Category: Fish

Sardine supper

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A white fish-shaped dish of sardines on a blue patterned background

I’m experiencing a certain sardine fixation of late; my partner and I each night serenely sitting on the floor (my apartment is too small for a dinner table) like two opulent cats attending to their suppers of glistening, omega-rich sardine fillets. And I’m yet to hit the wall of what is possible for this tiny fish. This includes:

  • Sardine and kimchi fried rice
  • Sardine curry with tamarind
  • Lemony sardine pasta with snap peas and ricotta
  • Teriyaki sardines, greens and rice
  • Pasta with sardines in a spicy tomato sauce

And the two parallel favourites: sardines with a Palestinian green lemon sauce, and sardines with Vietnamese flavours. Both fresh with herbs, boisterous with citrus, and jolted awake with chilli. Furthermore, they’re so very simple (and pair so well together) that I thought I’d include both recipes here today.

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Vietnamese-adjacent noodles with beef, chilli and mint

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Chopsticks and a mint sprig on a pink and white plate of beef and noodles

Now, ‘adjacent’ might be a clunky suffix for this recipe when ‘inspired’ is right there for the taking. As someone who isn’t Vietnamese, I intend to acknowledge the combination of flavours, familiar in nước chấm among other Vietnamese recipes—while making clear that I’m not breezily swooping in with entitlement to improve upon anything. But then, I think recipe titles should tell a brief story in and of themselves—in the case of Vietnamese-adjacent noodles with beef, chilli and mint, it’s flagging necessary attribution, that the noodles are as prominent as the beef, with a warning siren for chilli, mollified by the promise of mint’s tempering coolness. It also tells you, I guess, that I am amused by words, and like to play with them as much as I do with ingredients. Whether ‘adjacent’ catches on as a modifier or even makes sense to anyone else, we’re nonetheless never eating anything devoid of context, are we?

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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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