Hi Lockdown Lovers and Lockdown Foodies (that should cover everyone),
During the last Melbourne lockdown, we cooked a lot. We enjoyed some new flavours, new experiences and moved out of our culinary comfort zone, just a little. Now that Lockdown is back I promise to bombard you with meals and instructions, take dazzling good photographs (thanks to my phone) and engage with you all to prove that we can all cook, you just have to get to the kitchen!
OK, this week my good buddy Mark gave me a couple of fresh Tasmanian trout that he reluctantly parted with following many long fishless days and the usual fisher despair! No, not really, he just gave me some fish!
Now, this is a simple meal. Simple in fresh produce, minimal cooking, wonderful flavours and very little preparation. The only factory produced products here are the butter and the cream in the fish sauce, but one could argue that they are pretty natural regardless of their manufacturing processes.
The recommended ‘method de cook’ was oven baked. Simple. Here’s how:
Ingredients
Fresh trout
1 x lemon, sliced
Murray River Pink Salt
Cracked Pepper
Olive oil
Continental parsley or Fresh Dill
I would normally have added fresh Continental parsley or Dill, but I didn’t (too may diets to manage!)
Method
Preheat oven to 200c.
Clean the fish.
We are going to envelope the fish in a foil envelope, so place the fresh fish onto a large piece of aluminium foil.
This method cooks the whole fish, so inside the fish place two slices of fresh lemon, a sprinkle of Murray River Pink Salt, freshly cracked pepper to taste and a good splash of olive oil. Add your Continental parsley or Dill now.
Pour a little more olive oil on the outside of the fish, wrap the foil so a large air pocket is created above the fish. This will act as an oven or internal steamer while the fish bakes at high temperature.
Place on an oven tray and place into the preheated oven and bake for 20 mins.
When the parcels are ready to be removed, be aware that the steam is hotter than boiling water, so beware the rise of the steam! Place the fish onto a serving plate and pour the remaining juices from the foil envelope over the fish.
The delicate flesh will fall off the bones, the fresh vegetables (not really salads) attached are complimentary and the ‘mandatory’, legendary butter, garlic, lemon and cream sauce recipe is here:
https://maxifoods.net.au/kitchen/sauce-so-good-it-must-be-bad
The ripe tomatoes were tossed in Murray River Pink Salt, freshly cracked pepper and fresh whole basil leaves. Covered in olive oil. Fresh!
The lettuce is just plain old freshly chopped Cos lettuce with Murray River Pink Salt and Olive Oil. This tastes great!
The giant mushrooms are pan fried, on their heads, with a splash of olive oil on top and on the bottom. They are served whole (and eaten in pieces)!
Promising you more recipes, reviews and rubbish this year (the three R’s).
I’ve been a little busy. Apologies!
Brendan Blake
