Tag: fish

Cured ocean trout

This cured ocean trout recipe is adapted from a recipe from Rick Stein and from a recipe from Maggie Beer.

You must start this recipe at least 1 day early for the curing to take place. Rick Stein’s recipe said 2 days, Maggie Beer says 8 hours.  I did mine the afternoon the day before the dinner.

dill and lemon cured ocean trout

Ingredients:
  • 150 g of sea salt flakes
  • 100 g of caster sugar
  • 1 cup of dill chopped
  • 2 tsp peppercorn, crushed
  • Finely grated zest of 1 lemon and 1 lime
  • 1 to 1.2 kg ocean trout fillet skin-on (which is basically one of the sides of the whole ocean trout)
Method:
  1. Get to your fishmonger or fish market and buy an ocean trout. Have it filleted and if possible bones removed. If the bones are still in, use some tweezers and patience to remove them one at a time.  This video is a “how to” video found online.
    tip – the other half of the ocean trout can be frozen (after being deboned) and used at a later time for a meal.
  2. Combine the ingredients together.
  3. Place a plastic wrap at the bottom of a long dish, coat the skin side part with half of the cure mix, and place on the plastic film. Then spread the rest of the cure mix on the top part. Close tightly the film over the whole fish filet (add more film if required).
  4. Place in the fridge overnight. Turn over in the morning until ready to serve.
  5. When ready to serve open the wrapping and wipe the excess cure from the ocean trout using a paper towel or a clean tea towel.  Some dill will remain on it, it’s OK.
  6. Cut thinly and serve with creme fraiche and wedges of lemon.

 

Cooking for sharing

Cooking for sharing

One of the reason I like cooking is to place the dish in the middle of the table for everyone to share.  Of course when you go to a restaurant, you get the dish you selected from the menu.  At home, at friends, I love when the dish is put on the table.  This may sound obvious to some of you if you haven’t been in countries where plates are plated in the kitchen and brough to the guests.

Our family lives on a small island in the northern part of Sydney. As our children and their friends from next door were all day coming back and forth between the two house, we decided to have a common dinner. Each family brought their dish and, …wahoo, what a feast we had: soup, salmon, flat bread, curry, dal and chocolate cake for dessert!

table to share
Dishes to share served with flat bread (fresh from the pan!)

The soup of the day

The soup of the day was a vegetable soup, a French classic: the potato leek soup.  Here you go: one big potato (or 2 small), 1 small leek, 2 carrots, rock salt and water just covering the vegetables. Simmer until cooked then blend.

You can use other vegetables and add a little complexity, this is a base recipe.

The soup can be served on its own or with a teaspoon of creme fraiche.  Add an egg or a little fried Haloumi and here is a meal!

Baked Salmon with capers, red onion and chestnuts

I have already posted about that simple method of preparing fish. I enjoy it because it is simple, full of flavours, looks good and results in a very light dish.  You will find the recipe HERE.

pot de saumon

And for breakfast we had fresh croissants

And for breakfast we had fresh croissants, so did two other families nearby. I hadn’t made croissants for a long long time. It had something to do with not being satisfied of how the flakiness had been.  The idea of baking viennoiseries had been in my mind for a few weeks, I had a good ides what I had to improve.  I had been making sure to have the right butter available at home just in case I felt like taking the dive. Somehow, my youngest daughter asked for some Saturday morning. Here was  the excuse I needed.

When making croissants, it is difficult to make a small quantity because you need a minimum volume of dough for the lamination process (the process that makes those flaky buttery layers).  I used a recipe based on dry yeast, this at least was not to be left to good luck.  I had been quite unlucky with fresh yeast recently, and anyway, I did not have any.

From 500 g of flour, I got 15 pieces, mostly croissants , a few pains au chocolat and a few  torsades (think braids) I made using long strips cut from the sides of the dough when first rolled.   I am quite pleased with the result.

The recipe needs a fair documenting with photos which I do not yet have, it is not on my blog for now.

 

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Baked salmon fillet

Find a nice piece of salmon fillet for the number of people you want to feed (ask your fishmonger) for this baked salmon fillet dish and prepare it in a gratin ceramic dish. This recipe is very easy.

Serve this with a green salad or blanched french beans. If you would like a meal a little more consistent add couscous semolina or rice.

Ingredients:

For 4 people.

  • 1 large piece of salmon fillet (bones out if possible)
  • 1 tbsp of capers
  • 1/2 red onion
  • fresh thyme,  fresh rosemary or fresh sage (your choice, if you don’t know choose what you have at home or some thyme – my favourite)
  • 1 punnet of cherry tomatoes (10-15 cherry tomatoes, if you only have normal size tomato, go for two of them but in eight pieces each.
  • Olive oil
  • Rock salt (1 tsp)
  • Cracked pepper
  • in the photo above I had some chestnuts to use.  If you want to use some, incise each of them, place them one minute in boiling water, then peel and put in the bake.
Method:
  1. Heat Up the oven to 180ºC.
  2. Place a dash of oil at the bottom of your gratin ceramic dish.
  3. Place your piece of salon in the middle, the tomatoes on the side, the apers and oinion scatred all over.
  4. Put a fillet of olive oil over the dish, add the salt and cracked pepper, then herbs.
  5. Cook for about 20 minutes. The time will vary depending on the thickness of your piece and your oven. To check for doneness, use a small pointy knife and pull apart the flesh of the fish. If it pulls apart, it is ready. Salmon is beautiful when just done, that is when there is still a little pinkness in the flesh (just cooked).
  6. Remove from the oven and serve with blanches greens or a salad. Add some couscous or jasmine rice if you want something a bit more nutricious.

salmon fish cappers red onion

Poached deep seabream with carrots

This poached deep seabream with carrots dish is simply easy and delicious. The key: very few ingredients! The fish cooks very quick (a couple minutes) so best to do it last.

I like serving with a side salad which again is rather simple and does have very few ingredients, here lettuce mostly and one tomato or two.

The whole is ready in half an hour.

Deep seabream can be found at your local fishmongers or at Sydney Fish Market. Check out the sea bream ID sheet (Sydney Fish Market).

 

Ingredients:

For 4 people

  • 1 fillet per person of seabream (they are generally quite small, if you have some larger one, decrease the number)
  • one bunch of dutch carrots (about 12 of them)
  • 3 carrots
  • 15 g of butter
  • 1 tsp of fennel seeds
  • Parsley to garnish
  • Side salad (lettuce and tomatoes with balsamic vinaigrette)
Method:
  1. Peel the dutch carrots. For this use a vegetable peeler and try to keep the peel as thin as possible or you won’t have much left of your carrots. Cut the leaves about half a centimetre above the collar and cut the end bit of the root if it has not yet come off while peeling.
  2. Peel the “normal” carrots and slice about half a centimetre thick.
  3. In a large thick bottom fry-pan, place 15 g of butter, allow to melt, add the carrots, a sprinkle of salt and a ladle of water. Cover and leave to cook on gentle heat (half heat). From time to time, shake the fry-pan.  The carrots  should not stick , nor burn.  It will take about 10-15 minutes to cook.  If you like them still a little crunchy, it will be closer to 10 minutes than 15 minutes.  You can heck for doneness with the point of a knife, it should not meet much resistance going through a piece of carrot.
  4. For the fish, use another frypan, place in it two centimetre of water, a fillet of olive oil, a teaspoon of rock salt and the fennel seeds. Bring to the boil. Then place the fish and reduce the heat to a simmer. The fish will cook in 2-3 minutes (it will be white and no longer translucent).
  5. PLace the fish and the carrots in a serving dish. Garnish with parsley and serve warm.

Fried sardines

Fried sardines are such a summer classic.  They have a feel of holidays, warm days, leisure around the house or by the seaside. Love them for what they represent! For me they are associated to that great summer evening spent in Algeria with project team colleagues and local host Kamal who  did such a great job at making us appreciate Bejaia.

This time, my older child asked to buy them, so here we go.

Ingredients:
  • 2 to 4 sardines per person
  • Plain flout and salt
  • oil for shallow frying
  • fresh lettuce leaves or mixed salad leaves
Method:
  1. mix 2 tablespoons of flour with 1 teaspoon of salt, coat the sardines. Depending of the quantity, you may need more. Adjust the salt if you prefer more salty.

sardines

2. Heat up 1 cm of oil in a thick based fry-pan, when the oil is hot, place the sardines, reduce slightly the oil, turn over when golden-brown.

sardines

3. Serve immediately with fresh salad leaves.

sardines

Rainbow Trout Risotto

This rainbow trout risotto could be done with other fish.  Increase the quantities to reflect the number of people.  You may need to get a wider (shallower) pot if you need place for more than one fish.

I did not garnish it much or embellish it much, it was a midweek dinner main.

The key to any risotto is A GOOD STOCK  !!!  Oh yeah!

Serves 4

Ingredients:
  • 750 ml to 1 litre mussel (moules) marinieres stock (or good fish stock)
  • 1 head garlic
  • 1 rainbow trout
  • 1 glass dry white wine
  • 220 g of arborio rice (rule of thumb is 50 g/pers)
  • Garden herbs (if using)

Note: no need for salt as the stock (at least mine) is salty enough.

Method:

Warm up the stock until simmer.  Peel and crush 4 cloves of garlic.

Place some oil at the bottom of a thick based pot (I used my long Creuset), when hot, place the rice, crushed garlic, unpeeled garlic cloves and garden herbs in the pot and stir from time to time until half of the grains are white.

20160603_130405

Add the wine, reduce the heat to low.

risotto avec vin

Then place the fish over the rice and slowly add all the stock.  Cover and cook on very low for 20-30 minutes.  Turn off the heat when the rice is almost done but still a bit al-dente and with the lead on top, let the dish cool down half an hour.  The rice will keep developing and be just right.

risotto debut de cuisson