Showing posts with label fish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fish. Show all posts

Friday, March 25, 2016

Quick and Good Friday Seafood - Smoked Salmon and Broccolini One-Pot Spaghetti

Quick amd Good Friday Seafood - Smoked Salmon and Broccolini One-Pot Spaghetti
Quick amd Good Friday Seafood - Smoked Salmon and Broccolini One-Pot Spaghetti


It's been an almost unforgivably long time since I've posted. Sorry. I don't really have an excuse, just haven't gotten around to it. So for Good Friday I thought I'd post a quick and really simple seafood dish that tastes amazing.

This is the most frequently occurring dish in our house at the moment. And for the last, oh, month or so. It is divine and oh so easy to make. It helps that Lance has been hot-smoking salmon like there’s no tomorrow. And that I wholeheartedly support this habit. But most supermarkets and delis have some good hot-smoked salmon options available for sale these days for if you don’t have yourself a Lance. You only really need 1 fillet for this 4-person dish as the flavour of the smoked fish is quite strong and penetrates the cream so well. Smoke and fat are best friends, (think smoked butter, smoked cheese, smoked brisket) so it makes sense that the cream benefits from the smoke as well. And the whole thing cooks in one pot. Seriously. I’ve heard tell of one-pot-pastas but finally braved it myself and now there’s no going back. Especially with this specific dish. If it’s more than a week since we’ve had it, Lance reminds me that there’s smoked salmon in the house. And it tastes super fancy and complicated. It will impress the socks off people when in reality, you’ve cooked a bit of onion and garlic, then popped everything else in the pan and walked away until it’s cooked.


 Oh, and this works just as well with asparagus!


Quick amd Good Friday Seafood - Smoked Salmon and Broccolini One-Pot Spaghetti
Quick amd Good Friday Seafood - Smoked Salmon and Broccolini One-Pot Spaghetti
Quick amd Good Friday Seafood - Smoked Salmon and Broccolini One-Pot Spaghetti



Smoked Salmon and Broccolini One-Pot Spaghetti

500g dry spaghetti
2 cups fish stock
3 cups water
1 cup cream
4 heaped tsps. prepared horseradish
1 bunch broccolini, sliced into 3cm lengths
1 hot-smoked salmon portion
2 tsp pink peppercorns
1 brown onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
Salt and pepper to taste
Parsley and red chili flakes to serve (optional)



Heat a large, deep-sided saucepan to medium and add a splash of olive oil. Add the onions and sweat for 5 minutes, or until translucent. Add the garlic and cook for a further 5 minutes. Add the pink peppercorns, the fish stock. water, cream and horseradish and stir to combine. Check the seasoning, but make it a little less salty than you ordinarily would. Otherwise when the liquid reduces, it'll be too salty. 

Add the dry spaghetti and push under the liquid. Raise the heat gently to bring the liquid to the boil, then reduce to a simmer and leave for 15 minutes. The noodles should be definitely soft enough to stir at this point. 

Add in the broccolini and salmon, stirring through the mixture. Cook for another 5 minutes, or until al dente. The majority of the liquid will be dissolved into a beautiful creamy sauce. Check for seasoning and serve with chili flakes and fresh parsley.
Quick amd Good Friday Seafood - Smoked Salmon and Broccolini One-Pot Spaghetti
Quick amd Good Friday Seafood - Smoked Salmon and Broccolini One-Pot Spaghetti
Quick amd Good Friday Seafood - Smoked Salmon and Broccolini One-Pot Spaghetti
Quick amd Good Friday Seafood - Smoked Salmon and Broccolini One-Pot Spaghetti
Quick amd Good Friday Seafood - Smoked Salmon and Broccolini One-Pot Spaghetti

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Unusual Inspiration - Grilled Barramundi with Thai Mango and Cashew Sauce




I read a review of a Thai restaurant that described a mango-ey and cashew-y fish dish. Their description of the dish sounded amazing, and I was intrigued. They called it a name in Thai, that when I googled, yielded zero results. I was a little disappointed, but then set to trying to make something myself, using their flavours. This is by no means what I think their dish would’ve been. This is just a simple sauce topping grilled fish. But the combination of the mango and cashew was definitely a hit with the trademark Thai balance of sweet, sour, salty and hot.

I served this with barramundi, but any firm white fleshed fish would do. Salmon would work ok, too, but I think the barramundi would be better.

Seeing as we are now well and truly at the end of mango season, I used frozen mangoes for this dish. These were still from my tree that I froze when they were in abundance, but you can quite easily by frozen mango cheeks in most supermarkets for a  reasonable price. It’s like a little piece of summer in times when you need the spark.

So here you have a delicious dish, inspired by a restaurant I've never been to, a dish I've never heard of, let alone eaten. Just some words on a screen.

 
 
Grilled Barramundi with Thai Mango and Cashew Sauce
2 barramundi fillets
2 mangoes
¾ cup roasted, unsalted cashews
1 bunch coriander and stems
1 thumb-size piece of ginger, peeled and grated
2 long green chilis, minced
2 tbsp fish sauce
Juice of 3 limes


Pat fillets dry, then season and sprinkle with zest of one lime. Set aside.

Roughly chop the cashews either with your knife or a processor. Vary the pieces so you get some bigger chunks, and some is very finely chopped. Cube the mangoes, add to a small saucepan with the cashews, ginger, chilis and coriander stems. Cover, then simmer over a medium-low heat until the mangoes start breaking up 5-10 minutes.

Add the fish sauce and lime juice and if needed, a splash of water to loosen the mixture to a more sauce-like consistency. Stir well, then check for seasoning. If your mangoes aren’t particularly sweet, you may need a teaspoon or so of raw sugar to get the right balance. Leave simmering over a very low heat while you cook the fish.

Heat some grapeseed oil in a frypan of medium-high heat. When the oil is nice and hot (but not quite smoking) place the barramundi skin side down and cook for 2 minutes. Flip over and cook for a further 2 minutes or until almost cooked the whole way through.

Serve the fish topped with the mango cashew sauce, with a salad and/or steamed rice on the side

 

Sunday, May 18, 2014

One Dish Two Ways - Gunpowder Smoke Mackerel


 
My husband has recently gone a little crazy for smoking foods. He’s bought a bunch of hickory chips and uses the hooded BBQ and various trays and levels he smokes sausages and bacon and steak and garlic and jalapenos and whatever else he can find. He’s constantly trying to think of ways to improve his set-up and experimenting with different ways to do it better and hopefully find the best, most consistent way. So far the things he has had the most success with are sausages. He’ll smoke up a dozen or so and I’ll use them to make gumbo or cowboy beans or whatever could benefit from some hickory smoke.

With his smoke-obsession in mind, I recalled seeing a recipe for tea-smoked chicken in a magazine I was flicking through while waiting for a physio appointment. A quick google showed that tea smoking is a fairly common and simple task. I thought it was different enough to not step on his hickory smoked toes, but still a delicious experiment. This smoked mackerel is perfect served hot with soba noodles and sauteed Asian greens, or on some jasmine rice with a simple salad. But I think I loved it most cooled, flaked and served as part of a cheese board.

To be honest, I don’t know the science behind requiring the rice, but every traditional tea-smoking recipe I came across used equal parts long grain rice and tea. And who am I to mess with that? Make sure you turn your rangehood/exhaust fan on if you’re making this inside.

 
Gunpowder Smoked Mackerel
½ cup gun powder green tea (or other green tea)
½ cup jasmine rice
2 tsp brown sugar
2 mackerel cutlets
Salt and pepper
Zest of 1 lime

First prepare your ‘smoker’. You’ll need a pot/wok and a steamer that fits it and a whole bunch of foil. At least double fold a piece of foil that will fit the bottom of your pot, fold up a few centimetres of each side to create a sort of foil bowl. Mix the green tea, rice and sugar together and put it in the foil bowl. Put this bowl into your pot/wok then put over a hot flame.

Pat dry the mackerel cutlets, then season each side with salt and pepper, and some grated lime zest. Place these into your steamer basket.

When the tea mixture starts smoking, put the steamer over the top and leave to cook for 10-15 minutes or until cooked through.

Serve immediately with rice and salad or allow to cool, flake and refrigerate. Serve on a cheese board with Pickled Pink
 
 

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Chip Addiction - Lime and Black Pepper Chip Crusted Bream


I have a confession to make. I am addicted to Red Rock Deli Lime and Black Pepper Chips. We pretty much stopped buying them because we’d open them, Lance would turn his head for 10 seconds and I’d have eaten the whole packet. Then he’d be all sad that he didn’t get to have a snack. I seriously have no willpower when it comes to them. BUT, they are too delicious to give up completely. After a Molloy Island fishing trip, we managed to keep about a cup’s worth of them to do my second favourite trick (you know, after making them all disappear instantly)…crumbing fish with them. So. Good. Obviously lime and pepper are natural friends with fish. Smash a few up, coat the fish and oven bake them (to make them a little healthier) and you have a delicious and super easy dinner. And the best part? You have to eat the rest of the packet!

For a bit of extra oomph, I’ve added some coconut shreds. And for some contrast, I’ve got a slightly sweet dressed salad using a blood orange marmalade that Coles currently have in their ‘limited edition’ collection. You can sub a different marmalade in here if you can’t find it.



Lime and Black Pepper Chip Crusted Bream
3 tbsp olive oil
Juice one lime
¼ tsp cracked pepper
1 cup lime and black pepper chips, measure then crush
2 tbsp coconut shreds (unsweetened)
2 fillets firm fleshed white fish (I used black bream)

Blood Orange Dressed Salad
2 tbsp blood orange marmalade
1 tbsp water
1 tbsp lime juice
4 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp yellow mustard seeds
Mixed leaves (spinach, beet leaves, rocket)
Handful grape tomatoes, halved
½ Lebanese cucumber, diced
50g sheep fetta, crumbled
½ pickle, finely diced
Sprinkle of toasted pine nuts, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds

Cut the fillets into two ‘strips’. Mix the oil, lime juice and pepper together, coat the fish in it and allow to marinade while you do the rest. Approx 10 minutes. Heat the oven to 175C. Place a cooling rack onto baking tray and spray lightly with oil.

Microwave the blood orange marmalade with the water for 30 seconds, stir to combine. The idea is to thin out the marmalade. Set aside to cool.

In a mortar and pestle, or a bowl with the back of a spoon, crush the chips into breadcrumb sized pieces, with a few bigger bits. Stir through the coconut shreds. Take each piece of fish out of the oil mixture and let any excess liquid drip off. Press firmly into the chip mixture to coat on both sides. Carefully place onto the rack. Repeat until it’s all coated, then pop it in the oven to bake until golden and cooked through. Approximately 10 minutes.

Add the lime juice, olive oil and mustard seeds to the marmalade then whisk to combine. Assemble all of the salad ingredients except the cheese and nuts/seeds. Dress the salad, then gently fold through the cheese. Plate, then scatter the nuts and seeds over the top. Plate up the fish and eat immediately