Slightly Fancy Pants Dinner No.1: Sea Bass in Coconut and Ginger Sauce with Smashed Mumbai Spuds

My good intentions for this blog were delayed slightly by getting read to move to the states, but here she goes again. This is an extremely tasty and fancy meal that is deceptively easy to make.

Here's what the finished dish looks like:

Feeds 2

Prep time 10 mins

Cooking time 30

Ingredients:

Coconut and Ginger Sauce:

1 tbsp of coconut oil, vegetable is fine either

1/4 tsp of mustard seeds

1 tsp finely chopped ginger

3 cloves of garlic, sliced into fine strips. Fine strips, hah.

2 green chillies, halved lengthways

2 onions finely sliced

1 1/2 tsp of ground tumeric

1 tsp of ground coriander

2tbsp of tamarind paste

400ml of coconut milk

Salt and pepper to taste

Mumbai Spuds:

200g flowery spuds, I used Kerr Pinks

1 tbsp of mustard oil

1/2 tsp of mustard seeds

1/2 tsp of cumin seeds

1/2 tsp of fresh ginger, finely chopped

1 tbsp of chopped coriander leaves

salt and pepper to taste

Sea Bass:

2 Sea bass fillets, make sure they're scaled and pin boned

veg oil

salt and pepper

My fingers are tired typing out them ingredients, but it is straight forward enough. We'll make the sauce while the spuds are boiling and then when the spuds are ready we'll fry the fish which will only take about 4-5 minutes.

Start by peeling the spuds and boiling them in a pot of well salted water. When the potatoes are on the boil start making the sauce:

1. Heat the oil in a pan and add the mustard seeds until they pop.

2. Add the ginger, garlic, green chillies and sliced onions. Fry until the onions are translucent. Reduce the heat and add the tumeric and coriander.

3. Add 120ml of water and the tamarind paste, when this comes to a simmer then add the coconut milk.Season to taste.

4. Simmer this until it reaches the preferred thickness. It can be set aside and re heated if needed.

At this point your spuds should be cooked, drain them and allow them to sit for a minute or two so they dry off a bit. Time to turn them into Mumbai spuds:

1. Heat the oil in a pan, add the mustard and cumin seeds until they begin to pop.

2. Add in the ginger followed quickly by the spuds. Mix this well, gently crushing the spuds as you go. Season with salt to taste.We are not looking for mashed potatoes, but the consistency is up to you.

3. Stir in the chopped coriander just before serving.

The hard part is now over, just the fish left to do. Crispy skin on sea bass is one of my favourite things in the world to eat, it's fairly easy to do the way I cook fillets of fish.

1. Score the skin of your sea bass fillets so they look like this and season well with salt and pepper.

2. Heat a small amount of oil in a pan until it's almost smoking.

3. Add the fish skin side down. Cooking the fish skin side down for the majority of the time in the pan is the key to crispy skin. Only flip it when you see the fish cooking up the side.

Now it's just a matter of putting it on a plate! I use a cooks ring to make a circle of Mumbai Spuds, place the fish on top of this and arrange the sauce around it.

Enjoy!

Convienent Dinner No.1: Tarka Dhal

Right so, I've been thinking of doing an aul food blog for a while. Let's face it I love cooking almost as much as I enjoy eating. So here it goes.

Tarka Dhal:

Serves 8 as a starter or 5-6 as a main course with some Naan or Pita.
Prep time 5 minutes.
Cooking time 20-25 mins.


Ingredients
500g of Red Split Lentils
2 tins of chopped tomatoes, sometimes I use a bottle of Passata
2 inches of root ginger
1 whole head of garlic
1.5 large onions
2 chillies, pictured are fresno chillies but the type used depends on how spicy you want it
2 tsp of ground turmeric
2 tsp of ground coriander
2 tsp of whole cumin seeds
1 teaspoon of mustard seeds
vegetable oil
Salt to taste

Peel and roughly chop ginger, garlic, 1 large onion and chillies and place in a blender with a splash of water. Blend this to a fine puree. If it's not moving nicely enough in the blender then add another splash of water, just be careful not to too much as this mix is to be fried in oil.
Heat a couple of table spoons of vegetable oil in a larger pot or wok. Add in the mustard and cumin seeds. Once the seeds start to sizzle and pop add in the pureed ingredients.
Fry this mixture for 2-3 minutes stirring regularly, until the puree darkens slightly. Now add the 2 tins of tomatoes, giving it a big oul stir so the tomatoes are evenly spread through the mixture. Lower the heat and continue to cook for another 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
While the sauce is cooking, cook the lentils as per the instruction on the packet.
Taste the sauce for seasoning and add salt as necessary. Once the lentils are cooked to your liking, add them to the sauce. Give this a good stir and cook for a 5 minutes on a low heat.

Time to EAT!

Serving suggestions:
I like to serve this dhal with a good dollop of natural yoghurt and fried onions on top normally. Sometimes I make a riata using yoghurt, mint, finely chopped onions, lime juice and garlic and have it instead of the plain yoghurt. Scooping it up with some nice warm Naan or a pita is quite tasty.