Fish & Chips

I rarely cook fish at home.  I love to order it in restaurants, but I never feel I can do it justice at home.  And I almost never deep fry at home.  I don't like the mess and smell and danger, so I avoid it for the most part. 

So what am I doing deep frying fish in my kitchen?

I can tell you it was worth it!  

We had some wonderful beer-battered cod at Milos' Craft Beer Emporium this week that made me remember how much I love fresh fish when it's done well.  Then I saw some lovely haddock on sale at my local market so I decided to give it a try.

Frying both the fish and the chips was a little too ambitious for me.  The fish and fries cook at different temperatures, so I'd need two pots of oil. Instead, I used this smitten kitchen recipe for oven fries.  

Cinco de Mayo Mexican Food Roundup

We just got back from our first trip to Mexico! We had a relaxing beach vacation with some fun activities and amazing food and I'll tell you all about it soon. 

I was looking through my archives and I think Mexican food is the kind of food I cook the most. Matt loves it and so do I, so I have a lot of Mexican and Mexican-inspired recipes on this blog, and I thought I'd do a round-up for Cinco de Mayo this week.  

Salsa Verde

First a fantastic salsa verde that's great with chips but even better as a sauce or condiment with grilled or braised meats. We made our own from tomatillos in our garden, which grow amazingly well in our climate, but you can easily buy tomatillos in the summer, or even buy pre-made salsa verde for a tangy change from red salsa. 

Home Made Corn Tortillas

These tortillas are so easy to make, and masa is widely available now. It really makes sense to make your own tortillas if you like them as fresh as possible.

Fish Tacos

We have sought out fish tacos wherever we can get them on our travels.  They're a favourite of ours, so we decided to try them at home.  These are so easy and versatile,  You can use any kind of fish and an assortment of toppings.  

For our first try, we used tilapia.  It's a very mild fish that works well on the grill.  We sprinkled the fish with taco seasoning (cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, cayenne and salt), and grilled it for about 3-4 minutes per side until firm and opaque.

Seared Tuna with Avocado, Soy, Ginger and Lime

Matt has been on a seared tuna kick recently and he orders it whenever we see it on a menu.  I happened to see some nice tuna at the seafood counter this week so I picked some up for him.  It is unbelievably expensive, but I got a small, 1/4 pound piece which made a nice appetizer for us.  Matt found the recipe and cooked the dish.  Great work!  It was delicious!

Here's what you need:

Roasted Halibut

You should be seeing some healthier food around here for the next little while. Healthy eating went a bit off the rails over the holidays but we're back on course!

I want to eat fish more often but there are a lot of obstacles to that goal.  I'm picky about the kind of fish I like. My favourite is halibut but it costs the earth! Two small portions of halibut cost more than I've ever paid for steak. But as a special treat, it's worth it.  

Grilled Halibut Chimichurri

When it comes to fish, halibut is my favourite. I love the mild taste and meaty texture. It works great on the grill because it doesn't fall apart easily. Served with a delicious chimichurri sauce, this meal was a big hit.

Chimichurri is an Argentinian sauce often used on beef. It consists of parsley, chili peppers, garlic, shallots, lemon juice and oil blended together.  I used this recipe from Epicurious.

  
Add all the ingredients except the oil to a blender or food processor and blend while drizzling in the oil until smooth.

For the fish, season simply with oil, salt and pepper.

Grill until just cooked through, a few minutes per side.

Serve the sauce over the fish with extra sauce on the side.

Delicious, fresh tasting and very healthy.  Served with roasted potatoes and salad. 

Miso Glazed Cod

I am not a big fan of fish. I love deep fried fish and chips, and I love to eat halibut in restaurants, but I am just a little wary of the fish we get around here, in the centre of the country, and I don't always love the texture and flavour of frozen fish. 


But it is so healthy, I try to work it into our diet as regularly as possible. Now that I've tried it with a miso glaze, I think we'll have it more often. A delicious, easy preparation with very flavourful results.  

Miso paste is made from fermented soybeans. It gives a rich, earthy, umami flavour to this dish.

One of my biggest challenges in cooking is to always be conscious of the balance in a dish. Often I'll taste something I've made and know something's missing but I just can't put my finger on it. This dish is a perfect example of balanced ingredients. The miso adds that earthy, rich umami flavour as does soy sauce, sugar adds sweetness and rice vinegar ads acid.  Plus a dash of cayenne pepper for spice.  

Combine all the marinade ingredients, plus oil in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth.

Place the fish on foil because the sugar in the marinade will get toasty and a little burnt to be honest.

Brush the marinade onto the fish and place in a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes, then broil just until the top begins to brown.

I served this with a basmati and wild rice mixture and squash with kale. 

Lentil Beet Salad

There are lots of healthy foods that I love. Broccoli, oatmeal, fruit, spinach... but there are a few very healthy things I just don't like so I try to sneak them into my diet with snazzy recipes now and then.  


This one is from Clean Eating magazine which doesn't seem to have the recipe online.  It includes beets, which I love, and lentils which I barely tolerate. I decided to serve it with fish for a real challenge, although not the salmon mentioned in the recipe - I can bear to eat some preparations of white fish but I can't stand salmon. So I pan seared some cod fillets which were not bad. 

For the salad you need only a few ingredients: field greens, beets and lentils. For the dressing, raspberries, mustard, olive oil, red wine vinegar and salt & pepper.

I roasted some beets the other day and saved some for this salad, cutting over an hour from the prep for this recipe - as you can see from this non-terrific photo:

This is actually a huge bag of bean and lentil mix I got at Costco that is not bad at all.

While the lentils cooked, I combined the dressing ingredients in the blender and then strained the raspberry seeds to make this hot pink concoction.  

Field greens on the plate, topped with the cooked lentils and chopped beets, then drizzled with pink raspberry dressing.

This turned out delicious. I was worried about it being too tart or sour with all that vinegar and raspberries and no sugar, but it was just lovely. And very healthy!




Food lessons learned:

• While peeling beets, don't let one slip out of your hands and skid across the counter unless you really like to clean
• Lentils are delicious with raspberry vinaigrette.  Who knew?

Photography lessons learned:

• I don't know if anyone can make cooked beets in foil look good on camera, but now we all know I can't
• I'm having trouble with timing. I generally do things a la minute when cooking, but when I have to take pictures too I need to be more prepared ahead of time. Tonight the fish almost burned so I need to be more careful