Orange Roughy on a bed of pea and asparagus risotto ... in the Thermomix

I need to start off by saying that I am damned proud of this dish and how it turned out. It was absolutely delicious.

We've recently started having more fish as we've discovered a good fish supplier (almost) locally. It's an hour drive and back to get to them but we get excellent fresh fish and at great prices.

The Boy is always after me to make more fish to add to our diet, but I'm not a big fan of fish in general. I need my fish to be really, really fresh and not smell like fish. Can't stand that fishy smell!

Long story short, we went for a little trip and picked up some fish and Orange Roughy (a fish from New Zealand) was in the mix. The Boy loves Orange Roughy. I asked for two portions but didn't realise that for the Orange Roughy, one portion could feed two people. They came frozen (though I could have asked for them fresh, had I known!) and I just put them straight into the freezer.

The last few times that we have been out, The Boy has ordered fish and it has arrived on a bed of risotto of some sort. I thought that was a great way to serve fish, since we always find that fish on its own just isn't quite satisfying enough as a meal.

We had some friends over to dinner recently and I was at a loss as to what to cook for dinner and The Boy reminded me that we still had the Orange Roughy in the freezer, so I thought I'd serve the fish on a bed of risotto for the mains.

Here's what I did for the fish: (of course, it doesn't have to be Orange Roughy, you can use any fish you like).

Ingredients:

• Orange roughy (or any other type of) fish in single serve portions, as many as needed for number of people serving
• Salt
• Pepper
• Paprika 
• Olive oil

Instructions:

• Heat oven to 200°C
• Prepare baking trays with a sheet of aluminum foil on it. Lightly spray with oil (I use an olive oil spray)
• Place Orange Roughy onto the tray, depending on size of the tray, 2 or 4 to a tray
• Drizzle a small amount of olive oil on top of fish
• Sprinkle salt and pepper onto fish for taste
• Dust a light coating of paprika onto fish as well
• Bake in oven, uncovered for 8 - 10 minutes until fish is done
• Serve on a bed of pea and asparagus risotto

For the risotto, originally I thought of making a porcini and truffle risotto but then thought that the porcini and truffle might overpower the flavor of the fish, so went with pea and asparagus instead.

Here's how I made the risotto: (of course, if you don't have a Thermomix, you can make your risotto the traditional way).

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of Parmesan, block or shredded
• 1 onion, quartered
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 40g Olive oil
• 300g Arborio rice
• 80g white wine
• 4 tsp chicken stock
• 1 litre of hot water
• 1 cup peas
• 1 bunch asparagus, diced

Instructions:

• If Parmesan is in blocks, put in TM bowl, grind for 10 seconds, speed 7, remove and set aside
• Chop onion and garlic together Speed 6, 3 – 5 seconds, scrape sides
• Add olive oil and sauté at 100 degrees for 2 minutes
• Add Arborio rice and wine wine, sauté for 2 minutes at Reverse speed 1, 100 degrees
• Add stock and hot water, set time to 12 minutes, Reverse speed 1, 100 degrees
• After 12 minutes, peas and asparagus, cook at 100 degrees for 4 minutes, Reverse speed 1
• Remove risotto from TM bowl into a large serving bowl, fold in 2/3 of ground Parmesan, add pepper to taste.
• Serve risotto and sprinkle remaining Parmesan on dish. Enjoy.

A word of advice, timing is everything for this dish. You don't want your fish to be done too early and go cold or get overcooked, so time your risotto and when it is about 8 to 10 minutes from being ready, then pop your fish into the oven.

To serve, I put a generous scoop of the risotto onto the middle of a dinner plate and then placed the fish on top of the risotto. For garnish, I kept it simple and just drizzled a little olive oil over the outer rim of the plate.

If you do make this, be sure to post pictures for me to see either on Instagram - be sure to tag me with @langshipley or on my Daz In The Kitchen Facebook page.


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Cajun swordfish ... well, fish anyway

A little while ago, we went up to The House for a long weekend and The Boy decided that he wanted to do some cooking (all on his own) and he had a craving for Cajun swordfish.

The House is situated in the country and while we are near a small town, conveniently located only a few minutes from where we are, seafood choices are limited.

We headed into the grocery store (there was no fish shop to be had) and found some salmon, basa and assorted white fish in the deli section but no swordfish.

We made do with what we had and made up our version of Cajun fish (minus the "sword"!).

The Boy found a recipe online that he used to mix up the Cajun flavors which were zingy and yummy.

Here's the RECIPE:

Ingredients:

• 1 tbs / 15ml lime or lemon juice
• 1 1/2 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 4 swordfish, halibut or salmon steaks (750g in total)

Instructions:

• In a small bowl, whisk together lime or lemon juice, 2 tsp water and all the other dry ingredients listed.
• Rub the mixture gently onto both sides of the fish.
• Place on foil lined baking sheet, roast in oven at 180dC for 10 minutes or until fish flakes easily with fork.

The Boy followed the instructions exactly for the spice mixture and we bought some salmon and some Basa fillets which we seasoned to cook.

Instead of cooking the fish in the oven, we placed a foil sheet over a small BBQ and cooked the fish on the BBQ. After the fish was cooked (but still moist), we then took it off the foil sheet and quickly seared the fish on the BBQ to give it a smoky flavor and seal in the spices.

This mixture turned out to be spicy and delicious. I enjoyed the Basa fillets more because I think the Basa allowed more of the spices to come through and really come into its own. The salmon while a lovely fish (and I love my salmon raw) was too flavorsome a fish on its own and I thought that the spice flavors were somewhat in conflict with the fish itself, each competing for dominance.

I think in general, with such a spicy mix for the fish, something like a Basa, swordfish or something similar (as I put it, a white fish rather than a colored fish, ie., salmon, tuna, etc.) would be better to allow the Cajun flavors to come through and not compete with the flavor of the fish.

This was delicious and we're up at The House soon again. I'm going to ask The Boy to make this for me again. I really enjoyed it.

© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny's Fortunes Pty Ltd

Fish, mayonnaise and tartare sauce

I have just learned how to fillet a whole fish!!! While I know this is a skill that many people possess, in particular, those people who are avid fishers, I have to say that I have never felt the need to know where my meat comes from and I do not need to be hacking at the whole animal, bird, or fish. I spent a lot of time watching my grandmother do that as a child and that was plenty for me.

The whole filleting a fish experience totally freaked me out. There I was, at Level 2 Cooking for Blokes class and our instructor, Jay walks in with a huge bag which he reveals to be WHOLE, UNCLEANED, UNFILLETED fish. Ugh! At the best of times, I'm not a fish fan and if it even smells remotely fishy, I am outta there like a shot. At least, these fish did not smell like fish.

Jay stands at the front of the class and demonstrates how to fillet the fish. I've donned gloves because no way am I touching that thing with my bare hands and holding onto my boning / filleting knife like my life depends on it and totally freaking out inside my head.

When it comes to my turn, because I was so busy freaking out, I had no idea what to do. Fortunately, Jay was right on hand to show me again. Long story short, I did manage to (oh ew!) fillet the fish but thank you very much! one time is plenty. I'm buying my fish already filleted. That said, when push comes to shove, I do now know how to fillet a fish.

Here are the steps:

• Use a very sharp boning / filleting knife.
• Cut at a 45 degree angle just below the head to the bone.
• Make a cut just before the tail to the bone, but do not cut through the bone.
• Turn till the top of the fish is facing you and score along the top side of the fish from top to tail.
• Turn the fish around and do the same thing to the bottom side.
• Then go back to the top side and slice in small strokes into the fish along the score that was already made with the knife between the bone on one side and the flesh of the fish on the other. Cut as close to the bone as possible to maximise the amount of flesh off the bone. Do that all the way to the middle of the fish to the spine of the fish.
• Turn the fish around and repeat on the other side.
• Remove the fillet from the fish itself. You can toss the carcass of the fish or save it for fish stock if you have enough fish bones.
• Cut to remove all the yucky bits at the top.
• Cut down both sides of the spine to remove the bones from the centre of the fillet.
• You will end up with two pieces of fish.
• Then take one piece of the fish fillet, slice into the flesh at the tail end, flesh side up, along the skin. Slice gently and as close to the skin as possible to remove the skin from the flesh of the fish.
• Repeat for all pieces of fish.

And there you have it - a freshly filleted fish. Ugh!

We made a batter for the fish and deep fried it. The trick with the batter is to make it not too runny and throw some ice into it to keep it cold for optimum crisp in the batter when deep frying.

 

To make the batter:

Ingredients:

• A quantity of flour (depends on how much fish you have to batter)
• Season with salt (a pinch or more if you have a lot of batter to make)
• Beer or mineral water
• Handful of ice

Instructions:

• Put flour and salt into a mixing bowl
• Pour in small quantities of the beer or mineral water and mix until it is thick and doughy
• Add handful of ice
• Continue adding small quantities of beer or mineral water and mixing until you get a smooth, slightly thick texture (the batter will continue to thin as the ice continues to melt, but the ice does not need to be melted when the batter is done)

To fry the fish, you flour the fish (which basically means cover all sides of the fish with flour, heat oil to 180 degrees C and test that it is hot enough before putting the fish in. When the fish is covered in batter, slowly put about 1/3 to almost 1/2 of the fish in the hot oil and wave it around gently so that the part in the oil starts to cook for about 10 to 15 seconds before letting go and immersing the whole piece of fish into the oil. This will make certain that the fish will float to the surface and not stick to the bottom of the pot. Cook until a golden brown, remove from oil onto a tray lined with kitchen paper towels and sprinkle with salt while still hot. Eat with sauce of your choice. We made tartare sauce to go with the fish.

Here's the RECIPE for the tartare sauce:

Ingredients for basic mayonnaise:

• 2 egg yolks at room temperature (this is very important. If your eggs are cold, they will not combine!!!)
• 300ml oil (grapeseed, canola, sunflower or any oil that is without color and taste - DO NOT use olive oil)
• 1 heaped teaspoon Dijon mustard
• Pinch of salt
• Pinch of pepper

Ingredients for tartare sauce:

• 1 teaspoon of mini capers
• 6 small cornichons - diced into small pieces
• Juice of a quarter of a lemon
• Pinch of lemon zest
• 1 tablespoon of finely chopped parsley
• Pinch of salt to taste

Instructions to make basic mayo:

• Put egg yolks into mixing bowl
• Add Dijon mustard, salt and pepper
• Begin to drizzle oil into bowl while whisking gently (you can also do with this an electric mixer which makes is so much easier!!!) until the eggs and oil combine and begin to emulsify
• Continue with oil until all of it is gone (as you proceed, the oil can go in faster and you can whisk faster)

For tartare sauce:

• Add all the tartare sauce ingredients into 3 heaped tablespoons of the basic mayo and mix together
• Add salt to taste

That's it! Fresh battered fish with homemade tartare sauce. We didn't have any hot chips to go with the fish, just 'cos we didn't make any.

For me though, if I want fish and chips, I think I'll go to a restaurant 'cos I'm not crazy about the whole seafood thing, but that tartare sauce is damned good and they don't make that as well in the restaurant. For all I know, they might not even make it themselves and the tartare sauce comes out of a jar, which would explain why most of it is pretty tasteless.



© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny’s Fortunes Pty Ltd