the fifteen-hundredth time at 3am; a work laptop that only works when it feels like it; and "women's troubles"  

It's also the husband's birthday today.  If it was me, I'd love to go out to dinner or have someone cook me something really special.  But the husband's tea of choice is a Chinese takeaway and a bottle of Merlot so the recipe had to be a lunch thing.  Luckily, I work from home on Thursdays giving me thirty minutes to concoct something for lunch.

I actually started this morning's recipe early on.  As it's takeaway for tea and I'm still in January-diet-hell, I figured something fresh and healthy would be good so plumped for Sushi, Rachel Allen style.  This meant I could make the sushi rice and pop it in the fridge before I started work at 7am and then just had to do a bit of chopping and rolling come lunch time.

Now, in a post-sushi making haze, I understand why sushi chefs take seven years to train.  I figured it was because of all the different and often dangerous fillings and styles that they use.  But even the simplest California roll is a challenge to the novice.

Ready to roll!

Firstly, the rice is sticky.  So you take a handful out of the bowl and 'gently smooth it over the Nori'.  Except that most of it stayed stuck to my hands.  A lightbulb moment dawned and I figured that damp hands would be better.  Except this caused the rice to lose it's tackiness and then I couldn't shape it into little blocks for Nigri.

And when you read up on the subject and it says 'you need a sharp knife', they're not lying.  It's not just to cut perfect pieces of fish - it's to cut through the Nori, which I ended up taking a pair of scissors to when I was trying to cut through the very last bit of my California rolls.

Twenty minutes later, I had roughly the same amount as you'd get in a £4 box from M&S except they were all the same flavour.  Did they taste better and fresher?  It wasn't really noticeable as I only had smoked salmon and avocado.  I'd love to do fresh salmon and tuna ones, but when I was looking up how to buy sashimi grade fish, it all sounds quite scary if you don't buy quite the right stuff and horribly expensive when you do!

Would I make it again?  Maybe if I wanted to show off for a get together and had hours to make it.  But just for me?  Nah, I'll stick to the shop-bought stuff.  It may not be as good as the meal I once had at Nobu in another life, but I'm not that rich or pretentious to care.

Smoked salmon nigri, cucumber maki,
salmon and avocado California rolls

As for Allen's instructions?  I don't think it can even be dignified with the term 'recipe' and lunch time is over so I don't have time to type up her waffle for now.  She implies that she and her husband 'figured out how to make it between themselves'.  So they read the instructions on the back of the sushi packet, looked at how the box they'd bought from Marksies was put together and then became experts?  

She doesn't even describe the Nigri properly - referring to them as patties, which in my book means round and flat when in fact the picture in the book quite clearly shows them to be block shaped (as they should be).  I'm sure there are far better instructions for sushi shaping on YouTube.  This is the first recipe I've tried from Food for Friends.  I'm not sold on it so will have to make something else from her shortly.  

I bought the book based on the glossy TV series and imagined myself wandering around barefoot on a flagstoned kitchen floor in a big old country kitchen, cooking delumptious things for friends and family a few years from the date of purchase.  Instead I'm stuck on the edge of the 'burbs in a newish-build semi with a slight tang of disappointment from the book I thought would change my life.  Oh well, it only cost a tenner.

And on the health front, the small amount of sushi I made actually contained more calories than my usual working from home lunch of two slices of wholemeal toast with peanut butter.  I know which I'd prefer next time!

Lorraine Pascale: Salmon and Sweet Potato Fishcakes

Day Two of the 'healthy' eating regime and my willpower is starting to wane already.  What makes it so hard is being at home rather than in the office where I'm distracted from the rumble of my belly by far more important things.  But when you're home all day (and I have another whole week off yet) and the weather's miserable and your really hungry and your toddler won't eat their English Muffin with banana and peanut butter, it's really hard to stay focussed.

Mmmm...lunch

Thankfully, lunch for me today was Lorraine Pascale's Sweet Potato and Salmon Fishcakes from Home Cooking Made Easy.  Chosen because fish is one of the few things the fussy toddler will eat.  So she's having them for tea.  Whether or not she'll like them is another matter.  But it seemed like a really nice, healthy-ish recipe for me, my blog and my healthy eating regime.

To help me remain focussed, I'm also on the look out for things that will motivate me through the next few long, dark-weathered months.  We're holidaying in North Berwick this summer so I can't even use the 'I need to look vaguely okay in a swimsuit' level of motivation as the last time I wore anything less than full wet weather gear on a Scottish beach was about 25 years ago.

View from my desk

When the local art shop reopens, I intend to get a huge piece of board to put on the wall of our study where I can stick these little motivational snippets.  At the moment, the only thing I can see right in my eyeline when I'm sat at my Mac is the lovely 'Keep Calm and Eat Cake' canvas which came via Santa from the lovely Martin at Chick Shack (follow him on Twitter @Chic_Shack)

My clippings so far include the photos I posted of me yesterday at my slimmest and fattest and a piece from Runners World about a woman who only seriously started running in her mid-thirties and went on to win the New York Marathon at 43.  Okay, so I won't delude myself that I stand a hope in hell of doing that, but if I can get myself round a marathon before I'm forty, I'll be happy.

So if you have any little motivational snippets you'd like to send my way, please do.  I need all the help I can get!

Ready for the oven

And I was rescued from the torture of toddler leftovers by the making and eating of these salmon fishcakes.  Like all the Pascale recipes I've tried, they're very tasty but I did find the mashed salmon and potatoes very very wet to work with.  To the point that I shaped them, put them down while I prepared the egg dip and then when I picked them up again, they fell apart.  

I can see why they'd need to be refrigerated if you go for the frying option.  If (or rather when) I make them again, I'd probably just heat the mash mixture for a couple of minutes to let it dry out a little before shaping.

They are covered in Panko breadcrumbs which made a really nice and crispy outer although I'm sure they look more aesthetically pleasing with regular breadcrumbs.  And if you wanted to be really healthy, you could use wholemeal ones.

They make for a really filling and tasty lunch.  I had mine on half an English muffin with a pile of salad veggies and feel stuffed full, but in a light-stuffed, rather than Christmas-pudding-stuffed way.  I made half the recipe and it made three generously sized burgers.

And at 279 cals for the burger, the muffin half and a tablespoon of Hellman's extra light, this is diet food at its tastiest.  

Recipe

• 500ml fish stock
• 400g sweet potato, peeled and diced 
• 200-250g salmon  fillets, skin removed and each one cut in half
• Large pinch of paprika
• Squeeze of lime juice
• 1 bunch of fresh chives, finely chopped
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 lime cut into quarters to garnish (optional)

Coating 

• 1 egg lightly beaten
• 100g dried breadcrumbs (I used panko but any kind will do)

The fishcakes can be either shallow fried in a little oil for 2-3 minutes over a medium heat or baked in a pre-heated oven for  20-30 minutes at 180c/160c fan/Gas 4

1. Heat the stock in a lidded frying pan until boiling.  Cook the sweet potato and fish until the potatoes are soft when poked with a knife.
2. Drain in a colander then return to the pan and add all of the other ingredients (except the oil and items for coating) then mash together.
3. Divide the mixture into four and shape into patties about 2 cm thick.
4. Put the beaten egg and breadcrumbs into two separate dishes then dip each fishcake in turn, first into the egg and then into the breadcrumbs.  Depending on how well the mixture coats the fish cakes, you may want to double dip them.
5. Place on to a very lightly oiled baking tray and into the oven for 20-30 minutes.