Salmon with white wine sauce

Once again, no photos!  But this was very good.  Serves 2, takes about 20 minutes.

2 salmon fillets
1 small onion
1 clove garlic
1 small leek
Small tin peas (or use frozen)
250 ml white wine (I buy cooking wine in France)
Salt, pepper, herbs (I used 1 tsp mixed herbs and 1 tsp sumac)
Butter
1 tbs creme fraiche
100 g pasta of your choice (I used spaetzle)

Put half the butter into a heavy-based pan and add the chopped onion, garlic and leeks.  Allow to cook for a few minutes until the onion is transparent and the leeks stop looking raw.  Now add the white wine and seasoning, bring to the boil and simmer for about 15 minutes.  Meanwhile cook the pasta for the requisite length of time, and fry the salmon in another pan in the rest of the butter. 

Drain the peas, then stir them into the white wine mixture, then add the creme fraiche.  Bring back to the boil, then stir in the cooked pasta.  Pile into big pasta plates and serve with the salmon fillets on top.  Delicious!

Chick peas and noodles in sweet potato sauce

Some weeks ago now, Becca at Amuse Your Bouche posted a recipe for chickpea dumplings in sweet potato gravy.  I made it, and it was delicious, but the chickpea dumplings were really rather solid.  I think they would have been better with some kind of raising agent added. 

Anyway, I wanted to put my own take on it.  I was vaguely thinking of trying to make noodles with chickpea flour, but I've tried that before and it was a disaster.  So I thought I would make ordinary noodles, and then add some chickpeas to the recipe.  This was how I adapted it.

1 medium-sized sweet potato
1 leek
1 onion
2 cloves garlic (I have some lovely garlic just now, from my brother's garden!)
1 sweet pepper
1 quantity cooked chickpeas (1/2 cup uncooked, or a drained tinful)
1 tin tomatoes
500 ml stock
Seasoning, including cumin and turmeric

250 ml plain flour
1 egg
Enough water to mix

Chop the vegetables and sauté in a little cooking oil.

Add the tomatoes and stock, season, and simmer for 20 minutes.

Then take  a stick blender and puree the stew - you don't want it soup-quality, but just so it's nice and gungy.  Add the chickpeas. 

Now make the noodles by putting the flour into a bowl, adding the egg, and mix it with dough hooks on a hand mixer, adding water as necessary, until you have a really smooth dough. 

Go on mixing for a few minutes, then press through a noodle maker straight into the sauce.  Bring back to the boil, stirring, and allow to cook for a few minutes.  Serve with a green vegetable.

It was delicious, but I now have indigestion.....