Smoked Fish Summery Pasta

I love getting inspiration form new dishes, don't you?

My friend Jennifer is a wonderful cook and I happened to have lunch at her house the other day. She served a completely delicious pasta with smoked fish (home smoked!) and I couldn't wait to attempt to recreate it!

Here's how I did it:

Boiled some pasta. While this was happening I chopped some cherry tomatoes, yellow zucchini, basil, and flaked up some smoked fish (this was whitefish from the farmer's market). I also shelled some local peas. A couple of minutes before the pasta was done, I threw in the zucchini and peas. When the pasta was done, the veg were too!

I drained the pasta/veg and threw in my other ingredients, along with some olive oil, lemon, and lots of salt and pepper! It was delish!

Fish Pie

What is with this comfort food kick at the moment? I love a fish pie and one of my enduring memories of my grandmother and aunt is preparing fish pies to freeze. The kids gobbled it down and we had seconds. Essentially it's a creamy bechamel flavoured with onion, garlic and saffron with chunks of fish and veggies. This is topped with garlic mash. Yes.

• 7-8 floury potatoes, skins on
• about 4 fillets of fish - I used tilapia
• frozen peas and corn - about 1.5 cups total
• 1-2 ribs celery, finely chopped
• 1 onion, diced
• 6+++ cloves of garlic
• milk
• pinch of saffron threads
• about 1/3c flour
• olive oil
• butter

Preheat oven to 400F.

Put water on the boil for the potatoes. Quarter about 7 or 8 spuds and whack them in the boiling water. Throw in at least 3 cloves of peeled garlic and a good pinch of salt. Ignore this while you get on with the interior.

Put a good glug - about 1/3c of olive oil in a pan (I used a dutch oven so I could stick it straight in the oven, but you can use whatever you want) and saute the garlic, onion, and celery. Throw in the flour and cook for a little while, until it looks like wet sand with chunks of onion in it. Um, yes.

Now start adding the milk, until it's thinned down to the consistency of heavy cream. You'll want to stir like crazy during this process. Technically you should heat the milk, but I like to live on the wild side. Now bring it to a simmer and it should thicken up a bit. You can add a little more milk if it gets too thick. Salt and Pepper. Now add your saffron and don't freak out about the cost. I buy mine in tiny boxes from Indian groceries and it is rarely more than a couple of dollars for an amount that lasts years. Truly.

Now chunk up your fish and throw it in, along with the veg. Let it simmer, stirring frequently until the fish is falling apart. Take it off the heat.

About now, your spuds will be tender. Drain them, then mash with lots of butter, salt and pepper. Add some milk for a good consistency and then dollop all over the top of the pie. Use a fork to spread it out and give it some good texture. Put it in the oven and let it do it's thing for as long as you can wait. Ideally, mine would have been golden brown on top, but the kids were clamouring for food and I didn't have the patience. But it was still goooooood.

After I took the pic I snipped some parsley over the top and it looked purty. Yep.

Curried Fish Soup

Apologies for the late post today.

The other night I made a curried fish soup that went down a treat with my wild darling kids.

Here's how I did it:

• an onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed or chopped
• cumin
• garam masala
• black mustard seeds
• tumeric
• chilli flakes
• chicken stock
• coconut milk or cream
• 2 fillets of white fish
• 2 potatoes
• veg - whatever you have on hand

 start by sauteeing your onion and garlic until softened. Add a good teaspoon of all the spices (I added less chilli for the kiddoes) and fry until fragrant. Cube the potato and put that in then add enough stock to just cover the potatoes. Simmer until they are tender and add your veg (I used sugar snaps which only take a minute or so). If, like me you're using a fast cooking veg (if you use carrots or similar, add with teh potato), add your fish (chunked up) and coconut milk at this point. If there's not enough liquid, top it up with more stock. Simmer gently until the fish is flaking, then adjust the seasoning and eat!

Baked Salmon with Green Spinach Sauce

I know a lot of people are really scared of cooking fish, but it's so easy and great, especially for a crowd (or if you want leftovers). Apologies also for the dreadful pic, but you're probably used to that with my posts.

So here's how you do it. Go and buy a whole fillet of salmon. Feel along the middle of the fillet for any pin bones and yank them out with your fingernails, pliers, or tweezers. Preheat your oven to 350 Farenheit. Drizzle a bit of olive oil in a pyrex baking dish or paint a cedar salmon board with oil. Place your fillet on top, tucking the skinny end under so that the thickness is approximately even the whole way along the fish. Salt and Pepper the top and bung it in the oven. 

It's hard to give a cooking time as it will vary greatly according to the size of your fish. If it's a sizeable one, start checking at around 20 mins. When it's cooked, the flesh will flake easily with a fork like this:

 

While it's cooking, get on with your spinach sauce, aka Green Gunge.

Take a whole bag of baby spinach (or 2/3 of a bag of adult spinach) and put it in a food processor along with 2 T flour, 2 T butter, 2 cloves of garlic, a slice of onion and a cup of milk. Whizz it up until it's smooth, then put it in a pan. Heat slowly, and once it's near simmer, make sure you stir constantly. It will thicken up. If it gets too thick too fast, add a little more milk. Here's how it will look - 

You can use this basic creamed spinach as a sauce, dip, side dish or baby food. My kids love it. I decided to serve it as a sauce on this particular day and it was great.

If you think the broccoli in my first pic looks a bit funny, it is. It's roasted. Yes, roasted. Stay tuned for Thursday's post on roasting weird veggies!