Recipe #8: "Kedgeree" (page 131)

A hybrid Anglo-East Indian dish that poses the question if the stronger Indian spicing should be included as an influence. Typically subtle British flavors make Fergus' rendition essentially rice with smoked fish and an afterthought of hardboiled eggs. I was deeply troubled with whether or not I should dare to add my own Indian spices at hand to perk this dish up; I decided against it for this first attempt.

Again having sourced my fish from Hagen's I substituted for the nearly impossible to source smoked haddock, my choice being cisco. Two whole fish weighed in at over a pound, I briefly steamed them with minimum water and maximum butter. After cooling them I removed and discarded skeleton and skin.

Rice followed. I smiled at Fergus method for rice ratio discovery ('Place the rice in a pan. Lay your hand flat on the rice, and add water until your hand is covered'). I used an even simpler and more accurate method, my well worn Pyrex measuring cup and the standard 2:1. I used Jasmine rice because it was what I had on hand, it has been my rice of the moment for a good span now. I never understood draining rice either...sounds like evidence that you used too much water, more evidence that Fergus 'hand' system of measurement is not fitting for this application.

Red onion did prove to be a great selection for this recipe. I jumped at the chance as it is one of my favorite of the onion family (though certainly not appropriate for many situations). They did in fact go quite sweet as directed, careful cooking on medium heat with butter rather then my usual higher heat and oil succeeded here. Their sweetness remained as tasty pockets throughout the masses of rice down to the final leftover days later. While I halved the onion yield (two) I doubled the lemon juice and parsley measurements as I saw that as my only chance to add flavor to the dish. It was a well advised idea.

The softness of the eggs was a great texture contrast and showed them to be much more then a buried garnish. The cisco was not nearly as strong in smoke flavor as the lake trout I used in my fish pie but perhaps I did use too much rice for their weight. I am not totally disappointed however and in many ways feel that perhaps it was fitting for this demure dish.

As a footnote, when this was completed and even consumed I remembered seeing this prepared on 'Two Fat Ladies'. Their only improvisation from this recipe? The use of Garam Masala, which I already had on hand. I did come across many other recipes with far greater use of Indian spice which may have proved to be overwhelming, but a single tablespoon of Garam Masala would have been fitting I think. Next time.

Recipe #7: "Fish Pie" (page 134-135)

This is the first of three consecutive recipes involving smoked fish which I will be working through. All three call for smoked haddock, after a cursory search of the area for places of procurement I decided to do what I already knew to be true and substitute. As I said in the introduction to this blog, I refuse to get hung up on a single ingredient and avoid a recipe as a result. That being said I do make my choices of substitution with substantial thought and shall not blindly reach for anything with semblance of similarity.

Surely the oldest retailer of its kind in Chicago, Hagen's Fish Market immediately came to mind when I knew I needed fish. I had never actually been there and was shocked to find they are the only hardwood smokehouse of its kind in the city: they will gladly smoke any fish or fowl you will bring them for a fee. I visited on a Sunday afternoon and decided on two whole 'smoked fish' (which I later idenfified as cisco) and two large steaks of smoked lake trout.

Both packages weighed approximately 1 1/4 lbs. I wasn't yet sure of how I would portion the fish between the three recipes but thought these types seemed appropriate for substitution and I headed off, still brainstorming in preparation for my fish pie.

That night I started out by hard boiling eggs for both the fish pie and the kedgeree (8 in total). Not to devote too much time to such simple cookery but I was quite pleased with the result. Bright yellow yolks came from a carefully timed period of boiling/simmering and most importantly extreme cooling afterward. Simple running water won't do it, use a large vessel and pack it with ice water. While this went on I peeled and began to boil the remainder of my russets from my failed 'Pressed Potatoes' recipe chronicled in my previous blog entry. It turned out to be a perfect amount of tubers for their need here.

I took a swift bike ride to the grocery to acquire a number of dairy products: milk, butter and the aforementioned eggs. I always keep butter at hand but had run out recently and milk I despise for uses besides cooking. With my potatoes mashed and eggs peeled and chopped, it was time to wrangle my fish.

My trout steaks were not fillets as requested in the recipe but I decided they would break down more easily once poached. First I had to cut off and pull out the twine apparently used for hanging purposes in the smokehouse. An endearing reminder from whence my fish came; the string was golden as the fish from its exposure to the smoke. I 'broke' them at their backbone so they lie flat in my Pyrex pan.

I used whole peppercorns as requested (but adamantly refused to count exactly 10 as quantified there). I also used bay leaf, while not a part of this recipe I did find things to be a bit demure again with the use of herbs/spices as typical of the book and its style. I had come across the use of bay in poaching smoked fish in a number of recipes for kedgeree which was being researched in parallel to the pie at hand.

I did not measure the amount of milk and the sole reason for that lie in the fact that my Pyrex (another component of my flame-proof glass collection) measuring cup was filled with chicken grease in my fridge from the night's previous dinner. I eyeballed 1/4th of the half gallon container I purchased which shallowly covered the meat of the fish. Looking back I should have more carefully measured. The reason why is evidenced best in a hardly related recipe: the decidedly un-British Southern American fare, biscuits and gravy.

Biscuits and gravy is an excellent lesson in the quantification of roux making and more. Your gravy begins with sausage, which renders grease. The amount of grease in the pan dictates the amount of flour needed to temper it into a proper roux. The amount of roux dictates the amount of liquid needed to create an adequate gravy. If you are making 10 biscuits you do not want a 1/2 cup of finished gravy, nor do you want a 1/2 gallon. The same holds true for this recipes creation of bechamel, which intelligently is made from your fish-infected milk. An ingenious reuse of previously used components adding untold flavor as well as simple logic.

I believe that either I did not use a full two cups (though I swore I had to have used extra, even) or too much was lost to evaporation (even though I followed the dictated temperature and time, and my milk was barely simmering when it was removed from the oven). At any rate, I began with the nearly full stick (7 tablespoons) to an exacting measurement, already aware of the careful balance of fat/roux/bechamel's mathematics.

3/4 cup of flour followed and my roux looked well balanced. However the milk added left me with something closer to batter then white sauce, even before it reduced or cooked at all. I ran to my fridge - even two steps away I was worried that I would color or scald what was in my pan - and began whisking in additional 'raw' milk which was of course sans fish flavor. This bothered me to no limit, as I knew I was diluting the well seasoned flavor of milk that commiserated with peppercorn, bay and smoke.

But I did what I had to and when my bechamel looked appropriate I began to decant it into my cleaned and reused Pyrex which was already filled with my de-boned and broken down trout as well as the hard cooked eggs.

My mash was at the ready and it followed immediately afterward. The 'plowing' technique Fergus recommends went into motion. Proof positive it did indeed assist greatly in browning but I also found it quite useful for removing excess potatoes from the top of my pie. Like the poaching solution in this recipe, the mash was neither wasted and it went straight into my mouth.

As I neared two entire sticks used for this recipe, my dotted pie entered the box of blazes for another half hour.

Peas were boiled and my beer supply for the night was exhausted. Two slices were gone quickly and another this morning. And still I cannot rid my mind of its existence in my icebox, nor the vivid campfire aroma created from the wondrous trout supplied by Hagen's.