Tasty Lunch variation

Clearly I love my sprats on toast with tomato. Tried out this variation and, can you believe it was even better! First off it was helped that I used our own beef tomato that was so sweet and tender, such a difference compared to the hard flavourless commercial 'vine' tomatoes. So generally follow my previous Tasty Lunch post. But having butterfly filleted the sprats and cleaned the inside of the fillets with a kitchen towel, the next step is to take some very thin cut prosciutto ham and cut into long strips, the length of the slice, about 30mm wide. Layout on a board. Take each fillet with tail end, less fin, placed at the bottom edge of the ham with the rest of the fillet lying on the ham up towards the top. Cut a firm gherkin into long thick strips, about 6mm square and roughly 50mm long. Place a gherkin strip on the fillet end, then, making sure you pick up the end of the ham, roll is tightly up, place with the top end of ham at the bottom to keep it in shape. Now grill with a sprinkle of olive oil for about four minutes until fish flesh turns white and ham begins to crisp, Keep a watch and do not over cook them. Keep warm and set aside

Now time for the toast, lightly grilled, cut off the crust if you prefer and coated with your prepared tomato mixture (skinned tomato, shallot, garlic, olive oil, all lightly blitzed) taking it right to the edges and then place a line of thin raw tomato slices along the toast. Splash of oil put toast and tomato mixture under the grill briefly until the raw tomato just softens, remove, place the sprat rolls onto the toast and enjoy with a green salad.

tasty lunch

From time to time our fishmonger has sprats. They are now in season. This is our favourite way of having them as a lunch. Butterfly fillet a dozen sprats, leave just the tail fins on. Try to get the larger ones and ones still intact, not too chewed up. Cost you less than a £!. Skin and de-seed three tomatoes then finely chop and crush with a fork. Add one crushed clove of garlic and one stem of spring onion finely chopped, season and mix well. Toast six slices of bread. Sprinkle each slice with olive oil spread with a generous layer of the tomato mixture and lay two sprat fillets head to tail, skin side up. Drizzle with oil and return to grill briefly. They will only take a couple of minutes so watch carefully. Lift a fillet up gently to check that flesh has turned opaque. Serve with a light green salad.

panfried scallops

We were in our fishshop and the scallops stared at me saying buy,buy. So we did.

I lightly toasted slices, crusts off, of my 80% white bread, then drizzled them with olive oil and sprinkled with crushed garlic. On one half I put a thick slice off a beef tomato and over the other half two thin slices of gruyere cheese. Back into the still warm grill to finish off. Meanwhile I pan seared my wiped clean scallops in butter until just firm then rested them for a few minutes in a warm place.

Served with two strands of chives and scallop on top of the tomato and a light salad What delicious lunch!

Soused Mackerel

Fillet and pin bone two mackerel. Set aside. In a shallow dish sufficient to take a pair of fillets side by side, strew bottom with two bay leaves, 12 white peppercorns crushed, 5 juniper berries quartered and one onion thinly shaved on a mandolin. Arrange opposing fillets on top and scatter some English mustard power over them. Strew to cover with another shaved onion. In one to two proportions sprinkle about dessert spoon of white wine vinegar followed by olive oil. Cover dish with one large tomato in 5mm slices then sprinkle with coarse breadcrumbs. Cover with well buttered greaseproof paper and put into a hot oven 180C for just under half hour. Take off greaseproof and put dish under grill until golden. Delicious