My Lovely Dish

Isn't it tyical - I'm all wide awake (Ertie's in the land of nod) and there's no-one on here to chat to. I'm all on my lonesome.........

Anyway, I thought I'd start a thread about food - I know Judith asked for some more of my recipes, and I think someone else did, too. So I'll tell what we're having for bank holiday (have family coming for lunch) and the recipes - if you fancy the sound of them, that is!

I've decided to make Spaghetti Vongole for starters, and then Sea Bass baked in rock salt for main course with a shepherd's salad, and hot crusty bread. And then for pudding I'm making Pavlova with figs and berries drizzled with orange blossom honey.

We'll have Chablis with the starter and main course, and something sparkling and sweet with the pudding.

To make the Sea Bass you need to buy a good few packets of sea salt (the hard crystal chunky type) I always buy Maldon Sea Salt, anyway - so that's ideal. It sounds fiddly, but really it's dead easy to do. You just mix the salt with a little water and a couple of beaten egg whites until the salt goes slightly gooey and moist. I sprinkle lemon zest on the salt, and then cover the bottom of a roasting dish with the salt and lay the Sea Bass on top. Don't scale the fish, but after you've cleaned it inside I always put bunches of fresh dill (or any other herb you like - but I like dill) inside the fish, along with some slices of lemon, bay leaves and freshly groung black pepper. You then put the remaining sea salt all over the fish - making a kind of 'salt oven' if that makes sense. You bake that just for about 40 minutes on 220 heat. When you take it out, the salt will be rock solid, so you give it a bash and crack it open. The fish will not taste salty - you'd think it would, but it doesn't - it just cooks the fish beautifully. It comes out all sweet, tender, moist and succulent - and the flavour is incredible.

I think a nice shepherd's salad always goes well with it, and hot buttered crusty bread straight out of the oven.

Oh, I'll write out the rest tomorrow..........

Goodnight!

I thought you was going to talk about Ertie when I saw that heading Strawbs it sounds delish, can I come round as well please? I hope you finish this recipe off, the dessert sounds scrummy Did you say E moans about your cooking before?

Sal

Strawbs it sounds fab ...........is it Spanish?

Pol

It all sounds absolutely delicious Strawbs. Have a lovely time with your family.

You should do a "Come Dine With Me". I bet you'd make a brilliant contestant!

Hi Judith,

It's funny you said that - a few people have told me I should go in for that! I'm not sure, though, that I'd be happy with the contestants going into my all my personal belongings while I was in the kitchen - you know how they start pulling drawers open and stuff - and the cameras zoom in on the contents! Actually, they'd probably zoom in on my messy drawer in the kitchen, thinking about it. When I moved here I was determined not have a 'messy drawer' - but after about two weeks I had the same messy drawer that I had in my last house. In fact, I think I brought the mess with me - you know the stuff - batteries that you're not sure if they're dead or not...rolled-up cables that you haven't got a clue what they belong to....loose screws that you have no idea what they're supposed to fit...old sellotape that you can't find the end to....buttons that you have no idea where they came from...and those small packets of unopened tiny screwdrivers that came out of a Christmas cracker, and you've never found a reason to use - but you keep them 'in case' For like, 15 years.

I wonder if it's just me that's got one of those drawers? How embarrassing if it is - and I've now divulged my naughty secret!

Oh, I don't think so. When the removal man came round to give me a quote when I sold up and moved here, he said I could pack everything myself or they could do it for me. So as we got talking I actually mentioned about my messy drawer (and stuff in the loft) and asked him if they just tipped it in the box and wrote 'JUNK' on it, but he laughed and said "Oh no! We just put it all in a box and write on it which room it came from - Kitchen, Bedroom etc - we would never write 'JUNK' on it! Everyone has drawers like that!" Phew - what a relief!

Anyway, back to my cooking. Sal, you're right - Ertie does seem to think he's a great cook - and he really thinks I can't cook Turkish food - which is brilliant - because I don't have to chop up aubergines and peppers - which seems to go into every Turkish dish. So he cooks that if he wants it He loves my roast beef and Yorkshire Puddings, steaks etc, but if he ever fancies Turkish food he likes to 'take control' and do it all himself - which suits me down to the ground. He only cooks green beans and pasta really (he's got two signature dishes ) Ooops, sorry - 4 signature dishes. He also does deep-fried aubergine, peppers and chips - which he leaves to go stone cold - and then puts garlic yogurt all over them. I've never had that in Turkey, but he promises me it's a Turkish speciality. Do you know that dish? Oh, and he does do another one which is about one million calories a spoonful - hot deep-fried croutons with pasta and - garlic yogurt. As it happens, it's very tasty (even though it sounds revolting) but I only ever eat one spoonful of it, as it must be the most fattening dish going. It really, really tastes fattening!

Polly, the Sea Bass in Salt may be Spanish - I remember having it out there moooooons ago, but I think it's kind of international? Or maybe Meditteranean? I'm really not sure, actually. But it is truly delicious, and once you've tasted it you'll never want to eat it any other way. It's quite a spectacular dish, and you'll always get whoops of delight when you bring it to the table in its salt casing. People swoon and groan when you place it in the centre of the table (especially if you've got them semi-sloshed) but if you do prepare one, make sure no-one with high blood pressure accidently eats any of the salt casing - especially if they're on their third glass of wine and thinks it's crackling!

Strawbs

Mmmmmm I love the sound of that dish, I love fish apart from the bone's, can you make that with any fish?

That sounds so lush!! I'm gonna have a stab at doing that. Teenz I had a look in case you want it today and I found a link for it, dunno if its the same one but it sounds like it and you can use grouper and bream too, its Spanish but is done all over the med. http://www.milescollins.com/wordpress/fish-baked-in-salt I want some now, read what it says it sounds delish! I never heard of it before.

Pipxoxo

wow you master chef you! sadly i do not eat fish but hubby loves it so he would love that.i did see in a turkish restaurant they had a huge fish and made it almost the same way so i guess its pretty universal but each country uses different spices etc.must say im happy to let hubby cook turkish food so i can just watch the chase on tv and to be honest i agree with you strawbs there is no way i would want a bunch of people going through my stuff.i actually do not think that it should be allowed and what happens if something goes missing or gets broken? you cant always replace certain items so i think its a stupid part of the programme and has nothing to do with the actual subject.Hope your day went well though x

Our dinner was lovely, thank you. Everyone said how delicious it was - and the fish was fantastic. I actually used 3 Sea Bass, as the largest ones the fishmonger had weren't really big enough - and I hate not having enough. So it was slightly more time-consuming having to cook the 3 in separate roasting trays, but it wasn't such a big deal.

Our starter was lovely, too - Spaghetti Vongole with clams, white wine, herbs etc. Soooo tasty! Of course, I only served up smallish size portions of that (between a starter and main size) though some people think pasta as a starter is a bit strange, but they eat it like that in Italy quite a lot, and I think it works really well. If you want the recipe for that I can give it to you, or you can just Google it - but do try it - it's delicious!

With the Salt Cooked Sea Bass I made a giant bowl of shepherd's salad, and added some peeled lemon rind to it. It tasted divine... I also made a hot Lemon Hollandaise sauce as a kind of mayonnaise, but the fish doesn't need anything, really - it comes out so beautifully. But it was still nice to have. Oh, and I served hot crusty bread. I didn't do potatoes or anything, as we'd had the pasta for a starter, and I thought that would be too filling. But I had to serve bread - especially for Ertie!

I was lucky - everything turned out just right! The Pavlova was lovely - slightly crunchy but chewy inside, and I filled it with beaten double cream and then put strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and quartered figs on top of it, and squeezed passion fruit over that, then drizzled orange blossom honey over it, and decorated it with mint leaves and redcurrants - so it looked a bit like jewels - kind of theatrical and OTT. I like things like that! It makes such an impression when you plonk THAT in the centre of the table! lol And then people just help themselves to it. We had that with sweet sparkling wine (Champagne would have been too dry) and it was all just lovely being together, eating and chatting - it was a perfect family dinner.

Teenz, I think Pip is right - you probably could use a variety of other fish. As she says, Bream would work well. You could try salmon or trout, even? I don't see why it wouldn't work in the same way? Do you know, I know someone who cooks her salmon (big one - if she's having a party) in the dishwasher! Eeeeew! She wraps it in foil, and obviously doesn't use Finish or anything, but I just think it's a bit off-putting? Mind you, you put your plates and everything in there, and you eat off them, but it just seems a bit off-putting to me....

Anyway, back to the Salt Baked Bass - give it a go with a bream or a bass. Or how about red mullet? I bet that would work well! I know that some people insist on cooking it without cleaning it out first - they remove the insides after it's cooked - and they say it tastes even nicer. But I haven't tried that...maybe next time!

Tell us how you get on when you do it!

Strawbs

You make me hungry you do....... ham sarnie for me today what you having tonight? Go on make us break our diets girl

Sal

Fish is boring