Posh Fish and Chips

So it's that time of year again - Masterchef time! Is it just me or does it seem to be showing a lot more than last year? Not that I'm complaining... Around this time of year I get it into my head that I need to make my dishes look arty and cook fondant potatoes and make foams from everything. Alongside my healthy diet, I decided to "masterchef-ify" classic fish and chips.

Posh Fish and Chips

Serves 2

Ingredients

2 fillets of Plaice

400g potatoes

A handful of frozen peas

A Squeeze of Lemon Juice

1 clove of Roasted Garlic

1 tsp Tarragon
1tsp Fresh Rosemary, finely chopped
20g butter
Salt and Pepper to taste

Method

Fish
Start by creating a foil package for your plaice fillets. Then carefully lay the fillets down and cover with lemon juice, tarragon, salt and pepper. Seal the parcel.
Place in a preheated oven at 200C for 25 minutes.

Potatoes
Cut your potatoes into chunks and place into cold, salted water.
Bring to the boil and simmer until the potatoes are soft.
Drain the potatoes and return to the saucepan.
Add 20g butter, rosemary and salt/pepper to taste.
Mash the potatoes rustically so they are not smooth but more "crushed".

Pea Puree
Heat the peas in a pan of boiling water for 5 minutes until tender.
Place in a food processor with a squeeze of lemon juice, your roasted garlic, salt and pepper.
Puree the ingredients while the peas are still hot.

South Indian Tilapia Curry

The idea of curry generally summons up thoughts of heavy, rich dishes full of strong spices and melt in the mouth meat accompanied by a Singha beer and a naan. Recently I've been trying to shift a few pounds and failing miserably by myself. The problem with loving food is that I have very little self control when someone puts something tasty in front of me. So I decided to join Weight Watchers. Greg from Masterchef did it. It's fine. So far I'm a week in and have lost two pounds (yay!) and have been working my way through their recipe catalogue. My favourite so far is their recipe for South Indian Curry - healthy and delicious. 

South Indian Tilapia Curry

To serve 2

Ingredients

2 fillets of Tilapia Fish

1/2 Medium Onion

1 Garlic Clove

1 tsp grated Ginger Root

1 tsp Ground Coriander

1 tsp Hot Curry Powder

100ml Coconut Milk

200ml Chicken Stock

200g Diced Potatoes

75g Green Beans

1/2 Red Pepper

20ml Fresh Lime Juice

Freshly Ground Black Pepper - to taste

Method

Heat some oil in a large pan and slowly cook the onion until translucent.

Add the garlic, ginger, chilli and spices. Toast for 30 seconds - be careful not to burn them!

Stir in the coconut milk, add the stock and bring to the boil.

Add the potatoes, reduce the heat and simmer until the potatoes are just cooked (about 10 minutes).

Add the green beans and red pepper and cook for 3-4 minutes. 

Add the fish and cook for a further 3 minutes until just cooked through. 

Season with lime juice and black pepper and serve with a lime wedge, rice or bread.

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Migraines, Fish and Parmigiana

Naughty me, been too long since I last posted. So as a treat, here is a video of how to gut a fish, starring the beautiful (subject to opinion) ME! It's also sound-tracked to Hot Kiss by Juliette and the licks which is highly inappropriate as a soundtrack for a disgusting fish gutting.

Enjoy!

So over the last few weeks, when I haven't been busy, a few delicious things have been cooked. One particularly lazy Saturday where I literally had NOTHING else to do, I decided to do a bit of rib experimentation after acquiring two big, tasty racks of beef ribs at Borough Market. As it was a Saturday, you can see that there are no vegetables on my plate... but that's fine, because it was TREAT DAY.

These ribs were, however, a labour of love as they took seven hours to cook. Seven.
You cover them in american mustard and a lot of spices, cook for several hours and then add the most delicious marinade over the top of the crust that has developed. It is mainly sugar.... but it tasted fantastic.
The outcome was some extremely good ribs. The only downside I would say is that after seven hours you would assume the meat would be so tender it just fell off the bone... it was actually a bit tough. We tried another ribs recipe later on in the week... and it was horrific.

Tonight (another treat day!), we cooked Pork Parmigiana. (Tesco didn't have any veal).This was basically pork escalopes in herby breadcrumbs, cooked in a tomato, anchovy and chilli sauce and then gratin-ed with mozzerella over the top. A bit too rich for me, and I think the sauce would have been better as a marinara without the anchovies.

Here are two new products I've tried recently. 

AMAZING. I am addicted. Dried mango is the best thing since sliced bread... and as a bonus, they sell it in Pret!

Now this one was purchased merely because I have had a 3 day migraine and I didn't think chugging half a litre of cider would do it any good. This way I could trick my brain into thinking I was drinking it without the physical consequences. The best part about this is, I was ID'd. Someone please explain to me how that makes any logical sense. You may as well have ID'd me for orange squash. The drink itself seems that if you take away the alcohol, you are basically drinking pear drops. It is inanely sweet. Too sweet. And that's a lot coming from me, the queen of sweet tooth, the girl who ate so much sugar last week she got a sugar hangover. Maybe I'll put some gin in it to balance things out.

Also, I thought I'd give you a little insight into my shopping habits.

Firstly there's this. The BEST shop ever. Two types of cookies, Baileys, chocolate, molasses sugar, butter, double cream, whole milk, eggs and cornflower. This isn't a normality for me, I had just decided to make a chocolate cream pie to take my mind away from the London Riots. Keep calm and make pie.
Plus the Baileys was on offer in Tesco - £10 for a litre bottle. 

This was the parmigiana shop. Plus the non alcoholic ciders. And some Rubicon - something my boyfriend thinks he will buy shares in because he is so in love with it and thinks that it's a hidden treasure. 

Oh, and Migraine patches :)
My migraine is in no way an indication that I drink too much red wine. I'm pretty sure the wine helps fend off other potential migraines... this one just slipped through.