Fishy fish with lemony mash

Hi there!

Yesterday I found myself in an abrupt need for fish. I not only craved it, but every part of my being screamed for it. So I pushed through the wintry darkness that’s already fallen over Sweden, and the crushing tiredness that comes with it, all the way to the freezer in a hunt for fish. I was hoping to find salmon fillets that I could just put in a pan with lemon juice, some pepper and herbamare and leave it in the oven to take care of itself. But, alas, no salmon was to be found. Instead I found cod, lots and lots of cod. So, I went online in hunt for an equally simple, taking care of itself recipe for cod. And I found one! Wohoo! In a happy daze I whipped it up in my normal exact way of following the recipes to the letter… Eh, right. But almost, I followed the idea, the pillars, we just happened to be lacking one of the main ingredients and measuring stuff is not something I normally do when I’m full of energy and not driven by a consuming need for fish.

Anyways, lets get to it! Okay, so I relieved our fridge of a packet with four cod fillets, but you could use any white fish, I’d suggest hoki or alaska pollock, that’s what I normally use as a substitute. The recipe called for 4 dl (0,4l) crème fraiche but we only had a bit of garlic crème fraiche that had expired and wasn’t that appetizing anymore. So, sadly I chucked the crème fraiche remains and instead took a bit of cream cheese a smidge of double cream and a bit of milk and created a crème fraiche substitute! Well, maybe it’s not the most optimal or crème fraiche-y but it worked fine, so there.

To your crème fraiche or your crème fraiche-y substance add dill, lots and lots of it, the recipe calls for 2 tbsp of dill, but I used more. Then in goes a squish and a half and a smidge more (yet again the recipe calls for 2 tbsp) of Swedish kaviar. (If your not in Sweden then you can definitely find it at IKEA, and possibly somewhere else, here’s a link to the wikipedia article explaining it all for you, possibly.) Okay, to season it all, add lemonpepper and herbamare, or lemon zest, pepper, and herbamare if you prefer. Pour it over the cod fillets which you have placed in an oven safe dish, did I mention that? And you should have already turned on the oven to 200*c as well, because now you’re putting the dish into the oven. The recipe claims that it takes 25 min, I didn’t take note of the time so I’ll leave it at that.

I served it with some potato mash seasoned with lemon juice: boil potatoes and mash them. Add a smidge of cream, a bit of lemon juice, accidentally pouring a bit more lemon juice than you originally intended but ignoring that and pretending that it was the exact amount that you had originally intended. Season with lemonpepper and herbamare. Mix it all together and serve!

My mom fixed some pomegranate seeds to serve with and I quickly chopped up some carrot coins, because carrots are made to be served with this dish. Then we devoured! It was delicious. Fish need fulfilled.

I guess if you can’t get a hold of kaviar you could get sort of the same kind of salty-ness with a fish stock cube that you chop up and disperse in your crème fraiche and I’d season it a bit more with the dill and pepper and more herbamare as the stock cube is more bland.

I found the recipe on the Swedish blog Linnéas Skafferi, she adds in her recipe that if you have the energy you could put the mash in the fish dish and make a fish gratin, and she’s not wrong. It does make real sense, is mouthwatering and looks nice, but serving it separate is just fine.

‘Til next time, have some simple and delicious fish 🙂

Lemony Yogurty Ice-creamy Awesomeness

Hi my wonderful people!

So, this is supposed to depict two lemons and a snowflake representing lemon ice-cream. Genius, right? But as soon as I had outlined the 2 “lemons” I had this thought that it looked like evil eyes, and I have yet to be able to shake that idea, so I’ll share it with you. But I promise, it is, really, just two lemons.

So yesterday was my “Name day”, yep that thing is real. Each day has one or more names and you end up with name days. In my family we celebrate name days with getting to select a dessert or pudding or whatever you want to call it. And traditionally me and my brother go for chocolate pudding, and don’t get me wrong I’m not negating the awesomeness that is chocolate pudding. I just wanted something else, it would be worth analyzing if it wasn’t for the fact that the day before me and my mom made chocolate ganache with chopped nuts. So, I’d just filled up on chocolate. I looked through a lot of my saved recipes and cookbooks for something that felt just right, and I stumbled upon the “Low-fat Lemon Yogurt Ice-cream”, aka Lemony Yogurty Ice-creamy Awesomeness,  recipe in Lorraine Pascale’s cookbook “A Lighter Way to Bake”. In which, btw, you’ll find a similarly awesome cococunt lime loaf, which I might tell you about some other time.

Now for the Ice-cream of deliciousness, I just so happened to think that I should take a bit more lemon than the recipe stated which in the end resulted in that I made some weird combination of 1,5 and 2 times the original recipe. It turned out great anyways so, wohoo! 😀 And, I’m going to give you my convoluted amounts, just to be on the not so completely safe side 😛 We’re four people and I served just the Ice-cream with some optional chopped almonds, perfect amount of ice-cream. Work out how much you want to make from that. Okay, to start of, you definitely need a freezer or an ice-cream machine, we’ve got both but the ice blocks for the machine weren’t frozen so I went with the freezer. 2 small lemons, which you might want to buy organic because you need the zest and just because the zest of non-organic don’t feel that great. But they work too, in both cases make sure to wash thoroughly in hot water. Then squish and press down and roll them a bit on the work surface, that really helps when you’re juicing them later on. So, the 2 lemons, grate the zest and juice the lemons into a bowl. Pour in 525g of as low-fat Greek yogurt you can find, the original recipe says 0%fat but I think I just had a temporary blind spot because the Greek yogurt I used turns out have 10% fat. Yes, I just now checked, as I sort of missed considering that at all yesterday. Add 75ml of skimmed milk, well the recipe says semi-skimmed, but we didn’t have that, and maybe that’s just as well seeing as the yogurt wasn’t exactly 0%… 4,5 tbsp of honey, well maybe it’s not exactly 4,5 I mean some honey always get stuck on the measuring spoon so I add a smidge to compensate and you get the drift. Exactness in cooking and baking isn’t really my thing, if you haven’t gotten that already, I’m more of a “oops, that happend” kind of person in the kitchen. Then I mixed it too a goop, before I sifted in 50ish grams of icing sugar, and yes this is one of the extremely few times I sift stuff, because icing sugar has a tendency to clump and I don’t want that. Mix it in and pour into a, well I used a loaf tin, it works perfect for freezing ice-cream. Then into the freezer, and every 30 odd minutes churn it with a fork and put it back, after 3hrs it should be done and you can devour it or leave it for later or both, somehow. And I say 30 odd because I aimed for 30minutes but I got distracted and lost track of time so it went like 30minutes to 50ish minutes (yeah, more like an hour or so but 50ish sounds better). I would have put an alarm on if I thought it would be ruined by not being churned exactly every 30min, but I didn’t and it wasn’t. But who knows, it might have turned out even better, if that’s even possible. If you happen to have an Ice Cream machine feel free to just dump the mixture into that, turn it on and let it do all the churning and freezing. Either way, it’s a really nice lemon ice-cream in that it’s not too sweet, it’s properly lemony.

This recipe is adapted from Lorraine Pascale’s A Lighter Way to Bake. A great cookbook for tasty and not so guilt-ridden bakes 😀

That’s it, serve it however with whatever you want, or just take a spoon, eat it from the tin and then lie and say you forgot to make it. Or that you spilled everything on the floor or on your person, but just don’t mention it going down your mouth. Or maybe, it turned out horrific and you can’t in good conscience serve it. There you go, some options, I’m sure there’s even more possible solutions. Enjoy!

 

‘Til next time, devour something lemony! 😀

Almond and coconut breaded fish

Okay, so this is obviously me in the woods thinking, yes thought bubbles are blue, as we all very well know. In the thought bubble, you very clearly see the foundation of this dish, that is fish, a lemon, a coconut and some almonds. I mean the illustrations on this site just keeps on improving right? xD Doesn’t this just simply make your mouth water…

On a stroll through nearby woods a magical dish was thought up. Fish breaded with almond flour and coconut. When eventually stumbling out of the forest and reaching home the dish was made real. Just the smell of it was mouth-watering, a tropical waft of deliciousness. Okay, enough gushing and building it up, but seriously, it was beyond scrumptious. I’ve just had to come to accept the fact that I’m the last one to finish meals, compared to my family I’m the slowest eater in the world. Which, just so you know, I’m not, I’ve always considered myself a fast eater, so my world has changed you know. But even I devoured this within the blink of an eye or at least as close as  I nowadays get…

So, we’ve now reached the point where I’ll share with you the recipe, but, as this doesn’t originate from a recipe with measurements, don’t expect there to by any exactness at all, none what so ever is what should be expected. We had frozen salmon and cod cubes that got halfway defrosted in hot water whilst prepping the breading and the egg, so get some half defrosted fish, not frozen solid and not defrosted. Mix ground almonds, with desiccated or shredded coconut or somewhere in between 😛 add the zest of a lemon, we had quite a big one so depending on size maybe one and a half,  to the almond coconut mixture. And to top it of a splash of herbamare and “citronpeppar” that is lemon pepper, a pre-made mix of ground black pepper and granulated lemon zest so if you don’t happen to be in Sweden or can’t find it just add pepper and a splash more of lemon perhaps. Crack an egg in a small bowl, add a bit of the lemon juice and whisk it a little just so it all mixes. Dry the fish cubes with a bit of kitchen roll, drop them into the egg and then roll them in the almond mixture. Once coated they can be dropped onto the frying pan in which you’ve already melted some butter, of course 😛 Fry them until they’re done, yes the breading mixture might fall off some but overall it sticks and don’t worry it’s absolutely marvelous. The taste will still be great no matter any breading loss.

We had a green salad from yesterday that we ate with the fish but I can imagine serving it with bulgur boiled with roasted vermicelli and some pomegranate and perhaps some nectarines as well.Yes, my mouth is watering again as I’m spinning out of control with the whole serving with issue. Or, you could just devour it straight from the pan and worry about the rest later xD Anyways, enjoy!

‘Til next time, spend some time getting lost and completely turned around in nature whether it’s in a forest or someplace else, it’s worth it!