Displaying items by tag: fish

Here is charming Martin Morales - the Ceviche Peruvian Kitchen founder, proprietor and chef - on his pop-.up tour of three countries, with Aldeburgh fisherman Dean Fryer. We went to the event; we can make Ceviche now!

INGREDIENTS (serves 4)
1 large red onion, very thinly sliced
600g sea bass fillet (or other white fish), skinned and trimmed
A few coriander sprigs, leaves finely chopped
1 limo chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
1 sweet potato, boiled and cut into small cubes
Fine sea salt

For the tiger’s milk
5mm piece fresh root ginger, halved
1 small garlic clove, halved
4 coriander sprigs, roughly chopped
Juice of 8 limes
½ tsp salt
½ tsp medium red chilli, chopped, deseeded and deveined

METHOD
Step 1: To make the tiger’s milk, put the ginger, garlic, coriander sprigs and lime juice in a bowl and stir, then leave to infuse for 3min. Strain the mixture through a sieve into another bowl. Add salt and red chilli, then put aside.

Step 2: Wash the sliced red onion, then leave to soak in iced water for 5min. Drain thoroughly and spread out on kitchen paper or a clean tea towel to remove excess water, then place in the fridge.

Step 3: Cut the fish into uniform strips of 3cm x 2cm. Place in a large bowl, add a good pinch of salt and mix together gently with a metal spoon. The salt will help open the fish’s pores. Leave for 2min, then pour over the tiger’s milk and combine gently with the spoon. Leave the fish to ‘cook’ in the marinade for 2min.

Step 4: Add the onions, coriander, limo chilli and sweet potato to the fish. Mix together gently with the spoon and taste to check the balance of salt, sour and chilli is to your liking. Divide between serving bowls and serve immediately.

This recipe is from Ceviche: Peruvian Kitchen by Martin Morales (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £25), out on July 4.

• welcome cocktails - pisco sours
• the preparation
• ingredients and equipment
• 
• Martin with his new book
• the mixture is ready
• tasting the results
•  

And what fun it was! On Aldeburgh beach, in a fishermans hut complete with Page Three wallpaper out the back, we had a Pisco Sour - a Peruvian cocktail with enough of a kick to make me give Johny Cakes half of mine because I was driving. Then the masterclass where we made sea bass ceviche under the expert guidance of Martin Morales, whose book we are giving away in our competition and who is our latest Dish of the Day. Then a four course dinner, with another cocktail and shared at two big tables with all the other pop-up diners, including two Peruvian ladies who live in Ipswich and Stowmarket and gave me an even better insight into the food and culture, and who might even be persuaded to do their own food thing in the future.

Things like this don't happen every day in Suffolk - we were very lucky foodies.

Here's the dilemma - bought one beautiful, large, creamy white, freshly caught Skate wing from this lovely fisherman. It cost £7 and I shared it with mum (it was that big...) last night. Then today went to a supermarket (Tesco) where Sea Bass was £2 each, so bought four. No wonder we don't have any fishermen left.

Oh the choice? Where to go first? With so many foodie things on one day we did an extensive expensive dash around the county - first to Orford where we knew we were going to find treats because they have the Pump Street Bakery and Pinneys and then to the Greene King Beer Festival (they may have had food but it was more about the beer...)

At Orford I spent £80 in as many yards, starting with a fab strawberry tart (well, half of one, because even Inspector X and I can only eat so much in one day...) followed by (half) a pulled pork wrap with coleslaw, the best salami we have tried in a while, an oyster, a Bloody Awkward (which regular followers of suffolkfoodie will know is an espresso with hot milk on the side - ie a SMALL coffee not a GIANT coffee, in fact I think it's called a cafe con leche Abroad, but is still to catch on here...) Where was I... a chocolate mousse and a dessert wine. What we couldn't eat we bought home - two bottles of Hill Farm oil, two Hill Farm mayo, a pheasant scotch egg, a fennel salami, honey-salted caramels, peanut brittle; doughnuts, a bears paw (more later on that one...) portuguese tarts and some other little tarts with almond and plum whose name I've forgotten, hot mint jelly, three crabs and two huge skate wings. The only thing missing at Orford was hot food and a home-made drinks.

In the next few days we will tell you what we bought in BSE and show you ALL the sumptuous pictures of the food we found.

Finally got round to trying to smoke some fish because here it's all we eat, nearly every day. And because I'm not in the cold miserable UK at the moment it had to be a Barracuda fillet. I didn't catch it myself but I did brine it and smoke it over a Logwood fire (you know, like the one in the Bob Marley song) and it was a bit like the most delicious smoked haddock.

Asda have whole, fresh trout on offer for £1.50 each, and what a bargain they are. I have been hot smoking mine, and the fishmonger told me that the customer before me also bought 10 to smoke. My Weber-style barbeque works well, however Hugh Fearnley -Whittingstall uses an old bread bin.

A quick and easy crab recipe which serves eight as a starter, or four as a large main course.

Ingredients

2 dressed crabs ( I use brown and white meat, some prefer just the white meat)

600g linguine
10 tbsp very good olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
½ tsp finely chopped fresh red chilli
75ml dry white wine
3 tbsp chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 tbsp chopped basil
Juice and grated zest of ½ lemon
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and cook the linguine for 9-11 minutes, or according to packet instructions, until al dente.

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large, deep frying pan and add the garlic and chilli.

Fry lightly without colouring for about one minute.

Stir in the crabmeat and heat through for another minute.

Add the wine to the pan and let it bubble and reduce a little.

Drain the linguine and add to the crab mixture.

Stir in the parsley and basil and toss everything together to coat evenly.

Finish with the lemon juice and grated zest.

Season to taste and serve immediately

A pre- theatre snack is always better with a cocktail or two, and we had ours at La Bodegra Negra with a side order of tortillas and ceviche which by all accounts is the 'next big thing'. But only if you live in the Caribbean and can get the best quality and freshest raw fish, which here most of us can't. If you are by the seaside here it's worth trying with just a squeeze of lime, oil, salt, pepper and chili. One American website I looked at said the name came from English-speaking people, who watched fishermen on the coast of Peru eating their fish directly from the sea with just lemons and salt, and said 'See the beach.' and since this was a phrase that the locals couldn't repeat, they pronounced it 'Ceviche' instead. Well Americans - just because you don't have as much folklore as us there's no need to make it up. 

A visit to Cro-o-mer would not be complete without going to the Bob Davies Crab Shop in The Gangway, these crabs are famous for being among the best you can buy. Watch Gary Rhodes with Bob Davies, showing Gary how to prepare them in his shop. I made my two huge dressed crabs into Crab Linguine for the whole family.  You can find the recipe along with others on our recipe page here,

If you can get salt fish try these, the fish needs soaking overnight and smells horrible but the flavour afterwards is worth it. Just make a thicker batter than usual, add the shredded salt fish, some chopped spring onions and chili, and fry until crisp. Mmmmm...