Oat-crusted pan-fried herrings with chard and beetroot

Herrings rolled in oats and then fried is a traditional Scottish dish although not one you see much of these days. It's a pity, as herrings are cheap, plentiful, tasty and nutritious. And as mackerel is currently off the menu for most people keen to eat oily fish, herring is a good alternative.

In Scotland, herrings eaten this way are traditionally fried in lard or dripping and served with fried potatoes, and maybe a heap of fried onions too. I use butter here and plate up with some fresh veg for a healthier alternative.

What you need: 
2 small or medium herrings
Porridge oats
Seasoning
Butter
Swiss chard
2 small cooked beetroot

What to do: 
Get the fishmonger to prepare the herrings - they need to be scaled, gutted, heads off and filleted. At home, rinse the herrings well under the tap then pat dry with kitchen paper. Use a pair of tweezers to remove the pin bones (see tips) and a sharp pair of scissors to snip off any remaining bits of fin.

Spread some porridge oats on a plate or chopping board, season lightly then roll the herrings in them until they are well coated. Wash the chard, chop the stems into 1cm slices then shred the leaves. Boil a kettle, fill a saucepan with the boiling water and steam the chard stems for 5 minutes.

At the same time, heat a knob of butter into two frying pans. Put the herrings in one pan and fry over a medium heat, taking care not to burn the butter. In the other pan, sauté the beetroot slices. Turn over both the herrings and the beetroot slices after 5 minutes and add the chard leaves to the steamer.

Everything should need about 10 minutes apiece and be ready at the same time, but if not turn off the heat under whichever pans you need to while the rest catches up.

Cook's tips:
The main reason a lot of people won't eat herring is the bones - they have a lot (and much as I love kippers I rarely eat them because I spend as much time picking the bones out as I do eating the flesh). However, you can get rid of almost all of them if you spend a few minutes pinboning them before cooking. The pin bones are the bigger ones that often get left behind during filleting, the ones that stick in your throat if you're unlucky enough to eat one. The very fine bones, which are almost hairlike, won't kill you - they can tickle a little in the mouth but they won't stab you.

Don't let the butter get too hot or it will burn, and so will the oats. I tend to have the heat up slightly higher under the beetroot while keeping a very sharp eye on the herrings. The fish is done when the flesh has turned from translucent red to creamy white. If you cook the herrings flat (kipper shaped) they will be done in 5 minutes but I prefer to cook them with all the flesh on the inside so the oats are only on the skin.

Smoked haddock and spring onion risotto

I'm back on the comfort food now the snow has arrived. Great steaming-hot piles of carbs help keep the cold out. My slow cooker has been hauled out of the cupboard to braise lamb shanks and oxtails to be accompanied by heaps of mash, a baked potato or chunks of crusty bread to mop up the gravy.

I also want rice and in this weather that means risotto. And I want fish too - the smoked haddock here produces a sunny yellow that lifts the spirits as the snowflakes drift past my windows.

What you need:
1 fillet smoked haddock
1/2 mug of risotto rice
1 small onion, finely chopped
Vegetable oil
Knob of butter
1/2 litre (1 pint) vegetable stock
2 spring onions, sliced diagonally into 1/2cm pieces
Chopped fresh dill
A little grated Gruyère or Emmenthal

What to do:
Heat the oil and butter in a sauteuse over a medium heat and fry the onion until it's soft and translucent. Add the rice and stir it through so every grain gets coated in the fat. Pour in a little stock and stir well, turning up the heat so it stays on a simmer.

Simmer the fish in a little water until it's just cooked, around 4-5 minutes. Lift it out, break it into large flakes with a fork and set it aside. Add the water to the rice, then keep ladling the stock into the rice and stirring until almost all the liquid has been absorbed and the rice is just turning from al dente. Add the smoked haddock and spring onion and grind in a little black pepper. As soon as the stock is absorbed stir in the cheese and dill and dish up.

Cook's tips:
I've discussed the difference between dyed and undyed smoked haddock before. You won't get the lovely bright yellow colour if you use undyed fish - the colour leaches into the cooking water and the rice takes on the yellow when you add the water to it. Tastewise there is no difference.

I don't bother to add salt as smoked haddock can be salty and there will also be salt in the stock. But, as always, check the seasoning before you dish up and add it if you need it.

Don't use parmesan, the traditional risotto cheese, for this, as the fish will overpower its flavour. I like the Swiss cheese as it adds a nice stringy texture as it melts and it's just strong enough to balance the fish. A medium strong cheddar also works well.

Roasted sea bream with chermoula on couscous

I acquired a taste for north African food when living in Paris. The city has a huge population of first, second and third-generation Moroccans and Tunisians thanks to France's colonial past and their food is as ubiquitous as curry is in the UK. Parisian Boy and I used to go out for couscous every week - a glorious mix of grilled spicy meats, vegetable broth laced with harissa and the couscous itself.

The Moroccans also invented chermoula, a fiery, sour paste used to marinate chicken and lamb, add to a tagine or to stuff into fish. The ingredients are fairly standard but you can tinker with the quantities to suit your palate.

What you need: 
1 sea bream
Olive oil
4 cloves of garlic
1 red chilli, finely chopped
2tsp each of ground cumin and ground coriander
1tsp each of chilli powder and paprika
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
Couscous

1 heaped tsp of sultanas
5-6 pitted black olives, sliced
1 tsp flaked almonds
1 dessertspoon of fresh chopped coriander

What to do:
Make the chermoula. Crush the garlic cloves with a pinch of sea salt in a pestle and mortar until they form a fine paste. Add the chopped chilli and pound a little more to break it down and blend it with the garlic. Add the rest of the spices, the lemon juice and zest and about 4 dessertspoons of olive oil. Mix well.

Marinate the fish: Stuff the cavity of the sea bream with the chermoula and leave it for at least 20 minutes, longer if possible.

Heat the oven to 200C and roast the fish for around 20-25 minutes. While it's cooking make a portion of couscous (about 100g if you need to measure it) - put it in a heatproof bowl with the sultanas and cover it with boiling water to about 1cm above it. Cover the bowl with a plate and set it aside to soak up the water. Fork it through after 10 minutes to break up any lumps and if it looks too dry, add a little more water from the kettle. When it's ready, stir through the olives, flaked almonds and chopped coriander.

Make a bed of couscous on the plate and put the roasted fish on top.

Cook's tips: 
Get the fishmonger to prepare the fish how you prefer it. In Morocco, you'll get the whole fish on the plate - head, tail, bones - but I always ask mine to take the head off and fillet it while leaving it whole. If you use two separate fillets just sandwich them with the chermoula. Whichever way it's prepared make sure the skin is on as it protects the flesh during cooking. If you can't find sea bream, another small meaty fish such as red snapper or tilapia is equally good.

I like my chermoula really hot and garlicky although I usually discard the seeds when I'm chopping up the chilli - leave them in if you like more heat. For less heat, leave out the fresh chilli and just use the powdered. The finished chermoula should have the consistency of a thick paste so you may want to add the oil a spoonful at a time as you mix it, as you may need less than you think. If it's too thick, add a little more lemon juice. The quantities here make about 2-3 times what you need for the fish - it will keep in the fridge for 2-3 weeks.

Last year I bought Yotam Ottolenghi's brilliant book Jerusalem and discovered that he uses a couple of preserved lemons in his chermoula instead of fresh. I've started doing the same as I love the extra tartness. The preserved lemons need to be very finely chopped and the pips removed.

Steamed lime haddock with mango and pepper salsa

This chilly wet summer has sent me scurrying back to favourite dishes I'd never normally cook between May and September. On the rare nice days we've had, though, I've been buying the best seasonal veg at my local market and seeing what's on the slab at the fishmongers. In warm weather I don't want heavy food that lies like a stone in my stomach fish is my first choice for something light and healthy as well as versatile. Whatever fish I buy, I usually steam it or bake it en papillote, as it traps all the flavours and juices and you don't need to add oil.

What you need: 
For the fish
Haddock fillet
1 lime
2 spring onions
1 small stalk of fresh lemongrass
a few slivers of sliced fresh ginger

For the salsa
1/2 a ripe mango
1/2 a red pepper, deseeded
2 spring onions
A few sprigs of fresh coriander

What to do:
Put the fish on a large sheet of tin foil and pull the edges up slightly to start making a pocket. Zest the lime and scatter it over the fish. Shred the spring onions lengthways, slice the lemongrass finely and scatter these and the ginger slices over the fish. Squeeze the juice from the lime and drizzle half of it over the fish. Close the foil parcel tightly.

Bring a pan of water to the boil and then pop a steamer over the top and steam the fish for 10-12 minutes, depending on the size and thickness of the fish.

Make the salsa. Cut the mango into cubes, dice the red pepper and slice the spring onions on the diagonal. Chop the coriander finely and add, then pour over the rest of the lime juice. Season to taste then mix well.

Plate up, keeping the spring onions and ginger with the fish (if, like me, you plan to eat them) and pile the salsa alongside.

Cook's tips: 
En papillote means "in paper", but tin foil works just as well as baking parchment. 

You don't need a special steamer pan to steam food. One of those Chinese bamboo lidded steamer baskets works just as well in a pan as in a wok. Or you can improvise, as I do - I use a metal sieve over the top of the pan, which also makes lifting the food out very easy.

Preparing a mango can be a bit fiddly but I've always found the easiest way is to quarter it with a sharp knife then insert the knife blade inside to cut round the stone and ease each quarter off it. Once the stone's out, cut the flesh lengthways and across then carefully cut the cubes off the skin.

Warm sugar-snap pea salad with pan-fried coley

What a relief that the hungry gap is well and truly behind us - my local market has more and more different fruits and veg appearing on the stalls every week, which is good as I feel like I spent most of March surviving on carrots, cabbage and potatoes, relieved only by bags of salad and packs of imported beans to get some much-needed variety onto my plate. Not all UK produce has been picked outside yet, but I was happy to find sugar-snap peas that had been grown under glass - tiny little pods, with the peas barely formed inside and deliciously sweet.

Sugar-snaps are a great ingredient for a warm salad. This one goes particularly well with fish. I've stopped buying cod because of the low stocks but coley is a really good alternative.

It's really important to get everything ready first because the fish and the vegetables will both quickly and be ready at the same time.

What you need: 
Coley fillet
Handful sugar-snap peas
Handful green beans
Small handful of rocket
1 and 1/2 tbsp walnut oil
1/2 tbsp raspberry vinegar
Butter
A little flour
Seasoning

What to do:
Make the salad dressing by whisking the walnut oil and raspberry vinegar together with a little salt and pepper. Tip some flour on a plate or chopping board and coat the fish with it. 

Top and tail the sugar-snaps and green beans. Bring them to the boil and cook for about 4-5 minutes until they are al dente. Drain, pop back in the pan to keep warn while the fish finishes cooking, stir through the rocket and dress.

While the peas and beans are cooking melt the butter in a frying pan and fry the coley fillet over a medium to high heat - it'll need about 3-4 minutes on each side, depending on thickness.

Cook's tips:
You can find walnut oil in most decent supermarkets. It's a bit pricey (a 250ml bottle costs around £2) but its strong flavour means you don't need much so it should last a while. If you don't have walnut oil use olive oil instead but the raspberry vinegar is essential as the fruity tones match the sweetness of the peas.

Kedgeree

Ever since I learned how to cook it, I've been making kedgeree backwards and it was years before I discovered I'd been doing it wrong. I don't mean that I was following the recipe backward, dear me, no - that would be stupid, if not impossible. What I mean is, I always thought this was a dish for dinner/supper/tea - whatever you call it - so it was a bit of a shock to learn the truth. Kedgeree is a breakfast dish and it's curried.

In my defence, I learned this recipe from my mother - perhaps she couldn't get hold of curry powder when I was a child. Or perhaps she just didn't know it's meant to be for breakfast, although I find that hard to believe as she was an excellent cook. Still, she had the basic ingredients right - smoked fish, rice, onions and egg. I still make it as an evening meal and I still don't add the spices - for me, the smoked haddock is the draw and I don't see the point in burying its flavour. 

What you need:
1 smoked haddock fillet
1 egg
Half a mug of basmati rice
1 onion
Butter

What to do:
Put the rice on to cook, using your preferred method. Meanwhile, boil the egg until it's firm and poach the haddock in a centimetre of water in a lidded sauteuse until it's just cooked (as soon as the water reaches the boil, turn off the heat and let the fish continue to cook in the hot water). 

Heat a generous knob of butter Roughly chop the onion and sauté it gently until it is soft and translucent. Don't let it colour. Meanwhile, flake the smoked haddock and shell the egg then chop it roughly.

When the onion is ready, fold in the rice, fish and egg. Stir through to reheat all the ingredients and serve.

Cook's tips:
I boil rice for 12 minutes, as this is how I was taught - bring a pan of lightly salted water to the boil, add the rice then keep it on a rolling boil until it's cooked. Most people I know say they don't get good results this way - it helps to rinse the rice with a kettleful of boiling water after draining into a sieve. This removes the excess starch and keeps the grains separate and fluffy. I never have any luck with the method my friends use, which is to put the rice into a pan, cover with a measured amount of water, turn on the heat and cover with a very tight-fitting lid until the rice has absorbed all the liquid and is cooked through. American long grain rice is a good substitute if you don't have basmati to hand. Cooking times are roughly the same.

This dish takes a lot of pans - to save on washing up, I often lower my egg into the boiling rice halfway through, so the two are ready at the same time. 

There's an ongoing debate about dyed versus undyed smoked haddock and other fish. The London Fishmonger explains the difference in his blog. Me, I want yellow fish as it provides an essential colour contrast - if that means buying dyed if I can't find naturally yellow smoked haddock then I will, The alternative is the inferior smoked version that is virtually white in colour.

Other kinds of smoked fish work well with this dish.

If you want to have a go at producing Raj-style curried kedgeree, Good Food has an excellent selection of recipes.

French brasserie-style fish chowder

I don't often make soup because I always seem to end up with a giant panful that would feed 8 or 10 people, when there's only me. I keep a couple of tins of lentil soup in the cupboard for those occasions when I'm ill or it's late and I'm tired and I want the easy option.

But there is one soup recipe I always go back to because it's foolproof and it's possible to make it in a quantity that produces two or three generous helpings (you can freeze it if you defrost with care and reheat it slowly).

My inspiration came from a Nigel Slater recipe called "A French(ish) fish broth", which I found in his 1997 book, Real Cooking. The original version is for 4 people and contains leeks, celery, chilli flakes, tomatoes and tarragon - none of these appear in my adaptation. I'm not keen on tomato in fish soup even though it's a standard ingredient of bouillabaisse and I steered away from the chilli because Slater also uses pastis in the broth - I felt it would overpower the delicate aniseed flavours of the pastis and the fennel he includes. As I adore both fennel and pastis (both hangovers from when I lived in Paris), my version sticks with the aniseed tones and incorporates fresh dill too. My added vegetables, apart from the fennel, are carrot and pepper and the end result is a wonderfully aromatic, brightly coloured chowder that I think would not be out of place on a brasserie menu.

What you need: 
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 fat cloves of garlic, crushed
Olive oil
A generous glug of pastis
About a pint/half a litre of vegetable stock (I use Marigold bouillon)
A generous pinch of saffron
I medium carrot, diced
I small red pepper, deseeded and sliced into thin strips
I fennel bulb, thinly sliced
4-5 small new potatoes, cut into 1cm chunks
A pack of fish pie mix (from the supermarket or fishmonger and usually containing a mix of cod, salmon and smoked haddock chunks)
Fresh dill

What to do:
Sauté the onion in a little olive oil on a low heat until it turns translucent, add the crushed garlic, stir through and cook for a couple more minutes then pour in the pastis, let it sizzle briefly, and then the stock and the saffron. Add the carrot, fennel, potato and red pepper, turn up the heat then let it simmer for around 20 minutes with a lid on until the vegetables are tender. Add the fish, bring it back to a simmer and cook for a further 5 minutes until the fish is just starting to flake. Turn off the heat, season to taste and stir in a tablespoon of roughly chopped dill. Then dish up.

Cook's tips:
If you don't have any Pernod, Ricard or other type of pastis, any other aniseed drink such as ouzo or raki will do.

Do add more water to the pan if it looks too dry -you don't want a very watery soup, rather it should be like a stew just held together with the broth.

If your fennel bulb has the fronds on it, keep them back and add to the soup with the dill, or instead of if you can't get fresh dill.

I often add a small bag of frozen cooked jumbo prawns a couple of minutes before I chuck the fish in, or a handful of frozen mixed seafood (usually mussels, squid and prawns). I don't bother to defrost first - they are already cooked and will thaw and heat up quickly in the hot broth.