Hills, sunshine and more cooking

I’m writing this on Monday morning, with a near gale force wind blowing outside, which is a big contrast to the weather we had this weekend.  We took full advantage of the good weather yesterday, and did one of our favourite drives over the Rimutaka Range to Martinborough.  The photos below were taken on the journey home, when we pulled in to enjoy the view.

We stopped off for lunch at Pinocchio, where we have been before on previous trips to Martinborough.  I had Parkvale mushrooms roasted in thyme, which sat on a toasted English muffin covered in a pea puree with ricotta, and topped with poached eggs and hollandaise.  The dish was full of flavour, and as I like anything that contains eggs and/or mushrooms, a good combination.

Half of my lunch

It was the sort of dish I would try to make up myself, and fail to get right.  I did, however, get dinner right on Saturday evening with some rather good salmon fish cakes.  It is really worth making these at home, and you can adapt the basic recipe with different fish, herbs and spices.  I had 400g of salmon, which I poached in a large frying pan.  Make sure as you are flaking the fish to pick out all the bones – not something you want to find when you eat the finished product! Add the fish to around 500g mashed potato.  Add 2 spring onions, very finely chopped, lemon zest (I used 1 lemon), dill, salt and pepper, then mix together with an egg (add the egg gradually so you don’t get too wet a mixture).    Divide the mixture into 8 portions, coat in panko breadcrumbs, and then fry.  I served them with mint mayonnaise as suggested in Cuisine magazine, which is just your favourite mayo with fresh mint added to taste.