Cold days salad, Yes there is such a thing!

Today, I don't want to be a grown-up. I've been doing the grown-up thing for weeks now: working a lot, paying the bills, planning ahead, being reasonnable... So to keep the balance with my inner-child, I'm hanging around in my pyjama's at 11 in the morning (don't judge me), catching up on all the TV shows I haven't had time to watch for a while. Feeling decadent feels good, every once in a while.

All the working got a little in the way of the cooking these days, even if this week end was dedicated to baking, but that will remain a secret until the daring baker date arrives.
In the meantime, the days got shorter and colder, and all you want to do is find a blanket to crawl under. Unlike summer, it doesn't feel like a "salad weather", but as I tend to do things my own way, here's one of my favorit autumn/winter salad, because there's no reason to skip the greens!

So this is not much of cooking, I give you that, but I think it works well together, Corn salad is my favorit one. It makes a nice dinner to get on the table, without taking too much time. You can choose how you prefer your potatoes, if I have more time I even prefer them to be boiled before I roast them, but that includes more dishes to wash, so I'm not always up for it. This is my version, make it your own!

Corn Salad with Roasted Mustard Potatoes

Serves 1

2 Medium Potatoes
1 Tablespoon of Whole Grain Mustard
2 Tablespoon of Olive Oil
1/2 a Lemon, Zested
2 Cloves of Garlic
2 Handfull of Corn Salad
2 Tablespoons of Fresh Chives, chopped
50gr of Comté Cheese, diced into cubes
Walnut Oil
Balsamic Vinegar
"Fleur de sel" Salt, Pepper

Preheat the oven to 220°C.

Clean and brush the potatoes thoroughly, as I prefer to leave the skin. Cut the potatoes into cubes, about 2-3cm wide. Place them in a bowl and add the mustard, the olive oil and the lemon zest. Combine well so the potatoes are all seasonned.
In an oven dish, place the potatoes with 2 crushed cloves of garlic and put in the oven for about 30 minutes. But check regularly and turn them around, they should be golden and crispy, and that depends on your oven.

In the meantime, clean the corn salad in cold water, at least twice, or until the water seems clear. If you have a salad spinner, this is the time to use it!

When the potatoes are done, leave them to cool for just 5 minutes. To serve, in a bowl or a soup plate, on top of the salad, sprinkle the cheese, and the potatoes (carefull it's hot), than season with the walnut oil and the balsamic vinegar and finish with the fresh chives (add even more if you like it) and the salt and pepper.

A little bit of inspiration

I would have loved to be more of an artist, have some talent in drawing for instance, because as it is now, I'm hardly better than my nieces and nephew when we play pictionnary. Or be a musician, not that I can't play a few chords on my guitar, but my lack of sense of rythm (and also of practising) keeps me a mediocre player.

Even if I hope I'm a little more skilled when it comes to photography, it's mostly because there is a "geek" side to it: setting the shutter speed, the aperture, the ISO, the white balance... All things technical, that can be understood quite easily if you are a little curious. It will help to set your camera to have the result you wish.

But beside everything technical, even in photography there is something else needed to make a great picture. And sometimes even a blurry, too dark picture brings more emotions to you, than a perfect landscape would. Because of the story that you imagine behind it, because of the feelings it creates or because it simply inspires you.

I'm not there yet, my everyday pictures mostly don't tell a story. And maybe that's what I like about food photography, it's just about making you hungry! Today's dish photographies might not quite achieve that, but don't knock it till you've tried it.

This recipe is about inspiration in the kitchen, or my way of cooking sometimes: opening the fridge and coming up with a recipe with whatever is in it. Sometimes it's not worth mentionning (or even eating for that matter) but sometimes it turns out to be really good, like this one.

Codfish Parmentier with a Pesto Crust

Serves 2

3 Big Potatoes
2 Tablespoon of Cream
1 Teaspoon of Thym
300gr of Codfish (fresh or salted)
1/2 a Liter milk
2 Bay Leaves
4 Tablespoons of Pesto (here I used a watercress pesto)
4 Tablespoons of Breadcrumbs
Salt, Pepper

Let's start with the purée, clean and peel the potatoes. Cut them into 2 or 4 pieces, place them in salted water, bring it to the boil and cook it for about 20 minutes, but it really depends on the size of your potatoes, check with a knife to see if they are cooked.
When cooked, drain the water, and with a potato masher (or a fork) mash your potatoes with the cream. Add the thym, salt and pepper and check the seasoning. Set aside.

Now to the fish, if you have fresh codfish, you can place it in a pan with milk and the bay leaves. If salted, you'll have to leave if in the water at least overnight, and change the water a few times, than only can you cook it in milk. This will only take a few minutes, on a medium flame, cook the fish for 5 to 6 minutes.
Drain the milk, leave the fish to cool a little, than break it into little pieces, if needed remove the skin and the fish bones. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 170°C.

In a bowl, combine the pesto with the breadcrumbs, one spoon at a time, it should feel like a crumble, so the quantity depends on how much oil is in the pesto. Set aside.

In an oven dish, make a first layer with your potato mash, lay your fish evenly on it and sprinkle the pesto crumble on top. Place in the oven for 30 minutes.