Mmm, foooood.
Oct. 7th, 2008 12:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teylaminhEveryone should go to The Works on New Street (or possibly wherever you happen to live) and pick up the little square recipe books. They're about an inch thick and called things like "Fish Dishes" and "Meat Treats" and are jam-packed with simple, effective recipes. Paul bought two from the book man at work (the pasta one where I got the chicken / gorgonzola / mushroom thing from, and "Breads and Baking", where I got the scones from) and I bought three more - the two above and one of puddings. They are absolutely brilliant.
I made the one below the cut last night because I had the ingredients and it was better than fish and chips. And, well, it's basically glorified fish and chips anyway. This is from memory, so forgive anything I may miss out...
Potato Boulangere with Sea Bass
(It doesn't have to be sea bass, obviously. I think it would work just as well with chicken or any other fish, or whatever takes your fancy.)
I apologise for the mix of imperial and metric. :P
Ingredients
1lb potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
1 large onion, thinly sliced (so as to make rings)
350g sea bass fillets. (I only had two fillets, which was about 200g, but I don't suppose it matters, realy...)
1/2pt fish or vegetable stock (or chicken if you're using chicken)
3oz butter/margarine
salt & pepper
Method
Pre-heat oven to 200C / gas mark 6.
Lightly grease an ovenproof dish big enough to hold your fish.
Place a layer of potato slices in the bottom, then alternate with onion and the rest of the potato, seasoning each layer with salt and pepper.
Cover the layers with the stock, dot the butter on top, and put in the oven for 50-60 minutes, uncovered.
Towards the end of the cooking time, cook the sea bass in either a frying pan or a griddle, starting flesh side down. Fresh should take about 3-4 minutes per side, frozen about 7 minutes per side if you're frying it. (Alternatively, cook your chicken at this point, which is about 20 minutes frying. Or you could roast it. Or use leftovers. The possibilities are endless!)
Place fish (or chicken) on top of the almost-cooked potato / onion mixture and then cover with tinfoil and return to oven for 10 minutes.
Serve.
Verdict
OMG. This was gorgeous. I was very surprised because I thought it was going to be really dry, but the stock mixes with the bottom layers and it's really creamy, with the top layer going all crispy. The fish stock makes it especially delicious. The flavour reminded me of fish pie.
I'll try it with chicken some other time. At the moment we just have a freezer full of fish. :) It would probably be really nice with salmon as well... Mmm, thinking about it is making me hungry.
Nothing else to report. Paul and I played a couple of games of Scrabble last night because it had been ages. During the Heatwave of 2006 we played Scrabble endlessly because it was too hot to do anything else...
Whilst dinner was cooking I also finally got around to consolidating my two versions of "Whisper" (the POTO fic) because I've been working on it at work but there was some stuff I did at home, and I was getting confused. Both versions are now the same, so I can follow the narrative better. Before bed I also finished my POTO fic in some rough fashion, and will attempt to tidy it up either tonight or tomorrow and hopefully post the final chapter at some point thereafter, and then I can get back to "Strange Glue". Whilst it would be appropriate if the story actually got back on track in time for New Year's, as that's when the penultimate chapter takes place, I was hoping to get it done before now...
I'm reading a very good book at the moment: Tracey Chevalier's The Virgin Blue. It's about two women born centuries apart who are connected, and the chapters alternate between the modern-day setting and the C16th setting. I'm finding the latter a lot more interesting and last night ended up reading two of the insanely long chapters instead of one, just so I could find out what happened next tonight. It's been quite a while since a book sucked me in. Possibly my reading-geek is coming back after English Lit killing it off. :)
Anyway. Nearly lunchtime...
I made the one below the cut last night because I had the ingredients and it was better than fish and chips. And, well, it's basically glorified fish and chips anyway. This is from memory, so forgive anything I may miss out...
Potato Boulangere with Sea Bass
(It doesn't have to be sea bass, obviously. I think it would work just as well with chicken or any other fish, or whatever takes your fancy.)
I apologise for the mix of imperial and metric. :P
Ingredients
1lb potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
1 large onion, thinly sliced (so as to make rings)
350g sea bass fillets. (I only had two fillets, which was about 200g, but I don't suppose it matters, realy...)
1/2pt fish or vegetable stock (or chicken if you're using chicken)
3oz butter/margarine
salt & pepper
Method
Pre-heat oven to 200C / gas mark 6.
Lightly grease an ovenproof dish big enough to hold your fish.
Place a layer of potato slices in the bottom, then alternate with onion and the rest of the potato, seasoning each layer with salt and pepper.
Cover the layers with the stock, dot the butter on top, and put in the oven for 50-60 minutes, uncovered.
Towards the end of the cooking time, cook the sea bass in either a frying pan or a griddle, starting flesh side down. Fresh should take about 3-4 minutes per side, frozen about 7 minutes per side if you're frying it. (Alternatively, cook your chicken at this point, which is about 20 minutes frying. Or you could roast it. Or use leftovers. The possibilities are endless!)
Place fish (or chicken) on top of the almost-cooked potato / onion mixture and then cover with tinfoil and return to oven for 10 minutes.
Serve.
Verdict
OMG. This was gorgeous. I was very surprised because I thought it was going to be really dry, but the stock mixes with the bottom layers and it's really creamy, with the top layer going all crispy. The fish stock makes it especially delicious. The flavour reminded me of fish pie.
I'll try it with chicken some other time. At the moment we just have a freezer full of fish. :) It would probably be really nice with salmon as well... Mmm, thinking about it is making me hungry.
Nothing else to report. Paul and I played a couple of games of Scrabble last night because it had been ages. During the Heatwave of 2006 we played Scrabble endlessly because it was too hot to do anything else...
Whilst dinner was cooking I also finally got around to consolidating my two versions of "Whisper" (the POTO fic) because I've been working on it at work but there was some stuff I did at home, and I was getting confused. Both versions are now the same, so I can follow the narrative better. Before bed I also finished my POTO fic in some rough fashion, and will attempt to tidy it up either tonight or tomorrow and hopefully post the final chapter at some point thereafter, and then I can get back to "Strange Glue". Whilst it would be appropriate if the story actually got back on track in time for New Year's, as that's when the penultimate chapter takes place, I was hoping to get it done before now...
I'm reading a very good book at the moment: Tracey Chevalier's The Virgin Blue. It's about two women born centuries apart who are connected, and the chapters alternate between the modern-day setting and the C16th setting. I'm finding the latter a lot more interesting and last night ended up reading two of the insanely long chapters instead of one, just so I could find out what happened next tonight. It's been quite a while since a book sucked me in. Possibly my reading-geek is coming back after English Lit killing it off. :)
Anyway. Nearly lunchtime...
