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.


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

Find me around SOCIAL MEDIA:
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Herby potatoes baked with tomatoes, olives and feta

Firstly, I would like to apologise for the long time between posts. I have no excuse except that life is happening. I'll make an effort to be more regular but I am not making any promises.  Now onto the post ... I hope you like potatoes!

Right now, we have a lot of potatoes in stock. We went to the store for some potatoes about a week ago and instead of our usual 2kg bag which would last us a couple of weeks, we ended up getting a 4kg bag as they were out of the 2kg. That's double what we normally get and we're struggling to get through it.

Last night, I decided that we needed to make a potato dish (instead of just mash as a regular accompaniment to a meal) to use up some potatoes.

I remembered that at one point The Boy went a little potato crazy and thought he would be cooking up a lot of potatoes, so he picked up a few cookbooks on the topic. I went through our collection and found this little treasure and had a quick look through it.

I knew I wanted something with potatoes as the main ingredient, rather than as a side ingredient and found this recipe. It looked and sounded tasty (and let's face it, I liked the pretty picture in the book) and found I had most of the ingredients needs to make it.

Here's the recipe for the potatoes:

Ingredients:

• 675g potatoes
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 3 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
• 4 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 2 red onions, quartered and sliced
• 1 - 2 teaspooons cumin seeds
• 1 - 2 teaspoons chili flakes
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
• 400g can diced tomatoes
• 12 - 16 black olives
• 115g feta cheese, crumbled
• salt and pepper to taste
• lemon wedges to serve

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 200°C. Cook potatoes in a pot of boiling water for 15 - 20 minutes until just tender. Drain and refresh in cold water. Peel and cut the potatoes into thick slices or bite size wedges.
• Heat butter and olive oil in a heavy pan, add garlic and onions and cook until soft. Add cumin seeds, chili flakes and most of the oregano, and then add sugar, vinegar and tomatoes. Season generously with salt and pepper.
• Put the sliced potatoes and olives into a baking dish and spoon over tomato mixture. Crumble feta cheese generously over the top and sprinkle with remaining oregano. Generously drizzle with olive oil, then bake in oven for 25 - 30 minutes.
• Serve hot, straight from the oven with lemon wedges to squeeze over the potatoes. Serve with a fresh green salad.

I didn't use any butter, but then, I seldom do. When a recipe calls for butter, I often use olive oil instead, which is what I did here.

Instead of boiling the potatoes whole to pre-cook them, I actually sliced them first, because I figured they would be easier to slice raw, rather than boiling hot and soft from cooking. I also didn't peel the potatoes as I find that leaving the skin (thoroughly washed!) on provides some structure to the potatoes and they are less likely to disintegrate.

This dish turned out super yummy and very hearty. It was fantastic as a main dish but I think it would work well as a side dish to a lovely beef or pork roast as well.

I did, however, forget to serve it with a wedge of lemon, but even without the lemon the potatoes were yummy!

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.


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

Find me around SOCIAL MEDIA:
Cooking blog: http://dazinthekitchen.blogspot.com.au/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dazinthekitchen
Twitter: @langshipley https://twitter.com/langshipley
Instagram: @langshipley http://instagram.com/langshipley
Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/langshipley/
Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/langshipley
Makeup and beauty blog: http://langshipley-deannasworld.blogspot.com.au/