Smoked Haddock Fish Cakes with French Goats Cheese

When I got a letter inviting me to participate in a French Goats Cheese Masterclass last year, I was immediately intrigued. For sometime now I was curious to find more about goats cheese and how to cook with it for a personal reason. My little niece was diagnosed with allergy to the cow milk's protein which means that she can not eat cow's milk or any other cow milk product including cheeses. As cheese is quite often served on the table I was looking for some alternative ways to include it in her diet too.

It turns out goat's milk is an alternative for people allergic to cow's milk protein or suffering from lactose intolerance (which is the inability to digest the lactose - sugar contained in milk.) Compared to cow's milk goat's milk has different easily digestible fat and different protein. Besides, it contains very small amounts of the allergic casein found in cow's milk .

Lactose in goat's milk is slightly lower than in cow's milk (although still may affect some lactose intolerant people). (Source)

I have tried home-made goats milk products as a child and was sincerely repulsed by the smell, so even now I am a bit cautious when it comes to goat's milk. But it seems some time ago farmers figured out how to eliminate the unpleasant odour or at least minimise it to tolerable levels.

So with this in mind I headed to the cooking school where the Master class was about to start.

First we had a feast of French goat's cheese selection. It was a totally unexpected and delightful experience! We tried at least 12 different cheeses ranging from fresh cheese, artisanal with ash-coated rind, through Camembert to cheese logs with different textures and rinds (natural or bloomy). I particularly remember the Camembert, ash-coated rind cheese and the spreadable fresh cheese. Honestly I did not expect such a variety, as the main kind of goat's cheese I had tried was feta-like. And there was no feta-like goat's cheese among the French ones.

French farmers do amazingly varied cheeses out of goat's milk and that is not a surprise as France is the world's largest goat's cheese producer with some 100,000 tonnes per year, although it exports as little as 12 % of the that amount. And the varieties are over 1,000 coming in different shapes - disks, logs and mini logs and pyramids, coated in ash or wrapped in leaves.

The French Goat's Cheese campaign is organised by the French Government and has chef Sophie Wright as its ambassador in the UK.

After the presentation and tasting of the cheeses paired with renowned white wines, we were invited to try to cook some of the recipes Sophie had developed (fish cakes with spreadable cheese and cheese and rosemary muffins) and had the chance to try the warm grilled pear, endive and Crottin de Chavignol with caramelised walnuts (it was amazing!) and a baked cheesecake with orange and raspberries.

The only thing I regret is forgetting to take my camera with me, but when I go to a cooking class I usually expect to have to cook and not having time or appropriate conditions for photos, so most of the time I leave it at home and then regret it.

And I'll be very happy to share the fish cake recipe.

I personally love fish cakes but to be honest hadn't done them so far, because it seemed too much of a hassle and looked like time consuming job. It was not. And I the fish cakes were the best I had ever tried. Needless to say everybody else at home loved them too!

I did make some changes in the original recipe though as replacing the smoked salmon with smoked haddock using a bit more potatoes, adding a garlic cove and using panko breadcrumbs, but the rest is as per Sophie Wright.

Smoked haddock fish cakes with spreadable goats cheese

(Makes 12-15 depending on size)

Products:

150 gr smoked haddock fillet

350 gr haddock skinless fillet

1 clove of garlic

2-3 tbsp chopped parsley

2-3 tbsp chopped chives

450 r Mris Piper potatoes (about 2 large potatoes)

salt, pepper

1 tbsp capers - rinsed

juice of 1/2 lemon

150 gr Spreadable pyramidal goats cheese

3 eggs

4-5 tbsp flour

1 cup panko breadcrumbs

Method:

Peel and cut the potatoes in 2-inch pieces, cover with water, add salt and bring to the boil. After some 15 minutes check if they are soft and remove from heat. Mash and set aside too cool down.

In the meantime cut the fish into chunks and pulse in a food processor. Add the parsley and chives, the lemon juice and the capers. Continue to bend until smooth.Place in a bowl and combine with the ashed potatoes well.

Make balls out of it (I did 12 various sizes.) and press with a thumb or a spoon to make a place for the cheese. insert the cheese and form the cake so that the cheese stays in the middle.

*At his point I found the patties too soft, so just pat them with the flour, placed on a tray and placed in the freezer for some 10 minutes.

Then proceeded with washing them in eggs and covering in breadcrumbs.

Heat oil in a pan and fry the fish cakes for 3-4 minutes on each side until golden-brown. Then return on a tray and when all of them are done, place in the oven at 190 degrees for more 12 minutes.

Serve immediately with green salad.

I will most surely cook this recipe again!

Vegan Mini Falafels

On Christmas Eve there is a tradition in Bulgaria that only odd number vegetarian dishes are allowed on the table, including grains, pulse, vegetables, fruit and nuts. The day is the last one of the fast before Christmas and on the next day 25 December, meat is widely and abundantly available.

Although non traditional to the region, from a dietary point of view chickpeas in the form of hummus and falafel meet most of the requirements to be on the Christmas Eve table.

I don't really remember to have come across any dish cooked with boiled chickpeas, but my grandparents have been growing some. It was mainly roasted, dried and salted (no in this particular order) and was a very popular snack.

I would now add it to stews or curries or make hummus dip or falafel.

To break the traditional dried bean soup we make for Christmas Eve I though we should go with the little chickpea balls instead, ie falafels.

My recipe is in fact vegan as it does not include any animal product.

However, the balls were quit soft and quite easy to break but the taste was very intense as I did not add any flour.

I used cooked chickpeas.

Products:

2 cans chickpeas (2x400g)

1 medium sized onion - chopped

2 cloves garlic - crushed and chopped

leaves from 5-6 springs lemon thyme

1 cup fresh parsley leaves -chopped

cracked black pepper

salt

vegetable oil for frying

Method:

Wash, drain and dry the chickpeas.

Process them in a food processor until coarsely blended.

Heat 1 tbsp of oil in a pan and sautee the onion and garlic for 2-3 minutes. Add the parsley and lemon thyme and sautee for more 1 minute. Remove from heat and combine with the chickpeas. Process in a food processor until well blended.

Pressing with fingers make small balls. Heat the oil in a pan and fry on both sides until crunchy. Be careful they don't' break.

Serve with lemon/lime wedges.

Rutabaga and Sweet potato Gratin in Lemon-Thyme Infused Cream

As this year with friends we decided to go for a Scandinavian inspired food, I was thinking of some vegetarian side dish. The best I found out was the Finnish rutabaga gratin. Apparently rutabaga is another name for swede, so commonly available in the UK and I so much having not even a clue what to do with it besides obviously boil it.

I actually tried it over a year ago when I was introducing solids to my toddler. It was OK to taste but nothing special and it never occur to me I could make something really delicious with it.

So my interpretation of the rutabaga gratin (which proved to be a traditional dish on the Scandinavian Christmas table too) includes also sweet potato and lemon-thyme infused double cream. The only other condiment I used was cracked black peppercorns.

The dish doesn't really need salt because it tastes quite sweet.

As swede is much more hard than sweet potatoes, I needed to parboil it for 15 minutes before assembling the gratin.

I later did another version of it, but as I ran out of swede, I used potatoes and sweet potatoes with double cream and Danish blue cheese. Oh, it was delicious!

But now let's go back to the recipe for this simple yet flavoursome dish!

Products:

(serves 6-8)

1 medium sized swede (rutabaga/Swedish turnip) (around 1 kg)

3 large sweet potatoes

4-5 fresh sprigs lemon thyme

400 ml double cream

100 gr hard cheese (I used cheddar)

cracked black peppercorns

Method:

Heat the double cream in a pan and add the lemon thyme leaves.

Soak for 20-30 minutes.

Peel and cut the swede in preferred shapes and boil them lightly in water (optionally salted) for 15 minutes.

In the meantime peel the sweet potatoes and cut them too.

Drain the swede and mix with the sweet potatoes well.

In a deep baking dish cover the bottom with a little bit of the cream do not remove the leaves. Line with 1/3 of the vegetables. Sprinkle black pepper and grated cheese and cover with double cream. Proceed until everything ends with some cheese and cream on top.

Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 40-50 minutes.

Let to stand for 2-3 hours or more before serving.

And enjoy!

#90 Roasted Carrots and Coriander soup (Vegan)

A family favourite and very easy to make, I recently tried to roast the carrots for this soup before blending and the result was just great!

It is a very delicious vegetarian soup. Sometimes I use chicken stock, but this vegan version it was replaced with vegetable stock.

Don't hesitate to try this very humble, fast and easy to make, but rich in taste soup!

Products:

(Serves 5-6 )

for roasting:

700 gr carrots - peeled and coped in 3 cm pieces

1 medium onion - peeled, quartered and cut in half

1 large or 2 small garlic cloves

2 tbsp olive oil

salt

for the soup:

1.4 l vegetable stock

salt to taste

1 tbsp olive oil

1tsp ground coriander

ground pepper

a handful of fresh coriander leaves

Method:

Line a roasting pan with foil and place the vegetables. Drizzle the olive oil and sprinkle some salt.

Roast in 200 C oven for 15 minutes and make sure they don't burn (very much). Remove from the oven and leave to cool for a while.

In the meantime heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a pan and add the ground coriander and leave to fry for 10-20 seconds very carefully it doesn't burn. Add the roasted vegetables and cover with the vegetable stock. Bring to the boil, simmer for 5 minutes, stop the heat, then blend. I used a hand blender with metal stem so it can work with hot liquids.

When smooth enough, sprinkle some black pepper and adjust salt to taste.

Add the finely chopped coriander leaves, mix well, cover with lid and leave to rest for 5 minutes. Then serve.