Transatlantic Tastes Week Two - Quick Salmon Tikka with Cucumber Yogurt

This week in our "Transatlantic Tastes" series, we decided to step up our game a bit, while still cooking something that was somewhat basic. We went Indian!

Anyone who has lived in England or is familiar with English food and culture will know that curry has changed the definition of British cuisine. It could be said that the curry has essentially become the national dish in modern day Britain. There are just as many curry shops as there are chip shops in cities and towns all over the nation.

While we didn't make a proper curry this week with rice and all the fixings, we did make a dish that is Indian to its core. I've listed the ingredients below to show you what makes up the recipe, and as you can see, most things you will be able to find in any supermarket. I was a little concerned that I wouldn't find the tandoori paste that Jamie calls for in the recipe, but as luck would have it, good ol' Dominion came through for me! It was even the brand he specified, Patak's!

Jamie Oliver's website hosts a large number of his recipes, including this week's, which you can find at the link below.

Quick Salmon Tikka with Cucumber Yogurt


Ingredients:
naan breads or flatbreads
a fresh red chile
a cucumber
a lemon
natural yogurt
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
fresh cilantro
2 salmon fillets, skin on, scaled, and bones removed
tandoori, or mild curry paste
olive oil

Ingredients at the ready...

Should've used Greek yogurt! Ah well, I know better for next time. :)

The salmon is sizzling away!

The finished product...a little charred, but still good!

Nancy's turned out pretty good as well!

This dish was a little challenging because to be perfectly honest, I'd never cooked salmon before. I'm not a big fish eater, and with my shellfish allergy, I generally stay away from all fishy foods. But, I wanted to give this recipe a try, because it involved two things I don't have very often - fish and Indian cuisine. It's always good to try something new! Jamie also says in the recipe that it's called "Quick Salmon Tikka..." because it should take about 17 minutes to throw together...well, it took us a bit longer than that, probably because we pause to talk so much and don't actually try to rush in our cooking. That's my excuse and I'm stickin' with it.

Like last week, I had to switch out some ingredients for others; I couldn't find a red chile pepper anywhere in St. John's (does anyone know where I can find chillies that look like this? Ignore the green! I want red!) so I had to use a jalapeno instead, as that was all they had at the grocery store. It didn't add the heat I think it was supposed to.

I like to think that my finished product looks exactly like Jamie's, however, I'm sadly mistaken. Jamie's salmon isn't as charred as mine turned out to be, but I expected I wouldn't cook it perfectly, since I'd never cooked salmon before, and didn't really know how. However, when the time came for the taste test, it still tasted pretty good!

You can try this recipe for yourself by picking up a copy of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution cookbook, or checking out his website, JamieOliver.com! Until next time, happy cooking!

Transatlantic Tastes Week One - Cherry Tomato Sauce with Cheat's Fresh Pasta

Welcome to "Transatlantic Tastes with Nancy and Elizabeth"! (We're still working on the name. It might also be called "Bangers and Mash: Transatlantic British Cooking with Elizabeth and Nancy" or "The Transatlantic British Cooking Class". We'll figure it out.)


For our first cooking adventure, Nancy and I decided to stick to a recipe that was fairly basic, since we were just starting out as chefs. We figured we shouldn't get too ahead of ourselves. So when flipping through our Jamie's Food Revolution cookbooks, we thought that a pasta recipe would be a good place to start. The following is so easy, but so delicious, that it's a great recipe for beginner chefs:


Cherry Tomato Sauce with Cheat's Fresh Pasta

Ingredients:
1 1/2 pints ripe grape or cherry tomatoes
4 cloves of garlic
a small bunch of fresh basil (While Nancy had fresh basil, I couldn't find any in the grocery stores, so I used Litehouse Freeze-Dried Basil, which worked perfectly!)
1 pound fresh lasagna, defrosted if frozen (we both changed this; she used penne and I used ditalini)
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
olive oil
2 pats of butter
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
4 ounces parmesan cheese


To prepare your pasta:
Cut the tomatoes into halves or quarters, depending on size. Peel and slice the garlic. Pick the basil leaves off the stalks and put them to one side. Finely chop the stalks. Cut the lasagna sheets into 3 or 4 long strips and put to one side. Grate the parmesan.


To cook your pasta:
Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil. Put a large frying pan over a medium heat and add a couple of lugs of olive oil and the garlic. Add the butter and let it melt. When the garlic starts to brown, add the tomatoes. Give everything a good stir, then add the basil stalks and half the leaves. Add the vinegar and season with salt and pepper. Drop your fresh pasta strips into the pan of boiling water and cook for 3 minutes. Drain in a colander over a large bowl, reserving some of the cooking water. Add the pasta to the frying pan with a splash of the cooking water and half the parmesan. Give it a good stir. Taste and add a little more salt and pepper if you think it needs it.


To serve your pasta:
Divide the pasta between your plates or bowls, or put the pan in the middle of the table and let everyone help themselves. Sprinkle over the rest of the parmesan and the basil leaves, tearing any larger ones up. This dish is lovely with a simple side salad!


The great thing about learning to cook is that even though you should try to stick to the recipe as much as possible, there is always room for substitutions and switches. I couldn't find fresh basil, so I substituted it for freeze-dried. Nancy used fresh penne instead of fresh lasagna, and I switched out the lasagna for little round pasta tubes called ditalini. To add more protein to the dish, I also cooked up some chicken and added that in, another way our final dishes differed.

Below are some of the photos I took of our cooking adventure:

First step: Make sure all the ingredients are ready to go!

Off to a good start...

Pasta and sauce bubbling away!

Nancy's hard at work on her dish too!

Add a little parmesan cheese to taste...

The (delicious) finished product!

Nancy presents her finished dish, while I display mine and the recipe!

All in all, week one was a success! It really is an easy dish to make, with Jamie laying out the recipe step by step. One recommendation I would have, however, is that with any recipe, you should read the entire thing through once before you begin, just so you have an idea of what to expect, and aren't taken by surprise by anything that's in there.

Don't forget, you can try these recipes too, by picking up Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution cookbook at a bookstore near you! Check back in a few days to see how Week Two of Transatlantic Tastes went!