Sea bass is always a good idea! I especially love them marinated and baked in the oven as this keeps the fish juicy and full of flavour. Usually I’d just marinate them in olive oil, garlic and chilli, but I decided to add a few additions this time and it turned out to be quite the killer combo!
Use one sea bass per person.
Ingredients:
2 medium sized sea bass
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3-6 garlic cloves, crushed – depending how much you like garlic! (I used 6 of course)
1-3 green chillies with seeds, chopped – again depending on your spice level requirement (I used 3)
1 inch fresh ginger, grated
Handful fresh parsley, chopped
Juice of 1 lime
Salt & pepper to taste
Method:
Combine all the marinade ingredients in a bowl so they are well mixed. Pour over the fish and leave to infuse from anywhere from 30 min to overnight (in the fridge).
Cover the fish with all the marinade loosely but completely in foil, and pinch the edges to seal. Bake in the oven on 200c fan for about 25 mins. Check fish before serving, it should be white and flake easily.
I haven’t posted in a while as to be honest I’ve just not been doing much home cooking (naughty me), but I’m back with this healthy recipe for fish tacos.
I fancied something quick, simple and relatively light post my VERY unhealthy Christmas and NY period, and these ticked all the boxes. The salsa is so refreshing and the light, white fish is super tasty.
Without further ado, here is how to make them!
Ingredients:
Makes about 6-8 tacos.
For the fish:
4 fillets lemon sole (or your preferred white fish)
Juice of 1 lime
1-2 red chillies, chopped
50ml olive oil
For the salsa:
3-4 ripe tomatoes, chopped
1 red onion, chopped
Juice of 1 lime
20g coriander, chopped
For the guacamole:
1 ripe avocado
Juice of 1/2 lime
1 red chilli, finely chopped
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
10g coriander, chopped
Salt and pepper
To serve:
Rocket leaves
Soft taco cups
Method
Start by slicing the fish into bitesize chunks and marinate in the fish ingredients for at least 30 mins.
Combine the salsa ingredients in a bowl.
Combine the guacamole ingredients in another bowl and mash with a fork.
To cook the fish, heat some of the marinating juice/oil into a frying pan. Add the fish and cook on each side for 2-3 mins. It shouldn’t take longer than that if your fish is in small pieces and thin.
Toast the tacos under a hot grill for 3-4 mins.
Fill up the tacos in the following order: rocket leaves, salsa, fish, guacamole.
If you like tons of garlic and creamy sauces you will absolutely love this dish. And the best thing is, it’s super simple, with a minimal ingredient list so very easy and cheap to make – and just as quick!
You can make a variation with chicken if you like too, I’m sure it would be just as good, but prawns in a creamy sauce for me is just heaven! And also prawns are that little bit lighter.
I made my sauce using soya cream and vegan cheese, as I’m trying to cut down on my dairy intake (and I think my digestive system is thanking me), and you honestly wouldn’t know it. It still tastes really rich, and as long as you keep in simmering for long enough, the sauce will be really thick. The sun-dried tomatoes give that extra juiciness and make sure you add a decent amount of salt to boost the flavour.
Serve with pasta if you like, but I went for the lighter option of courgetti (courgette spaghetti). It also makes the calorie/satisfaction ratio of this dish excellent, I was absolutely stuffed in just a 400 calorie serving!
(Serves two)
Ingredients:
300g raw king prawns
Olive oil spray (or 1 tbsp olive oil)
1 cup Alpro soya single cream (or standard cream)
1/4 cup fish/chicken stock
2 heaped tsp chopped garlic
1 tsp chopped chillies
1 teaspoon mixed herbs
1 tsp salt
1 tsp all purpose seasoning
1/2 cup vegan parmesan-style cheese (or standard parmesan cheese)
1 cup spinach, chopped
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes
Method:
Spray a large frying pan with the oil spray, and cook prawns on each side until pink all over (about 3-4 mins). Set aside.
Add cream, stock, ‘cheese’, garlic, chillies, herbs and seasonings to the pan and simmer, whisking, until thick enough for your liking (about 10 mins should be enough).
Add spinach and tomatoes and the cooked prawns and simmer gently for another minute or two.
Serve over courgetti, or pasta, or you could even enjoy this as a soup on its own or with warm crusty bread.
Sorry for the lack of posts but I haven’t done any home cooking for a while as I have had a busy couple of weeks doing fun stuff with friends; making the most of the last couple weeks of the London summer, and a last hurrah in Ibiza! 😀
Now I’m back to reality and thought a good detox meal to get my health back on track would be a nice nutritious piece of cod.
Here’s a simple sauce that I made up on the spot, it’s not really based on anything, and the ingredients may well seem a bit random (I mean, fish sauce and cajun seasoning?! Yes, really.), but I can assure you it does taste really good!!
So somehow I’ve created my own take on a ‘fusion’ dish! Similar to what my favourite restaurant Chotto Matte in London offers, which is Japanese/Peruvian, and another favourite of mine Sushi Samba, which is also Japanese/Brazilian. Well, mine is Asian/cajun. And it rhymes. Wow, I really am a genius…
Ingredients:
2 cod fillets
Olive oil
1/2 a large onion, chopped
2 tsp crushed garlic
1 tsp chopped chilli
1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
1/2 tsp ginger
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp mixed herbs
1 tsp cajun seasoning
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp fish sauce
Rice to serve (optional)
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180 C.
Sprinkle cod with a little mixed herbs and salt and bake in the oven in a lightly oiled loose foil parcel. (Little tip: always make sure the shiny side is facing inwards as it cooks the fish better.)
Fry onion in a large saucepan until soft and fragrant, then add garlic and chilli and stir for a minute.
Add tomatoes and heat through. Add ginger, paprika, salt, mixed herbs and cajun seasoning. Stir well. Follow with soy sauce.
Simmer for about 10 mins on low. At the very end add the fish sauce.
Pour the sauce over the baked fish and serve with rice or whatever else you’d like.
So recently I’ve been cutting down on dairy. As you know if you’ve been reading my posts I like to try out new ways of eating/not eating etc. The initial reason was because I heard Kylie Jenner lost a lot of weight by doing it (haha) but then I also heard apparently that it can be a trigger of not only weight gain but also IBS and other digestive issues. I regularly get stomach cramps and other symptoms of IBS (although I’ve never actually been to get diagnosed, as I’m so lazy about visiting the doctor’s), so I’m thinking dairy could be the culprit. I haven’t cut it out completely yet, because I have cheated with the odd pizza topping or burger filling, but I have noticed a decrease in my symptoms. I always drink dairy free milk now (i.e. almond, soya or more recently the coconut milk that Alpro does), I have also switched to soya or coconut yogurts and even soya ice cream! I picked up some ‘mozzarella style’ cheese in Holland and Barrett for the first time the other day too and it actually tasted like cheese, so I might actually be able to do this properly once Dominos brings out a dairy free American Hot… (hurry up!).
There are also several other reasons going dairy free could be good for you, which I won’t go into in too much detail as this isn’t a health or diet blog, but they include reduced exposure to antibiotics and hormones, cancer prevention, resolving undiagnosed medical problems, and achieving clearer skin. Also if you want to do something good for the environment and take a stance against animal cruelty it could be the way to go (moral high ground here you come).
Anyway, so my point is, I recently came across a new product I hadn’t seen before which was a dairy free single cream by Alpro. Cream had been the one thing I thought I couldn’t replace, but now I can! Immediately I wanted to make a creamy pasta dish using this new ‘holy grail’ product so whipped this little dish up. I can tell you that it actually does have the same consistency of regular single cream and it has a rich and slightly sweet flavour as it should. It was the perfect accompaniment to this spicy, garlicky tomato sauce and I will definitely be using it again in this dish and others.
As for this particular dinner, it’s one of those ones I instantly know I’ll keep coming back to, as it has the four important components to being one of those ones: quick, easy, tasty and healthy. Just make sure you use lots of paprika and salt, if you skimp you’ll regret it.
Ingredients:
2 tbsp olive oil
200g raw king prawns
As much chilli as you want, I used 3 red chillies and didn’t remove the seeds
Heat olive oil in a large frying pan on a medium high heat. Add the prawns and lay flat and separated so that each one is touching the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle generous amounts of paprika and salt. After 2 mins on one side, flip over and cook for another 2 mins on the other side.
Set aside the cooked prawns leaving the oil in the pan as you will cook your sauce in it.
To the same pan, add chopped onion, chillies and garlic and cook on medium high heat. Cook for about 2 minutes, occasionally stirring, until onions soften.
Add tomatoes and the half fish stock cube followed by basil and oregano. Stir well, bring to boil and reduce to simmer. Simmer on low for about 8-10 minutes, mixing occasionally, until the sauce reduces a little.
Taste, and season with more paprika and salt, if needed. Add dairy free ‘cream,’ stir to combine, and immediately remove from heat.
Add back the prawns and pasta and mix well again. Reheat on low simmer, if necessary, but be sure not to not bring to boil or high heat as it might affect the sauce texture.
Serve, with black pepper if desired.
Tips:
Try serving with a garnish of fresh parsley sprigs or basil leaves. I would have done this if I had thought of it at the time!
The second time I made this I added pancetta and chopped chorizo to the pan after step 3. This was a very good idea!
Here’s a simple, quick recipe for a light meal you can quickly put together any time of the day. Rice cakes are so versatile, and sardines are full of omega-3 healthy fats – what more could you need in a nutritious lunch?!
Ingredients:
1 can of sardines in olive oil
1/2-1 red chilli (depending on your taste)
1/2 red pepper
1/2 tomato
1 tsp tomato puree
1 clove garlic
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp fresh parsley
1/2 tsp black pepper
Pinch of sugar
Dash of lemon juice
Dash of balsamic vinegar
Dash of soy sauce
4 rice cakes
Encona (or your preferred) hot pepper sauce
Method:
Put all ingredients except sardines, hot sauce and rice cakes into a blender or food processor and process until almost smooth.
Mash the sardines with a fork, then mix them and the processed ingredients together.
Spread the mixture evenly on top of the rice cakes and add a few drops of hot sauce (if desired).
Apologies for the long break in posts but I haven’t quite got round to the whole ‘post scheduling’ thing while I’m away! I just got back home to Singapore (literally a couple of hours ago) from Australia where I spent a couple of weeks with my boyfriend’s family. I did manage to post once while I was there actually on my phone, but I much prefer a proper computer to type on.
Anyway, we had such a lovely time; we spent the first week up at a little place called Sawtell, which is on the east coast in New South Wales about halfway between Sydney and Brisbane. Our Christmas Day feast up there was very seafood focused! We took a trip to a seafood market to stock up and we BBQ’d stuffed squid, a whole snapper and sea bream and we also had some fresh prawns. For the meat eaters there was also turkey meatloaf, and a bacon, avocado and mango salad.
Snapper (top), sea bream, and stuffed calamariThe spread!Christmas lunch in the sun with a cold glass of white
Then we headed down to Sydney for New Year’s and spent the first day of 2016 on a boat on Sydney Harbour with 30 friends. It was a great start to the year!
In Sydney, we also ate at an awesome cute little Italian restaurant, which I’ll write a review on soon, so keep your eye out for that.
But for now I’ll leave you with the recipes to make my two favourite dishes from the seafood feast we had on Christmas Day:
BBQ Snapper in a Pesto Marinade
Ingredients:
1 medium whole snapper (gutted)
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup basil pesto (I made my own by combining 2 cups fresh basil, 1/4 cup pine nuts, 1/4 cup Parmesan, 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1 tbsp lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste in a food processor until it looks like a pesto sauce should 🙂 This makes a whole jar but you can save it for other uses.)
1 tsp chilli flakes
1/2 tsp salt
Method:
Combine all the above ingredients (except the fish) in a small bowl.
Place fish in a shallow dish and pour over half of the marinade.
Leave for 20-30mins in the fridge.
Grill marinated fish on a BBQ for about 5-7 mins each side and pour over the remaining marinade while cooking, making sure all marinade gets cooked sufficiently.
Calamari Stuffed with Spinach, Celery & Pine Nuts
This is for two calamari tubes, which is enough if you’re serving lots of other stuff, but be sure to increase amounts if this is the only dish you’re making!
Ingredients:
2 large fresh calamari tubes
3 cups spinach, roughly chopped
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1 stick celery, finely chopped
2 anchovy fillets
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 red chilli, finely chopped
1/4 cup pine nuts, lightly toasted
1 tbsp lemon zest
1/2 cup fresh breadcrumbs
1/8 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
Method:
Blanch spinach in boiling water for 1 minute, then drain and cool under cold water, squeeze dry and chop finely.
Heat oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat, add onion and celery, season with salt and pepper and cook until softened (about 10 mins).
Add anchovies, garlic, oregano and chilli. Cook, stirring, for another two mins.
Transfer the mixture to a mixing bowl and add pine nuts, lemon zest, breadcrumbs, cheese and spinach. Mix well.
Fill each calamari tube with the filling and fix ends with toothpicks. Season the outsides with salt and pepper.
BBQ for about 7-8 mins on each side, until browned and piping hot in the centre.
This is another of my mother’s recipes, which she learned (many years ago) from her ex husband’s family who were from the West Indies. I’ve also posted her curry, which is the other one of the two recipes she has kept in her repertoire from that time.
To be perfectly honest Mum would make this sauce for pork chops but since I’m not eating meat I asked whether this would work with fish and she said she thought it would since West Indian’s eat a lot of spicy seafood. Seabass, being my favourite fish, was the obvious choice for my version of this dish.
Seabass has a delicate flavour so you have to accept that the sauce will be the main event here. It’s quite spicy and has a real depth of flavour but it still works with the seabass if you appreciate how the melt-in-the-mouth texture of the fish complements that depth and spice. You just have to make sure not to cook the fish for too long so it doesn’t get at all chewy.
You can even make this a vegetarian dish and completely focus on that amazing sauce, by cooking it with butternut squash or any other earthy vegetable that is able to hold its own!
Ingredients:
4 seabass fillets
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 inch fresh ginger, grated (keep fresh ginger in the freezer for easy grating)
2 large tomatoes, chopped
1 red chilli, chopped and seeds removed
1 vegetable stock cube
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp paprika
2 tsp allspice
Salt and pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
Method:
Combine all spices in a bowl and coat the fish fillets in them.
Heat the oil in a large frying pan with a lid. Sear coated fish on all sides and set aside.
Fry onion until fragrant. Add garlic, ginger, tomatoes and chilli.
Once you have a mushy sauce add stock cube. The wet ones are best.
Add back the fish, cover with lid and simmer for 15 min.
So I’ve been a pescetarian now for a whole month! I haven’t had any slip ups except one day about 3 days after I started when I attended a brunch at my friend’s apartment and accidentally (honest) ate a sausage! Surely I can be forgiven for that 3 days in, I truly forgot I was a pescetarian! I remembered right after I ate it and only ate the smoked salmon and cream cheese toasts and mini egg bakes after that. Everyone else had a good laugh at me though so at least I entertained.
Since then I have been very good, it hasn’t been difficult at all except for a couple of times I’ve had a burger craving. I knew burgers would be the hardest thing to give up. I can take or leave chicken, mince can be substituted with Quorn, which tastes nearly the same, and sausages aren’t that amazing I can’t do without them. I have been looking for substitutes for things though; I found these amazing Quorn scotch eggs (which taste exactly like the real thing!), plus some mini cocktail sausages and even tofu weiners!
I spent 10 days in Mykonos, Greece as well, and while I was there I just ate tons of fish and seafood. Grilled octopus, shrimp pasta, and fresh fish straight from the sea. Forget meat, you can’t get much better than that!
I’ve made healthier choices in several situations, i.e. when I’d usually order a beef burger I’ve gone for veggie burgers (not the patty kind, but actually fresh grilled veg in a bun!), I ordered Thai last night and had the vegetable Thai red curry (which I guess isn’t super healthy but eating all the veg in it rather than chicken must be good for me).
Eating out doesn’t cause any problems at all. Most menus have loads of fish options, in some cases even more than meat.
So how do I feel? To be honest, not a huge amount different, but I feel better in myself for avoiding saturated fats and getting larger intakes of vegetables and therefore more vitamins. I haven’t weighed myself but I doubt I’ve lost anything after a holiday full of eating and drinking, with no exercise! I feel the same weight though, which is amazing in itself, I should be heavier. And I’m not doing it to lose weight anyway. On some days I have felt more energetic in the mornings, which is unusual for me as a morning hater! I used to feel sick quite often too, especially after dinner, but can’t remember the last time I felt sick that wasn’t alcohol induced! Of course I can’t guarantee any of these changes are to do with my new diet, but I have a feeling they are, and I like doing it so I’m going to keep at it for a while longer.
I also want to experiment more with vegetarian cooking, which to be honest I haven’t done, what with being away and eating out a lot, I just haven’t had time. There’s so much creativity involved and its great not having to worry about washing your hands 50,000 times after handling raw chicken! I made a vegetarian sausage casserole the other night, which I’ll post next, but it’s basically what I would do with meat sausages and just substituted the type of sausages so its not exactly a ‘vegetarian dish’! It was super yummy though!
If you are looking for an elegant yet casual and comfortable dining experience in London then look no further than this delightfully traditional Italian restaurant.
Perhaps my group were especially spoiled due to one of us being the manager’s son, but I honestly do feel that they treat all their customers with the same friendly, sociable and welcoming attitude. It felt properly Italian the moment I was walked through the door; the staff were chatty and warm towards us as we were led down a short narrow corridor and seated at a table in a small room surrounded by mirrors on the walls.
The restaurant seemed to be made up of several small rooms and connecting stairways and hallways, as during my (rather lengthy) journey to the bathroom I didn’t see one dining area that was bigger than my living room at home. This creates a cosy, rather than claustrophobic atmosphere though, and it’s quite nice to feel as though you’re in a small eatery with just your friends around you (we were a large group of about 12, visiting for a birthday).
Shortly after being seated we were served with bread and olives (I’m not sure if someone ordered them or if they were complimentary, due to the group size!), which was all very nice.
My first course was recommended to me by my friend who told me it was an experiment of the chef’s (not on the menu), which committed the apparently terrible Italian food crime of combining seafood and cheese but getting it right. He assured me it was amazing so I went for it. This was a dish of prawns in little parcels of what I assume was thin pasta (similar to tortellini) with a cheese based sauce and a sweet chilli garnish. And yes it was amazing.
Next I had more prawns! I think I may have been a little tipsy at the ordering stage, which could go some way to shedding light on this little faux pas. However, as it turned out it wasn’t an issue for me at all as I adore seafood! So my main was king prawns in a chili and garlic sauce, which again was incredibly tasty, possibly the best chili and garlic prawns I have ever had.
To top off the experience, the waiter brought out a cake for the birthday girl (that we hand brought in) along with most of the staff singing ‘Happy Birthday’ in a very enthusiastic manner! How lovely!
I honestly couldn’t fault either dish on any level: ideal portion sizes, amazing flavours and reasonable pricing. Combined with the authentic Italian hospitality, you really can’t go wrong in this awesome little spot.
Mint Cherry Pepper 