dinner date - smoked fish pie

This smoked fish pie is loosely based on a recipe from the Ripe cookbook and it's the best fish pie I've ever made! I usually make a very basic fish pie with a simple white sauce but this recipe, with a few additions to the sauce - cream, lemon zest and capers - takes it to a new level of deliciousness. The Ripe recipe uses a mix of white fish and smoked fish which would also be good. I'll try that combination next time.

The cream in the white sauce, along with the eggs makes this very rich meal but you could use all milk and leave out the eggs. Mum often made fish pie when we were little and never put eggs in it and it was always lovely. Make it how you like it! The only thing I would suggest not changing is the agria potatoes: they really are the best potatoes for mashing.

Mashed potato topping

4 medium sized agria potatoes, peeled

butter, milk or cream, salt & pepper for mashing

Filling & sauce

3 hard boiled eggs, chopped

400g smoked fish fillets (I used terakihi)

1/2 cup cream

1 cup milk

2 bay leaves

30g butter

30g flour

1 TBSP capers

zest of 1 lemon

Handful of fresh herbs - chives, dill or parsely

Salt & pepper

Start by peeling and chopping the potatoes. Place in a medium sized saucepan and fill with cold water, add a little salt and bring to the boil, simmer for 20 minutes or until tender.

While the potatoes are boiling, place the fish, cream, milk and bay leaves in a pan and bring to a simmer, simmer for five minutes over a medium heat then set aside to cool (I didn't wait long). Strain the liquid from the fish and reserve the liquid. Discard the bay leaves and place the fish into a ovenproof dish along with the chopped boiled eggs.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

Now prepare the sauce. Melt the butter over a medium heat and stir in the flour. Cook for a minute taking care not to burn the mixture. Now add the reserved milk/cream and stir continuously to avoid lumps. Cook for a few minutes over a medium heat, stirring all the time. Add the capers, herbs, lemon zest and season with salt and pepper. Pour over the fish & eggs.

Now mash the potatoes with some butter and milk or cream. Season with salt and pepper then spread it over the fish. Rough up the top with a fork then place into the hot oven for half an hour or until it's heated through and the top is crispy.

Enjoy with a simple green salad.

a few of our favourite things

Libby and Becs: On Monday we enjoyed fish & chips at the wharf in Tauranga to celebrate Dad's birthday. This has to be one of the best fish & chip shops in New Zealand - the fish (we ordered snapper) was deliciously fresh and comes in light, crispy batter and the chips were perfectly cooked. But what really makes it is the location right on the water. There are plenty of picnic tables outside the shop overlooking the sea where you can enjoy dinner in the evening sunshine. We're told some locals even bring along their own table cloth and wine glasses! We advise coming early - on the evening we visited, the queue was well out the door by the time we left just after 6pm.

Miriam: for as long as I can remember, my parents have given my brother and me separate Christmas presents. I suspect this is because Mum would veto the novelty presents Dad suggested, so he was forced to go it alone. Last Christmas, just after my boyfriend and I had broken up, my Dad ever so thoughtfully(?!) presented me with 'The Blue Day Book' and a game entitled 'The Art of Conversation' - I guess he hoped it would help me meet someone else.

This Christmas, I was presented with Nelson Mandela's new book. At face value, it didn't seem in keeping with Dad's usual style, until I read the title; 'Conversations with Myself'. One can only postulate this was selected because I hadn't brought a suitor home for Christmas! Despite our groans at the Dad's presents, they are somewhat entertaining and have certainly provided us with a few laughs over the holidays.

dinner date - fish + chips

We have fish every Tuesday for dinner, thanks to Homefresh Deliveries who drop off a surprise package to our doorstep each week. Last time it was gurnard, not a favourite, but I thought it would be perfect to try out this recipe for ginger beer battered fish from the book Ruth Pretty Entertains. This made a deliciously light and crispy batter, with a hint of sweetness from the ginger beer. We ate it with homemade chips made using a favourite Julie Biuso recipe - baking them in white wine results in the crunchiest chips ever, do try it!

basil's ginger beer battered fish

1 c flour

2 tbsp cornflour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp flaky salt

1 1/4 c ginger beer (315ml)

2 egg whites, lightly whisked

3 tbsp finely chopped Italian parsley
1/2 c flour, seasoned with S+P

500g firm fish

Combine flours, bp and salt in a bowl. Make a well in the middle and pour in the ginger beer, whisk until smooth. Gently fold in egg whites till just combined.

Place parsley onto a plate, and the seasoned flour onto another. Dip fish into the parsley, then the flour, then the batter. Shallow fry in hot oil.


crunchy homemade chips (for 6)

2kg agria potatoes, peeled and cut into chips
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 c dry white wine
1/2 tsp salt
pepper ground to taste
2 tbsp butter, cut into small cubes

Pat potato chips dry in a tea towel and lay out in a roasting tray. Pour over the oil and wine and sprinkle with s + p. Toss the potatoes in the mixture and then dot with the butter. Bake in a preheated oven at 200c for 1 to 1-1/2 hours, turning every now and then.

Cha Ca La Vong, Hanoi

Cha Ca La Vong in Hanoi serves only one dish: cha ca grilled fish. It's a dish I've seen on lots of menus around Hanoi but apparently it originated at Cha Ca La Vong and they've been serving nothing but this one dish for the last 135 years.

Cha Ca La Vong receives very mixed reviews on internet travel forums with some diners pronouncing it the best fish they've eaten in Vietnam and others calling a complete rip-off served up by incredibly rude staff. We decided to give it a go for ourselves and enjoyed the experience! I have to agree about the service though!

To avoid any confusion as to what we would be served, this no-nonsense sign was slapped down on the table in front of us:

Then the components of our meal slowly arrived at our table - vermicelli rice noodles, a big bowl of dill and skinny spring onions, roasted peanuts, herbs (vietnamese mint I think), a bowl of dressing (fish sauce, rice wine & chilli perhaps?) and finally, a sizzling pan of tumeric spiced fish atop a flaming burning.


From what I gathered from the waitress's gestures and watching other diners, we were to tip the bowl of greens (spring onions & dill) into the pan immediately, let it sizzle a bit then serve over the noodles and garnish with the dressing, herbs and peanuts.

I've seen this dish translated as "grilled fish" but its more deep-fried as it comes sizzling and spitting in a centimeter of tumeric-tainted oil. The generous serving of greens went a (very) small way towards negating the greasiness of the fish but it is an oil, salty, dish.

If you take it for what it is and don't get hung about the lack of service or whether your meal is worth 120,000 dong (only about NZ$7-8!) it's a fun way to eat. It's also the closest I've come to cooking my own dinner in awhile and that's quite novel in itself!

Noosa

Becs and I (along with family & friends) recently returned from a holiday in Noosa, on Australia's Sunshine Coast. Here are some of the culinary highlights from our travels;

Lamington is a lovely wee design store in the main street of Noosa, that also happens to sell lamingtons. They are packaged up so beautifully, and although I didn't eat them (due to the coconut) everyone reported that they were delicious.

We were treated to lunch at Bistro C, which has become a family favourite restaurant. Right on the beach, it must be one of the best located restaurants around, and we watched porpoise's frolicking in the sea as we enjoyed our food. We all loved this desert of poached pear with caramel risotto. Poor Dad was under the illusion that he'd ordered this for himself, and was rather taken aback when 4 other spoons started attacking it!

The Eumundi market, held every Wednesday and Saturday is a foodie highlight. I am a big fan of the ginger beer stall, it is such a refreshing drink on a hot day!

We also loved Claude's Food which sold delicious fresh salads and treats. Becs and Daisy both loved the rice pudding they shared, and we all enjoyed Claude's chickpea & pumpkin salad.

Bulk macadamia nuts from Nutworks. A 1KG bag of Macadamias was about $23 (Australian). Much better than the $50+ we can pay per kg here in NZ. Needless to say, we stocked up on lots of nuts.

We stayed across the road from Noosaville Fish Market, that claimed to have the best fish and chips in Noosa. And they were worth writing home about. The calamari was a particular highlight.

Although not always able to partake in eating the delicious food, wee Daisy found that there was generally a pair of sunglasses on someones face just wanting to be grabbed off and chewed on!

A few of our favourite things...

Miriam: I have quite a collection of scarfs - I love both the warmth and splash of colour they provide during the colder months. My latest addition is this wee silk number from State of Grace in Kingsland. I'm not sure it will provide much warmth, but I rate it quite highly on the prettiness / French chic scale.

Libby: I love this dried pappardelle pasta and much prefer it to any of the commercial fresh pasta you can buy. I buy a couple of different brands - Divella, (though Thorndon New World always seems to run out of it), and De'Cecco (always in stock at Mediterranean Food Warehouse in Newtown). I think they're pretty reasonably priced ($5/250g box) given you can pay upwards of $20 for some imported Italian dried pastas but an Italian friend was horrified to hear what I was willing to pay for something that only costs a euro or two in Italy!

Becs: I think most of us have good intentions of eating more fish, but it can be difficult to source good quality, fresh fish. Let's face it, most supermarket fish counters leave a lot to be desired, and good fishmongers can be few and far between. Homefresh Deliveries is a Christchurch based business that make it easy to eat more fish. They deliver fresh fish to your door once a week, in our case each Tuesday. You fill in a form when you sign up with them ranking your fish preferences, so they never deliver anything you dislike, but what turns up in your reusable chilly bin each week is a complete surprise. It is such a great way to eat a wide variety of fish, and a challenge to cook it creatively.

Daisy just loves her snug new sleeping bag that attaches to her buggy. With her sheepskin tucked inside too she is as warm as toast when we are out and about in wintery Christchurch weather. Oh the luxury of being a baby!