The new term has begun

The Cooking school reopened this week with 'Seafood Without Fear' and 'Pasta and Risotto.' It was great to be back in action after the Christmas holiday. The students were keen and we were energised. I hope that it came through. I have to say that the cooking by the students was just fabulous. It was so rewarding to see such great cooking happening.

A highlight of 'Seafood' was the Tea Smoked Salmon. Here is the recipe:

Tea Smoked Salmon Salad
serves 4

You Need
500g Atlantic Salmon fillets, skin off
200g salt
200g brown sugar
Dill
Dash of Whisky (or some other spirit)
White pepper
1 tsp tea leaves
small square 6cm x 6cm of alfoil
75g rocket leaves
75g baby spinach leaves
2 small fennel bulbs
½ red onion
12 cherry tomatoes, halved
1 tsp whole grain mustard
1 tsp honey
1½ tsp whisky
1 tsp dill, chopped finely
olive oil
juice and zest of 2 limes

Method
Mix the sugar and salt together and season with ground white pepper. Rub on the salmon fillets. Place the fillets on a plate, put the sprigs of dill over the fish fillets and sprinkle over the rest of the salt and sugar mixture, pressing slightly when done so that the salt and sugar mixture covers the fillets. Sprinkle with whisky to moisten and leave in the fridge to marinate, preferably for a couple of hours but at least 30 minutes.

Meanwhile make a sauce for the smoked salmon by mixing together the whole grain mustard, the honey, the whisky, the chopped dill and the juice of one lime, together with a little olive oil. You want the sauce to be thick but runny. Set aside.

Make a vinaigrette for the salad by whisking the juice and zest of 1 lime with olive oil and a little water. Season with salt and pepper.

Prepare the salad by washing and drying the salad leaves and then finely slicing the fennel and onion. Divide the leaves on four plates, sprinkle each with sliced onion and fennel and decorate with cherry tomato halves. Set aside.

When the salmon fillets are ready, wash off the marinade and pat dry with a paper towel. Prepare the smoking tea by putting the tea in an alfoil square and turning up the sides to form a small open parcel. sprinkle a few drops of water onto the tea. Place the parcel in the bottom of a wok, place a round metal cooling rack (of sufficient size that the level of the rack is 2-3 cm above the tea) in the wok. Place the wok on a low flame and cover. Allow the tea to begin to smoke.

When the tea is smoking vigorously, place the salmon fillets on the rack inside the wok, cover and leave for 10 minutes. Check at 7 minutes to see how the fillets are cooking. They are cooked when a metal skewer placed into the middle of a fillet is warm on the lip of your mouth.

When cooked, drizzle the salad with the vinaigrette, slice up the salmon into bite sized pieces and distribute onto the salad plates and finely drizzle over the honey and mustard sauce.

(To make this a more substantial meal allow one fillet per person, about 200g each and serve a whole fillet over the salad.)

'Pasta and Risotto' was a really fantastic class. We were booked out and the students were really keen. I was joined by Sophie Budd, our 'Jamie Oliver' chef. She had some fresh crabs from Mandurah and I had some squid ink left over from the previous evening's 'Seafood' class. So we added a squid ink with crab fettucine to the recipes. Wow! It was good. We made some pasta and mixed through the squid ink before rolling it out. Then we made a sauce of the picked crab, some chilli, garlic and olive oil together with some parsley, a good sprinkle of lemon juice and there it was! Simple but remarkably tasty!