Fresh tuna and vegetable pie

Another evening another pie? Well maybe. But I use this blog to document what I cook so that’s how it is. Last week I had a delicious beef pie at a favourite pub and I can’t begin to think how I might emulate that. But I am going back next week to investigate further. However, I enjoy cooking pies with fish and can do it myself!

Today what caught my eye while shopping was some fresh tuna. Yum! Fresh tuna, some vegetables, with garlic and ginger in puff pastry was what I thought as I shopped. And so it was! The added pleasure with the tuna is that tuna always reminds me of Greek (and Mycenaean) colonization following the tunny schools to the Black Sea and my mind has been involved with the Black Sea recently. 

Ingredients

260 gr fresh tuna

2 sheets frozen puff pastry

1/2 zucchini

1/4 red pepper

2 cloves garlic

2 teaspoons crushed ginger root

Poppyseed

Mode

Preheat oven to 180c.

Remove pastry from freezer to thaw.

Meanwhile crush the garlic and ginger

Julienne the zucchini

Chop the red pepper into 4-5 pieces

Place one sheet of the pastry in the bottom of baking dish

Add the tuna 

Place the vegetables on top and around the tuna

Add the garlic and ginger

Place the second sheet of pastry on top

Fold the edges to seal

Sprinkle with poppyseed

Bake in 180c oven for 45 minutes

Pork rissoles with plum sauce

I went shopping looking for chicken mince with an idea of cooking chicken balls. But there was no chicken mince to be had and my eye caught some pork mince. Well, I thought, I am sure I can think of something to cook with that. The end result was pork rissoles made with sage and garlic and spring onion and with  plum sauce for dipping. They were lovely: crisp on the outside but soft inside and all the flavours went together well! Yummy. 

Ingredients

600 gr pork mince

2 spring onions

2 tsp dried sage

2 cloves of garlic

1 egg

Breadcrumbs 

Olive oil

Plum sauce

Mode

Place the mince in a bowl

Chop the spring onions and add

Crush the garlic and add

Add the sage

Using your hands combine the mixture together

Break an egg onto a plate

Place breadcrumbs on another plate

Form the meat mixture into rissoles using a dessert spoon

Dip them in the egg and then breadcrumbs

Heat oil in a frying pan

Fry the rissoles in batches until they are crisp on the outside and cooked to your taste inside

Serve with plum sauce

Winter tomato soup

This is a winter soup made with the saved produce of summer: ripe tomatoes that have become passata and dried basil leaves. It is very easy once you have the ingredients on hand. So plan in the summer for this.

Ingredients

1 litre passata

1 liter chicken stock

1 cup water

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

Handful of crushed dry basil leaves

2 garlic cloves

2 tsp chopped ginger root

Mode

Add the passata to a large pan and light stove 

Use the water to wash out the passata bottle and add to the passata

Add the chicken stock to tomato and stir to combine

Crush the garlic, ginger root and dried basil leaves and add to mixture

Add the breadcrumbs and stir 

Bring the mixture to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes stirring regularly 

Serve with a spoonful of Greek strained yoghurt in the bottom of each bowl