Recent Recipes
BBQ Snapper with Caper Salsa
Comments (0) | Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Tried this recipe tonight and it was really yum. Initially when I made the salsa and tried it, it didn't really have the flavour I was hoping for - it was almost a bit bitter and the orange seemed to overwhelm the other ingredients... but then I figured it wasn't meant to be eaten on its own so waited to pass judgement until it was with the fish.
It was great! I don't know if I would make it again - although it was pretty good. I was hoping that it might be something you could serve when people came for dinner but I am not convinced! Maybe I need to try it again. Anyway, I ended up with a mountain of left over salsa so will be delivering it to my sister for her to try with her fish tomorrow night and will see what she thinks.
We had the fish with baby new potatoes, corn on the cob and a salad of beetroot leaves, spring onions and tomato - YUM.
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Snapper recipes
Comments (0) | Tuesday, January 18, 2011
We've got a stack of fish in our freezer to get through and my challenge is to cook it so it never tastes the same (and in theory we don't get sick of it!)
Just found 3 recipes I want to try :)
Two recipes are for plain pan fried snapper with a salsa.
This one looks good - a mild mango salsa and there is also a recipe for a macadamia crust for the fish - Red Snapper Mango Salsa
I would think this one would be more of a salty salsa - Fresh Snapper Caper Salsa
This looks like a yum meal idea with a couple of sides including a potato salad with leaks and beans. Grilled Snapper with One-Pot-Hot-Pot Salad
One last one - this looks like a really zesty side to add to pan fried or BBQ fish from Cuisine Magazine - BBQ Snapper with Tomato Salad
One last one - this looks like a really zesty side to add to pan fried or BBQ fish from Cuisine Magazine - BBQ Snapper with Tomato Salad
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Fresh Rolls
Comments (1) | Monday, January 17, 2011
We were big on making these last year! They keep well for a picnic packed in a large plastic container with a damp tea-towel between each layer.
Dip in soy sauce - NOM!
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BBQ Snapper
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This is also a recipe from last summer which I haven't tried again this year - Darren doesn't like the whole fish thing - likes the flavour - I just don't think he is big on the eye looking at you - even though I discretely cover it with the tinfoil! or the whole worrying about the bones thing... Anyway - my post from last year...
There is nothing quite like fresh fish. In fact I am a bit of a self-confessed ‘fish snob’ along with most of my family! I don’t know any of us who would ever buy fish because if it isn’t freshly caught then we aren’t interested! This summer we have had the most fabulous weather. Between Christmas and New Year we were lucky enough to get out on the boat and get plenty of fish and a good haul of scallops.
Usually we have our fish filleted for us (thanks Dad) and we pan fry it in just a bit of butter – can’t beat it! But this year, we came about an awesome fishing spot in the Bay of Islands and one day managed to pull in 54 Snapper in about 4 hours – which was plenty of fun! We had so much fish I decided to try a few different things with it. So I asked Dad to just gut and remove the gills from 3 of the better sized ones and scrape the scales off and I have been experimenting with different ways of cooking this.
I bought this great BBQ Cook Book for Darren for Christmas one year and we have cooked and cooked from it. I found this BBQ Whole Snapper Recipe and thought I would give it a whirl. It claimed to be very simple – which it was – but it was something pretty different for us. We have tried it twice. The first time we used it as an entree for a New Year’s Eve dinner party and then more recently we cooked one for ourselves for our own dinner.
The recipe calls for Chinese Rice Wine which I didn’t have and couldn’t find at our local Countdown supermarket – so I Googled it! Apparently this CAN NOT be replaced by Rice Wine Vinegar and the closest match was Gin so I tried this and it worked fine. The second time I cooked this I had been to the Asian Supermarket in town and had picked up a bottle of the real deal stuff for about $3 a bottle – it smelled very similar to Gin and we couldn’t tell any difference in the finished dish.
The second time we cooked this, we ended up cooking it for nearly an hour as the fish hadn’t long been out of the freezer and we think we might have needed to crank the BBQ up a bit higher also – we had it about 150 degrees C.
I served the fish with Jasmine Rice and blanched SnowPeas from my garden. YUM. The only thing I wish I had done is to save a little extra of the source I poured on the fish to pour over the rice – we tried to soak up the juices from the foil and paper the fish cooked in but it was a bit messy.
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Scallops on the BBQ
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This is actually from last summer - but didn't want to lose it!We dropped the dredge over the side of the boat on the way to our fishing spot one evening and ended up getting 50 Scallops – and no fish! Never before have we eaten Scallops until we couldn’t eat any more – usually they are such a delicacy that you just have enough for a taste so I was surprised how rich they were and was full after about 6 anyway.
Because we had so many, we were able to experiment a little bit with the way we cooked them! The first night we tried just a couple in wine in their shells on the BBQ – they took a long time to cook and went a bit chewy. Also, the wine we used was a fairly typical Kiwi Sav Blanc – FAR too fruity. So, we just fried up the rest in a pan of hot butter. Perfect!
The next night we tried the BBQ again. We put about 3 Scallops in each shell and added a bit of butter and chopped bacon to each. Delicious! Although they still did seem to take a long time to cook. I have since come across a recipe that suggests using garlic and butter, but you heat both of these in a pan before pouring them onto the Scallops in their shells. This would mean that the Scallops would cook much more quickly and probably retain much more of their moisture.
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Snapper
Comments (0) | Thursday, January 13, 2011
First thing we experimented with - cooking the fish on baking paper with a bit of olive oil on top of the BBQ hotplate - result = spectacular!!! What an awesome way to cook fish - the flavour is amazing.
We tried the following two recipes both cooked on the BBQ.
The first recipe is a paste of coriander, chili and other herbs all mashed up and then rubbed all over the fish - you can let it sit for up to 3 hours - I only let this sit for about 30 mins. It was delicious! We caught a couple of massive Snapper and I used this recipe for a single thick fillet that fed us both. It seemed to bring out a much more 'fishy' smell and taste - but not unpleasant - just more so than what you get if you just fry in flour and butter in the pan.
The risoni is one of my favourite recipes from the Marie Claire, Fresh recipe book. Just a really simple dish - roast sliced red peppers, thinly sliced red onion, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar. Stir through the cooked risoni with spring onions, tomatoes, fresh basil leaves and rocket - YUM!
The second recipe is one from Jamie Oliver's Italy cookbook. It is a citrus zest salt that you rub over the fish. I found this very very salty and only used about a tenth of the amount of salt that Jaimie Oliver says. Maybe I used too much on each piece of fish? I would definitely make this again though - Darren loved it - I would just go easier on the salt. All it was was two stems of rosemary leaves smashed up to a paste, the zest of a lemon and and orange and (100gm!!!) finely ground flakey sea salt. I just spread it out on a plate and dragged the fillets through it and then patted all over with olive oil.
The risoni recipe I found online here at Free Recipes - Risoni Pasta Salad. I left out the bacon as I don't eat piggy wiggies unless they are 100% free range - which means ... I don't eat piggies much. Roughly the recipe was 60ml olive oil, 30ml red wine vinegar and 2 tablespoons of dijon mustard stirred through. Added spring onions, chopped apricots and toasted pine nuts - absolutely delicious.
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New Blog
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So, I've tried this before - the whole blogging about what I'm cooking thing and failed miserably (ie. lost interest) but come this summer I miss not being able to look up the recipes I was using this time last year and reminding myself of all the great food we were eating! Also, I have just found myself a new supplier of gourmet and organic vegetables which I am MOST looking forward to experimenting with!!! So here goes, I will try and import my old blog also as there are a few posts there that are worthwhile from last year.
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