Recipes

A general point – we source the best ingredients we can find, then smoke them delicately, so that their flavours are enhanced, rather than smothered.
As a result, we recommend that any accompaniments compliment those flavours, rather than overpower them.
The following tips and wrinkles are designed to enhance your enjoyment of our produce, with the minimum of effort for the maximum effect.
COLD SMOKED SALMON

  • Try it first unaccompanied – then maybe a light squeeze of lemon, if you insist, with a twist of pepper. 50 grams per person is ideal – 70 indulgent. We like indulgent!
  • Think about buying it ‘on the side’. It’s quite a bit cheaper this way, very easy to carve with the right knife (a ham knife will do fine) – and is bound to cause oohs and aahs
  • When stirring into a dish like a pasta, do so just before serving to avoid actually re-cooking the salmon
  • Do enjoy with children – the earlier they get to taste grown up food the better
  • Why not blindfold your loved one, then feed titbits – perhaps followed up with the hot-smoked version – this is our shades of grey take!
  • For the perfect Sunday night supper (whilst watching Downton maybe?) serve it with extra special scrambled eggs. Whisk some cream into the eggs to be indulgent.
  • Try with a light honey and mustard dressing – literally mix honey and Dijon mustard to taste
  • Buy our bags of trimmings to make the easiest of smoked salmon pates. Try the following recipe to whizz one up in a matter of minutes.

Take 500 gms of smoked salmon trimmings.
Add 100 gms cream cheese and a good dollop of double cream.
Add lemon juice and fresh black pepper to tase.
Put all ingredients into a blender, whizz up to the required    consistency (some like their pates smoother than others), chill down and serve with toast – we reckon sourdough toast is the    bees knees, but make plenty of it, because we tend to find this pate disappears at a rate of knots.
HOT SMOKED SALMON

  • Flake this onto a salad – perhaps with a light Caesar-style dressing.
  • Accompany with a light horseradish. Try mixing a strong horseradish 50/50 with crème fraiche; you’ll wonder why you never tried this before.
  • Make the most wonderful fish cakes –

For every 100 gms of salmon, mixed in 40 gms buttery mashed potato, a squeeze of lime, pepper and sea-salt to taste. Mix and   set aside to cool. Shape the mixture into patties, dust with flour, then egg, finally breadcrumbs. Shallow fry in mixture of butter and oil ‘til golden brown.  Accompany with tartare sauce, sit back and receive the plaudits
GRAVADLAX

  • You’ll get a generous sachet of dill sauce to accompany this. Other than some lightly buttered brown bread, we’re not sure you’ll need anything else – except access to a computer to quickly order some more.

COLD SMOKED TROUT

  • Our trout is not the run of the mill stuff that get’s industrially produced for supermarket shelves. They are lovingly reared, at our own farm, to grace the waters of some of England’s most historic rivers and lakes.
  • So, when smoked, they are similar to the smoked salmon – with a few subtle differences, namely tighter flesh, a slightly sweeter taste – and more slices per pack than the salmon – albeit smaller ones!
  • So, it’s a good choice if you want to be slightly different.
  • Our tips and suggestions for the trout are therefore pretty much the same as for the salmon

KIPPERS

  • Lightly grill – and put a knob of butter on top to melt
  • A well known French wine maker always enjoys a kipper with half a pint of bitter before a days sport
  • Our kippers are generously proportioned – so one pack will feed two people with ample left over
  • Like all our produce, kippers freeze perfectly – so get several pairs, whack ‘em in the deep freeze and you’ll never be without the ingredients for the king of breakfasts.

SMOKED HADDOCK

  • Use as the main ingredient for a wonderful chowder – a perfect winter soup. We’ve tried lots of recipes, but the one which we like best is Simon Rimmers – click here http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/smokedhaddockchowder_85968
  • Kedgeree without smoked haddock is like crumpets without butter – unthinkable. Jamie’s recipe is hard to better – http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fish-recipes/kedgeree
  • Have you ever had Omelette Arnold Bennett? It’s a famous Savoy recipe, and surprisingly easy to make. We like Nigel Slater’s recipe which you can find at http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/jan/01/nigel-slater-classic-omelette-arnold-bennett

SMOKED MACKEREL

  • At shows, our smoked mackerel is known as the deal clincher – it’s that special
  • For a great picnic, you can eat a fillet in your fingers – with just a squeeze of lemon. Prepare to suck your fingers!
  • For a great smoked mackerel pate, combine two fillets of mackerel with one spoon of cream cheese, one spoon of crème fraiche and a teaspoon of horseradish.

SMOKED CODS ROE

  • Beloved of cods roe aficionados (there are more around than you might think), many will say that spreading it on toast with a squeeze of lemon is the perfect solution BUT
  • If you haven’t made your own taramasalata before, then you must try. You’ll never buy the supermarket rubbish again.

This is Fiona’s (my wife) recipe – and much in demand from the home team (ie our 3 boys – Hugo (21), Ollie (17) and Felix (14) – not forgetting myself of course).
It is adaptable and should be treated as a guide – no two roes are ever the same size.
Ingredients
200 gm cods roe – removed from the skin
6 slices ordinary white bread with crusts removed.
½ onion – grated or finely chopped or grated
2 cloves of garlic – again, finely chopped or grated
8 tbsp good olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
Method

  1. Soak bread in milk.
  2. Then, squeeze majority of milk out and add to blender with the cods roe, onion and garlic
  3. Blend together, gradually adding the oil and lemon juice until finished and smooth.
  4. Season to taste

You can swap the blender for a fork and bowl if you feel like the exercise!
Serving Suggestions – leave large bowlful in the middle of your table with racks of sourdough toast and some lemon slices. Prepare to be amazed at how quickly it disappears

  • Cods Roe Butter – think anchovy butter. Works brilliantly melted over grilled fish or meat. Simply mix cods roe half and half with unsalted butter, add some lemon juice and Tabasco, then chill in the fridge.

Smoked Venison Haunch

  • Serve with pickled red cabbage – or onion marmalade
  • Try as a classic accompaniment to a home produced ploughmans to evoke autumnal memories of the Dorset countryside
  • Delicious in a rich red wine based risotto

Smoked Duck Breast

  • This has a sensational but delicate flavour, so try on it’s own first.
  • It’s cheaper to buy by the whole breast as long as you don’t mind thinly slicing it – which certainly makes sense if you are serving it as a dinner party starter
  • Mix thin slices with fresh grapefruit, avocado, and drizzle an extra virgin glug or to over the top
  • Or simply have it with leaves and a light salad dressing – and for a twist make a more asian dressing, with fish sauce, sugar and lime juice – with a few chilis if you feel up to it!

Smoked Chicken Breast

  • Utterly wonderful on its own –
  • Use it as a great centre piece of a white wine based risotto or
  • The heart of a smoked chicken Caesar salad
  • Try it as an accompaniment to grilled asparagus – especially if you have any wonderful, home-made Caesar sauce left
  • Or just on mixed leaves with a light vinaigrette

Smoked partridge

  • Take a pack on an autumn walk – the most delicious nibbles imaginable
  • Try with an onion marmalde chutney – and if you’re looking for a home-made one, we love Delia’s runner bean chutney http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/type-of-dish/preserve/spiced-pickled-runner-beans.html
  • Add to an autumn salad of cold slices of roasted sweet potato and pepper, with a honey and balsamic vinaigrette
  • Or – gently fry some field mushrooms, with garlic, butter and a few finely chopped shallots – eat on toast (preferably sourdough) as a side order to your main event – the smoked partridge of course.

here’s a new recipe for Smoked Eel from the Week

Recipe of the week

A top chef’s favourite

Smoked eel sandwich: a signature dish at Quo Vadis

Lee’s cooking is known for its robust generosity, and its focus on the character of the principal ingredient. This dish sits squarely within that tradition: it is “something of a must at Quo Vadis”, says Lee – “ensconced on the menu for all time”.

Jeremy Lee, chef-proprietor at that venerable Soho institution Quo Vadis, “represents an almost forgotten line of British cooking”, says the food writer Matthew Fort. “He sources his primary materials with enthusiastic discrimination, and then treats them with rare respect.”
Lee began his career in Scotland, then came to London to hone his skills under Simon Hopkinson and Alastair Little – major names in the resurgence of modern British cooking. In 1994, he took over at the Blueprint Café at the Design Museum, where his “killer combination of French technique and love of the robust over the fancy made it a place of pilgrimage”, says Jay Rayner in The Observer. “Lee is that rare phenomenon in London’s food world – a chap everyone agrees is a good thing.”

  • 1 slice of sourdough bread
  • butter
  • 30g-40g fillet of smoked eel (best taken from an intact fish)
  • 1 heaped tsp of horseradish cream of a fiery temperament
  • 1 heaped tsp of Dijon mustard
  • ¼ of a small red onion, peeled and thinly sliced
  • 2 tbsps of good white wine vinegar
  • 1 good pinch of sugar
  • Combine the sugar and vinegar together in a pan and gently heat until the sugar dissolves. Remove from the heat and steep the sliced onion in it, leaving it to pickle for an hour or so.
  • Warm a griddle pan over a gentle heat. Once hot, lay the slice of sourdough on the pan and brown nicely.
  • Generously spread butter on the toasted side of the bread, followed by Dijon mustard, then cut the piece of toast in half.
  • Cut the eel into three even pieces and place on top of one of the toasted sides of the bread. Add horseradish cream on top and place the other half of the bread on top (toasted side down).
  • Return the sandwich to the griddle pan and grill on one side until brown. Carefully flip the sandwich and grill for a further few minutes.
  • Drain the pickled red onions and serve alongside the sandwich.