On a recent trip to Scotland in which she raided a
well-stocked farm shop, my Mum picked up a packet of smoked salmon trimmings.
I’ve heard of them of course and just assumed they were cheaper because they
were scraps, which is true but holy moley, they’re also as smoky as anything! As
the outer parts of smoked salmon, trimmings are exposed to the full whack of
smouldering woodchips in the smokehouse. I actually needed to soak ours in milk
for an hour to reduce the pungency but after that they were good to go! The
default recipe for trimmings seems to be paté; which has never appealed to me. Equally
sacrilegious when it comes to smoked salmon is the prospect of a quiche; if you
buy it smoked, you don’t cook it! Come on, people don’t buy whiskey to flambé,
or stir caviar into a risotto, do they? However, with my trimmings so
unbelievably strong I had to make an exception to my rule, labelling them “tartlets”
in the hope of getting away with it. Plus, the salmon was actually on the turn
and cooking it seemed to be the best option. I’m sorry most of my recipes deal
with semi-rotten foodstuffs from the back of our fridge; that’s what cooking’s
all about, isn’t it?
Living on a student budget doesn’t mean you actually have to
eat like one. Recently, all of the newspapers and particularly the radio
(that’s right Radio 4, I’m listening) are obsessed with Jack Monroe. Obviously,
she is a bit of an inspiration, having gone through hard times and actually
used food banks rather than just waffled on about how important they are (and
oh-my-goodness I just googled her and we’re the same age..). Nevertheless, having
read her G2 articles, a lot of her
recipes don’t exactly jump off the page, especially if Felicity Cloake has
something ultra-ritzy with cream and white wine sharing the same page.
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