WWDH - Garlic Chickpeas and Cumin Fried Fish

Today's Wednesday with Donna Hay pick is Garlic Chickpeas with Cumin Fried Fish, chosen by Kayte.  It comes from Off the Shelf.  You  can also find the recipe here. 

 

Despite my fish collapsing under the pressure when I tried to plate it, this was a very tasty meal.  The chickpeas, cooked with leeks and lemon zest, were a delicious side to the spicy fish, shallow fried with cumin and chilli.  I ate my fish with stir fried vegetables (of course).

 

I think the chickpeas would go perfectly with any number of things, and I would definitely make them again.

 

To see what Kayte, Margaret, Chaya and Sarah thought of this dish, visit their sites.

 

(Blogger has determined the photo orientation; despite my saving it in Photobucket and editing it, and saving it in different file formats, Blogger insists on the photo being twisted 90 degrees, so let's just go with it, m'k?)

FFWD - Salad Nicoise

 

 

It's Friday again, and for French Fridays with Dorie this week, our dish is a French classic - Salad Nicoise. I only recently learned how to pronounce this, so it won't surprise you that I have never eaten this salad before now.

 

As you can see, it is quite a substantial salad and takes quite a bit of preparation.  My egg is not very visible because I undercooked it and most of the yolk leaked out - but it's there, I promise you.

 

I really enjoyed this for lunch last Saturday - it is the kind of thing I would make again, especially when this non-salad girl is looking for a salad to make in the warmer months.

 

To see what the other Doristas thought of this salad, visit the LYL section of the  FFWD website.

WWDH - Seared Salmon on Coconut Spinach

This week's Wednesday with Donna Hay pick is Seared Salmon with Coconut Spinach, chosen by Chaya from Off the Shelf.  You can also find the recipe online here.

I used baby spinach instead of English spinach, and instead of chilli paste, I used curry paste.

This was pretty good - I wasn't sure about the spinach, but the chilli/curry paste combines with the coconut cream to make a very tasty sauce.

The star with the salmon was the grated fresh ginger - it pan fried into a crispy, zingy coating for the fish - adore!

To see what Chaya, Kayte, Margaret and Sarah thought of this dish, visit the website.

FFWD - Tuna Stuffed Piquillo Peppers - er Mini Capsicums

This week's fishy French Fridays with Dorie offering is Tuna Stuffed Piquillo Peppers.  I couldn't be stuffed finding the piquillo peppers to stuff, so I bought mini capsicums instead and stuffed them with the tuna mixture:
 

I served the stuffed capsicums with a bright array of stir fried vegetables, making for a colourful lunch.

The tuna filling was a little too fishy for me - I would have preferred some ricotta in with the fish, or for something else to break up the tuna-ishness of the ensemble.  Not a repeat for me.

To see what everyone else thought of this dish, visit the LYL section of the FFWD website.

WWDH - Baked Fish with Tomatoes and Garlic

This week's Wednesday with Donna Hay pick is from Kayte, who chose Baked Fish with Tomatoes and Garlic from Modern Classics Book I.  You can find the recipe with beautiful photos here.

This is super easy, super quick and tasty. I found that my capers had dried out so those are missing from the recipe - they would have made it even better.

To see what Kayte, Margaret, Chaya and Sarah thought of this recipe, go visit them.

FFwD - Fresh Tuna, Mozzarella, and Basil Pizza - sort of

This week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe was Fresh Tuna, Mozzarella, and Basil Pizza.  And I made it - sort of.

I did use fresh tuna that I cut into mangled slices.  I did use puff pastry, albeit a seemingly smaller size of round than was asked for.  I used cheddar instead of mozzarella, I used baby spinach instead of basil, I used whole tomatoes instead of cherry tomatoes and I skipped the fresh ginger and olives because I didn't have any.  Ummm ... so I guess that makes mine a Fresh Tuna, Cheddar and Spinach Pizza.

My reasoning for all of this innovation is that I didn't want to buy a whole heap of stuff that I wouldn't otherwise use and then be stuck with leftovers that would go to waste.  Also, I had to buy baby spinach for another recipe and I already had cheddar and I don't eat lots of cheese.  Simple.

The pizza still tasted good to me as Sunday lunch.

To see what the other Dorie cooks thought, visit the LYL section of the website.

FFWD - Mediterranean Swordfish sans Frilly Herb Salad

It's Friday again - I am glad to have made it.  Highlights of this week were enjoying a Mad Mex beef burrito and a Corona with Tim before seeing a free screening of Before Midnight courtesy of Mimco, going to an excellent talk on Social Media and the Law at one of the law firms,  and enjoying a single caramel dome chocolate from Ganache Chocolate as a lunchtime treat.

Friday also means French Fridays with Dorie, and this week, our recipe is Mediterranean Swordfish with (or in my case, without) Frilly Herb Salad.

 I have never had swordfish before, and can't even remember seeing it at the supermarket.  Accordingly, after a visit to the dentist, I walked up to swanky Hawksburn Village to see if I could buy some there - I figure that the cashed up end of town would be more likely to have swordfish than anywhere else.  Sure enough, I found my swordfish - at $5.10 per 100g. Ouch!  Needless to say, I only bought one swordfish steak for the princely sum of $10.20.

In the end, although this was a pricey dine at home option, I found the marinated swordfish, cooked until just opaque, to be absolutely delicious.  It sure beats the rubbery flake option that I sometimes indulge in at home.  The fish had a delicate flavour  complemented by the lightly spiced marinade, and it melted in your mouth.  Fabulous!

There was no way I was going to spend about $9 on herbs to make a salad that I didn't really want in the middle of winter, so I went the more traditional route of fish and chips. The chips were so so because they have been living in my freezer for quite a long time, but they plumped out the meal.  If they had been fresher, I think that this upmarket fish and chips would have been totally grouse. 

To see what the other Doristas thought of this week's pick, visit the LYL section of the website.

Finally, I wish you a lovely weekend, and share the following video with you, with a message that I need to remember:

FFwD - Wheat berry and tuna salad

We've made it to Friday again.  This week, the weather has gone from mild to cold, dry to wet, still to windy.  Brrrr. 

It's not really salad weather here, but this week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe was Wheat Berry and Tuna Salad.  Luckily, the grains are heated, so I could serve it as a kind of warm salad.

Wheat berries are not sold here, so far as I can tell.  The closest I could find was farro, and I didn't bother to buy it when I knew I still had a bag of pearled barley from another Dorie experiment to use up.  I used whole tomatoes instead of cherry tomatoes, and I used ready mashed avocado because I could only find hard, horrid little avocadoes sold as  a three-pack in the supermarket.

I enjoyed this more than I thought I would.  I made half a recipe so I got two servings out of it.  It is not as nice the second day, as some of the sharper flavours in the mix, especially the raw onion, start to take over.  However, it is still OK.  I am not sure that I would make it again, but for a healthy meal, it is tasty.

To see what the other Dorie cooks thought of this dish, visit the LYL section of the website.

FFWD - Cod and Spinach Roulades

This week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe did not sound good to me.  Cod and spinach roulades?  They sounded even worse when I realised we were making fish mousse sausages filled with spinach, onion and preserved lemon:

Scary little suckers, aren't they:

These actually didn't taste too bad in the end, but honestly, why would I waste good fish by processing it up with egg white and cream to make fish sausages, when unadulterated fish tastes so much better.

To see what the other Doristas thought of this dish, please visit the LYL section of the FFWD website.

WWDH - Tomato and Basil Poached Fish

For Wednesday with Donna Hay this week, Kayte chose Tomato and Basil Poached Fish from p97 of Off the Shelf.  This dish is comprised of a rich tomato sauce, with the fish cooked and served on top of it.

I didn't have basil, so there was no basil involved in my dish.

The end result was rather tasty and even a tad rich - so spoil yourself and make it.

To see what Kayte, Margaret and Chaya thought, visit their websites.

FFwD - Salmon with Basil Tapenade

This week's French Fridays with Dorie challenge was Salmon with Basil Tapenade.  I don't often cook salmon, not because I don't like it, but because it is soooo expensive.  This piece of Tasmanian salmon cost me $9 - about the same price as I would normally pay for meat for the week.  However, I am a Dorie disciple, so for this week, I took the hit.

And what a very nice hit it was too.  I was glad that olive tapenade from a while ago was also useful for this dish.  This salmon was simple to make and delicious to eat.  I paired it with two other Dorie dishes allocated for this month - the ginger pickled cucumbers (first week of July) and the lemon barley pilaf (next week):

To see what the other FFwD cooks thought, visit the LYL section of the website. 

FFwD - Lentil, Lemon and Tuna Salad

This week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe is a surprising salad - Lentil, Lemon and Tuna Salad.  It is a mixture of green lentils, tuna, chopped preserved lemon and chopped scallions, dressed with an unlikely combination of olive tapenade, mustard, red wine vinegar and olive oil.  But weirdly, it works - I really enjoyed it.

I was lucky in that I had preserved lemons that I had made from lemons out of my friends', Veronica and Christian, garden.  This is the first time I used them, so that made me happy.  Preserved lemons are absurdly expensive to buy, given how simple they are to make.

I ate this salad warm - it was already 3 in the afternoon, and I had not yet had lunch, so I wasn't going to wait a couple of hours for it to chill (after patiently waiting while the lentils cooked).

To see what everyone else thought of this dish, visit the LYL section of the FFwD website.

FFwD - Almond Dory Meuniere

This week's French Fridays with Dorie is a fishy dish - almond flounder meuniere.  However, I don't think I have ever seen too much flounder around here, so I purchased John Dory fillets - just because they looked nice and were small, as Dorie described her flounder fillets.  This dish comprises fish coated with almond meal and flour on one side, then fried in browned butter.

I didn't make the browned butter - after doing both Baking with Julia recipes for this month on the same day, I could not bear the smell of any more butter, so I skipped it.  I also skipped the toasted almonds and parsley for garnish - I don't have anyone to impress, so I could not think of a good reason why to expend $3 on a bunch of parsley that I would not use.

I served my fish with microwaved sweet potato sprinkled with all purpose seasoning, and baby bok choy stir fried and flavoured with soy sauce, fish sauce and honey.  Delish and reasonably healthy, I thought.

To see what the other FFwD members thought of this dish, visit the LYL section of the FFwD website (which no longer works for me for reasons unbeknown to me - it just doesn't work and there is no Webmaster help available).

FFwD - Sardine Rillettes

We've made it to Friday - I breathe a sigh of relief, as my weeks are rather frantic and have been for months.  I am looking forward to the weekend when I can relax.

This week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe is Sardine Rillettes (pronounced ree-etts).  It is effectively a fishy cream cheese spread made from canned sardines, cream cheese (light in my case), green onion, chives, lemon juice, cayenne and salt and pepper.  I didn't want this hanging around in my fridge to be wasted, so even though it is meant to be served as a snack on crackers, I ate the whole lot as a meal on a slice of toasted sour dough.

The verdict - it was OK,  although I would probably have enjoyed it way more in a smaller quantity as a snack.  It was all rather too much richness for me in one hit, but I can't complain about the flavour.

To see what everyone else thought of  this dish, visit the LYL section of the FFwD website whenever it happens to come up (probably when I am asleep tonight).

Have a great weekend.

FFwD - Roasted Salmon and Lentils

Today's post starts on a sad note with the news that Davy Jones of the Monkees has passed away.  The Monkees was made before I was born, but re-runs meant that I grew up with the Monkees, and cute Davy was my favourite.  Daydream Believer, with Davy on lead vocals, is my favourite Monkees song.  Thanks to the Monkees for adding some light-hearted fun to our lives.

This week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe is Roasted Salmon and Lentils.  It involves cooking green lentils in a vegetable broth, roasting salmon rubbed with oil and seasoned with salt and pepper, and serving the salmon atop the lentils.

It tasted OK - I liked it, but I didn't love it. I also thought the lentils were a bit of a faff, having to be cooked then drained, then partly pureed, then combined again and warmed.  You would have to love lentils to find this a rewarding process.

To see what the other FFwD members thought, visit the LYL section of the website.