#15 Salmon from a Knight

Otane is a quaint rural settlement just up the road from where we live in Pukehou. Sir Des Britten was born there back in 1939. In the seventies, Sir Des became a New Zealand icon presenting two television cooking shows as well as running a restaurant in Wellington and being a radio presenter. His knighthood was received later in life for the work he did as an Anglican minister and heading the Wellington City Mission for over twenty years. Quite rightly Sir Des features in The Great NZ Cookbook contributing "Fail Safe Asian Salmon with Smashed Potatoes and Slow-Roasted Tomatoes". With the disaster from last week, I was quite keen on the "fail-safe" guarantee and I wanted something special as the extended whanau were coming for dinner.

Seven fillets of salmon at the ready daughter informed me why I was not removing the bones ... as seen on master chef. Ahh... missed that programme and I really couldn't get the little blitters out with my fingers. Of course, when I had time the next day I could google how to remove pin bones from salmon and now have on the list to have needlenose pliers at the ready! By the way, there was no reference to bones or removal of them, and goodness me for a few tugs on the bones the supermarket really hikes up the cost per kg.
The salmon is simply smeared with a small dose of mustard, hoisin, soy and oyster sauce and honey before cooking. The secret is a very low 110 C oven temperature with a cooking time of 1/2 hour. The tomatoes are anointed with a little olive oil and dried oregano and cooked at the same time as the salmon. Sir Des, reassuring instructs you "not to be worried that the salmon will be undercooked and raise the heat any higher, it will turn out beautifully, I promise". What a nice guy, and he was right.

The potatoes were similarly tasty. Par-boil Agria spuds with their skins on. Once cool you cut a deep criss-cross then squeeze them slightly to open up. Drizzle olive oil in the centre and sides then bake for about 40 minutes in a hot oven (225 C). You top with a little basil pesto before serving and my goodness they were yummy.

Sir Des didn't supply a dessert, so I ventured further South to Roslyn, Dunedin and scored their Lemon tart (page90). The end product didn't look as good as the photo in the book and probably could have done with some more cooking to set. But at least it wasn't a repeat of the slush from last week.

I was concerned that salmon, baked tomatoes and spud were going to be enough on the dinner plate but the three items complimented themselves beautifully. Anyway, how could I go wrong with a fail-safe recipe, a reassuring priest and a knight at my side?!


Fail-safe Asian salmon with smashed potatoes and slow roasted tomatoes

Fail safe me thinks!
Whanau

Lemon Tart



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