The main reason, though, for having fish today is the BelleauKitchen’s bloggers challenge: ‘random recipes’. Well, the deadline is coming closer, and … I had some time to do shopping today.
How do we end up with fish then for today … exactly.
The first step was to randomly select a cookbook from my collection (no cheating). To verify (sort of) that I didn’t cheat, here is my special randomiser.
As you see here, the rolled number is 46. Now it happens to be, I have a list of all my cookbooks (you can even check it here).
This is the one: Supper with Rosie. It’s quite new in my collection. I only got it last month and you can have a guess where I got it, when you look at this old blog post. So far I have only tried to of the recipes and was satisfied. But then I didn’t choose these recipes randomly.
This month the theme of the challenge is “the middle”. Going to the middle of Supper with Rosie we get: Grilled Mackerel with Pomelo Salad (you have guessed this already – oh wait – no guessing necessary – I told you already). Well, it would have taken QUITE A WHILE before I would have chosen that recipe on purpose. I don’t work (eh … cook) so often with fish (but really should do more).
Let’s get to business then!
Oh no! Just a minor interruption – the neighbour’s dog is invading! Can happen sometimes …
… everything under control again!
This recipe involves some pomelo (obviously), beansprouts, limes, peanuts, spring onions, chilli (oh, great!!!), a few other things and … who would have guessed … of course, those ones here …
First the salad. Peeling the pomelo, and doing it right, is not the kind of business I would appreciate on a regular basis.
Before I forget, I had to do tiny little changes to the recipe, because I didn’t want to travel all over the place to get all the different ingredients (one shop has to be enough for today), but I promise, you won’t even notice, even if you check the recipe for yourself.
Fine, I mention a thing, I didn’t bother buying (although recommended by Rosie): fired shallots. I simply thought, I might fry them myself. What do I know, whether this tastes the same or similar. It was fine for me. By the way, they were for finishing up the salad as was some mint, which I grabbed from the garden.
All in all the recipe combines some light and fresh flavours with the heat of chilli all in an Asian kind of way (oh, fish sauce and soy sauce take part). Concerning the chilli, Rosie says: “This is brilliantly HOT.” However, if you exchange the red bird’s eye chillies with a slightly less hot version, you could make it.
The mackerels are brushed with the soy sauce and go under the grill. There is this function of my oven, but I guess, I haven’t made use of it, if I remember right. Therefore I wasn’t quite sure whether the fish would turn out right (after all I’m no fish expert either). BUT, no worries!
Everything worked out well! I devoured the dish with gusto. Well, I ate it in a civilized kind of way still. And … what shall I tell you … I might try it again. This was a good one.
You see! Sometimes you need a little extra help to do something good for you.
