Lemon sole goujons and halloumi bites

I am finally the proud owner of my very own cookbook. Nigella Express is now bristling with a dozen fluorescent Post-It notes waiting for me to get in the kitchen and make a mess.

Yesterday I roped in two friends to come and eat whatever horror I managed to serve up. Charlotte sensibly claimed that she couldn’t make it until supper but Alex’s unwavering loyalty meant she was stuck with my cooking for two full meals.

For lunch I decided to attempt lemon sole goujons and halloumi bites – little picky things rather than a big spread.
Gulp.

The morning saw me braving the packed aisles of Waitrose, ramming young children out of the way with my trolley and loudly swearing at old people blocking the potatoes with their tartan shoppers. I emerged into the drizzle thinking that I may have taken on slightly more than I could chew.

Alex arrived, shoved a beer in my hand to calm me down and I started on the goujons.

I used the amounts given in Nigella’s recipe for things like the breadcrumbs and cornflour but ended up with an awful lot left over. Next time I do this, as well as making my own breadcrumbs, rather than weighing and measuring I think I’ll do it by eye.

You need:
2 skinned fillets of lemon sole
Cornflour
Breadcrumbs
2 eggs
250ml or so of groundnut oil or enough to cover the goujons in the pan
Salt and pepper

Cut the sole into strips – mine were a wonderful array of different shapes and sizes. As someone who doesn’t eat much fish never mind cook it I had a little cry when I found a ladder of bone in one fillet.

In a bowl beat the eggs, in another season the cornflour with salt and pepper and in a third, shallow bowl dump the breadcrumbs. Mine were from a handy bag and seemed a bit big so I took great satisfaction in bashing them about until they were slightly smaller.

Dip each goujon in the cornflour, then egg and lastly the breadcrumbs. Rather than doing the goujons one by one it’s far easier to do them all in the cornflour first before starting to dip them in the egg etc. It’s a bit messy but good fun. If you don’t want them right away you can freeze them for a posh fish finger snack another time.

Leave them to rest for a while you heat the oil in a frying pan. Once it’s hot enough fry them until they’re golden brown. There were enough for three people but would serve a few more as a starter.

To go with these I made dill mayonnaise which is so simple even I couldn’t possibly mess it up. You just finely chop some dill and mix it in to the mayonnaise with a small squeeze of lime and some pepper.



The halloumi bites were incredibly easy.

Around 250g of halloumi served three people. Cut this in to 5mm thick slices
For the dressing you need:
80ml of garlic oil
2-3 tablespoons of lime juice
A good handful of chopped parsley
Pepper

Mix these all together in a dish while heating a griddle or frying pan. Dry fry the cheese until it’s golden, flipping it over to do the other side.

Throw these in to the dressing, toss about and serve. These were really tasty and went really well with a bit of salad.



Both were wolfed down by Alex and my mum who were astounded that I’d actually managed to make something that tasted like food.

Antipasti of Mozzarella, Chilli and Lemon Crostini

This is supposed to be a starter but I found it really filling so would recommend it as a slightly fancy snack instead.

Ciabatta bread
1 clove of garlic
Extra virgin olive oil
Buffalo mozzarella
Salt and black pepper
1 red chilli
Basil
Lemon zest

Before you start deseed the chilli and slice it very, very thin. It’s a quick recipe so you may as well faff around with that first rather than half way through making it. I’ll admit I cheated as the note on the chilli that said ‘DO NOT HANDLE WITHOUT GLOVES’ scared me. Rather than using the fresh stuff - and risk doing something idiotic like rubbing my eyes - I threw a load of dried chilli seeds in the olive oil and let them sit in there for a bit instead.

You need to heat a griddle pan – which I actually have for once – as hot as you can and dunk however many slices of cibatta you want in it for a minute or two each side until they’ve charred slightly.

Cut the garlic clove in half and rub each slice of ciabatta with it before drizzling them with some olive oil. Place some torn mozzarella on each and add as much salt and pepper as you like. Now artily sprinkle over the chilli, basil and lemon zest and a tiny bit more olive oil. Done!