Attempt #54: Spanish fish & chorizo soup

From this attempt, I realized that Chorizo and fish work so well together.  However, make sure the ingredients esp the fish and chorizo is of best quality.

Sprinkle pangrattato on top to add a lovely crunchiness to the soup and is well worth the little bit of extra effort. 

The result: 

Couple of things I discovered from this attempt:

1. Chorizo comes in both spicy and sweet ones. I have always only tried the spicy ones and for this recipe, I used the spicy one as well.

2. It is quite tricky to get a deliciously good shot of a tomato-based dish as most comes out looking yucky although it tastes absolutely great! :)  

Method:

Heat a large pan on a medium heat, add a good lug of olive oil, the sliced garlic, chopped chillies and chopped basil stalks. Fry everything together for a minute then add the sliced chorizo. Cook for another few minutes until the sausage starts to brown, then pour in the white wine, tinned tomatoes, rice and chickpeas. Season well and simmer for 10 minutes, until the rice is just about cooked. 

Meanwhile, put a frying pan on a medium heat to make the pangrattato. Add 3 tablespoons of olive oil and let it heat up for a minute or so, then add the breadcrumbs, flat-leaf parsley and lemon zest. Fry for a couple of minutes until it's all golden brown and crispy then put to one side. 
After the soup has simmered for 10 minutes, it should have thickened a little, so stir in about 200ml of hot water and bring everything to the boil. Cut each of the fish fillets into three pieces, then, carefully, so you don't get splashed by any of the hot liquid, place them and the prawns into the mixture. Cook for a further 5 minutes until the fish is cooked through and the prawns are pink. 
When the fish is perfectly cooked, stir through the basil leaves. Ladle the soup into warm bowls and top each with a nice big spoonful of pangrattato. Serve with a few wedges of lemon to squeeze over the finished dish and enjoy all those gorgeous flavours!

Ingredients: 

olive oil

·      2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced

·      2 fresh red chillies, deseeded and finely sliced

·      1 bunch fresh basil, leaves picked and stalks finely chopped

·      1 iberico sausage, around 200g, sliced

·      ½ bottle white wine

·      2 x 400 g tinned plum tomatoes

·      1 handful basmati rice

·      400 g tinned chickpeas, drained

·      sea salt

·      freshly ground black pepper

·      2 bream fillets, fromsustainable sources, ask your fishmonger, skinned and pin-boned

·      2 pollock fillets, fromsustainable sources, ask your fishmonger, skinned and pin-boned

·      12 raw prawns, from sustainable sources, ask your fishmonger, peeled, tails left on

·      2 lemons, cut into wedges

·      For the pangrattato

·      2 handfuls breadcrumbs

·      1 bunch fresh flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped

·      zest of 1 lemon

Attempt #29: Baked Fish with Crème Fraîche and horseradish sauce

The original recipe from Jamie Oliver was for baked trout but trout is not so readily available in KL, I decided to replace it with Garoupa fish.

As the recipe involves only marinating and seasoning of the fish with salt, black pepper and optional of thyme & lemon, it is utmost important that the fish must be fresh. What you will get from this recipe is an easy, healthy and you get to appreciate the fish authentic flavour.

The result:

The horseradish and Crème Fraîche sauce compliments the fish really well as it will provide that strong salty, spicy and sour-ish flavour to the fish.

The recipe (serves 4):

Ingredients:

·         Olive oil

·         Salt and freshly ground black pepper

·         4 whole trout, approximately 14oz-1lb each, gutted and scaled

For the Crème Fraîche & Horseradish cream

·         I heaped tablespoon grated fresh horseradish

·         9oz Crème Fraîche (about 1 generoud cup)

·         Juice of 1lemon

Optional

·         A little fresh thyme, leaves picked from stems

·         1 lemon, sliced

 The Method:

Preheat the oven to 475F. 

Pat the fish dry, then with a sharp knife slash each fish at an angle on both sides – this will allow the heat and seasoning to penetrate. Rub with Olive Oil and seasoning.  For extra flavour, you can stuff the fish with fragrant herbs such as thyme and the lemon slices. Cook for around 12-15 minutes until crisp and golden.

While the fish is being cooked in the oven, make your sauce. Fresh horseradish, which you should peel and grate, is nicer, but you can also use the creamed horseradish bought in jars. Mix the horseradish in a bowl with the Crème Fraîche and season well. Squeeze over some lemon juice to taste.

Serve the fish with a good lob of the Crème Fraîche sauce. Goes nice with beer.

Attempt #24: Prawn Stuffed Flatfish

If you are trying to decide on what to cook for your upcoming Christmas and Year End dinners with family and friends, why not try this recipe for one of those dinners! J

Oh, if you are trying to slice  and stuff the flatfish for the very first time (like me!, easier to get the fishmonger to do it for you. I had to YouTubed this (I have attached the video below for your convenience). Nonetheless, it wasn’t that difficult and as Jamie explained in his recipe, you don’t need to do it perfectly. As long as the prawns gets stuffed in J

 

The result:

 

Pretty creative and simple way to cook seafood. However, the quality of the dish is only as good as the quality of the fish and prawns. As long as the prawns and fish are fresh and of good quality, it will be yummy. And you can’t go wrong with lemon based recipe J

I may try with tomatoes or crab meat the next round.

Ingredients

• either 1 x 1.2–1.5kg or 4 x 200g flatfish, such as flounder, lemon or Dover sole, plaice, turbot or brill
• 2 medium onions, peeled and finely sliced
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 75g butter
• 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely grated
• cayenne pepper
• 1 lemon
• 250g raw prawns, peeled
• olive oil
• a splash of white wine
• a small bunch of fresh flat-leaf parsley

Method

Preheat your oven to 200ºC/400ºF/gas 6. If you look at the head and the tail of your fish, more often than not there’s a secret line between them that the Big Man upstairs has drawn. Using this as your guide, carefully cut into one side of the line near the head, push down gently, angle the tip-end of your knife towards the bone and score between the flesh and the bone to peel away that beautiful fish fillet. Run the knife down to just above the tail and part the fillet from the bone – about 4 to 5cm deep on both sides. Even if you don’t get it perfect, you’ll be stuffing this pocket with prawns so no one will know if your knife work was a bit shabby.

Get a roasting tray that snugly fits your fish and sprinkle your finely sliced onions around the base of the tray. Season both sides of your fish with salt and pepper and lay it on top of the onions. Try to sweep most of the onions under the fish so they sweeten as they cook. Put the butter into a small pan on a low heat, and once it’s melted pour it into a bowl and leave to cool for 5 minutes.

Add a pinch of salt and pepper, the grated garlic and a pinch of cayenne to the butter, then grate over the zest of half your lemon. Toss the peeled prawns through this mixture until nicely coated, then stuff them loosely inside the fish, pouring over any flavoured butter left behind in the bowl. Before putting it into the oven drizzle over some olive oil and a splash of white wine, then halve your lemon and add both halves to the tray. Adjust the cooking time depending on the size of your fish: a large fish will want 25 minutes, 2 small fish about 12 minutes. You’ll know it’s beautifully cooked when the flesh flakes away from the bone.

Finely chop your parsley leaves and sprinkle them over the fish once it’s out of the oven. Squeeze over the juices from your roasted lemon halves, and serve. I like to put this in the middle of the table with something propping up one end of the tray so that the delicious milky juices run out of the fish and mingle with the butter, olive oil and lemon juices at one end of the tray. Spoon this over clumps of your fish and prawns, and anything else you’re serving it with, like new potatoes, mash or simple steamed greens – it will taste wonderful.

Jamie's rendition of the Prawn Stuffed Flatfish

 

Attempt #10: Delicious roasted white fish wrapped in smoked bacon with lemon mayonnaise and asparagus

My 10^th attempt! Wait a minute, 90 more recipes to go. L

Anyway, this 10^th attempt didn’t turned out to be as great as I thought it would have been. Reason being, I thought that anything with bacon is easy breezy to cook. As I just found out, so not true for a chef wannabe.

The buying process:

As I was doing the shopping for bacon, I realized that there are so many different types of bacon. OK, in my defence of the shallow knowledge of bacon, I am not much as a meat eater moreover bacon which is the part of the swine that carries one of the fattest content.

Anyway, not know the difference between smoked and unsmoked bacon, I checked out ehow.co. The explanation:

The difference between the two bacon types come from the way in which they are cooked. The smoked bacon is just that: smoked over a specific type of wood to give it a distinct flavour; unsmoked bacon is cooked to whatever specification the chef would like, with no flavour initiated into the meat before it is sold commercially.

The cooking process:

When I was wrapping the fish with the bacon, I felt almost like an actual chef as the wrapped fish looked so artistically creative.

Photo of the marinated raw fish being wrapped in smoked bacon as below:

 

As for steaming of the asparagus, I can never get this right. It is either overcooked which means it gets all limpy or undercooked, which makes it taste too close to eating grass.  

The result:

The fish was quite dry while the bacon wasn’t crispy enough. The recipe asked for 10-12 minutes in the oven but I had mine for 15 minutes but the bacon did not turn crisp nor golden like the recipe said it would. The lemon mayonnaise did helped to add some tangy juicy taste to the dryness of the fish.

Picture below shows better clarity of the dryness of the fish without the lemon mayonnaise.

Link to full recipe here.

Attempt #9: Cod potato and spring onion stew

Who would have thought that a little bit of orange zest would make a difference in the taste of the stew!

I bought my cod fillet from a friend and wanted to try something different apart from steaming the cod seasoned with garlic, pepper, soya sauce, sesame oil and fried shallots. Browsing through Jamie’s site, I thought this recipe looks simple and different.

Result:

Very very interesting. And more importantly, the kids love it. It could be that the recipe calls for milk to be added into the broth and this thickens the stew making it creamier and tastes almost like their own formula milk! J  

The idea of adding in the anchovies was a good way to add the element of saltiness to the stew. And because I did replaced the white wine with apple juice and the final touch of grating the zest of the orange to the stew, it makes the whole dish flavoured with a kind of salty, zesty and fruity taste to it.  

Jamie's rendition:

Ingredients:

• 1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
• 1 leek, washed and finely sliced
• extra virgin olive oil
• 2 medium courgettes, halved lengthways
• 1kg potatoes, peeled
• 2 anchovies
• 1 wine glass white wine
• 565ml milk
• 565ml stock
• 1kg cod fillet, skinned and pin-boned
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• a handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
• a bunch of spring onions, finely sliced
• juice of ½ a lemon

Method

In an appropriately sized large pan, slowly fry your onion and leek with around 5 tablespoons of olive oil for 5 minutes until soft and tender. With a teaspoon, remove and discard the fluffy tasteless core from the courgettes and grate the rest into the pan. Chop the potatoes into rough 2cm dice and add to the pan. Give everything a good stir and then add the anchovies. Turn the heat up and add the white wine. Allow to cook down by half before adding your milk and stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for half an hour until the potatoes are tender. At this point, add your cod and simmer for a further 15 minutes until the flesh flakes away; feel free to stir and break up the fish, but it's quite nice to leave some big chunks as well. Season carefully to taste. Divide between your bowls, and serve with a small handful of parsley and spring onion dressed with a little olive oil and lemon juice.

Try this: Sprinkle a little orange zest over the parsley and spring onion. It really works with the cod.

Attempt #7: Soy-baked salmon with zingy salsa

With the poor attempt on my crab cakes, I still wanted to make a fish-based dish.

Having just bought a kg of fresh, chilled salmon from my friend (PM me if you ever want to get your hands on fresh, premium quality salmon), I selected this recipe (link to Jamie's website). Looks easy enough for a quick bake for dinner!

 

The result….absolutely Y.U.M.M.Y.

The zest from the lemon and the lime added in a taste of sweet bitterness to the fish. And the grated ginger provides that zingy, spicy element to the creamy texture of the salmon. The idea of searing the salmon (skin down) on the pan before popping it into the oven is fantastic! This way, it makes the skin of the fish so crispy and nice.

Here's the photo:

I did omit chilli again in this recipe. And I added in some finely chopped red onions and garlic into the salsa mix since I omitted the chillies.  

Curious Corner:

Do you know that salmons have a peculiar life cycle?
Extracted from Organic Factswebsite, salmons will lay their eggs near the mouth of the rivers. The eggs hatch there, develop into fries and start their journey towards seas. They grow in the seas into adult salmons and again go back to the rivers to reproduce, where most of them die after laying eggs.

Attempt #4: Baked white fish with olives and a simple tomato sauce

With almost 1 month down, I am only at my 4^th recipe attempt. Yikes!

Time to speed the cooking up. But I do have a valid excuse *grin*…I was on a road trip to Italy with my girlfriend. Here’s a sneak peak to one of the many yummy food that we had. More on my roadtrip later.

 

Moving on to my Baked White Fish attempt. This attempt proved to be quite successful. The recipe for Jamie’s Baked White Fish with olives and a simple tomato sauce is oh so easy and more importantly, very yummy.

 

I guess any tomato-based recipe will not go wrong much. I did substitute red wine vinegar with ginger wine vinegar and it still taste right! And I skipped the olives and capers. I may have short-changed Jamie’s recipe a tiny bit but hey credit to the chap, the fish still turns out yummy! J  

Enclosed the full recipe below by Jamie Oliver:

Method

To make your sauce:

1. Peel and finely slice the garlic cloves. Pick the basil leaves and put aside, finely slice the stalks.

2. Add a good couple of lugs of olive oil to a large pan on medium heat. Add the garlic and basil stalks. Pierce the chilli once with a knife so it doesn’t explode when frying, and add to the pan. Fry gently until the garlic is soft but not coloured, stirring occasionally.

3. Add the tins of tomato and season lightly with the salt and pepper. Gently simmer on low heat for 30 minutes. Remove the chilli. Break and mush the tomatoes with a wooden spoon. Season the sauce really carefully with more salt and pepper, if needed, and add a tiny swig of red wine vinegar to give it a little twang.

To prepare and cook your fish:

4. Preheat the oven to 220C/425F/gas7.

5. Pour your tomato sauce into a roasting tray (about 20cm x 30cm). Season the fish fillets on both sides with a little salt and pepper, then place on top of the sauce. Squash the olives, using the base of a jar or something heavy, and remove the stones. Sprinkle the olives and capers over the fish. Scatter the reserved basil leaves over the fish.

6. Cook in the oven for around 15 minutes or until the fish is cooked through (check by cutting into the thickest part of one or two of the fillets; they should be pearly white and not transparent). Lovely served with new potatoes and a green salad.

ingredients

• 3 cloves of garlic
• a small bunch of fresh basil
• olive oil
• 1 fresh red chilli
• 2 x 400g tins plum tomatoes
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• red wine vinegar
• 4x 150g white fish fillets such as coley, whiting or pollock, skin off and bones removed
• a handful of black olives, stone in
• 1 tablespoon capers, drained