parsley

Fresh Mackerel Stuffed with Haggis

~ Kitty ~ 2 Comments

… fresh mackerel stuffed with haggis, and served with three vegetable mash and whiskey sauce.

Trust me, this was wonderful!

fresh mackerel with haggis

It is difficult not to be decadent when my good friend ‘Winemaker Sarah’ (so called because she makes wine for a living, and I have many Sarah’s in my life) comes to stay. Sarah always arrives with a car full of delicious goodies from which we create weird and wonderful things. Two of the ingredients for this meal came from Sarah’s car – whiskey-infused cheese and, bizarrely, a swede.

The mackerel was from the reduced section of Tesco and was a whole 68p. Because it was in the reduced section it was already wrapped and I wrongly assumed that it was a couple of fillets – as it turned out I was glad that my mum brought me up to be able to gut fish!

The haggis came from the freezer, the last of the leftovers from Burns Night. I used the rest a few weeks ago wrapped in chicken and bacon. Yum.

This served three, despite only having one small fish (slightly biblical?) and I am at at loss to describe just how delicious it was.

Ingredients

  • One mackerel
  • a few tablespoons of haggis
  • flat leaved parsley
  • splash of lemon juice
  • splash of ginger wine
  • a small swede
  • two carrots
  • a few potatoes
  • 1/2 pint of milk
  • tablespoon of flour
  • whiskey-cheese

Method

A ready gutted and filleted fish would be easiest to work with, but briefly a word on gutting fish:

Take a very sharp knife and carefully open up the belly of the fish from tail to head. Remove the innards then take the knife and use it to break the spine at the tail, gently lift the spine trying to bring as many of the little bones with it as possible. Rub the inside of the fish with course salt to clean it.

gutting and stuffing fish

Fill the cavity of the fish with the haggis and a couple of sprigs of parsley and then wrap snugly in foil. Bake in the bottom of the oven at 160oC for 25 minutes.

When you have put the fish in the oven chop the carrot and swede and bring to the boil. The potatoes won’t take as long to cook, so chop them and add them when the rest of the vegetables have been bubbling away for about five minutes. When each of the vegetables can be easily pierced with a fork drain and then mash them with some butter and pepper.

Because I have stripped my kitchen down to (less than) the bare essentials as part of the Basic Kitchen Project I put the vegetables to one side, cleaned the pan and then made white sauce.

Heat the milk slowly, do not allow it to boil. Put a heaped tablespoon of plain flour into a mug and add a splash or two of milk and mix to a paste. Pour some of the warm milk into the mug and mix thoroughly, then return the mixture to the pan. Maintain the low heat and stir the sauce as it thickens – keep a close eye on it! When it has begun to thicken crumble the cheese into the sauce and allow it to melt. If (like most people!) you don’t have a friend who rocks up at your house with whiskey cheese then you can add a tablespoon of whiskey to the sauce at this stage.

For the last five minutes turn up the oven to 200oC, open up the foil from around the fish and add a splash of lemon and of ginger wine then return to the oven for 5 minutes.

Cost

This one is a little difficult to cost, mostly because I cannot find where I wrote down the weight of the haggis which I used. The haggis was a ‘leftover’, but I appreciate that most people won’t have this kicking around at the back of their freezer! ‘Winemaker Sarah’ found the ginger wine while she was poking around in my drinks cabinet – a common occurrence when she comes to stay.

  • One mackerel – £0.68
  • a few tablespoons of haggis – ?
  • flat leaved parsley – from my garden
  • splash of lemon juice – ?
  • splash of ginger wine – ?
  • a small swede – this was a (bizarre) gift, but if I had bought it at Asda it would have been £0.50
  • two carrots – £0.30
  • a few potatoes – £0.30
  • 1/2 pint of milk – £0.25
  • tablespoon of flour – ?
  • whiskey-cheese – a gift. If I had used cheddar  I reckon it would have been about £0.30

So, not the best costing I have done as part of this project! I will go with it being approximately £2.30 plus gifts and leftovers – still, not too bad for a particularly decadent evening.

Ricotta Gnocchi – with lemon, parsley and chilli

~ Kitty ~ 4 Comments

One of the purchases which made up my £10 budget for this week was a pot of ricotta from the reduced section of the supermarket; 250g of ricotta cost me 86p. I hadn’t decided what to do with it when I bought it, but a bit of googling and I had the answer – it was time for me to learn how to make gnocchi! I used the basic recipe from this website – for the simple reason that it used the amount of ricotta that I had and I didn’t want to do any maths! I added fresh parsley from the garden to the mixture and used cheddar cheese because I had no parmesan, apart from that I followed the recipe pretty faithfully.

This isn’t the most camera-friendly dish I have ever made, but it was truly delicious.

Ricotta Gnocchi

Ingredients

  • 8 oz / 250g Ricotta Cheese
  • 3/4 cup / 75 g freshly grated parmesan cheese (I substituted in cheddar cheese)
  • 3/4 to 1 cup / 110 – 150g plain flour, plus more for dusting
  • 1 egg, plus 1 egg yolk
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
  • 1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes
  • A splash of lemon juice
  • Black pepper

Method

Combine all of the ingredients – except for the flour – in a bowl and mix together. Add the minimum amount of flour to the mixture and combine until it makes a sticky soft dough. Add the remaining flour a tablespoon at a time, until you have a consistency that you can work with.

Turn it out onto a work surface which is lightly dusted with flour, sprinkle a tiny bit of flour on top then pat it down to a disc about an 2.5cm thick. Cut it into 8 pieces. Next, roll a piece into a log about 1.5 cm in diameter and then cut this into 1.5cm pieces. Repeat with the rest of the mixture.

Ideally, the gnocchi should go into the fridge for about half an hour at this stage. It can keep in the fridge a day or more if you want to be organised and make it in advance.

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Tumble the gnocchi in and cook for a couple of minutes, or until the gnocchi is floating on the surface for around 30 seconds.

Once the gnocchi is drained put some butter, pepper, chilli flakes and lemon juice into the pan and then return the gnocchi to the pan for a couple of minutes. Alternatively the gnocchi can be served with a pasta sauce, such as this favourite of mine (which is the first recipe I ever shared with you!).

Cost

  • 250g Ricotta – £0.86
  • 75g Cheddar Cheese – £0.40
  • 150g Plain Flour – £0.06
  • 2 Eggs – £0.31
  • 1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes – £0.01

Total Cost = £1.64

Ricotta Gnocchi