Griddled langoustines with smashed cannellini beans, charred asparagus, chilli oil and mint

Four years ago today, I dusted off the saucepans and started Sam Cooks Food. Back then, as I rolled out that pasta sheet on the one serviceable clear worktop in my tiny North London kitchen, little did I know how much a little writing project would spiral to become a massive part of my life. I originally intended the blog to be somewhere where I could document my experiments with new ingredients, and more advanced cooking techniques; something that I’d found frustratingly little of elsewhere. After four years I can’t believe how much my cooking has developed and evolved, and more importantly, how much I’ve learned. And happily, I still get the same kick out of messing about in my kitchen as I did on day one. I always see cooking as a continuous learning cycle, and I’m definitely still just scratching the surface. That’s not to say that this blogging lark hasn’t royally pissed me off on occasions. On many occasions I’ve struggled to find the time or motivation to start typing. But it’s always a massive weight off my shoulders when I do. 

 
Aside from all that self-indulgent cooking philosophy nonsense above, I was basically just dead chuffed with everything today and wanted to celebrate a little. This week has been truly knackering, but with inspiration from a heaving fish slab at work and the seduction that comes from a sunny springtime evening, I dashed home to cook myself a feast before the light faded.
 
At 5pm I turned the ‘Open’ sign on the door around was away, armed with three astonishingly lively Scottish langoustines in my bag. On the twenty minutes it took me to walk home, I managed to work out a quick recipe and source a few key ingredients. I always take for granted the excellent produce available so close to home. To accompany my langoustines from the West Coast of Scotland, I bought some Wye Valley asparagus, unwaxed lemons and a couple of bushy bunches of fresh herbs. That was me set, and within thirty seconds of getting in, the stoves were on. 

 
I’ve certainly cooked more refined and prettier plates of food, but today the celebration was in the eating rather than the amount of elements needed to get there. So here’s to another four years and beyond!
 
Serves 4
 
Ingredients:
 
6 live langoustines 
12 asparagus spears, halved vertically
 
For the smashed cannellini beans:
 
400g cooked cannellini beans, drained 
A handful of wild garlic leaves 
Zest of 2 lemons and the juice of 1 
1 bunch of mint 
3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
 
For the chilli oil:
 
2 red chillies 
5 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
 
For the crispy mint leaves:
 
2-3 springs of mint, leaves picked 
500ml of vegetable or olive oil, for frying
 
To finish:
 
½ a lemon 
A few grinds of black pepper 


To make the chilli oil, roughly chop the red chilli and tip into a small food processor. Pour in the olive oil and add a sprinkle of salt. Turn the engine on and mix until very well combined. Pour into a bowl and set aside for at least 20 minutes. Once the oil has had a chance to infuse, strain through muslin into a clean bowl. Set aside while you prepare the rest of the dish.
 
Clean the food processor bowl and tip in the drained cannellini beans, the wild garlic, mint and lemon zest and juice. Blitz together until everything is smooth. With the motor still running, slowly drizzle in the olive oil. Taste for seasoning, and add more lemon, salt and pepper as required. 

 
Pour the vegetable or olive oil for frying into a saucepan, and set onto a medium-high heat. When the oil is very hot, carefully fry the mint leaves in small batches. After 15-20 seconds, transfer them to a plate lined with kitchen roll to drain.
 
Heat a heavy griddle pan until smoking hot.
 
Quickly and carefully kill the langoustines by cutting vertically through their heads with a sharp, heavy knife. Make a second cut through the tail to split them in two. Remove the dark intestinal tract, and the small stomach sac from the head.
 
When the griddle is up to temperature, add a splash of oil. Cook the asparagus first, for 1-2 minutes on each side, until slightly charred. Remove to a side plate and keep warm.
 
Season the langoustines and coat all over with a little more oil. Griddle them (in batches if necessary) split-side down for a minute and a half. Turn them over for an additional minute, then use tongs to transfer them to the same plate as the asparagus. Squeeze the lemon half over the top.
 
To plate up, spoon a generous amount of the smashed cannellini beans onto each plate, and scatter some charred asparagus on top. Add three langoustine halves per plate. Finish with a few of the crispy mint leaves, a tablespoon of the chilli oil and a grind of black pepper.

New season asparagus with anchovy, mint, parmesan and butter

Following on from the burrata mentioned in my last post, my second course of lunch was all about the asparagus. Every year I wait with excitement for the first British asparagus to hit the shelves of my local greengrocer. To me, the beautiful, soldier-like prongs are always confirmation that Spring proper has arrived. Of course, demand has ensured that it is available year-round in the supermarkets from Central America and the Middle-East, but I try to only eat it for the few short months that it is harvested over here. The freshness and taste is so distinct from those that have travelled thousands of miles, and it is something to be truly cherished. 

 
When thinking about the produce that any new season brings, I always overthink and imagine tens of utterly complicated and ‘impressive’ ways that I can showcase a given ingredient. And although there will certainly be more intricate asparagus recipes coming to this blog in the near future, I wanted the first batch of the year to be a much simpler affair. The star of this dish is the asparagus, and nothing else.
 
As this came between other courses, I wanted it to be refreshing to eat and quick to prepare. On both fronts it was a winner. With two pans and ten minutes it was on the plates and ready to eat. Although anchovies and parmesan can be relatively heavy ingredients, neither dominated, instead providing a moreish, rich background to the lemony and minty asparagus. The proof of the pudding was the sight of my parents huddled around the butter pan, cleaning any leftovers with chunks of bread.
 
Serves 4
 
Ingredients:
 
20 large asparagus spears, trimmed and peeled
 
For the anchovy butter:
 
150g butter 
6 anchovy fillets 
1 lemon, zest only 
1 garlic clove 
A small handful of grated parmesan
 
To finish:
 
½ a lemon, juice only 
20 or so mint leaves 
20 or so thin parmesan shavings

 
To make the anchovy butter, drain the anchovies and chop finely. Grate the garlic clove and lemon zest and stir together in a bowl with a little salt and pepper. Add the chopped anchovies along with the butter and grated parmesan, and mix until everything is well combined. Cover with cling film and refrigerate until needed. 

 
Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil. Heat a separate frying pan to a moderate-low temperature.
 
Spoon the butter into the frying pan and gently melt, stirring occasionally.
 
Drop the prepared asparagus into the boiling water and cook for 2-3 minutes, until al-dente in texture.
 
Arrange the cooked asparagus onto each plate and pour over a generous amount of the anchovy butter. Sprinkle over the mint leaves and parmesan shavings. Finish finally with a squeeze of lemon juice and a few cracks of black pepper.

Wild sea bass with crab panzanella

A tomato is a tomato is a tomato right? Those matt red orbs bagged up on supermarket aisles are the fresh ones, the reduced and intensified ones in the tubes form the puree and the others are chucked in a blender and then tinned. If you’re being well fancy and putting together a 1990s antipasti, then a jar of those oily sundried things look great with a nifty rocket salad and some balsamic vinegar. This is pretty much what I thought during my teens and early twenties. The time that I was positive beyond anything else that I HATED tomatoes. 

 
I’m not sure at what point the revelation happened. There was no epiphany as such. But somewhere along the line I worked out that the main problem wasn’t tomatoes as a whole, but just the tomatoes I was used to eating (hiding under a napkin). I think it must have coincided with learning about the impact that salt has on everything. Suddenly the most basic of ingredients were transformed, and somehow started to taste like they were supposed to. And instead of thinking that those squishy, soft tomatoes were past it, I worked out that they were just the ones to seek. Chopped roughly with a liberal amount of wonder-seasoning and some oil, I was scratching my head at why I’d been so avidly avoiding tomatoes all of this time.  

I first ate panzanella totally by accident. Katie and I had been seeing each other for a short matter of months, and had enthusiastically hopped by plain and train to the depths of Tuscany, still unsure if we’d come back talking. It had been a magical whirlwind trip filled with the long, rolling views of Siena and pizza gorging in bustling piazzas. But we hated Florence, all blood and sweat from Caravaggio, mosquitoes and wall-to-wall tourists. We escaped one evening to a quiet eatery across the river where our waitress delivered a stodgy tomato salad. It was delicious, but we just couldn’t work out what all of the soggy stuff was. Then it dawned on us, bread. It certainly beat the bouncy veal and nondescript mushroom gnocchi that we had consumed to that point.  

The concept for this recipe was not a difficult one. At work we had a batch of magnificent, solid bass and a box of ripe, jewel-like heritage tomatoes. Crab is best friends with both of these, especially the brown meat, which brought everything together with a deep richness. A few torn up bits of bread, some good oil and basil leaves and the dish was there.  

Serves 2  

Ingredients:  

For the seabass:  

2 wild seabass fillets, from 1kg plus fish. Scaled, trimmed and pinboned. 
A squeeze of lemon juice  

For the brown crabmeat:  

4 tbsp good quality, fresh brown crabmeat 
50g ciabatta, crusts removed 
1 lemon, juice only 
2-3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 
Cracked black pepper  

For the bread:  

2-4 thin slices of ciabatta, depending on size of the loaf 
1 ripe tomato, crushed 
½ a garlic clove, grated  

For the dressing:  
 
3 red chillies, finely sliced 
2 garlic cloves, grated 
1 shallot, finely sliced 
1 tsp fennel seeds 
1 tsp dried oregano 
1 lemon, zest only 
1 small handful of basil leaves, torn 
6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 
2 tbsp white wine vinegar  

For the semi-dried tomatoes:  

3 medium tomatoes, cut into quarters 
Salt  

For the asparagus:  

6 asparagus spears, peeled and trimmed 
A squeeze of lemon juice  

For the tomatoes:  

3-6 ripe heritage tomatoes, a mixture of sizes and colours, sliced and chopped into different sized pieces  

To finish:  

4 tbsp good quality, unpasteurised white crabmeat 
A handful of basil leaves  


First make the chilli oil for the dressing. Set a small saucepan to a high temperature and pour in a little olive oil. Fry the red chillies until starting to char on the outside, then turn down the temperature and add the grated garlic, shallot, dried fennel seeds, oregano and lemon zest along with a pinch of seasoning. Continue to cook gently for another few minutes until everything is softened. Remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool slightly, then pour in the rest of the oil and the torn basil leaves. Stir to combine. When completely cold, cover and allow to infuse overnight.  

Strain the chilli oil through a fine sieve and discard the flavourings. Create the dressing by pouring the white wine vinegar into a bowl and slowly whisking in 5-6 tbsp of the flavoured oil until emulsified. Taste and season if necessary then set aside. 

 
For the semi-dried tomatoes, preheat the oven to the lowest possible temperature – about 50⁰C or thereabouts. Line a small baking tray with greaseproof paper and drizzle with a little oil. Arrange the quarters of tomato on top and sprinkle with a little salt. Slide into the oven and roast for 3-4 hours, until intense in flavour but still fairly soft. Turn off the oven and allow everything to cool down. When cold, coat with a little extra virgin olive oil and set aside.  

To prepare the brown crab meat, spoon the crab into a food processor and add the ciabatta and lemon juice along with a little seasoning and blitz well. With the motor still running, slowly pour in the olive oil until everything is emulsified. Taste and adjust the lemon, salt and pepper levels if necessary, and let down with a little water if too thick. Spoon into a bowl and set aside.  

Slice the heritage tomatoes into a random mixture of different-sized pieces and arrange in a bowl. Spoon over a little of the dressing and allow to sit for 5-10 minutes. 

 
Set a heavy griddle pan onto a high heat. Drizzle a little olive oil onto the ciabatta slices and sprinkle over some seasoning. When the pan is hot, fry the bread for a few minutes on each side until they begin to char. Use a pestle and mortar to finely crush the tomato and garlic together then spread onto a plate. When the bread is toasted, transfer on top of the crushed tomatoes and allow to soak up the juices for a few minutes.  

Brush the asparagus with oil and season. Cook on the same griddle pan as used for the bread, frying at a high heat for a few minutes until beginning to blister on all sides. Transfer to a plate and squeeze over a little lemon juice. Keep warm.  

Set a heavy frying pan to a medium-high heat and add a generous splash of oil. Pat the sea bass fillets dry with a piece of kitchen roll and season all over. When the pan is hot, place the fish skin-side down in the pan and cook for 3 minutes. During this time, use a spoon to continuously baste the top of each fillet, effectively cooking it through both sides at the same time. Finish with a little lemon juice.  

To serve, arrange the slices of ciabatta and some pieces of fresh and semi-dried tomato on each plate. Dot on a generous amount of the brown crab puree. Position the fish on top of one of the pieces of ciabatta. Scatter the asparagus spears, white crab meat and basil leaves around the plate and finish with a good amount of the dressing.

Salted hake with brandade, crispy skin, charred asparagus, wild rocket and brown shrimp

I was recently lucky enough to spend a glorious week in Barcelona and it inspired me no end. It’s probably about twenty years since I last visited Spain, and where that time I could mostly be found shovelling salty chips by a swimming pool, this occasion was a totally different ball game. As a child I would have been so bored traipsing through busy, smelly food markets but here I was in my absolute element. Endless stalls sold every ingredient imaginable, and Katie and I had many memorable evenings feasting on our bartered treasures. 

One of the things that appeared on practically every menu in town was salt cod in various forms, and I was desperate to recreate it's wonderful flavour into my own cooking as soon as I returned home. Instead of using cod however, I wanted to put a spin on the classic and replace it with a different white fish. Hake was absolutely everywhere in Barcelona, and I couldn’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work as well. The results were just as comforting, with an amazing intensity and addictiveness. Once I had a first taste of the brandade, I couldn’t help popping back to the bowl every couple of minutes for a sneaky bit more. 

My cooking always tends to rotate in circles of habit, and certainly at the moment I am really into cooking spring vegetables at a really high heat until charred and blackened. This works particularly well with asparagus, baby leeks and spring onions, achieving a barbeque-like taste combined with glorious al-dente texture and moisture. There isn’t much that doesn’t benefit from a few of these scattered on the side, and here it cuts through the saltiness of the fish to balance things just right.

Although not quite as vibrant as La Boqueria, my local greengrocers near Newington Green also keeps stocked up with fresh seasonal produce, making recipe development a doddle. I was looking for a final element to round the dish off, and the wild rocket was an impulse purchase that fitted in perfectly. Rocket is almost a clichéd ingredient these days, but this was very different to the bagged stuff that was made famous by Jamie Oliver a decade ago; these big leaves had substance and a proper peppery hit. 

It’s hard to make the main elements of this dish in small quantities, so you may find yourself with a bit leftover here. But fear not, the preserved fish keeps well and is a great accomplice to so many other things, from pasta to crudité. If all this effort seems like too much, you can easily buy good quality salted cod from your fishmonger and use it in exactly the same way. 

Serves 4

Ingredients:

For the salted hake: 

600g hake fillet, bones removed and cut into two pieces 
1kg coarse sea salt 
1 lemon, zest only 

For the brandade: 

1 of the salted hake fillets, soaked and with the skin removed and reserved 
500ml milk 
4 tbsp double cream 
1 large potato, such as a maris piper 
1-2 lemons, juice only 
5 peppercorns 
1 bay leaf 
1 garlic clove 

For the poached hake: 

1 of the salted hake fillets, soaked and with the skin removed and reserved 
250g butter 

For the brown shrimp: 

100g brown shrimp, peeled 
1 tbsp butter 
½ a lemon, juice only 
Pinch of cayenne 

For the charred asparagus: 

12 asparagus spears, trimmed 
Olive oil 
Lemon juice 

For the crispy skin: 

The skin from the hake 
Olive oil 
Salt 

To finish: 

1 handful of wild rocket leaves, washed 
Extra virgin olive oil 
A few sprigs of fennel herb 


To make the salted hake, mix the salt and lemon zest together. Pour a quarter of the salt into a large, deep dish and place the hake fillets on top. Cover with the rest of the salt mixture, making sure that the fish is well covered with no gaps. Cover with cling film and place in the fridge for three days. Once the curing process is over, remove from the fridge and rinse all of the salt from the fillets. Soak in water for 12 hours, changing frequently. 

Pre-heat the oven to 200⁰C. 

For the brandade, sprinkle a little water over the potato and roll in a bit of salt. Bake in the oven for about an hour, or until the inside is very soft. When the potato is nearly cooked, pour the milk into a saucepan with the garlic, bay and peppercorns and heat until almost boiling. When the milk is up to temperature, cut the hake into manageable pieces and poach for a couple of minutes until soft and cooked. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the hake into a food processor and mix into a puree. Take the cooked potato and scoop out the middle with a spoon. Pass this through a fine sieve and then add to the hake. Add the juice of one lemon, half of the cream, 3 tablespoons of the cooking liquid and a good crack of pepper and quickly blitz together. Taste for seasoning and texture, adding more lemon, pepper and cream as necessary. Transfer to a piping bag and set aside until needed. 

Lower the oven temperature to 160⁰C. 

Take the reserved skin from both hake fillets and scrape away any excess flesh. Pat dry with some kitchen towel and place on a lined baking sheet. Top with another piece of baking parchment and another baking tray to keep it flat. Cook in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until very crisp. Break the skin into large shards and set aside. 

Put a heavy griddle pan onto a high heat, melt the butter for the poached hake in a small saucepan and melt the butter for the shrimps in a small frying pan. 

When the griddle is very hot, roll the asparagus in a little olive oil and seasoning. Cook for 2-3 minutes, turning occasionally, until the outsides start to blacken, then transfer to a plate and squeeze over the lemon juice. 

Fry the shrimps in the butter over a gentle heat for a couple of minutes. Finish with the lemon juice, seasoning and a pinch of cayenne. 

For the poached hake, cut the fillet into bite-size pieces and lower into the butter. Cook over a medium heat for 2-3 minutes until just cooked through. 

Toss the wild rocket leaves with the asparagus at the last minute so they pick up some of the lemony, oily dressing. 

To plate up, pipe a few generous dollops of the brandade onto each warmed plate. Place on the asparagus spears and arrange some of the poached hake and crispy skin around and on top. Add a few of the wild rocket leaves and fennel sprigs and scatter over some of the shrimps. Finally drizzle over a little of the extra virgin olive oil.

Pan roasted black bream with crab, confit fennel, asparagus, clams and sea purslane

As I wrote a couple of posts ago, I have recently been pretty obsessed with cooking fish. I tend to do this with food; I will go through stages of really concentrating on one group of ingredients, or method of cooking and will use it in lots of things that I make. Previously it has been adding breaded, deep fried things (see cod cheeks, pork cheeks and oysters in the last few months), or asparagus which I can’t get enough of at the moment. The fact that the very short British asparagus season is in full swing, and combines with fish so beautifully means that they take high priority on the menu. And simply both ingredients are delicious and I take great pleasure in eating them.

This dish came about in a bit of an accidental way. The ingredients and concept are classic enough, but the finished meal was not really what I intended when I started thinking of what to cook. For the last few weeks I have had some wacky idea in my head about curing an oily fish, initially sardine fillets, in rhubarb to create a fresh tasting, vibrantly pink element to a dish which also included some chargrilled fillets for contrast. I imagined that it would produce a lovely looking little salad, and couldn’t wait to get experimenting with it. Flaw in my plan no.1: when I enquired to my local fishmonger about sardines, I was told that they were ‘pretty scarce’ at the moment. That was the sardine thought grounded, but fair enough I would use the trusty mackerel instead. So off I went to the fishmongers on Sunday, and as my luck would further have it, a good weekend had seen them cleared right out of mackerel. Bugger. 

I’m rubbish at creating quick, inventive things to cook on the spot, so I felt really thrown at that point and a little panicked that I was just going to buy a load of random things that wouldn’t come together. This is where the joy of a local, independent fishmonger came in. After a quick chat, it was decided that black bream is really in season, and would work perfectly with the ingredients that I planned to use. They are pretty mad looking fish, with big heads and dark silvery flanks, but fillets that you get from them are amazing, very similar to seabass. Along with the clams and purslane that I also bought, to my delight I was also given a bag of freshly picked white crab meat. Menu sorted I left a happy bunny (apart from the flat tyre I got on the way home...). Thanks a lot to the excellent as always Jonathan Norris in Victoria Park village. 

This dish is pretty simple to put together, with the only time consuming thing being the fennel confit. Once this is made everything else can be prepared and cooked quickly. Cooking fish is something that takes experience, as it only takes a minute or two to overcook and ruin, but with a little practice it’s dead simple. The key is to make sure that the pan is hot before you add the fish, and that you cook it skin side down for the majority of the time.   

Serves 2

Ingredients:

For the bream:

1 black bream (or gilthead will be fine), filleted and pinboned

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

1 tbsp butter

1/2 lemon, juice only

For the confit fennel: 

2 bulbs fennel, finely sliced, fronds kept for garnish

600ml olive oil, or enough to just cover the fennel

2 bulbs garlic, whole

150g white crab meat

1 lemon, juice only

Salt and pepper

For the asparagus puree:

8 asparagus stalks, heads removed and kept for pickling

30g butter

1/2 lemon, juice only

Salt and pepper

For the pickled asparagus:

The heads of the 8 asparagus

200ml white wine vinegar

3 tbsp caster sugar

6 black peppercorns

For the clams:

1 small handful clams

1 glass white wine

For the samphire:

1 small handful samphire, rinsed

1 tbsp butter

Squeeze of lemon juice

Salt and pepper

To finish:

1 small handful sea purslane, rinsed

Fronds from the fennel

To make the confit fennel, put the sliced fennel and whole garlic in a medium-sized saucepan and cover with the olive oil. Cover the top of the oil with a cartouche and set on a low heat for 35-45 minutes, or until very tender. Drain well, discard the garlic and set aside. 

Take the prepared bream and crab out of the fridge and allow to get to room temperature. If the fillets are big then cut into two neat pieces. 

For the puree, fill a medium saucepan with salted water and bring to the boil. When boiling, add the asparagus stalks and boil for 3-4 minutes or until tender. Drain and transfer to a food processor with the butter, lemon and seasoning. Blitz well, then taste and adjust if needed. Set aside in a warm place.

To pickle the asparagus tips, put the sugar, white wine vinegar and peppercorns in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. When the sugar has dissolved, put the asparagus into a small bowl and cover with the pickling liquid. Set aside.

Put the cooked fennel into a saucepan and gently warm up on a medium-low heat. Season well and squeeze over the lemon juice. Keep heating through as you finish the other elements of the dish.

Heat a large non-stick frying pan to a medium-high heat and add a good glug of olive oil, 2-3 tablespoons. 

While the pan is getting hot, put another small pan on a medium heat and melt the butter for the samphire. When melted, add the rinsed samphire and seasoning and cook for a minute or two until just al dente. Squeeze over the lemon and keep warm. 

Also put a small saucepan on a medium-high heat for the clams. When hot, pour in the clams and add the white wine, which should bubble straight away. Put a lid tightly over and shake the pan a couple of times. Cook for a minute or two until the shells open. Remove the clams into a bowl, and pour the white wine liquor into the fennel saucepan along with the white crabmeat. Mix well and taste, adjusting seasoning and acidity. Cook for another minute and take off the heat. 

When the frying pan is hot, season the bream fillets all over and gently place skin side down, holding them flat to the pan with your fingers for a couple of seconds to stop them curling up. Cook for 2-3 minutes on the skin side only, and while this is happening baste the flesh side with the hot oil, running the back of the metal spool down each fillet. This will gently cook that side too without the need to flip the fish. After 3 minutes the skin should be crispy, add the butter and lemon and remove from the heat while you plate up. 

Spoon a good tablespoon of the asparagus puree onto the middle of each plate, then lay some of the confit fennel on top. Place the cooked bream onto the fennel, then place the clams, pickled asparagus, samphire, purslane and fennel fronds around the edges. Squeeze over a touch more lemon and serve.