Cookbook Challenge: Week 33, Seafood

Recipe: Sardine Tagra
From: Rick Stein's Mediterranean Escapes

Occasionally I've made things for this blog that seemed like a good idea at the time. And then afterwards, I've thought, "What on EARTH was I thinking??" See recent examples: hand pulled noodles, xiao long bao, ladybird cupcakes, to name just a few. I suspect this recipe will join those entries. Why? Well, tell me - have you ever butterflied sardines before?

The theme for this week's Cookbook Challenge is seafood, and I knew that I wanted to make a recipe from Rick Stein's Mediterranean Escapes. I selected a recipe for sardine tagra and purchased the necessary twenty fresh sardines for it. When I started the recipe this morning, I reread the instructions and realised that I needed to clean, gut and butterfly the sardines. Doesn't sound that hard, right? How long could it take to do twenty sardines? The answer to that question is - at least one and a half hours! Oh. My. God. After which I still had to put the rest of the dish together.



I must admit that initially I didn't butterfly the sardines - massacre would be a better description. But the more I did, the easier it got, and it did get faster towards the end. Even so, it's moments like these that makes me realise - I need a kitchen slave. I can't even tell you why it took me so long. Perhaps it was the part where I had to remove the bones with tweezers. Sardines have a lot of little bones! I was probably being too much of a perfectionist in trying to remove as many as possible.

The name of the dish (tagra) takes its name from the terracotta baking dish that it is normally cooked in. There is a bottom layer of tomatoes and onion, a layer of potatoes, a layer of sardines sandwiched with charmoula, and then a final layer of overlapping tomato, lemon and green pepper slices.



I was rather apprehensive when it was time to eat as I was concerned that it would be horrible. I can't tell you how relieved I was when the Boys pronounced it delicious. Hoorah! All that effort wasn't for nought! The dish needed a rich fish like a sardine because of all the strong flavours in it - garlic, coriander, cumin, paprika, chilli, onions, and lemon. It was a bit spicy, a bit sour, a bit fishy, and overall very tasty.

I would make it again - but only after I've forgotten the pain of preparing the sardines. Or after I get myself that kitchen slave!

See previous Cookbook Challenge posts here



Sardine Tagra

From: Rick Stein's Mediterranean Escapes

Serves 4

20 small sardines, butterflied (see below)
450g skinned, seeded and chopped tomatoes (I used two 400g cans of whole tomatoes and roughly chopped them)
1 large onion, very finely chopped
450g medium sized waxy potatoes
1 beef tomato, sliced
1 small lemon, thinly sliced
1 small green pepper, sliced (I left it out)
6 small dried red chillies
2 tablespoons olive oil
Juice 1/2 lemon
A pinch dried oregano
Salt

For the charmoula
4 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander
2 tablespoons crushed garlic
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 & 1/2 tablespoons paprika
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
2 large pinches dried oregano
3 tablespoons olive oil

To prepare the sardines, rub off the scales and rinse under cold water. Cut the head off each fish and discard. Then slit them open along the belly down to the tail. Pull out the guts and wash the cavities clean. Open up each fish and place them belly side down on a chopping board. Press down firmly on the backbone until the fish lies completely fiat. Turn it over and pull away the backbone, snipping it off with the tail. Pull out any bones left behind with fish tweezers.

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Make the charmoula by putting all the ingredients into a mortar and pestle and pounding to a paste. Take the butterflied sardines and sandwich them together in pairs, with some of the charmoula in the middle. Set aside.

Tip the chopped tomatoes into a 26cm tagra or shallow baking dish and add the onion and any remaining charmoula. Mix together well. Cover with overlapping slices of potato and press them down well. Season with salt.

Arrange the sardine sandwiches on top of the potato, arranging them around the dish like the spokes of a wheel. Overlap the tomato and lemon slices on top of the sardines, and then follow with the slices of green pepper.

Place a dried red chilli in the centre of each pepper slice, and drizzle over the olive oil and lemon juice. Sprinkle with the dried oregano and more salt.

Bake the tagra for 1-1&1/2 hours or until the potato is tender. If it browns too much, cover with a sheet of foil. Serve straight away with fresh bread.

Roasted snapper

It's interesting what people search for to arrive at my blog. Mostly, people seem to be looking for Jamie Oliver recipes. Well, when I cooked this snapper, I took a bit of a Jamie approach. A bit of this, a bit of that, throw it all together – lovely (jubbly)!

For this meal I just used what I had at hand. I had bought a snapper, obviously, but didn't have any idea of what I was going to do with it until I got home. Unusually, I had no lemons in the house, and couldn't be bothered going to get some. So I pulled some herbs from the garden, sliced up some onions, stuffed them into the fish and bingo! Dinner!

The end result was superb – the flesh was sweet, moist and delicately flavoured with the onions and herbs. In all honesty though, it was such a lovely piece of fish that I could've just sprinkled some salt on it, and it still would've been great. I had asked the fishmonger for a fish that would feed three people, and he sold me one that was almost 2 kilos (!) so there were leftovers that I took to lunch the next day. Normally I find that left over fish isn't terribly great but this was an exception. I was happy that it stretched to another meal so I could prolong the enjoyment!



Roasted snapper

One whole snapper
Handful of thyme sprigs
Handful of oregano
2 medium onions, peeled and sliced
Salt
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 220 degree C

Clean the snapper, and give it a rinse. Take a bit of salt and rub it inside the cavity. Crush the herbs in your hands, and then stuff into the cavity with half of the onions. Place the rest of the onions on to a baking tray and lie the fish on top. Give it a drizzle with the oil.

Place into the oven and bake until it's just cooked through (I didn't note down what time my fish went in, but I think it was about 30-40 minutes). Season with salt and pepper.

Barbecued marinated marlin steaks with tabouleh

So I'm not as bad a gardener as I thought. My herbs are thriving! I've been collecting water from the shower (the cold water prior to getting into it, not soapy water) and I've actually got more water than plants. Due to this, and since my existing ones are doing so well, I went and purchased a few more in the weekend (oregano, spinach and lettuce).

Thyme was one of the herbs that I planted back in December, and it has grown large enough that I can occasionally pull sprigs off it to use in my cooking. I bought some fish steaks from the market the other week, and cooked them on the barbecue. They were firm and moist, and the fact that the thyme came from my garden just made it taste even better!

(I didn't follow the tabouleh recipe below, but I've typed it up anyway.)



Barbecued marinated marlin steaks with tabouleh

From Neil Perry's Good Food (the recipe in the book is barbecued marinated chicken with tabouleh).

Serves 4

2 blue marlin steaks,
Extra virgin olive oil
1 lemon
Freshly ground pepper

Marinade
100ml (3 1/2 fl oz) extra virgin olive oil
4 garlic cloves
Juice of 1/2 lemon
2 teaspoons ground coriander
2 teaspoons ground cumin
3 small red chillies, roughly chopped
3 thyme sprigs, leaves picked
sea salt

Tabouleh
140g (5 oz/heaped 3/4 cup) coarse bulghur
2 vine-ripened tomatoes, peeled, seeds removed and chopped
1 Lebanese (short) cucumber, seeds removed and chopped
6 spring onions, chopped
1/2 bunch parsley, stalks only, about 75tg (2 1/2 oz), chopped
1 large handful flat-leaf (Italian) parsley leaves, roughly chopped
1 small handful mint leaves, roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
100ml (3 1/2 fl oz) extra virgin olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Process all the marinade ingredients together until well combined. Add the fish to the marinade, mix well and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Meanwhile, to make the tabouleh, soak the bulghur in a bwol with enough water to cover for at least 1 hour. Drain and squeeze out the excess water. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well.

Heat a barbecue to hot, then place the fish on. Cook for 5 minutes and turn, cook for a couple more minutes until cooked to your liking. Cut the steaks in half so you have 4 pieces.

Spoon the tabouleh onto each of four plates, and place a piece of fish on each plate. Drizzle with oil, squeeze over some lemon and give a generous grind of fresh pepper.

Tuna pâté on chive pikelets

This was another item I brought to our orphan's Christmas. The recipe makes about twice the amount of pâté required, so you could double the pikelet recipe. The original only gives you around 20 pikelets. The cookbook said about 30, but I don't know what kind of planet they were on. I only managed 19 from my batter, which actually suited me because I didn't want too many pikelets considering I was bringing other stuff too.

I really tried to avoid making too much food this year. I didn't want to be eating leftovers for days or having to throw stuff out.

My only leftovers this year was a bit of tuna pâté and a small amount of seared beef (coming up in my next post). I ate the left over tuna pâté in a toasted sandwich. I love tuna toasted sandwiches!



Tuna pâté on chive pikelets

Adapted from Kitchen Classics: sweet and savoury bites

Makes about 20

Tuna pâté
125g cream cheese
400g can tuna in oil, drained
1 tablespoon capers, rinsed
2 tablespoons chopped chives
Pinch of cayenne pepper, or to taste
Squeeze of lemon juice
Salt and pepper

Chive Pikelets
60g self-raising flour
1 tablespoon snipped chives
1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
125ml milk

Caviar and chives to garnish

In a food processor, work the cream cheese until smooth. Add the tuna, capers, chives, cayenne pepper, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Pulse the mixture until roughly combined. Taste for seasoning, add more salt, black pepper, cayenne, or lemon juice to taste.

To make the pikelets, sift the flour and a pinch of salt into a bowl. Stir in the chives and make a well in the centre. Gradually whisk in the egg yolk and enough milk to form a smooth lump-free batter, the consistency of thick cream.
Set aside for 15 minutes, then lightly grease a non-stick frying pan and drop teaspoons of the batter into the pan. When bubbles appear on the surface of the pikelets, turn them over and brown the other side. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Spread teaspoons of the pâté on to the pikelets, garnish with some caviar and more chives.

Note: The pikelets may be assembled up to 3 hours ahead, covered and refrigerated.

Beer battered fish

I resisted it for a long time, but a few months ago we bought a deep fryer. I realise that you don't need an actual appliance – a pot will suffice – but I can't use a pot of oil after standing above the commercial deep fryer in my parents' shop for so many years. It just didn't seem safe and I have problems figuring out the temperature, even with a thermometer.

Finally, I succumbed to the allure of deep fried goodness. Honestly, we don't use it too much, but occasionally we have deep fried nights (not healthy but oh so good). Below is a good, simple recipe for beer batter. It's nice and crispy and the bonus is the faint malty taste of beer.

PS: The chips were frozen chips from the supermarket. I like to cook, but that doesn't extend to making my own chips. Maybe one day.

PSS: The model in the photo is Alastair, who patiently held the cone while I demanded that he hold it higher - no higher! No, lower! Lower! Right there. Oh, that shot doesn't look good, hang on, don't move!

Beer battered fish

Serves 4

600g fish fillet, skin and bones removed
200g (1 1/3 cup) plain flour, sifted
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
300ml beer (I used Coopers Sparkling Ale)
Vegetable oil, to deep-fry

Method

1. Cut fish into 8 pieces. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Make a well in the centre. Gradually add beer, using a whisk to stir until well combined.

2. Reheat oil to 190°C. Dip 4 pieces of fish, 1 at a time, into the batter to evenly coat and deep-fry for 3-4 minutes or until crisp and golden brown. Transfer to a plate lined with paper towel. Repeat with remaining fish pieces, reheating the oil between batches.

Salmon with wasabi and soy glaze

I hardly ever buy fish. It's not something that is in my cooking repertoire because it always seemed so difficult. What kind of fish do I buy? How do I cook it? What if I overcook it?

Recently though, I've been making an effort to eat more fish. Last week I bought some fillets and cooked them with a garam masala marinade. Last night (hooray for market days!), I bought some salmon fillets from the market. I tell ya, if fish can be beautiful, these fillets were supermodels. Most of the salmon made it into the pan to be cooked, but I did cut some slices off to gobble while the fish cooked. Delish.

Now that I've realised how easy it is to cook fish, I think I'll be buying it more often!

Salmon with soy and wasabi glaze

Salmon fillets
2 tablespoons honey
4 tablespoons mirin
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon of wasabi paste (more or less to taste)

Preheat the oven to 180C.
Put the honey, mirin, and soy sauce in a pot and simmer until it reduces down a little and becomes thick and sticky. Stir in the wasabi paste until it's dissolved. (Add more of anything if you feel it needs it.)
Heat some oil in a frying pan over a high heat until hot. Sear the salmon on both sides and pop it into the oven for 5 minutes or until cooked to your liking.
Pour the soy and wasabi glaze over the salmon and enjoy!