Nothing But Onions

1 mackerel, cleaned
1/2 bulb fennel
1/2 red pepper
1/2 red onion
1/2 red chilli
2 cloves garlic
Dash of Pernod
Salt

Slice the fennel, red pepper, red onion and chilli and place on a sheet of foil big enough to wrap the mackerel in. Lay the mackerel on top, and place the garlic cloves inside the body of the fish. Pour over the Pernod and sprinkle with a little salt. Wrap up the foil tightly to seal everything in.

Bake in the oven (200C) for thirty minutes. Serve with plain boiled or steamed potatoes.

Another take on Bread and Butter Pudding - following on from the Banana Bread and Butter Pudding.

3 or 4 pain au chocolat sliced
Nutella (Chocolate hazelnut spread)
1/2 pint milk
1 egg
3/4 oz caster sugar [* See Note]

[*Note: I added the sugar when I made this, but the resulting pudding was quite sweet thanks to the Nutella. You could probably miss this extra sugar out]

Thickly spread the Nutella on both sides of each slice of pain au chocolat, and place them into a buttered baking dish (1 pint capacity). Sprinkle with the sugar (if using).

Beat the eggs and milk together.

Pout the milk and egg mixture into the dish. Put to one side for about half an hour to allow the pain au chocolat to soak up some of the liquid.

Bake in the oven (160C) for about 45 minutes. The top should be crispy and slightly golden - if it isn't, leave it a little bit longer. Don't overdo it though.

Serve, in generous portions. You don't really need anything with this, but you could pour over a little cream if you really wanted.

The first Flickr Food Swap has now kicked off. Each participant is randomly allocated another member somewhere in the world, and they have to send a food parcel to them. I've been allocated my partner, in some distant corner of the globe. All I need to do now is come up with a set of quintessentially English things to send. I'll have to mooch around Waitrose and see what I come up with...

An old photo. Chicken and Ham Pie, based on a Gary Rhodes recipe.

The burger is a much under-rated foodstuff. When it is mentioned, people's thoughts turn immediately to those corporate giants, the fast-food chains churning out countless thousands of burgers every hour of every day. But it doesn't have to be like that—a well-made burger is a fabulous thing.

So, here's how to make a great burger:

Read the full article for "Burger"»

This one is especially for Kathya. An Indonesian dish, beef long-cooked in coconut milk with spices, shown above, hot out of the pan and still steaming - hence the slight fuzziness.

This one takes a long time to cook - you have to wait for the coconut milk to reduce. Sue was starting to get impatient, but she once she tasted it she agreed it was worth the wait.

Recipe based on one from "Indonesian Regional Food and Cookery" by Sri Owen.

Read the full article for "Rendang"»

I've just received my parcel from the first Flickr Food Swap, courtesy of coffeefloat in Indonesia. It's full of fabulous things - thank you very much! I'm looking forward to trying them all now!

We have:

Kerupuk Bawang - Inonesian crackers made from tapioca flour and garlic.
Bumbu Kalasan - a Javanese marinade
Bawang Goreng - fried shallots
Tong Tji - Jasmine Tea
Garuda Kedele Spicy - Spicy soya bean snack

coffeefloat also provided a very nice long letter containing an excellent description of what everything was, which was very helpful!