Dips

A couple of dips I made to have with the mini pita breads. The first is a cucumber and mint yoghurt dip.

The night before set a sieve lined with cheese cloth (or clean tea towel) on a bowl, and pour in some natural yoghurt (make sure the only ingredients are milk and culture, you don't want yoghurt that has thickeners or gelatin in it).


Leave in the fridge for at least 12 hours.


The yoghurt will loose about 50% of its volume due to the whey draining off.


De-seed half a cucumber and tear up a few of leafs of mint.


Purée the mint and cucumber, if you need to loosen it pour a little of the whey in. Mix this with the thickened yoghurt.


Brunoise the other half of the cucumber and mix into the yoghurt. Season with salt. I also added a pinch of smoked paprika.


Finally thinly slice some mint to stir through and use as a garnish.


The second dip is a very simple salmon mousse. In a food processor or mini blender, place 200 grams of cream cheese, 50-100 mls of cream, a squeeze of lemon juice and dill to taste. Blend until smooth. Add in 250 grams of hot smoked salmon, pulse until the salmon is incorporated, be careful not to completely purée it.


Cover and let it set in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Salt, Salmon and grapefruit!

The Grapefruit

No, not together. I mentioned a couple of posts ago that we bought a few bits and pieces and smoked salt was in the basket. Well it got put to good use again for a quick and easy dessert, nice big chunks of grapefruit and smoked salt. The great thing about salt is it blocks out bitterness, unlike sugar which just masks it.

The grapefruit was juicy, not overly sweet, and had 0% bitterness because of the salt, and a slight hint of smoke.

Try taking a glass of tonic and adding salt to it, you'll be hard pressed to taste the bitter quinine in it. Also good with coffee. I've had a bit of a hunt around and can't find a reason exactly why the salt works. I've dropped a line to cookingissues, hopefully they answer it on their next radio show.

Update: The question was answered, go here to listen to the radio show. Basically the salt alters the way your taste receptors interrupt bitterness (maybe). Subscribe to the radio show via podcast

Salmon and Pasta

AND yet another super quick dinner. 1 packet of good (the best you can afford) hot smoked salmon, cream, shallot, peas (frozen are fine, in fact usually better than fresh, unless you grew them yourself), wine, salt, pesto.

Get your pasta on to boil (I used spaghetti). In a pan soften finely diced shallots in a little olive oil. Add wine and reduce. Once reduced, add pesto, and then cream. Turn the heat to low, and add peas. By now your pasta is cooked. Put your pasta in to the sauce (a bit of cooking water is OK, it helps spread the sauce), flake in the hot smoked salmon and stir through until warm. Serve.