How’s this for a quick midweek meal? Lemon and peppercorn smoked salmon, new tatties, spring onions and avocado. Very simple, delicious and healthy!
Would you believe the picture was taken on my mobile phone?
Category: Snapshots
Mount Keen
Mount Keen from Broom Hill, above Tarland.
Easy sausage rolls
I made these sausage rolls when we had a few friends over at the weekend. They went down a treat and I had to be quick to grab one myself. In fact they were so successful and are so easy to make that my brother used the idea at Hogmanay. Just take a pack of good quality sausages (I used Tesco’s pork and caramelised onion) and remove the sausage meat from the skins. Mush it all up and place in a long tube on a ready-rolled sheet of puff pastry. Brush a little egg wash on the edges and tuck the pastry over the sausagemeat. Cut into thumb sized rolls, slash the tops, brush with more egg wash then cook for 25-30 minutes in a 200C oven.
Quick lunch – smoked mackerel and crowdie pate
This cooking lark is easy. Well, sometimes it is anyway. This paté is a case in point. It’s almost ludicrous how simple it is to knock this up in a couple of minutes. I had a day off today so for lunch I threw a few spoonfuls of crowdie and a few smoked mackerel fillets into a small food processor with some horseradish, parsley and smoked paprika. Blitz it for a minute or so then spread it on hot buttered toast. Ridiculously good lunch in minutes.
Home Cured Bacon
I’ve wanted to try my hand at the mysterious arts of curing and smoking that make up charcuterie for a while now. Luckily for a recent birthday I was given Michael Ruhlman’s excellent book on the subject. This bacon is my first attempt at home curing using just a simple dry cure mix of salt, sugar and prague powder (a mix of salt and sodium nitrate, which prevents botulism). The pork belly is left to cure for a week then slowly roasted in the oven to replicate a hot smoked process.
I had to try a piece as soon as it came out of the oven. If you’ve never tried fresh bacon you’re missing out on an absolute treat! Once it cooled I sliced off another piece and grilled it to check the final flavour. It really is superb and I can’t wait to try it at the weekend with some eggs.
Mince and Skirlie 