Mexican Pilchard Pudding

Hi.  How are you?  Are you well?  It’s amazing how many emails I have sent or received that include “I hope you are well” in either the opening paragraph or in the sign off.  “We’re fine”, I respond, “Still healthy.”  So far, I know a handful of people who have had Covid-19, including a couple of colleagues on my project, who had been working together in the south-west, just before their symptoms started nearly three weeks ago.  They’re recovering well.

Are you able to work?  DH has been working from home (“WFH”) for four weeks now, while I’d been going into the office to work with a visiting Australian colleague (aka “the Stray Australian”) until Boris announced the Lockdown on Monday 16th March, at which point the office officially closed.  The Stray Australian flew back to Oz on March 19th and is now working in his evenings, while I'm starting an hour earlier than usual so that our days overlap.  The only other difference is that, instead of sharing one big screen and sitting on opposite sides of a 2 metre wide boardroom table for 8 hours a day, we’re spending half the day talking and screen sharing via MS Teams.  He signs off at about noon, UK time, leaving me with a list of tasks to complete in the afternoon. Most days, that’s fine but I think I hit a low point yesterday afternoon, when I completely lost my mojo after trying - and failing - to make a report work for me.

The weather changed last weekend.  We went from bitterly cold and rather damp to hot and sunny, in the space of 24 hours.  Until that point, going for a daily walk was an unwelcome necessity to burn off calories and expand the lungs.  “I wish we had a dog,” I grumbled to DH one day, “then at least somebody in this household would be enthusiastic about going out for a walk!”  Today, we walked for an hour and saw, maybe, 20 people doing the same thing.  There’s an odd dance that people do now when you encounter them walking, “Are you going to cross to the other side of the road, or shall I?”, before one or the other crosses over.

Today’s recipe is brought to you via the back garden, where we are sitting in the sun while listening to the radio.  It originated in a Mexican cookbook published by Sainsbury’s, 30-odd years ago.  I have no idea where my copy is - I just went looking for it - so I can’t tell you the author.  Anyway, this is a store-cupboard recipe, that I made the other night for the first time in years, having internalised the recipe back in the 1990’s.  Coatings are based on the prices in Lidl.  If you don’t have pilchards, you can used a can of mackerel in tomato sauce instead. 

Mexican Pilchard Pudding - serves 4 - cost £1.50

Use an 8-10 inch (20-25cm) oven proof casserole or soufflé dish, something that is at least 4 inches/10cm deep.

Ingredients

500g potatoes, mashed (see step 1 below). - 25p

1x450g can Pilchards in Tomato Sauce - £1.10

1 egg, beaten - 10p

1 teaspoon baking powder - 5p

Method

1. If you don’t have mashed potatoes to hand, boil the kettle.  Meanwhile, peel, wash and trim 500-600g potatoes.  Cut into 5mm thick slices and layer into a saucepan.  Cover with boiling water, place the pan onto a high heat and bring back to the boil.  Turn down to a simmer, add a pinch of salt and then simmer for 15-20 minutes or until soft.  Place a jug in the sink and pour the potato water into that as you drain the potatoes.  Mash the potatoes, adding the potato water as necessary until you have a light but dry mash.
2. Preheat the oven to 180C.
3. Meanwhile, tip the tin of pilchards into your baking dish and mash with a fork.
4. Sprinkle over the baking powder and beat in the egg.
5. Finally, fold in the mashed potatoes.  Smooth over the top and bake for 45 minutes.
6. Serve with a green vegetable for contrast, either broccoli or garden peas.

Enjoy!

- Pip

Recipe Tuesday: Pilchard Madras

In case you've never come across the term before, "pilchard" is the Cornish name for a large sardine.  In Britain, while fresh sardines are sold as "sardines", "pilchards" are sold canned, usually in a tomato sauce but sometimes in brine.  Like regular cans of sardines - the small flat tins you can buy the world over -  the taste and smell is quite strongly fishy.  Despite this, they're a useful storecupboard item.  They're sold in 14oz/400g tins, currently for £1.09 each.   One can should feed four.

I like to cook them in a Madras curry, which mitigates the fishy flavour.  The original was made in a moment of pure inspiration, several years ago, and now I make it once in the blue moon, when I haven't preplanned dinner and fancy a curry.  That was the case a couple of weeks ago, so I thought I'd share the recipe with you.

Like all my curries, it's a one pot meal, padded with veggies (in this case, the last of the carrots which were half dead in the fridge).  Just add rice (which I have done, below).  For instructions on cooking a "regular" meat Madras, see the notes below the recipe.

Pilchard Madras

Makes 4 generous portions.  Total cost, including rice, £2.41.

Ingredients

1 large onion, chopped (12p)

1-2 cloves of garlic, crushed (5p)

100g-200g  mushrooms, sliced. (35p)

(Or, instead of the above, use a portion of base)

1x400g tin Pilchards in tomato sauce. (£1.09) 

1x400g tin chopped tomatoes (25p)

Additional veg:  e.g. 2-3 large carrots sliced or 1-2 peppers/capsicum, cubed, or a cup of frozen mixed veg (whatever is available) (15p)

1-2 tablespoons vegetable oil (I use rapeseed). (3p)

2 tablespoons lemon or lime juice (from a bottle). (5p)

Spices 1 (20p)

1 teaspoon ground chilli (more if you like heat)

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground fenugreek

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

2 whole green cardamom

Spices 2  

1 desertspoon garam marsala

1 desertspoon chopped fenugreek leaves (optional)

Rice

1.5 cups basmati rice or white, long grain rice (12p)

3 cups Boiling water

Method

1. Combine spices 1 in a small ramekin dish.  Add a tablespoon or two of water to form a thick paste and set aside.  (This will help stop the spices burning.)
2. Heat your oil in a deep saucepan or large, deep frying pan.  Fry the onion until soft and glassy, stirring occasionally.  Add the mushrooms and, when they have made water and most of their water has evaporated, add the crushed garlic.  Continue frying for 1-2 more minutes.
3. Make sure you have your tins of tomatoes and pilchards open.  Stir Spice 1 into the onion mix and fry until the aroma rises. 
4. Quickly add your tins of tomatoes and pilchards, breaking up the pilchards with your wooden spoon/spatula as they land in the pan.  Stir in well.
5. Add your optional veggies.  Bring to the boil, stirring all the time, then turn down to a simmer.  Stir occasionally.
6. At this point, put the kettle on to boil for the rice.  When the kettle has boiled, measure out your rice and pour it into a saucepan with a tight-fitting lid.  Cover the rice with twice the volume of boiling water.  Bring the saucepan back to the boil, cover with the lid and boil for 2 minutes.  Switch off the power and leave it to situndisturbed for 15 minutes, or until the rice is cooked and all the water is absorbed.
7. Immediately after you have switched off the rice, stir Spices 2 into your curry.  Simmer until the rice is done, stir in the lemon or lime juice and  serve.

Notes:-

• To cook a regular meat Madras, add a step between step 1 and step 1 above. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil/cooking fat and brown 1lb/500g of cubed beef/lamb/chicken/pork.  Remove the browned meat to a plate, then proceed with steps 2, 3 and 4, returning the meat to the pan at step 4.  In step 5, simmer the meat mixture for an hour or until it is cooked and can be cut with a fork, stirring occasionally and adding extra water if it gets too dry.  Once the meat is tender, proceed with the remainder of the recipe  
• I buy my spices in 500g bags from the Asian section of the supermarket or from Asian shops like Wing Yip and store them in old Douwe Egberts coffee jars. This is the cheapest way to buy them. Given how long they last, etc, I reckon 20p is a fair assessment of the cost of all the spices listed.
• When you are feeling flush, buy big bunches of fresh fenugreek and coriander.  Wash them, chop them and freeze them loosely packed into the largest ziplock bags you can find. (You want to be able to break up the herbs when frozen.).  When you need fresh herbs to finish off a curry, add a spoonful/lump or two straight from the freezer. 
• All the prices above are based on the cheapest option from Tesco.  Yes, you can get tins of chopped tomatoes for 25p, but only when they're on a 4 for £1 offer, when I usually stock up.

White Fish Curry

A couple of weeks ago, I was in the supermarket when I said to Kate, "I'm one of the best non-Asian curry cooks in the country". The sentence came out before I had time to censor it - I believe it, but it sounds like a boast.

Ironically, I didn't actually cook Kate a curry whilst she was staying with us. I wasn't sure whether her son would like it. So today's recipe is dedicated to her: White Fish Curry.

White Fish Curry is what we're having for dinner tonight. Like most of my curries, it's versatile and can be cooked with other vegetables than those listed in the ingredients (only the onion and garlic are compulsory vegetables). In fact, today it'll be dominated by the larger of these two whoppers from the courgette bush.


They were small when I last looked at the bush on Thursday, before we went away for the weekend. However, four days of constant, heavy rain later and I've grown a rounders bat! That's a full sized rolling pin beside them.

I sliced the larger of the two and used it instead of the mushrooms in the curry.

White Fish Curry

WW points about 3.5 per serving (including rice). Serves 4.

Ingredients

1 cup easy cook brown rice
Boiling water
500g skinless, white fish fillets, cubed
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
200g mushrooms, sliced
3 bell peppers, sliced (preferably green)
250ml low-fat plain yogurt
1/2 inch of fresh ginger, grated
1/2 teaspoon ground chili
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon corn flour

Method

1) Prepare all your vegetables.
2) In a small saucepan combine the rice with 2 cups of boiling water. Bring back to the boil, cover and simmer for 25 minutes.
3) Meanwhile, combine the chili, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, turmeric and corn flour in a dish with a small amount of water and mix to a paste.
4) Coat a frying pan with the oil and heat. Fry the onion, garlic and ginger until softened. Add the mushrooms and fry until they make water and the water evaporates. Add the peppers and fry until softened.
5) Stir in the fish. Stir-fry until the fish turns white.
6) Add the spice paste to the pan and fry until the aroma rises. Pour over the yogurt and stir in well. Bring to the boil and simmer, stirring occasionally until the rice is cooked.
7) Divide the rice between 4 plates and serve the curry over the top.

This is what it looks like in the pan:

Enjoy!!

- Pam

Cheese Pudding

I’ve got two egg yolks in the fridge and not enough motivation to want to spend much time in the kitchen tonight, so this is what I plan to make for dinner. (Now to find out that DH is reading this by whatever comments he makes via email.)

This is a savoury version of Bread and Butter Pudding; to accompany it, I’d serve a green vegetable like broccoli and, maybe, some oven roasted cherry tomatoes (put the tomatoes in when there is only 30 minutes of cooking time remaining). The recipe serves 4. If you omit the butter and use skimmed milk, it is 4 WW points a serving. Use 4 egg-whites instead of whole eggs and it is 3.5 WW points a serving.

You can, of course, omit the tuna if you don't like it.

Ingredients

Wholemeal Bread - 4 slices
Butter 1 tablespoon
50g Cheddar Cheese grated
Sweetcorn - 1 cup
1 can Tuna in brine drained & flaked
Eggs - 2
milk - 1/2 pint
3 or 4 grinds of pepper

Method

1) Butter the bread and cut on the diagonal. Arrange the slices in a lasagne dish (approximately 5 x 8 x 2.5 inches or 12 x 20 x 7 cm in size).

2) Flake over the tuna. Making sure that some gets between the slices. Repeat with the sweetcorn and the grated cheese.

3) Beat together the milk and the egg until well blended. Grind over some pepper. Pour the egg mixture slowly and evenly over the bread mixture.

4) Allow the pudding to rest for approximately 10 minutes. I use this time to preheat the oven to 180 C – when it reaches full temperature, the resting time should be over.

5) Bake for approximately 45 minutes or until golden and set.

6) Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 5 minutes before serving.

- Pam

White Fish Curry

Today's recipe has the unglamorous name of "White Fish Curry", so called because I generally cook it with the cheapest bag of filleted fish found in the freezer cabinet at the supermarket, usually pollock or coley but frequently just labled "white fish fillets". You could use cod or bream or even flake (that's shark to you non-Aussies).

The recipe serves 4 and "costs" 2 Weight-Watchers points per serving. Serve with rice.

Like many curries, this uses fresh root ginger. The best way to store ginger is to turn it into ginger ice-cubes. Buy a large root, peel and grate it. Spray an ice-cube tray with oil (helps stop sticking) and then put a tablespoonful of ginger into each slot. Freeze overnight. Turn out the ginger cubes and store in a Tupperware container in the freezer. 1 cube = 1 tablespoon or roughly 0.5 inches of ginger root.

Also, the corn flour is there to stop the yoghurt curdling when it reaches boiling point. Any flour will do.

Ingredients

Large onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon grated ginger
100g-150g Mushrooms, sliced
1 or two carrots, sliced
2 Green peppers, diced
500g/1lb skinless white fish fillets
1 cup plain, fat-free yoghurt
1 teaspoon olive oil

Spices

1 teaspoon ground chilli (or to taste)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon corn flour


Method

1) Combine spices in a small dish. Mix with cold water to make a smooth paste.
2) In the frying pan or the large pot, heat the oil. Fry onion with garlic until clear. Add the peppers and mushrooms, and fry until mushroom water disappears and peppers are soft.
3) Cut the fish into chunks, stir into mixture in pan and fry until the fish starts to turn white. (About a minute.)
4) Stir in the spice mix. Fry until the aroma rises.
5) Stir in all the plain yoghurt. Add the carrot, bring to the boil and simmer gently for 10-15 minutes. Serve.

- Pam