Seared Tuna with Green Tea Soba Noodles

I First had this dish at the Taste London Festival a few years back and the subtle but quality flavour blew me away. I had to make it myself. This is the cornerstone of any oriental themed dinner party starter, and also relatively easy to make.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

Tuna steaks, 4, about 125g each

4 tbsp of Sesame oil,

Green tea soba noodles, 250g available from most ethnic food stores, Waitrose, or online

4 tbsp of White sesame seeds,

2 Baby Courgettes, cut into small cubes

Handful of Spring onion, finely chopped

1 tbsp of finely chopped chives

Sauce:

4 tbsp of Lemon juice,

3 tbsp of Soy sauce,

Root ginger (chopped), 3cm

3 tbsp of Mirin, a Japanese condiment similar to Sake, available from all supermarkets.

1 tbsp of Sugar,

Method:

1) Boil the noodles in salted water until al dente. Drain. As we are not going to use the noodles straightaway, leave in a bowl of cold water.

2) Drizzle the tuna with 1 tbsp sesame oil and season. Roll in the sesame seeds until coated. Heat a non-stick frying pan to very hot. Sear the tuna on both sides. Keep warm.

3) In a saucepan, sauté the courgette until soft. Then, put in ginger, mix well, followed by lemon juice, soy sauce, mirin and sugar. Stir and mix well. Add in some water if necessary.

4) Drain soba noodles and add in to the saucepan. Mix and make sure the sauce is well coated.

5) Slice the tuna very thinly.

6) Divide the noodles into 4 shallow bowls; serve slices of tuna on top. Drizzle extra sauce from the saucepan.

Roast Root Veg Gateaux

This one take a little prep work, but all the techniques are incredible simple and produces great results. This is a veggie but can be incorporated into mead dishes as a side, but I generally use it as a standalone vegetarian starter.

Ingredients

Butternut Squash

Celeriac

1 Sweet potato

1 carrot

Cream Cheese

1 red chilli

1 Tomato

1 Shallot

2 Chestnut Mushrooms

Smoked Paprika

Fresh Oregano

Fresh Chives

1 Clove of Garlic

Method

The Method for this should be split into 3 main groups for clarity.

1)      The Veg base,

2)      The Filling

3)      Putting it together

The Veg Base

This take longer so should be started first. Firstly, to prepare the Sweet potato, Celeriac and Squash, cut into circular slices, about 15 mm thick with a 1.5 inch radius. Steam (or carefully simmer) the Sweet potato and Celeriac for 5 minutes just to soften up a bit and preheat a baking dish with a thin layer of extra virgin olive oil. Each Veg will need a separate cooking time so I recommend as follows: Sweet potato, 20 minutes, Celeriac, 17 minutes, Squash 12 minutes. Midway through turn and baste them, and roast until cooked through and slightly browning on the outside. When roasting, throw a clove of garlic and a pinch or two or oregano into the preheated oil, as this will add a rich flavour.

The Filling

Two fillings are being made here, one tomato, shallot and mushroom reduction, and another chilli-chive cream cheese.

Firstly, to make your reduction finely chop the shallots and mushrooms and fry up gently in some olive oil. Add a little bit of crushed garlic, oregano and about one third of the finely diced chilli. Put your tomato in a blender and lightly blend, ensuring you do not make it totally liquid. Add a dash of red wine to this and pour in over the mushroom and shallot and reduce  down by about 50-60% until it has the texture of a jam or chutney.

Secondly take a decent Dollop of Cream cheese, and thoroughly mix in finely chopped chive and diced chilli.

Thirdly, finely grate your carrot and sprinkle with smoked paprika.

Putting it all together

Take a plate, and arrange your ingredients in a tower in the middle as follows:

1.       Celeriac disc as the bottom.

2.       Thick spread of your cream cheese mix

3.       On top of this put half of your grated carrot and paprika

4.       Place Sweet potato Disc on top.

5.       On top of this spread your tomato, shallot and mushroom reduction

6.       Another layer of your carrot and Paprika Mix.

7.       Top off with you butternut squash mix. Add a sprinkle of paprika on top and s sprig of parsley to decorate.

Serve and Enjoy! 

Awesome Sweet Chilli Chicken Salad

There's nothing simpler than a warm chicken salad, but your standard supermarket ready to go ones often miss out on the true potential of this dish. Its really easy and can be knocked up in about 15 minutes, for a great meal when your sitting down watching telly, but also impressive for guests.

Ingerdients (to serve 4 people):


Croutons

1 medium sized Ciabatta roll.
1-2 garlic clove
Extra virgin olive oil.

Thinly slicy the ciabatta and add to a medium hot frying pan, frying until golden brown in olive oil and garlic. This will flavour the croutons, but not to the extent that they become garlic bread. Be as rustic as you like with these as they look great either way.

Salad
4 medium Chicken Breasts
Big bunch of mixed salad leaves, ensuring that you have 3 of the following categories of leaf: Crunchy, Spicy, Delicate. I generally will use Iceberg lettuce, Rocket, Watercress, Baby Spinach and some baby gem.
Grated Carrot and Beetroot
Basil and Dil
1 medium Red Chilli
1 standard block of Greek Feta cheese
1 Yellow Pepper
1 Cucumber
High quality Sweet chilli sauce - ensure this is not a thick "dipping" sauce, but a more liquidy one. I got to a vietnamese shop in Hackney (junction of Mare Street and Wells Street) for everything oriental, and they have great ranges here.

Method:
Tenderise the Chicken, and lighly brush with extra virgin olive oil, sprinkle with some lightly chopped basil, and place under the grill, turning regularly until cooked through but still moist.
While chicken is cooking, Mix all the salad leaves together, add the yellow pepper cut into think strips and the grated carrot and beetroot. Then finely deseed and dice the red chilli and throw in. Place salad in a large container (i use a big tupperware box) and pour over roughly 4 tablespoons of the sweet chilli sauce and toss the salad extensively until evenly dressed.
Once dressed, put onto four plates and then add the basil, dill, thinly sliced cucumber and cubed feta delicately on top (you don't want these overley dressed as it will dominate the contrastin flavours that make the salad so good.
When the chicken is done, clice into thin strips and place on top of each plate drizzling a little bit of sweet chilli sauce. Add croutons on the side as required.

Salsa Verde

This Italian green sauce is a fantastic combination of fresh herbs and garlic in an emulsion of olive oil and vinegar. Serve it with poached or roast chicken breast, char-grilled vegetables and grilled Italian pork sausages, or as a relish with grilled tuna or salads involving hard-boiled eggs. It even works as a dipping dauce for tortilla chips

Ingredients
Makes 4 servings. Takes 10 mins.

40g (very big handful) flat parsley
20g (small handful) fresh basil
30g fresh white breadcrumbs
2tbsp red wine vinegar
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 anchovy fillets, chopped
2tbsp salted capers, rinsed
120ml extra-virgin olive oil, or more if required
Freshly ground black pepper

Optional extra - Add Jalepenos if an extra kick is requires.

Wash the parsley, basil and mint leaves, shake then pat dry with a paper towel. Combine the breadcrumbs and vinegar in the food processor, then add the herbs and whizz, using the pulse action, until you have a coarse paste. Add the garlic, anchovies and half the capers and whizz again using the pulse action to a coarse paste.

Gradually add the extra virgin olive oil with the motor running but try not to process to too fine a purée. Taste, add pepper and the rest of the capers, adjust the flavours accordingly and set aside, covered, until needed. Use within 24 hours.

Coriander Haddock Sous-Vide with Sauté Potato and Asparagus

This dish is fantastic for entertaining friends and a simple saturday night witha few beers. I did the latter tonight and feel genuinely happy having eaten this. Its surprisingly easy and quick, but sounds dead flash!

I'll break the recipie down into three for each part. For timing reasons, the Haddock takes about 3 minutes prep, 11 minutes cooking, the potatoes take about 15 prep, 10 cooking and the asparagus should take no more than 90 seconds.

Coriander Haddock Sous-Vide

Sous-vide is basically houte cuisine speak for boil in the bag. Done well, it can take up to 72 hours, but I think the principle of it can be transferred to the house very easily and incredibly quickly. For me, the boil in the bag method allows for a poached texture to fish, keeping it medium rare of course, but the fact that your protecting it from the water or stock, means you can force very distinct flavours on white fish.

For this get a reasonable chunky haddock fillet, season lightly, and place in a boiling bag. You can get these bags online or in supermarkets, but for this one I was stuck and have a job lot of Morrissons Boil in the bag rice lying around, so i threw out the rice and kept the bag. In with the fish put in 1 tbsp of dry white wine and a bunch of coriander. Any flavours you use will come out really strong, so feel free to experiment with great results, but avoid garlic, as this can be almost pungent in this method.
Boil a pot of water, and place the bag in. Ensure you have pressed all the air out of the bag and closed it with two wooden pegs. Leave this in for 11 minutes, which should get you rare fish, then leave to rest in the bag out of the water, and the evapourating wine will bring it up to medium rate and infuse into the flesh beautifully.

Sauté Potatoes,

This one is fairly simple. Peel and Par boil some small to medium sized potatoes, then cut into small quarters, toss in some olive oil and shallow fry with a half clove of garlic and basil until crispy and golden brown.



Blanched Asparagus

This is dead easy, but also easy to seriously mess up and timing is key. Boil some unoiled, salted water and put the asparagus in for EXACTLY one minute, draining quickly. In the pot, put in a knob of butter and when it melted, throw in the asparagus for 30 seconds, with some salt and pepper. Do this last, as they can be served straight to plate then. Be very careful not to over cook.

Serve the Haddock on top of the asparagus bed, with the potatoes in the middle in a dish.

Enjoy!

Pancake bake

On pancake day I always end up making slightly too much batter, but always cook up the pancakes anyway, as they are great the next night for this one dish meal (less washing up).

This one is really simple, and requires no effor whatsoever, which is ideal!

For this i generally use what ever meat sauce or stew i have in the freezer, but feel chilli con carne works best flavour wise, because it has that extra kick.

Basically the key idea is to get a large dish, roll the meat sauce in the pancakes, tightly pack the rolls in and sprinkle grated cheese over. Sprinkle black pepper, nutmeg and oregano over the cheese and shove the whole thing into the oven at about 160-180 for 15.20 minutes, when the cheese should be starting to crisp on top and the meat will be piping hot in the middle. The edge of the pancakes will also have a nice crunch too.

This is possible my favourite quick dinner at the moment as it takes no time and looks great and really warms you up.


Enjoy!

Baked Sea Bass with Lime and Chilli

Baked fish is so tender and so easy to do, with great results for dinner parties, and for this dish, a good quality fish, with a subtle flavour. Cooking time is also fairly minimal, which is always a plus. Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 Fillets Sea Bass, decent thickness.
1-2 limes, depending on size.
1 medium red chilli
1 glass of dry white wine
1 standard bagh of fresh spinach
6-8 baby courgettes
1 clove of garlic
4 leaves of fresh basil, diced
1 Pinch of chopped parsely

Instructions:

1. Fist prepare the Fish by wrapping each fillet in individual tinfoil parcels. put a quarter glass of wine in the bottom of the pacel, lay fish skin down on top of it and cover fish in finely chopped chilli and 4 slices of lime. Close up parcels.
2. Preheat oven tp abput 180, and place closed up parcels in for 8-9 minutes.
3. Dice courgettes and sauté with roughly chopped garlic clove.
4. Wilt and season spinach.
5. Remove the parcels from the oven while the spinach is wilting, and leave to stand closed for 3 more minutes. The fish will still slow cook in the bag. If you want the fish mroe well done, adjust accordingly, but a meaty fish can be served medium rare for best results.
6. Place a bed of spinach on each plate, and put the sautéd courgettes on top and lay the fish atop of them.
7. Garnish with the chopped basil and parsely.


Alternative results can be achieved by making a white wine and lime sauce, while pan frying the fish with chilli, which will create a crispier skin, but I prefer baking, as it allows for the chilli and lime flavours to infuse more.

Tuck in!