A watched pot never boils…

I had Mum for dinner tonight and whipped up a bursting with flavour dinner, then got her to help me do some baking in prep for tomorrow night.

Steamed Thai-Style Sea Bass & Rice

Pear Tarte Tartin

I really had no idea that there would be so many fish that are English fish but not Australian fish. Well, they might not actually be of English heritage, but they aren’t swimming in the seas Down Under. And just like monkfish, when I asked for sea bass, the FSM looked at me like I was a crazy. Then he asked the guy next to me (on the customer side of the counter) what he’d recommend as a substitute. Turns out the guy next to me was a chef and together we all decided that ling would be the best substitute.

Once home, in the food processor I whizzed coriander, ginger, garlic, chilli, lime zest & juice, sesame oil, soy sauce and coconut milk to make a spicy Thai paste. I then stirred this through almost cooked rice and spread it flat in a baking dish. I sat the ling fillets on top with a few snow peas and covered it in foil for 20 minutes in a hot oven.

Served simply with a wedge of lime, it was pretty damn impressive. Mum’s verdict – absolutely delicious. I can’t really do it justice, to describe the flavours. All I can say is that it just worked. Fragrant and spicy, if you thought about it, you could actually taste every single ingredient.

Tomorrow night I’m off to a small dinner party and in an attempt to keep on keeping on, I offered to bring dessert. Wanting to keep it simple, I went with the tarte tatin.

I’ve made caramel sauce before, but tonight I learnt something useful. When you are boiling sugar and water to make caramel, you’re not supposed to stir it. You just let it simmer away until it turns into a deep brown caramel. And why not stir? Coz it makes it go grainy and fudgy.

I’ll admit that it’s probably just me and my control-freak nature, but it took a huge amount of will power to stand and watch and wait – without a single lift of the spoon – watching and waiting and not stirring. Laugh all you like, but I’d like to see you try! It seemed to take FOREVER for the caramel to actually caramelise. Eventually though, it all happened – and in the end quite quickly – so I tossed through the pear wedges, then added some butter and let it simmer into a thick buttery sauce. Into a dish, covered with a sheet of puff pastry and into the oven.

The pear tarte tatin is currently sitting, cooked, in my kitchen. Tomorrow night, just before we serve it up, I have to flip it out. Yep. Coz that doesn’t have disaster written all over it… I’ll try to remember to take a photo, but I fear it might be one of those dishes where it looks horrendous but tastes fantastic. We shall see…

Xx

PS – I had my lunch with MasterChef winner Julie Goodwin yesterday and I have to say that she is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Genuinely excited to be on this après-MasterChef journey and loving every minute of it, she is still just a Mum, wife and food lover at heart. Except for a few burn scars on her hands…

PPS - here is the finished product tarte tatin. Surprisingly successful. Yay!