Smoked haddock, followed by cake

Tonight we enjoyed a simple, but lovely dinner.
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I was super spoiled by the lovely Nicola of The Shed recently when she managed to procure a fillet of Forman & Field smoked haddock as a gift. Nicola recommended using a recipe from Fergus Henderson's Nose to Tail Eating, smoked haddock, mustard & saffron. (Incidentally, I had lovely saffron which Nicola had brought me back from a recent trip to Italy - you may be getting the impression [which is entirely accurate] that this friendship is just take take take. Neither of us has yet worked out what's in it for Nicola).
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Anyhoo, it was gorgeous (although I apologise to the haddock for making it look radioactive in the photographs). Whilst the success of the dish was partly due to the beautiful sauce, the amazing quality of the fish was integral. I made a herb salad with roast hazelnuts, inspired by a similar salad with almonds in the first Ottolenghi book. I was going to make bread, but being a week night I instead bought fresh Turkish bread, split it and covered it with thinly sliced fresh figs, olive oil, a sprinkling of dukkah & sea salt, then 20 minutes in the oven.
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I have been wanting to test out the walnut, lemon & cardamom cake in the Moro cookbook, so tonight was a good opportunity. For me this cake is sublime - the cardamom, lemon & walnut are each distinct and perfectly balanced. I raved about it whilst Y said "I've had better cakes", "really, like what?", "other cakes". Huh, guess you can't please everyone all the time.

Recipes are below. Enjoy - and let me know what you think of the cake!
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Smoked haddock, mustard & saffron from Nose to Tail Eating, Fergus Henderson
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This recipe is to serve 4, I halved it for 2.
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200ml white wine
100ml water
a splash of white wine vinegar
1/2 tsp English mustard powder (I had none, but consulted Twitter and @Domestic_Jules suggested substituting regular mustard - Dijon worked fine)
a "healthy pinch" of saffron
black pepper
2 medium fillets of natural smoked haddock, cut in half "fairly"
a largish knob of unsalted butter
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Pre-heat your oven to about 200 degrees C. Mix everything except the haddock & butter. Place the haddock in an oven proof frying pan, pour the sauce over and cover loosely with foil. Put the pan in the oven for 15 minutes until the fish is hot. Next, remove the fish and keep warm, meanwhile bring the sauce in the pan to the boil on the stove. Add the butter and stir briskly to make the sauce. Pour the sauce over the fish.
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Mr Henderson recommends serving with mashed potato. Instead, we had a salad made entirely of herbs (parsley, coriander & mint) plus roasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped. Melt a tablespoon of unsalted butter, mix with a squirt of lemon juice and olive oil. Toss the nuts in the dressing then pour the lot over the herbs. Season.
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Walnut, lemon & cardamom cake from Moro The Cookbook
. 230g butter
230g caster sugar
175g walnuts, chopped, some very fine, some rough
175g whole blanched almonds, some very fine, some rough (I used a mixture of ground almonds and chopped flaked almonds)
3 eggs
160g polenta
1 level teaspoon baking powder
grated zest of 1.5 lemons
juice of 2 large lemons
3-4 level teaspoons of ground cardamom seeds (I found my seeds [which I had to first extract from their pods] impossible to grind or break down at all, so added them whole. I recommend adding about 2 teaspoons and then tasting the batter to see if you need more)
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Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C/Gas Mark 3. Grease a 25cm spring form tin and line with greaseproof paper.
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Beat the butter and sugar together until light and creamy. Add the walnuts, almonds, then the eggs one at a time. Then add the remaining ingredients. As I said above, taste the batter as you add the cardamom as you want a balance between the lemon and spice.
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Turn the batter into the tin and bake. The Moro cookbook says for 1.5 hours, however my cake had a golden crust and was just firm in the middle after 1 hour, so I'd recommend checking from 1 hour.
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The cake is lovely and crumbly. We had ours with Greek yoghurt.