Food Revolution: Salmon Fish Cakes Accidentally Remixed

Last weekend I had my first accidental remix. According to the recipe I was reading, I was making Salmon Fish Cakes from Jamie's Food Revolution, but that's not how they ended up.

The main thing I'm using Jamie's book for is to learn new techniques. The whole point of it is to get people to cook, so surely he'll be really teaching people, right? I'm starting to think, well, not so much. His goal is noble, but I've had a couple experiences now where he seemed to assume I knew a little more than I knew. This time the results were nearly disastrous.

Specifically, I was steaming the salmon for the fish cakes in a colander above the boiling potatoes. This seemed like a really cool idea to me, but I was doing this at a rental beach house, and I hadn't brought quite exactly the right equipment. That led to water boiling up into the colander with the salmon, making it a bit soggy. The result, after the rest of the process, was too soggy to form into fish cakes.

However, it wasn't a total loss. A little later than I should have, I decided to stop trying to cook the excess moisture out, and just made it a hash for sandwiches. I added a bit of the salad we were making for the side, squeezed on the lemon, and came up with something that was still pretty darned tasty. I think it would've been far better if I'd given up on the cakes earlier, but it was still pretty good.

Jamie has the recipe for the fish cakes on his site, but on his site it's in metric. Use 1.25 lbs potatoes (about 2 largish potatoes) and a pound of salmon. I also used far less parsley than he advises; I think Jamie must have very small hands, because a "handful" or "small bunch" is always way too much; if I'd used what he advised, my cakes would have been green and tasted purely like parsley.

Despite my annoyance at this recipe (and the very mediocre Sizzling Beef with Scallions and Black Bean Sauce, which I didn't bother remixing and didn't think was very good), I'm going to continue working through as many of Jamie's recipes as I can. Stay tuned for his Chicken Chow Mein (and my remix thereof), as soon as I've had a chance to cook them.

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Posted in: food,food revolution,parsley,potatoes,salmon

Food Revolution: Chicken and Leek Stroganoff to Vegan Mushroom Leek Heaven

On Tuesday, I made my second recipe from Jamie's Food Revolution: Chicken and Leek Stroganoff (sorry for the blurriness of the photo, I didn't notice that my lens was a bit dirty). The recipe is available on this blog. All I can say about this one is, well, they can't all be awesome. The parsley dominated the flavor way too much for my taste, and not in a pleasant way. I tasted a bit of it as I packed up the leftovers, and it was a little better after it sat for a bit... but last night I ate some of those leftovers, and it had gotten far worse. Anything with such a small window of deliciousness is a loser in my book. Sorry, Jamie, but I won't be making this one again! Oh, it also way failed the time test (over 40 minutes instead of the promised 19), but my version the next night took way less time, so I think at least part of it was me.

Something good did come of this recipe, though. I decided to remix it vegan (just to see how hard it would be to do so), and, in my opinion, my vegan remix is far tastier. It may be a bit sweet for some, but I liked it quite a bit (including in leftover form). To be clear, it really doesn't taste anything like the original, but the recipe is very close to identical and the process was exactly the same.

To produce the remix, I swapped portabella mushrooms for the chicken breasts in Jamie's recipe, cilantro for the parsley, coconut oil for the olive oil, and coconut cream for the heavy cream. I left out the pat of butter. I also mixed in a bit of a simple flour roux to thicken up the sauce, but I would do the same if I made Jamie's recipe again. Otherwise, I made everything exactly like Jamie's recipe. I will definitely make this again.

• a couple pinches sea salt (I use iodized sea salt so I don't get a goiter)
• 3/4 cup long-grain rice
• 1 large leek
• a big handful of crimini mushrooms
• 3 portabella mushroom caps
• coconut oil
• a glass of white wine*
• a pinch of freshly ground black pepper
• a bunch of fresh cilantro
• 1 1/4 cups coconut cream
• 1 lemon

Paraphrased from Jamie's recipe, with my substitutions and notes added in: Heat water to boiling in a kettle or large, covered pan. Transfer the water to the large pan (if necessary), and add a pinch of salt. Add your rice and bring it to a boil. Turn the heat down to medium, and cook for 15 minutes. Do the prep while the water is boiling, and you should, with luck, finish everything else about the time the rice is ready.

Cut both ends off the leek, quarter lengthways, and slice it into ~1/4-inch slices. Rinse well under running water in a colander. Slice the crimini mushrooms, and cut the portabella mushroom caps into "little-finger-size" pieces (to quote Jamie's description of what to do to the chicken).

Heat a large frying pan on high heat, and add a dollop of coconut oil. This is the point where hopefully your rice water will be boiling, and you can add the rice to it, maybe just a bit before here. Add the leek, white wine, and about a half a wine glass of water to the melted coconut oil, along with a pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper. Cover it loosely with aluminum foil (honestly, I think a lid would be fine, just placed on loosely). Let it cook for 5 minutes. Chop the cilantro (stalks and all) while it bubbles. Remove the foil (or lid), and add everything but the lemon (and a little cilantro to add at the end to make things pretty): mushrooms and mushrooms, cilantro (except for a tiny bit of it), and coconut cream. Stir and bring back to a boil. Turn the heat down to medium, and simmer for 10 minutes. I removed as much of the solids as I could at this point and removed the heat, stirred in some flour-in-water, then heated back to boiling while stirring (to make it more gravy-like). I also squeeze half the lemon into the mixture at this point (after tasting it and deciding, yes, the lemon would be quite tasty in this sauce).

Drain the rice, and put it on each plate. Add some of the sauce, then the veggies, then finally the last bits of cilantro. Place a quarter of the lemon on each plate (which you can then squeeze on if desired). Jamie says season to taste, but does that really need to be included in the recipe? I say put salt and pepper on the table like a normal person, and people can use them if they want to use them.

Let me know if you try mine, particularly if you can think of a way to make it prettier. The sauce came out an ugly gray-brown, so I'd like to figure out a way to make it prettier... but other than that this may be my favorite "Hey, I came up with this!" recipe yet.

* I heard once that you should never cook with a wine you wouldn't drink, so I bought a reasonably priced bottle of wine that HEB's label told me would pair nicely with chicken (since it was originally paired with chicken). Drinking it as I made the recipe, it definitely passed the "I'd drink this" test. Unfortunately, I can't remember what it was, and the bottle already went out in recycling.

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Posted in: chicken,cilantro,food revolution,leeks,mushrooms,parsley,white wine