Salmon pie

Earlier in the year when I was doing a FutureLearn course, I experimented with making a couple of Elizabethan vegetable pies. This time I decided to experiment by making a pie which contained salmon as well as vegetables and using verjuice as before and Dijonaise rather than butter. This pie didn't have the richness from the butter but the more delicate flavours allowed the salmon to be tasted more.


 

Ingredients

250 gr salmon fillet with skin
1 carrot
2 cauliflower flowers
2 handfuls frozen baby peas
2 tbs verjuice
1 tbs Dijonnaise
Puff pastry

Mode

Preheat the oven to 180c
Remove the pastry to thaw to room temperature if frozen
Chop the carrots as you wish and add to baking dish
Break the cauliflower into florets and add
Add the Dijonnaise and stir
Microwave the carrot and cauliflower for 1 minute (or steam lightly)
Make space in the middle and place the salmon fillet there
Add frozen peas
Pour over verjuice
Cover the pie dish with a sheet of puff pastry and decorate as desired
Pierce the top in a few places
Cook in the oven for 45 minutes

"Elizabethan" vegetable tarte

A couple of days ago, I blogged about an Elizabethan pea tarte which I made for my current Futurelearn course. Whilst I liked the outcome, I have since reflected on what worked or didn't work and how it might be improved.  In this case, I chose to use a mixture of vegetables.  I put the vegetables (apart from the peas into the microwave at full pelt for one minute.  If you don't want to use a microwave you could steam them briefly.

I chose not to microwave the peas this time as I felt with the other recipe that modern frozen baby peas simply didn't need the extra cooking. So next time I make the pea tarte I won't do pre-cooking of the peas. I also chose this time to add the verjuice to the vegetables at the beginning and to have a closed pastry top and not to do two stages of cooking.  I found that this worked well and the vegetables probably stayed a bit moister.  But maybe this is my modern taste speaking.

Ingredients

Sweet potato
Cauliflower
Green peas frozen
Unsalted butter
Pepper
Cayenne
Cummin
Puff pastry
Verjuice



Mode

Preheat oven to 180c
If pastry frozen, remove to thaw
Slice sweet potato into fairly thin rounds
Break cauliflower into small flowerlets
Place cauliflower and sweet potato in souffle dishes
Sprinkle with pepper, cayenne and cummin
Place in microwave for one minute
Remove from microwave and add frozen peas
Add about 2 tsp sweet i.e. unsalted butter to each dish
Sprinkle verjuice into each dish
Cut the pastry into size for each dish

Place the pastry on the top of each souffle dish
Cook in the oven for 45 minutes

Elizabethan pea tarte

Week two of my Royal Food and Feasting Futurelearn course focuses on Elizabeth 1. One of the recipes is for a pea tarte.  This is my variant on the tarte. I prefer to minimize the amount of pastry I eat and tend to make my pies (aka Elizabethan tartes) in dishes with pastry covering the top rather than with the contents surrounded top and bottom with pastry. So this is my attempt at an Elizabethan green pea pie in that context.

Essentially the dish requires a hot oven, green peas, sweet butter, pepper, saffron, a bit of salt and pastry on top for the initial cook.  Then slosh a sprinkle of verjuice into the top and cook for a bit longer.  It's very simple but tastes great and you can certainly taste the difference with the verjuice. I was glad to pull out my Maggie Beer verjuice that I don't use often.

Ingredients

Green peas frozen
Unsalted butter
Pepper
Saffron
Salt
Puff pastry
Verjuice 

Mode

Preheat oven to 180c
If pastry frozen, remove to thaw
Place frozen peas in microwave for one minute or steam briefly
Place peas in small souffle dishes
Sprinkle with pepper, saffron and salt
Add about 2 tsp sweet i.e. unsalted butter to each dish
Cut the pastry into size for each dish
Cut a cross in the centre of each piece of pastry
Place the pastry on the top of each souffle dish
Peel back the triangles of the cross
Cook in the oven for 30 minutes
Remove from oven and pour dash of verjuice into each pie through the hole on top
Shake to mix ingredients
Remove to oven another 15 minutes.

Spicy vegetables

The other night I cooked up a tray of meat lasagne (another product of the pantry cleaning) and I was wondering about vegetables. I had potatoes and pumpkin on hand and a few other staples. So I remembered an old standby. I am sure that the recipe originated with one for peas in an old Indian cookbook but I have made it so often and with so many variations that I am not sure it bears any relation to the original. Maybe just the peas and onion and turmeric? It might be interesting to pull out the recipe and see if there are any remaining similarities.

Anyway, here's my Spicy vegetables. Again, I don't have quantities or times. Just do as much as you need for the number of people and cook it until it is cooked.

Spicy Vegetables

Ingredients

Oil
Onion
Mustard seed
Cumin seed
Tumeric
Pumpkin
Potatoes
Frozen baby peas
Water

Mode

Peel and slice the onion.
Cut the potatoes roughly into quarters, depending on the size of the potatoes.
Deseed the pumpkin and cut the pumpkin into manageable portions.
You can peel both the potates and pumpkin if you prefer but I don't usually.
Heat the oil in a saucepan large enough to contain all the vegetables
Add the onion and stir until softened.
Add mustard seed and stir.
Add other spices.
Add potatoes and pumpkin and stir so that coated in onion/spice mixture
Cook for a few minutes while stirring.
Add frozen baby peas and mix.
Add water and simmer until pumpkin and potatoes are tender and the flavours absorbed.

Note that I am taking the opportunity to take a photo using the nifty little yellow silicone trivet that Neville and Wayan gave me for my birthday. It's a great little tool.