Fish - Retro Food For Modern Times

Category: Fish

11
Feb
2023

Girl’s Night – February 2003

categories: 20 Years Ago Today, Cocktail, Duck, Fish, Magazines, Tuna, Vodka, Watermelon

Hello Friends! This week we are stepping back in time to February 2003 via Delicious magazine. It just so happened that the topic that came up in my random generator was Girl’s Night. So it seemed like a perfect opportunity to tie this into Galantine’s Day.

Before we get into that, let’s set the scene for February 2003. The month started with “Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera topping the charts. This was replaced by Avril Lavigne with “Im with you” for the remainder of the month. Number one in the box office was “How to Lose A Guy in Ten Days” and the best-selling book this week was The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.

My menu has somewhat of a pink theme which seems fitting for a Girl’s night but the content is definitely adult, starting with a watermelon vodka cocktail!

Watermelon Vodka Cocktail

This was so simple! I added a little squeeze of lime into the watermelon and vodka mix as I felt it was a bit too sweet / one note without it. It was super refreshing and made the most of our lovely summer produce! Be careful though…too many of these and you’ll be slurring

I am beautiful no matter what they sayWords can’t bring me downI am beautiful in every single wayYes, words can’t bring me down, oh noSo don’t you bring me down today

into a pretend mic and telling all your gal pals how much you love them before dessert!

Watermelon Vodka Recipe:

Beetroot Confit and Marinated Goat’s FetaTarts

I didn’t make these because I pretty much hate beetroot. To me, except for one Beetroot Tzatziki which I love, it tastes like dirt. The funny thing is though, it is something I really want to like. So I keep trying to make things with it in the hope that I will find the magic recipe that turns that switch in me from off to on. In this instance, I love the look of the pastry dotted with poppy seeds, the shape of the tiny little black dots echoed in the round of the goat’s cheese, and the gorgeous crimson of the beetroot in between.

Confit Beetroot and Goat’s Cheese Tarts Recipe:

Tuna Carpaccio

I loved this!!! It was so good! (one thing, I completely forgot to add the cucumber to this!). Also, I had no mixed baby cress so I subbed in watercress. When I was in Darwin recently, we went to a restaurant called Pee Wee’s at the Point for the Fussiest Eater in the World’s birthday. There, I had a buffalo carpaccio which was one of the best things I have ever eaten in my life! That dish came with a Hot English Mustard Mayo which inspired me to add my own mayo to this carpaccio. I made a Wasabi Mayonnaise (you can see a little dab of it front and centre in the above photo).

Here is a pic of that buffalo carpaccio. Just looking at it makes we want to go all the way back to Darwin so I can eat it again!

Tuna Carpaccio Recipe:

Baby Tiramisu

These look adorable! And despite not being pink, they are the perfect way to end the evening…or to snack on as you are settling on the couch to watch a dvd or two! And because they are tiny, you can eat one and still fit into a dress just like Kate Hudson’s in “How To Lose A Guy in Ten Days”!

Baby Tiramisu Recipe:

My Nigella Moment – Duck with Berries

For first-time readers, this refers to the moment at the end of Nigella Lawson’s cooking shows when she sneaks back to the fridge to have another bite of something delicious. In the context of these Twenty Years Ago posts, it is something contained in the magazine that does not fit with the overall menu theme but I’m sneaking it in either because I made it and it was really good, or I just didn’t have time to make it!

This month, my Nigella dish is Duck with Berries which came from an article on romantic food to cook for Valentine’s day. It was so good! Timing is so important when cooking duck and this recipe nailed it!

Duck with Berries Recipe:

Delicious Magazine certainly delivered on the Girl’s Night Menu!

Please let me know if you make the Beetroot Tarts. I am so intrigued by them! And also, if you are old enough to have had a girl’s night in 2003, would this have been the menu you would have chosen?

If you would like to contribute a theme, please let me know, I’m up for any challenge you can throw at me!

And happy Valentines, Galentines or however you want to spend the coming Tuesday!

09
Oct
2022

Ceviche & Eggs A La Mexicana

categories: 1970's recipes, Eggs, Fish, Good Housekeeping World Cookery, Mexico

Hola amigas y amantes de la comida! Did I ever mention that during that very first lockdown of 2020, I tried learning Spanish on Duolingo? That first sentence pretty much reflects the highest level of proficiency I attained. Despite my very limited ability to speak the language, we are leaving the snowbound land of Canada to head south to the sun and sea of Mexico via Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery. And our first meal is going to be an absolute favourite of mine – Ceviche!

Ceviche contains so many things I love – raw fish, avocado, lemon, tomato, chill and coriander! And it is also so vibrant! I used tuna in my ceviche so there was the gorgeous pink of the tuna, some red tomatoes, the bright green of the coriander, the more more mellow yellow green of the avocado some bright yellow pear tomatoes so it really was very colourful.

I then also made Eggs A La Mexicana from the same chapter and the colour palette was quite similar!

Of course I am not the first person to realise that a lot of Mexican food is yellow, red and green…there are several colour palettes to this effect on Pinterest and elsewhere:

Having said that, the part of my brain that probably spends too much time at work, or thinking about work, thought the colour palette of both dishes was very similar to that of an Excel conditional formatting colour scale! So I may well be the first person to link Mexican food and a spreadsheeting tool!

The Recipes – Ceviche and Eggs a La Mexicana

Both of these were delicious and easy to cook! Which as long-time readers will know was definitely not the case the last time I ventured into the realm of Mexican cooking! Mind you, I’m not saying that these recipes are absolutely authentico but they had me doing a little dance like this all the same!I hope your week has you also doing a little dance and not staring at too many spreadsheets!

28
Aug
2022

Twenty Years Ago Today – September 2002

categories: Cocktail, Drinks, Fish, Good Taste, Magazines, Vodka

Hello Friends!!! I’m going to be very honest here. I have a problem. I love a food magazine as much as I love a cookbook and have been collecting them for many years. Too many years it turns out as I am running out of space to keep them. They are here:

And here

And are now piling up on the floor here:

So, something needed to be done before the fussiest eater in the world calls the Hoarders team on me. And as with many problems, the solution came to me while I was on holiday and not really thinking about them. In order to help me decide which mags to keep and which to cull, I will cook out of them! And blog about it. One month at a time. In order to assess them, I am going to apply a straightforward formula – if I can build a decent three-ish course meal from any magazine, it will stay in my collection. If that is impossible, it will go into the donation box.

So shall we see what September 2002 via Good Taste Magazine had in store for me?

The Menu

It looks like this one might be a keeper! Even the selection on the menu above is only some of the recipes I would cook from this mag. But the proof of the magazine recipe is in the eating so let’s see how I went with cooking some of the items off said menu.

Pink Grapefruit & Mint Caipiroska

As much as I love a margarita, I am choosing the Caipiroska. I love pink grapefruit, I love mint and I also love the etymology of the work Caipiroska – it is basically a Brazilian Portuguese ellison between caipi- (shortened from caipirinha) and -roska meaning Russian as the spirit in a caipiroska is vodka.

These were delicious!!! Just the right amount of sugar syrup to balance out the grapefruit. And the mint made it all very fresh. If you cannot find palm sugar for the sugar syrup you could use brown sugar instead

Pink Grapefruit & Mint Caipiroska Recipe

Tandoori Fish Skewers

These were so tasty!

Now, you may be wondering where is the pea rice in the recipe? Well, I’m not that fond of a pea so I swapped that out for roti and a tomato, red onion and coriander salad. I also dropped in a little raita.

Tandoori Fish SkewersRecipe

The recipes for the other items on my menu can be found here and here

My Nigella Moment

What is a Nigella moment? You know how at the end of each episode of a Nigella tv show, you see her popping back to the fridge for just one more bite of something? Well, my Nigella moment will be one thing that didn’t make the menu but something I look forward to cooking (and eating) in the near future.

There were a few contenders in the mag:

However, the winner in this category is this corn and chive pancake with smoked salmon!

Random fun fact from September 2002

There was a little article on broad beans which contained the following bits of trivia:

Favism is severe condition brought on by eating broad beans in people who have a particular genetic enzyme deficiency. It can bring on fever, fatigue, jaundice, anaemia and abdominal and back pain!

The Greek philosopher Pythagoras banned his followers from eating broad beans. No one actually know why but theories include their flatulence inducing properties to the belief that they contained the souls of the dead. (Or maybe Pythagoras was someone with favism?)

Broad beans aka fava beans gained some pop culture cred with this statement by Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs:

I hope you’ve enjoyed this trip back in time to September 2002.

Have a great week!

07
Aug
2022

Fish with with Mulligatawny Flavours

categories: Curry, Daily News, Fish, Modern Times, Sri Lanka

The Daily News Cookery Book is a stalwart of Sri Lankan Cooking, first published in 1929. My mum was given a copy as a wedding present which we still have and I have a copy of the 2013 edition which seems to be a paperback copy of the 1964 edition without the vintage ads but with all the quirkiness. This quirkiness oftentimes means it is not the easiest book to cook from. The methods of cooking can seem outdated, the measurements can be odd. So, I often use it more as an inspiration rather than something to follow exactly. This is how my dish of Fish with Mulligatawny Flavours came about. It was so tasty and delicious that I wanted to share it – and after all, it is truly revamping a retro dish for modern times!

So, I hear you ask, why not just make this as a mulligatawny? I had some really nice roti and I wanted to dip that bread into something thicker than a soup. A curry gravy seemed like the perfect thing. So, why not just call it a fish curry? I wanted to recognise the OG recipe which was for a fish mulligatawny. There are also some very non-traditional ingredients here – for instance, you would never see Thai Basil in a traditional Sri Lankan curry. However, I love its flavour, particularly with fish! Roti is also not a traditional accompaniment for Sri Lankan food – we do have a coconut roti but this is not the flaky type of bread I am referring to here.

Fish With Mulligatawny Flavours – The Recipes

And now here is the OG recipe. You can, of course, choose to make this version if you wish. Please let me know how it turns out if you do! If not keep reading for my version!

Fish with with Mulligatawny Flavours

Print Recipe

A modern take on a vintage recipe for Fish Mulligatawny

Author: Taryn Nicole

Ingredients

Scale

4 red onions, 2 sliced, 2 chopped finely
1 sprig of curry leaves (about 20 leaves)
2 tbsp ghee or coconut oil, split
*450g-600g fish fillets (I used Rockling) but any white fish would work.
1 270ml can of coconut milk
200g vegetable stock
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp fenugreek powder
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tsp ginger, grated
2cm stick of cinnamon
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 10cm stick of celery cut in 4 pieces
150g of green beans, chopped (optional)
Salt

To Serve:

Lime cheeks
Thai basil or Coriander
Roti or Rice

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Heat half the ghee or coconut oil in a large saucepan over medium heat.
Add the sliced onions, half the curry leaves and a pinch of salt.
Drop the heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally until the onions are a deep brown. Take your time with this, it took me 20 minutes to get the onions as dark as I wanted them. Remove these from the pan and set aside.

Wipe the pan and add the rest of the coconut oil / ghee.
Once this is melted turn down the heat and add the chopped onions, the rest of the curry leaves, the coriander, cumin, turmeric, fenugreek, cinnamon, garlic, ginger and celery.
Cook stirring often until the spices are fragrant and the onions are softened.
Add the stock and coconut milk. Cook this mixture down until the gravy reaches the consistency of thickened cream.
Add the beans, if you are using them, to the pan.
Sprinkle your fish fillets with salt and add to the pan. Cook for 2-3 minutes on each side, depending on the thickness of your fish. When you turn the fish over, add the chopped tomatoes.
Check for taste – add more salt and or a squeeze of lime to balance out the flavours.
Remove the cinnamon stick and the pieces of celery.**

To Serve

Place a fillet of fish on each place, spoon over the gravy and top each piece of fish with the reserved onion and curry leaf mix.
Garnish with coriander, Thai basil and lime wedges
Serve with rice and/or flaky roti to soak up that lovely gravy.

Enjoy!

Notes

*I had 450g of fish which was three fillets however there was a lot of gravy so you could easily add another fillet in for this same quantity.

** I do not like the texture of cooked celery so I like to remove it before serving. If you are happy to eat it, chop the celery into smaller slices, as you would when making a soup and leave it in.

This is a lovely gently spiced delicate dish – the perfect response to anyone who thinks that all Sri Lankan food is blow your head off hot!

I also found myself eating the leftover gravy with more of that roti the following day and it was also delicious!

I hope you have enjoyed my updating of this old recipe!

Have a great week!

03
Feb
2022

Smoked Salmon Tarts

categories: Dishiest Dish, Smoked Salmon, Starters, Tarts

Hello and welcome to my best of January post! It was not the start to the year I was looking for – the month was fraught with illness (human and canine) and a nasty car accident for the Fussiest Eater in the World from which he is still recovering. In the midst of all the misery though, there was still time for some good food starting with these smoked salmon tarts from Alimentari by Linda Jones.

These are little morsels of deliciousness. I shared this recipe with a friend of mine and, like me, they have become one of her go to entertaining snacks. So tasty, so pretty, they transport really well for picnics and other out of home occasions and if you happen to have any left (unlikely) they are delicious the following day – I ate mine at ambient temperature but you could heat them if you wanted or have them cold from the fridge.

I also used whole tom berries and not halved cherry tomatoes.

Smoked Salmon Tarts – The Recipe

Other Favourites of The Month

Reading

One More Croissant for the Road by Felicity Cloake

I cannot tell you how much I loved this book!!! Felicity Cloake is a British food writer who is also a keen cyclist. In this book, she cycles around France, eating and drinking the signature dishes in each town (Quiche in Lorraine, Provencal Fish Soup in Marseille etc). I love all things French so reading this was an absolute delight! I loved her voice and really want Felicity to be my new best friend! (There are also recipes) 💖

I also read the most recent Lianne Moriarty, Apples Never Fall. This was an audiobook and, just like last month, the narrator’s voice irritated me. Apart from that, I enjoyed the story and what an ending!!!!! 😲

Cookbook

Someone’s voice who definitely doesn’t irritate me is Diana Henry, the British cookbook writer. I bought her cookbook, A Change Of Appetite in January and I am looking forward to cooking from it very soon!

The cover is so pretty too!

Watching

We watched the The Puppet Master on Netflix the other night which was excellent. It is about a conman who has been operating since the 1990’s posing as an MI5 Agent. It is compelling viewing!

Listening

And, if you are intrigued by that story of a conman pretending to be an MI5 agent, you will be as fascinated as I was by Sweet Bobby. This is a catfishing podcast about another sociopath pretending to be an MI5 agent.

Note to self and to everyone else. Like they say in The Puppet Master… If someone tells you they are an MI5 agent, they are generally NOT an MI5 agent!

The issue of pathological lying also crops up in Apples Never Fall, so on the whole, I have spent a month immersed in liars, cheats, conmen and sociopaths!

I am on the lookout for new things to watch and new listen to, let me know your recommendations!

Playing

Like everyone else I am obsessed with WORDLE.

It is the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning. My favourite opening words have changed from CABIN to TRAIN to IRATE.

What’s your favourite opener?

Cooking

We have our Foodies meeting this week where the theme is tv shows. I am cooking from The Cook Up with Adam Liaw. I haven’t finalised what I am making but these are most likely going to be on the menu!

Shopping

My Mum and I went antiquing and I bought these gorgeous Scotch Whiskey ceramic decanters which are now taking pride of place on my bar cart.

So, you’re all caught up on my life! Here’s hoping February is a better month!

Have a wonderful week!