Beetroot and vodka
marinated Salmon
I was at my friend Veronica’s 60th Birthday three years ago and she had prepared this wonderful salmon for her own party. It was simply delicious and I have made it every Christmas since. It’s really popular with family and friends and, as a whole side of salmon is used, it lasts for ages and feeds lots of hungry hoards!
Ingredients
* 1 side of salmon, skin on,
approximately 800 gr
* 150 g coarse salt (I use
Camargue Fleur de sel)
* 50 g demerera sugar
* 40 g horseradish sauce
(available in Carrefour and
English food shops)
* 300 g raw beetroot, peeled and coarsely grated
* 50 ml Vodka (or Schnapps will do)
* 1 large bunch of fresh dill
* 1 lemon, zested
Method
1. Pin bone the salmon – I use tweezers and feel my way along the whole fillet with my fingers to ensure they’re all gone
2. Pat dry the salmon and lay in a deep dish, skin side down.
3. Sprinkle the salt all over the fish and pat it in to the flesh
4. Scatter the sugar all over the salt
5. Mix the horseradish with the beetroot (you may want to wear gloves to avoid red hands!) and lay this mixture over all the fish, even down the sides, so that it’s evenly covered
6. Gently pour the vodka or schnapps over the top
7. Next, scatter the lemon zest and dill over it all
8. Place cling film over the dish and then weight it down – I use diving weights but anything will do including cans!
9. Place in the fridge and leave for 3 days without being tempted to look at it
10. After 3 days, take out the salmon and take all the toppings off it. Again, gloves may come in handy for this task as it’s really messy! I then gently blot the whole salmon with kitchen roll to ensure that all the salt is gone too
11. Cover the salmon again and put it back in the fridge and leave for another 2/3 days before being tempted to eat it.
12. It’s just a bit too salty if eaten straight away and has a much better flavour if you can bear to leave it for just another couple of days
To serve:
* Place the fish skin side down on a board. Carefully cut under the fillet from the tail end, separating the skin from the salmon. Discard the skin.
* Trim off any brown bits of salmon from underneath and then turn it over
* Slice as thinly as possible at an angle and arrange on a plate for serving
* Serve with a side of crème fraiche mixed with a little honey, Dijon mustard, fresh dill, lemon juice and black pepper
* Cook’s note: the finished salmon will last 10 days if refrigerated so can be made well in advance of the festivities
* Fresh beetroot is best to use for this recipe but if you can’t find it, use the vacuum packed cooked beetroot, available in all supermarkets. Just make sure you don’t buy beetroot in vinegar as this really doesn’t work, sorry!
* If you don’t want such a large side, just use a smaller fillet and reduce the above quantities accordingly
**
It's the festive season so who better than Bassie Scott to share some special recipes for the festive season.
‘Christmas comes but once a year’ and, in many cases, the cook of the house is glad of it! It’s a wonderful time for celebration, being with family and friends and it’s always good to have something exciting and interesting to put before them. Here are three recipes that I love to cook at this time of year and I hope you will enjoy making them too. Merry Christmas one and all!
Boxing Day Baked Alaska Bombe
This may seem pretty retro but it really is a superb dessert to serve on Boxing Day. It uses left over Christmas pudding too which is a bonus! I first made it 3 years ago and it received such praise that it’s been asked for every year since. The ice cream can be made way ahead of time and frozen until you want to assemble it to serve. I haven’t put specific quantities of the fruit as it’s up to you but in general I used a handful each time... you can mix and match with any fruit that you may prefer
Oven temperature at 220 c, gas
7 Ingredients
Vanilla ice cream (see recipe below)
Dried cranberries
Raisins
Sultanas
Dried figs,chopped
Toasted almonds, chopped
Pistachio nuts, chopped
Chopped walnuts
Rum
Meringue:
2 egg whites115 g caster sugar
Some Christmas pudding sponge to use as a base
Method
1. Warm rum in a saucepan and add the raisins,
sultanas, cranberries and dried figs. Flambe the mixture and simmer for 30 seconds. Turn off the heat and leave to go completely cold
2. Place the ice cream in a bowl and add the cold flambéed fruit
3. Add the almonds, walnuts and pistachios and mix it all really well
4. Put into a pudding basin or mould and freeze until needed
To serve
* Shape the Christmas pudding to the size of the bottom of the ice cream bombe and place on a circle of non stick baking parchment on a baking tray
* Whisk the egg whites with the sugar until really stiff
* Place the ice cream on to the Christmas pudding and cover, very quickly, with the meringue mix, fluffing it up if you can. Make sure the ice cream and Christmas pudding is completely covered with no holes at all
* Put in the oven and cook for about 3 to 4 minutes until golden brown
* Transfer to a serving plate with the help of a fish slice and serve immediately
Recipe for vanilla ice cream
1 carton crème anglaise
1 carton crème entiere epaisse (30%)
½ tin sweetened condensed milk
1. Pour the crème anglaise and cream into a bowl and whisk thoroughly. Add the condensed milk and mix in so it all
combines really well.
2. Pour into an ice cream machine and churn until ready.
3. If you don’t have an ice cream machine, place the mixture in the freezer and every hour or so take it out and fork all the ice crystals out. This will need to be done about 5 times to get rid of all the crystals, ensuring a smooth ice cream.
Cooks’ tip:
Leave the ice cream in the freezer until the very last minute before assembling the pud, it needs to be rock hard!
Smoked salmon and dill roulade
Serves 8 – 10
Oven temperature at 170 c, gas mark 3
Roulade ingredients:
70 g butter, softened
57 g plain flour
400ml milk, warmed
3 eggs, separated, plus 1 extra white
Zest of 1 lemon
1 tbsp lemon juice
Salt and pepper
Filling ingredients:
114 g smoked salmon, chopped
28 g butter
Dash olive oil
Pinch cayenne pepper
128 g crème fraiche
1 tbsp dill, chopped
A squeeze of lemon juice
1 tsp pepper
225 g smoked salmon
1. First make the roulade. Line a roulade (swiss roll) tin with non stick baking paper and oil it very lightly.
2. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour and cook for half a minute. Add the warm milk, bit by bit until smooth and cook the roux for half a minute, stirring all the time. It will be thick but that’s fine
3. Add zest of lemon, lemon juice and season well with salt and pepper
4. Cool for 5 minutes, then add the beaten egg yolks
5. Whisk whites to soft peaks and fold into the mixture in a figure of 8 motion with a metal spoon
6. Adjust seasoning if necessary then pour into the lined tin. Tap the tin on your worktop to get rid of any air bubbles
7. Bake for 30 – 35 minutes until golden brown and firm to the touch. Leave to cool completely
8. Whilst the roulade is cooling you can make the filling –
9. If you have a food processor, take the first 8 ingredients and whizz them up in the machine.
10. If you don’t have one, chop the salmon and dill up very finely. Soften the butter and mash up with the crème fraiche. Add the salmon and dill and all the other ingredients and mix well
11. Refrigerate for 20 mins to firm the mixture up a bit
To put the roulade together:
When the roulade is completely cold, turn it out onto another sheet of non stick
baking paper so that the golden side will be uppermost when you roll it up
Lay the 225g of salmon slices over the roulade.
Spread the smoked salmon and dill
mixture over the salmon slices Now comes the tricky bit – roll it up really carefully! I use the non stick paper to ‘push’ it over like you would a Swiss roll. If the sponge breaks a little on rolling up, don’t worry, it is Christmas after all so it’ll look a bit like a Yule log!
Wrap in non stick paper and then cling film and refrigerate until ready to serve.
Cook’s note: The roulade can be made two days ahead as long as you keep it in the fridge.