Pan-Fried Lemon Sole Fillets with Salsa Verde
Ultimate Gingerbread
I ducked into the fish shop near my house on the way home from the bus stop and yet again I couldn’t get a UK fish. I was prepared for this and had wikipedia’d sole and discovered that the best substitute in Down Under is flounder or plaice. Unfortunately my local fish shop (what is with my range of fish shops!) didn’t have either of these, so I was sent off on my merry way with a fillet of baby snapper.
First up I made the salsa verde by finely chopping a bunch of parsley, half a bunch of mint & half a bunch of basil, a clove of garlic, some polski orgorki (pickled cucumbers!) & a couple of anchovies and mixing the with capers, Dijon mustard, red wine vinegar, olive oil and S&P. I did a taste test and added some more salt and red wine vinegar then sat it aside.
I shook the baby snapper fillet in a bag of seasoned flour and pan fried it quickly on both sides in a hot pan, then served it all up with some steamed potatoes and broccoli.
It was so good. The salsa verde was delicious and easily and something that I would make again and serve with fish or even a beautiful piece of rare roast beef. The crispy fish was perfectly done and went beautifully with the salsa v. Loved it.
Dinner done and cleaned up, I went back into the kitchen to make the gingerbread. It seemed like it would be a fiddly recipe, as there quite a few ingredients, but with the shortbread made the night before, it actually ended up being really simple and really worth it.
In a food processor, I whizzed up the shortbread with some brown sugar and ground ginger, until it was a massive amount of breadcrumbs (I almost had an eruption out the top of the food processor…). I set aside 100g of the crumbs then added mixed peel, uncrystallised ginger, flour, baking powder and more ground ginger to the food processor and whizzed some more. In a saucepan I melted golden syrup with butter, then stirred through the crumbs til it was a big brown paste-y-kinda-dough-thing. You know what I mean. I spread it thinly into a large flat baking pan and popped it into a warm oven for 15 minutes. As soon as I took it out of the oven, I sprinkled the reserved crumbs over the top and pressed them down with the back of a spatula, waited five minutes til it cooled slightly, sliced it and left it to cool completely in the pan.
On Tuesday, I took it to work. On Tuesday I also experienced a type of office stampede. I didn’t even let anyone know that I’d put a cake tin of gingerbread in the kitchen, I just sat it there with a note that said “eat me”. But I could hear them all scurrying about, whispering that there was food in the kitchen and when I went back 2 minutes later to make myself a cup of tea to have with my piece of gingerbread (thankfully reserved before I put the tin down!), it was all gone. Just like that.
A couple of the girls in my pod had a piece and I am very proud to say they loved it. These girls are seasoned bakers. They know their cakes, their biscuits and their slices and I was told by more than one of them, that it was the best gingerbread they’d ever eaten! One of them said it was better than the gingerbread from Grassmere. Apparently that’s a big compliment, so I looked up Grasmere and it’s famous for it’s gingerbread.
http://www.grasmeregingerbread.co.uk/index.htm
Get outta town eh? I beat those Grasmerians at their own game! Go Jamie and me!
Needless to say, the recipe makes quite a lot of gingerbread and my pod-mates and I have happily been munching away on gingerbread all week long. Lovely.
Xx
No comments:
Post a Comment