Pan fried salmon with tabbouleh

I have in my possession yet another cookbook. This time it's "What to eat now, more please" by Valentine Warner. He's a bit mad but has some lovely recipes and one of them that I have made time and time again is his recipe for tabbouleh. Of course I can't help but fiddle with the recipe a bit  and I've added capers and anchovies to mine to give it a bit  more of a punch and served it with a lovely thick salmon fillet cooked on a grill pan. Delicious!

First play with my new Christmas toy

I got a very lovely ravioli maker for Christmas and hadn't actually made any with it yet, so I dug it out of the cupboard this week in an attempt to make pea and mint ravioli. As usual, I took the fly by the seat of my pants attitude to a recipe and had a crack at just making it up myself and it worked....sort of.



I used a basic pasta dough recipe from Jamie Oliver's Italy. The end result was nice but the filling wasn't thick enough and I eventually had to put an egg into it so at least when the pasta was cooked, the filling wasn't runny. I didn't want to blitz cooked garden peas so I blended still frozen ones meaning that they eventually thawed and made the filling distinctly sloppy......stupid!

It also took much fiddling around with the pasta maker and the ravioli tray until I really got the hang of turning out a presentable set of ravioli. 



I won't share the recipe for the filling just yet as it needs to be perfected but you can see what the ravioli turn out like when using the tray. Getting one of these ravioli trays is really worth it, as when you get the hang of it you will never have a burst rav again.

North Africa rides again

I had to use up the harissa and the preserved lemons that I bought for the couscous and having seen a few recipes with harissa smeared on various meats and poultry I plumped for a whole shoulder of lamb (bone in for more flavour). Lamb shoulder is a delicious tender cut of meat and is best slow roasted to render out the fat and let it baste the meat.

I simply trimmed off some of the fat and skin and delved my knife into the flesh to make big gashes all over. I then took about 2 tablespoons of harissa and smeared it all over the meat. The meat was put on a rack and roasted in the oven for about four hours at 150 degrees centigrade. It shouldn't colour too much but if it does just put some tin foil on top for the last part of the cooking time. When the meat has finished cooking, take it out of the oven and leave to rest for up to thirty minutes, then carve delicious thick slices. Serve with roast potatoes and whatever vegetables you like.

 



A whole shoulder of lamb is quite a big piece of meat, even for the two of us, so with the leftovers I made couscous. Measure out whatever quantity of couscous you want and put into a bowl. Check the back of the packet of couscous to find out what quantity of liquid you need. Measure out some lamb stock (or use whatever stock you wish) and also put a few strands of saffron into it and a handful of chopped dried apricots to plump up in the liquid. Heat the stock with the apricots to boiling point, pour over the couscous and cover with cling film for about five minutes. Chop up a handful of pistachio nuts, mint, parsley and a couple of preserved lemons. Once the couscous has absorbed all the liquid and is tender, break it up with a fork and drizzle a little olive oil over or add a knob of butter, letting it melt into the grains. Finally heat up the leftover meat fully and add along with all the other chopped ingredients. A quick and easy delicious meal.