Whats for dinner?

Tonight we are having little hat pasta and fish..... it throws together within 10 minutes...(the time it takes to boil the pasta)

Orecchiette with silver dory and salsa verde, ,

It sounds swish, but it's so simple.

500g Orecchiette (little hat pasta we call it) or some other short pasta.

4 X 130g dory fillets (I'm using John dory as I couldn't get silver Dory)

2 teaspoons of olive oil

Juice of half a lemon.

Salsa Verde

1 bunch of flat leaf parsley leaves picked

50g salted capers rinsed (don't buy the crappy ones in the jar, buy them salted in the container)

56g tin of anchovies in olive oil drained.

2 cloves of garlic, chopped.

2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard

180ml (3/4) extra virgin olive oil (from the first pressing)

For the salsa verde, process all ingredients in a food processor to a course paste.

Cook pasta in boiling salted water until al dente, then drain.

Meanwhile cut the fish fillets into 4cm pieces and season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, then heat oil in a large frying pan to medium-high heat. Cook fish in batches for 30 seconds each side until just cooked then drain on paper towel.

Toss hot pasta with salsa verde and lemon juice then layer pasta mixture in bowels with fish serve immediately.

Kids love the little hats, and adults love the complex yet subtle enough flavours of this dish which everyone likes, I am naughty, and always add a teaspoon of sugar to the salsa verde whilst it's processing.


As it brings out the flavour more, and cuts through the bitterness of some of the ingredients for kids who aren't always happy with a slightly bitter taste.


I serve it with a side of oven roasted zucchini, eggplant and golden squash cut into halves, sprinkled with a little vegata seasoning...because the dish lacks veges.... but you don't have to, you can serve it alone or with whatever you like.

Recipe comes from A Year of deliciously easy recipes, Seasonal Kitchen Vogue pg:20


Enjoy!

Tinight i'm making lahmajun!
....Or lahmajoon, lamacun, or lahm bi ajeen...however you prefer to spell it.


Basically, it's Turkish lamb mice pizza, which tastes amazing when served with an assortment of crispy fresh herbs and vegetables, ie white radish, Lebanese cucumber, tomato, parsley, lemon, and Greek yoghurt.

I serve mine with a yoghurt drink also...but you don't have to.


My kids absolutely ardour it, so always make a triple quantity of the meat mix, so it's ready at hand when they want to spread a ready bought flat bread with a lil olive oil , the meat mix, and some sesame seeds... then into the oven.

The trick is to make sure you squeeze out the moisture in the chopped tinned tomatoes either by hand or through muslin.., or else you will end up with a soggy base.

I use an amazing recipe, I was fortunate enough to have been given by Sydney's best Turkish pide joint in Auburn.

Before I left a nearby suburb back in the early 2000's

They had gotten to know me, and given I advised I would miss their lamacun and pides, they scrawled down the ingredients 'roughly' for me in the time it took them to cook my last

lamacun from their shop.

Given they didn't add precise quantities, ie....a handful of parsley, an some mint, etc...it was trial and error at first, but I now have it down to a fine art.

We have a Turkish pide joint here where I live, but the recipe I was given puts theirs to shame so I don't bother buying it....it's just as simple making my own....as simple as making a pizza.

Also, I don't scrimp on some of the fresh ingredients, this or the topping, so mine is even better than the one I used to buy from them even....so..


Even If I do say so myself.

...If any of you are interested in the recipe, let me know and I might feel generous enough to put it up ......MIGHT!!

Cheers

Tonight I have made my own yeast based pide dough, but only because I'm making a spinach and cheese pide also...but you can just as easily use ready bough Lebanese or some other flat bread if you only plan on making simple lamacun (lamb pizza)...

I do however enjoy the chewy bendy texture of the more authentic lamacun base, but it's excellent on just plain flat breads brushed with a good amount of olive oil also.

Back later, have to go assemble the pides and lamacun...


Yummo!!! I can smell them cooking, even before they have gone into the oven, the spices just fill the air, even before they have gone into the oven.

l might come back after dinner......


Cheers

I am making healthy vegetarian tacos tonight, (not the bought packet crap)...only the taco shells have been bought.
I'm keen, but not that keen whereby I would bother making my own taco shells from scratch.

lol... This would be going too far, as tempting as it is to google the method.




From memory, I recall reading somewhere that it requires grinding corn kernels.

I'll pass!

Osso buco with gremolata tonight.


Perfect for cool Sydney weather today.


Will serve with crusty bread.