Day 14 – Tinned Fish

My recipe for Salmon Fishcakes. It goes without saying that I used tinned salmon but rather than this being a disadvantage, most recipes for fishcakes actually specify to used tinned fish. In fact the master of tasty and unpretentious dishes Mr. Nigel Slater has this to say:

Tinned-fish fishcakes
Lovely. Canned salmon and sardines make deeply flavoured fishcakes. You will need the same quantity as fresh fish, and you will have to drain them of their oil or water. Squeeze wedges of lemon over.

Appetite by Nigel Slater (2000)

The recipe:

• Half a tin of pink salmon (about 200g)
• 1 medium potato, peeled and grated
• 2 tablespoons plain flour
• some olive oil
• one medium onion chopped finely

How to cook:

Mix the salmon, potato, flour, onion and a little salt and pepper together in a bowl.

Heat some olive oil in a non-stick pan.

Take a palm sized amount of the mixture and shape into a ball and then flatten.

Pat fishcake with some flour to coat lightly.

Fry for 4-5 minutes on each side under golden.

Serve with my sweet chilli dressing – recipe to follow shortly…

Day 13 – Baked Bean Soup

 

Just don’t eat this before a date or there could be some embarrassing Blazing Saddles moments (video below).

• 2 cans of 400g baked beans
• 900ml chicken stock
• 2 medium onions
• a little olive oil
• some Worcestershire sauce

How to cook:

Cook the onions in a little oil till soft but not brown. Add the stock and baked beans. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat and cook for 20 minutes or so. Its really tasty and would be especially nice with chopped up sausages or chorizo.

Adapted from a recipe in A Celebration of Soup by Lindsey Bareham.

Day 4 – Morganatic Wives

 

 You know how it is. You go into the pound shop for your usual tin of meat and come out with a novella by 19th Century American writer Henry James.

There were three books to choose from. A guide to French B&Bs (the 2003 edition naturally), a history of BBC Radio 4’s the Today program and The Europeans by Henry James. Since I wasn’t planning to time travel back four years for my next holiday and since I already listen to too much Radio 4 to be reading about it as well, I picked up The Europeans.

I haven’t read any Henry James before despite The Turn of the Screw having sat on my bookshelf for quite a while now.  The pound shop is the Land of Firsts. My first can of corned beef, my first taste of dehydrated ‘shaped’ beef (more on that another day) an now my first Henry James.  The blurb on the back:

Eugenia, an expatriated American, is a morganatic wife of a German prince, who is about to reject her in favour of a state marriage. With her artist brother she travels to Boston to visit relatives she had never seen before, in hopes of making a wealthy marriage.     

 I had to look up morganatic in the OED:  

 A marriage between a man of high rank and a woman of low rank who retains her former status, their children having no claim to the father’s possessions or title.   

So like Charles and Camilla. Will post a review of The Europeans when I finish it.