Sausage Casserole ... and Breakfast

Weekly experiment with legumes, here, green lentils ...

Toulouse sausages, high meat content and little else in there ... as they should be. Combine with a few simple ingredients and a couple of store cupboard staples and you've got a great dinner!

Okay, so legumes are not primal but there is a spectrum here, a spectrum, folks. Not all legumes are made evil ... I mean equal. Some, down this end of the spectrum, like lentils are actually fine; red kidney beans down the other end, form a cross with your fingers, primal folks, they're still evil.

Anyway ...

Sausage Casserole

Skillet on, goose fat in, sausages browned off over a low heat and chucked into a lidded Pyrex dish.

In the remaining fat, soften a shredded onion and soak up the lovely fat with some shredded mushrooms. Pour over the sausages in the Pyrex.

Slice a red pepper and a green pepper. Add to the Pyrex.

Pour over a carton of chopped tomatoes.

Pour over a carton of green lentils.

Add three or four cloves of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced, sea salt and black pepper.

Stir together and commit to the oven at 170C (350F) for a good hour, then remove the lid and let it reduce for another 30 minutes, or so.

Serve out when it's how you like it.

... and leftovers?

Breakfast

What do you do with leftovers? Bulk out with something fresh, here some courgette and asparagus, and stick and egg on top. Instant breakfast.

Leftover Fish Taco Breakfast

Friday nights are for spicy, silly, messy fun ...

Most recently, we've been enjoying Fish Tacos. White fish, usually coley or pollock, large onion, lots of coconut oil, shredded peppers, spice mix and we're done. Pico de Gallo and guac alongside, usually some Mexicana cheese (cheddar with chillies mixed in) and some soured cream. The tacos? Cos lettuce leaves.

I always make too much and so, the morning after the night before, we get to enjoy it all over again ...

... simply re-heated, scrambled eggs or an omelette alongside.

Too gorgeous!

While I like Cos lettuce, I have tried primal-style tortilla before using manioc flour and it works out very well, but this morning, I happened upon this fantastic idea: One Ingredient 100% Mexican “NOT CORN” Tortillas— LEGIT! And Paleo

... next time!

Seafood Salad

... a sort of insalata di mare, but as a full salad. Lunch.

While browsing at the supermarket, I found a jar of "Seafood" in oil. Upon draining, it turned out to be squid pieces, octopus pieces, the odd mussel here and there and a few other bits like prawns.

The salad base was cos lettuce and pea shoots, peppers chopped on top, some leftover guac in the middle, seafood all around, black pepper, tomato to cut through the oiliness, boiled egg on top, garnished with shredded spring onion and a gentle slosh of olive oil over.

Roll on lunchtime ...

Mucky Eggs! [Scrambled Eggs & Pickled Herring]

Another breakfast ...

Scrambled Eggs & Pickled Herrings diced in, pickled chillies over.

Burp! Good, not great.

I'd rather have put the fish with the spinach and had the eggs alongside. Something for next time, at least.

Smoked Salmon & Poached Egg Crumpets

I thought we'd have a treat ...

If you're going to treat yourself to something a little out of the ordinary, you can still do that with the same high standards that you apply normally. Quality wine, good chocolate, and the same applies for substitutions of bread and pasta - rice flour and potato starch are perfectly good, if not actually better than wheat.

We had some crumpets.

I spotted them in the Free From section at the supermarket and thought why not?

Grilled, good slab of butter, a piece of smoked salmon, poached egg and a sprinkle of Icelandic ash salt and some black pepper. Gorgeous!

Herring & Coddled Eggs

Herrings! I adore oily fish and after a good run with sprats, I've turned my attention to herring ...

Over on MDA, I was delighted to see that my Herring Salad made the Recipe Corner, and it was noted that this was a great reminder that we could all do with more herring in our lives.

Let's just take a moment to look at these beautiful fish ...

Found in temperate waters of the North Pacific and North Atlanic, including the Baltic, these silvery beauties grow to around six to eight inches in length for Baltics and up to eighteen inches for open sea species.

The fat to protein ratio is high, something like 40% being fat, rich in omega-3. Thin bones, you really don't mind getting a few in with the fillets (or whole fish) which no doubt contain all manner of micronutrient goodies, besides which the carcasses make great stock!

This is breakfast, and as such I just pull things out of the fridge and cupboards, keep piling up until I have what looks like a hearty meal.

Today, Herring & Coddled Eggs.

Ingredients

Herring, bacon, pea shoots, black pepper and chilli powder. Whole grain mustard.

Chestnut mushrooms, tomato and a couple of eggs.

Herring

Gut the fish, keeping the roes. Fillet, clean up and put all the offcuts and the carcass into a pan with some water to simmer for a good hour - collect the stock and freeze it. The roes, I'll use another day, possibly in a starter tomorrow evening.

Eggs

Coddling is an old-fashioned method of very gently cooking eggs without the fierceness of poaching directly.

Simply crack an egg, or couple of eggs, into a ramekin which we'll immerse into boiling water just level with the tops of the ramekins.

Prepare

The eggs take the longest amount of time, possibly 20 minutes, so immerse into boiling water and lower the heat until a lively simmer is seen.

Leave the eggs to it ...

In a skillet, get a couple of rashers of bacon each cooking through gently, alongside, fry off some mushrooms and half a tomato each.

Meanwhile, dress a plate ...

I used some pea shoots, black pepper and chilli powder, over which the rest of the meal will be placed. Spinach would do admirably, here.

Once the eggs are just about done, which you can check by just poking the tip of a knife into the very middle and testing against your lip, clear the skillet and fry off your herring fillets in a little butter.

Skin side first and once the opaqueness is just coming through, flip them over and let the residual heat cook them through.

Serve

Bacon down, herrings over, mushrooms and tomato in each corner and turn the eggs out (gently does it!) alongside.

Optionally, spoon some wholegrain mustard over the herrings. Perfect partners, and relax ... mustard is a seed, not a grain.

There you have it ... Herring & Coddled Eggs.

Pan Fried Coley with Diced Vegetables

Tuesday night ... fencing, tonight, so I need a light, yet satisfying dish of protein, carbohydrate and fat.

Coley is a white fish, not dissimilar to cod but less flake to the structure. Curiously, it is referred to as Pollock in North America but it is a distinct species of fish.

At something like 90% protein to 10% fat, Coley gives us that good pack of protein and can stand a little more fat of our choice in the dish.

Ingredients

Fish - Coley and lard ... then, butter and sumac

Veg - diced potato, carrot, onion, celery, spring onion, green pepper, red pepper and peas, goose fat, parsley, sea salt and black pepper

Sauce - Maggi Chilli Sauce, Worcestershire Sauce, lemon juice and sea salt

Fried Egg - egg and butter

Diced Veg

First, soften some of your favourite paleo fat in a skillet (goose fat, for me) and toss in diced potato, carrot, onion, celery, spring onion, green pepper, red pepper and peas. Sea salt to taste and black pepper. Fold in chopped parsley.

Cook on for maybe ten minutes ...

Chilli Sauce

Combine Maggi Chilli Sauce, Worcestershire Sauce, lemon juice and sea salt.

Fish

Scale, gut, skin and fillet your fish.

... melt a little lard in a skillet and lay the fish fillets into the pan on the presentation side. Cook on the presentation side for maybe three or four minutes, sufficient time for the fish to go opaque up to about half way through the thickness of the fillet.

Flip over and cook on for another three or four minutes. Set aside in the hot pan while you fry off an egg.

Once served, the fish will have an extra slab of butter on top and some sumac for flavour.

Sumac. Sub-tropical and temperate shrubs which grow predominantly across Africa and North America producing a reddish spice with a curious zesty flavour used in Middle Eastern cuisine, primarily.

Egg

Fry off an egg in a little butter.

Everything is better with a fried egg on top.

Serve

Diced veggies down, fish on top garnished with more butter and sumac, egg alongside, sauce also.

Gorgeous! Primed and ready, I'm off fencing ...

Sprats & Scrambled Eggs

Breakfast. Sprats.

Sprats, Latin Sprattus, a distinct genus within the same family as sardine and herring. These sprats are from the Baltic. Needless to say they are similarly oily and loaded with good omega-3. Highly anti-inflammatory, they make perfect partners with a light leafy salad and great bedfellows to a good, starchy hash.

Sprats

Eat them whole. Heads, tails, guts, the lot. Eat them whole.

If you're at all queasy about heads, cut them off. Actually, from there you can gut the fish by squeezing the belly up to where the head was. The guts will come out. Wash and you're done.

Otherwise, just make a small incision behind the gills and squeeze the belly up to the head to draw the guts.

Or, leave them in ... it's all good flavour!

You can pan-fry sprats or you can grill them. I prefer the grill. You say tomato, I say tomato. I'm British, and a grill for me is an overhead heat source: broiler, salamander.

Pan frying can be quite violent, leaving your sprats broken up and the fats over-cooked. Grill 'em. Lay your sprats out on a piece of kitchen foil and place under the grill on high. Two or three minutes each side is perfect.

Plate 'em up.

Scrambled Eggs

Scrambled eggs takes almost no time.

For one, two to three eggs is good. I get huge eggs from the chickens just up there on the corner, so used two. I'd use three otherwise.

Crack them into a bowl and muddle with a fork. Muddle, not whisk - trust me, it gives a really nice texture at the end.

Warm up a skillet with some butter and pour in the eggs.

Fold gently a few times, removing from the heat to use the residual to gently cook through as you fold the uncooked egg towards the base of the pan.

Done? Great!

Plate up ...

Splash of your favourite spicy condiment over the sprats and get stuck in. I went with Tabasco.

Beetroot & Feta Salad

Lunchtime!

Lunch, I like something light and tasty. Salads work out great! Lots of lettuce, pockets of interest, protein, fat and a boiled egg on top. Cheese, be it cottage cheese, hard cheese, feta, whatever is a great salad ingredient and when sourced well, perfectly primal.

Feta, a crumbly, aged, brined curd sheep cheese from Greece, enjoys PDO status. Only feta from Greece made exclusively from sheep milk, or up to 30% goat milk, can bear the label Greek Feta. Get the real deal!

Constituents

Lettuce, rocket and spinach. Cucumber, tomato and green beans.

Beetroot, feta, anchovies, olives and egg. Black pepper, sea salt, chilli powder and mustard. Dill.

Construction

Lettuce forms the base. I used cos, shredded; rocket and spinach, again, shredded, boost the flavours over which diced tomato, cucumber and green beans are scattered.

Peel and cube a beetroot, scattering over along with cubes of feta.

Garnish with anchovies, olives and a smear of mustard. English mustard is good here, coated on the back of a spoon and tapped over the salad.

Black pepper and sea salt. Dill sprigs.

Boiled egg on top, dusted with chilli powder.

Haddock in a Mushroom Cream Sauce

Haddock is a fantastic fish!

Like practically all fish, it's a great anti-inflammatory source of protein. Alas, it's light in fat ... so does like to be accompanied with good fat.

Haddock seems to work perfectly with creamy sauces or sloppy mashed potatoes, full of butter and cream. Haddock also partners very nicely with mushroom.

Ingredients

Haddock, mushrooms, cream, butter, white pepper and sea salt.

Veggies to make the dish: salad potatoes, savoy cabbage, leek, carrot and goose fat. Boiled egg alongside.

Haddock

On a greased ovenproof plate, lay out the haddock, sprinkle a little sea salt over and place a decent dot of butter on each fillet.

Cover with kitchen foil and commit to the oven set to 180C (350F?) for 30 minutes. It will cook through in its own juices and the melted butter.

Mushroom Cream Sauce

In a skillet, sauté sliced mushrooms in butter. Once the butter has been absorbed by the mushrooms and they've cooked through a little, pour over some cream. We'll be adding the juices from the fish plate later, so don't go overboard on the cream. Perhaps 50ml per person and a couple of mushrooms each.

Sprinkle some white pepper over and drop the heat to its lowest, perhaps even off to allow the mushrooms to colour through in the cream while the fish cooks.

If the sauce reduces too much, just add a little water to wet it up again.

Egg

Boil an egg each.

Peel and set aside. Eggs alongside is just perfect for this dish. Perfect for any dish, really. Eggs rule!

Veggies

Savoy cabbage and salad potatoes.

Maybe 10 minutes after putting the fish in the oven get your potatoes boiling and cabbage steaming.

In another skillet, shredded leeks and matchstick carrots can gently soften in goose fat, or your favourite paleo fat.

Just before everything is ready, tip the steamed cabbage into the skillet with the leeks and carrots, and toss through with more of your favourite paleo fat.

Drain the potatoes. Wet up with butter and herbs.

Serve

Retrieve the fish from the oven and carefully remove the kitchen foil. Careful! Steam burns!

Pour the juices into the mushrooms and cream sauce, raising the heat to a boil and reduce while you plate up.

Cabbage down first, fish on top, potatoes alongside, egg, halved the other side.

Sauce reduced, pour over and garnish with herbs. Parsley.

Eat and enjoy! My, oh my ... what a meal!

Salmon & Scallops

Well, autumn is here ...

Wind, driving rain and much lower temperatures make for perfect walking weather out in the hills. I got a reasonable ten miler in, came home soaked a grinning from ear to ear. Love it!

Dinner is Salmon & Scallops with an early autumn salad of butternut squash, boiled egg, tomato, beetroot and tenderstem broccoli, flavoured with dill, black pepper and sea salt. Fat? Goose fat for roasting and butter for sautéing.

Preparation

Oven on, set to 200C (400F?). Most of the work is in the prep.

Boil an egg each, peel, cool and slice. Set aside.

Slice a tomato. Set aside.

Peel and cube some beetroot - one medium per person is fine. Set aside.

Peel and cube some butternut squash and set aside for roasting.

Trim some tenderstem broccoli and set aside for steaming later.

Salad

The squash takes the longest, so pop the cubes onto an ovenproof plate with some good paleo fat. Goose fat, for me. This will need about half an hour in the oven.

Meanwhile, continue the prep ...

The cold ingredients can be arranged on the plate - get artistic.

The warm ingredients can be cooked through as required. Butternut squash in first, tenderstem broccoli on last, needing only a couple of minutes steaming.

Salmon & Scallops

Fillet and skin a good piece of salmon loin. Cut into good sized pieces.

Scallops, just clean up - remove the coral and membrane. You can reserve the corals for a sauce, which I completely forgot to cook but will put a few notes together at the end.

In butter, cook the salmon pieces through over a medium heat. Turn the salmon over once the pieces are coloured through up to about half way, noting how long it took. Turn and leave them for the same length of time.

Remember to steam the tenderstem broccoli.

Retrieve the salmon and place on a piece of kitchen towel to rest while you sauté the scallops. Serve out the broccoli now and place the salmon on the plate as the crowning piece.

Sauté the scallops in butter - one minute, then flip over for large scallops, 30 second for small.

Push the scallops in between the other ingredients on the plate. Again, be artistic.

Sauce

Not quite an afterthought - more that I simply forgot to make one. What a ditz!

The sauce should be prepared and just kept warm before cooking the fish through ...

Using the corals from the scallops, a little double cream, just a dash of mustard and a little lemon juice, blend together and warm through very gently in a pan. It's a sort of velouté, I guess.

Yes, the dish was a bit bland, dry and really lacking something ... the sauce. Doh! The sauce!

Next time ...

Steamed Pollock over Scattered Warm Salad

... another "Fish over Scattered Real Food" dish.

This method really is easy to do and easy to get all the food together at the same point for serving.

Real food can stand being slightly underdone and even slightly overdone, so conventional cooking times do go out of the window ... but ... as a general rule of thumb, veggies cut into slices need little more than three or four minutes steamed, soft veggies maybe a couple of minutes and fish (steamed) around six.

You can see that real food can be cooked and plated in a really short time with minimal effort expended.

It's the little details that elevate a "plate of real food" - pleasing placement, arrangement, and then the garnish and accents.

Here, I grabbed a bunch of food: kale, spinach, courgette, carrots, a leftover baked potato and a few strawberries that needed eating up. Fruit goes well with fish - grapefruit and orange with the likes of salmon and trout, sharp, bitter fruit like rhubarb with mackerel and herring, sweeter fruits like watermelon and strawberry with white fish.

So, carrot peeled and sliced, courgette peeled into ribbons and set into a steamer, spinach and kale softened in a frying pan with butter, and potato simply cut into wedges and fried off in goose fat.

The egg was poached in a ramekin and the fish steamed. I went with a couple of fillets of pollock each. Pollock is a white fish, similar in structure to haddock.

Dish arranged through artistic scattering and garnished with caviar, we're ready to eat.

What a phenomenal combination of flavours and textures!

Curried Vegetable Rice

Beyond Paleo folks will certainly appreciate this dish, as will folks who are experimenting with sources of resistant starch.

It's also something for your vegetarian friends, who can enjoy this dish while you put a piece of fish on top or some meat folded through ...

For me, this is breakfast.

My Mrs abhors rice (and curry, for that matter) so I made her a hash with potato and tomato; poached trout on top and a poached egg to crown.

Curried Vegetable Rice is simply a case of boiling up some rice in spices and adding in the vegetables towards the end just to cook through.

I don't weigh or measure, and don't get overly concerned about ratios of rice to water and length of time to cook. I guess I take my cue from Pakistani and North Indian methods that I have grown up with, where the rice in a pan sealed with a wet towel and lid on could be left for quite literally hours.

For one hungry person, I use about half a cup of Basmati Rice over which I sprinkle some spices, add salt and pour over some water. I say, "some" since I've never measured it. I just boil away until the rice is cooked through, puffed up and absorbed most of the water and then lower the heat to allow the remainder of the water to evaporate.

It is at that point that I toss in the veggies.

My spice mix? Equal portions of turmeric, ground coriander, ground cumin, asafoetida and fenugreek. I also add chilli powder to taste, or whole chillies chopped up and a good pinch of salt.

Veggies? Any will do. Literally, any. Here, I went with celery, carrots, spring onions, red pepper, green pepper, courgette (I think) and some chives. Any will do ... just chop down nice and small, and fold in once the rice has absorbed most of the water.

Let's make it a meal ...

Trout. Poached. Salmon would do well, as would some smoked fish, perhaps poached in milk. Haddock, say.

Let's also poach an egg - all meals are better with an egg on top.

So, that was breakfast ...

I had some leftovers which did for another day, bulked out with some mushrooms and some black pudding.

Black Pudding? Yeah, blood and fat in large rounds.

Just fry off in your favourite paleo fat until cooked through and retrieve, fry off the mushrooms and then toss in the leftover rice. Chop up the black pudding and fold through at the end.

Voilà! Another breakfast ...

Poached Salmon Salad

It ain't half hot!

32C today ... which is hot hot hot for us folks here in the UK. It's still 30C and it's now gone 6 o'clock ... and I'm fencing in an hour!

Yeah, dressing up in ballistic material clothing and running around with a floppy sword for a couple of hours. Better still, for foil or sabre you've to wear a conductive jacket as well!

I fence foil and epee (no need for the metal jacket in epee since everything is on target, rather than just the area marked out by the jacket), so I think it'll be epee tonight ...

I had a light soup made up - it was just tenderstem broccoli stems, some onion, garlic and a little sea salt, but it's too hot for soup. My idea was to have the smoked salmon as a starter and then drop a few sauté potatoes into the soup.

Forget the soup ... I froze ours and combined the starter with some potatoes for a light meal.

You need: smoked salmon, boiled egg, tomato, cucumber, pickles: gherkin and beetroot, sour cream, dill, chives, black pepper and a little sea salt. Potato, lightly boiled and sautéed in butter.

Arrange, slosh a little olive oil over and you're done.

Warm Ceviche

Chef Martin Morales was on the BBC's 'Saturday Kitchen' this morning, Peruvian, he now runs Ceviche in Soho, London.

His dish was ceviche, but warm ...

Ceviche is a curing method. Simply generously cover seafood with lime and within the hour, the flesh will be cooked. Chef Morales made up a blended paste of spring onion and chilli pepper to put over his sea bass and clam ceviche, then warmed through on a banana husk over a burner.

My version used what I have to hand: haddock.

Cut into small goujons and covered in lime juice, chopped chillies and some fine parsley tops were added. 20 minutes, or so, later, the fish was almost cured through.

Placed on some kitchen foil and then in a lidded pan, a mere couple of minutes are sufficient to warm through. The first hint of steam gives us the clue that it's ready.

That's it ... warm ceviche.

To serve, being breakfast, some scrambled eggs. As a dish for later in the day, a light salad would do well, perhaps in a wrap?

Cottage Cheese & Samphire Salad

Bloody Hell! Where's the meat ... or fish?

Yeah, some days you just fancy something very light and very simple. Truth be told, I'd not got anything defrosted. My bad.

Anyway ...

In the absence of fish or meat, dairy provides a good protein and carb balance, and from good sources it's not at all bad.

I guess dairy was kicked out of the initial definition due to perceived intolerances by most of the population that was being considered. Once Paleo went global, huge and vast portions of the world showed themselves not to be intolerant, and even the scope of dairy opened up - sheep, goat, reindeer, buffalo; and huge and vast portions of the world showed that dairy was simply not an issue.

If you are not lactose intolerance, carry on ...

<soapbox>

Lactose intolerance aside, there is the secondary issue of A1 beta casein; a protein has been implicated as a potential factor in diabetes mellitus, ischaemic heart disease and also as a modifier of behavioural symptoms associated with some neurological conditions such as autism.

You will find that most of the cow milk that you encounter will be A1 type, from Fresian and Holsten breeds representing the majority of milk cows in Europe, the US and Australia. A2 type milk can readily be had from other species:  sheep, goat, reindeer, buffalo; but there is hope for cow milk: Guernsey and Jersey breeds carry a very high incidence of A2 type milk.

For real world eating, fermented and fatty dairy is safest from cow milk and many ancestral eaters are happy to include them in their diet, myself very much included.

</soapbox>

Here, Cottage Cheese, a curd cheese made from setting milk with rennet.

That's the cheese ... simply spoon over some samphire which has been immersed in boiling water and retrieved quickly. Nutritionally, samphire is packed with goodness - strong in iodine and in vitamins A, C, B2 and B15, amino acids and minerals, such as iron, calcium and particularly magnesium.

Chop some salad ingredients over: tomato, cucumber and chilli.

Garnish with boiled egg slices.

So, presenting a light, vegetarian and ancestrally-focussed dish: Cottage Cheese & Samphire Salad

Nordic Pickled Beetroot Starter [Quick & Dirty]

Pickled beetroot is really cool!

Whether packed or in jars, pickled is such a fun way of enjoying beetroot.

I like both, but jars of pickled beetroot offer us a fun way of presenting eggs once the beetroot has all been eaten. Simply boil a couple of eggs and pickle them overnight in the remaining coloured vinegar, topped up with water if necessary. Next day, you'll have purple eggs!

That's an aside ...

Here, the eggs were simply boiled, sliced and presented on a plate with sliced pickled beetroot.

Crème fraîche over, sprigs of dill to garnish and black pepper, icelandic ash salt and some paprika for texture and colour.

þar! Nordic Pickled Beetroot ... a perfect, simple starter idea.

Turkey Breakfast Pattie

I had some turkey mince left over from the other night's burgers ... so it was a no-brainer to do the same again for breakfast.

With an egg, naturally ...

Turkey patties are simply turkey mince, some chopped chillies, garlic, ginger, ground coriander, black pepper and sea salt or fish sauce.

You don't quite make a burger, since turkey mince can be quite wet ... but fire up your griddle pan, grab a handful of the meat mix and sort of throw it onto the griddle, spreading it out before it sticks.

We'll be frying an egg shortly, but first let's turn our attention to something green: samphire, here. Gorgeous stuff, so get it when you can and enjoy the hell out of it while it lasts. Asparagus would do well here, spinach, collard, dandelion greens, radish leaves ... anything very green and pack full of K.

Fry your eggs.

Serve up ... burger down first, greens over, egg on top. Superfluous garnish here is pea shoots.

Boom! What a breakfast! Now get out there and rule the day!

Pacific Salmon & Spring Vegetables

Isn't it great when nature delivers a bountiful plate?

Asparagus is bang in season, peas are just perfect straight from the vine, green beans are as big as they're going to be and Jersey Royal potatoes are absolutely perfect in their short season.

What a joy when such a tryst happens!

Perfection on a plate can be had, accompanying that bounty with a good piece of fish and a light sauce.

Let's get straight on with it ...

First, prepare the sauce: Hollandaise, here. Crack a couple of eggs and place the yolks into a bowl, whisking in some lemon juice. Half a lemon will do. Reserve the whites for something, or other, maybe fritters? Sit that aside. We'll use it later.

Peel and slice the potatoes. Using a large pan, boil the slices.

Meanwhile, pod the peas, de-string the beans and slice, prepare the asparagus and place the lot in a steamer.

In another steamer, place a couple of fillets onto a piece of kitchen foil. I had a couple of really nice pieces of Pacific salmon, which made a nice change from my usual Atlantic and Baltic salmon.

As the potatoes just start to turn over from crunchy, settle the steamer pans on the top of the boiling water, fish first, green veggies stacked over. Both will take only two or three minutes.

Take a good slab of butter (maybe a couple of centimetres off the end of a stick) and get it melting in a pan.

Retrieve the potatoes and allow the last of the water to steam off, plating up with the green veg and the fillet on top.

Now, the sauce ... which only takes maybe 30 seconds, so don't worry about the food going cold.

Place the bowl with the whisked egg yolks over the boiling water and keep whisking while you pour the melted butter in. Lift the bowl off the steam every so often to prevent the eggs from scrambling. If the sauce gets too thick, just as a drop of cold water and whisk. That's your Hollandaise. Pour over the fish and garnish with herbs: chives are perfect.

Courgette Fritters

... a spur of the moment starter.

With surplus courgette that would be leftover from the main course and a couple of egg whites sitting in the fridge, this little starter was whipped up in no time!

... from scratch, you'd need:

• Courgette - half a courgette works out well for two people, serving a couple of fritters each

• Onion, Garlic & Chilli - onion should be about half the volume of the courgette, the chilli de-seeded and thinly sliced and wild garlic work out really well if you can get hold of some

• Sea salt, black pepper and spices - coriander and cumin give this a warming Middle Eastern flavour

• Eggs - Use one or two whole eggs or just the whites if you've used the yolks for something else and are wondering what to do with the whites

• Starch - for binding; arrowroot, manioc, cassava, potato, whatever it is you use

• Fat - for shallow frying

Grate the courgette, slice up the onion and chilli. Mince the garlic. Mix together in a bowl.

Season.

Crack in an egg and mix with a fork. The egg should give the mix a sloppy feel. Add another egg if you don't think it's quite wet enough.

Spoon in the starch a little at a time and mix into the courgette. I use polvilho azedo (or, "sour starch"), the kind used for those Brazilian Cheese Puffs. You're looking for a loose mix, but don't sweat it if it looks too loose.

In a skillet, warm a generous amount of fat - goose fat, in my case. You can pour the fat into a ramekin for another use after cooking.

Using a spoon, drop in dollops of the courgette mix and cook through. They will self-level, so no need to press down or stress about rounding the shapes. Flip over a couple of times to ensure that the fritters are well cooked each side.

Serve up with a cooling bowl of yoghurt and lemon juice alongside. Don't do dairy? Squeeze some lemon juice over and enjoy.