Fish Curry

The first thing I did when I got back from my holiday yesterday afternoon was head straight to my local Morrisons to see what interesting things they had in their fish and meat aisles. Kind of depressed after visiting France and being blown away by the sheer variety and quality of produce they have I felt I really needed to redress the balance and remember what our humble supermarkets had to offer.

I wasn't disappointed! Ok, so there was no bread, pates, cheeses or meats anywhere near the quality I'd had over the channel. And the prices were higher. But I found 2 whole red gurnards for £1 each! Fresh curry leaves for just over 50p and, after a visit to the little greengrocer on my road, okra, runner beans, beautiful shiny aubergines, vine tomatoes and fresh chillies. I knew what I wanted to cook.

Ever since seeing a recent Anthony Bourdain show on Penang, where he ate a bubbling fish dish in a claypot I've been craving something similar. This is what I ended up making.

Serves 2

2 whole red gurnards, cleaned and gutted

half can coconut milk

3 cups boiling water

1 White onion, chopped

1 Inch ginger, peeled and diced finely

6 Baby vine tomatoes, halved

5 Runner beans, chopped in half, then half again

1 Aubergine, chopped
2 Red chillies, seeded and halved

7 Okra, chopped

Vegetable Oil

2 Star anise

1 tsp Fenugreek

Around 7 fresh curry leaves

2 tsp Turmeric

3 tsp Cumin

Dried chilli powder

2 tbsp Tamarind Pulp

Prepare the vegetables before starting. Then, heat a generous splash of vegetable oil in a heavy bottom pan and add the star anise and fenugreek. Fry until fragrant, around 2 minutes. Add the chopped white onion, the ginger and the curry leaves and fry for another 5 or so minutes, until the onion is soft. Then, add the turmeric, cumin and as much chilli powder as you would like. Stir to combine. Mix the tamarind pulp with the 3 cups of water and stir until dissolved. Add to the pan. Allow to simmer for around 10 minutes. Fry off the aubergine in a tiny bit of oil in a frying pan. Then add the aubergine, the red chillies and the tomatoes to the curry. Add the coconut milk and stir. Add the gurnards, making sure they are completely covered by liquid. Cook for around 10 minutes, simmering with a lid. Then add the okra and the runner beans and cook until the fish is done (around 5 minutes more). Serve with rice.

Chicharrónes

Crispy pork skin. Crispy pork skin. CRISPY. PORK. SKIN.

Okay, so it's not something I'd eat everyday for so many reasons, but oh my goodness, is it good.

I always do my shopping online, with Waitrose or Ocado, but I'm so busy that today I didn't need a whole weeks worth of shopping as I'm hardly going to be at home, so I walked to my local Morrisons. Not only did I find a whole, fresh plaice for 81p, beef skirt steak for under £2 and something I've been looking for everywhere - beef shin, but I found pork skin. 3 sheets of it for 30p. I bought the ingredients for guacamole and today's snack was sorted.

I love the Chicharrónes at Wahaca, and Thomasina's book was the first thing I checked for a recipe when I got home. Her recipe was comprehensive and I knew the outcome would be delicious, but it required me to make a spice rub and to dry the pork for 4 hours, which I really couldn't be bothered to do. Some internet searching led me to a really easy recipe from Emeril Lagasse, found here which, although it needed deep-frying (such a bore and let's face it, quite terrifying) it only needed an hour of drying and simply salting. So I decided to do the Emeril Lagasse recipe and a tweaked version of the Wahaca recipe. And see which turned out best! Pork time!

Firstly, a warning: Your house will smell of pork. Actually, when you first open and prepare the raw skin it will smell of something I'm hesitant to even mention on my blog, but let's just say, it's a vital component in baby-making. Then when you simmer it, it will smell of pig. Not pork. Pig. Then it will smell porky while it bakes or fries. Then it will smell delicious and you will want to eat it all.

My version of Wahaca's Mexican Chicharrónes:
Pork Skin (I used 280g)
Salt

Cut the pork skin into pieces roughly half the size of a credit card. Bring a saucepan to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Drain the pork skin pieces, dry with kitchen roll and sprinkle with salt. Lay on a rack and place in an oven heated to 50°C for one hour. Preheat the oven to it's highest setting and place the rinds in a single layer on a baking tray. Roast for around 10 minutes, then turn the heat down to 170°C. Roast for around 30 minutes, until crisp but not too blackened. Drain off the fat periodically into a heatproof dish. When they are done, the rinds should be puffed up and golden, but not burnt. Thomasina suggests eating them with plenty of guacamole and a glass of fine ale or tequila.

And here's my really simple guacamole recipe (Serves 2, but double as much as you like for more!):
1 Avocado
Half a red onion, very finely chopped
1 red chilli, finely chopped
Juice from half a lime
Small handful of coriander leaves, chopped
Salt

Peel and roughly chop the avocado, then smash in a pestle and mortar, add the red onion, the chilli and the chopped coriander leaves, smash some more with the pestle to mix. Salt to your taste and add the lime juice. Stir. Serve.

So here's the end result:

The Lagasse recipe didn't work for me at all, although I hate my deep fryer and am awful at deep-frying in general. Every time I do it I swear not to do it again, and then I do, and it's always crap. I fried the cracklings for 10 minutes longer than the recipe suggested and the skin still didn't puff up or crackle, it looked kind of golden but stayed soft and chewy. Total fail. Serves me right for being lazy!

But the tweaked Wahaca recipe was a total revelation. Hello golden, crispy pork skin! I'm so glad I didn't have to deep-fry it because it was so crispy and not at all oily. It tasted of pork, not oil, which is great. It went so well that next time I go to Morrisons I'm going to buy more and do the whole recipe properly, spice rub and 4 hour drying time included! Just a warning though, I could only manage 4 of these little squares. 4! Before nearly having a pork overdose and begging for mercy. Do not make over 200g of this unless you are having a party or are absolutely mad.