Pan fried bream with Mediterranean tomatoes and cold courgette salad

Ingredients

Hot

• Two headed and scaled sea bream
• 16 black olives
• 12 cherry tomatoes
• One red onion
• A lemon
• Sunflower oil
• Thyme
• Oregano

Cold

• One medium courgette
• Half a kohlrabi
• A cup of frozen petits pois
• Three spring onions
• Mint
• A clove of garlic

The bream had been bought from the fishmonger at Aberdovey, and kept frozen since then.

Fillet the fish and marinade for thirty minutes in juice of the lemon with olive oil, half the herbs and black pepper.

Cut courgette longitudinally and use a peeler to shave courgette into strips.

Chop kohlrabi into one centimeter cubes.

Add the petits pois still frozen

Make a dressing from olive oil, balsamic vinegar, a teaspoon of wine vinegar, the mint and garlic finely chopped.

I added spring onions, but would not do so again.

Chop red onion and cut tomatoes and start to fry in olive oil, then add black olives and some of their brine.

Fry the fish hard in hot sunflower oil.

Steak from Alders

Rump steak from Alders Oxoford. Served with chips, mushrooms, tomato, peas and a half a fried lettuce.

Easter Shoulder of Lamb

We got the last shoulder of lamb from Sandy Lane Farm, where they had piglets!

Starting a little late I put the swede on to boil, and started to research. I have cooked lamb of many times, this Leg of Lamb recipe isabout right. It references Delia and Ruth found this BBC Good FoodLeg of Lamb

We have rosemary,some thyme, mint, lots of chives in the garden.

A marinade of garlic, ginger, olive oil and black pepper.

In Colliore in August 2022 I made salt,

one litre of sea salt yields quite a lot of salt, I have been keeping it for a special occasion.

Roased with parsnips and carrot

Which all turned out well

and was followed by Ruth's pannacotta topped with raspberries.

Fun with Buckwheat Pancakes

Not being a fan of waste I was keen to try and use a bag of four yer old buckwheat form Doves Farm.

The classic formulation for a nrmal English pancake is:

1. 100g flour
2. 2 eggs
3. 300ml milk
4. 1 table spoon vegetable oil

As I was scared that the flour might taste rancid even if it smelled OK I did not want to waste two eggs, so only used one, but as it turned out two would have been fine and might have made the pancakes stiffer.

Instead of milk I used clotted cream and water as the cream needed eating.

The first three seemed a little bland so I added a third of a teaspoon of salt.

All fine, but now lets play, adding a little water when needed adding the following between batches of three cakes.

A teaspoon of Colemans English Mustard flour, nice.

A teaspoon of ground garlic powder - strong but fine

A teaspoon full of ground pimento - slightly too dominant for me

A squirt of tomato ketchup - not really noticable

Two tablespoons of chili vinegar - nice

I recommend this playful bit of cooking!