Smoked mackerel dauphinoise

My variation on a recipe from Nigel Slater's Real Food

Serves 2 as a main dish

400g waxy potatoes, scraped or scrubbed
150g smoked mackerel fillets
2 bay leaves
200 ml double cream
200ml milk
1 tablespoon grain mustard
1 small head of broccoli

"Slice the potatoes lengthways, about as thick as one-pound coins. Put them in a shallow baking dish about 30cm in diameter. Break the mackerel fillets into large, bite-sized pieces and toss them gently with the potatoes. Try not to break the fish up too much. Tuck in the bay leaves."

"Mix together the cream, milk, mustard and a little salt and pepper, then pour it over the potatoes. Bake in the oven preheated to 190C/Gas 5 for about one hour, till the cream is bubbling and the potatoes are knife-tender."

My notes:

This is my variation, mainly on amounts of ingredients. The recipe suggests about this quantity for 4 people but I feel you need a bit more potato for a main course.

Make sure the potatoes are sliced quite thinly and that they are soft and tender before serving. This is important, leave them another 15 minutes or so in the oven if they are not.

And I added a bit of broccoli this time, just break it into small florets and scatter amongst the potatoes.

Friands

From "Simple Food" by Jill Dupeix

Makes 10

180g butter (preferably unsalted)
200g icing sugar
60g plain flour, sifted
120g ground almonds
5 large free-range egg whites
1 tsp grated lemon or orange rind
icing sugar for dusting

"The friand is a truly awsome small, moist, dense, rich, almondy cake. It's very, very French and very, very chic."

"Heat the oven to 200C/Gas 6. Melt the butter and allow to cool, then use 1 tbsp to coat 10 muffin tin moulds."

"Sift the icing sugar and flour into a bowl, and mix in the ground almonds. Lightly beat the egg whites with a fork, then fold them into the dry ingredients. Add the cooled, melted butter and lemon rind, and mix well."

"Three-quarters fill each mould with the mixture and bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 10 minutes. Turn the tray around, and bake for another 5 to 10 minutes, until the tops are golden and spring back to the touch."

"Leave in the tins for 5 minutes, then gently unmould onto a wire tray and leave to cool. Dust the friands with icing sugar to serve, or store them in an airtight container for up to 3 days."


My notes:

Egg whites - Having made custard with egg yolks, or anything else, this is a great recipe to use up egg whites, as are macaroons.

Cooking times - I seem to need 10 minutes, turn around and another 10 minutes. My oven is not particularly good.

Size - You can make smaller ones in fairy cake cases or use a muffin tin for larger ones.

This gets a review from A of 9.5 out of 10 - "they would have got 10 if they were bigger".

Food at cookin'/relaxin'

This is my food blog. It's a bit like an MP3 blog, but sampling favourite recipes from books, rather than tunes. Please buy the book if they look good. If you're the author and would rather I didn't include the recipe then let me know and I'll take them down.

It's mainly a place for me to collect my favourite recipes, including my own (not that there are that many) as well as any modifications I make. But maybe you will enjoy them as well. Oh, I'm part-vegetarian (I eat fish) so I don't eat meat and there won't be any meat-based recipes here. Sorry.

This blog is brought to you by some of my favourite cookery books:

Nigella Lawson's Feast
Nigel Slater's Real Food
Gordon Ramsey's Secrets
The Green's Cookbook
Dan Lepard's The Handmade Loaf book

And the ingredients come mainly from Waitrose and Abel & Cole.