I recently created a delicious recipe for the people at Chef Knive's Expert.  This time it was a deliciously different and yet healthy recipe for Chicken Satay Skewers served with a fabulous Rainbow Salad.

 

Tender pieces of chicken breast meat are marinated in a lush peanut dressing and then loaded onto bamboo skewers along with cubes of pineapple, then popped under the grill until they are a tasty golden brown. 

 

These are served with a fabulously tasty and crunchy Rainbow salad with red cabbage, two type of sweet bell peppers, sugar snap peas and carrots, all in a tangy & tasty vinaigrette dressing that goes so very well with the chicken skewers!!

 

Deliciously healthy, colourful.  A veritable rainbow of textures, colours and flavours that the whole family will love! You can find the recipe here! 

 

I had a huge piece of leftover roast pork loin after my husband's Birthday lunch with friends the other day and I wasn't sure what to do with it.  

You know the whole time I grew up we never had hot roast pork.  My father didn't like hot roast pork, so my mother always cooked it the day before we had it for dinner and then we would have it sliced in thin slices with mustard for our supper.

 

This might sound awful, but I quite liked the texture and taste of the cold white fat on it . . .  ever the glutton.  

I do have to admit however as an adult I prefer my roast pork hot, and I don't eat the fat. Its much healthier that way!

 

I could have made a casserole with it, but I also had a quantity of leftover cooked vegetables as well. Carrots, swede, Brussels sprouts.  

I used them in this recipe, along with a chopped onion and some frozen veg.

 

Normally I would use chopped raw vegetables, but where I had these and they needed using I just used them. I did chop up the carrots and Knive-shred the sprouts.  

The swede (rutabaga) was mashed but coarsely, so a handful of that worked well also.

  

Fried rice is a very forgiving dish to make. It will work with just about whatever you have to throw into the pan.  Pork, chicken, beef, ham . . .  shrimps  . . .  

I have even made it with Spam and it was really good, let me tell you!  Spam Fried Rice is the best!  Don't knock it 'til you try it!

 

I save the frozen vegetables and add them at the end.  

Today I used peas and corn, but most times I only use peas.

 

Its flavoured with garlic, ginger, five spice powder and dark soy sauce . . .

 

I also like to use some of my homemade Ketjap Manis and Hoisin Sauce.  

I like the salty sweetness of the Ketjap Manis and the spiciness of the Hoisin sauce.

 

Ketjap Manis is an Indonesian thick and sweet soy sauce. If you have never tried it or made your own, you really should do. 

It's very easy to make and so delicious. You can find my recipe for it here.  I would not be without it.

 

A bit of toasted sesame oil also adds an authentic flavour which we love . . . along with garlic of course.

 

We enjoyed it along with some oven baked chicken tenders.  Crisp and delicious.  

I created a simple Oriental flavoured BBQ sauce to dip them in.

  

This sauce is as easy as whisking a few tasty ingredients together and is really yummy!

  

The rice along with the chicken tenders and sauce made for a very delicious supper indeed!

 

It always makes me really happy when I can use up my leftovers in a tasty and unique way.  Nothing boring here.  I've never had any complaints anyways! 

Up Tomorrow: Roussillon Baked Potatoes

 

Sausage wasn't something I enjoyed very much when I was growing up. I am not sure why.  I never really began to enjoy them at all until I was a grown woman and cooking my own.  I liked them almost burnt on the outside with catsup for dipping. My father enjoyed them dipped in mayonnaise.  As a child growing up in Canada, in my experience at least, there was only one kind of sausage.  Ordinary breakfast sausage, long thin cylinders of meat, stuffed into skins, fatty and flavoured with nutmeg and poultry seasoning. That was it. Growing up in the 50's /60's and early 70's in small communities meant that we were not exposed to outside flavours or choices.  We had what we had, and that was that.

It was not until I was an adult that I experienced another kind of sausage. My sister-in-law who lived in Toronto had studied at the Cordon Bleu and was considered to be an expert in cooking.  We spent the weekend at hers once, and she cooked sausages for us for breakfast.  These were not the sausages of my childhood, they were plump and fat and had a fabulous flavour.  She simmered them slowly in lemon water first and then browned them off in a skillet.  That is when I learnt to love sausage, and in the intervening years have come to enjoy all sorts and varieties.  What she served us that weekend were British Butchers Sausages and they were quite simply gorgeous in my opinion.

One of the most exciting foods I was introduced to moving over here to the UK was the great British Sausage, or Bangers as they are also lovingly called, and let me tell you, they have about as many different kinds as they do areas and counties here, a whole cornucopia of wonderful flavours, some of them quite spectacular. I have my favourites. 

 

The word "sausage" comes from the Latin, "salsicius", prepared by salting, which in turn comes from Salsus, meaning "salted."Sausages have been produced, eaten and enjoyed in Great Britain since Roman times. The Anglo-Saxons developed their own varieties and the Normans brought French ideas into the mix, including pure pork sausages, black puddings (made with blood) and the andouille, an entrail sausage known in England as chitterlings. 

You will find sausages in just about every country in the world, each with their own spin on this meat, fresh, dried and everything in between. What is it that makes British sausage stand out from the rest?  What is it about British sausage that makes it so great?  

For one we have such a wide variety to choose from . . .  Yorkshire, Oxford  . . . Cambridge, Cumberland . . .  Country Pork, and those are just the basics.  We stuff them with leeks and cheeses, spring onions, caramelised onions, mustard, honey, etc.  We enjoy them for breakfast and we enjoy them for lunch.  We love them for teatime, or high tea, and dinner.  We eat them in baguettes and rolled up in puff pastry.  Here in the UK, we just love our sausages, full stop!

In days of old they would have been dried and salted, perhaps even smoked, for preservation. These days for the most part however,  with the modern wonders of refrigeration, we tend to enjoy them fresh.  You can find them in other countries, but I have heard again and again how much people miss British Sausages where they live and how they can't find them, so first up I am going to give you a recipe which you can use to make your own homemade Basic British Pork Sausages 

Note - you can replace the shoulder and cheeks with 2 1/2 pounds of pork belly, reducing the amount of pork fat by about 1/3 of a pound.  

My absolute favourite of all the sausages has to be Cumberland sausage.  It is said to be the meatiest of all the sausages and has a very distinctive peppery flavour that I really enjoy. At one time they used to be made from a special breed of pig, which unfortunately died out back in the late 50's/early 60's. 

One of the most recognisable features of Cumberland sausage is that it is not twisted into links, but rather long length are shaped and rolled into a "Catherine Wheel" shape.  Some of them can be quite long and in Cumbria you actually buy the by the length rather than the weight.  We have had some really delicious ones when we have been staying up in Cumbria, that I have never been able to find anywhere else.  Traditionally they are flavoured with a mix of cayenne pepper, white pepper, ground nutmeg and salt, a combination which I find extremely delicious. Its nice and peppery.  If you want to have a try at making your own (and I hope that you do), it is best for you to just pipe the meat into two or three long sausages and then coil them into Cumberlands when done. You can then pan fry, grill or roast them as desired.  

TOAD IN THE HOLE - a British Comfort-food Favourite

A delightful and tasty comfort-food-recipe I discovered shortly after I arrived here was a lovely dish called Toad in the Hole. I had often heard about this British delicacy but had never had any idea of what it was let alone ever had the chance to try it. I soon learnt that it had nothing to do with holes, dirt, or even toads for that matter!

 

Sausage with Autumn Mash. 

 

Orchard Pan Roast with Sausages. 

 

Sage Roasted Bangers with Mash and Onion Gravy.  

 

Sticky Bangers with Chive & Buttermilk Mash. 

 

Sticky Sausage Tray Bake.

 

Dublin Coddle. 

 

Herby Sausages with Parsnip Mash and Stir Fried Cabbage. 

 

Cider and Honey Braised Sausages.  

 

Sticky Maple Bangers with Irish Champ.  

And there you have it, all I know about sausages.  How to make your own British Sausages, and a few ideas on how to cook them once you have them made!

Up Tomorrow:  Crispy Herbed Potato Rosettes. 

 

 

  

Mahi Mahi, also known as the Dorado or Dolphin fish is a beautiful fish that is not only sustainable but very easy to cook.  It has a firm white flesh that is fairly mild in flavour.  This makes it quite adaptable, hearty enough to grill and yet firm enough to sear, glaze, fry, etc.  making it very versatile. Don't confuse it with the common Dolphin.  This is not Flipper.  Don't worry. Far from being even closely related to its namesake Mahi Mahi is highly sustainable, responsibly fished and harvested due to strong regulations.  They spawn and grow rapidly, which helps to keep their population stable. 

 

The people at Seafresh recently sent me some to try. I was quite excited at the opportunity to try a new fish I had never tried before!  I decided to give it a somewhat simple treatment.  I created a sweet and savoury rub to coat it with and then simply pan seared it  until it was nicely blackened on the outside, but perfectly cooked on the inside.

 

I had to do some research on the fish first so that I knew how to cook it properly.  I learnt a lot about it and about what it might taste like. Having never tasted it before I was flying in the dark here! 

 

It is a carnivorous fish which gathers in schools which mostly eat forage fish.   The word Mahi (Hawaiian) means strong and these fish are strong and fast swimmers.  

They are brightly coloured and mostly found in Pacific waters, although they can also be found in the Atlantic.

 

They are considered to be highly nutritious and rich in Iron and low-fat protein. Low in sodium and rich in Omega-3, which not only are good for your heart but also help to combat cancer. 

 

It is also a great source of essential minerals and important B vitamins, so altogether it can be considered a fairly healthy fish to eat.  It is however high in cholesterol so if you are watching yours, you will still want to consume it in moderation.

 

I was told that it had a fairly mild flavour  . . .  not a "strong fishy" flavour.  I am not fond of overly fishy flavoured fish.  I can just about tolerate Salmon.  

So what did it taste like?  

It was definitely not benign in flavour like cod, it was probably more like Halibut, so not unpleasant at all.

  

I was quite surprised that the flesh turned out as white as it did when cooked.  It was quite darkish raw so I expected it to cook dark, but it was not dark in the least!

 

Other than that searing rub I put onto it  . . .  the interior flesh was cream-coloured when cooked . . .

 

It had a very firm texture, which I think would make it excellent for using in Fish Tacos, or for grilling on the BBQ.

 

I am thinking it would also be lovely stir fried . . .

 

I had made a lime and honey dressed coleslaw to go with it, almost like a pickle, except fresher . . .

  

It went very well.  I would highly recommend.  I can't wait to try it again one day! 

 

Here is the recipe for the sweet and tangy coleslaw which I made to serve with the fish.  It went down a real treat. Do beware however it is more like a pickle and will not keep well, so whilst you can prep the vegetables ahead of time, you shouldn't dress them until just prior to serving.

 

Here you can see how creamy white the flesh actually was when it was cooked, a complete contrast to what I had expected when I first saw this fish raw. Seafresh is an on line fish monger, which sells quality fish, seafood, poultry and meat.  If you can recall, I was very impressed with both their product and their delivery service!  There was absolutely nothing that I could fault with any of it. Feel free to read about my experience here. Many thanks to Seafresh for sending me this Mahi Mahi to try.  There doesn't appear to be any  Mahi Mahi available on their page at the moment,but keep checking back to their website to see when it becomes available again.

 

A few things about Seafresh: