a mean clean scandi fish salad

So in the midst of yet another bout of family illness - it seems to come with having small children - day one of baby River in Nursery and she comes home with another chest infection, which everyone else then caught. Hers ended with a trip to hospital, but all is well again now., although it's now been a week since I slept for more than an hour... Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, in the midst of this I managed to try out this recipe, which I pinched off a friend a few weeks ago, from some magazine she had. The photo looked so beautiful (unlike my poor attempts below - after looking at these photos I've thrown out all our mismatched random crockery and we are now only having white plates!)

 I've adapted the original recipe slightly, but I'd recommend making this wholeheartedly. properly luscious flavours, clean and crisp and made us all feel healthier (though Simon's slightly depressed verdict "now I know why all Scandinavians are so thin" means I might add more bread for a main meal next time :)

Smoked trout, pickled radish, griddled cucumber and lemon salad, with sourdough croutons (serves three - if you're not ravenous - or four as a starter)

Break up a packet of smoked trout into chunky pieces and set aside. Cut half a cucumber in half again, then in eighths lengthways - so you end up with 16 chunky batons. Cut one lemon in half, slice around six radishes as thinly as possible and cut two slices of sourdough bread. Dissolve one teaspoon of sugar in one teaspoon of cider vinegar, then toss the sliced radishes in this pickle and leave while you prepare the rest. Heat a griddle pan, and brush the cucumbers, cut lemon sides and bread with olive oil. Chuck a pinch of sea salt on the hot griddle, then lay the cucumber, lemon and bread on it. Griddle for about eight minutes, turning the cucumbers and bread when they're brown and charred on one side. Meanwhile heap some green leaves on serving plates, then arrange the cucumbers, pickled radish slices and trout on top. Cut the bread into croutons and lay those on the salad. Squeeze the two charred lemon slices into a tablespoon of olive oil, and whisk with some chopped dill and sea salt. Drizzle this over the salad, and garnish with chive flowers (they were what I had to hand - more dill will do the trick too, or borage flowers look amazing) and dollops of natural yoghurt.

I served this with some beetroot and goats cheese, for the eagle eyed among you - it really didn't go with this salad, and makes the plates look awful, but I love roast beetroot and it needed using up :)