Tilapia with Mango Salsa

Summer is coming. That’s what I’m told, I hardly believe them though. But with the warmer weather on the horizon (possibly as far away as Europe) I have again begun to think about lighter dishes. Fish seems to be a four-letter word, not for me, of course, I love the stuff. But some people in this household don’t love it as much as I do, so selling it on the plate becomes a thing. I simply broiled this tilapia, seasoned with salt and pepper and wanted a little something tasty to dress it up and my Mango Salsa recipe was born. Like many savoury recipes on this blog, I urge you to make it your own, volumes are simply suggestions — you hate cucumber, omit it! Hate mango, try pineapple instead! It’s pretty darn tasty and quite easy to prepare — I like my salsa cubed into even little cubes, but you may like yours another way…GO FOR IT!

Serves 2

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup ripe mango, cut into small cubes
• 1/2 cup cucumber, cut into small cubes
• 1/2 cup red pepper, cut into small cubes
• 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
• 1/4 cup white balsamic vinegar
• salt and pepper to taste
• 200 g of cooked white fish (we used Tilapia but cod, halibut or monkfish would also work well)
• a few handfuls of massaged kale (my dear friend Kelly at Inspired Edibles shares a very compelling story about getting intimate with your food, 50 Shades of Green-style!)

Directions:

1. Combine the mango, cucumber, red pepper, cilantro and mix well. Pour the white balsamic into the mix and stir to combine, season to taste.
2. Serve over broiled white fish on top of massaged kale leaves. Enjoy!

Notes:

• This salsa would be lovely on BBQ chicken breast or even a steak if you’re feeling like red meat.
• A mix of greens would be fine instead of the massaged kale but I love kale so I use it where I can.

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Grilled Tilapia with Basil Pesto

You know I’m always trying to jazz up our fish and this was no exception. It was a Tuesday night and I was riding home ‘the better way‘ and trying to figure out what the heck to do with the fish we pulled out of the deep freeze and then it hit me — Grilled Tilapia with Basil Pesto. The pesto would also allow the opportunity to utilize the gorgeous basil growing like weeds on the back deck (I may have planted a few too many plants!).

Tilapia is a firm white fish that is great grilled as long as you don’t over cook it, then it falls apart! I added a bit of hot chili pepper flakes to the top for colour and a bit of punch. It depends if you like heat, like I do. Plus it’s a nice bite with the creamy pesto. I make a classic pesto, but I’m sure you’ve made yours a gazillion times so feel free to improvise, this is, after all for inspiration. Reserve the left over pesto for the dressing for the greens and you’ll notice that I’ve added a little something to make it more like dressing (make sure the spoon you use to spread the pesto on the fish is never put back into the reserved pesto).

This fish is green with pesto, not envy!

Serves 4,

Ingredients:

• 400 g Tilapia
• 2-1/2 cups (625 mL) packed fresh, washed basil leaves
• 1/2 cup (125 mL) freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/3 cup (75 mL) toasted pine nuts
• 1/4 tsp (1 mL) salt
• 1/2 cup (125 mL) EVOO
• 2 small cloves garlic, finely minced
• 4 tbsp white balsamic vinegar
• red chili pepper flakes
• arugula greens

Directions:

1. Add basil leaves, Parmesan, pine nuts, salt and garlic to your food processor or immersion blender and blend until you achieve the desired consistency.
2. Dry the tilapia and spoon 1-2 tbsp of the pesto per side per fish and spread evenly.
3. Heat your grill to 177°C (350°F), spray with non-stick spray. Lay the thickest parts down first as they will take the longest to cook. Cook until the fish is firm to the touch. Repeat with the thinner bits.
4. For the dressing, add the white balsamic to the left-over pesto and stir well.
5. Serve over arugula greens and garnish with the dressing and red pepper flakes
6. Enjoy!

I’ve also made different types of pesto here and here. My friends who are making pesto:

• ChgoJohn From the Bartolini Kitchens
• Sissi from with a Glass
• Charles from Five Euro Food

;

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Peach Salsa

We are trying to eat more fish these days and I’m constantly cruising the web trying to find delicious and unique ways to present said fish. The internet has been busy with peaches recently as they are in season so I created this recipe to include them. Last week we had a grill Tilapia with quinoa tabouleh (or this one) and I wanted a little something to spice it up, so I came up with a Peach Salsa that was quite tasty so I thought I’d share it with you. I’ll leave the ingredients quantities to your own taste, after all, these recipes are meant to inspire.

The small dice allows it to be used as a garnish, plus I love the way it looks

Serves 4-6,

Ingredients:

• Peaches, finely diced 0.5cm or 1/4″ cubes (I left the skin on for texture, plus I always have a really hard time getting the skin off, no matter what technique I use).
• Jicama, finely diced 0.5cm or 1/4″ cubes
• Green chili peppers (seeded), finely diced 0.5cm or 1/4″ cubes
• Sweet red pepper, finely diced 0.5cm or 1/4″ cubes
• Garlic, finely minced
• Green onions, finely minced
• Thai basil, finely chopped
• Mint, finely chopped
• Cilantro, finely chopped
• Rosa’s Lime Cordial, just to wet and mix everything together
• Salt to taste

Directions:

1. Combine everything in a glass bowl and refrigerate, this is much better if it can sit for an hour or so.
2. Garnish with parsley, mint or Thai basil and serve on top of grilled white fish.

Tasty on crackers too

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Hot and Cold Smoked Wild Pacific Salmon

Three neighbours on our street are participating in a progressive dinner party. It’s where we each have a course at our home for the dinner. The idea came to me after seeing Episode 23 of Season 7 (clip), full episode for US readers only of Desperate Housewives, the Come on Over for Dinner episode. I can only hope that no one will burn their food, that there will not be a murder and that none of the husbands plan to leave any of the wives at our event. JT and I are doing the main course and after careful consideration, we decided that a cold dinner on such a hot night 88°F or 31C, would be perfect. And it’s pretty easy too, not leaving any chance for timing issues because everything is prepared in advance and kept in the fridge. Clever, eh? That also saves me from burning the dinner, oh, my, my.

Let me start off that I am no expert smoker like Greg at Rufus’ Food and Spirits Guide but I dare say that I do make a great hot and cold smoked salmon! The texture is more like baked salmon, but it parlays that gorgeous smoky flavour that cold smoking brings to the table. I would also like to add that we do not have the professional smoker that Greg has, but we do have an 8″ Smoke Daddy cold smoker. Now these folks at Smoke Daddy have taken the guess work out of the equation for us amateur smokers and made it very easy to adapt our Weber to be able to add the sophisticated flavour of smoke to any BBQ’d dish.

We prefer to get the Wild Pacific Salmon which has the deep pink colour because it’s beautiful and very flavourful (incidentally, the pinker the salmon the more shrimp it ate in the wild) but this recipe will work with any salmon.

I prefer my fish soaking in a brine.

Recipe is from a multitude of sources perfected over the years

Serves 6

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup brown sugar (or maple syrup)
• 1/4 cup table salt
• 4 cups cold water
• 1 kg wild Pacific Salmon, skin on or off (it’s easier to move about if you leave the skin on, it practically falls off on its own when it’s done)

Directions:

1. Mix the brown sugar, salt and water until dissolved. Lay salmon in a long container with a good lid (one that fits into the fridge).
2. Pour brine over the salmon and refrigerate with the lid on over night or up to two days.
3. About 1 hour before you are ready to smoke, remove the salmon from the brine and dry off completely. Place the fish on a wire rack above the now empty container it was in and refrigerate without any cover for 1-2 hours. It needs to dry out (much like me, after a long weekend with Paul and T!)
4. Prepare your cold smoker according to directions (we used mesquite wood). Place salmon skin side down in the smoker and cold smoke for 45 minutes (I placed my fish close to the front because eventually I will turn the back burner on).
5. After about 45 minutes, turn the back burner on to a very low heat of 121°C or 250°F continuing to cold smoke (with the 8″ Smoke Daddy, I had to refuel once during the entire cooking process). Bake and smoke the fish for an additional 30-90 minutes, depending on how thick it is. You can tell it’s done by pressing down on the thick flesh, it should bounce right back.
6. Serve cold, warm or hot with a lemon aioli.

Smokey, sweet and just ever so slightly salty. This will go very well with the lemon aioli (sorry Katherine).

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Warm White Balsamic and Mushroom Dressing

We’re having Walnut, Porcini and Morel Crusted Tilapia later this week and I needed a dressing to help jazz up the greens. There is nothing like a good warm dressing over greens, it just wilts the greens ever so slightly making it a delicious meal. The miso paste goes very well with mushroom, emulating the creaminess that some butter would bring to it (I was trying to keep it healthier). I hope you enjoy this Kitcheninspirations original dressing.

Lemon Thyme goes so well with Mushrooms. The sprigs are from the garden.

a Kitcheninspirations original recipe

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 75 g sweet onions finely sliced
• 100 g crimini mushrooms finely sliced
• 15 g light miso dissolved in 120 mL water
• 50 mL white balsamic vinegar
• 1 clove garlic finely minced
• 1 tsp canola oil

Directions:

1. Heat oil in a small pan, cook the onions until translucent. You may need to add a little bit of the miso liquid. Add mushrooms and cook down so they are quite wilted, add garlic and cook just until you can smell it. Add remaining liquid and white balsamic vinegar. Stir to combine and remove from heat.
2. Serve hot over greens or Walnut, Porcini and Morel Crusted Tilapia.

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Halibut with a Rustic Tomato Sauce

It’s a week night and even though we like to eat at 7:30-8 on weekends, it just doesn’t work for week nights when I need a couple of hours to blog, and such! I’m always looking for tasty and quick ways to serve fish and Kristy’s delightful Baked Cod Portuguese was a sure winner, but I didn’t have the fire roasted tomatoes, nor the time to make them, so I took her recipe as inspiration. This one is quite low calorie, no butter or olive oil.

An incredibly filling meal

Makes 3 servings (100g each fish and 200g tomato sauce and greens)

Ingredients:

• 300 g Halibut
• 300 g cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
• 90 g vidalia onion and garlic (the ratio is entirely up to you, I had about 80g onion, 10g garlic)
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• salt to taste
• non-stick cooking spray
• 300 g mixed greens, including cucumber and green onions
• 3 tbsp chopped fresh flat leaf parsley

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly spray a cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray. Distribute the tomatoes, onion and garlic on the pan evenly. Salt.
2. Bake for about 30 minutes. Pour the contents into your immersion blender jar and blend until smooth. Add the smoked paprika and blend again. Keep the oven on.
3. Strain through a fine sieve, discard what is left in the sieve.
4. In a cast iron pan, sear the fish skin side on high heat for about 4 minutes. Pour the rustic tomato sauce over the hot fish and bake in the hot oven for about 15 minutes (this depends entirely how thick your fish is).
5. Meanwhile, create a fresh green salad (about 100 g each serving) with the mixed greens (we used spinach and baby arugula), cucumber and green onion.
6. When the fish is cooked through, remove the skin and place 100 g onto each bed of greens. Add about one third of the sauce to each plate. Garnish with parsley.

The sauce was lovely, not too acidic (I didn’t add sugar because I am no carbing for three weeks!) but you certainly can to taste. And the garlic really added a wonderful nutty flavour of a baked clove. I will definitely make this sauce again, perhaps with chicken or left over turkey, but then I would add chili pepper flakes to heat it up.

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Oh Christmas Tree and Kristy & Mikes Portuguese Fish Dish

We decorated our lovely little Christmas tree tonight. Below is a photo of our finished tree, I put about 500 lights on the tree and it takes about 1.5 hours to do so (so I am told!). The tree is decorated in silver, gold and crystal…it sparkles like diamonds! I just love it! We chose a much smaller tree this year so that it doesn’t crowd the room too much and I think it’s perfect.

It's a small tree, about 5' tall and not very fat, but I put about 700 lights on it! JT thinks I'm nuts!

We wanted a simple dinner with not much fuss, so we’re making Kristy and Mike’s Portuguese Baked Cod; instead of Cod we’re using Tilapia because I had some at home.  I was immediately drawn to this recipe because of the flavours and that it was super easy to make. I made a few very minor alterations, Kristy, I added paprika, about a teaspoon, and JT wanted some carbs, so we added Israeli Couscous – it was bang on! Really great flavours and textures. Thanks Kristy, we loved it!

Kristy and Mike's Portugese Fish

I do hope you make it; thanks Kristy and Mike, I knew the minute I read the recipe I would love it! Both JT and I gave it a raving 4 Spoons!

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Cottage Paella

Our nephew Brian and girlfriend Adrienne were over for dinner at The Upper Deck this past weekend and we made Paella! This recipe is a condensed version without the clams and mussells (because of transport time and number of days before we had them!).

• 1 cup brown rice (because it is gluten free)
• 4 small chicken thighs (skinless, boneless is good)
• 2 gluten free sausages
• 1 cup calamari rings
• 12 shrimp (I like to peel and remove tails so you are not having to dive into the food with hands and feet to eat!)
• 1 pinch saffron
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• salt
• 3 finely minced cloves garlic
• 1/2 frozen peas
• 1/2 cup chopped red pepper (into 1/2″ cubes)
• 1 can chopped tomatoes (low sodium)
• 1/2 cup chopped Vidalia onion
• 2-3 tbsp EV olive oil
• 3 cups chicken stock
• 1/2 cup of chopped fresh parsley
• Lemon and lime slices for garnish

Steps 1-4 may be done 2-4 hours in advance.

1. Make a paste out of 1 clove garlic and 1 tsp smoked paprika and salt and spread it over the chicken thighs; set aside.
2. Soak saffron in 2 cups chicken stock for about 10 minutes (or any stock for that matter).
3. Cook rice in saffron soaked chicken stock to about 70% doneness and set aside.
4. BBQ Chicken thighs and Sausage until fully cooked. Set aside in refrigerator. Cut into slightly larger than bite-sized pieces.
5. Just before you wish to serve, preheat oven to 350°F.
6. Heat olive oil in a pan and sauté onions until translucent. Add remaining garlic and stir just until you can smell its aroma.
7. Add already cooked chicken and sausage.
8. Add rice, peppers, peas and canned tomatoes. Stir well, if too dry, add a bit of the remaining 1 cup chicken stock until a desired wetness is achieved.
9. Add shrimp and calamari and stir well and place into oven for about 10-12 minutes until shrimp is no longer translucent.
10. Stir in chopped parsley and serve with lemon and lime wedges. Serve hot.
11. Enjoy!

Cottage Paella

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