Category Archives: Food for One

Salmon Trout Parcels

20 Monday Jan 2025

Posted by in Fish, Food for One, Main Courses, Techniques

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Salmón trout fillets steamed on a bed of black rice and flavoured with fennel, leeks, garlic and fresh red chillis. This is a great dinner party dish as everything is prepared in advance and each portion individually parcelled up in tin foil ready to be baked in the oven. I suppose this is more of an assemblage than a recipe. Of course it’s a method of cooking that allows for variations of flavourings, I’ve used ginger, lemongrass and chilli, with coconut milk as the sauce and rice noodles as the bed to lay the fish on. I’ll write that style out in more detail at the end of this basic recipe.

So you need

fillets of salmon trout

cooked rice, I used black rice which apart from being tastier than white, was a great colour contrast to the trout

tender vegetables that will cook in 15 minutes, for example broccoli florets, mange toute peas, spinach, asparagus. I used the first two for this recipe.

well flavoured fish stock, 3 tablespoons per serving

finely chopped fresh red chilli

fennel fronds

finely sliced leek

finely chopped spring onion

finely chopped parsley

olive oil

Cut a large oblong piece of aluminium foil for each serving and oil the inside.

Place on one half of the oblong a portion of rice, on this a fillet of trout and the vegetables to each side of the fillet, then the seasonings, a sprig of fennel, pinch of chopped parsley, the sliced leek and chilli, and finally the spring onion

Spoon over 3-4 tablespoons of the fish stock and season everything well with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Fold the aluminium sheet over the fish and seal the sides by neatly folding over the foil twice.

Lay the parcels on a baking sheet and bake at 180C for 20 minutes.

Simply serve each parcel on a plate and let yourself and your guests open them at the table and enjoy firstly the wonderful aromas of the fish and it’s herbs before the delicate taste of the dish.

As I said earlier there are many variations of flavours and ingredients than can be used with this method of cooking.

Any lean fillet or steak of fish can be used, salmon, hake, cod, swordfish.
The base can be a purée of potatoes or other root vegetables, with these being quite moist adjust down the amount of stock or sauce that is spooned over the dish.
Flat rice noodles work very well. I soak them in cold water for 15 minutes, drain them, and then pour over boiling water and leave them 2 minutes before draining again and using them in this dish. I allow 40 grams dry noodles per person.

To follow the oriental them of the rice noodles I flavour the fish with slivers of garlic, ginger, chilli and lemongrass and use coconut milk as the liquid.

Have fun trying your own combinations

Tofu & Mushroom Cakes

25 Sunday Feb 2024

Posted by in Food for One, Main Courses, Snacks and Tapas, Vegan, Vegetable Dishes, Vegetarian

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Creamy on the inside and crispy on the outside, with the mushroom enhanced by the addition of seaweed and oriental flavours, you will love these little cakes as much as I do.

Per portion

130 grams firm tofu

50 grams oyster, or other well flavoured, mushrooms

1 sheet dried nori seaweed

1 cm cube, more or less, fresh ginger

1 clove garlic

fresh chilli

2 teaspoons miso soup base

1 heaped teaspoon cornflour plus extra for coating the cakes

oil for shallow frying

To a mini food processor add the roughly chopped ginger, garlic and chilli, then whizz for a few seconds.

Add the roughly chopped mushrooms and break the nori into the mix. Process to combine. Stop the processor and scrape down the mix from the sides if needed.

Break the tofu into the processor and add the cornflour and miso paste. Process until you have an even smooth paste that sticks together.

Remove the mix and divide into four equal amounts. Put some cornflour onto a plate and form each quarter of the mix into a little flat cake, coating it in cornflour as you do so.

Heat oil in a frying pan and add cakes. Cook on a low heat. The cakes are quite delicate so you only want to turn them once, so let the first side get nicely golden brown and crispy before gently turning them over.

I served them with chilli vinegar and some steamed green vegetable dressed with a little sesame oil and seeds.

Enjoy!

Fusion Fish

24 Saturday Feb 2024

Posted by in Fish, Food for One, Main Courses

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Silvery, slippery, super fresh little fish, and locally caught too, I couldn’t resist. I’d got planned for lunch spicy tofu cakes flavoured with seaweed, mushrooms and ginger, the fish pickled in lime juice with ginger, lemongrass and coriander would complement them nicely. The recipe for the tofu cakes will be in the next post.

Boquerones en Vinagre

Boquerones en vinagre is a traditional dish here in southern Spain, the little fish are pickled/cooked in wine vinegar and then topped with finely chopped garlic and parsley, and dressed with olive oil. The preparation of these I’m reposting here.

For today I’m making the variation mentioned in the original post, where lime juice is used to pickle the fish but adding oriental flavours as a topping. For the first marinade I used half rice vinegar and half lime juice. Then just lime juice as the second marinade which is topped with grated ginger, finely slice lemongrass and green garlic stem, then finely chopped red chilli. It was delicious with the lime giving a gently sweetness.

Enjoy ❤️

A Trio of Roast Vegetables

21 Sunday Jan 2024

Posted by in Food for One, Main Courses, Vegan, Vegetable Dishes, Vegetarian

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This is another one of my not really a recipe recipes. Plain roast carrots, beetroot roasted with orange slices and Pedro Jimenez glaze and roast tomatoes with spring garlic and a crunchy oatmeal topping.

The carrots bought from the local market were so sweet and full of flavour that I had the idea of roasting them to keep all that flavour in and concentrate it a little. I simply coated them with olive oil before roasting.
To accompany the carrots beetroot baked in tin foil. It was cut into chunks, I added chopped garlic and thin orange slices then drizzled with olive oil and Pedro Jimenez glaze which is a concentrated sherry glaze and similar to balsamic glaze, which can be used instead. They were seasoned with sea salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper.
Currently I’m in love with roasted tomatoes, so a small tray of them had to be the third dish. I cut plum tomatoes into chunks, added chopped garlic, drizzled with olive oil and seasoned well with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Then I crushed up one of my oat crackers, this batch had been made with the addition of Panch Poran, a mix of whole spices, cumin, fennel, black mustard, nigella and fenugreek seeds, and sprinkled this on the tomatoes. This worked really well as some of the oats soaked up the juice from the tomatoes and some stayed crispy while the spices added interesting flavours.

The three vegetable dishes went into the oven at the same time at 140C fan/ 165C/325F/ gas mark 3 for 40 minutes.
As is quite often the case, I had about a third of each dish left over, so the following day it made a not so pretty but super tasty tortilla.

Farinata

08 Wednesday Nov 2023

Posted by in Food for One, Main Courses, Starters, Vegan, Vegetable Dishes, Vegetarian

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or socca, torta di ceci or cecina is a thin savoury cake made from chickpea flour. This recipe originates in Italy, though due to the high nutritional quality and good flavour of chickpeas and their flour there are many recipes from many counties that use chickpea flour as their main ingredient. I’m going to give you a selection of these recipes in the next few posts.

This is a super easy and simple dish to make. A batter is made with chickpea flour and water, seasoned, poured into a shallow baking dish on top of smoking hot oil, topped with whichever flavouring you fancy and baked for ten minutes.
You can have your flavouring as simple as fresh herbs, rosemary is particularly good, or vegetables that are part cooked. In the photo below I sliced and fried fresh artichokes, the version above is spring onions and garlic with cima di rapa, a type of mustard green that has a lovely sweet and slightly bitter taste.

For 4 servings – cooked in a 36 centimetre diameter shallow pan

150 grams chickpea flour

450 ml water

4 tablespoons olive oil

salt and freshly ground black pepper

prepared topping for the farinata

Preheat the oven to 230c / 210c if a fan oven/ 450f /gas 8

Put the water into a bowl and slowly whisk in the sieved flour. Whisk to eliminate any lumps.

Put in a warm place for an hour or two when it should have bubbles on the surface.

Stir in 2 tablespoons of oil and season with salt and pepper

Put the other 2 tablespoons of oil in the pan and warm the pan in the oven until very hot and nearly smoking.

Take the pan out of the oven and quickly pour in the batter, arrange your topping evenly over the cake and put back in the oven for ten minutes until golden and crispy around the edges.

Serve straight away with a salad or two.

Marinated Bonito & Mixed Salad

18 Tuesday Jul 2023

Posted by in Fish, Food for One, Main Courses, salads, Starters

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Bonito is a medium sized fish related to tuna and mackerel which is in season in the Mediterranean Sea at this time of the year, so very reasonably priced. I bought a couple of thick steaks yesterday. I like to remove the skin and the little bones that divide the north, south, east and west of the steaks, so that I am left with four mini steaks from each slice of bonito. Two of these make a generous portion per person, so of my eight steaks, four went straight into the freezer, and four I cooked at lunchtime.

I fried them in olive oil together with two thinly sliced garlic cloves and had two of them for lunch with grilled vegetables. The other two I let cool and put in a small dish with the cooking juices of oil and garlic, then I put in enough white wine vinegar to come about half way up the fish. I covered the dish and left the fish to marinate in the fridge. Last night I turned the steaks over to ensure that the pickle was penetrating the fish all the way round.

So today I cut up the steaks and served them on a bed of salad using the marinade as a dressing.

The salad consists of a layer of lettuce and purslane from the vegetable garden, roughly diced tomatoes, avocado slices, the first padrón peppers and okra this season in the garden, thinly sliced radish and purple basil leaves. Yummy!

South American Style Prawn Cocktail

25 Wednesday Jan 2023

Posted by in Fish, Food for One, salads, Snacks and Tapas, Starters

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When I cook for my friends I quite often like to have a theme to the dishes, so once I’d decided on Chicken Burritos as a main course for this particular lunch, I was looking for something to have as an appetiser. There are generally frozen prawns in the freezer, so why not mix them with typical South American salads, tomatoes, peppers, sweetcorn, add a spicy sauce sharpened with lime juice and have a prawn cocktail?

My guests loved it!


Per person

8 large prawns in their shells

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon quinoa – black or red look good, but if you have neither then the white is fine

1 tablespoon diced green pepper

1 tablespoon diced red pepper

1 tablespoon sweetcorn kernels

1/2 small avocado diced

Lettuce leaves to decorate your dishes

For the dressing

1 small clove of garlic

Fresh red chilli – finely chopped

1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh coriander leaves or the same of green coriander seeds

zest and juice of 1/2 a small lime

Boil the quinoa until tender.

Drain and put in a bowl with the rest of the salad ingredients.

Peel the prawns reserving the heads and skins.

Fry the prawns in olive oil until just cooked. Remove to a plate and let cool.

To the same pan add the heads and skins. Fry gently squashing the juices out of the heads with a wooden spatula.

Once the prawn heads are cooked and have given out their juices, add the coconut milk and water. Mix well scraping any solid bits at the bottom of the pan into the liquid and squashing the the heads again to add yet more flavour to the dressing.

Let cook down a little and then take off the heat.

With a pestle and mortar crush the garlic, chilli and coriander with a pinch of salt.

Strain the dressing into the mortar and then mix well.

Add the lime zest and juice, mix again, then add the dressing and cooled prawns to the salad and mix to cover all with the dressing.

Line your serving dishes with leaves and pile on the cocktail.

Enjoy!

Red Pepper & Walnut Pate

23 Monday Jan 2023

Posted by in Food for One, Sauces, Starters, Vegan, Vegetable Dishes

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This rich, spicy pate is popular throughout the Middle East with each country having their own variation of flavourings added to the two main ingredients of walnuts and roasted red peppers. In Turkey it’s name is Acuka, and it’s fiercely picante, in Syria it’s Muhammara. You, of course can make it as mild or spicy as you prefer.

For the red pepper flesh, either roast about 400 grams of thick fleshed peppers in a hot – 180C – oven until the skin is slightly charred and blistering.
The peppers can be roasted over a glowing fire or barbecue as well of course.
Remove to a container with a lid and leave to cool.

Skin the peppers and remove the seeds and stem keeping any juice that flows out of them.
We are aiming for about 300 grams of flesh including any juices.

Alternatively, if you can get hold of a jar of ready roasted and skinned Pimientos de Piquillo, these can be used for making a quick dip.

So you will need –

300 grams red pepper flesh

50 grams walnut pieces

1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds

1/4 teaspoon allspices/ pimienta de Jamaica

1/4 teaspoon black or mixed peppercorns

1 clove garlic

1 small chilli or more to taste

4 tablespoons virgin olive oil

zest of 1 lemon plus 2 tablespoons of its juice

salt

2-3 heaped tablespoons dried breadcrumbs


Toast the walnut pieces in a thick based pan on a low heat, turning them over from time to time until they ara golden colour at the edges and you can smell their rich scent emerging.

Put to one side to cool.

Now put the cumin, allspice and peppercorn seeds in the same pan and toast until their aroma is detectable.

Put them into a small food processor and whizz to a powder.

Add the pepper pulp, garlic, olive oil, a pinch of salt and the lemon juice and zest. Whizz to a fine purée.

Add 2 of the tablespoons of breadcrumbs and pulse to mix in.

Leave for about half an hour for the breadcrumbs to absorb the liquid in the purée and thicken it. If it is not the texture of a spreadable pate and is too liquid add more breadcrumbs.

Add the toasted walnut pieces and pulse to mix in to the pate and be cut up a bit smaller but not too small.

Check seasonings and enjoy

Patatas a lo Pobre – Poor Mans Potatoes – with Broken Eggs – con Huevos Rotos

17 Friday Dec 2021

Posted by in breakfast, Food for One, Main Courses, Vegan, Vegetable Dishes

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This is a very common dish down here in Andalucia, especially at this time of year when, in the old days, the ingredients for it were pretty well all that was in the larder. Potatoes, good olive oil, onions, garlic and green peppers. It can then be fortified with whatever you have, chorizo, fresh sausages, a slice of pork, or my favourite, eggs, or if you are really hungry, all of those.
All sorts of other ingredients can be added to this basic recipe to vary it. Mushrooms work well, red peppers of course, olives for a different flavour.
Per person you want

150 grams more or less of waxy potatoes – scrubbed and cut into thickish slices

1/4 of a large onion – cut into slices

2 cloves of garlic – cut into thin slices

1 green horn shaped pepper – cut into bite sized pieces

extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper

one or two free range eggs

Traditionally the potatoes are fried with the rest of the ingredients from raw, but as you have to use a generous amount of olive oil to ensure that they don’t stick in the pan, I prefer to par boil them for five to seven minutes until half cooked, then I drain them and put them to one side while I cook the rest of the ingredients. You can do this or go the traditional method, the choice is yours.

Put two tablespoons of oil into a shallow pan, add the onions, garlic and green peppers. Fry on a low heat stirring regularly, until lightly browned at the edges.

Add the potatoes and continue frying and stirring, adding more oil if you think you need to.

Season well, and continue cooking until the potatoes are cooked.

Either poach or fry the eggs.

Serve the potatoes with the eggs on top cutting into the eggs so that the lovely warm yellow yolks dribble into them.

Enjoy!




Chickpea & Potato Cakes with Whole Spices

28 Sunday Nov 2021

Posted by in Food for One, Main Courses, Vegan, Vegetable Dishes

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These spicy cakes are so quick and easy to make and use only two main ingredients.

Per serving you need –

100 grams cooked chickpeas

medium potato

pinch fennel seeds

pinch cumin seeds

pinch coriander seeds

salt and freshly ground black pepper

olive oil for frying

Put the chickpeas in a bowl and mash them to a coarse paste.

Grate the potato into the chickpea mash and mix thoroughly.

Add all the seasonings and mix well.

Form into three cakes and fry for a few minutes each side, I turned mine twice, until they are golden brown and cooked through.

Serve with greek yoghurt and a spicy sauce.