Lemon Sauce to go with Salmon

We are trying to eat more fish – and that's where the need for a new sauce comes in.  I also unusually had some milk to use up.

The resulting sauce was pretty simple to make and ended up working well with the salmon – although a bit more delicate in flavour than I expected.

Ingredients:

125 ml Milk

12 ½ g butter

12 ½ g flour

Juice of half a lemon

Lashings of black pepper

Method:

The recipe I adapted cooked this sauce in a microwave. I used a pot (plus a jug to heat the milk in)

Melt your butter

Whisk in the flour

Heat your milk (not boil) – I did this in the microwave

Add a couple of spoonfuls and whisk so there are no lumps.  Add the rest of the milk bit by bit.

When you are happy with the texture of the sauce, take it off the heat (I had to add a bit more milk)

Add your lemon juice and black pepper and you are done.

Peppered tuna with sharp rhubarb

I did this Peppered tuna with sharp rhubarb.

First I ground up some white peppercorns and Sichuan peppercorns in my mortar and pestle – about a teaspoon or so.

Then I patted the pepper mix onto the top and sides of the tuna steaks and put it into the fridge to chill while I did the rhubarb.

You cut your rhubarb up into about an inch and a half sticks – if it is stringy give it a rough peel first. I used about 8 stalks.

Melt 15g of butter in a pot, add the rhubarb, 1 tablespoon of sugar and 5 tablespoons of water.  Gently simmer this until the rhubarb is tender.  It won't take long – maybe 5 minutes.  Then to make it sharp, add a teaspoon or so of good balsamic vinegar.  Taste it and get it to your liking by either adding a touch more vinegar or sugar to get it to your liking.

Then when that is ready cook the tuna pepper side down in a little oil.  Turn it over after a couple of minutes and then add a knob or 2 of butter into the pan and spoon it over the tuna as the other side cooks.  Sprinkle with a little salt and serve.  I managed to very slightly overcook this one – I think the hot butter over the top may have resulted in faster cooking than usual.

The tuna and the sharp rhubarb worked very well together.

Pepper - the first in a monthly series about spices

Food without pepper is unimaginable to me – well for savoury dishes anyway!  It is no wonder that pepper is known as the King of Spices.

Pepper was known as far back as in Roman times.  Pepper is known for stimulating the appetite and assisting with nausea.  Some people believe that the smell produced by your body after eating lots of pepper repels mosquitoes!  Given how they munch on me given half a chance I find this hard to believe!

The best flavour comes from grinding fresh peppercorns.  I must admit to using quite a lot of ground white pepper though.  Ground pepper loses its punch quite quickly.  If your white pepper is fresh it will taste hotter than black pepper.

Peppercorns come in black, white, green and pink – each is fine on its own.  Pink peppercorns are actually berries rather than pepper.  The green ones usually come in brine.  The others are dried and can stay fresh for a long time as long as they are in an airtight container.  You can mix together different kinds of dried peppercorns into the same peppermill which will give you an interesting blend of pepperiness.

Try using 3 or 4 times your usual amount of pepper and see what a difference it makes.

Links to my recipes using pepper – Peppered prawns with snow peas, salt and pepper tofu, peppered tuna with sharp rhubarb

BIBLIOGRAPHY - with thanks to Auckland Libraries

Cook's Encyclopaedia of Spices by Sallie Morris & Lesley Mackley

Spice Market by Jane Lawson

Spicery by Ian & Elizabeth Hemphill

Spices & Natural Flavourings by Jennifer Mulherin

Spices by Sophie Grigson

Spices Condiments and Seasonings by Kenneth T Farrell

Spices, Salt and Aromatics in the English Kitchen by Elizabeth David

The Cook's Companion by Stephanie Alexander