Mains

Oven Roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce with Fresh Pasta

When I’m not in a mood to make an elaborate supper, this is always a winner. It’s quick, easy and so tasty! I do make my own pasta, but you don’t need to do that, any fresh pasta bought from the supermarket will do. However, if you do feel like trying your hand at making pasta and do not have a pasta maker, fettuccine is the easiest pasta to make without a machine. I am adding the recipe for the pasta here – it is an Anna Venturi: Secrets from an Italian Kitchen recipe adapted for the Natural Chef course I did through CNM (College of Naturopathic Medicine) and the best I’ve ever made. Try making it with your kids – it’s fun!

Oven Roasted Tomato Sauce

Ingredients
500g cherry tomatoes
Small red onion, sliced
4 garlic cloves, peeled but left whole
Fresh herbs, such as oregano and flat leaf parsley
1 tbsp Olive oil
Pinch of sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Fresh basil
Grated parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 200C. Place all the ingredients (apart from salt, pepper, basil and cheese) on a baking try and sprinkle with olive oil, covering all the vegetables. Roast the vegetables for 30 – 40 minutes, until the tomatoes are soft and splitting open. Place all the roasted ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Fettuccine

Ingredients
100g OO (double zero) flour (super fine flour used for pasta)
1 large egg
Extra OO flour for dusting when you are kneading your pasta
Semolina to coat the tray you place your pasta on before cooking

Place the flour on a wooden board (or you can use a bowl) and make a well in the middle. Break your egg into the well and start combining the flour using a wooden spoon. Start from the outside and work gradually to the middle. Do not mix all the flour in yet. Dust a clean worktop with the extra OO flour. Transfer the mixture on the dusted worktop and knead the dough with heel of your hand. Keep incorporating more flour into your dough until it is firm and elastic. Wrap the dough in cling film and leave for about 20 minutes at room temperature. To roll the pasta without a pasta maker, take a small amount of dough, flatten it with the heel of your hand and place it onto the dusted surface. Roll it out until it is paper thin, cut it into fettuccine strips and roll into semolina to keep it from sticking to each other. Repeat until the dough is finished. Hang the pasta over something (if you don’t have a pasta rack) to prevent it from sticking to each other.
Using a pasta maker: start with the machine on the widest setting. Take a small piece of dough, flatten it into a rectangle and pass it through the machine several times, folding it back into a rectangle every time before you pass through the machine. If the dough feels sticky, coat it in a little flour. Continue passing it through until the dough is smooth and elastic. Once the dough is ready to shape, pass it through the different settings until you have the desired thickness and shape of the fettuccine.

Place a large saucepan of cold water and a dash of olive oil on the hob and bring to the boil. Place your pasta in the water and boil for 3 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and mix with roasted tomato sauce, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and garnish with the fresh basil.

You can always toss the roasted ingredients with the fresh pasta without blending them – it is just as delicious!

Grilled Sea Trout with Cauliflower Mousse, Samphire and Swiss Shard

Sea trout is a delicious fish that is delicate yet firm, with a lovely wild yet sweet taste. I prefer to use sea trout to salmon, purely because wild salmon is under threat and I do not like to use farmed salmon. Together with the samphire, you get a huge dose of iodine and omega vitamins on one plate. The cauliflower mousse and Swiss chard adds to the overall deliciousness of this dish. I decorated it with pea mousse and beetroot mousse, purely because the colours all worked so well together, and the peas and beetroot bring something extra to the experience. The fennel is pickled in a mixture of Mirin wine vinegar, which is a sweet-tasting vinegar, and apple cider vinegar, so yet more taste experiences as well as some crunch come to the party. Try this for a formal meal, or if you just feel like impressing someone special!

Ingredients
4 x 120g sea trout pieces (or wild salmon, if available)
1 x small cauliflower
350g Swiss chard
1 punnet samphire (usually available at fish counters)
2 x fennel bulbs
50g crushed pistachio nuts
2 tbsp olive oil
50ml Mirin wine vinegar (available at all supermarkets)
15ml apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tin coconut cream (not the coconut milk)

Preheat the oven to 180C. Put the Mirin wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar and sugar in a small saucepan and heat until the sugar has melted. Taste the pickle juice and add more sugar if too sour or more apple cider vinegar if too sweet. Allow to cool down to room temperature. Cut the fennel bulbs into thin slices and add to the pickle juice in the saucepan. Set aside until you dish up. Remove the Swiss chard leaves from the stems and rinse well. Dry the leaves and cut into broad strips and set aside. Cut the cauliflower into florets and steam until really soft (I prefer steaming as the cauliflower does not come into contact with water and thus does not become soggy when mashed). Mash the cauliflower until smooth. Put the cauliflower mash into a Nutribullet or something similar (just ensure the cauliflower is not too hot as it may splash up and burn you!). Add a teaspoon or two of coconut cream to the mash and blitz it all up until the mash is creamy and fluffy soft. There should should be no lumps in the cauliflower mash and it should not be too runny. Place the cauliflower mash back into the saucepan (without water), place over a bigger saucepan with hot water in (thus creating a bain marie) to keep the mash warm.

Take your sea trout fillets and make sure there are no bones in. Heat a little of the olive oil in a saucepan and place the sea trout in the pan when the oil is very hot. Fry the trout on each side for no more that 2 minutes a side – this is really important, as you do not want to overcook your fish. Sprinkle some crushed pistachio nuts over the fish. Place the pan with the fish in your pre-heated oven for no more than 4 minutes.

In the meantime, heat some olive oil in a saucepan and add the Swiss chard. Stir fry until soft. Remove from the pan. Using the same pan, fry the samphire until wilted and soft. Remove from the pan.

To plate up, put a spoonful of the cauliflower mash at the bottom of the plate, followed by the Swiss chard, then the samphire. (You can also use a mold if you want to create perfect layers.) Place your sea trout on top of the vegetables, and place some pickled fennel on the side.

A word of caution: I have not used any salt in this recipe, as the samphire is quite salty. If you add salt, the dish will be ruined!

Seafood Stew with Garlic Bread

This is a hearty and fragrant stew, ideal for cold days. It calls for 1 litre of fish stock – I usually make my own, but you can use shop-bought stock if you haven’t got the time to make it yourself. The beauty of making your own stock is that you control what goes in it and how fragrant you want it to be. It is also great for freezing and always helpful to have fresh stock at hand! I will post my stock recipes soon.

Ingredients
5 large fresh tomatoes, chopped
1 big white onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 big fennel bulb, sliced thinly – keep the fronds for garnish
1 – 2 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp tomato paste
1 tsp chilli flakes
Salt and pepper to taste
500g firm white fish, chopped in big blocks
300g king prawns, peeled and deveined
300g mussels in their shell
1 tbsp olive oil (always use cold pressed, extra virgin oil)
1 litre fresh fish stock
1 fresh French loaf, cut into thick slices
3 tbsp butter
2 cloves garlic, minced

Preheat the over to 180C. Fry the onions, garlic and fennel in the oil until soft. Then add the smoked paprika and fry for a further 2 – 3 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste, add the tomatoes and chilli flakes. Fry everything until soft. Pour the fish stock into the tomato mix, and leave to boil for an hour or two until it has reduced by approximately a quarter of the original liquid. You want to have enough sauce to stew the fish, prawns and mussels but not not much that it is too runny or liquidy. Season to taste. Add the fish, prawns and mussels. Cover the stew and simmer on a low heat until all the mussels have opened. Discard any unopened mussels. Taste again, and add more seasoning if you wish. Take care not to over-slat the stew as it may already be quite salty from the fish.

Take the slices of your French loaf and toast it in the oven until both sides are golden brown. Do not toast too much, or it will taste bitter. Mix the garlic in the butter, and spread the garlic butter on the toasted slices.

Serve with the stew.