Well folks on good Friday I am off to my second home in Jacarilla Spain for a sabbatical, we'll be gone for a couple of weeks so this could be my last post for a while. No doubt I shall be posting photos from various restaurants so I shall keep in touch!
Before I go I'm going to leave you with a simple recipe and a few ideas to mull over. Recently I quoted a proverb: 'when baking follow instructions, when cooking follow your taste.' Quite often when I look at a recipe it's the quantities that put me off rather than the ingredients themselves. I'm a conceptual and playful cook and a recipe to me can sometimes seem like a rule book, 500g of this, 200ml of that........ take this next recipe of fish cakes, I like lots of fish in my fishcakes whereas Bert favours more potato with a hint of fish. What I am getting at here is that I would like to loosen my recipes up and by doing so, encourage a bit of experimentation on your part.
Normally it will be a photo of a dish in a cookery book that will excite me, I'll read the recipe and if it is too drawn out and exacting I'll lose interest! Currently my favourite cookery book is 'Coi' a lovely book of stories and recipes written by chef Daniel Patterson. Daniel doesn't hold with recipes per se, he doesn't give specific quantities, rather he expects you to feel a recipe intuitively, thats my kind of cookery book!
So, where possible I'm not going to give exact, specific quantities (this won't always be possible of course) rather I would like you to take the general idea of my recipe and adapt it, use what motivates you, it's really very liberating and a lot more fun!
Lastly, for those of you familiar with the programme 'Masterchef' you will have seen the invention test, this is when the contestants are presented with a box of random ingredients and have to make a dish using a combination of those ingredients. This is cooking at its best and exactly how I cook, I look at what needs using up in my fridge, combine this with vegetables, spices or herbs and use my intuition regarding quantities and ratios, you'll be surprised at how intuitive you really are! Have fun!
Fishcakes
Recipe
Boiled potatoes, roughly mashed
Cooked fish, flaked (I used trout)
Seasoning: I added a splash of fish sauce, some pickled ginger, and black pepper
Heat oil in a large pan and over a medium heat gently fry fishcakes for 10 minutes
Serve warm fishcakes with lashings of fresh salad
Ok, that's a really simplified recipe! Quantities you can judge depending on how many you're cooking for, ratios according to your taste, Seasoning can be kept to just salt and pepper, alternatively you could add parsley, tarragon, coriander, chillies, soy sauce, garlic, grated lemon zest.............the world is your fishcake!
As Picasso famously said 'success is 10% talent, and 90% work' cooking shouldn't be laborious but it does require effort and the talent is within everyones grasp.
'The essence of pleasure is spontaneity'
-Germaine Greer
Love Donna xxx
No comments:
Post a Comment