Adaptation Station

Like a lot of people out there, I own quite a lot of recipe books. I like to flick through them and get ideas. I like to just look at the pictures of all the nom, many books are well designed for this exact purpose. One of the most recent additions to my collection has been ‘Jamie’s Great Britain’ the book that accompanies yet another successful TV show for The Naked Chef on channel 4.
More often than not, on flicking through the books I not only pick out the recipes I want to cook over the next week or so but I also use them as inspiration for my own twist on it. This, for me, is what cooking is all about and I’m pretty sure it’s how a lot of people go it. For me, adapting recipes in this way is as much about what ingredients I already have as well as personal preferences. More than that though, it's also a good way to gain confidence with unfamiliar ingredients which will enhance your cooking in the long run especially for those occasions when you do improvise.
I’ve had my eye on a particular recipe from ‘Jaimie’s Great Britain’ (JGB) for a while now and that is the baby Yorkshire puddings with Smoked Trout pâté. Although I missed the episode on tv where this was made, I saw the snippet on the trailer where he ate it and nearly cried with happiness. When any chef ends a recipe with the words “To. Die. For.” you know it’s going to be good!
So how did I adapt it? Admittedly, not significantly! This was for a midweek supper for me and T rather than a starter as is suggested in JGB (it would be a fantabulous starter) but although the change is not that big, I did want to see how this could work as a main meal. Firstly I only had cold smoked haddock, rather than hot smoked trout as stated in the recipe. I can’t say for sure that I’ve had hot smoked trout so I couldn’t really tell you the difference in flavour, but cold smoking leaves your fish or meat raw whereas hot smoking would cook it.
So firstly, we heated the oven so it was really hot for the Yorkshire puds. Make sure your oven is quite clean if you want to do this, or that your kitchen has a window. The oven gets very smokey otherwise, add to that hot, smoking oil and it’s really unpleasant. One task for my weekend? Clean the oven!

To cook the fish fillets (there were two), we melted a little butter in pan and added some milk and heated it through. Then we added a bay leaf and a touch of salt and pepper, added both fillets and simmered very gently for about 5 mins or so. Meanwhile, we prepared the pate mixture and yorkie batter and put some water on to boil for some peas to accompany it. My only issue is that the horseradish pate mix ended up being slightly too acidic. I think this is because I used really hot horseradish which is basically pure, grated horseradish in a jar as well as the juice of half a lemon as stated in the recipe. I didn’t need to add that much lemon with such an acidic horseradish but I wanted it to be a strong flavour, it turned out too strong, and a bit runny! It was still delicious though so a little tinkering here and there and it’ll be great. I was somewhat impatient! When the fish was cooked we removed the skin and flaked it into the horseradish pate mixture and set to one side while the yorkies cooked. Once the water was boiling peas were added and the pate mixture was returned to a very gentle heat to warm it through. This is one of those dishes where it all comes together at the last minute. As soon as the yorkies were ready, they were on the plate along with the peas, stick the pate in a big bowl and dig in. For me having the pate warm and not cold just made it a more warming dish. It was lovely to get the smokey fish, lemon and horseradish flavours just zinging away. We had about four mini yorkies each which was plenty and it’s great to spoon the mixture into them and shove it in your gob, you’ve got to love any chance to eat with your hands. If you’ve got a bigger crowd to feed, I would probably serve up some buttery boiled new potatoes and a spinach salad.
The great thing about this is that there are all sort of versions you could try out and it’s great to see the yorkie being used in such a way. I mean, we all know that yorkies and sausages go together like.. well what better combination? But it’s nice to see the humble yorkie coming into its own with more unusual combinations. T and I were talking about different versions you could do, prawns are up there that would be delicious. Watch this space!