Miso Marinated Salmon Fillets with Vegetable Noodle Soup

Ultra quick dinner last week - flash marinated salmon fillets in miso, soy sauce and mirin. Grilled for about 5 minutes.

Served with a large bowl of vegetable noodles in miso soup, scattered with toasted black sesame seeds and coriander leaves.

A Half Cheat's Fish and Chips

So the tale of Miss Grumpy Pants continues ....

I've been eating more than what's good for me and had room for more. Plus dessert. Hopefully I'll be up and running soon. I have a yoga session today - with some luck I'll survive to tell the tale. Until then I leave you with a super large dinner that I made recently - my odd version of fish and chips.

I lightly dusted some sprats (bought right off the fishermen when I was down on the Kentish coast right after the new year) in equal parts plain and cornflour. Deep fried until lightly golden - 2-3 minutes. The "chips" were your run of the mill supermarket hash browns. I did make sure I bought the smallest bag possible, simply because there was no space in the freezer for any leftovers. *Tah dahhh ..... * Fish and chips :) Hope your weekend isn't as painful as my yoga session!

Summer Dinners

Tom Yum Mussels with Garlic and Chili Pasta

The mussels were a spur of the moment purchase from a Chinese supermarket one weekend. I cooked them up with a tom yum spice mix I had brought back with me from Malaysia and tinned tomatoes. Loads of herbs I also picked up from the Chinese supermarket went in - coriander, dill and mint. Served with pasta simply tossed in olive oil, garlic and chili.

Chedder Stuffed Burgers with Courgette Crisps

I stupidly didn't consider the size of my roll when I shaped out these patties. Amateurish mistake! I was so focus on getting the meat to encase the ball of cheese I forgot about everything else. The patties turned out pretty darn good though - oozy melting cheese. Yum. The meat was flavoured with a myriad of different things I found in my cupboard, which is possibly why none of my food ever tastes the same twice :) The courgette crisps were made by deep frying thin long strips of corgettes coated in cornflour.

Full English

Well, not really a full English since I decided against eggs and bread but I got the hash browns that I had been thinking about. I won't take any credit for this meal as Stuart knocked it up in about 10 minutes flat.

Bacon Fried Rice

I had some rice sitting in the fridge, a pack of bacon I couldn't find room for in the freezer and a whole load of bits and bobs lying around. So fried rice it was and bacon just goes so well with just about anything, doesn't it?

Sweetcorn Fritters with a Tomato and Cucumber Salad

Someone mentioned sweetcorn to me in passing one day and I just knew I had to have sweetcorn fritters for dinner that very evening. I mixed up a batch of batter of flour, corn flour and an egg, seasoned it and added some cayanne pepper. I then added as much sweetcorn as the batter could hold. On hindsight I should have defrosted the sweetcorn before I added it to the mixture to avoid the huge sweetcorn clump. Yes, I know it's summer with an abundance of sweetcorn but sometimes I just want a pain free evening that frozen food offers. Served with a simple salad of chopped tomatoes and cucumber topped with olive oil and chili pepper flakes.

Roast Teriyaki Chicken Legs

I marinated a batch of chicken legs in teriyaki sauce, honey, black pepper and spring onions overnight. All I had to do the next day was to shove it all into the oven and dinner was ready 40 minutes later. Served with steaming hot rice, of course.

Grilled Mackeral with Thai Inspired Salad

The mackeral fillets were quickly grilled (about 3 minutes each side) and served with what I like to call a Thai inspired salad (thinking along the lines of the Thai papaya salad, som tam). Long shreds of courgette, carrot, red onion, tomatoes and coriander tossed in a dressing of fish sauce, chili, lime juice, sugar and garlic.

Macaroni in a Fresh Tomato Sauce with Burger Patties

I love summer for it's abundance of fruit and veg and none makes me smile more than the tomato. My tomato love affair is intensely passionate and if I could, I would probably add tomato to all the dishes I cook. I bought a huge batch the other week and I'm desperate to eat them before they go bad. What better way than a fresh tomato sauce with olive oil, garlic and basil. I also added some spinach to my boiled macaroni and fried up some sun dried tomato burger patties (cut up into bite size chunks) to serve with it.

Fried Kway Teow (Thai Style)

My food is frequently Thai style but never truely Thai. I just like borrowing elements from Thai cuisine - I love the freshness, the herbs, the flavour. This is a lot like phad thai but minus quite a few of the essential ingredients like tamarind juice, crushed peanuts, lime juice, etc. I boiled up some flat rice noodles (which I love over and beyond any other kinds of noodles and know it as kway teow or hor fun), fried up some chinese leaf, thinly sliced tomato, spring onion, shredded chicken, prawns and egg. I added the softened noodles to the mixture before flavouring the dish with fish sauce, oyster sauce and my secret ingredient, ketchup. I guess I'm just a big kid who never outgrew her taste for ketchup with almost anything :) Some rough torn basil leaves went in just before the final toss of the noodles for extra flavour.

Aubin and Randall - Soho, London

Knowing my father's fondness for seafood platters, I mentally jotted down Aubin and Randall in Soho as a potential place to eat when he was next in town. The restaurant was always bustling on the numerous occasions I have passed by and the food didn't look too bad either. Reviews online showed the sort of middle of the road comments ... never quite a five but around the three. Good enough to risk a meal with my parents.

A no booking policy meant waiting for a table but with the nice weather and a chilled glass of wine supplied by the charming waiter, the time passed by fast enough. Once settled on our high stools in the teeny tiny restaurant, a little cramped but it's all part of the charm (though someone might want to tell the staff that the slightly overenthusiastic dance music was more than a little out of sync with the Parisian chic atmosphere that they were trying to recreate), we were supplied with bread, butter and olives (a surcharge of £1.50 is charged per person) for us to nibble on whilst waiting for our orders.

Finally the pièce de résistance arrived - the fruits de mer. Our waitress advised getting the minimum order for 2 people (priced at £29.50 per person) with the serving being rather large and getting a few sides to share or another main (or two) later if we were still hungry. And how right she was .... the serving was very generous - a selection of rock oysters, whole crab, giant prawns, Atlantic shrimp, diver picked scallops, whelks, cherry stone clams and green lip mussels. There was supposed to be langoustine on the platter as well but as they had run out for the day we had extra oysters. All the seafood was fresh and tasted good. My father was satisfied. So all was good.

I had started eyeing another table's order of roast chicken and frites when we were standing outside waiting for our table but with our large order of seafood to finish, I had to settle for a side order of fries (£2.65). Not the best fries I've ever had but it had to do for the day.

To jazz thing up a little further with a touch more fried food I also ordered the zucchini frites with basil mayonnaise (£4.95), which were yummy-delish! Juicy batons of courgette encased in light batter served with basil tainted mayonnaise. I absolutely adore mayo with fried food so was particularly delighted with this dish.

After much debate if we should get more food, we finally decided to "not overdo things" and get a main to share instead. The waitress recommended the pan fried king scallops with braised fennel and sauteed potato crisps (£16.85). The scallops were nicely cooked and despite being a fennel hater ... I found it rather yummy. Braised but still retaining a little crunch. The most interesting part of the dish was the sauce which took quite a few guesses to try to get right. Saffron, mango juice and star anise amongst other things ...... who would have thought ... it came out robust with an underlining fruitiness. Even then it was the waitress who came round to inquire if I had guessed the ingredients correctly. Apparently it is a common occurrence with customers who order this particular dish to conduct a taste test on the sauce.

Decent food and friendly service. Our waitress even gave us a little lesson on the French occupation of Algeria as she sorted out our bill. I think my father might suggest another visit when he is in town next.

Aubin and Randall
16 Brewer Street, Soho, London W1F 0SQ

The Woolpack - Bermondsey, London

The cold front has finally lifted and London is bathing in glorious sunshine. And what better way to welcome the warmth of summer than a cool icy pint of Sweden’s best perry and a plate of food in a beer garden.

The batter was crisp, the fish fresh and chips even crispier than the fish batter … just the way I like it.

A fully loaded burger - cheese, bacon and a smack of the Heinz ketchup bottle. Good stuff.


A thoroughly enjoyable afternoon with the day’s excitement provided by a celebrity sighting of Gok Wan and a power failure that affected the whole of Bermondsey Street.


The Woolpack
98 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3UB

It Ain't the Same Without a Bit of Fish and Chips

What is a trip to the seaside without a bit of fish and chips? After a few long hours lying on the beach, walking around the shops ... it really was time for a bit of food again. Getting grumpier by the minute by the endless choice, I finally agreed to a non-descript chippie by the main road overlooking the sea. Bad service and an oily laminated menu later, I got a plate of battered cod, chips and mushy peas plonked in front of me. To be honest the fish was fresh, the batter wonderfully light and the chips crisp ... well, they would have been if my mushy peas weren't dolloped right over them. Oh well ... I stole some of Stuart's un-mushy pea-d chips and I have grudgingly admit the food was good.

We passed this stall on the beach but were still full from breakfast and didn't get anything. Rollmops, anyone?

The burnt structure of West Pier - rather sad really

New Year in KL

It was New Year's eve by the time we got back to KL and even more food. However, instead of the finest wines, oysters and caviar to usher in the new year, a bunch of us opted for a feast of KFC's finest, munchies and "quiet" night in. It was also mini belated birthday celebration for Val, whose birthday was a day before - the baby of the group :)

Happy Birthday, Val!

It seems that we have resorted to a single candle on birthday cakes ever since we passed the 21 birthday mark.... all those years ago ;)

How better to kick start a brand new year with some good, solid Malaysian hawker food? Somewhere in the depths of SS17, lies a corner coffee shop known for it's chicken and char siew rice. Late as we were, we just about managed to bag one of their whole deep fried chickens (minus the batter) served with a heap of deep fried garlic and a plate of char siew. The chicken was nicely moist and the pork had a good combination of meat and fat. If I had to choose between the two dishes, it would have to be the char siew. Yes, I've had better but it's been so long since I had decent char siew and this really did it for me :) This was definitely no pink dyed bit of dry lean pork. It was lovely pork belly with it's layers of meat and fat roasted just so with a lovely caramelised exterior and moist, tender interior.

Dinner was with my father and it meant only one thing - LOTS and LOTS of food! He booked us a table at one of his current favourite restaurants, the VERY oddly named Extra Super Tanker in Damansara Kim (the area on the left opposite Taman Tun Dr Ismail if you're coming from town and going towards 1Utama - if that's any help - because I hadn't a clue myself! :) At the corner of a very quiet row of shops is the bustling restaurant. Such an odd place for such a restaurant - the area is a little dodgy at night, my sister's bag was snatched as she walked to her car a few months previously. My father had reserved us a private room, which was great against the general hustle and bustle of the place (though I privately think my father was still nursing a slightly sore head from his late New Year's eve night out ;)

As the food was all pre-ordered, we just sat back and enjoyed the dishes as they were brought in. First up a double boiled soup, which unfortunately none of us knew what exactly was in it. It had chicken, a few Chinese herbs and some odd looking .... what we thought was at that time, gourd. The soup was good, the gourd was very odd... alright, it was terrible. Cut into little blocks of about 3 inches wide and about half an inch thick, it consisted of layers of gelatinous matter and thin brittle bone. It was so bad I didn't even bother to take a photo and it wasn't until we had finished the soup that we managed to ask the waitress what on earth it was. Shark bone. Shark bone and chicken soup? Hmmm... interesting!

Seafood scrambled eggs served with lettuce. The egg mixture is piled onto the lettuce and eaten like a wrap. The eggs were nicely light with chunks of crab meat, beansprouts, pine nuts and topped with dry fried dried scallops.

Apparently there is a pork rib speciality on the menu but my father decided to try something a little different - baby back ribs stewed with Chinese herbs. Oh my god... I thought I had been transported back in time! It tasted exactly like the Beggar's Duck served at the Oversea Restaurant chain years ago at the height of the chain's popularity. It was great... the sauce was yummy and the meat was falling off the bone tender.

Another recommendation was a whole de-boned fish (the carcass made it to the table deep fried serving as a 'plate' for the meat) fried with wood ear fungus, ginger, garlic and spring onion. I still haven't managed to figure out what fish this was - it's texture was a little like plaice and it was a flat-ish fish. I guess my father wasn't a great help that day :) The waitress recommended dishes over the phone and he just said yes. The fish was good, a little too big for us though ... as for once my father found a little self control in ordering. There was perhaps, just about enough food ;)

The food here is really quite good - such bustle for a suburban restaurant at all times of the week really does say a lot about the how good it is. The prices are pretty reasonable but the price of the fish did take me a little by surprise. The waitress had recommended it as "reasonable" to my father ... sigh maybe the pound is so low that it makes the heart ache - £30 for just that one dish. Alright I may moan and groan but I'll probably be paying a whole lot more if I found the exact same dish here in London, but I very probably won't order it anyway ;) Ahh a good meal for a solid start to a new year!

Extra Super Tanker Restaurant
48 SS20/10, Damansara Kim, 47400 Petaling Jaya

Back Again

After a lovely break back in Malaysia, I'm finally back in London. Struck down with a cold bug whilst on transit in Dubai, I'm still feeling like a miserable little bunny but life has to go on - work to go back to, work to slack off from ;)

There is of course the matter of my blog, which has sadly not seen an ounce of my attention in the last few weeks. To be honest, I lost much of my enthusiasm for updating it after I found out that someone had stole my photos and blog entries. However, now that I've had a little time to think things over.... I've decided that I'm not going to let some petty thief take away my enjoyment of writing my blog or taking photos of food. Hey, it sure didn't stop me from stuffing myself all this time :)

Whilst I leisurely go through my photos from my holiday, I will leave you with something I ate before the Christmas holidays. A rather delicious hot smoked honey salmon mousse.

Quite excellent served on individual baby gem leaves. Not at all salty with just a hint of honey coming through. Finished with a slight squeeze of lemon juice over each leaf.

Grilled Crispy Skinned Teriyaki Salmon Belly

I'm freaking out! Stuart's mother is coming to lunch in less than 24 hours and I haven't a clue what to cook. This is her first proper visit up to the flat (let's not count the time she had to bring Stuart back from hospital after knee surgery, shall we?) and my first time cooking for her. Hmmmm should I cook to impress? Seafood? Or maybe stick to something Malaysian? Asian? Arghhh!!!

Anyway, whilst my brain is in overdrive thinking up recipes and wondering which corner of the flat I haven't touched in the last two years, I'll share something I made a few nights ago. Grilled teriyaki salmon. Ok... that doesn't sound particularly special but I got really excited when I found a mound of fatty salmon belly for only £3 from Japan Centre in Piccadilly. I had gone to pick up some cheap sushi for lunch and found the salmon from the sashimi counter at the front of the shop. Very likely all the meaty bits had gone into making the sushi, leaving them with the belly. I marinated the pieces of fish (all 8 pieces - the 5 smaller pieces shown in the photo) in Kikoman teriyaki marinade for about an hour and grilled them under a very hot pre-heated grill. The skin crisped up beautifully, helped by the thin layer of fat underneath it. As the skin crisped, the fat melted into the flesh ensuring wonderfully succulent pink meat. I also managed to cook it just right this time - cooked through and taken out of the grill just at the right time. Drizzled with it's own juices and served with boiled white rice.

Grilled Miso Salmon

A quick weekday supper dish of grilled salmon fillets with miso (fermented paste usually made with soy). I actually first thought of making this when I was trying to find a recipe for my home grown aubergines. Killing two birds with one stone, I split the miso mixture between the fish and aubergine. The aubergine was a little burnt hence only a photo of the fish but can be seen in bottom right corner :D

Putting it together:

• Make a mixture of miso (I used the stronger red miso - for depth of flavour), mirin (Japanese rice wine), rice wine vinegar, grated ginger and soy sauce. Mix into a thick-ish paste.
• Wash and cut the aubergine length ways. Rub all over with oil - as aubergines are like sponges, I usually just rub them with oil instead of putting the oil in the pan. Of course there are exceptions, like when I'm feeling really greedy and want yummy aubergine soaked in oil :) Put the aubergine into a hot pan and cook for a few minutes until slightly charred and soft. Turn over to cook the other side. At this point add some water to the pan (a 1/4 of a cupful should so) and cover the pan. The water should hiss and sizzle quite rapidly. Cook until the water has evaporated. Give the aubergine a little prod - if it's soft, it's cooked. If not add a little bit more water and put the lid back on.
• In the meantime, clean the fish and pat dry. When the aubergine is cooked through and soft, take it off the heat and lay the pieces of fish in the pan. Spread the miso mixture evenly over the fish and vegetables. Put the pan under a hot grill until the miso mixture is brown and bubbly.
• This was served with rice, a sprinkling of black sesame seeds and a salad. The salad consisted of steamed broccoli and sugar snap peas tossed in a dressing of rice wine vinegar, grated ginger and garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil and oil.
  

Verdict?
It was very yummy and pretty healthy ... I felt that I was being good after I ate it. It was all good oil anyway ;)

Grilled Cod with Noodles and Vegetables

This was a quick and easy dinner after another long and stressful day at work.

The fish was put under a very hot grill on an oiled oven tray (if not the skin tends to stick) for about 5 minutes. I usually steer clear from buying cod (considering how little there are left...I thought I'll do my bit for cod conservation :D), but I was in a rush and the choice was between salmon and cod. I like salmon but I was in a white fish mood, so cod it was.

I cut the courgettes and field mushrooms up quite thickly. Both were stir fried with garlic, soy sauce and finished off with some chicken broth. The noodles, which I had boiled in a separate pot, went in last - just to finish off.

Dish up the noodles and vegetables onto waiting plates. Place the fish over. I actually forgot to season the fish but it tasted fine.

A Dinner of Black Miso Cod .... emmm.....

Invited a month or two back to flat-sit for my dad who was off to Paris for the weekend, Stuart and I jumped at the chance. Mainly to get away from the mundaneness of weekends at home and it's always fun to have a night away... :) And when in the High Street Kensington area, I always find an excuse to poke my nose around Whole Foods. I never buy that much, I just love looking but this time I had the perfect excuse ... we needed dinner!

I wasn't much in the mood for banging pots and pans around the kitchen, so I stocked up on big chunks of ready marinated black miso cod and ready cooked vegetables from the salad bar. I LOVE black miso cod but it's so disgustingly expensive! I had puzzled for years why cod sold in Malaysia tasted nothing like the cod in the UK until I finally discovered that black cod (sold in Malaysia as plain old "cod-fish") was in fact no relation of the "normal" cod .... ooooo!

The fish came in overly thick, generous portions, which I put under the grill for about 6-7 minutes a side (they were really thick). They were deliciously moist and separated in thick flakes. I got some roasted tomatoes, chunks of aubergine, mushrooms and new potatoes that I heated up in the oven with the fish. To fill up the plate even more, I also bought a salad of blanched asparagus and green beans tossed with shallots, peas, carrots and fresh soy beans. The greens were nice and crunchy but was slightly over-seasoned with thyme. The meal was very enjoyable but we were bursting by the end of it - all fished and veg-ed out :D

Seafood Spaghetti

With another 2 basa fillets sitting in the fridge waiting to be cooked, I decided to pair them up with other bits and bobs that I needed to use up - some prawns (another buy one, get one free offer from Sainsbury's Taste the Difference range... ha I'm a shameless bargain hunter) and some tinned razor clams that a colleague very sweetly brought back for me from Spain - to make a quick weekday dinner of seafood pasta.

Seafood Spaghetti
Your choice of seafood - I used white fish fillets cut into chunks, peeled prawns and tinned razor clams
Fresh tomatoes - de-seeded and cut into small chunks
Olive oil
Garlic
Small knob of tomato paste
White wine
Fish stock - perhaps a bit of an extravagance if you don't have a large pot of fish bones simmering on the stove but I picked up a packet of this stuff ages ago (yes, another bargain find) and it really does make a difference to the overall dish.
Basil - I used Thai sweet basil as I had it in the fridge but the normal stuff is great too

• Boil the spaghetti according to the instructions on the packet
• In a large pan, heat up some olive oil on a medium heat. Add the garlic and let it sweat for a few seconds but careful it does not to let it colour.
• Add the tomatoes into the pan and cook them until they are almost broken down. Add the tomato paste and cook for a few seconds.
• Pour in the wine and let the alcohol cook off. Pour in the fish stock and bring to a simmer. Put the fish gently gently into the pan and make sure they are evenly scattered throughout. Let them cook for a few minutes.
  
• As the fish is about done, add the prawns, which only need warming through, and the razor clams. I added the liquid from the tinned clams as well. They contain all the yummy saltiness of the clams.
• Bring the pan to a simmer and ensure that everything in the pan is properly heated through. Season.
  
• Serve with the spaghetti and a sprinkling of torn basil leaves.

Verdict?
The basa fillets are definitely more suited for steaming with ginger and soy sauce or perhaps with lemongrass, lime juice and chili or even pan fried with a dash of soy sauce. The 'freshwater taste' came through quite strongly in this dish and was a little out of place. Otherwise the dish was very tasty and perhaps a tad extravagant for a midweek dinner but it's easy to put together if you have a few bits and bobs lying around, like I did. But maybe the addition of some chili would liven things up a little?

Steamed Fish with Ginger and Soy Sauce

For a really nice piece of fresh fish, there's really no other way to treat it other than to steam it. Flavoured with ginger, maybe a tad bit of garlic, a splash of shaoshing rice wine, soy sauce and a dribble of flavourless oil. Served with lots of steamed white rice... ahhh heaven!

Sainsbury's was doing a special on basa fillets - buy one, get one free. Imagine my excitement :) As freshwater fish, my basa fillets performed rather well with the ginger and soy sauce. It complemented (hid? haha) the slightly muddy taste that freshwater fish tend to have.

Steamed Fish
fish of your choice - a whole fish or fillets
minced young or old ginger - preferably steamed before hand to mellow it slightly
soy sauce
shaoshing rice wine
oil
coriander
spring onion - cut on a slant

• Clean your fish - you don't want nasty little bits of guts or scales to ruin the purity of the finished dish. If your fish has the skin on, make sure the scales are removed.
• Place your fish on a plate that will sit nicely in your cooking pot. I have a metal stand that sits very nicely in my wok. And I have found that my "pasta plate" from M&S (a wide shallow bowl/plate) works well for this dish. If you have a bamboo steamer, use that instead, though I'm not personally keen on that myself - the smell of fish lingers on the steamer for ages! But if you are using a bamboo steamer, steam the fish in that and make the sauce separately in a sauce pan and pour it over the fish afterwards. No steamer? Not a problem. Just wrap your fish, ginger and the sauce in a double layer of foil and bung the packet in a hot oven. Sprinkle the spring onion and coriander on after the fish comes out of the oven.
• Spoon a liberal amount of minced ginger - I used the same mixture I had made for my Hainanese chicken rice - over the fish. In a bowl, mix the soy sauce, shaoshing rice wine, oil and a splash of water together. Pour over the fish.
• Steam the fish -cooking time varies depending on the fish used. I steamed mine for about 6-7 minutes. It'll take about 15-20 minutes in the oven.
  
• Lift your fish out carefully. Sprinkle with spring onion and coriander. Serve with steamed white rice.
  

Leftover Coriander and Parsley (Green) Sauce

Ahhh the versatility of the green sauce! I have found a batch goes a long way... or just whip up another, it only takes up all of 10 minutes (yes, I'm that keen on it:) But this also a chance for me to try out another gadget I found in Vietnam. A peeler cum knife called dao bao, which I used to cut long slices of courgettes. I did try it with some carrots but it seemed a little more dangerous... too hard you see. I had lots of fun experimenting with my new toys.


Stir fry some pieces of chicken, add some assorted vegetables - this is where my sliced courgettes and carrots went in, and in with the green sauce. I liked the texture of the vegetables - both carrots and courgettes had a nice bite to them without being too crunchy.


Still hankering after the green sauce, I made another batch and this time paired it with some salmon. I cut up some salmon into large-ish cubes and fried it up with some more of those long sliced courgettes and some spinach leaves. Just as delicious. All that fish sauce and lime juices really makes my tummy growl for more!

Spaghetti with Smoked Haddock and Prawns

A quick weekday dinner of pasta with smoked haddock, which I got discounted at Waitrose (yay!) and prawns, which I also got discounted - this time from Sainsbury's (double yay!). Yes, I'm quite the queen of a good bargain.

Smoked haddock - the dyed variety, unfortunately. It was discounted, so can't complain and it was very good. Can't fault Waitrose :)


Some shredded courgette - me experimenting with my new toy, a that I brought back from Vietnam. Originally intended for shredding green papayas for green papaya salad, I used it on some courgettes as they are roughly about the same .. 'hardness'. It works quite well, except of course courgettes have a higher percentage of water. I know texture and taste wise both the courgette and papaya are quite different, but shredded courgettes make a nice substitute in Thai inspired salad, with tomatoes, cucumber, lots of herbs - coriander, sweet basil, some lettuce, some avocado. Like I said - "Thai inspired" ;)


Out comes the pan and in goes some oil, lots of garlic, some diced de-seeded fresh tomatoes, the hearts of the courgettes that were too floppy to shred (the middle bit where the seeds are) and a handful of sliced button mushrooms. A splash of white wine and the smoked haddock in and once the fish is nearly done, in goes the prawns for a minute or two to heat through. Season and its done.

The result - a nice smoky-ness from the fish, a good punch from the garlic, nice crunch from the prawns, slight tart-sweetness from the tomatoes and an interesting contrast between the long shreds of courgettes and the spaghetti. The more traditional of you would shake your heads at the sprinkling of Parmesan over the top but what the heck, the smoked fish provided a good platform for a little of that hard salty cheese. All in all, thumbs up :)

Tuna Salad

Still feeling slightly guilty over my burger binge (and totally lazy to cook) the next day, I raided the fridge and found ingredients for a simple tuna salad. Tomato, avocado, leftover salad leaves and some green olives stuffed with red peppers. Rather yummy I must say (totally blowing my own trumpet here! lol). The dressing was made with the oil from the tinned tuna (I cannot abide tuna in brine...all that salt water makes the tuna taste fishier than it should), soy sauce, Japanese rice vinegar and black pepper.


The sun was out and the salad just looked so pretty :)