Fluffy Omelette w/ Mushy Peas

Mushy Peas. Start with these as it will take the longest to cook.  Defrost green peas in a pot of boiling water and cook with any kind of aromatics you want.  I went with mint.  For a stronger flavor you can saute sliced garlic and chili with oil before cooking the peas.  So, in a nice pan, put some olive oil and/or butter, throw in some finely chopped shallots, minced garlic (optional), minced chili (optional) and season with salt and pepper.  As the shallots soften up, toss in the cooked peas with the mint.  Add some chopped parsley if you want.  Cook them for a while till the water dries.  Move it to a bowl and start mashing it.  Add red wine vinegar or lemon juice to compliment the spice.  Add some sour cream or cream cheese for texture. Top if off with some fresh, finely chopped mints and parsley.  

The filling.  Make the filling before you cook the eggs.  I went with spinach and mushrooms.  You could add bacon bits or julienne red peppers or carrots if you want some crunch.  In a warm heavy pan, add some olive oil and/or butter.  Toss in sliced mushrooms with a pinch of salt and pepper and saute on medium heat.  Once the mushrooms have browned a bit, add in the spinach and toss/mix well.  Spinach ha a lot of water, so you'll have to wait for the water to evaporate before turning the heat off.  Feel free to add any other seasoning here if you want such as chopped chives, etc. 

Fluffy eggs - the key is separating the egg whites and the yolk.  Whip the egg whites till it's nice and frothy.  Beat the yolks with 1 tbsp: 1 egg ratio of milk.  Salt and pepper if you want but not needed.  Mix the yolks and whites together and make a smooth, frothy mix.  Heat a pan with a little bit of olive oil and/or butter and pour in the mixture and cook uncovered on medium heat for 2-3 minutes. It's not a French omelette so don't mix!  Wait for the froth to settle a bit - flatten the froth and then drop in some cheese (optional) and the cooked filling.  Carefully scrape the sides and fold the omelette and dislodge it from the pan by gently knocking on the handle and flipping it onto a plate.   

Garnish with spring onions/chives or more cheese (optional).

   

Fettuccine with corn creme and charred green onions

I was pretty apprehensive about making my own fettuccine at home, especially without any equipment,  but we got there in the end - not perfect, some lessons learnt, but it came together :)

Bringoli with Pomodoro/Arabiata sauce

So this was my first attempt at making pasta and sauce from scratch, but I think it turned out pretty okay.

I decided on the Bringoli "Pomodoro", which is from the Tuscan region.  Pomodoro in quotes because it's more of an inspiration from pomodoro than being true to form, much like how Bollywood movies steal from Hollywood, and more recently from Korean movies, but that's a tale for another day.

Ingredients - for 2 people

- 200 gms of "00" or "550" unbleached flour

- 100 gms of water

- 5 gms of extra virgin olive oil (this is about a table spoon)

- a pinch of kosher salt

- semolina flour/regular flour for dusting

- some olive oil for coating with a brush

(for cooking - 1 liter of water per 100 gms of pasta and 1 tbsp of kosher salt per liter)

- generous helping of olive oil, a couple of glugs should suffice

- 1 medium onion (diced)

- 500 gms of fresh ripe vine tomatoes (quartered)

- 10 cherry tomatoes (halved)

- 2 cloves of garlic (sliced)

- 1 or 2 red chili (diced) - you can either keep or remove the seeds depending on the heat you want

- a sprig of rosemary

- a couple of bay leaves (fresh or dry)

- a fist full of basil leaves

- 1 tsp salt 

- 1 tsp sugar

- Parmesan cheese or Gran Padano cheese 

- Fresh basil

- Fresh mint

- Fresh crushed black pepper

The dough

So here is the most important thing I learnt about making pasta dough.  There is A LOT to learn about pasta dough.  Here are some beginner's pointers from my research:

1. Some pasta dough requires eggs, some don't - depending on the type of pasta.

2. Most people will recommend "00" flour - it's the most granular.  In Germany, that would be 550.  You can get away with unbleached all-purpose; or 405 in Germany.  Having some semolina flour on hand for dusting would be ideal; semolina is much courser and harder to work with, so not ideal for beginners.

3. Getting measurements right is critical.  Because of the nature of flour, i.e. that it can be compressed, it is not a good idea to use cup measurements, so everything is in grams here (yes, SI units, get used to it).

4. Be patient, and DON'T PANIC!

5. Kneading is everything. 

Making it

I used 405 flour for this and it worked fine.  About a 100 grams per person is ideal.  I used a bowl to start with because I didn't want the wet ingredients to go all over the place.  Weigh all your ingredients.  Put the flour in a heap in a bowl and then make a deep crater - this is going to your well to hold the wet ingredients.  Pour in the oil and water and salt in there and slowly start mixing in the flout from the top of the mound, don't try to get all the flour in all together.  Once you've managed to get all the liquid soaked up, start using your hands to start kneading.  Look up some videos on good kneading techniques - the standard rule I learnt was, use one hard, and be consistent.  Only use the heel of your palm.  Push down the dough with your heel, fold, rotate, repeat.  That's it.  Push down, fold, rotate, repeat.  Just keep at it for 15 minutes.  You know when you're done when you end up with a springy ball of dough - pressing it down causes the dough to bounce back up.  Wrap in cling wrap and keep in the fridge for 30 minutes or in room temperature for an hour or so.  Just let it rest and the gluten get more elastic.

In the mean time start working on the sauce.   In a pot, pour in the oil and get the oil warmed up.  Throw in the onions, garlic, and chili.  You don't want to fry them, you want to make them sweat.  So you don't want to oil to be too hot.  Once the onions become translucent add the quartered tomatoes salt and sugar.  Add the bay leaves and rosemary, bring the heat down to simmer, cover, and just let the tomatoes stew for about 30-40 minutes or so - splash in a bit of hot water if needed (depends on how ripe your tomatoes are).  Check-in after 30 minutes.  If the tomatoes should have mostly dissolved, if not, turn up the heat a bit and cook for another 10 minutes.  Fish out the rosemary and bay leaves.  If you have a hand held grinder, you can run the paste through that, if not, no worries.  Put in the rest of the tomatoes, basil, and mix well.  Cover and keep on simmer.

The pasta dough has probably chilled out by now.  Unwrap the dough.  You want to flatten it out into a disc about 3-4 cm thick on an un-floured wooden board.  It's okay for the dough to stick a bit to the surface.  Now, take a bit of olive oil and brush the exposed side of the dough disc to prevent it from drying out.  

In a baking pan or on foil, spread some of the semolina flour - we'll need this for coating once we roll out the dough noodles.  

Cut out 2-3 cm thick strips of dough from the disc using a sharp knife or a pizza cutter. 

Now take the strips and roll them with your hand into noodles.  The key is to slowly pull your hands apart as you roll.  Don't worry about getting the thickness even, this is handmade art :)  You want to keep the bringoli as long and thin as possible - about 1 cm in diameter - they're going to expand in the water.  Please them in the tray with the semolina and dust it so it stays dry.

Get the water to a roiling boil with plenty of salt.  Place the pasta in the pot.  Remember this is fresh pasta so it's going to cook rather quickly - you only need them in for about 4 minutes.   Best way to check if the pasta is done to your liking, is to get it out and take a bite.  Get them out just as they get to the point of being done to your liking and transfer them out of the water to the pasta sauce.  Let it sit in the sauce for a bit to finish cooking and soaking in the sauce.  

Serve it up in a plate with grated Parmesan and the basil leaves and a rice glass of Chianti or a northern Italian red.

Parmesan crusted haddock with sides :)

So this was the first time I made fish at home, so I was quite nervous of messing it up, but I think it turned out quite alright.  I watched dozens of different recipes to come up with this final version.

There are multiple components to this meal, so I've broken these down by parts.  Because each component cooks quite quickly (except for the potatoes), it's critical to get the timing right.  I've listed out the ingredients by item and in the cook cycle I've done it by process to get all the pieces done, not by meal.

The quantities listed is ideal for two people.

Here you have it, Parmesan crusted halibut with green asparagus, mushroom wild rice pilaf, potato medallions, served with a beurre blanc sauce, which is just a fancy French way of saying lemon butter sauce :)

The fish
- I went with halibut.  You could swap with cod, or an equally flaky white fish, make sure it's fresh.  A 200 gram filet per person is about ideal since we have a lot of accompaniments.  If you're planning on just making the fish, then you can go with a larger portion for the filet.
- a bed of panko/bread crumbs mixed with grated Parmesan cheese
- salt and pepper to taste
- cayenne pepper (optional)

Wild rice and mushroom pilaf
- Long grain wild rice
- about 100 grams of wild mushrooms (or any other kind is fine)
- 1 tea spoon of olive oil or butter
- 1 table spoon of fresh cilantro
- 1 table spoon of crushed pistachio or cashew nuts (optional)
- 1/4 cup of sliced onions (optional)

Rosemary potato medallions 
- 2 large potatoes (you can get any type, it should work fine)
- 1 table spoon of fresh chopped rosemary
- 1 tea spoon of olive oil
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 tea spoons of balsamic vinaigrette or creme (optional)

Asparagus
- 500 grams of fresh green asparagus; you don't need to peel, just cut off about 5 cms from the bottom of the stalk - those parts are really hard and don't cook well.
- 1 tea spoon of chopped garlic
- 1 table spoon of broth; any kind will do, I went with veggie
- 1 table spoon of acid of some kind, you could go with white/red wine vinegar, rice wine, lemon juice; I went with mirin - which is a slightly sweeter Japanese alternative.
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 tea spoon olive oil

beurre blanc sauce
- 1 cup of white wine
- the juice of one large lemon
- about 4 table spoons (in cubed form) of cold butter (it's important that this be cold)
- 1 table spoon of shallots
- herbs of choice - I went with a table spoon of crushed thyme
- a table spoon of finely chopped parsley to finish 

Preparation - start to finish takes about 90 minutes for everything
So, the potatoes will take the longest to cook so let's start with those.  Keep the skin on, cut into circles about 3 cm thick and put the potatoes in a bowl of cold water to wash off excess starch.  Pre-heat the oven to 200C or 450F.

In a bowl, put in the rest of the ingredients for the potatoes. After rinsing off potatoes in cold water, put them in the bowl and mix nicely.  Put the potato slices in foil and cover.  They're going to go into the oven for about 40 minutes.  If the oven is ready, in they go, otherwise, put them aside and wait.

We'll start on the pilaf.  If you have a rice cooker, put the washed wild rice and set it to start.  Else, put it in a pot wand set to boil as per instructions.  In the mean time, slice up the mushrooms.  In a hot pan toss in the mushrooms.  You should hear the sizzle of the water escaping the mushrooms - if you don't, the pan isn't hot enough.  Once the mushrooms brown a bit, put in the butter and the crushed nuts and onions if you're using those. Saute till the mushrooms basically lose half their volume.  Over with foil and set aside.  We'll need this once the rice is done.

Let's get started on the asparagus.  Cut the bottom of the asparagus and wash them and dry them.  Sprinkle salt and pepper on the asparagus and toss it together.  Get a pan (ideally cast iron), piping hot.  Once the pan is smoking.  Reduce the heat to medium and pour the olive oil in and toss in the asparagus.  The asparagus should blister and sizzle in the heat of the pan. The cook time will depend on how thick the stalks are.  Once the stalks begin to soften put in a small knob of butter if you like if the pan is getting dry and add the acid of choice here. Continue cooking till the stem begins to wilt.  You're almost done.  Pour in the broth.  Turn the heat off, cover with foil and set aside - let it cook in the steam of the broth.

Before we start on the fish, you have to get the butter sauce going simultaneously.  In a sauce pan, pour in all the ingredients together except for the butter and set on high-medium heat.  Let all the liquid reduce to about 75% of the original amount. 

Now, let's get started on the fish.  In a plate or pan, spread the panko and Parmesan cheese and salt and pepper.  Lay the filet on the the crumbs and pat down nicely.  You can flip and coat the other side as well, but I preferred not to.  I just sprinkled and rubbed the other side with salt, pepper, and a bit of cayenne pepper.

In a medium hot pan, put the olive oil in and lay down the halibut crumb side down.  Make sure the pan is not too hot otherwise you will burn the crumbs.  Lift the edges a bit and swirl the oil around the pan.  Watch the edges, once those turn golden brown it's done.  Carefully flip the filet, it might break if you're not careful.  Toast the other side as needed.  Turn off the heat.

While the fish is cooking, you have to keep an eye on the butter sauce and make sure it is not burning.  Once the liquid has reduced, turn the heat down to simmer and start adding the cubes of cold butter and start slowly whisking it in.  As you keep adding the butter and you keep reducing the liquid, and whisking, the sauce will thicken.  Once it has the consistency of a gravy, take off the heat and strain it through to a warm bowl.  This sauce does not stay nice if not kept warm.  Add in the chopped parsley.  You're done.  

One last thing.  Get the potatoes out of the stove and make sure they are cooked through.  Get those mushrooms and onions cooked from before and mix in the cooked wild rice. Pilaf is done as well.

Alright you're all done.  Now to serve.

Plating
In a nice large plate, set a thin bed of the pilaf.  Layer on the asparagus on top of the rice.  Now the fish comes on top of the asparagus.  Put the potato medallions on the side and drizzle a bit of the vinaigrette. Pour the beurre blanc sauce on top and serve :)