Seafood marinara stew

Winter is creeping up on us like an unwanted guest. It's the middle of July and of course it is cold.   I have always written many many times in the past that we dread winter. Well I do. Sans the layering of clothing and comfortable matching scarves and beanies, and beautiful leather boots, I could do well without winter.  Really.  But I’m embracing our life here in AU and part of assimilating into the Australian way of life is well, embracing winter and all the other seasons that come and go.  But you have to know that winter... is my least favourite. 

When it comes to winter cooking and food, I love simple recipes.  My favourites are dishes that shout fresh, easy to reach ingredients, simple cooking methods with delicious results.  While I do admire chefs who are into fusion and gastronomy, I’m not the type who would attempt pesto jelly, or strawberry foams.  I like simple cooking.  Time spent in the kitchen is precious, and any effort made to prepare, whether it took 10 minutes or 6 hours always spells love. 

This one, no matter what angle shouts L-O-V-E.  Ingredients are simple, easy to make and wow! It's my easy version of the French seafood boullabaisse, minus all the other ingredients.  The seafood mix is anything you get from the fish markets. 

You dive into this with some toasted sour dough or any fresh bread, and you’ll come back up feeling the love.  You’ll get lots of warm hugs from this for sure. 

 

 Ingredients:

1kg mixed seafood (marinara mix in shells)

1 jar 350 ml passata sauce (tomato sauce)

3-4 fresh tomatoes, quartered

1 onion, sliced

2-3 cloves garlic, chopped finely

½ cup fresh parsley, roughly chopped

½ teaspoon course/ground oregano

Salt and pepper to taste

Olive oil

Tablespoon of butter (optional)

 Method:

In a heavy based pan or skillet, heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil.

Add the garlic and onions and cook until soft.

Add the tomatoes and cook until soft.

Add the passata sauce, bring to boil then turn down heat to simmer.

Season with salt and pepper, and sprinkle the oregano.

Add the seafood, place lid/cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until all seafood pieces are cooked through.

Add the butter and let it melt into the sauce.  

Top with the chopped parsley.

Tips and tricks:

* I add the butter in the latter part of the cooking just to add that gloss in the sauce.  You don't have to add butter if you don't want to, but that its a secret ingredient in most restaurants - the chefs add that for the shine and gloss.

* You can also add fresh or dried thyme for extra flavour.  They add a rich depth to the stew.

Salmon rissoles

As Lent is upon us, we like to eat more fish or seafood dishes this season.   As a Filipino parent, we try to instill in our kids traditions that we grew up with.  And as born Filipino Catholics, there's a lot of these traditions that come during Lent - from Ash Wednesday to Maundy Thursday to witness washing of the feet, to Good Friday to do the Stations of the Cross to Easter Sunday.   While we can't always do all these traditions because of timing and schedule, we do keep to our lenten sacrifice.

From Ash Wednesday, it's customary that we avoid eating meats on Fridays for the whole season of Lent.  In the past years, I have personally sacrificed eating meat for 40 days and it was a welcome change.   

Every year, each of the girls have their own fave food or habit which they sacrifice for the whole Lenten period.  Usually they give up chips, lollies, chocolates, soda, etc.  It's a good exercise of discipline as sometimes I forget and pack some in their lunch box, and then I get told off.  "Please don't add chips in my lunch box as I'm sacrificing that for lent, mum."  It's good for discipline and for the health too!

Now this is a fantastic option to our weekday or weekend menu.  Salmon rissoles.  They're easy and so inexpensive to make.  The recipe is adapted from Coles recipes.

Ingredients:

4 medium sized potatoes
 

30g unsalted butter

395g tin red salmon, drained and flaked

3-4 spring onions, chopped

1 cup breadcrumbs

zest and juice of 1 lemon

1 egg

1 cup corn flour


vegetable oil or light olive oil for frying



Method

Boil the potatoes until tender, 20-25 minutes.

Drain.  In a large bowl, mash the potatoes with 30g unsalted butter.

Add the flaked tinned salmon, bread crumbs, spring onions, egg, zest and juice of the lemon.

Mix and shape into patties.

Roll in corn flour and shake off excess.

Continue wth the rest of the patties.

Heat a pan on medium heat with enough oil for frying.

Pan fry the rissoles in batches, for 5-6 minutes or until golden.

Drain on paper towels.

Serve with garlic aoili (simply add crushed garlic into a cup of store bought mayonnaise) and a lemon wedge.

Tips and tricks:

*Variations on this rissoles, would be using tinned tuna or flaked smoked salmon;

* When shaping the patties/rissoles, make sure they are uniform in size to make cooking easy

* You can add other greens into the rissoles.  Chopped basil or chives will work great too.

Shallow-poached tilapia in coconut milk with chillies

Fish  and seafood dishes are common  in the Philippines. Surrounded by large bodies of water at every corner, fish/seafood is a staple alongside rice. Several big canning companies abound in the western part of the country exporting tuna and sardines across the globe.  And the variety of edible fishes are a plenty that a weekday meal is not without fish.  Buying them straight from the market is the only way to get them fresh.   And they are fresh. No frozen from catch, but real fresh. And being Filipino, we love our seafood.  We love our fish.  Fresh.

Sadly, we can't get fresh tilapia in Sydney.  As these fresh water fishes are considered noxious (like pests, they multiply rather quickly) by the NSW Department of Primary Industries, cultivation of tilapia is banned in NSW as they pose a threat to other native fish species.  Although there are breeding populations in other states.


But this does not stop a Pinoy when he/she craves food from home.  So we get frozen cleaned tilapia form our local fishmonger, or the Asian/Filipino shops.  We just leave them at room temperature to thaw before cooking.

To make this  dish, you'll need:

400ml can of coconut milk

1 Spanish onion, sliced

1 knob of ginger, sliced into thin strips

1 or 2 pieces of fresh or thawed tilapia

2 long green chillies

2 birds eye chillies

1 bunch bok choy

1/2 cup chopped coriander

vegetable oil



In a shallow pot or skillet, heat about a tablespoon of vegetable oil and saute the onions and ginger.

Add the coconut milk and bring to a boil.

Place the fish in the coconut milk, bring to a boil then bring to a low simmer and cook for 20 minutes.

Add the chillies and bok choy and continue to cook until the bok choy is soft.  Turn off heat.

To serve, using a slotted spoon or spatula, gently lift the fish onto a platter. With a spoon, scoop the sauce and pour on the fish.  Add the vegetables and chillies to the platter.  Garnish with chopped coriander.

For variation, you can also use cleaned whole snapper, bream or any white fleshed fish.

This is a lovely and simple dish that you can make any day of the week.  Its quick and easy and packed full of healthy (and spicy) ingredients.  You can omit the chillies all together, but add some more ginger for that extra punch.

Chermoula chicken sticks

Now that its Spring, and the barbie's definitely out from hibernation, this is a great fish or chicken marinade that's sure to impress anyone.  Your family, your guests and even you neighbours.  This is a Moroccan dish we've tried at home. The paste is made either using a food processor (if you have one) or a large heavy mortar and pestle (granite or marble ones are best).  Then the paste is rubbed on the chicken pieces and left to infuse the flavours for half to one hour.   The smell of this when you're cooking them on the pan or on the grill is so inviting, you'd have your neighbours coming out of the homes to get a whiff.  

We've made this at home several times using Poh's recipe with chicken breast pieces shallow pan fried and made this for a BBQ at a friend's place using chicken thigh pieces skewed with bamboo sticks.   We also made a version of this in Kitchen 8 during our Seafood Module and used snapper (with fins trimmed and head cut off and the skins scored).

60 ml olive oil

juice of half a lemon

1/2 bunch coriander, washed and roughly chopped including stalks and roots

1/2 bunch flat leaf parsley, washed and roughly chopped

1 Spanish onion, quartered

2 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped roughly

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 teaspoon cracked pepper

1/2 teaspoon Moroccan seasoning (or Ras El Hanout if available)

Place all ingredients in a food processor (or a mortar and pestle) and process for one minute.

Slowly add the olive oil until you get a thick paste consistency.

Add the lemon juice and stir to combine.

Place in an air tight container to keep, or in a large bowl if using immediately.

Rub onto chicken breast pieces and place in a shallow bowl and set aside for half an hour.

Shallow pan fry the chicken pieces 3 or 4 at a time, depending on the size of your pan.

Or alternatively, grill the chicken until cooked through.

If using snapper, clean the fish and trim off fins and head.  Score the skin and rub the paste and set on the grill. 

You can also make the paste ahead of time as they are good to keep in plastic containers in the fridge for about a week. If you're keeping some of the paste for future use, make sure you separate the amount that you're using from the ones you're keeping.  You wouldn't want to contaminate your paste with those you've used to rub the chickens with.

Snapper ceviche (Snapper Kinilaw in Filipino)

 

 

Learning kitchen skills was one of the things I looked forward to when I started my course in Kitchen10.   And filleting a fish was one of the highlights last year.  Right up there in the top 3.  Its not easy,  but with the right equipment (a filleting knife) and a lot of practice, it can be a breeze!  I’ve tried doing it at home more than a dozen times already.  But when I’m head to head with a fish, it still gets kind of intimidating!  Those nano seconds can get really entertaining, but we get on and fast forward a few minutes after, voila. We have a significant amount of flesh to consume.   So I did not completely mess the fish after all.

 

This is so easy to prepare.  15 minutes, tops!  If and when you find yourself in the Masterchef   kitchen and there's that 10 or 20 minutes pressure test, this simple, fast and furious dish should be one of those up your sleeves.  Just don't put too much chillies or it'll make George sweat up a storm.

To make this simple snapper kinilaw or ceviche, ask your fishmonger to fillet the fish for you.  Half of the job is done already.  

Fillet of 1 medium sized snapper, sliced thinly or strips

Half of red onion, sliced

2 knobs (thumb-sized) ginger, diced

1 birds eye chilli, chopped

Juice of half a lime

60ml or ¼ cup white vinegar

Salt and pepper to season (optional)

In a medium sized bowl, stir the ingredients together. Add the fish slices and stir gently to coat the fillets.  Let the fish soak for 5-10 minutes.

You can opt to serve the fish with the vinegar mixture or without it.

You can make a bigger serve of this, with a bigger fish.  Just let your taste buds guide you with the marinade.  As a rule, the vinegar should just be enough to soak all the fish, not to cover them completely.

Make this a few minutes before you intend to serve them.  As the longer the fish soaks, the more its cooked by the acid in the vinegar.  And the longer it’s soaked, the flesh gets flaky and will not be as good.

In the Philippines, the fish variety locally called “tanigue” (also known as seer fish or wahoo) is used to make this dish. But because this one is made in Australia, I’ve used whatever is the locally available white-flesh fillet variety.  I’ve never tried making this dish with other fish varieties, but in various parts of the Philippines, kinilaw or ceviche can also be prepared using fresh anchovies and oysters.

This is a Filipino appetizer, usually served where beer is on the menu.  Add some rounds of karaoke there, and you’re definitely in Pinoy surrounds.

Here’s a useful link about varieties of fish and general cooking method. 

Quick and easy salsa verde dressing

Using a mortar and pestle, ground a bunch of parsley, basil and 3 cloves garlic.  Once greens are almost fine,, transfer to a small bowl.  Add 60ml olive oil, juice of half a lemon, salt and pepper to taste and stir to mix through.

Spoon on your grilled salmon, or chicken or anything else that you think might need some extra lovin'.