More tapas

    Tinned mackerel pate with quick-pickled onions
    A recipe from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall

    120-125g can mackerel fillets in oil, or similar canned oily fish fillets
    1 tsp English mustard
    1 tbsp creme fraiche
    Pinch of cayenne pepper
    Lemon juice
    Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Dark brown bread, to serve

     For the quick-pickled onion
     1 small red onion, peeled and finely chopped
     1 large pinch caster sugar
     2 tsp cider vinegar
     2 tbsp finely chopped dill or parsley

     Prepare the onion first: put it in a bowl, sprinkle over a good pinch each of salt and sugar and a grinding of pepper and toss. Leave for 10 minutes to soften (if the onion releases a lot of liquid, drain it off). Sprinkle over the vinegar and dill or parsley, stir, and leave for 10 minutes more. Taste, add more sugar, salt or pepper  as needed, and set aside until you are ready to serve – it will also keep in the fridge for up to 24 hours, but make sure you let it return to room temperature before serving.

     Drain the oil from the cans of mackerel, and tip the fish into the bowl of a food processor. Add the mustard, creme fraiche, cayenne, some black pepper and a good squeeze of lemon. Blitz to a thick paste, stopping several times along the way to scrape down the sides of the processor. Taste and add salt, if necessary (the canned fish is already quite salty), and more pepper or lemon juice, if you like.
     Serve the pâté spread thickly on bread, with a scattering of the piquant onion on top.

    Mozarella, mushroom, zuchini, basil-oil

    Cut the ingredients in thin slices. Prepare the basil-oil by putting a handful fresh basil, a
    garlic clove, pitch of sea salt and some good olive-oil in the blender. Slice a french baguette
    lenghtwise, about 1 cm thick. Cover the bread as shown above, add basil-oil. Put under a  
    hot grill till the cheese has started to melt.
   

  

   Asparagus in 3 ways

    Peel 4 white asparagus. Remove their woody ends and from 4 green asparagus as well.
    Put them in boiling water till soft, the whites need more time than the green. Cut the top 5
    cm off and keep apart. Liquidise the rest with some chickenstock in the blender.
    Poach 2 eggyolks . Wrap the green tops in Spanish ham. Serve as shown above.

Grilled zuchini and mushroom, with ham and paprika-coulis  

   

Coeur de Boeuf tomato, goat's cheese, roasted pine nuts, oregano 

Grilled aubergine, tomato, creamy sheep's cheese, paprika coulis, panfried coppa, charmoula

Courgette-fritatta, Brie, Cherry tomatoes

Start with grating parmesan ( 1 cup) followed by 1 small courgette. Mix the 2 with half a cup of flour and an egg. Add a bit of nutmeg. Put 2 or 3 heaps of the mix in a slightly oiled frying pan and use a fork to flatten. Turn after about 5 mins. Add the cherry tomatoes around the patties. After another 4 mins add some soft cheese like Brie to melt a bit. Plate with the tomatoes on top, decorate with chives. A turn of the peppermill doesnot harm.

MexIndian fajittas

3 Cumberland sausages
1 shallot finely diced
1 tbsp red curry paste from a jar
 2 tbsp creme fraiche or sour cream
 2 tbsp TexMex chilisauce from a jar
 Some fresh coriander
 Some rocket leaves
 2 Fajittas


Get the meat from the sausages and mix with the shallots and curry paste. Fry for about 4 mins.
Warm the fajittas. Start with putting the rocket on the fajittas, followed by the meat. Then dollops of creme fraiche or sour cream and chilisauce. End with the coriander leaves.
Roll up and have a good time.