Fish with Lemon-Roasted Potatoes and Fennel Chilli Relish

This is another recipe I made ages ago. Bill's original recipe was for baked snapper. However, I didn't want to cook a whole fish so I just pan-fried a fish fillet. Unfortunately the fish I picked, I can't remember what now, was just awful and I didn't end up eating the whole meal. I guess that my opinion of this recipe has been coloured by inferior ingredients. Perhaps I will give it another go with a whole fish. The potatoes were very good though. 

Fish with Lemon-Roasted Potatoes and Fennel Chilli Relish

Ingredients: 

• 2 fish fillets
• sea salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• olive oil

Method: 

• Heat olive oil over a medium heat. 
• Season fish with salt & pepper. 
• Pan fry for a few minutes each side or until cooked through. 

Lemon-roasted potatoes

Ingredients: 

• 300g chat potatoes, unpeeled, quartered
• 1/2 lemon, finely sliced 
• 1 bay leaf (optional) 
• sea salt
• freshly ground black pepper 
• 1 clove garlic, unpeeled, crushed  
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Method: 

• Preheat the oven to 180C. 
• Place all ingredients in a bowl and toss until potatoes are coated in oil. 
• Spread on a baking dish and cover with foil. Bake for 20 minutes. 
• Remove foil and bake a further 20 minutes or until golden brown. 
• Serve with freshly ground black pepper.

Fennel chilli relish 

Ingredients: 

• 1/2 fennel bulb, finely chopped to 5mm dice
• 1 red chilli, finely chopped 
• juice of 1/2 a lemon   
• 2 tbsp parsley, finely chopped 
• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 
• sea salt 
• freshly ground black pepper

Place all ingredients in a bowl and combine. 

August 2011 - Fish burgers with lentil dip & cucumber yoghurt dressing

I have mentioned before, probably ad nauseam, that I am not overly keen on seafood. I do, however, know that it is good for me. I have also read recently that omega 3 is supposed to be very good for people with bipolar. So I have decided that I really do need to make an effort to get more fish in my diet. So have been starting slowly and incorporating it into my diet more. I hadn't exactly been going for gourmet fare with take away fish and chips and some of those crumbed frozen fish fillet things from the supermarket with vegetables. However it was fish and tasted fine to me.

Then the August issue of Delicious magazine came out with Michael Moore's Fish Burgers with Lentil Dip and Cucumber Yoghurt. The burgers looked so good. It was such a different combination of flavours that I really wanted to try it out. It was also a really big coincidence as I had just purchased his cook book Moore to Food. I had never heard of him before but that book is just incredible. So many amazing dishes in it. Very much a food for entertaining book and I can't wait to do some dishes out of it for my friends. In this issue of Delicious he talks of the new book just out called Blood Sugar full of recipes that he has come up with since being diagnosed with diabetes. I really enjoyed this. I think I will make these burgers regularly. I probably wouldn't bother to do the lentil dip all the time, although it was very good. I really loved the cucumber yoghurt, which I also used as a dressing for the tomato and avocado salad that I served with the burgers. I think I will do it as a dressing more often when the weather warms. Oh, and I found the perfect plate to serve this wonderful meal on at my wonderful local homewares store.

Fish burgers with lentil dip & cucumber yoghurt dressing

Ingredients: 

• 470 g skinless, boneless firm white fish fillets, roughly chopped, (chilled in freezer for 15 minutes)
• 2 egg whites 
• 2 tsp harissa paste (or to taste)
• 1/2 bunch coriander, stalks and leaves chopped (I used parsley) 
• Rolls and mixed leaves to serve

Method: 

• Place fish and harissa in a food processor and process. 
• Add egg whites, parsley and salt & pepper and then pulse to combine. 
• Form into 4 patties and chill in the fridge for 15 - 20 minutes. 
• Heat a fry-pan (non-stick) over a medium-high heat and cook patties for a few minutes each side or until browned and cooked through, be careful as it will not take long to cook. 
• Split rolls, spread with lentil dip, top with leaves, patty and top with cucumber yoghurt and serve with extra salad. 

Lentil Dip  

Ingredients:

• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1 tbsp olive oil 
• 1 tsp ground cumin 
• 1 tsp ground coriander 
• pinch ground fennel seeds 
• 400 g can brown lentils 
• 1 tsp brown sugar 
• 1/4 c water

Method: 

• Heat oil in pan over a low heat. 
• Add garlic and cook for a couple of minutes. 
• Add spices and cook until fragrant. 
• Add lentils, sugar and water and cook until thickened. 
• Place in processor and process until smooth. 

Cucumber Yoghurt 

Ingredients:

• 1 small cucumber, coarsely grated and moisture squeezed out
• 1 c non-fat natural yoghurt, (a thick one)
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1/4 bunch mint (I added some parsley too) 

Method: 

• Combine all ingredients and set aside for at least 20 - 30 minutes for flavours to combine. 

December 2007 - Wasabi-coated Salmon with Cucumber Salad

Well, it is a ridiculous hour of the night/morning. I had just managed to get to sleep after tossing and turning and then some hoon decided to race up and down the street outside honking their horn. Grrrr. Now I am feeling tired but also unable to get back to sleep presently so I thought that I would get a post done. I had a lovely Christmas, I hope that all of you out there did too. I spent almost all day out, firstly with my aunt & uncle for a lovely roast lamb & veg lunch. followed by plum pudding and trifle.  I then spent the afternoon/evening with friends and their family. It was a lovely day. I even managed not to eat too much. 

From this issue I considered making Ben O'Donoghue's Mexican Barbequed Pork Belly. It looked like a really good recipe where you make your own Adobo marinade. I have been curious about adobo as I have read a number of Mexican recipes that use a "can of chipotle chillies in adobo sauce" and I was never really sure what it was. I knew that I wasn't able to buy the product in the local supermarket, although I know a couple of places to get it online. Ben's recipe seems quite easy. There were two reasons that I didn't do this recipe. The first is that I don't have a gas bottle for my bbq so that makes using it rather impossible. The second reason is that I have used a lot of pork belly recently and I decided that it was time for a change. I do really like pork belly but it certainly isn't the healthiest cut of meat and I really think that it needs to be a very occasionally thing. In fact I probably need to leave making it for when I am having company so that I don't have a heap of leftovers to eat too. 

I also considered making Kate Nichols' Pancetta, Sage & Onion Stuffing (or one of the variations) as part of my Christmas meal. I was, at one point considering making both a glazed ham and stuffed rolled turkey breast. However, I finally realised that as much as it would have been lovely, it would be just too much food for me. So since I had the ham in the fridge and the turkey breast (which I actually bought ages ago) was in the freezer I decided to just do the ham. I will do the turkey at some other time and might do this lovely sounding stuffing for it then. 

When I went through this issue in January I referred Valli Little's lovely sounding Wasabi-coated Salmon with Cucumber Salad. It just looked and sounded so good and lovely and refreshing. I just love wasabi. I have a terrific recipe for rice salad with wasabi dressing. I have also used the dressing on other salads too. I really like snacking on the wasabi peas. They have a wonderful heat to them. It is hot and sharp but doesn't burn for a long time. I really enjoyed this. The wasabi in it was really subtle though so I think that next time I would reduce the amount of flour. The processor didn't do the best of jobs processing the peas up, I think it would have been better if I had done it in batches rather than trying all at once. It  probably would be just as easy to bash them up in a mortar & pestle however I forked out the money for a KitchenAid food processor so I use it as much as possible. The salad that went with it was excellent. I used alfalfa sprouts instead of the bean sprouts as that is what I could get. Plus I much prefer alfalfa to bean sprouts. I have said before that I am not hugely keen on seafood but I did really like this and I really want to start incorporating more seafood into my diet so I will be on the look out for more meals like this one. Tasty, light and fresh. 

November 2006 - Roasted white fish wrapped in smoked bacon

Argh, even less time to get these all these posts done. I do have an excuse though. I was out last night. Only to a family bbq but out all the same. It was very good. My uncle is home, it has been a couple of years since he has been here so it is good to see him. I don't have a lot of family nearby so it is always good to see those that live away. I had planned on doing a post when I got home but it was late and I just didn't seem to get it done. 

There are some lovely recipes in this 5th birthday issue. There are two that I make regularly, Chicken Breasts with goat's feta, semi-dried tomato & basil stuffing and Peas and Beans with Pistachio Pesto both are fantastic recipes and go very well together. The Baby Spinach, Orange & Macadamia salad is also very nice but I make the other two recipes regularly. The pea dish is the perfect side dish and I have made it with a variety of main meals. The chicken is a very popular (and easy) dish for entertaining. 

Another dish which I think would be perfect for entertaining is the one I chose to make from this issue. There were a few things that appealed to me but my eye was particularly drawn to Jamie Oliver's Roasted white fish wrapped in smoked bacon with lemon mayonnaise and asparagus. I didn't have smoked bacon but used prosciutto instead. Nor did I have have the thick fillets that Jamie used in the recipe so I used 2 small fillets and reduced the cooking time as needed. I also substituted the rosemary in the dish with dill as I find that rosemary can be very overpowering. I really enjoyed this meal. I didn't make my own mayonnaise but I did have some of Neil Perry's signature mayo in the fridge so I added the lemon juice to some of that. It was really nice and definitely suited the asparagus. I also served some sautéed potatoes with it. This is one fish dish that is definitely going to go into rotation, although next time I will not be so liberal with the mayo.