Leftovers. Freezer space. Salt Cod.

Southwest veering northeast 4 or 5, occasionally 6 later.

Slight or moderate.

Showers then fair.

Good.

Due to a late lunch I don’t feel very hungry and just slice 2 tomatoes, take the knobbly courgette bits I had from the Courghetti, slice them, arrange both in the lid of a Pyrex dish, salt them. Top with a teaspoon of leftover pesto (if you don’t have one, use olive oil and a chopped garlic clove) and add “Pul biber” (Turkish red pepper flakes, also known as Aleppo pepper flakes, a great spice ingredient if you like it hot). Take the leftover of feta I had (about 100gr) chop it, put on top of it all and bang it under the grill. Once it is done, sprinkle with Dukkah and eat.

But it does not end here.

I have limited freezer space. The three small drawers I have are filled with the essentials: Ice cubes, mixed emergency vegetables and stock. However I have a lot of fridge space. So the fish I bought today will end up in the fridge for the next weeks.  Introducing salt fish/cod/ Bacalhau. It is not only a freezer space saver, but a salted fish tastes different from a frozen. It might sound silly that I spend a week drying fresh fish and, when I need it, spend three days to make it edible. But I promise you that the salt cod croquettes are worth the minimum effort you put into it. I will try to explain the concept in the least scientific wordings.

Nature doesn’t like inequality. High concentration flows to low concentration. If your environment is richer than you are, they give up and you take. If you are richer, it is vice versa. So, if you put a piece of dried bread into milk, that piece will swell up. Because the water content of the environment is higher than that of bread. But the milk might have less salt than you, the dried bread, so you give. You will look “swell” but taste a bit more boring.

Same happens with salt fish. You surround a fish with salt. The salt is obviously more and has less water. So the fish gives up water and gets salt instead. If I drain that water from the salt, the fish gives up more and more, until the fish is a dry as salt. So far so good. You are, as a salt fish, now flat, as hard as rock and I could whack someone over the head with you.

Now if I put you into water, the same thing happens, only in reverse. The water flows into you, but your salt out of you. In the end you kind of end where you started. So, what is the point (apart from freezer space)?

Something else happens: the protein changes it structure

If I take water out of you and increase salt, you are a changed person. And no amount of hot baths will change that. You are changed for good. Your protein is now tight. Curled up. A block. If you want to be poetic, the protein protects itself.  If I now give you water, you need a different amount than before. Because you are changed. You are tighter, firmer and have a different surface area. You are more concentrated than before. But also more flaky.

This process can hardly be undone. You can’t un-cook a hardboiled egg.

Hence salt cod will taste always different than frozen cod.

The recipe is from Claire Thomson, the brilliant chef and writer of the 5 O’Clock Apron

Salt cod:

It is tricky to give exact quantities of salt, as it depends on how much fish you buy and its shape and thickness. It would be good to have about 1 kilo of coarse sea salt to hand the first time you do this, though you probably won't need it all. Dont use table salt. Fine salt has an anti-caking agent mixed into it which tastes, in big amounts, horrible.  Ocado has the wonderful Sel de Guérande, but it is a bit trickier to use the first time you do a salt fish, since it is damp to begin with. Get some white fish and cut it into small even sized chunks.

Sprinkle some salt in a tupperware that will fit the fish in a single layer and lay the pieces on it. Cover the fish with more salt, cover with the lid and put in the fridge.

Each day, tip away the liquid that has come out of the fish and replenish the salt as required (if too much has dissolved and the fish is no longer covered).

Once no more liquid is coming out of the fish – anywhere between three days and two weeks, though the salt will still feel damp – remove from the container. Leave any salt clinging to the fish, lightly sprinkle with a little fresh salt, put into a container with a lid and return the fridge.

This will keep well for months in a fridge. It is a good idea to check the container every couple of weeks and get rid of any liquid that has collected.

Verdict:

No verdict today. My food was fine and the salt cod has just started to do its magic.

Oops, just noticed that I published this after midnight, so its now a day later.

Street food. Vegetarian Ramen. Some handy tricks.

South or southwest 5 to 7, decreasing 4 for a time.

Slight or moderate, occasionally rough at first.

Rain or thundery showers.

Good, occasionally poor.

Have you ever eaten any kind of Asian soup on a street market? Either in Asia or in the UK during a festival? The vendor takes a bowl, opens a myriad of lids which cover ingredients, you point, he adds to your bowl and in the end he tops it all with a soup. You eat with bliss and think: I could eat one of those each day for the rest of my life.

Until you realise that, unless you live permanently in Asia or next door to Chinatown, you will be the one who braises the pork, poaches the chicken, steams the prawns, blanches the sprouts, cooks the noodles, fries the tofu, chops the vegetables, prepares the broth and does the washing up. All for one person. For one meal. So you are not going to do it. Until the day you really crave something like this. By the end of the preparations you are so exhausted that you could not care less if its good or not. Its food. And lots.

I have cut it up in manageable chunks for you. The broth I made for 4, since you can divide it in 4 portions and freeze them until you need them.

The spice paste sits happily for a few days around, the bamboo bathes in the brine, the tofu chills for a few days more in the freezer and a hardboiled egg is a hardboiled egg. Can be done, if you eat it in the meantime, tomorrow again.

So, with a bit of planning and doing some things while you cook other things, you always have the base for a ramen soup around. Whenever your craving hits you.

Dont be imitated by the amount of steps, you will realise that, until the last day, there is actually little work to do. And even on eating day it is not more challenging than another dish.

BROTH (serves 4)

1 large sheet dried kombu (kelp)

1 litre water

3 dried shiitakes, ground finely in a food processor

1 (5cm) piece ginger, peeled and sliced into thin sticks

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons mirin

1 tablespoon coconut oil

1 small onion, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

2 tablespoons of miso

400ml vegetable broth

3 cloves garlic, minced

In large bowl, combine the boiling water and the dried, ground mushrooms and the kelp and let soak 15 minutes.

In a large pot, heat the coconut oil over medium heat. Add the onion and carrot, sauté 2 minutes.

Add the miso, soya sauce, mirin, mushroom/kelp mixture (including the water), veggie broth, garlic, and ginger to your veggies and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for at least 20 minutes.

Strain the broth over a bowl to remove the solids and discard them.  Strain the broth again, this time through a muslin or through a coffee filter. Return to pan over medium heat and bring to a boil for another 10 minutes.  Overall you ought to end up with 1litre of nice brownish fluid. Remove from heat.

Don’t add salt or more soya sauce at this stage!

Once it is cool, it can be stored in the fridge or filled into portion sized freezer bags. It should give 4 portions.

The day before you want to eat the soup:

Take one bag out of the freezer and let it defrost in the fridge (put the bag into a mug, it might leak).

Make the 

SPICE PASTE (serves one, but could be a bit too much, depending how much you reduced your stock. Dont worry, use the leftover the next day over grilled chicken or grilled aubergines)

1 tablespoon sesame seeds, toasted

1 tablespoon of soy sauce or tamari

1 tablespoon mirin

2 teaspoons of chilli oil

1 tablespoon sesame paste (tahini)

1 cm piece of ginger, peeled and roughly chopped

the greens from 1 spring onion, thinly sliced

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and process until smooth (you might need to add a small amount of water for such a small amount of ingredients to get smooth)

Store in a lidded dish, but not in the fridge.

TOFU:

cut off half about 150gr of firm tofu from your normal block and slice this piece into slices the thickness of medium sliced toast bread (about 1 cm). Pat dry, put onto a piece of clingfilm and freeze. Uncovered. This will firm it up and result into a nice crunchy outer skin.

BAMBOO SHOOTS:

You can either open a tin of sliced bamboo shoots or get 4 shoots in brine (they are normally sold in packs of four, if you get one, even better). Drain and wash that slightly sour horrible brining liquid off. Slice unless they are already sliced. Add into a Tupperware and fill this with water and a generous pinch of salt. Cover and store in the fridge.

DUCK EGG (or hen)= unless you are vegan then skip that part

Hardboil.

Eating day has finally arrived. Put the kettle on, Love: you need it.

BEAN SPROUTS : Handful of bean sprouts, blanched. The best way to do this is putting them in a pot, pour the water from the kettle and a pinch of salt over them and let them sit for two minutes. Put the kettle on again, drain and repeat the procedure. After 2 minutes drain them and put them in a pot of ice water. They ought to be soft but not limp.  Once they are cool, drain them and put into your serving bowl.

TOFU out of the freezer and into a pan with a hot tablespoon of sesame oil. Turn frequently until they are nicely golden brown and crunchy. Take them out of the pan but let the oil in, drain ond let cool on a kitchen paper and then add to the sprouts.

Drain a few slices ( about 6-8) of the BAMBOO SHOOTS and pat dry. Reheat pan with sesame oil. In they go, fry until dry-ish, and then add a teaspoon of soya sauce, mirin and a tiny pinch of dried chilli flakes. Reduce. Drain, and once cool, add into your bowl.

Reheat your BROTH in a pan and fill another pan with salted water. While the water is boiling up, assemble the rest. A good tablespoon of the SPICE PASTE over your mixture in the serving bowl, peel and quarter the EGG, put on top, cut the greens from a SPRING ONION into rings and top the eggs.

Now the pot with the salt water should be boiling and your broth hot. Add RAMEN NOODLES or other soup noodles (not rice noodles- I am thinking more into chow mein or similar noodles). Depending on the variety this can take from 3 to 8 minutes. Drain, put into your serving bowl and top with the BROTH. Bring to the table, stir and enjoy.

Verdict: Well, I have done it before in steps (for four) and it was bloody gorgeous and manageable. Today I made it all in one afternoon in order to scale it down. It was still gorgeous, but I was so exhausted that I did not care. It was food. Exactly what I needed. The washing up alone killed me (I don’t have a dishwasher).

The only thing I noticed was that it was not too salty. Heureka!

No, honestly, do try it. It is wonderful.

The spice paste was from a website I sadly don’t remember, the idea with the ground dried mushrooms from David Chang, incorporating kelp or other seaweed into soups from a demonstration on Irish dulse,

the brining of the bamboo shoots from a food vendor in Vietnam and the idea with freezing tofu from seriouseats and J. Kenji López-Alt`s take on Vegan chorizo, which I can’t wait to try out.

Pesto. Fresh Pasta. Courghetti.

Still:

Northwesterly backing southwesterly 5 or 6.

Slight or moderate. Showers. Good.

They lie. It did not rain.

Pesto.

I am not that fond of pasta. I have nothing against it, but if you, like I did, ate out a lot in the 80s, you had enough pasta for a lifetime.

But Pesto is a thing of beauty, as long as you make it yourself. The shop bought varieties are horrid. They use the cheaper cashew nuts instead of pine nuts, inferior oil and bulk it often up with potato flakes.

However it is dead easy to make yourself and, if you have basil in the garden or on the windowsill, cheaper than buying it. Despite the fact that pine nuts are blooming expensive.

Again, use your pestle and mortar. I don’t have anything against food processors, but first of all I like the Zen like pounding of food; and second good quality olive oil can acquire a funny taste in a food processor.

By all means use a food processor if you have arthritis in your hands, but use the interval chopping method.

Fresh Pasta.

The word pasta is great. It encapsulates all kind of noodle shapes and you don’t need to discuss if you had spaghetti or fettuccine or linguine. I had pasta. Fresh pasta. Dont worry, I am not buying a pasta machine for the 5 times per year I eat it. But I cut it myself, hence the generic term pasta. You can buy fresh pasta (lasagne) sheets. Ocado sells the Natoora Fresh Egg Lasagne Sheets. Yes, they are expensive but it is a lot for one person. And they freeze well. Take a sheet, cut it in half and cut then pasta shapes (a pizza cutter is great for it). Very thin, wide, in between, or crooked. Keep a quarter of a sheet for open ravioli, put each pile of shapes into a freezer bag and up into the freezer. Cook from frozen. Fresh pasta everytime you want it. Today I use the crooked shape.

Most days I use the crooked shapes. I was never very good in manual labour which requires patience and attention to detail. Someone who can knit or crochet is my hero.

Courghetti.

Unless you live under a rock, you have heard that some people have an irrational fear of carbohydrates. Or are on a diet and hope it helps them to cut the carbs. You might even have heard the word “paleo” (don’t get me started; it’s one of my pet hates)

And green is anyway the new black (I promise you I never provide you with recipes for green smoothies, some things are just abominable).

Enter the spiralizer. I don’t have one but I have a julienne peeler. 

That will do.

Now, the reason I try this out is plain curiosity. How will it compare to the pasta with my awesome pesto? Could that be a summer dish (you don’t really cook the courgette, you just toss it in oil or eat them raw)? Is it just a fad and not worth doing?

Pesto:

about 10-15 basil leaves (depending on size), picked from the stem

2 teaspoons of pine nuts

1 small garlic, peeled

a tiny sprinkle of salt

about 4 tablespoon of good olive oil

about 1 teaspoon of coarsely grated Parmesan (or Vegetarian Parmesan)

Heat a pan without oil and put one teaspoon of the pine nuts in and let them take on a nice brown colour. As always with nuts it seems nothing happens for quite a while, then they turn brown very quickly. Let them cool.

While they cool down add the garlic and the salt to your pestle and mortar. Pound into a paste. Add basil leaves and the other pine nuts and continue pounding until it is smooth. Add roasted pine nuts and pound a teeny weeny bit until they are still a bit coarse. Add slowly olive oil and mix, add grated parmesan cheese.

Pasta:

Since fresh pasta cooks quickly and you had them frozen, you need a big pot which doesn’t cool down. Bring slightly salted water to the boil, you need to be able to surf on it. Add frozen pasta, turn up the heat and cook until they are done (about 5 minutes). Drain, but retain a bit of the pasta water.

Put two tablespoon of pesto into a bowl, add two tablespoons of the water and the drained pasta. Mix. Add black pepper and/or parmesan to taste.

Courghetti:

Peel courgette and with a julienne knife (or a spiralizer), make lovely short spaghetti like shapes.

Add to draining bowl, sprinkle with salt and let the water drain a bit from them. Heat a teaspoon of olive oil in a pan and add the Courghetti. Let them dry out and get a bit of colour. Add to a bowl, put two tablespoons of pesto on it and mix very carefully with two forks.

Verdict:

I ate the courghetti first to see how filling they are.

The pesto was gorgeous, albeit a bit too smooth. Maybe next time I will toast all the pine nuts.

The courghetti were actually quite nice and quite filling. While I was glad that I had the pasta on top of it, this might have something to do with portion size. One courgette is hardly a main dish for a grown woman, diet or not. But if you are not that hungry, a dish like this, with maybe a handful of cherry tomatoes and a few slices of mozzarella will give you a nearly carb free lunch for the summer. However I had the feeling it would benefit from a squeeze of lemon.

Well, most dishes benefit from a bit of lemon. Do try it out. You might be surprised what a difference it makes to all your dishes.