03 November 2011

Mediterranean Fish

I try to make fish dishes at least twice a week, and it gets challenging thinking of interesting ways of presenting it to someone who doesn't like fish very much. So I do a lot of searching online to find interesting recipes online. It's a hit or miss affair, so we've found some keepers and some even I have trouble finishing. This week, I took some inspiration from Dorie Greenspan, and it's a hit!


The ingredients:
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1tbs of capers, chopped up and a few kept whole, with some of the caper juice
1/2 onion, finely chopped
salt, about 1/2 tsp
pinch of sugar (may need more when you're doing the sauce)
Dried pepper flakes/black pepper, to taste
Olive oil, about 3 tbs 
Parsley, as much as you like, for topping
2 pieces of yellowtail

The process: 
Chop and mix first 7 ingredients (lemon juice and zest, capers, onion, salt, sugar, pepper, olive oil). Add any dried herb, if you like, eg rosemary. Coat the fish in this, and leave it to marinate.

While it was marinating, I started off the side dishes. I served it with potatoes, roasted tomatoes, sweetcorn and a garlic mayo.
Potatoes: Peel and cube 2 potatoes, put into a pan with a little bit of oil, and cover. Leave for about 10 minutes, stirring once or twice. Once the 10 min are up, the potatoes will be cooked through. Sprinkle with salt and add to the tray in the oven to keep warm.
Roasted tomatoes: I had some nice tomatoes on the vine, which I just left as is and popped into the oven.
Sweetcorn: Frozen sweetcorn, also just onto the tray in the oven.
Garlic mayo: I had some of the roasted garlic from the Roasted Tomato Soup. I squeezed about 1/2 of that, mixed with mayo and some Bulgarian yoghurt. Taste and see if you're happy with it, or adjust to taste.

Once the potatoes were done and removed from the pan, put a little more olive oil in the pan. Scrape the marinade from the fish and place skin side down in the pan. Let it cook until golden, then flip and let it cook on the other side until it looks good to you. Probably about 5-7 min each side, depending on the thickness of your fillets. When done to your liking, pop it onto the tray into the oven to keep warm while you finish the sauce.

Sauce: just put the marinate in the pan and let it heat through. Taste - you may want to add more sugar at this point, it does have quite a sour kick from the lemon and the capers. When you have it how you like, dish up!

Plate the fish, potatoes, sweetcorn and tomatoes (which I put back in the oven on grill while the rest was being done, in order to blister it a bit) on the plate. Top the fish with the chopped parsley. Put the marinating sauce on/next to the fish (I prefer next to, so I can control how much I get in a bite), and add a dollop of the garlic mayo (if made) on the side.

Delicious!

01 November 2011

Roasted Tomato Soup

I don't like soup. In fact, I actively dislike soup. It's just wrong. Why would I want to eat my food all gummy when I still have all of my teeth? It also looks weird.

The other half was feeling ill yesterday. I made him soup from a can for lunch, which he enjoyed and ate everything). But I thought I could do better than that, and toyed with the idea of making tomato soup (based on him asking if that's what we had earlier in the day). I googled a bit and checked out some recipes, and decided to wing it based on what I'd seen.

The ingredients:
4-6 large tomatoes, or a lot of little tomatoes (easier with the bigger tomatoes)
1-2 garlic gloves (use to taste, it does sweeten a lot in the roasting)
1 red pepper
1 onion (optional)
Thyme (fresh or dried) - to taste
Any other herbs you want to use (fresh or dried, I used some fresh parsley) - to taste
1tsp smoked paprika
1/2-1 cup chicken/vegetable stock
salt - to taste

The process:
Tomatoes should be halved and quartered, put on a baking tray, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt. Put the garlic gloves, still in their papery skin, also on the tray. Prick the skin of the red pepper all over with a knife/fork, and on the tray it goes. If using, slice the onion into rounds and put it on the tray too.

This all goes into the oven at 200 for about an hour. Turn the pepper about halfway. The tomatoes will concentrate down and release some juices.

After an hour, take it out of the oven and put the tomatoes and any juices in the pan into a pot. Put the pepper in a bowl and cover with clingfilm (this will allow you to easily remove the skin from the pepper so you can just use the flesh). Split the garlic clove and squeeze the roasted garlic into the pot too (be careful, it's hot!). Once you're done with that, the pepper should be ready - pull the skin off, and remove the seeds with a teaspoon. Put the pepper into the pot too (I reserved some strips to put on the top). If you have onions, put them into the pot too.

Add the stock, and let it cook for about 5 min to reduce the liquid a bit. Add some smoked paprika, thyme (fresh or dried) and any other herbs you may want to add (fresh or dried).

Get out the stick blender and puree it. You can leave it slightly chunky or go all the way smooth - whatever floats your boat. Add salt to taste. If you want it thicker, cook it down further.

When ready, spoon into bowls and garnish with the roasted pepper strips.

I served this with some toasted cheese sandwiches made with mature cheddar on wholewheat. It works really well together.