Thursday, September 23, 2010

Beetroot couscous

I haven't posted something in a while... before I forget how I made that tasty beetroot salady couscous, I thought to mention it here.

I peeled a bunch of bright, cooked beetroot and cooked about the same amount of wholewheat couscous and a sprinkle of salt. I mixed that together with a swig of flaxseed oil (olive oil will do fine too), a generous sprinkle of dukkah, a roughly chopped spring onion and three small dried chillies. I then served the dark pink mixture topped with a big blob of bulgarian yoghurt -yum!

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Angle Fish and Green Beans

The most exciting meal I made this week was a simple dish that took 25 min for preparation and cooking time (I somehow only cooked twice this week!).

The advantage of having a microwave oven that allows for grilling and convection cooking is that it also has wonderful setting which make perfectly cooked fish. The disadvantage however is that it makes me rather brainless- I don't think I would do well cooking fish in a pan :/ Anyway, with our lovely Defy DMO 332, you simply pop in the fish, set the weight and then START. It usually takes about 20 minutes to do just over half a kilo of fish. Because we hadn't had Angel Fish in a while, I seasoned it lightly with garlic, salt and olive oil to make sure that we could still taste the fish.

In South Africa, well, at least in Cape Town, Angel Fish can be bought at Pick 'n Pay for R29,99/kilo at the fresh fish section in season (from about August). For me this is a quite a bargain as I prefer the tastier, firmer fishes that the flaky ones, like Hake, which also seems to be more expensive.

Angelfish are also called "Brama brama" and the "Atlantic Pomfret". They live at depths of up to 1km and measure between 40 - 100cm. The fish are usually flat and have a distinctive taste, but aren't too fishy. They don't look anything like the small, stripy Angelfish you may have in mind:


Image from : http://www.wwfsassi.co.za (a good source of information for supporting safe, sustainable fishing)

The 400g green beans needed about 5 min of steaming. Next I fried a bit of garlic, about 2,5cm thinly peeled and sliced ginger with a touch of sesame seed oil and a little more vegetable oil. I'm not sure how much flavour that teaspoon of peanut oil I added made a difference, but anyway. I then fried the beans in this and added a sprinkling of soy sauce. If I'm adding soy sauce I never add salt, since it's rather unnecessary and I hate over-salted dishes.

If you can get them both ready at the same time, they make a wonderful (and wonderfully healthy) pair.