Miso cod with pickled ginger stem

January and February are fabulously good months for cod.

I absolutely love fish, but with this particular breed I have a somewhat love/hate relationship. I have cooked cod dishes on a number of occasions with varied and mostly disappointing results. My main problem has been getting the succulent little blighters to take on any flavour at all. In the main, dishes that promised mouthfuls with fresh yet distinctive characteristics have proved flat and uninspiring.

Cod, it would appear, is not like the loyal, no-nonsense, un-changing salmon. You know what you’re getting with salmon!

Now, these failures may have something to do with the sub-standard level of my cooking abilities but I would have expected at least a couple of knock-out dishes. And then I discovered miso cod…

I can remember eating this dish on a couple of occasions – as a special order in a back-street London sushi restaurant where the cod was gelatinous, watery and lacking in anything resembling flavour, and in Zuma in Hong Kong where the experience was like a troupe of angels tap-dancing delicately on my taste buds. It was beautiful. I had to have more.

Miso cod proved to be the only way to beat this fishy nemesis – learn to cook a recipe I knew had the desired outcome… and stick to it!

This Sunday a couple of people are coming over for supper and this dish will be making its first public appearance from my kitchen. I’m away for most of the weekend but this recipe is perfect, not only because of its seasonal nature but also because the cod ideally needs 24-48 hours to marinade – I can do minimal prep and bung it in the fridge for a day or two until I need it.



Ingredients

- 4 x 250g cod fillets (this dish also works extremely well with a good quality fillet of salmon)
- 225g white miso paste
- 100ml cooking sake
- 160ml mirin
- 175g granulated sugar
- 1 stalk hajikami (pickled ginger stem)

In a heavy based, medium saucepan combine the cooking sake and mirin and bring to the boil. Boil for 20-30 seconds to burn off the alcohol then reduce to a medium heat.

Add the white miso paste and stir until completely dissolved. Turn up the heat, add the sugar and stir. Once the sugar has completely dissolved remove the pan from the heat and leave the marinade to cool completely at room temperature.

Once cooled, in a separate bowl drench the cod fillets with the miso mixture until all of the white meat is covered. Cover with cling film and place in the fridge at least overnight but preferably for 48 hours.

When ready to cook the cod pre-heat your grill to high and your oven to 200⁰C/Gas 6.
Remove all excess marinade from the fillets and place on a baking tray. Grill the fillet until brown and then bake in the oven for a further 15 minutes.

Garnish with hajikami (which you can buy from some supermarkets and Asian grocers). Eat with chopsticks (also available from Asian grocers)!

Making your own miso cod can be a somewhat personal experience so play around with the quantities of sake, mirin and sugar to find the flavour balance you like best.

Asparagus and smashed egg - Dutch style

Asparagus is at its best from around mid-April to the end of June, depending on the weather, however due to its increasing popularity many supermarkets stock it all year round.

The great thing about this dish is that it not only involves eggs – one of Gods finer details when deciding to create chickens – but is also easy to throw together and can be gobbled down as either a light lunch or starter before supper.

Ingredients:

- Handful of fresh asparagus (6-7 stalks)
- One free range chicken egg
- 50g salted butter
- Pinch of salt
- Celery salt

For the asparagus:

Take a handful of lush, green asparagus stalks and trim away the hard end at the base of each stalk with a sharp knife.

Pour approximately an inch of boiling water from the kettle into a saucepan, season the water with a pinch of salt and keep the water gently simmering over a medium heat.

To cook the asparagus, lay the stalks in a steamer – a bamboo or ordinary metal steamer will do – and place the steamer in the saucepan. Steam the asparagus over the simmering water for 5-6 minutes, depending on the thickness of the stalks, or until they feel tender when pinched.

For the smashed egg:

A soft-boiled egg works best for smashing.

Place the whole egg into a pan of simmering, salted water and boil for six minutes. Drain off the water and run the egg under cold water for several minutes – this process prevents a dark yellow ring appearing round the yolk.

While the egg is cooling under water heat the butter in small, heavy bottomed saucepan until melted and take off the heat.Peel the egg, smash with a fork and stir through the melted butter. Spoon the eggy splodge over the asparagus stalks and eat with a big smile on your face!

Alternatively, poach an egg:

Pour approximately four inches of boiling water from the kettle into a saucepan, season the water with a pinch of salt and keep the water warm over a low heat – the water needs to be just off the boil otherwise the egg white will become frothy.

Some egg poachers like to stir the water to create a whirlpool into which they add the egg however I don’t find this method necessary and the lack of whirlpools gives a wholly more misshapen and rustic looking egg.

Crack the egg into the water and leave over a gentle heat for 4-5 minutes. The water should not boil. When the egg yolk has misted over, carefully lift the poached egg out of the water with a slotted spoon and place on top of the asparagus stalks.

I like my poached eggs soft, oozing and runny but if you prefer them a little harder then cook them for a further couple of minutes.

Sprinkle over a little celery salt and devour. Yum!

Pigeon Pie review: The East Hill

The gastropub trend is one that has grown from strength-to-strength over the last decade. Increasing numbers of pubs are being gentrified – whilst retaining their traditional English character – and serve moderately priced European dishes with a modern twist to a hip, foodie crowd that appreciates a good plate of grub at a much higher standard than you’d expect from your typical pub.

And these are the glory years for such types of establishment. The Duke of Cambridge in Islington opened in 1998 and, as far as I know, is still the UK’s first and only gastro-pub to be certified by the Soil Association for its use of organic produce. The Anchor & Hope in Waterloo opened in autumn 2003 and is another gastro-grouped public house that regularly nestles neatly at the top of yearly ‘Pub of the Year’ classifications.

Gastropubs have come a long way on their culinary journey from their humble London beginnings – this year no less than 10 gastropubs around the UK were awarded Michelin stars and everyone, it seems, wants to get in on the party.

Celebrity chefs, such as Anthony Worrall Thompson who owns The Lamb in Henley-on-Thames, have bolstered their empires with gastropub investments while the love for the cosy traditional boozer that serves good quality food has also broken English shores – The Spotted Pig, New York’s first gastropub opened back in 2004.

Gimmicky, individual and slightly quirky, gastropubs have traditionally been the domain of independent publicans striving for freedom over their choice of beverages, their dining menus and interior décor. They have been things of unique brand identity and their uniqueness has been part of their success.

Now however, the number of group-owned gastropubs in London has increased with players like Geronimo Inns trying to emulate that individuality by operating under the ethos that each of their pubs is uniquely tailored to the locality in which it is based. Where possible they use local butchers, bakers, garden designers and artists to make sure that their pubs retain the original character from the day they opened.

The East Hill pub is one particular Geronimo Inn that achieves this particularly well.

Sat in the heart of south west London, on the fringe of the fashionable Tonsleys, the East Hill invites a relaxed crowd with its distressed Chesterfield sofas, walls lined with bookcases, wooden scrubbed floors, cottage style tables with mismatched chairs and a rustic ‘chandelier’ fashioned from a suspended Sheila Maid and old tin watering cans.

The pub is a perfect location for lazy Sunday’s that involve hearty roast dinners, cuddles in deep armchairs and a wide selection of good wines and real ales to whet the whistle of the most particular punter. The pub even hosts is own quiz on a Sunday so arrive by mid-afternoon if you want a table!

The menu is inspired by true country farmhouse style with rustic dishes like hogget, leek & Cornish potato stew; and cold Ox tongue with pickled baby beets, mixed leaves & horseradish cream alongside more gamey and classic favourites such as salad of seared rabbit loin, confit leg with bacon & pine nuts; or pea, broad bean and asparagus risotto.

Slabs of steak are served thick on wooden chopping boards, pints of prawns are available in the summer months as well as golden breadcrumby Scotch eggs… oh, the scotch eggs! Traditional mustards, piccalillis and pork pies sit at the end of the bar as part of the chalkboard bar snacks menu – and did I mention the Scotch eggs…?!

Not only is the pub reasonably priced (a meal for two with a bottle of wine comes in at around £45) but the East Hill’s success lies in the clever straddling act it does between being a good ‘local’ pub for the Wandsworth locale and a gastro-treat for foodies from further afield.

Whilst occupying the same room, the dining area is loosely separated from the rest of the pub meaning that whether you are eating supper or just enjoying an evening pint none of the atmosphere around you is compromised. Local drinkers watch weekend rugby matches with seemingly unaffected diners enjoying the symphony of an occasional whoop or cheer mixed with the bustle of a busy kitchen.

It all very much feels like home.

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Time for Pigeon Pie...

SPLASH…!

Courtesy of this sparkling new web page I am now on my way to becoming a fully-fledged blogger, apparently.

But will my entry into this bottomless blogging pond take the form of a perfectly executed dive – springing high into the air, rolling expertly through a triple pike and breaking the surface with clean and accurate precision? Probably not. Instead, I’m sure my flight will resemble something more like an energetic belly flop – well, at least until I get my eye in.

So why torture myself in this way I hear my reader, or maybe readers (I know you’re out there somewhere) ask.

In all honesty, this is a last-ditch attempt to make effective at least one of the New Year’s resolutions for 2010 that seem to be swiftly slipping through my fingers. My desire to exercise has already dwindled and the bicycle I bought at the end of last year to kick-start my healthier regime is heavy with dust rather than road miles.

My plan is quite simple: to spend this year actually following through on a personal writing project instead of finding reasons to avoid getting words down on paper. I want to get the ol’ grey matter flowing with creative juice again as well as having some fun and meeting some interesting characters along the way.

For the past couple of weeks I have been planning, tinkering and developing a ‘punt in the dark’ strategy to set the wheels of this resolution in motion and while it has taken me the past twenty-four days of January to actually get here I think I’m ready to take that step – or belly flop – into the unknown.

I’ve spent most of my 29 years on this earth healthily obsessing about food in one way or another. Whether hunting down the wackiest yet wonderful ingredients, trying my hand at butchery or gently cultivating an obscenely large collection of recipe and food-related books, I have been fixated with pretty much anything to do with food and want to share my addiction with you!

Over the course of the next few months I plan to use recipes that have lain untouched on my shelves for years. I want to eat in the most popular restaurants, pubs and cafes as well as those that off the beaten track. I’d like to learn to use a knife properly when chopping ingredients as well as try all manner of new food products, vegetables and cuts of meat. Let’s hope our bellies don’t pop along the way!

And we’re off…

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