Soused Root Vegetable Salad with Feta

I'm still waiting for that first flush of spring to bring in the new seasons produce.......come on! Whilst we wait, here is an interesting salad that uses a quick pickling liquor to add a sweet, sour and spicy dimension to shredded root vegetables. You will need a Japanese Mandolin to shed the vegetables as doing it with a knife is hard going - be careful , they are lethal bits of kitchen kit! Goes great with oily fish such as mackerel (minus the feta). 

Ingredients:

Rice vinegar - 100ml

Sugar - 80g

1 hot chilli - finely sliced

1 raw beetroot

1 medium carrot

1/2 mouli (japanese white radish)

1 small red onion

1/2 a cucumber

Fresh coriander - 1 small bunch

100g feta cheese

Method:

Peel and shred all the vegetables. When you get to the cucumber, no need to peel, just shred length ways until you get to the seeds. Rotate the cucumber 90 degrees and go again,. Repeat until you have just the seedy core remaining and discard - you don't want all that watery mass in your salad.

In a small pan bring the vinegar, sugar and chilli to the boil then take off the heat. Season well and tip over your veg - toss well. Allow to stand for 5 mins the serve with crumbled feta and fresh coriander sprinkled over the top. I ate mine with hot middle eastern flat breads and homous.

River Exe Mussel & Smoked Haddock Chowder

Falling somewhere between a classic chowder and moules mariniere, this is easy to make, has bags of flavour and flies off the menu at the pub. Apologies if the photo is not up to scratch, it was taken on an iphone straight off the pass!  For 2:

Ingredients:

Onion, Potato and Carrot - 1 of each, medium sized, peeled and finely diced

Celery - 2 sticks, finely diced

Leek - 1 medium, well washed, finely diced

Garlic - 2 cloves, finely chopped

Flour - 1 desert spoon

Butter - 50g

Milk - 200ml

Cream - 100ml

Tarragon - leaves picked from stems, 1 tbsp, chopped

White Wine - 100ml

Undyed, naturally smoked haddock - 200g, skinned, pin boed and roughly chopped

Mussels - 800g, cleaned

Method:

Gently sweat in the butter (without colouring) the onion, carrot, celery, leek, potato and garlic. When the veg begins to soften, add the wine and bubble away to almost nothing. Add the flour and mix well. Now add the milk, cream and smoked haddock and bring to a gentle simmer - the sauce, when thickened, has a tendency to catch on the bottom of the pan so control your heat and stir regularly. When the carrot is soft and the potato beginning to break down, toss in the mussels and simmer gently until all the mussels have opened. Stir regularly. 

The mussels will add their juice to the sauce so the consistency should be right but if it looks too thick, add a little more milk or cream - you want a thick soupy broth. Season well and toss in the tarragon just before serving. Serve with good crusty bread and butter to mop up the juices.

Mustard Toad in the Hole

Moving away from dishes that are a little bit fancy, here is one that anyone would be happy to come home to after a Monday spent hard at work. Surprisingly easy to make as long as you follow a few basic rules: 

1) Heat the fat to smoking temperature - and it really must be shimmering and smoking like its gonna burn or catch fire. 

2) Don't weigh or measure the batter ingredients, just use a small cup and fill it first with eggs, then flour, then milk - to the same level each time.

3) Allow your batter to stand for half an hour before you use it. A night in the fridge will do it no harm either.

4) Good quality sausages......come on........no 'Tesco Value' horse scrotum sausages please!

5) Any liquid tight tin will work as the cooking vessel for this dish as long as it will hold the batter to a depth of approx 2cm. I used a 20cm paella pan in which I cook all my yorkshire puds etc.

Ingredients:

Plain Flour - a cup full

Free range eggs - a cup full

Full fat milk - a cup full

Sausages - 6 fat ones

Fat - lard, dripping or if you must, veg oil - 50g

Salt & Pepper

Dijon - as much as you can get on a tsp

Wholegrain mustard - same as above

English Mustard - same as the above

Method:

Beat together the flour, eggs, milk, mustards and a good seasoning. Leave for 30 mins. Turn your oven on to 250c and put your tin in the oven to heat up. When hot add your fat to the tin and all that to heat up to smoking temperature. Place your sausages in the batter bowl and with the screaming hot tray of smoking fat still in the oven, carefully pour the batter and sausages into the tray. This is not as dangerous as it sounds, just pull the oven tray out a bit and pour the batter into the tray using one hand covered with a tea towel. 

Make sure the sausages are well spaced out. Close the oven door and allow to cook for 5 mins before dropping the temperature to 220c.  Try not to open the oven door if you can and bake until cooked through, risen and dark brown in colour - mine took approx 35 mins but it depends on your oven.  Serve with whatever you like but the omission of onion gravy would be a travesty.