Sunday 3 April 2011

Smoked salmon tartare


Too busy to blog this week so here's a nice little recipe I rustled up for the Guardian student cookbook I put together last year. It was made with Sainsbuy's Basics smoked salmon offcuts which are ridiculously cheap and with cottage cheese a product I confess I loathe with a passion but which adds a lovely moussey lightness to this Scandi-style spread.

Serves 6

125g smoked salmon pieces
1 lemon, preferably unwaxed
150g cottage or curd cheese
1-2 tbsp crème fraiche
2 tbsp chopped fresh dill or chives or chopped capers
Freshly ground black pepper

Chop the smoked salmon up small if necessary (with some packs you won’t have to), removing any tougher pieces and put in a bowl. Grate the rind from the lemon and set aside. Squeeze the lemon juice and spoon about a tablespoon over the salmon. Drain and sieve the cottage cheese or whizz it in a food processor to break up the curds. Mix it with the salmon along with the crème fraiche, a little of the lemon rind, chopped dill, chives or capers and plenty of black pepper. Chill for at least an hour and stir again before you serve it. Really good with thinly sliced rye bread or crispbread or as a baked potato topping.

So how do you feel about cottage cheese? Love it? Hate it? If it's the former what do you do with it?

4 comments:

Sarah said...

Sounds pretty yummy considering you've got cottage cheese in there (yuck too).

Fiona Beckett said...

I think it's the wetness and the curds that are the problem. Sieve or whizz those out and you've actually got quite a good product that's light, low fat and not too cheesy.

Unknown said...

i LOVE cottage cheese, a vastly underrated product if you ask me. Especially with lemon zest and olive oil, yum. Although I do feel I ought to have a perm and be dashing off to an aerobics class when I have it, it's got a bit of an 80s diet food vibe to it.

Fiona Beckett said...

Yes, imagine lemon rind would help. And chives are quite good. I kind of felt it was a popular, cheap student food though so it was a bit of a challenge to see what I could do with it!

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