Tag Archives: fish

Fish with spiced lentil ragout

Happy Valentines Day!!!

I’d like to represent a very delicious main course, that looks elegant and suits perfectly to this special day. A healthy and tasty fish is complemented here by aromatic lentil ragout and fresh fennel shavings. Another secret weapon in this sensational dish is aromatic spices: turmeric and ginger, that really burst the lentils with lots of flavour. And of course don’t forget the final touch – a drizzle of lime juice.

Simple! Healthy! Sensational!

Fish with spiced lentil ragout

Servings: 2
Time: 30mins
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

Fish

2 x 150-200g white fish fillet (I used sea bass)

2 tbsp lime juice

freshly ground sea salt and black pepper

some homemade breadcrumbs and flour, for coating

1 tbsp olive oil or other veg oil, for frying

Lentil ragout

100g dried green/brown or Puy lentils

1 rosemary sprig

water

1.5 tbsp olive oil

1 small red onion, chopped

1 small carrot, cut into fine cubes

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

1 tsp fresh grated ginger

1/2 tsp turmeric powder

1 medium tomato, chopped (without liquid and seeds)

1.5 tbsp tomato puree

zest from 1/2 lime

freshly ground sea salt and black pepper

Garnish

lime juice

lime wedges

fennel shavings

fennel or parsley

Preparation method

Rinse and drain lentils. Put in a saucepan with rosemary, cover with water (do not season) and bring to boil on a medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to low and simmer uncovered for 20 minutes or until lentils are tender. Add extra water if all absorbed, or drain some if there is any left.
Meanwhile, heat oil in a small frying pan, add onion and carrot and saute for 6-7 minutes until soft and golden. Add garlic, ginger, turmeric and saute for a minute more. Stir in chopped tomato and puree. Turn off the heat.
Discard rosemary form lentils. While lentils are still warm season with salt and pepper, then mix in lemon zest and vegetable mixture; give it a good stir.
Drizzle fish with lime juice, season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle skin side with breadcrumbs and flour. Heat oil in a frying pan and fry skin-side down for 2 minutes, then turn and fry for 1-3 minutes more (depends on fish thickness), until golden and cooked.
Arrange lentil ragout on a serving plate, top with fennel and fish fillet, drizzle with lime juice. Garnish with fennel (or parsley) and lime wedges.

Enjoy!

Herb-marinated salmon

I love cooking and eating salmon. Roasting salmon is my favourite way to prepare it. Usually I sprinkle it with some sea salt and freshly ground pepper, plus a pinch of dried rosemary or thyme – and salmon goes into the oven. Then a super healthy&tasty dish is ready in short time. A couple of weeks back I bought fresh salmon steaks and decided to roast it again, but that time I prepared a marinade and left it for a half an hour or so to soak up all of the amazing flavours before roasting. I chopped fresh coriander, parsley and mixed it with mustard, and some ground green pepper. Now you can imagine all those wonderful flavours! 🙂 What to say, salmon turned out gorgeous and unbelievably tasty! On the weekend I repeated the recipe but grilled it on a barbecue. It was superb again! Next weekend you will try it, right? 😉

What about you, dear readers? how do you cook salmon? and what spices and herbs are you usually using?

UAE is celebrating today its 44th National Day! Happy Birthday to the country, which has become my second home.

Herb-marinated salmon steaks

Servings: 2
Time: 1 hr
Difficulty: easy
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*You can substitute green peppercorns with white.

Ingredients

2 salmon steaks

Marinade

4 tbsp finely chopped parsley

4 tbsp finely chopped coriander

1 garlic clove, minced or chopped (optional)

2 tsp Dijon mustard (you can also use wholegrain mustard)

1/2 medium lime, juice

1/2 tbsp honey

2 tbsp olive oil

1-1.5 tsp coarse sea salt (or more to taste)

2 tsp whole green peppercorns*

Extra

1 large sliced red capsicum

2 small sliced parboiled potatoes

2 gralic cloves in their skin, optional

Preparation

For the marinade, crush sea salt and green peppercorns. In a bowl combine all ingredients for the marinade.
Put salmon steaks in a shallow plate, pour over marinade and leave to marinade for 30 minutes at room temperature, turning once. You can keep the fish in marinade for longer, but cover the plate with plastic wrap or foil and put in the fridge until ready to roast.
Preheat oven to 190-200C.
Arrange salmon steaks in a baking dish, add sliced capsicum, potatoes and garlic. Roast for 20-25 minutes.

Serve warm. Enjoy!

Herb-marinated roasted salmon with capsicum and potato slices

Fish souffle

What do you imagine when hear a word ‘souffle’? An airy and sweet apple souffle or may be a fluffy and cheesy one?

The word soufflé comes form French verb souffler, that means ‘puff up’ or ‘to blow up’. The base of any souffle is beaten egg whites, which provide the lift: a souffle puffs up in the oven.

What about a fish souffle? 🙂

This tender and light dish is a perfect meal for weight watchers and health enthusiasts! Protein food is an important part of any well-balanced diet, it’s also good for growth and development in children and pregnant women; thus why don’t you make fish souffle to vary your diet. Some children refuse to eat fish and fish souffle is a great meal to feed a peevish child. It’s may be not a gourmet dish but it’s certainly light and tasty. Moreover, it’s one the most easy ways to prepare fish, if you don’t want to hang around the kitchen for hours.

Fish soufflé. Russian recipe.

Servings: 2
Time: 30mins
Difficulty: easy
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You can add 1-2 tsp chopped fresh dill or some grated cheese to the fish mixture before baking.

You could also make this recipe with some leftover cooked fish.

Serve with boiled/roasted potatoes or/and green salad.

Ingredients

300g white fish fillet

1 slice white bread

1 tbsp milk, warm (full fat milk or cream)

1 tsp butter, soft

2 egg yolks

2 egg whites

salt, pepper to taste

butter, bread crumbs, for greasing

1-2 tbsp grated cheese, optional

sour cream, chopped dill, for garnish

Method

In a small bowl, add bread and warm milk, soak for 2-3 minutes.
Check that no bones remain in fish. Cut fish fillet into small cubes, mince in a blender until very fine pieces. Add bread, butter and egg yolks, season to taste, bit the mixture to combine.
In a big bowl, beat egg whites with a pinch of salt until firm peaks.
Carefully fold 1/2 egg whites into the fish mixture. Add the rest egg whites and fold in.
Grease two baking tins with butter, sprinkle with bread crumbs. Divide the fish mixture between tins. Sprinkle with cheese, if desired. Bake in preheated 180C oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden and puffed.
Sprinkle with dill, serve immediately with sour cream and your choice of side dish.

Enjoy!

Faskar (fish) with Aromatic Potato Wedges

I love fish. When I was a child I ate a lot of river fish, especially during summer. The city, where I grew up is located on a bank of big and great Russian river – Volga, moreover, there are also few small rivers and lots of lakes around it. My father is addicted to fishing, so quiet often during warm summer days we went to one of those lakes, where dad was fishing, while rest of the family (including myself) was swimming, sun-bathing and enjoying lovely summer. Even though most of the caught fishes were small with lots of bones, we liked to grill it mostly, or make some fish-soup. It was such a great time and delicious meal for the appetite you get on a fresh air!

To be honest, living on the Arabic coast, I don’t buy and eat lots of local fish… I wish they could promote it better; certainly you can buy it in hypermarkets, but in small markets I’ve seen local fish only once or twice. Another option is to go to the fish market and choose good and local fish there, but it’s not always convenient.

Surprisingly, there is only one fish market I know in Dubai, despite the city itself is quite large (generally speaking, there is one fish market per each emirate). And all UAE fish markets open early in the morning, and I do like sleep in the mornings, so it’s not quite convenient for me to visit fish markets at noon, when all fishes has been sold out already 🙂 Most of the fish or seafood available on the market is local and freshly caught straight from the sea, and some type of the fish can be found only on local fish markets, while supermarket fish stalls are selling mix of local and imported seafood. I will show you fish market in Dubai soon 😉

In that way, to support Emirates Wildlife, from time to time I’m buying sustainable species of local fish, like Faskar. You can substitute this fish with any local fish, what you can find at your market.

It is beautiful, isn’t it? 😀

Faskar Fish with Aromatic Potato Wedges

Servings: 2
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

2 fishes Faskar, cleaned

½ lemon or lime, sliced

½ lemon, juice

2 garlic cloves, sliced

2 sprigs of fresh rosemary

fresh flat leaf parsley, small bunch, roughly chopped

sea salt, white pepper

Garnish

4-6 baby potatoes, washed, cut into 4 wedges

some broccoli, optional

1 sprig of fresh rosemary or 1 tsp dried

1 tsp turmeric

½ tsp paprika

1 tsp sea salt

2-3 Tbsp olive oil

Method

Place fish in a baking tray, squeeze the lemon juice over it. Season with salt and pepper. Stuff each fish with rosemary, parsley, lemon slices and garlic.
Parboil potatoes for 17-20 minutes. Put in a bowl along with broccoli, if using, toss it with rosemary, spices, salt and olive oil. Arrange vegetables around the fish.

Bake in preheated 190C/380F oven for 25 minutes.

Healthy option!

Let’s eat the fish!

Middle Eastern Salmon steaks

Salmon is a very popular fish in Russia. We pan-fry and roast it, make delicious cured salmon, pies, like worldwide famous Koulebyaka. Less fatty varieties, such as pink and hunchback are well-known and in high demand, they are less expensive, but still good and healthy choice. As you may know, such fish is an excellent sauce of Omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins A and B. 🙂

My husband and I love salmon and are always trying to find new ways to prepare it. The below recipe requires about 30 minutes and is guaranteed to please family or friends. It is simply amazing recipe, rich salmon, coated in aromatic Middle Eastern spices.

Middle Eastern Salmon steaks

Servings: 2
Time: 30mins
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Ingredients

2 salmon steaks

2 round lemon slices

1 tsp whole white peppercorns, crushed

1-2 tsp coarse sea salt, crushed

2 tsp zaatar*

2 tsp sumac

2 tsp sesame seeds

2 tsp lemon juice

2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

*Make your own zaatar: 2Tbsp thyme+2Tbsp oregano+2Tbsp sesame seeds+1Tbsp sumac+1/2tsp ground cumin+1/2tsp salt

Preparation

Rub salmon steaks evenly with salt, white pepper and sumac. Place fish on a baking tray (you may line it with baking paper), drizzle with lemon juice and olive oil. Leave to marinate for 10-20 minutes.
Preheat the oven 180C/ F. Sprinkle zaatar and sesame seeds over steaks; top with lemon slices. Bake for 18-20 minutes.
For the side dish, you can roast some potatoes, turnips or carrots along with salmon. Cut veggies into thin slices, sprinkle with salt, pepper, sesame seeds and olive oil. Potatoes usually need more time to be cooked, so you may parboil them before.

Bon appetite!

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