Probably Not-That-Authentic Seafood Paella

Sooo.... kids really take a toll on my ability to blog. I can't believe it's been nearly 18 months since my last post. I have given birth to another human being since then. And in the intervening time, 95% of my cooking has been repeating things I already knew. There's just not much time to do anything else!

However, on some weekends we've had a chance to get a little fancier, and this weekend I had a real craving for paella, spurred on by a cool Spanish rice variety I bought a few weeks ago. So I cribbed from this receipe but changed it to be much less seafood-heavy. It's now actually doable in under an hour, without all that seafood prep! Still tastes excellent, too. This serves four people with salad or vegetables on the side.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (125ml) dry white wine
• 1/2 teaspoon saffron threads
• olive oil
• 2 brown onions, finely chopped
• 2 red capsicums (raw and chopped or roasted, peeled and torn)
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1/2 - 1 chorizo sausage
• 2 large ripe tomatoes, halved, seeded, finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons mild Spanish paprika
• 1 1/2 cups (300g) medium grain rice (such as calrose)
• 2 cups (500ml) chicken stock
• 500 - 750g marinara mix
• 1/2 - 1 cup (150g) frozen peas
• chopped parsley
• Lemon wedges, to serve

Method

I need to dig out my decent camera! My phone
doesn't really do it justice. Anyway, note the crispy
crunchy tasty base. It was amazing.

Heat the wine and saffron over a low heat until just coming to a simmer, then stir and turn off the heat, reserving for later. In a paella pan or a large, deep frying pan, fry the brown onions and raw capsicum (if using), for five minutes, until the onion is soft and beginning to go gold. Add the garlic and chorizo and fry for a further thirty seconds. Add the onion, paprika, and rice, and stir together. Add the reserved saffron wine, and chicken stock, and cook uncovered for 15 minutes over a medium heat.

Stir in the marinara mix and frozen peas, cover, and cook for a further five minutes, turning the mix a little to get it all cooked through. Resist the urge to unstick the rice at the bottom of the pan, so that you get those authentic paella crunchy bits. Scatter over chopped parsley and serve with lemon wedges.

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I'm hoping in 2018 I can post here a little more. I have a funny plan for the first couple of months which I'm looking forward to sharing, along with more "fancy
 recipes from the weekend. We'll see... best-laid plans of mice and men...!

Hameul Pajeon

Ahh, the Korean seafood pancake! From the first time I had it in our local Korean restaurant, I was hooked. The simplest form is makde with flour, water, a little egg and shredded spring onions. It's so easy that I've even made it on a yacht at 45 degrees heel - admittedly, the cooker was on gimbals. My only difficulty is making it thin enough; over the years I have added more and more batter until it has come out quite thick and glutinous. Recently I went back to Little Seoul and ordered it again, and realised that while it is a thicker pancake than a crepe, it is still thin enough to cook through when crisped up on both sides. Therefore I suggest using a pancake pan rather than a frying pan, and only add enough extra ingredients as your batter can take. The recipe below serves four people as a side dish or starter.

Ingredients:
For the pancake:

• 1 egg
• 1 cup plain all-purpose flour
• 1 cup cold water
• 5 medium spring onions
• 1/2 cup of cooked brown shrimp or other small seafood, drained of any excess water

For the dipping sauce:

• 1/4 cup of medium soy sauce (or diluted down dark soy sauce)
• 1/2 clove garlic, finely minced
• 1/2 spring onion, finely minced
• 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
• 1/2 tsp chilli flakes (optional)

Combine the dipping sauce ingredients, whisking gently so the oil is mixed through. Leave to the side while you prepare the pancakes so that the flavours can mellow together.

Break the egg into a bowl and whisk until the yolk and white are combined. Add in half the flour and a quarter of the water and whisk until smooth. Add the rest of the flour and water and combine into a fairly smooth batter, but don't over-beat or the gluten will become tough. Clean, top and tail, slice along the length of the spring onions, and roughly shred, separating the layers. Stir into the batter.

Heat a few tbsp of vegetable oil in a pancake pan until shimmering. Pour in the batter and spread out to the edges with a spatula. Add the shrimp and push them into the batter with the spatula. Cook for about five minutes on a moderate heat, until the bottom is golden brown. Either flip carefully with a large slice-spatula, or slide onto a plate and quickly overturn back into the pan. Cook for a further 3-4 minutes until the other side is done. Rest for a minute or two before slicing into strips or triangles and serve with the dipping sauce.

Smoked Crevettes, Sauteed Potatoes and Sharp Salad

Yet again I sing the praises of the market fishmonger, who smokes his own crevettes and sells them at five for £2. These are fat fingers of prawny goodness, and five is plenty for me. I needed something fairly quick to prepare tonight as I got back a little late after helping friends to make a giant papier-mache fish. I also had a huge craving for sauteed potatoes, which conveniently are much much faster to prepare for one person than two.

Here I offset the smoky fattiness of the prawns with sweet sauteed potatoes, and balance those against a sharp, peppery salad with a lemon-mayonnaise dressing. The combination of flavours is exquisite: one of those meals where you move rapidly from one side of the plate to another, trying the combinations and enjoying the contrast of flavours.

Ingredients:

• 1 medium potato
• Five fat smoked crevettes, or 150g smoked trout
• a generous handful of watercress
• a small handful of fluffy lettuce
• a few leaves of fresh basil
• a handful of spinach or chard
• 1 ripe tomato
• 1 tsp capers
• juice of half a lemon
• 1 1/2 tbsp mayonnaise
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp dijon mustard

If you have time, you can very gently boil the whole potato for 15 minutes, then allow to completely cool and slice. I was in a hurry, and find that it's much faster just to slice the raw potato into thick (~8mm) slices, layer at the bottom of a small saucepan, and just cover with water. Simmer for 10 minutes, until the surface barely begins to give.

Meanwhile, if you like, shell the crevettes; I like to leave just the tail ends on to hold them by, preserving a little, but not all, of the messy fun of eating seafood and salad together. Roughly chop the leaves and combine in a bowl or on your plate. Slice the tomato across and in halves so that the seeds stay in. Put the rest of the ingredients in a jar, grind over a good amount of black pepper, and shake to emulsify. Taste; it should be sharp and punchy.

When the potato slices are done, drain and cover again with cold water, leave for a minute and then drain, to bring their temperatures down a little. Leaving them in the cold water is fine, but be very careful when you fry them, as the water will cause the oil to spit. Speaking of which, heat a heavy-based frying pan (not necessarily non-stick, but it helps) over a moderate heat and add a few tbsp of olive oil. When it is shimmering and fragrant, carefully add a few slices of potato. If you can fry them all at once, fine, but if you're going to need to split into batches, then you might as well split them evenly between batches, and make your life less complicated!

Fry for 2-3 minutes each side, until dark golden brown. Scatter with salt while still hot and sheened in oil. When done, arrange around the salad and drizzle this with the dressing. Serve immediately - and don't burn your tongue on the amazing potatoes :)

Scallops with Chorizo

I've not had a moment to write this week, but then I haven't been cooking much: the SO is off at a conference so I spent a few days just eating up leftovers we had in the fridge. Wednesday, the night before he left, we went to a 'supper club' at the new independent cafe in Cambridge, Stickybeaks. A colleague from work invited me, and we had a lovely time: I highly recommend it to anyone in the Cambridge area. The format was perfect: fifteen people entered in dribs and drabs, took seats and glasses of wine and introduced themselves. When everyone was seated, we were given a little introduction to the meal plan of the evening: a very delightful Italian menu.

Then we watched as the major steps of preparation were performed for the starter and main meal: butternut squash risotto with taleggio, and Italian-sausage stuffed bomb courgettes. After we finished these - delicious! - we watched Lucy and Catherine prepare the fastest cake in the world. They put that in the oven, and then we were treated to Blue-Peter-style slices they'd cut minutes before. The cake was rich and wonderful, and I would have loved a strong cup of coffee and a little chaser - but it was a school night. At last I know where childless 30-40-somethings spend their time!

Thursday and Friday I have nothing to report - leftover pancakes, leftover gumbo. Today was different! Having at last cleaned the fridge of the last vestiges of last week, I set out to the market for this week's shop. I made sure to buy only half as much food as usual by bringing only half the normal-size bag. Otherwise I'm totally helpless when surrounded by all the fresh produce. It was a beautiful spring day and I was glad to be out. I did miss the SO though - especially when standing vacantly in the veg stall having my groceries weighed, taking a minute to realise that without my usual pack mule, I'd need to pack and carry the backpack myself!

Sometimes people say that it's hard to cook for one. I mostly agree with this sentiment - it's certainly hard to start cooking for one. You look at the empty kitchen, you think 'well, I'm not that hungry', then you eat beans on toast and feel depressed. I like to think about it differently. I like to look at that kitchen and see a place to experiment, time to try something I haven't tried before. If I mess it up... well, there's always beans on toast!

Tonight I cooked scallops for the first time, and they went rather well. I couldn't resist using chorizo as the main addition as I find the smoky-sour flavour is just so perfect with seafood. The accompaniments were a salad that's become a staple in our family since we first made it a few Christmases ago, and some pumpkin bread I invented today. Scallops were not nearly as intimidating as I thought. The same rules apply to them as to almost any seafood: buy fresh, cook on the day, don't overcook, and serve immediately. And of course, enjoy eating more of them than you'd ever get in a restaurant, for a much lower price!

Ingredients:

• 6 scallops per person, or 2 for a starter (with or without coral is fine)
• Two 5mm slices of chorizo per person, or 0.5 for a starter
• 3 large lettuce leaves per person, or 1 for a starter (NOT iceberg)
• vegetable oil
• balsamic vinegar
• very good olive oil

Wash the scallops carefully, removing any grit or goo, but keeping the coral attached if yours came with. Season lightly with salt and pepper on both sides. Chop the chorizo slices into small pieces. Put a splash of vegetable oil in a heavy-based stainless steel frying pan or cast iron skillet, and put over a moderate heat. Toss in the chorizo and allow them to sweat out some of their oil, and fry until golden brown. Remove and set aside. Wash the lettuce leaves and place one on each plate.

Turn the heat up to maximum, and put the scallops in the pan. If you're cooking a large quantity, don't overcrowd the pan, as this will reduce its temperature and cause the scallops to sweat instead of sear. Fry the scallops for one minute and then turn over. The cooked surface should be have a dark golden brown ring on it and be seared shut. Cook on the other side for a further minute, then remove and place on the lettuce leaves on each plate. Scatter with chorizo pieces, splash with 1 tsp of balsamic per plate, and drizzle over your best olive oil.