White fish on roasted potatoes with tomatoes and cream cheese

Somewhere in the recesses of my cupboards is a fairly old yet pristine magazine of 'Winter dishes', one of those 'special editions' from a monthly. I have never made anything from it, but it contains such dishes as Paella, Chicken Kiev and lamb roasted with anchovies. I love it for it's exoticism at the time and it's articles showcasing 10 different ways to liven up chicken, for example. One of these recipes always stuck in my mind: a chicken breast encased in a split bell pepper and stuffed with Boursin cheese. "This is quite an unusual approach".. the magazine lamented. Fast forward to today and I decided to finally try out the legendary cream cheese as a cooking ingredient for myself. I figured that if I paired it with frozen tomatoes and some Vermouth, they would all melt and meld together to create a savoury, creamy, herbal sauce. They did and it was wonderful paired with plain white basa.

Fried fish with jewelled brown rice

 

The pretty title is inspired by many Chinese recipes I have seen which incorporate multi hued vegetables into the dish like precious gems. If you're ever at a loss how to get more vegetables into your diet, this is a good solution. I once had a Brazilian student who spoke of how her mum would add dark, leafy green vegetables to the cooking water for rice to add nutritional content and then throw the vegetables away or eat them herself. I say, chop up the leaves and stir them into the finished rice itself, (but of course, this may not work with finicky kids).

Home made fish fingers - baked, not fried

If you ask most British adults to name one of their favourite foods from childhood, I guarantee almost everyone will mention fish fingers. The taste is memorable, in that kid friendly bland type of way, flaky white fish fillet enveloped in seasoned breadcrumbs usually served alongside a plate of crisp chips and sweet tomato sauce, but it's more than that. Fish fingers are an ultimate comfort food, reminding us of happy, carefree days when our mums and dads would shout upstairs to us that dinner or tea was ready. If you were lucky like my family, every meal would be eaten round a table together, chatting and watching Coronation street or Eastenders between mouth fulls. The fish finger dinner would be waited for with great anticipation, "It's fish fingers tonight" mum would say, "yeahhhhh!" we would respond. If you think I'm waxing lyrical over a frozen convenience food not fit for gourmet consumption, think again: Behold, a paragraph taken directly from the mighty Nigel Slater in his beloved The kitchen Diaries:

The urge for fish fingers and peas gets the better of me. As I am waiting to pay in the corner shop, a total stranger turns to me and says, "Well, well, Nigel Slater with a bag of frozen peas!"...

Spicy red pepper and sesame basa

A simple recipe this one, inspired by the incredibly addictive and luscious gochujang paste which I seem to have become recently obsessed with. (Addictive seems to be an adjective often used for Korean food). It has the most intriguing taste, mostly red pepper and chili, but then a hit of sesame and sweetness in varying levels. The organic, artisan variety I bought from a farmers' market is really sweet, but not so much that it overwhelms. The generic Korean supermarket variety is different, a little more bitter and spicier.