Truite aux amandes - Almond trouts

Cet après-midi, au moment de planifier le repas du soir, j'étais persuadée que les truites, ce serait rapide. Un tour dans la farine, et hop, cuites, servies. Vu le planning de la journée, sachant que j'étais à l'atelier jusqu'à 18h je récupérais les enfants à 18h15 pour les nourrir en théorie à 18h30 (oui, on mange tôt en général chez nous), c'était plutôt logique.

Sauf que des fois, j'ai des inspirations soudaines. Une envie soudaine de combiner truites + amandes. Mais pas juste en mettant des amandes dessus, non, et puis en fait, j'avais envie de les cuire au four (ça sent quand même moins le poisson dans la maison après). Et puis une chose en entraînant une autre, j'avais de l'hydromel entamé au frigo, et puis... voilà.

This afternoon as I started planning out tonight's meal, I thought the trouts would be a quick affair. On round in flour, one round in the pan, served and done ! Given I was busy at the print studio until six, supposed to pick up the kids at quarter pas six and feed them at half past six, this seemed like a reasonable plan.

And then I got ideas. I wanted almonds with my trouts. And I had mead in the fridge. And I wanted to cook them in the oven rather than on the stove (much less fish smell through the house). So, here it is.

Pour 4 truites - for 6 trouts

2 poignées d'amandes - 2 handfuls almonds

2 grosses gousses d'ail - 2 large garlic cloves

1 petit oignon - 1 small onion

1 brick de crème d'amandes - 1 pack (about 1 cup) almond cream)

2 cs d'hydromel - 2 tbsp mead

1 cc de moutarde - 1 teasp mustard

1 cs de miel - 1 tbsp honey

Torréfiez les amandes 5 à 10 minutes à four chaud. Laissez le four allumé.

Pelez et coupez grossièrement l'oignon et l'ail, hachez-les avec les amandes (un petit coup de blender ça marche bien).

Rincez les truites et disposez-les dans un plat allant au four. Répartissez la farce aux amandes à l'intérieur et un peu entre elles.

Dans un bol, mélange la crème d'amandes, l'hydromel, le miel et la moutarde. Versez par-dessus les truites. Enfournez 20 minutes.

Set the oven on hight and let the almonds get a little golden in it (about 5 to 10 minutes). Keep the oven on.

Peal and roughly hack the onion and garlic. Put them with the almond sin the blender and, well, blend. Not perfectly, I prefer to keep some crispiness to it.

Rinse the trouts and put them in an oven-proof dish. Stuff the trouts with the almond mixture. Put the excess stuffing between the trouts.

In a little bowl, whisk together the almond cream, mead, honey and mustard. Pour it over the fish. Cook in the oven for 20 minutes.

Aline's fish cakes

Okay, so there has been some improvement on the posting frequency - twice a month instead of every six months. In my defense, I have been very, very busy with work. To toot my own horn, there are many projects in the works over there at Green Martha - you are welcome to check out the website and the shop. One of the things that happened was the opening of my first (yay !) exhibition. The tea shop provided drinks and sweet things to munch on, and I made the savory stuff. I made everything bite size (thanks to my silicon molds) - it's cuter and I didn't need to cut it for the opening.

Unfortunately, in the blur of everything I had to get ready, I only snapped a picture of one of the appetizers I made.

Aline's fish cakes

1 cup canned tuna
1 cup canned salmon
6 eggs
1/2 cup oat cream
2 tbsp flour
1 small can tomato paste

Preheat your oven at 360°F.
Beat the eggs, add the flour, cream, the fish (shredded into small bits with a fork), the tomato paste, a pinch of black pepper.
Pour into small silicon molds, bake for about 20 minutes, until the cakes are firm and slightly golden.

This recipe originally came from a family friend, Aline, and included regular cream and grated cheese. One of the things I learned when going dairy free is that fortunately, a lot of savory cake recipes actually function just as well without cheese.
And yes, I've just posted three fish recipes in a row. I promise I'm going to mix things up a little more with the next few posts !

History junkie - Poisson en croûte

The biggest part of my time is not spent in front of the stove, but in my almost-a-workshop, where I work with ink, paper, fabric and thread - not always together. One of "my" areas is historical costuming, more specifically (yes, I am very specialized... in a number of various domains) the late victorian to early edwardian era, roughly 1870 to 1900. On the other hand, I love books, especially old books. And images, I love images (well, I am a graphic artist after all). Which leads me to my point : I collect bound editions of late nineteenth century fashion magazines.

In case you would be wondering what this has to do with this blog, just open a modern "women's" magazine. browse the pages at the end. I bet you will find a cooking column. And guess what ? It was exactly the same back then.

The recipes are a weird mix to our modern concept of cooking - you will find endeavors most of us find too time-consuming to consider (canning, I'm looking at you), and very basic things. This busy mom is more inclined to try out the latest - as soon as it's not pizza with pasta on it (yes, I found the recipe for this. Carbs on top of carbs topped with carbs. No actual tomatoes included). I am only adventurous to a certain point. This one, I tried out once, and to is now a staple recipe - with a few modern conveniences. It works well with all the fishes I have tried - I would just avoid the small filets like red mullet.

Poisson en croûte - Fish in a crust
2 or 3 large fish filets - you need enough of them to almost fill your gratin dish.
1fennel bulb
1 small onion
1 cup breadcrumbs
parsley

Preheat your oven at 360°F. Grease your gratin dish. Place the fish filets at the bottom of the dish.
Place the fennel, rinsed and roughly diced, the peeled onion cut in four, the breadcrumbs (or stale bread if you don't have breadcrumbs ready) and the parsley in your food processor's bowl and process until no big lumps remain. Spread the mixture over the fish.
Bake until the crust is golden brown.

You can choose your own herbs and veggies mix to add to the crust, of course.
I usually have either stale bread at hand, when it starts to pile up too much and I don't feel like making brad pudding I just process it into crumbs and store them in an airtight container - ready to use, free breadcrumbs, and no waste !

Dip dip dip

It is hot here. The weather forecast keeps promising us rain... tomorrow. It's always "tomorrow". And it stays this way. In my quest for summer recipes that don't turn my kitchen into a sauna, I have turned to dips. I made a little more variety than usual as we had guests yesterday. There was the trusty guacamole, as well as the eggplant caviar, and then some more. I made another trusty preparation, almond tapenade from this blog, translated here for your convenience.

Clockwise from top left : eggplant caviar,
humus, tuna-hazelnut spread, tapenade

Almond tapenade

1/2 cup almond butter

1/2 cup green olives, pitted

Rinse the olives in running water, mix everything together. You can add more or less almond paste depending on your taste. If the tapenade is a little too thick, add a dash of olive oil.

Then I got a little bit more experimental, and I tried my hand at something I'd never done before : humus. I only had a can of chick pas. I'd have preferred the dry kind (as the humus turned out a bit salty for my taste), but well... you do with what you have.

Vegan humus

1 can chick peas (garbanzo beans)

1 cup oat cream

1 clove garlic

2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander (okay, it was frozen coriander, my usual seller wasn't at the market lately)

1 tbsp tahini

Blend together using your mixer until smooth.

I was not so convinced right out of the bowl, the taste was better after  few hours in the fridge. A lot better, considering how many servings the guests took.

Lastly I was craving something with salmon. But I had no smoked salmon, could not find any at the store I went to, and the smoked salmon spread recipe I had involved fresh cheese anyway.This is were I got very experimental, and I must say, it worked !

Tuna-hazelnut spread

1 1/2 cup whole hazelnuts

1 can tuna (8 oz or so)

1 cup oat cream

1/2 oat milk

In a mixing bowl, blend the hazelnuts into a fine power. Keep blending and let the hazelnut power get a little warm. Add the rest of the ingredients and keep blending until you get a smooth cream.

I served everything with grilled spare ribs, sticks of red bell pepper, cucumber, endive and fresh bread. It was very good and I had leftovers for the next day. I will definitely keep tweaking the humus and tuna recipes, I'm sure they can be improved. I'll edit this post if I turn to a better version.

I don't claim originality

... but at least a reasonable dose of personal adaptation.

This recipe wasn't totally mine to begin with. My best friend made me something similar a few months ago, and I played with what I had in the fridge and a few spices.

Spinach-hazelnut tart

1 pastry dough

3 cups frozen spinach or one big salad bowl raw spinach

3 eggs

1/2 cup oat milk

1/4 cup canned tuna or smoked salmon

1/2 cup ground hazelnuts

1 pinch ginger

pepper

Cook your spinach (a few minutes in the pressure cooker after the pressure is on will do it just fine), then drain it and cut it into small, small bits.

Roll out your dough onto a lightly floured surface, then transfer it into a greased mold. Pre-heat the oven at 360°F.

In a large-ish bowl, beat the eggs with the milk, add the spinach, the fish (in smaller pieces), the hazelnut and the spices. Pour the filling over the dough, fold the edges of the dough over the filling.

Bake in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes, until the dough is dry and slightly golden. Serve warm or cold.

The only thing to be mindful of, if you watn to play with proportions, is that the fish will add quit ea lot of salt, so don't add too much of it.