The very reasonably price Mackerel fishing trips on Lyme (£8) were too good an opportunity to turn down!  In Lyme, different numbers of boats operate each day, depending on season, day and weather.  Blackboards and signs at the entrance to the Cobb (harbour wall) give information about various fishing trips, including Bassing trips, all day fishing trips and the ever popular Mackerel/sight seeing trips.  We wandered down to the end of the Cobb one sunny day to await the next boat trip.  The Frances Jane is a delightful little boat, operated by Doug and Amanda (both of whom are also diving instructors).  The boat is a converted Crabber from Cornwall, built in 1952 with a mahogany hull and was easily the prettiest boat in the harbour.

We chugged out into the bay, with beautiful views on show in the calm sunshine.  Using slithers of Mackerel as bait Amanda handed out the lines (long lines on a hand spool, with a large weight to take the line down and a bright coloured bead marking the leader line with the baited hook on the end).  Once the spool is tied onto the railings (to avoid mishaps) its a case of waiting till you feel the tug on the line before winding in the line and checking if there’s a shiny silver green/blue/black mackerel on the end.  Our haul wasn’t huge, apparently due to the hot weather and increasingly choppy seas.  The views were fantastic and the time was up before we knew it.  We’d both caught “one for the pot” and headed back to shore.

We popped into The Old Watch House fish monger at the start of the Cobb and bought a couple of Herring to supplement the Mackerel and pick up some ice packs to keep the fish cool while we walked back to the campsite.  I love the marbled silver green/blue/black pattern Mackerel have and the non slymey, not scaley feel of the fish (like you have with Trout for instance).  We gutted/cleaned the fish and opened the vino! 

I got the BBQ going and we polished off a dressed crab which we bought in The Old Watch House.  In the evening sunshine, the fish looked great.  The Old Watch House didn’t have any Sardines, but instead I bought Herring (essentially just large sardines).  Herring is more sustainable than Sardines, although I’m not sure if this is purely because Sardines are so much more popular.

We were a little low on provisions, so it was just the fish, with some black pepper corns crushed between 2 bricks.  We gave them about 3 minutes on either side, before serving up with crusty bread and salad.   We cooked the Herring in exactly the same way.  The fish skin went beautifully crisp on the barbecue and the smells during cooking were great.

Although the bones came out of the fresh fish very easily, lots of people are put of Mackerel because of the many small bones.  My tip is to always eat fresh crusty bread with small fish – so you don’t notice any little bones remaining.  All in all, the fish made a great dinner.  It left us wondering why we don’t eat fish more often?

The only downside of eating Mackerel and living in London is that inevitably you will be reminded of the tube game “Mackerel” which goes along the line of “there’s only one underground station on the whole of the network which doesn’t contain any of the letters of the word Mackerel – which one?” and then every time you see a tube map while waiting for a train, you’ll be staring and staring and cursing Dr Kate for ever telling you about the game in the first place.  Even worse, you’ll spend hours studying the map, feel let down when you realise the answer and then 2 years later, go fishing for Mackerel in Dorset and remember that you’ve forgotten which underground station it was and have to do it all again!  For the answer and many other random London Underground facts, click here.

What drew me to the recipe, was how differently it’s made to other curries I’ve made in the past. I’ve made other curries consisting of a base ‘gravy’, but generally the meat tends to be browned and/or marinated first. In this, you just add it to the sauce uncooked and cook very slowly. I’ve never encountered the spinach puree either.

Ingredients

Serves 2

• 4 oz Ghee (I made an alternative by clarifying butter and adding Bay Leaves)
• 2 medium Onions, chopped
• 1/2 ” Ginger, peeled
• 3 Garlic cloves
• 400 g Chopped Tomatoes
• 1 lb Diced Lamb (leg or shoulder)
• 2 tsp Paprika
• 2 tsp Tumeric
• 2 tsp Cumin
• 2 tsp Chillli Powder
• 6 oz Fresh Spinach
• Fresh Green Chillies (up to you)
• 1/2 tsp Garam Masala

Method

Cook the Chopped Onions with the Ghee/Butter for about 20 minutes, until well cooked, but not burnt.

When their cooked, blend the Ginger, Garlic and Onions into a smooth paste. Add the Chopped Tomatoes and blend again. Add a touch of water if necessary. You should have a mixture slightly thicker than Tomato soup.

Return to the pan and add the Diced Lamb, add some salt. Leave to simmer for 30 minutes.

Wash the Fresh Spinach. Add 3/4 of it to a pan to wilt, the water from washing the Spinach should be enough to cook it. It always amazes me how it shrinks to nothing.

Blend the cooked Spinach into a puree.

After the 30 minutes, the colour of the curry will have changed a lot. Less tomato soup, more curry. Add the Paprika, Tumeric, Cumin and Chilli Powder and cook for another 20 minutes. Keep an eye on it and add water if needed.

If you have Fresh Chillies, make a puree from them with a dash of water. I didn’t have any so I soaked a chopped dried one. After 20 minutes add the Spinach Puree, Chilli Puree (to taste), remaining Fresh Spinach, Garam Masala and Salt and Pepper and cook for a further 5 minutes.

Mr Stein suggested serving with Basmati Rice cooked with Cinnamon and Cardamom. I opted for Naans this time round.

Verdict

The Karachi Restaurant and Mr Stein are definitely on to a winner here. The slow cooking makes it so rich, yet without over-doing the meat. Unfortunately, since Jenny was away and she’s trying to be veggie, I had to eat it all myself.

If you do fancy a spot of sea fishing, the best place to get information and book a trip is the Swansea Angling Centre, at Swansea Marina.  In there, you can get cards/leaflets for all the local fishing boat/charter trips.  Sightseeing & mackerel trips for about £25, 8hr Sea Bass fishing on a charter boat for £35 or mackerel trips for £15. 

Weather and other commitments meant that rather than go sea fishing, we opted to search for shell fish close to the cottage where we were staying.  The beach we were staying near was littered with razor clam shells.  We had read in the River Cottage Fish book that razor clams were tasty and delicious (and of course, free).   To “hunt” a razor clam, you search out their little burrow hole and sprinkle salt down it at low tide.  The clam tastes the salt, thinks the tide is coming in and pops their siphon up out of the sand, where upon you grab hold.  Pull too hard and it breaks off (but the clam grows a new one).  Then as the clam tries to dig, it will release its grip in the sand and you can slowly draw it out of the sand.  You can’t out dig razor clams as you can with other shell fish, because they dig downwards faster than you can.  That’s the theory, but lets just say I didn’t master the art of razor clamming.  

Having miserably failed at razor clammng, we switched our attention to a somewhat less mobile shellfish, Mussels.  At the Worms Head, at the south end of Rhosilli Bay, there were several million mussels to choose from.  The Worms Head is cut off from the mainland at high tide, so you must be careful to time your visit and not get cut off.  We okay-ed it with the coastguard station on the headland and ventured down onto the rocks.

The River Cottage Fish book is a tremendously useful book.  It has become my fish bible, with information about preparing, filleting, and cooking the fish, together with descriptions of the fish’s lifestyle and habitat.  My favourite part is that it discusses sustainable sources for the fish and indicates how sustainable different varieties are.  The book said Mussels spend their whole life living where they first land as tiny baby mussels.  That’s why some live on rocks which get exposed by the tide while others remain permanently submerged.  They spawn between May and August, so collecting is discouraged during this period.  That said, they are quite sustainable by comparison to other fish such as Haddock and Cod.  Make sure to collect more mature mussels, greater than 50mm in length.

As the photo shows, the ground was covered entirely with the shells of shellfish which had been eaten by birds.We filled a pot with enough mussels for a starter and headed back to the cottage. 

When driving around the Gower, we were taken aback by an intense smell of garlic in the air.  It came from wild garlic leaves growing by the side of the road.  Too good an opportunity to miss.  We stopped and collected some to go with our Mussels.

Mussels with Wild Garlic Leaves and Home Brewed Bitter

Soak the mussels overnight in sea water to allow them to purge out any sand or grit.  I didn’t have sea water, so just added a kilo of salt to the basin.  A tip is to add porridge oats as they irritate the mussels and make them filter out grit/sand faster.  You then wash the mussels, gently scraping off any barnacles or material stuck to the outside.  You slide a knife along the joint to remove the “beard” – fine silk like hairs with which the mussel anchored to the rock.

In butter, I softened some sliced onion and wild garlic leaves, collected from a hedgerow nearby.  Keep the heat low to avoid colouring the onion. 

Then I added a good slug of Matt’s Home Brew London Beer and a splash of vinegar (we only had rice vinegar, which we used).  When the mix started to steam, threw in the mussels.

You need to steam for 6-8 minutes, before serving up the mussels, shaking occasionally.  Because the mussels release any grit remaining inside them, you need to strain the liquor before serving it. 

I served up the mussels, discarding any which hadn’t opened, and garnished with the white wild garlic flowers.

I’ve never tasted such tender, sweet mussels.  The beer liquor was light and intense.  The wild garlic surprisingly pungent.  All in all it was a great success.  It was very satisfying to collect wild food.  You can’t get more fresh Mussels any other way.  There was almost no sand/grit in the Mussels, I think down to the lack of sediment at the Worm’s Head.

 Delicious.

So we’ve got our coconut sat at home when she casually mentions that she needs the coconut in 10 minutes. Not having really thought about it since we bought it, how do I actually get into a Coconut? I told her I was planning to get my hammer ready. In a horrified look she asked me why not use a knife – she knows I always look for any excuse to use my hammer. I was skeptical whether our semi-blunt kitchen knife would cut it in the same way as we watched the guys in Indian break into the tender coconuts with their machetes. As always, Google is my friend. It took me to howtoopenacoconut.com.

I quickly assembled the right tools – coconut, hammer, towel and a couple of screwdrivers (I didn’t have any sturdy enough looking nails). The towel is handy for collecting up the pieces and any possible leakage as well as providing a bit of grip. The first step was to drain the juice from the coconut by making a couple of small holes.

The weak points apparently are the dark eyes one end of the nut. It’s best to place the towel on a carpeted floor – you’re going to be doing some serious bashing so the work surface might not be sturdy enough, wooden floors and lino could dent too. We actually found that it’s easier with two people – one to bravely hold whilst the other hits, needless to say, I got to do the hitting. I found the Phillips head screwdriver worked fine with minimal effort.

With the eyes poked in, you drain the juice. Note – this juice is not the same as coconut milk (as you can probably see from the picture). Coconut milk is derived from straining the coconut meat itself.

On the website, the method they said to open to coconut involved wrapping it in the towel and smashing it. It didn’t work in our case – one solid coconut. Instead, as I’ve seen on some coconuts, I created score marks with my Stanley knife. Rather than using the claw end of the hammer along the scored line as the website alternatively suggested, I opted for the flathead screwdriver to provide greater precision (a chisel would be more suitable). This worked great. A few goes along the line and it could be easily separated.

I found most of the coconut meat easily separated from the main shell, however some bits required a bit more force. A dull knife would me more suitable than your fingers, you could easily cut yourself.

Once you’ve removed the main shell, the meat still has a thin layer of shell attached to it. I found it really easy to remove with a knife. You could probably use a peeler instead if it’s sturdy and sharp enough.

With the shell completely removed, we were left with pure coconut meat. The age of the coconut probably dictates what their best used for. I didn’t find the juice of the mature coconut that nice compared to tender coconuts so I used it for keeping some of the meat fresh. The meat too, was fairly firm so seemed more suited to grating and toasting.

Apparently, if you shred/grate and dehydrate them they can last for 6-12 months. We kept ours in the fridge for a few days.

#1 Presentation

Even if your food looks stunning, the first place to start is making sure you set the scene in a way to emphasis the food. Make sure you’ve got as little clutter around as possible (which is tricky if you want to eat your food whilst it’s still warm). Try to sort out a setting where you intend to take the photo before the food is ready to plate up. A plain background helps food stand out. The colour of your setting is important too – Sunday Roast on an orange floral plate isn’t going to make it stand out. The easy solution is to use white/pale plain crockery or chopping boards.

#2 Framing

So now you’ve got you food beautifully plated, make sure you get the right composition. The current trend seems to be to take extreme close-ups of your food at a slight angle. This way you tend to get more depth to the shot. Don’t be afraid of not being able to see the entire plate or the whole dish. When you’re starting out, try and take as many shots as possible until you get a feel for what works well.

Poorly Framed Composition - Too Wide and Flat. Little Detail

Nicely Framed Composition - Good Depth and Detail

#3 Focus

If you’ve got the right composition, there is still a lot more that can be done to enhance the final photo. The focal point is extremely important, it’s where your attention is immediately drawn and helps your dish stand out. With the majority of cameras you can change which point is in-focus. As with other types of photography, I tend to find focusing on an area 1/3rd of a way into the main subject area. Often using the camera’s macro setting is great for close up photography. The button usually looks like this:

How to focus

Generally can set your focal point by centering your image on the point you’d like to be in focus. If you press and hold the shutter button half way down the focus will lock on that point. You can now reframe your shot (without changing the distance for your focal point) to change the composition.

Depth of focus

In a significant number of modern food photographs you’ll notice that some of the image is blurry whilst only a section is in focus giving depth to the image. This affect is known as the depth of focus. More advanced cameras allow you to change how much is in focus – that is, how far behind and infront of your focal point is in focus. Keep an eye out for an aperture setting:

• Higher the f-stop, smaller the aperture, wide focus range, slower shutter (may blur)
• Lower the f-stop, larger the aperture, narrow focus range, fast shutter

Harsh Depth of Field - Too Much Detail

Nice Depth of Field - Helps Food Stand Out

#4 Stability

Even using a low f-stop with a fast shutter for a nice depth of focus may cause your image to appear blurry. The best solution for this, without compromising the quality of the image is to use a tripod (or something stable to rest on). Try using the timer setting on the camera too (or a remote shutter). For food photography i find a mini tripod quite handy, you can just place them on a work surface alongside the food. Take a few shots just incase you get some shake.

#5 Colour Balance

The colour of what you snap is rarely accurate and often makes food unappealing. The main cause is the colour of the light in the setting where you’re taken the photo. Try to take photos in natural light if possible, making sure not to get in the way between the light and what you’re photographing. Don’t be tempted to use a flash, it will bleach out your shots – use a tripod instead. Most cameras have some sort of colour adaptation. Look for a white balance setting like this:

You don’t always need to chose the setting that matches the lighting. I’ll often use a cloudy or daylight setting to add warmth to things like baked goods. If you don’t get it quite right when you’ve taken the photo you can often adjust the colour balance afterwards. Something like Photoshop is ideal, but a free option like Picasa can still work. If you have a digital SLR, shooting in RAW format will give you far more control.

Poor Colour Balance - Too Cold

Good Colour Balance - Adds Warmth

Shin of beef makes an ideal cut for pies, stewing and slow cooking, as the connective tissue breaks down during cooking to enrich the gravy.  It is also a far cheaper way to buy steak – a 500g shin (about the size of my forearm) cost just £4 from my local butcher.  The cut is evidently less popular than it once was; my mother recounts that my gran always used shin of beef in pies and and stews.   Jon Torode points out that supermarkets only sell ‘braising beef’ which can be an mixture of different cuts, and in my experience, can lack the marbled fat which is the whole point of buying it. 

I have recently seen two steak pie recipes and a steak pudding recipe in BBC Olive Magazine

• Individual steak, red wine and mushroom pies (no pastry base and a lattice pastry top);
• Steak pie (with pastry top and bottom);
• Pickled onion, steak and ale pudding.

I felt my ideal pie needed to have steak, onion and ale.  Not deterred, I studied all three recipes and came up with my own pie recipe. 

• Carefully peel 8-10 shallots (taking care to keep them whole) and place into a pan with 25g melted butter and slowly caramelise for 10-15mins on medium heat before setting aside.
• Brown 500g diced shin of beef in a hot pan, in batches if necessary.
• Add back shallots and sprinkle in 35g plain flour(which will act to thicken the gravy) and cook for 2 mins.
• Slowly add 300ml of ale (I chose ‘Old Slug Porter’ a beautifully dark rich ale) and 300ml of beef stock, stirring to stop flour sticking to pan.
• Add 1tbsp of Worcestershire sauce,  a sprig of thyme, a hand full of chopped flat leaf parsley, a grating of nutmeg  and some freshly ground black pepper.  Keep the stirring  until the gravy boils and thickens.
• Taste the mixture – depending on the ale you chose to use, you may wish to add some sugar.  The dark porter I used (similar to Guinness) had given a strong rich flavour, but gave a slightly bitter aftertaste.  I added 2 tspn of dark brown sugar, but the amount required will be to taste.  A light ale probably won’t require any sugar at all.
• Cover and simmer for 1 1/2 hours or until the meat is tender, stirring occasionally, whilst sitting back enjoying the rest of the ale.
• Preheat oven to 200°C (180°C fan or gas mark 6).
• Roll out a block of puff pastry  (hey, if Jon can buy ready puff pastry, so can I!), butter a 20cm pie tin, line with pastry, spoon in steak filling.
• Brush a beaten egg around the rim of the pie before adding the pastry top.  Cut the top to size, crimp the lid and base together (with fingers or fork), brush with top with egg.
• Prick holes to let out the steam and stop the pie going stodgy.
• Bake for 45 to 50 mins oven. 

The ensuing pie was easily the best I’ve ever tasted.  The meat melted in you mouth and the gravy was rich and thick and meaty.  Shop bought puff pastry is ever reliable and was light and fluffy and golden.  The length of cooking meant that the shallots had completely broken down.  Next time, I will hold some back to add in before it goes into oven.

Possible Variations: 

• I intend to try this with some shallots held back to the last minute, so that they stay more intact.
• Button mushrooms would enhance this pie, perhaps add them whole just before the pie is made up and goes into the oven.
• I will try the pie with red wine (perhaps using say a full bodied red and adding some bacon to make the pie reminiscentof a boeuf bourguignon)

Also, I’m really excited about the prospects for my new favourite cut of beef – the shin.  I think it will make fantastic curries and stews.  I’m now going to try to track down some equivalent cuts from Lamb or Pork – something which will be glorious slow cooked.

Pie Debate

To me a pie has to have a top, a middle and a bottom.  I realise that this leaves Shepherd and Cottage “pies” out in the cold, but unless there’s a pastry case, I don’t feel it’s really a true pie.  I’d be interested to know what others think.  A pie without a lid is a flan or a tart.  I don’t know that that makes a pie without base – a bake perhaps?

You need 500g Seville Oranges (about four), 30 ml lemon juice (half a lemon), and 1 kg granulated sugar.  Scrub the oranges, put them in a large pan with 1.25 litres of water.  Bring to the boil, and then cover and simmer for two hours.  When they are soft, take the oranges out and measure how much water you have left, you need about 0.85 litres, so either add some more water, or keep boiling until you have the right amount.

Cut up the oranges into marmalade size strips (discarding pips, but reserving the juice).  Put the cut up orange back into the water, and add the lemon juice and sugar.  Bring to the boil and stir until the sugar is dissolved, and then boil rapidly until setting point is reached (more about this later).  The book says this should take 10-15 minutes, but it took mine about an hour to get going!  I think it’s because my casserole dish isn’t really big enough for making this volume of jam.

Leave to cool for ten minutes, stir and skim off the scum, and then poor into sterilised jars.  I added a little whisky to two of the jars right at the end, which really brought out the orangy flavour.

The resulting marmalade is really lovely, far nicer than any shop bought one I’ve ever had.  The orange flavour really comes through strongly.  It was really simple in the end, although maybe slightly more time consuming than it should have been.  I think all jam making requires a degree of confidence when you aren’t used to it, and we were unsure when the setting point had been reached (we don’t have a thermometer so used the test where you drop some jam on to a saucer and see if it crinkles), and it was hard to get the boiling started as the pan was so full.  I think a proper preserving pan might have to go on my next birthday wish list.

For me, the perfect poached egg is one with solid whites and lots of runny yoke. Ideally I prefer them to be not too uniform which results from those fancy egg poaching gadgets. Today I stumbled upon another technique by VashTheStampede that promised just what I was after. As you can see, they are pretty perfect and taste great. However, the downsides are that it can be a little bit fiddly, especially when you’re trying to unwrap the hot egg. It also uses quite a bit of cling film which seems wasteful and probably isn’t good for you health to boil (although microwaveable stuff is probably better).