Smoked Salmon Potato And Asparagus (or Broccolini) Salad

As much as I enjoy watching Jamie Oliver on the telly, I have never been one to make his recipes. But a friend (or my cuz?) gave me his 15 Minute Meals cookbook a while back, so here we are.  This was our Cookbook Club's monthly book a few months ago, and luckily I had a copy already.    

My shelves are groaning with many a cookbook (and regular books), but will that stop me buying Nagi's new one this month or Nigel Slater's or Stanley Tucci's or Alice Zaslavsky's?   Nah, of course not.  Though I do give many books away or donate to our local Uni for their annual book sale.  

I recently lost a fair bit of money ordering books from a company that went belly-up, taking everyone's money!  And I also ordered Nigel Slater's new one online, but when I read the bookshop reviews, they were all scathing about the lack of service etc, so I have asked for my money back.  'Cos you just never know!  Once bitten, twice shy, and I have certainly been bitten!  Fingers crossed!  Ooh, I just checked - yay, my money is back!

gather your ingredients

Serves 4:

ingredients:

500g./18 oz baby potatoes

4 rashers of smoked pancetta (see Notes) or 120g./4 oz mushrooms, which you have sliced into a bowl with: 

1-2 Tbs EV olive oil  (use 2 Tbs:=) Go on!)

1/2 Tbs sherry vinegar (or apple cider vinegar)

sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

A few dashes of Green goddess seasoning  (optional)

Which you leave to marinate for 10 minutes

1 tsp English mustard

1 heaped tsp wholegrain mustard (or use 2 tsp wholegrain if you prefer)

4 Tbs Greek/natural yoghurt

1-2 tsp white wine vinegar

1/2 bunch of fresh dill

1 tsp hot sauce  (optional - my idea to add)

1 red chicory (says Jamie!) or about 30g./1 big ounce baby spinach leaves

180g./6.5 oz cold smoked salmon   see Notes

1 bunch/300g./10.5 oz asparagus or broccolini or snow peas

1 lemon, cut into wedges, for serving

Serve with lightly grilled bread (and butter) if you wish

Method:

Boil or steam (or microwave) your potatoes till tender

In the meantime, make up the mushrooms so they have time to marinate

Lightly steam or boil the asparagus or broccolini till as tender as you like 'em

Chop up the dill

So just lay the green veg. prettily on a platter, then place the potatoes and mushies on top, then cast the salmon (which I snipped up with scissors first) over the lot

Mix up the mustards, yoghurt, dill, vinegar and hot sauce in a small bowl, then pour over the salad

Serve with the lemon wedges, and bread and butter

Notes:

Marinate the mushies for 10 minutes before putting the salad together

If using pancetta, Jamie says to give it a blast on the griddle pan - i.e. let it get golden :=)

Jamie says to use 240g. of salmon but I only had 180g. and that was fine

gather together your prepared ingredients

mix up the dressing

lay the veg. on a platter, and snip up the salmon

pile everything on top

ready for eating, watched over by Dino 

c. Sherry M.

Jaboticaba Jam

So, our jaboticaba tree fruited like a maniac on steroids the other week.  It is a Brazilian rainforest tree, happily for us planted by the previous owner of our house.  It fruits twice a year (though a friend said they knew someone who had a tree that fruits four times a year).  The fruit grows all over the trunk and branches directly, so it looks really weird!  (As you may have seen in my most recent post.) 

I invited a friend over to pick some fruit, as he is a keen jam-maker, and a very keen forager.  He came over with a large bucket and picked heaps, but it made little difference to the fruits on the tree.  Soooo many fruits!  And the bats and possums must have been having a feast.  Mr P. and I did some house painting just near the tree and were nearly overwhelmed by the fermenting fumes.  I imagine incredibly alcoholic!  So drunken, crazy bats flying over!

here it is before the fruit ripened in the next couple of days!

The whole thing was done and dusted in about five days; it flowered, it fruited and they fell off!  There might be another harvest at Christmas time.  I have bags of fruit in the freezer for more jam-making in the future, anyway.

Original Recipe by Sherry:

ingredients:

420g./15 oz of apples and/or strawberries – strawberries lightly mashed, and apples grated or blitzed in the processor    see Notes

80g.-100g./3-3.5 oz or so of whole jaboticaba fruits – skin on (‘cos that’s where the pectin lies)

400g./14 oz caster sugar – half raw and half white caster – or use all white or all raw sugar

Juice from one lemon – maybe 2 Tbs?

1-2 big tsp vanilla extract

¼ tsp rosewater

Big splash of spiced rum - optional, but delicious!

Method:

Put the fruit and sugar into a large saucepan and under a low heat, and bring to the boil while stirring, till sugar dissolves

Then turn up the heat, add the other ingredients, and boil rapidly for up to 10 minutes (watch out for splashes) – no more than ten, stirring often.  This stuff sets like concrete if you boil it too long!

Check for set from 8 minutes on!   i.e. – put a saucer in your freezer for ten minutes, spoon a small amount of the jam onto it, and if you can run your finger thru it after a few seconds, it is ready to go

Let it cool down a wee bit, so you are able to safely spoon out all the skins and seeds – tedious but necessary

Then spoon/pour the jam into sterilised jars (I put my jars in the dishwasher to get super clean!)

Keeps in the fridge – well, for ages!  Unless you eat it all first :=)

Notes:

I peeled my apples but you don't have to.  I used red apples 'cos they were lurking in my crisper, but you can use your fave apple!

If you have a lot of fruit still on the tree (and you will!), place them into a plastic freezer bag in a single layer (and you can freeze them for a couple of months, maybe more), and then when next making jam, let them thaw out and make the jam as above

tip the fruits and sugar into the saucepan

and let it boil! but only for 10 mins.! And stir it often

ooh it's so shiny and beautiful!

so delicious!

so enchanting! so mysterious! so pretty!

c. Sherry M.

In My Kitchen - October 2024

Ho ho ho!  Do I hear those sleigh bells ringing already?  We were at the local Post Office the other day, and there were several (toy) Santas hanging from the walls plus fairy lights!  Noooooo ...  Nah, not gonna do it this year.  My name will be Scrooge :=)

What a month!  It has been hot and cold and busy, and our Jaboticaba tree went nuts.  I am going to sneak in a photo for you.  It is hard to do anything with the fruit as it often falls off within a couple of days.  Our mango tree is also flowering madly at the moment.  It is an old tree so we don't get much (if any) fruit from it.

the multitudinous fruits grow straight from the trunk and branches!

And they go from green to black in a couple of days.  There are thousands of them on the tree as I write.  I have tried to make jam in the past but the pectin in the skin is so strong, it has generally turned to concrete - hehehehe ...

In My Kitchen:

I bought a cute little plate at Logan Art Gallery - 
after checking out the Brett Whiteley exhibition

I made another batch of pickled cukes

I bought some Marimekko paper napkins

I grabbed a few goodies from our local providore Mumbleberry

and I bought these online

oh yep! another cookbook

our Iranian friends brought this back from Iran for me

I bought two lovely tablecloths from a hippie shop in Northern Rivers!

I made tomato ketchup for Mr P. (and Cookbook Club)

and I bought some herbs and spices :=)

and I added some zingy yuzu salt to my collection of salts

and here comes the curveball! Gelato Bob by our mate Chainsaw Newton!

c. Sherry M.

Be a part of our friendly IMK community by adding your post here too - everybody welcome!  We'd love to have you visit.  Tell us about your kitchen (and kitchen garden) happenings over the past month.  Dishes you've cooked, preserves you've made, herbs and veg. in your garden, kitchen gadgets, and goings-on.  And one curveball is welcome - whatever you fancy; no need to be kitchen-related.  

The link is open from the first of the month to midnight on the thirteenth of the month, every month.

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On The Road Again - Tamworth And Beyond - Part Three

You asked for it, so here it is!  Well, maybe you didn't but you're getting it anyway :=)  More about our recent trip down south/out west.  We love a roadtrip!  And art galleries, and mountains and wildlife, and food, and architecture - well, you get the drift ...

we saw kangaroos at Ebor-Guy Fawkes Cemetery, NSW

  

we stayed at The Pottery Shed cottage in Boambee near Coffs Harbour
- see the wee gas stove?

we took a walk on the Coffs Harbour Jetty

and joined lots of folk taking a morning stroll

heading here!

I bought a small ceramic whale here, by Indigenous artist Tony Hart

I ate a fabulous rösti with grilled halloumi

while Mr P. had "magic" apple-cinnamon pancakes

we had lunch here in Sawtell (as per above)

we visited the brilliant new building holding the Coffs Harbour Council/Library and Art Gallery
 - artwork on wall by Reece Flanders titled River Connections

Mr P. and I loved this building!

and we enjoyed walking around the top storey of the building

we had time for a coffee!

And then we drove the 4.5 hours home, back to Brisbane.  Some misguided people would like to suggest that time goes backward when you cross the QLD border.  How silly of them, and how clever of us to keep 'em away - hehehe ...

the whale by Tony Hart

Preserved Lemon Harissa

Last year our Tassie friends came up for a visit, and kindly gave us some organic Meyer lemons from their tree.  I turned some of them into preserved (salted) lemons, and there they sat in our fridge since last Winter.  (This was written a few months ago!)  So I decided to turn them into preserved lemon harissa.  'Cos I love to whizz things up in my food processor.  "So satisfying!" as a certain YouTuber (EmmyMade) often says.

I've adapted a basic harissa recipe from Taste.com.au, adding a few extra ingredients, like the preserved lemons, the rose petal powder and honey (and lemon EVoo).  Why not go big? :=)  So here we have it - the Sherry version.  

the result - 2 wee jars of paste

Makes 2 small jars:

ingredients:

2 long red chillies  (looks like I added some dried chilli flakes too)

2 green jalapeños

130g./4.5 oz (approx.) of preserved lemon rinds (no flesh)  see Notes

2-3 garlic cloves, chopped roughly

1/2-1 tsp sea salt flakes  

1/2 tsp ground rose petal powder (or dried rose petals) or a sprinkle of rosewater (maybe 1/8 to 1/4 tsp?)

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground cummin

3-4 tsp EV olive oil, or 1 tsp lemon-pressed EVoo + 2 regular EVoo

1/2-1 tsp honey (optional)

1 tsp EV olive oil on top of each jar

Method:

Chop up the chillies and jalapeños, removing most (or some) of the seeds (all of 'em if you don't fancy the heat)

Throw the de-seeded little babies into your food processor (a small-ish one if you have it) or grab your mortar and pestle if you're going old-school

Put in the preserved lemon pieces, without the flesh, and the garlic, and blitz away

And add the rest of the ingredients (sans the last amount of EV olive oil)

And blitz!  till as smooth or chunky as you please

Spoon into small jars, top with EV olive oil, and keep in the fridge for a month or 2

Notes:

Use all red chillies, or your choice of chilli - green, whatever :)

Use more or less preserved lemon, as you wish

ingredients gathered

in go the chillies and jalapeños

and the preserved lemon rinds, and garlic

and the rest of the ingredients

spoon into small jars

and keep in the fridge for a month or 2

c. Sherry M.

I used the harissa in a chicken traybake one night.  I had about a kilo/2 lb of skinless chicken thighs, which I tossed in 3 Tbs maple syrup, 3-4 Tbs harissa paste, a huge splash of EVOO, and salt and pepper.  Baked at 185C for about 25 minutes.  Delicious!

and don't forget the veg.!

Mr P. is sick with a cold at the moment, not that he lets that stop him.  He's still working as per ...  I am feeding him up, and giving him lots of vitamins.  I made a preserved lemon hummus yesterday (I'll blog it eventually), and added lots of garlic to help kill the germs (just kidding) - but you never know!

He's convinced that the flu jab helps keep the colds at bay too.  He read recently that we need a second jab each winter!  Crumbs, when does it stop?  I am a pin-cushion already these days.  Wow, those shingles shots were a blast!  I reckon this harissa will kill 'em all too - the germs I mean.