From the sea to our table

I love food from the sea.  Fish, shellfish, crustaceans  - I love them all.  We have such great seafood here and I love to showcase it with visitors.  Some people, though, can be a little delicate when it comes to seafood so I tend to fall back on lamb or other safe choices.
I was therefore delighted when we recently hosted visitors from Scotland who wanted to try everything.  I just prepared a variety of sea foods and put them all on the table for people to help themselves.  We had bluff oysters  with a little pepper, green-lipped mussels and littleneck clams steamed in white wine and parsley and flaked Coromandel Smoking Company kingfish on a dish.  For pepper seared tuna, mix a little sesame oil with a tsp English mustard and brush over a tuna fillet cut in a log of even thickness at each end.  Heat a dry frying pan until it is very hot and sear the tuna on the long sides.  Take out of the pan immediately and cool.  With a sharp knife slice as finely as you can and serve with finely sliced spring onion, soy sauce and wasabi.
For a ceviche-style dish get some good quality fillets of white fish such as blue cod and slice as thinly as you can.  Lay out on a large platter and dress with finely sliced spring onions and deseeded red chillies.  Just before serving squeeze over the juice of a lime or two.
This was accompanied with salad greens.  It was so simple, it was hardly cooking but was really delicious.
A few weeks ago a friend gave me some tuna.  You may recall I have been the beneficiary of this friend's bounty in the past.  This time we prepared two quite different dishes. 
The first was spiced tuna with an aubergine relish.  To make the relish, which would also go well with lamb or chicken, cut an aubergine into cubes, toss in olive oil and bake in a single layer on a baking tray at 200 for 30 mins or so.  In a frying pan, soften half a finely chopped red onion then add 1/2 tsp each coriander, cumin, cinnamon, paprika and cook for a minute.  Add 1/2 tin chopped tomatoes, 2 cloves crushed garlic, 1/2 a finely chopped green chilli and bring to a simmer.  Add the cooked aubergine and add a pinch sugar, a squeeze of lime and salt and pepper to taste.
Brush the tuna steaks with olive oil and season then sear in a hot grill pan two minutes each side.  Serve on the aubergine and top with mint leaves.
For something quite different we had our old favourite tuna and white bean stew.  This is a traditional Mediterranean method where the tuna is cooked in a sauce.  Using a tuna steak per person, sear the steaks first in a pan and set aside.  In the pan, saute 1/2 a finely chopped onion, 1/2 a finely diced carrot, 1/2 a stick of finely diced celery, 2 cloves of finely chopped garlic with 1/4 tsp each toasted cumin and coriander seeds, coarsely ground.  Add 1/2 tsp Spanish paprika and a handful of black olives.  Lay the tuna back in the pan in one layer and add 1/2 tin chopped tomatoes and 1/2 cup chicken stock.  Simmer about 15 minutes then add 1/2 jar of cooked butter beans and gently mix through.  Sprinkle with parsley to serve.  You will want some crusty bread to mop up the sauce at the end.

Another Culinary World Tour

Not much writing but still plenty of eating.  Back in the film festival I made a meal I have been meaning to share.  Did you see Le Passe at the Film Festival?  There was a scene where Ahmad made a stew for the family.  The dish had some significance as a family tradition, and it looked delicious.  It was a meat stew with a base of fresh herbs.  I looked into it.  It was Ghormeh Sabzi, a traditional Persian herb stew.   I used lamb and at the end added a handful of baby spinach to add a bit of bright green.  we served it with traditional chelow.  If you can get fresh fenugreek leaves, do, otherwise use dried at a pinch.   By chance we had seen the movie at Petone and browsed the shops beforehand.  I found a Middle Eastern supermarket and saw, for the first time in my life, fresh fenugreek but I didn't buy it because I didn't know I was going to need it.  We had to go back for it the following week.  This has replaced Gheimeh as my favourite Persian stew.  And just in case you are thinking I'm a little crazy, I am not the only one.  If you didn't see the movie, do so.
I caught a glimpse of a Norwegian cooking show on the TV and investigated further.  It turned out to be called New Scandinavian Cooking hosted by Andreas Viestad, who is quite a character in a very Norwegian way.  The funniest thing is that he always cooks outside no matter the season.  It can get quite cold in Norway.  It snows.  Picture Andreas grilling fish with snow drifting into the grill and onto the plates.  They have a lot of very interesting ingredients especially fruit with lovely names like cloudberries or lingonberries.  A trip to the library uncovered Scandilicious by Signe Johansen and we were off.  I haven't fully explored the berry fruit because it wasn't the season and I am sure we can't get cloudberries.  Peter did make a boiled egg with anchovy soldiers.
Our masterpiece was Norwegian meatballs with mashed potatoes & swede (neeps & tatties in my world) and spiced lingonberry red cabbage (we had to settle for redcurrant jelly).  It did sound a bit odd in the recipe and I was a little concerned but it was truly delicious.  We did not have brown goat's cheese and to be perfectly honest I suspect it is a little unpleasant.  For the cabbage, simmer a sliced onion, sliced apple, 1/2 a sliced red cabbage with 30 ml cider vinegar, a glass of red wine and 2 tbsp butter for an hour in a covered dish.  Check occasionally to ensure it doesn't stick.  When the cabbage and onion is very tender add 5 tbsp lingonberrey jam, (or cranberry sauce or redcurrant jelly), 2tbsp dark brown sugar, 1 cinnamon stick, 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg and 5 cloves, and cook a further 30 mins.  Add another splosh of red wine before serving.
Peter went away for a couple of weeks to the UK and then to Peru and I had the idea to make one of his favourites for a homecoming lunch.  So I tackled the pork pie.  I just used home made chicken stock and gelatin leaves for the jelly because I didn't have time to be boiling pigs' trotters.  I didn't have a pie dolly - not sure what one is - so I used a drinking glass.  The Home Harvest woman at the market sells a paper pot maker and I think that would do the trick.  The result was that my first attempt was just like a bought one.
And finally Peter came home from Peru enthusing about ceviche.  I found a Peruvian cookbook at the library and  he made Martin Morales' Don Ceviche.   We will be exploring Peruvian cooking further.