Category: Fish

Peach, prawn and corn salad

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A blue-rimmed plate of corn, peach and prawn salad on a background of blue and white fabric

I would never describe my food blog as particularly data-driven—more data-damned, than anything—but I could not help noticing that of late, American and British readers not only outnumber those from New Zealand, it’s at a proportionate size that I could only describe as comparing the hair height of a Dolly Parton wig to that of a person wearing a swimming cap. Some of that is the old per capita thing, in that there’s only so many New Zealanders to go around and our entire population could fit into a slight yet undeniably gerrymandered county on the Eastern Seaboard. Between the metric measurements and the highly locale-specific hatred of the supermarket duopoly (and referring to cilantro as coriander) I’m not sure what’s in it for the Americans specifically, but can only assume the ones reading this are cool as I am and as horrified by the same things as I am. This isn’t the first time I’ve noted this palpable attention; nonetheless, upon taking in this persistent data point I feel cheerfully obliged to throw the northern hemisphere another culinary bone acknowledging your being right in the middle of summer, with this utterly stunning Peach, Prawn and Corn Salad.

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Salmon, mango and coriander salad

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Salmon mango salad on a green plate, on a baking tray with a fork below it

Mango? Salad? In these final shrinking vestiges of autumn as it descends, sighing and officially, into winter? First of all, deliciousness knows no practical response to temperature, so jot that down. Secondly, every now and then I dunk my head under the humbling waters of my site analytics and am reminded that a shocking number of my viewership comes from the United States, despite my distinct non-Americanness — to wit, the very nomenclature of this recipe, which, stateside, would be cilantro. While America does enough self-pandering to last us all a lifetime, some of the best and coolest long-term mutuals that I’ve never met are from the US and it does occur to me that this Salmon, Mango and Coriander Salad would be particularly tempting if I lived somewhere with summer rapidly approaching. On the other hand, I’ve had this for dinner three times this week alone here in increasingly frosty New Zealand. Once tasted, you’ll want to make time for this recipe all year round. And with frozen, cubed mango, it’s quite possible to do this. (And, I feel strenuously driven to make clear above the fold, if you hate coriander I have a variation for you.)

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pasta with prawns, tomatoes and cream

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A serving spoon in a pan of tomato and prawn pasta

How many tomato pasta recipes does a person need? To me, one of the primary joys of cooking is working out each evening which puzzle pieces need to slot together to assuage that night’s tastebuds. I guess that’s my paid-by-the-word way of saying “what’s for dinner”. I like not knowing what my whims will be and yet knowing myself enough to answer their call accurately; whether it’s the prune-dark fruitiness of ancho chillies and the pre-banked temporal thrill of slow-cooking — anticipating anticipation, if you will — or whether the receptors down the side of my tongue long for the pugilistic sting of vinegar, or whether I want to indulge that strange human need for multi-sensory food that snaps, crackles, and pops. And sometimes I want another tomato pasta, and just the right recipe will feel brand new to me — and today, that recipe is this pasta with prawns, tomatoes and cream.

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24 Valentine’s Day Recipes for you

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Marble heart cookies


Valentine’s Day doesn’t inspire within me great frenzied levels of interest, but I do care about (a) drawing attention to myself and (b) encouraging you to make delicious food. If you haven’t got plans already, avoid perching side-by-side with all the other awkward couples like toothpicked cubes of cheese and pickled onions stuck into a halved grapefruit and stay in, instead (then go out to dinner the next night — let it not be said that I’m not here for the restaurant industry). This round-up is much simpler than fiendish beast that is my annual Christmas Gift Guide, but there’s plenty to choose from and I’ve tried to select a few unsung heroes from my back catalogue.

Whether your dance card is full this Valentine’s Day with multiple mouths to feed or it’s single servings — this one goes out to all the lovers.

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Salmon with roasted cherry tomatoes and fennel

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A piece of salmon resting on roasted cherry tomatoes and fennel on a green plate with a fork

I’ll tell you soon as look at you: SEO ruined food blogging. The death of Google, the concept of pivoting to video, AI and the word I don’t even want uttered near my blog because it makes me so belligerent and queasy — ChatG*T — are carving up the remaining carrion. I’ll leave expanding that preamble for another day, but all of this is to say, contextually, that while I’m a rabid hater of roughly 79-86% of food content out there (up to and including the word “content” to describe writing and developing recipes), there are still pockets of hope to be found, like the dimpling air bubbles in a focaccia — people who are driven by a bona fide and guileless love of food, not a love of affiliate link kickbacks (whatever they even are, other than none of my business!) I’m talking of course about people like Bettina Makalintal, ItsHolly, and in the case of the recipe that inspired today’s salmon with roasted cherry tomatoes and fennel, Hailee Catalano.

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Prawns, rocket, gruyere, lemon

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A white plate with pink floral border, with prawns and rocket piled up on it along with a fork

I have hit a rather preposterous stage of my sleep cycle proceedings where going to bed at 1am feels, comparatively, like an early night — but otherwise, when am I going to get these blog posts done? At a reasonable hour? Can you locate one for me? So, once again I find myself on the other side of midnight, rationalising every minute, but I’m going to keep ploughing onwards because it’s already October 3rd which means it’s basically mid-October which means it’s basically next June. And, importantly, because this recipe is so delicious that I’m committed to telling you about it in a relatively timely fashion. Fortunately it’s so sprightly-quick that by the time I’ve typed out its name — prawns, rocket, gruyere, lemon — you could be halfway to making it.

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Pappardelle with calamari, corn, and mascarpone

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pappardelle, corn and squid on a green plate on a white tablecloth with lemons, plates, a pink vase and a plant in the background

Trust is a significant part of cooking; trust in the repetition of processes, in the muscle memory of your hands, in your materials, in the science, in the author. This recipe for pappardelle with calamari, corn and mascarpone might sound slightly odd — or it might strike you as rakishly intriguing — but I suspect it’s not what you had for dinner last night already; nevertheless — trust me. As a kind of safeguarding measure this recipe serves but one person, so that at least you only have to grapple with your own response and perception. However, if it helps, as a kind of offering of collateral, this combination is directly inspired by a headily compelling dish I had at Gilt Brasserie. Theirs was simpler — I’ve added the pasta — though I suspect their method had some more flourish to it — but the tableau of flavours and textures was one I knew I had to recreate, that I yearned for, culinarily speaking, before my plate was even cleared.

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Zibdiyit Gambari (Prawns in Spiced Tomato Sauce)

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When I say I saw the moon last month, I mean for real: through a mighty telescope, staring right at her, frankly exposed and yet somehow voyeuristic — like seeing a painted Edward Hopper character, but also through a telescope — and undeniably powerful, not least because it happened on my birthday, not least because it had rained all evening and in the final minutes before calling it for the night, the sky suddenly shrugged and cleared for us. On the other hand, I completely missed the Aurora Borealis this week, experiencing it only as a vicarious facsimile of a facsimile through other people’s photos; to which I say: it’s the same sky! Give it to me! Food blogging in winter evokes those same emotions when I’m in a breakneck race against the clock to photograph my food in the twelve usable minutes — at best! — of Good Light. I can see the blue sky! It’s light and airy in my apartment! Give me the light! Why does my food look so muddy and dull?!

Fortunately, I caught this Zibdiyit Gambari at the golden hour of 4.38pm-4.52pm, and so you get to see it and hear about it. And not that I deal in hypotheticals, because they’re not real options and therefore there’s no point considering, but if a small goblin appeared and offered me either the chance to see Aurora Borealis or the ability to always catch the perfect light for my food blogging I can’t tell you, hand on heart, that I’d definitely go for the captivating visual miracle of science. Or at least, not the one you’re thinking of.

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on a steady diet of soda pop and ritalin

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Before I get into this, let me tell you a small story. 

On Wednesday morning I got out of bed and thought- I should make my bed now, so it’ll be ready for me when I get back in later.

I’ve never had this thought in my life. I do not make my bed. I barely ever made my bed as a child. In fact the only beds I make are the kind you have to metaphorically lie in because you’ve done something more or less irrevocable. So I made my bed. And I was like, “wow this Ritalin is GOOD”. 

I told you it was a small story.

So to back up a bit, let me tell you my friends: ya girl has been given the joyous gift of an official ADHD diagnosis. Just like that! And all it took was six months, an unspeakably hellish prolonged period of depression and anxiety, several fruitless GP appointments that led me nowhere, literally five thousand phone calls and emails, a small quantity of self-gaslighting about how I was imagining all of this and I was just a stupid idiot for life, constantly being picked up and dusted off by my friends, a butt-tonne of crying, stacks on stacks on stacks of paperwork, one highly revealing and personal article on Medium, an astonishing amount of crowdfunding from kind friends and strangers, several sessions with a truly nice trainee psychologist, and dropping $1000 on roughly two and a half hours of time from a psychiatrist to get there!  

As I said during a conversation with a four year old yesterday, “it sounds like I’m exaggerating for comic effect! If only I were!” (I was at a wedding.) (There were lots of kids there.) 

carbs for president

carbs for president

So now I’m a few days in on Ritalin and I can’t impress upon you enough how much it’s helping already. Without going into the minutiae of my life, it helps me get on with the minutiae of my life. That’s all. It’s made my internal monologue all able to put tasks in order and fix small things that would otherwise cause me mental paralysis. Like deciding what socks to wear. Again: being super literal here. You very don’t want to know how many sock-related meltdowns I’ve had.

Am I fixed? No! However, AS I HYPOTHESISED ALL ALONG, the ability to scoot around and get stuff done in a calm manner has already given me a lot more brainspace to deal with my anxiety and depression and is starting to alleviate some of the symptoms that were making everything more difficult than it already was. It’s like my mental health was all overheated and while the room it’s in is still really warm I’ve at least been able to kick the blankets off it and sit it next to an oscillating fan. IDK about that metaphor, I’m just kind of overheated right now so it’s the first thing that sprang to mind. 

Anyway, oh my god, let’s talk about food. I am trying to get back into that whole thing, since I apparently love it so much and all. 

One extremely shiny, silvery bright spot during the difficult start to this year was that my friend Hannah came over to visit New Zealand from Australia. We’ve known each other online since about 2010 where we became mutual admirers of each others food blogs, our travels coincided for one beautiful day in 2012 in New York where we got to meet each other, and we’ve been extremely in touch ever since throughout each other’s various Life Stuff. Her brain and my brain are like twins over so many things and her writing was always an entrancing mermaid in a sea of dull, copycat, forgettable food blogs. So yeah, you could say I kinda like this gal. We talked and talked and talked over Chow takeout on the floor, we went to see Swan Lake and got super emotional over it, I made her fancy chartreuse-based cocktails when she came to visit me at work, we had fancy brunch. And then we were like, man it seems kind of illegal for two food bloggers to come together and for there to not be cooking involved.

i'll clink to that

i’ll clink to that

So I made her dinner. Now: I will self-deprecate until I’m nothing but a pile of dust that says “lol don’t fight over me all at once, handsome suitors” to no-one in particular. But I am really, really good at making dinner out of pasta and whatever the heck is in my pantry. Admittedly: I had some good stuff on me this time around. Half a bag of frozen prawns. Half a bag of frozen peas. Some small jars of preserved lemons which were party favours from a wedding in November. But still! I’m a pasta whisperer. And this was the result of such whisperings: 

one-pot prawn, pea and preserved lemon spaghetti

  • 200g spaghetti or dried pasta of your choice
  • 150g or so of frozen raw prawns
  • 100g or so frozen peas
  • two pieces of preserved lemon, rinsed with the flesh sliced off
  • 25g butter
  • lots of olive oil
  • lots of dried chilli flakes
  • lots of nice salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • a handful of fresh thyme leaves

Get a large pan of salted water on to boil, and then once it’s like, boiling, drop in the spaghetti. Once it’s almost tender – about ten minutes in – add the prawns and peas, letting it return to the boil. Continue to cook until the grey frozen prawns have turned all pink. Drain the lot, and return to the pan (off the heat) and stir through the butter till it’s melted. 

Meanwhile! Finely slice the lemon peel and mix in a small bowl with about three tablespoons of olive oil, as many dried chilli flakes as you fancy, some salt and pepper and most of the thyme leaves. Stir this through the buttery cooked pasta, prawns, and peas, and upend the lot into a serving dish (or just serve straight from the pan.) Top with more thyme, olive oil, salt and pepper as you wish. 

Serves 2. 

food prawn

food prawn

What’s great about this recipe is right there in the title – it’s all done in one pot, so you barely have to think or clean – two of my least favourite activities – and the ingredients are simple but bring plenty to the table. Prawns and peas are both mild and sweet, but then the fiercely salty lemon and hot chilli flakes do their thing and pull it all together. You can leave out the butter and just pour over more olive oil if you’re not feeling dairy, but it gives juuust a little richness and of course, the delicious flavour of butter. 

During a week when everything was so very hard, making food for a darling person and then sitting on the floor and hooning into it with them while talking about everything in our lives up until this very minute was honestly the nicest, nicest thing. 

apropos of nothing but I like how triumphant I look here, and as I always say, look the part be the part

apropos of nothing but I like how triumphant I look here, and as I always say, look the part be the part

I know it has been a long time since I last wrote here, but near the top of the list of things I don’t want to give up on is this blog, and now that I have the friendly horse that is Ritalin to gallop about on (note to self: def give up on metaphors tho) I hope it will be easier to both cook and write and care about them again too. 

And seriously: I am so, so happy about this diagnosis. “Sarah”, I said, when the psychiatrist told me, “Sarah, I really feel like I should crack out some champagne with you right now.”  Once again, said with utmost sincerity. 

title from: speaking of sincerity, the super chill track Jesus of Suburbia by Green Day whom I will love unreservedly forever and ever.

music lately:

Your Best American Girl by Mitski, I am a sucker for emotion and walls of sound and HECK this song is like WHAT how my ears what’s happening

Life Upon The Wicked Stage, from the 1927 musical Showboat, as sung in a concert in 1998 by a 12 year old Anna Kendrick and, for some reason, the Kit Kat Girls from Cabaret, made oddly compelling by deadpan delivery (seriously, she is the deadest pan) and the alternating of the arrangement between sweet and jauntily bawdy. And yeah, I get that this is weird but I can’t stop listening to it.

next time: unsure, but next time will come around much, much sooner, promise. 

you think it’s easy, when you don’t know better

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*Kanye voice* what she order, fish filet?

So it has come to this: ya girl has been a combination of too busy, overcommitted, otherwise engaged, and pretty much any synonym for busy that you can think of, to even think of cooking. I haven’t blogged for over a week, which, considering my insistence on overachieving, means that I may as well just delete the whole blog and throw my laptop in a river because I have clearly failed and everything is pointless. However, instead of that mildly hyperbolic behaviour, I’ve decided to just accept the past week as a write-off, and write on the few things I did make myself this week, even though those things are: fish finger butties and marmite-and-chip sandwiches.

I’m not trying to pretend like I invented either of these concepts, or that you need a recipe for them, or that they’re high art as far as food goes, but – both were really, really delicious and made me happy, and even if they’re embarrassingly easy and simple, to be honest that’s good enough for me to blog about. Especially since I have zero other options, but still. Also stupid as it may seem for me to be telling you how to put prepackaged stuff in bread; I feel like if nothing else this blog post can serve as a reminder that these concepts exist. I mean, it had been forever since I’d had a marmite-and-chip sandwich and having revived that combination for myself I am now wanting them at least daily.

I think in some countries fish fingers are called fish sticks, either way they honestly sound terrible

The inspiration for the fish finger butties (ps, buttie is another word for sandwich, and you could just call it that but the word buttie just sounds more celebratory) came when my amazing girlfriend and I needed some sustenance after striding around the zoo in the bracing cold and beholding cute animals. It went like this: we were in the supermarket, she pointed at fish fingers and was all, “we could make sandwiches out of these maybe” and I squawked “you genius!” in total wonderment, because I have a very low bar for being impressed and in awe, to be honest. (I was then like “better get this pack of forty fish fingers just to be on the safe side.”)

Whether you prefer to use mayo or butter – and I actually prefer mayo here – the bread has to be the softest, whitest, and thickest you can find. The fewer minerals and vitamins and general health-giving content the better. Similarly, if you can find those fish fingers that are crumbed and have maybe 4% actual fish content in the ingredients, you’re on to a winner.

With the marmite-and-chip sandwiches, the chips in question are the crisps that come in a packet, not fries (I don’t know why we have such confusing language around potato products, it’s very troubling!) and obviously you can use whatever sodium-delivery-spread you like – Vegemite, Promite, English Marmite. I grew up on Marmite and adore it, whereas Vegemite to me tastes like salty dirt and misery. Many of you probably feel the reverse. Whatever, as long as the chips are crinkle cut and the plain salted flavour, you’re all good. I ate marmite sandwiches roughly a billion times when I was a kid, but a marmite and chip sandwich – and I have no idea who first came up with the idea – was such an exciting upgrade. And there’s nothing like casually eating the food that was thrilling to you as a kid, when you’re an adult who can do what they want when they want.

marmite and chips on white bread: you can clearly see how I got my book deal and I should definitely get another

So, the reason either of these sandwiches are worth your time is the magical, transcendently good textural contrast between soft, soft white bread and crunchy filling. It’s as simple as that. Bursts of crispness, salty savouriness, and comfortingly pillowy blandness.

fish finger butty

four fish fingers (three for the sandwich, one for snacking on) 
mayonaise 
two slices of the thickest, softest white bread you can find

Bake or fry the fish fingers till crisp and golden. My cunning trick is to put them in the sandwich press, but do whatever is most convenient for you.

Generously spread mayo on both pieces of bread, lay the fish fingers across one slice and top with the other slice, eat the remaining fish finger so you don’t fade away between now and eating your sandwich, and then eat your sandwich. 


marmite and chip sandwich

a packet of ready salted chips, ideally crinkle cut
plenty of soft butter
marmite
two slices of white bread, as soft and thick as you can find

Spread both pieces of bread thickly with butter and then thinly with marmite. Pile up potato chips evenly on top of one slice, then gently top with the other slice. Eat. 

 

                       *Peter in Jesus Christ Superstar voice* I think you’ve made your point now
It’s kind of hard to photograph these sandwiches in a way that makes them look majorly alluring, I feel like sticking one next to a vase of flowers was not my best work, I guess I’m also pointing this out so that you know that I know. Like I said, I haven’t cooked a thing this week and so this is what I’m working with. But honestly, I’m so convinced of the excellence of both these combinations that I’m not even bashful about having blogged about them now, because if you didn’t know about them, you’ve been missing out on a world of deliciousness. I’m not saying I’m a hero, I’m just saying…nope that actually is what I’m saying.

 

befriending everyone’s dogs and cats is time-consuming okay

So just what have I been doing with myself if not devoting myself to blogging? Working; partying; helping a friend choreograph a tap dance routine for a drag competition; going on cute outings with people from work; loitering with birthday pals; seeing a friend’s band perform; recovering from watching Pretty Little Liars; taking up lots of time being amazed at how time has gone so fast and it’s July already; dancing wildly; working; berating myself for having achieved nothing this month; that sort of thing. Ya girl is determined to get cooking again though, what with it being my favourite pastime and incredibly dear to my heart and all.

title from: The White Stripes, Hardest Button To Button. I love these guys so much, that is all.

music lately: 

Carly Rae Jepsen, Emotion. TUNE. Pop music that is really upbeat but sounds kinda sad is my kryptonite.

Chelsea Jade, Lowbrow. This honey just keeps making songs that are amazing. It’s amazing.

Nicki Minaj, Anaconda. Every time I listen to this or watch the video it just gets more and more spectacular and excellent, tbh.

next time: literal recipes, I promise