Baked fish with potatoes and asparagus

I’ve always been a tad contrary.

As blogging is in its final hour, I’ve got the urge to write again. Each day it seems another blogger from way back when is pulling up stumps. It gets tiring, that nagging voice in the back of your mind, to blog. We all run out of steam eventually. 

I have no desire to share my life story, publish a cookbook or be a photography wizard in this space, I’m just going back to my roots which are simply a food blog as a cook’s journal, my digital scribble of recipes created (and the occasional culinary failure) so I can remember them in future.  No pressure to post on schedule, or at all. I'm only popping back when something is worth reproducing. And bugger the grammar!

On holiday I stumbled upon a simple fish recipe that kept my diminutive New Zealand family happy. I adapted the original source that features salmon (though I eat it when I have no other choice, farmed and flabby Australasian salmon is a disappointing experience) and tweaked cooking times accordingly. It needed some jazzing up so I added olives, garlic and seasoning. Next time I’ll skip the balsamic (as I have done below) and top the finished dish with a capery-salsa verde, which I reckon will give the meal the added zip it needs.

Be my guest and use salmon if that’s the only fish you feel competent cooking, it will hold its shape well and is unlikely to offend. As I was in New Zealand I couldn’t go past the local fresh snapper but most fillets will work. If thin check at 7-8 minutes to see if cooked, otherwise thicker ones may require the full 15.

The original recipe calls for successive ingredients to be tossed together in the pan but I got all Virgo and kept them in neat layers.

Baked snapper with asparagus and potatoes

(Serves 3)

600g small new potatoes, scrubbed (I used Jersey Bennies but if you only have big old spuds, slice into 3 cm chunks)

3 cloves of garlic (skin on)

2 tabs olive oil

1 – 2 bunches of asparagus, woody parts removed

1 punnet cherry (or similar small) tomatoes

3 medium sized fish fillets (I used NZ snapper, which are quite thin but Blue Eye would also work well)

Sea salt

½ cup Kalamata olives (omit if serving with salsa verde)

To serve – lemon wedges or salsa verde (optional) 

Fire up the oven to 220c (fan) and find an oven dish (ceramic or metal) that will fit the potatoes in a single layer. If you don’t like washing up, line it with foil or parchment.

Tip a tablespoon of oil into a plastic bag or bowl and toss the spuds and garlic with a sprinkle of salt. Arrange in a single layer in the dish and bake for 20 minutes. Don’t chuck out the oil or bag just yet – add the asparagus to gently coat.

Remove from oven and give the spuds a good shake to loosen. Add the asparagus in a layer on top. If your tomatoes are a little on the large size, add them now as well. Just scatter around the pan. Cook for a further 15 minutes.

Remove from oven and give the pan another shake. Season the fish and lie on top of the asparagus, throw in some olives (and add the tomatoes now if tiny). Sprinkle the fish with the remaining tablespoon of oil. Bake 10 – 15 minutes until the fish is cooked.

Assemble equal quantities of vegetables and fish on each plate.

Serve as is, or with a wedge of lemon. If you’re in the mood, a spoonful of salsa verde on the fish would give it a gentle kick.

finger food: mini frittatas in smoked salmon cups

It’s finger food season. These make a perfect mouthful and are quick and easy to make. There's a vego friendly version in the variations below.

Mini frittatas in smoked salmon cups

Makes about a dozen mini frittatas

6 slices smoked salmon

3 large eggs

1 tablespoon water

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh green herbs

Salt and pepper to taste

Heat oven to 200c.

Oil mini muffin tins well.

Line each hole with half a slice of good quality smoked salmon (I don’t like Australian salmon as it’s farmed, I’ve found a good source of smoked wild salmon from Scandinavia at Vic Markets).

Finely slice your herbs. Dill of course is ideal with salmon but it’s ok to improvise. The first batch was a combination of chives, garlic greens and parsley.

Beat eggs with a little water and a dash of salt and pepper. Mix through the chopped herbs. Pour into the salmon lined mini muffin tin holes.

Bake for 12 minutes, until cooked.

Run a knife carefully around the edge of each hole to loosen before removing. Tastes good hot or cold.

Variations

Double the quantities if using full-sized muffin tins. They make a good lunch or brunch item rather than finger food when larger.

Vegetarian: skip the salmon and add a little diced sun dried tomatoes or caramelised onions to the egg mix.

Experiment with different herbs. The green garlic tops were perfect.

GFWS 2009 -the good, the bad and the downright sexist

If you love big exhibitions, buy those supermarket-chain food magazines and watch programs like Masterchef – you will love the Good Food and Wine Show. However if the term “foodie” gives you heartburn and you find the cult of the celebrity chef distasteful this event might not be your thing.

As for me, I left the GFWS feeling a tad queasy.


The Good

Most exhibitors were generous with samples. You could more than recoup your entry fee on the wine tasting alone and after work on a Friday and that was what a fair few people seemed to be doing in the grog enclosure.

Food-wise two products stood out and both involved people doing things with real food. One exhibit did a great job of demystifying quinoa from cooking it in vegetable stock as a base for a casserole, to creating a delicious salad. The second standout was an avocado promotion. The smoothies made with pineapple, avocado, honey, orange juice and a little desiccated coconut was so good we went back for seconds.

We were given currency to use in the restaurant enclosure. Four chefs devised a simple menu with an entrée, main and dessert each. Of them, Gordon Ramsay’s simple and healthy offerings were the only ones fitting my criteria. Just as well because his salmon was a standout. It was while we were polishing off an early meal we were approached by an employee desperate to give away tickets to Ramsay’s next show in the kitchen stadium. We said no at first, neither or us a fan of the man though when we heard he’d be demonstrating how to cook the salmon we were sold.

The Bad

Product warning! Later in the year a Tasmanian company will be launching their Australian grown and canned tinned salmon. I wanted to like it but to be honest, I suspect there are cat foods on the market that taste better. I am their target market, with a stack of Wild Alaskan tinned salmon in my cupboard but the local product was so unbelievably foul I shudder just writing about it.

Speaking of cat food, as always there were far too many exhibits devoted to off theme products – pet consumerables, wash cloths, really pushy Asian massage hawkers that created a kind of visual and aural spam.

The Ugly

Gordon Ramsay doesn’t have a pretty face (even if it may or may not have been made less mobile thanks to botox). But that is not what makes him unattractive. I don’t own a single cookbook by a television celebrity and unlike the women whooping loudly in the front few rows – I am not a fan.

We rocked up to the half-full “Celebrity Theatre” just as the show was getting underway. The person seated next to us whispered they’d been sold out last year. Had Gordo lost his mojo with the GFC, infidelity and all? We endured the never ending warm up segment where audience members willingly humiliated themselves in the hope of winning show bags, until finally the man himself arrived with only moderate cheering from the audience and not a single pair of knickers thrown on stage.

Oh boy, what a big disappointment. Minute after aching minute of woman-hating rhetoric in the name of comedy spewed out of his mouth. He continually dissed Tracy Grimshaw, Susan Boyle and womankind generally to lukewarm response. For a man so keen to rub his genitals against the opposite sex, his blatant disrespect for the gender was from a different century.

With over half the allocated time now wasted he finally started cooking and attempted to redeem himself. Yes the man can cook. He knows how to dumb down a recipe for the public and what he created ticked all the boxes for simplicity, good produce and even health.

But the man himself, like the canned salmon left me feeling quite nauseous.

Disclaimer: I attended the show and ate at the restaurant courtesy of Stellar Concepts. Entry prices for Melbourne and Sydney are $27.50. The Ramsay Salmon dish with a glass of wine is available for $24.

Tickets to Gordon Ramsay ($47.50) were provided independently, by the event management on the day.