Mediterranean Fish Soup

Fish soup photo by Jpazam

When I was little, my dad was taking my brother and I fishing near the harbours or in the rocks, in Saint tropez, where we were spending our summers, we were going early in the morning, and my brother was protesting, always impatient.

It was great fun fishing with the bamboos we'd carefully selected to turn into fishing rods, using various baits. With the mediterranee being so transparent, we could see the fishes approaching most of the time, which was making the activity even more exciting. We were getting small fishes of all sorts, colourful or ugly and rocky, red, rainbow...

and when the fishes were failing to fall in our traps, we'd go in the rocks trying to catch little green crabs, those who add such a great taste to the soup.

Ingredients:
- 1kg of varied small mediterranean rock fishes
- 1 small rock crab
- olive oil
- 3 or 4 tomatoes
- 3 garlics sliced
- thyme - laurel
- pepper
- 1 to 1l 1/2 of water
- as many garlics as guestsplanted on a fork each

Method:
Wash the fishes, roughly scale them. Do not empty them. Heat the oil in a pot at medium fire (preferably not metal) and throw in the fishes. mix the fishes until they are soft and falling apart. Add the three tomatoes, and the garlic, herbs, pepper and water. Simmer for approx 1/2h Pass the fish soup through a vegetable grinder. Prepare croutons , and the rouille (mayonnaise with rouille spice mix) Serve the soup with the croutons, the garlic planted forks and the rouille.

Source: familly recipe from my mum, and fish soup photo by Jpazam, other photos by me.

Cheung Chau Island, Hong Kong (Part 1)

Quite a while ago, I started blogging about Hong Kong, but I am not quite over on the subject.
- You will have to excuse the poor picture quality, as I took only a little compact that time, my faithful Optio SV -

I really want to talk to you about the day I spent on my own on the little island of Cheung Chau. I have been totally under its charm at first sight. A very quiet place where life goes slowly, populated by friendly people (who only speak Cantonese by the way so be warned...).
The island is west of Hong Kong island and it takes about an hour by ferry to reach it.

The main business seems to be fishing,

And as soon as one lands, it is obvious looking at the harbour promenade, that tourism and in particular seafood restaurants are the main attraction of the island.

I took a stroll inside the island first, keeping the restaurant string for when I would be hungry later.
A few hundred yards further, after plodding along the narrow street,

I found myself by the beach on the other side of the island, having passed what seemed to be a resort, chinese way. The beach was being worked on, as the month of February is a quiet one.

Coming back into the small town, I came across shrine and church,

And amongst the shopping and workshop streets

A lot of dry fish for sale

And I will always remember the amazing smell of the dried (drying?) noodles...

To be followed.....

Chinese style steamed seabass

You must know it by now, my favorite fish is seabass, and yes, steamed with greens. Very healty, easy and no fuss. Extremely tasty.

So here's another recipe, chinese this time.
You won't need much:
- 1 fresh seabass, filleted
- 1 broccoli
- a handful of runner beans cut in strips

for the sauce (adjust vinegar and Soya to taste)
- 5 tblspn Soya sauce
- 2 tblspn white wine vinegar or chinese vinegar
- 1 tspn sesame oil
- 2tblspn water
- 1 bird eye chilly, sliced
- 1/2 thumb fresh ginger chopped finely
- 1 tblsp golden syrup

Cook the fish and the vegetables in the steamer in separate baskets for 12 minutes
Prepare the sauce by mixing the ingredients and adjusting.
Dish the fish and vegetables, pour the sauce on top (or serve the sauce separately if you prefer)

Enjoy!

Did I say it was quick and easy? Ah! I wasn't lying!...
This one definitely beats the take away.. (well, I don't do take aways anyway..)

Source: my own experimentation with various tastes

Dill Trout with cream

Once again, the lazy cooks will be charmed. It's not as healthy as steamed, and you can cut on cream to make it healthy, up to you.
You'll need per person:
- 1 trout fillet
- 1tblspn sour cream (or 2..)
- 1tspn dill (fresh is better, but dried is fine)
- 1 filet lemon
- optional: salt (I personnally abstain)
- 1 square of foil


Place on the foil the fish, top it up with the cream, the dill and splash with the lemon juice.

Close the foil, and place in the oven for approx 15-20 min at 200degrees C depending on the size of the piece of fish. Check and keep cooking if it needs more.
Serve with toasted and buttered crumpet..
As I said, not super healthy, but since it's so tasty....

Source: my improvisation

African cat fish

An African dish, not North African! if you can find salt dried cat fish of course....
Apart from soaking the fish overnight, this recipe is pretty rapid, especially if you steam the vegetable whilst you prepare the fish....

- Count 100g of salt dried African cat fish per person
- 1 can of coconut milk (I always use chaokoh, even for an african dish!) but you can use creamed coconut and add milk.
- 1 broccoli steamed (reserve a bit for the presentation)
- couscous grain for 4 (100g per person for a good ration) coeliacs use rice
- boiling water, same volume as the couscous grain
- 1 tbl spoon of oil
- 1 tbl spoon fish seasoning powder (contains pepper onion, celery, paprika)
Do not add salt: the fish is already salty enough!

Soak the catfish overnight to de-salt it.

In a pan, heat up the coconut until you can see little bubblets of fat forming on the surface. Then put the fish in.

Cook until the mix becomes thicker, then add the broccoli, cook together for a minute or two

In the meantime prepare the couscous. Place the couscous in a bowl, mix well with the oil, then pour the boiling water on top, wait until the water is totally absorbed by the grain, Then separate the grains with a fork, and serve the couscous in each plate
Then serve the dish on the beds of couscous, it's ready!

Source: Bob

Thai steamed seabass - my favorite

I must have mentioned by now how much I love Thai food.
Now this is a dish which is light, very delicate and delicious, incredibly healthy, simple and flavoursome, and beautiful too.

I prefer to buy fillets of sea bass (cut in front of me) rather than the whole fish, purely for taste, it also cooks faster and more evenly.

Anyway, for 2 you will need:
- 2 fillets of sea bass (in french 'loup', but buy the babies at a proper fishmonger's, not the big ones..)
- 1 lemongrass
- 1 and 1/2 juicy lime
- Thai fish sauce (beware: this is important, Vietnamese fish sauce tastes completely different)
- 4 medium tomatoes
- 1 big red pepper
- fresh coriander (fresh basil is OK if you're stuck for coriander)
- 3 fresh Kaffir lime leaves (dried if you can get hold of it)
- 1 clove of garlic finely chopped
- 1 nail worth of finely chopped ginger
- 1 Bird eye chili

In the photo you can see I see I also used a courgette, but you don't have to.

Place the diced red pepper and diced tomatoes ( and diced courgettes if any) in the lower tier of your steamer.
Place the sea bass fillet in the top tier of the steamer, with on it one or two slices of lemongrass and the Kaffir lime leaves if dry. Set your steamer on 10 minutes

In the meantime, prepare the sauce:
Squeeze the juice of 1 lime, and mix with it a bit less than the same quantity of fish sauce.
Taste and adjust (it should not taste too salty nor too sour from the lime) with the juice of he 1/2 lime and the fish sauce.
When the taste is right, add the rest of the sliced lemongrass, the sliced bird's eye chili, the garlic and the ginger,kaffir lime leaves and fresh coriander chopped.

When the fish and vegges have finished cooking, dispose on a plate and add the sauce on top. Serve immediately, and sit down to enjoy the beautiful signals ALL your taste buds will send your overwhelmed brain.

Source: Chorchaba, who used to be my Thai cooking class master, the best ever Thai cook I ever hope to encounter..

Simple steamed salmon and broccolis

Here you go, no prep:
Lay the salmon in the first tier of the steamer with ginger slices or grated ginger on top , Florets of broccoli, set the timer to 15 min...
Result: Moist salmon and slightly crunchy broccoli...
A few droplets of roasted sesame oil on the salmon, and a filet of lime juice on the broccoli. You can use a few drops of oyster sauce on the broccoli as well.

Et voila! Total 3 min of preparation, 15 min reading emails whilst it's in the steamer...
Lots of iron and folic acid from the broccoli (and made more assimilable by the citrus juice), Fish oils, Proteins and vegetable and fibre Ah.
Light and very tasty too...! ;) No excuse then about not having time to eat properly!

I have not found a name for the dish, it's so simple...