Mexican Tomato Salsa

This is the perfect accompaniment for any grilled white fish.  I usually team it up with sea bass fillets as they cook in minutes under the grill/broiler and the skins are easily lifted off before eating.

The salsa is invitingly hot with the red chilli, and full of flavour with the addition of snipped fresh coriander and chopped red onion.

The tomatoes for the salsa are quartered, deseeded and then chopped.  The seed centres can be saved and used for a tomato sauce as given in the Potato Gnocchi post earlier.

Ingredients:

10 ripe medium tomatoes,  quartered and deseeded, then chopped.
1 medium red onion, peeled and chopped.
1 red chilli, halved, deseeded, and finely sliced
a handful of coriander, snipped with scissors into small pieces
1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
Juice from one lime
1 Tablespoon salt
sprinkling of mixed seeds (optional)

Mix all the ingredients in a large salad bowl.  Cover and allow flavours to permeate throughout all ingredients for about 30 minutes at room temperature.  Serve.

© Judy Labi 2013

Teriyaki Wild Alaskan Salmon

Want something tasty, nutritious, and easy to cook?  Try this recipe.

There are five species of Alaskan salmon:  Kings, Reds, Silvers, Humpies, and Chums.  It is the Red, also known as Sockeye salmon, that we have available on our fish counters here in London.  I buy a whole side fillet of it, often on sale, and prepare this family favourite.  The beautiful red colour, as you see in the picture, comes from the natural diet available in the cold ocean waters.  Each wild salmon is hatched in a fresh water stream and then travels thousands of miles out to sea but eventually returns to the birth stream to lay eggs for more salmon to hatch from and thus perpetuate the species.  The exercise of all this swimming results in the firm, yet flaky meat true fish lovers prefer.

Teriyaki marinade:         (One Teriyaki salmon half, filleted, serves 4)

1/3 cup/5 Tablespoons sake
1/3 cup/5 Tablespoons Mirin
1/3 cup/5 Tablespoons soy sauce

Place the fresh salmon fillet in a large plastic bag; pour half of the above mixture into the bag and close securely.  Refrigerate 2-3 hours or even better, over night.  Turn over once or twice.

Line your grill/broiler pan with aluminium foil.  Remove the salmon from the plastic bag and place skin side down on the lined pan.  In a pre-heated grill/broiler, cook for 6 minutes; turn over and cook for about  4-5 minutes more or until the skin is well blackened.  Cooking times vary with the thickness of fillets.

Place cooked salmon skin side up on serving platter.  Peel off skin and discard.  I then scrape the grey thin fat layer off and also discard it.  Turn the fillet over to the other side (more eye appealing) and garnish with chopped parsley.  Serve hot or cold.

Remaining marinade from the above mixture can be stored, covered, in the refrigerator up to a month.

© Judy Labi 2013

Family Celebration at Heron Tower's Duck & Waffle

The four of us had a memorable brunch last Sunday to celebrate our kids successfully launching their careers.  We selected the Duck & Waffle on the 40th floor of the Heron Tower in the city of London for the occasion.  The signature dish, duck and waffle, got our vote for the best on the menu over several other mouth watering dishes offered.  The flavours of the sweet maple syrup drizzled on the Belgium waffle complimented the perfectly roasted duck's dark meat richness.  We all had a sample.

It was a clear, sunny morning to really enjoy the view. Here in the picture, the famous Gerkin is evident over Suzanne's shoulder and the Shard, over mine.  Adam towers over us windswept ladies. Needless to say, we dined inside.

© Judy Labi 2013

Japanese Tempura with Halibut and Vegetables

           Tempura is probably my family’s favorite meal.  I don’t make it that often because I find frying the chunks of battered fish and vegetables in the deep fat fryer rather time consuming.  Presenting it does make a really big hit though. 

            Halibut is my preferred fish to use because its firm white meat easily cuts into large bite size chunks for coating with the beer batter and frying.  Other white fish do not hold up in this process as nicely.

            Alaska is a source of beautiful specimens of halibut. They are fished in blue ocean waters surrounded with spectacular snow capped mountains.  My nephew, Carey Johnson, in the colored photo, is holding a good sized one he caught a few years ago in Iniskin Bay, across Cook Inlet from Homer.  As you see this is small in comparison to the one caught in Chignik in the 1920s shown in the black and white photo.  Oh well, Carey’s still made great tempura.

Ingredients:

Halibut, cut into large bite size chunks; allow 5-6/person

Sweet potato, peeled and sliced thinly

Cauliflower, divided into florets

Broccoli, divided into florets

Sweet red pepper, cut into julienne strips

Button mushrooms

Onion, any color, peeled, sliced thickly and freed into rings

(Other fresh vegetables can be used as in season that appeal to you)

Batter (Enough to coat about 4 cups of fish and vegetables):

2  2/3 cups/350g/12 oz, plain flour or rice flour

1 ½ teaspoon salt

¾ teaspoon white pepper

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

4 egg yolks

Add, whisking lightly,

            1 ½ cups/350 ml/12 oz flat beer

Refrigerate the batter at least 3 hours (covered) and then add:

            4 stiffly beaten egg whites

Dip halibut chunks and prepared vegetables into batter and fry in small batches in deep fat fryer until golden brown.  Drain on paper towels and keep cooked pieces warm in low oven until all cut fish and vegetables are cooked.  Serve Japanese style using chop sticks and lemon/soy sauce for dipping.

© Judy Labi 2013

            

Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Icing

Children can get on with this recipe but will need assistance removing the hot baked rolls from the oven.  The smell of any cinnamon bread baking is mouth watering!

Ingredients
450g/l lb/4 cups plain flour
100g/4 oz/1/2 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon salt

1 package fast action yeast

225 ml./8 fl. oz./1 cup skim milk, warm

75g/3 oz./1/3 cup melted butter or margarine

2 eggs

1. In a large mixing bowl, stir together flour, sugar and salt.  Add yeast and stir until blended.  Add milk, butter and eggs, stirring until mixed.
2. Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic.
3. Roll dough to a 1/4 inch/1/2cm thick rectangle.  Cover evenly with filling, below.

Filling:

225g/7 oz./l cup brown sugar

2 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon

75g/3 oz./1/3 cup softened margarine or butter
100g/4 oz/1/2 cup chopped pecans, optional

1. Roll up in jelly roll fashion and cut 2 1/2 cm./1 inch slices for cinnamon rolls.  Place cut side down next to each other in baking pan.  Cover with tea towel and place each baking tray over a bowl of boiling water.  Let rise about 30 minutes until double.    Bake approximately 20 minutes in 180C/350F preheated oven or until done.
2. Ice while still warm with mixture below:

Icing:

175g/6 oz./1 1/2 cups icing sugar

75g/3 oz./1/4 cup cream cheese

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

pinch salt

© Judy Labi 2013

Introduction to Spring Cooking and Baking

This year the first few days of Spring in the U.K. have been very cold, but a friend and I still ventured out to the lovely Wisley Gardens south of London looking for hardy early blooms.  Walking along the outside paths, our faces were hit by frigid air yet we were greeted with thick clumps of white snow drops, pink camellias and rhododendrons, bluebells, violet and white crocuses, and yellow daffodils.  Surrounding these multi-colored beautiful gardens are many farms with sheep coated by blankets of coarse heavy wool.  This is the time of year that lambing barns are busy with new life.  We witnessed baby lambs finding mother ewe’s warm nourishing milk.  A couple of days later these same lambs were frolicking in open, green, rolling hills of English pasture.  With each leap, they seemed to cry out, “We made it!”

         Being in the Surrey countryside reminded me of one Spring on the homestead in Alaska, when our normal routine was interrupted by a very distraught older cow moose.  We had noticed her on our daily treks out the narrow muddy dirt road.  She hovered around the same thick green spruce and birch forest area near a small lake where her young calf had died. The calf was probably killed by a bear.  As we made our way one morning in early June, the panic driven moose broke away from a patch of young alders and charged us.  My parents, brothers and I scampered  up a leaning silver birch tree to a position above her reach. She rushed below several times furiously snorting and tossing her velvety dark brown head. Our hearts thumped loudly as we tried to hold in our breath and hide ourselves behind new light green leaves. We waited with trepidation.  After what seemed like a very long while she slowly wandered away out of sight. Giving her a few more minutes, we then gingerly climbed down and quietly hurried on our way. 
         We always had much to do this time of year with the starting up of our greenhouse to ensure plenty of delicious tomatoes, cucumbers, and sweet peppers for home use.  There was also the large vegetable garden to plant with rows of potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, green onions, cabbage and various varieties of lettuce.

          School breaks occurring in late Spring offer yet another time for hands-on cooking and baking with your kids. Like the emergence of new blooms, kids have a sudden interest to participate and create when given the opportunity.   In this section, I’ve laid out an Italian/American theme.  Lunch starts with pizzaiola tartines. For it use the most beautiful bright red tomatoes you can find, and then progress to make gnocchi lightly covered in tomato sauce simmered with aromatic oregano and garlic.  Most  young children can use their hands to shape balls of this potato pasta. The dessert here, banana cream pie, has been universally applauded by kids in my cooking courses. It is topped with the easily whipped up meringue given in the Easter chapter for baked Alaska.  Finally, smelling  cinnamon rolls, hot from the oven, is truly to die for!    

© Judy Labi 2013