Roasted Sea Bass with Minneola

You probably read this as "Roasted Sea Bass with... What?". You're not alone. I also hadn't heard of minneola before making this.

Basically a minneola is one of these new citrus fruits made by crossing other citrus. This one is a cross between a grapefruit and a tangerine. And it is closest to the tangerine (it looks like a small orange but is sweeter and juicier).

So the "inspiration recipe" is something I found on my laptop (I bought a new laptop with Windows 8, that has "tiles" with different kind of things, one of them being food and drink, with recipes. I was quite chuffed to find that my new laptop came with a collection of recipes!!). 

It was sea bass with herb butter sauce and lemon, and looked scrumptious. So we decided to make a version of that. Kristof thought it was with orange, so he brought a minneola back from the shop (and I'm glad he did, that definitely made it more interesting:) ).

Ingredients 

2 filets of sea bass

1 minneola 

fresh pasta (we used 500g but that was a bit too much, so I'd say 300g)

200-300g fresh spinach 

olive oil 

oregano

ras-el-hanout

Preparation 

1. Slice the minneola as finely as possible, make indentations in the fish and place the slices in the indentations. Place a few more slices under the fish, and nibble on the remaining slices, they're really yummy;)

Add some olive oil, oregano and ras-el-hanout on the fish and minneola slices.

2. Roast the fish and minneola at 200 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes.

3. Cook the fresh pasta, stir-fry the spinach, put everything nicely on plates, and enjoy:)

P.S. Putting everything nicely on plates is Kristof's job here, since he's better at it than I am ;)

Squid Ink Pasta with Seafood in White Wine Sauce

So I wanted to:

- make ink squid pasta with actual squid,

- add some big prawns (gambas),

- try to make a white wine sauce.

Here's the result:

You can't see much of the white wine sauce (I only added it to the pasta then piled the rest on top, since the pot and pans I used were not big enough to stir everything through), but it worked very well!

I used this this recipe for it, and I flavoured it with shallots, sundried tomatoes, oregano and lemon olive oil (also a few drops of Asian fish sauce and mango vinegar).

I also added some leek, green peas and yellow bell pepper. It was really nice:)

Red mullet with fennel, couscous and black olives

Kristof made this for me yesterday:) I had shown him out to make something like that once or twice before, and he did a great job!

Plus, this was not long after being able to eat only soup and yoghurt for 3 days due to gastro-enteritis, so it was really appreciated!

Basically what you need to do:

1. Chop and steam the fennel, for example in a bamboo steaming basket like this one (available from your local Asian supermarket):

This will take the longest, about 20 min of steaming (stab a thick piece of fennel to check if it's done).

2. Unpit the olives and cook the couscous (usually levelling it in a shallow dish and pouring some boiling water for it absorb is enough - Kristof used the steaming water from the fennel for more flavour).

3. Pan fry the red mullets in a little olive oil. Assemble all on a plate and drizzle some more olive oil (we used lemon flavoured olive oil which worked very well with this). Enjoy with a glass of white wine:)

Pan-fried sardines with fennel, courgette and green pepper

More easy and yummy food!! :)

For 2 people, you will need:

- 2 or 3 sardines

- 1 courgette 

- half a fennel

- a green bell pepper

- oil and spices and/or herbs (I used mild pepper flavoured oil that little peppers stuffed with cheese came in -we ate those before dinner, and the oil tasted too good not to use in something- and ras-el-hanout, a traditional Moroccan spice mix)

Preparation

1. Cut up the veggies and toss them with the oil and spices/herbs.

2. Bake at 230 degrees for 35 min. 

You'll probably want to stir it a bit halfway so it doesn't end up a bit too brown at the top and just about cooked at the bottom like mine...

3. Pan fry the sardines, with a bit of herbs and spices (I added the fennel tops).

Done!

Pangasius filet with lemon and sugar snap peas

I had never heard of pangasius fish before living in Belgium. I first had it in our work canteen, who, like for all white fish, makes it taste almost, but not quite, entirely unlike fish (yes, I stole this line from the HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy, it is Towel Day after all...).

Anyway, when I saw it in the shop I though I'd give it a second chance, and cook it my favourite way for fish: in the oven with some green veg, lemon, dill and olive oil. That's pretty much fool-proof: just blanch the green veg first if they're a type that won't cook as fast as the fish (not necessary for sugar snap peas), layer green veg/fish/lemon, and pop it in at 230 (210 for a fan oven) for 10-20 min depending on the thickness of the fish filets.

This is what you get:

I made butternut squash purée with this (the BF had requested purée), and the hardest part was cutting the squash (those things are really tough!).

Anyway, the purée (with some herbes de Provence and double cream) turned out OK too.

So here's the result: