Gone fishing: Smoked mackerel and bacon cakes

I'd never had fish cakes until a couple of years ago. Really. I'm not sure why or how, I guess I was more a battered fish and chips kind of child, but they are a midweek meal revelation. Meat and potatoes in one dish! You don't even need a side, it's all there self-contained in one plump little pattie. Weaning myself in on M&S ones, it was high time to graduate to making my own, step in Nigel Slater's...

Smoked mackerel and bacon cakes

Serves 4 (here I halved quanities for 2)

400g floury potatoes

150g smoked streaky bacon
3 spring onions
1tbsp olive oil

250g smoked mackerel flesh

oil for cooking

flour for dusting

lemon halves to serve

Peel and pop the potatos on to boil. While they're simmering away put the bacon and roughly chopped spring onions in the food processor and whizz until they look soft and sort of crumbly (left).

Once the potatoes are boiled, drain and mash away. Fry up the onions and bacon mix in oil until golden and tasty smelling and then tip them into the mashed potato. Flake the mackerel flesh into the mix and stir through, seasoning with a bit of salt and pepper.

Now for the fun part, flour up a backing tray and with floury hand shape your patties and leave on the tray in a cool place (I went for by an open window) for 20 minutes.

Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a frying pan. dust each cake with some of the flour from the tray and pop in the hot oil. Fry for a about 4 minutes on each side until they are crisp and golden, mmmm. Serve with the lemon half, some salad and, if you are feeling well crazy, some creme fraiche or tartare sauce. Yum.

Magical Mystery Tour: Pork steaks and sour cream mustard sauce

I love how making up recipes is like a mystery. Or more accurately like piecing together the evidence on a crime scene investigation. That crime scene being my fridge come midweek.

Making a mental note (actimel, fat free yogurts, one egg, the old remains of some pâté, some fast wilting thyme and chives, and three quarters of pot of sour cream) I headed to the Sainsbury's at Clapham Junction in hope. You need a lot of hope when you enter the Sainsbury's at Clapham Junction. As with most train station food shops the amount of raw ingredients is minimal (apparently commuters don't cook), so you can never go in with any preconceived ideas of what you are going to make, as odds on they will only have one of the ingredients. It's the magical mystery tour of dinner making. Cut that with that a queue that snakes down almost every spare inch of space in the shop so you cn't actually get to anything, creating your gourmet midweek meal is facing a big challenge.

First stop: do they have any fresh meat left? Fish: hmm it looks a bit dodgy. Chicken: I'm not inspired. Pork! Pork steaks! Only £3! Ok, pork steaks plus fridge contents equals.... Pork with sour cream white wine mustard sauce. Plus classic side: broccoli and new potato crush. Yum.

So with the pork steaks (you could use chops) and about 3/4 small pot sour cream I add:

Handful of new potatoes
Small bunch of thyme
Small head of broccoli
Wholegrain mustard
White wine
5 or 6 shallots









Pop the potatoes on to boil for 20mins while you chop the shallots. Five or six minutes in put on the pork chops and shallots in a frying pan, slosh over some white wine and add some garlic.

The pork steaks need to cook for about 12 or so minutes (turning ever so often), so after about eight add the sour cream, about 1tbsp of wholegrain mustard and some more white wine. Stick on the broccoli now too.

Mix well and let the sauce simmer away while you add some chopped thyme (the best way, I find, to just get the leaves is to hold the sprig of thyme by the chopped off end (bottom) and run your fingers down it to pull off the leaves).

While the sauce is simmering a little bit, prepare the crush (or get a handy sous-chef, the Boy, to do it for you). Drain potatoes and broccoli and put them in the same pan. Add a dollop (about 1/2tbsp aka one dessert spoon) of wholegrain mustard (can't get enough of the stuff tonight - we used Fortnum and Mason's chilli mustard for a bit of an extra kick), salt and pepper and then crush with a fork or masher. Don't go crazy with the masher mind, this is a crush not a mash. Don't pulp your broccoli. Then serve!

PS. For the pun-lovers (and Peter Andre lovers) out there I wanted to call this post 'Mysterious Grill' but sadly I pan-fried the pork...) And... groan.

Just another manic Monday: Morcilla Spanish Omelette

Monday is a bit of a cooking void in our house. Another week of work, sigh. Detoxing after a weekend of (probably excessive) alcohol, sigh. And over-eating, sigh. Empty fridge and supermarket fatigue, sigh. It doesn't sound promising.

Everyone needs a cupboard meal. You know the one that is on standby if some shows up, cancels on you or it's just Monday again. To emphasis how much I hate Mondays I have two: risotto and frittata/Spanish omelette. Both fufil the three essential criteria of the cupboard meal:
1. ingredients that are always knocking around the cupboards/ fridge
2. easy adaptation for a multitude of finishing ingredients
3. a high tastiness-of-result to effort-put-in ratio (just in case it's that 'someone has turned up' option)

Risotto: onion, white wine, risotto rice and you're go with whatever veg/ dried mushrooms/ meat you have left over.
Fritatta: potato (of any kind altough I have found new potatoes work best - little so manoeuvrable in the pan plus don't go all fluffy and fall apart when you're cooking), eggs, onion are you're all set with some veg/ham etc

So with some leftover Morcilla from a recent trip to Spain it was Frittatatatatata Monday. To the basics I added:

3 Peppadew peppers (fantastic little fridge friends - spice up all sorts of salads, couscous etc)
1/2 red pepper
small bunch chives
1/2 pack pancetta
2 crushed dried chillis
some cream cheese mixed in the egg mix
sprinkle of smoked paprika




Pre-heat the grill. Mix up 4 eggs, cream cheese and chives and season while you par-boil the potatoes. Fry up the onion, some garlic, slices of potato and add the paprika.

Then add red pepper, morcilla, pancetta and sliced Peppadews. Pour over the egg mix and allow edges to set. The only difficult bit is making sure there is an even distribution of good stuff. No one wants a frittata full of veg while the watch the other person chow down all the meaty goodness...

Then whack under the grill until it rises and turns golden brown.

Voila! Other classic variations include: ham/chorizo plus courgette and a dash of wholegrain mustard in the mix; smoked salmon and spring onion; serano ham, asparagus and feta - the options for leftover goodness are endless.