Steak and egg

This was a little thin steak

like you get in packs at supermarkets, not much more than a quarter of an inch thick. The problem is that they're so thin they're pretty difficult to cook to anything less than overdone, if you want any sort of browning on the surface. You need a very hot pan, or maybe they'd work on a charcoal grill.

But the big advantage is that you can keep them individually wrapped in the freezer and they'll defrost in half an hour. So you can have steak and eggs for breakfast, or lunch, on a whim. I did them a minute on either side, left them to rest while I did the eggs, and had them with salad and sauerkraut. Nice spring lunch.

Lamb with mango salsa

After yesterday's success with the salmon, I was inspired to apply the same principle to a lamb steak: a kind of variation on lamb chop with mint sauce. The salsa was basically the same but with mint and cumin added. It went very well with the lamb, though the salsa could probably have benefitted from more cumin and some lime juice.

A summery dish.

Salmon with mango salsa

Necessity was the mother of invention: there were only random things in the house and it was lunchtime. So, I ransacked the fridge and the freezer. The salsa was onion, chilli, lemon juice, salt and chopped mango, with desiccated coconut to take up the liquid. The salmon went on a pile of green beans and shredded beetroot sautéed with horseradish. It was actually pretty good. With some coriander in the salsa it would have been very good indeed.

Cauliflower risotto

Another thing that sounds alarmingly like a 'handy hints to save money in the kitchen' recipe - not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. It sounds a bit grim, but actually the idea was to replace most of the rice with cauliflower, to keep the carbs low-ish.

I love risotto, but I think the real star of the show is the butter, the cream, and the cheese. And cauliflower, apart from being a surprisingly good rice substitute, goes uncannily well with mushrooms. It brings out the earthiness - think cauliflower soup with truffle oil, if in any doubt. So I surmised that, even apart from the carb aspect, cauliflower might be a good ingredient in a mushroom risotto. Plus, we all know how well cauliflower goes with cheese.

It was pretty simple. Onion, celery, garlic, mushrooms, softened in butter; then a dash of chicken stock and white wine, a little rice, and precooked cauliflower. Proceed as normal, mushing up the cauliflower as you go and bearing in mind that less liquid will be needed because there's much less rice to soak it up. Deluge with cream and parmesan at the end.

It looked extremely authentic. You might guess from the taste, or the texture, that it wasn't a regular risotto, but not in a bad way - it tasted great.

Carb-wise, it worked out at about 25g total for a moderate, restaurant-size portion. That's not bad - way better than a regular risotto - but given that I could quite easily, in certain moods, have wolfed down twice as much, it is a little high. Without the rice, it would have been about 16g for that same moderate portion. I'll try it that way next time - but I suspect that while it will still taste great, it might not hold together so well. We shall see.

Sardine tapenade

It sounds a bit make do and mend, but it's delicious. Onion, garlic, mushroom, lemon, tomato paste, oregano, all sautéed in olive oil; chopped olives and capers, and canned sardines mashed in.

With a very very thin and crisp slice of sourdough rice toast.

Spicy fishcakes

This is one of those dishes that I used to make a lot, and then inexplicably just forgot about. I hadn't made it in months, at least, but then had the sudden fancy for it last night.

I use canned fish, usually mackerel, salmon or sardines. This time it was sardines. Mashed potato as a base to hold everything together. I've experimented with other things instead of the potato. Squash was ok, but not really right texturally and the flavour was too obtrusive. Yellow sweet potato likewise, though the flavour was good. This time I used white sweet potato, which was excellent - it had the texture of regular potato, and the flavour complemented the other flavours perfectly. I like white sweet potato a lot, but they're not so easy to find as yellow sweet potatoes. When I see them, I stock up.

Spices vary but it's usually coriander, cumin, ginger, chilli and turmeric. Some creamed coconut. Add to the mashed potato, with chopped onion, lemon juice and the fish. Fry in rissole shapes. I used the olive oil from the sardine cans.

It was really, really good.

Liver

For some time now I've been trying to get my head around eating offal. It's extremely nutritious - no other sources of coenzyme Q10 come close, for example - and also, I think it's only right that, having caused the death of an animal, one should use as much of it as possible. Plus, it's phenomenally cheap, given that most people are squeamish about eating offal these days.

And yet... there is that squeamishness factor. However much you know, intellectually, that it's a silly cultural prejudice, it's still there, and has to be got over. In my case, there's also the fact that I was vegetarian for a very long time. I've been eating meat for about ten years occasionally, but only on a daily basis for less than two, so it's still a learning process.

Nevertheless, when I was very young and my mother was cooking very traditionally, we'd have liver and onions quite often, and I actually remember liking the taste a lot. So that's something to go on, at least.

I've experimented with adding liver to things, with varying degrees of success (such as chicken liver in ragu bolognese; a little is good, more I found too rich). I think a good thing to try might be a paté, with other flavours and where the grainy texture won't be so noticeable. This time, though, I had another attempt at the old-fashioned way: liver simply fried in butter, with onions and gravy. When I've tried this before I've definitely overcooked it; it's been very strong in flavour and grainy in texture. This time I tried to go lighter but still I think overdid it a bit.

I had it with parsnip chips and cauliflower, and a stock and red wine reduction with dill and a dash of cream.

To be honest, it was still a bit of a mental exercise to get it down - even though, at the same time, I was aware that it did taste pretty good.

But I shall persevere. My goal is to be eating offal, and liking it, at least once a week.

Gluten free sourdough, #2

A few weeks on, and the last of the first attempt is finally gone from the freezer. So I had another go. This time, I used a sponge method: that is, I made an initial mix to a thick batter-like consistency and left it for twelve hours before adding the rest of the flour. I don't know if that made a difference or not. I left the final dough slightly wetter, anyway. I didn't bother with a final proof after shaping, given that - unlike with a wheat loaf - there is no pulling about of the dough from which it has to re-rise and recover. In the interests of improving the crust, I smoothed it as much as I could with wet hands and then wiped it over with a few drops of oil. Finally I slashed it. I also used a hotter oven.

The appearance was certainly a lot better: browned, and less sandy and desiccated. The crust was much better too, thinner and crisper. The flavour was very good. Complex and developed, although at 20-24 hours proving, the sour notes were more developed than I think a wheat loaf would have been at the same point, perhaps too much so for some palates. The crumb, while more open than last time, was still less open than I would have liked; it may be necessary to use a tin to achieve more lift and a lighter texture.

So: all in all better than last time, but some room for improvement!