Queen scallops in a Chinese style broth

We often go to a Chinese place, near where we live, called the noodle bar. Huge steaming hot bowls of delicious food come flying out of the kitchen at an alarming rate and the smells and the busy, buzzing atmosphere add to the experience. I try to have something different every time as I don't want to feel I'm missing out on something but I do regularly have a bowl of noodles in broth with whatever I fancied that day heaped on top. I have tried to replicate something similar here and although it isn't exactly authentic it tasted pretty good. 

Scallops come courtesy of a nice man from the Isle of Man. The Isle of Man queenie scallop festival is running from the 29th June to the 5th July this year so book your seat!

Ingredients:

• 30 queenie scallops or 10 king scallops


• 500ml chicken or vegetable stock


• star anise


• 2 spring onions roughly chopped


• thumb sized piece of ginger, peeled and sliced into thin batons


• clove of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced


• small deseeded chilli, thinly sliced


• two medium sized pak choi, roughly chopped


• coriander to garnish


• 150g udon or medium rice noodles


• sesame oil


• vegetable oil

Warm the stock in a pan with the star anise in it to infuse. Put on a pan of water to boil, then add the noodles, take off the heat and let the noodles cook in the hot water for the time indicated on the packet. Heat a wok on a very high heat then add a tablespoon of vegetable oil. The pan should be smoking hot ( but do be careful!). Have everything chopped and lined up beside the pan at this point as it doesn't take long to cook in the high heat.  Add the garlic, ginger and chilli and stir fry for about 30 seconds then add the scallops and cook for a further minute. Add the pak choi, spring onions and the cooked noodles and fry for another thirty seconds to a minute and then add about three tsps of sesame oil. Take off the heat, ladle in the stock (having removed the star anise) and serve immediately, in bowls, with a sprig of coriander on top. 

Chicken, Olive and preserved lemon pie

I still had most of a jar of preserved lemons left after buying them for the cous cous dish I did a while ago and since my other half would happily have pie every day of the week and has been bugging me to do this recipe ever since I got the book, I decided to give it a go.

The book is called Sophie Conran's Pies and is full of lovely pie recipes to get you salivating.

The recipe serves 4

Ingredients:

Couple of glugs of olive oil

knob of butter

4 leeks halved length ways and sliced thinly

1 tsp ground cumin

4 small preserved lemons, rinsed and roughly chopped

1kg chicken thighs, boned, skin removed and cut into about 1 1/2 inch cubes

2 tbsp plain flour

250ml chicken stock, as good quality as possible

200g green olives, ( I quite like black olives too, but are a bit stronger in taste) stoned and roughly chopped

3 tbsp flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped

300g puff pastry (you can make this yourself if you are feeling adventurous, but I never have)

1 free range beaten egg

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat a large casserole on a medium heat and add a glug of olive oil and a knob of butter. Fry the leeks for about five minutes until soft but not coloured. Add the cumin and fry for another minute to release it's aromatic flavour. Stir in the chopped lemons and leave to one side.

Then heat a frying pan over a medium to high heat and add olive oil. Brown the chicken off in batches, trying not to over crowd the pan. Add the chicken and all the cooking juices to the casserole with the leeks in it and sprinkle over the flour.

Stir in the flour and cook for a few minutes before gradually adding the stock. Simmer gently for about seven minutes and when the sauce has thickened nicely add the olives and parsley. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

Pre heat the oven to 200 deg centigrade. Once cool,spoon the chicken mixture into a suitable pie dish. Roll out a the pastry so it is large enough to cover the pie dish, brush the rim of the pie dish with beaten egg and place the pastry on top. Press down around the edges with a fork or your thumb and then trim off the excess. Make a pretty pattern with the excess if you like (I made a disabled chicken, do you like it?.. I forgot to brush him with egg though so he didn't show up too well). Brush all over with the beaten egg and then make a cut in the middle so that steam can escape and help the pastry to crisp up nicely. Place in the oven for about 25 minutes until golden.



You can serve it with whatever you like. We had it with basmati rice, as the author suggested, but it would also be nice with mashed spiced sweet potato.

Pass the Sprouts

Unlike the vast majority, or so it seems to me, I love Brussel Spouts. It's like declaring that you enjoy wading knee deep in manure, when you get that sour-faced, nose turned up look of disgust when they are mentioned. Infact I don't know why I don't have them more often. I think I just tend to forget about them, or maybe I don't want to own up to my distasteful 20 a day sprout habit and simply pretend that you only have them on Christmas day when your mother tries to force them down your throat and the only thing you can do to stop the ever rising tide of bile is to hold you nose.

Instead of having just sprouts for Christmas day, which don't get me wrong would make me just as happy, we tend to boil them and then fry them in butter with white breadcrumbs and chopped brazil nuts or we slice them raw and fry them with pine nuts and pancetta.

Just before Christmas I thought it would be nice to try sprout soup. I thought it turned out very nicely. If you don't like sprouts, I'm not gonna lie to you, you may heave at the very sight of it.

I simply boiled the sprouts in a saucepan filled with weakish vegatable stock, a clove of garlic and a bay leaf. When the sprouts were tender I reserved the cooking liquor, refreshed them in cold water and blended them to a smooth soup with the cooking liquor, a little grated nutmeg, salt and pepper and a little butter. The soup ended up a little thick so I just thinned it out with a little water, but the consistency is, of course, entirely up to you. I then swirled a little creme fraiche into the soup and topped with ciabatta croutons that I cooked in the oven with olive oil, salt, a clove of garlic (which I removed before serving) and a handful of pine nuts.

Butternut squash and pine nut risotto

I really like risotto but you have to keep trying different recipes to make it more interesting. This is one I made up myself although it is by no means ground breaking. I love Gruyere cheese and I thought it would go well with the nutty squash and pine nuts. The basic risotto recipe is from Jamie's Italy.

Serves 6

Ingredients

1.1 ltrs chicken stock

3 tblsp olive oil

knob of butter

1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped

2 sticks celery, trimmed and finely chopped

400g risotto rice

2 wineglasses dry white vermouth or white wine

salt and freshly ground black pepper

70g butter

1 small butternut squash

1 tsp ground cumin

100g pine nuts

115g Gruyere finely grated

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees centigrade. Peel and chop the butternut squash into 1 inch size pieces. Toss them in a tbslp of olive oil, the cumin and salt and freshly ground black pepper. Roast in the oven until soft.

Heat the stock. Add the onion, garlic and celery into a frying pan with the olive oil and butter and gently cook for 15 minutes. Add the rice and turn up the heat and fry for a minute or so. Add the vermouth and stir until absorbed, then start adding the stock a ladle at a time, letting the rice absorb it after each addition. The heat should be turned down to medium so the rice doesn't cook too quickly on the outside. Keep adding the stock until the rice is cooked, which should take about 15 minutes.

Just before the rice is cooked dry fry the pine nuts until golden. Keep an eye on them as they colour very quickly once up to temperature. Remove the rice from the heat and add the squash, Gruyere, pine nuts and a knob of butter. Stir together, put a lid on and let it sit for a few minutes before serving.