Cookbook Challenge 2013 - Week 44

The clocks have changed this week and we are officially on the countdown to Christmas (I may have unofficially already been counting!), and I feel a pre-Christmas detox coming on in order to look and feel trim during the festive season. With that in mind my first new recipe of the week was Trout in a Parcel with Lemon, Fennel and Crème Fraîche from The Little Paris Kitchen. The most complicated part of the recipe is making sure that the parcels are totally sealed so that none of the steam or juices escapes during cooking, and even that wasn’t complicated just a bit fiddly! Once I’d convinced myself that the fish was cooked I plated it up with some lemon wedges and crème fraîche on the side. The fish was perfectly cooked (even though I do say so myself), lovely and moist and flaking wonderfully off the bones. The crème fraîche mixed into the juices to create a deliciously creamy accompaniment to the fennel and potatoes, which worked extremely well with the fish. If Rachel Khoo can whip it up in her tiny kitchen then I certainly can, and did, in mine. 

My second new recipe of the week was another fish dish, Oven-Roast Salmon with a Mustard & Parsley Crust from Lorraine Pascale’s Home Cooking Made Easy. The more I use this book the more convinced I am that no one tested any of the recipes or indeed proof-read it at all, because if you make the recipe as stated you would have been putting the fish into a cold oven – there was nothing to tell you to pre-heat the oven (ok, I can overlook that as everyone knows to do this), but more crucially there was no oven temperature even given…sloppy, very sloppy! So with the oven pre-heating to a temperature of my choice I made the topping for the salmon and pressed it firmly onto the top of the fillets, then I prepared my vegetables for the steamer and sat down with a cup of tea and waited for hubby to get home. Cooking was simply a matter of steaming the potatoes and green beans and popping the salmon in the oven – lovely and easy for a Monday evening. The salmon was light, moist and incredibly tasty with the crispy breadcrumb topping, the slight sweetness in the crust was a pleasing addition to the dish. 

Recipe Count: 141
New Target: 156