Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Fish in a Green Sauce (salsa verde)









Here's something new, you probably don't notice me posting many seafood recipes that's mostly because it's one of the hottest topics these days and I haven't figured it out quite yet. Issues like over fishing, farmed fish vs. fresh and Canadian fish being shipped halfway across the globe for processing. Many of our fish mongers sell imported fish and if you want a good fish it is quite expensive, plus all they do is thaw out frozen fish at the "fresh fish counter" it seems.
I once paid $22 for a small "fresh" fillet of grouper from a reputable fish monger. At that price you lose your appetite.

When I was little we had fish on our table from time to time, it was a bit of a ritual and usually my mother carefully flaked apart pieces to make sure none of us choked on bones. The fish was also an oily river fish because after we ate the smell did not come off our little hands and we all had to wash up from this tall glass jar of lemon cologne like hand wash that my dad brought with him from his travels. None of my sisters or my dad were really fans of fish but we ate it as a family (for health reasons I guess? or maybe because the guards happened to think it was a good idea to pick some up from time to time while out shopping for us at the market)
My mother loves ocean fish, shrimp, things of that nature which she was familiar with from her upbringing back in Canada which is why she usually jumped on the opportunity of ordering these items whenever we were in Turkey.

I love fish and seafood, simply grilled up with some lemon is all you need! It's one of nature's most delectable bounties I think. As many of you may or may not know I used to be a vegetarian for about ten years, so seafood was my protein source but once I stumbled upon a nice piece of reasonably priced catfish and made a delicious curry out of it only to discover that it threw me into a bit of a coma (oh wait that was the allergy pill that put me in a coma, haha!) ever since then I tread carefully when it comes to seafood.

My favourite place to eat fish is when I'm away, in Cuba or the Dominican, it's fresh, locally caught and while most try to secure themselves as much local lobster as possible I take all the other fishies and have the chefs do a quick simple preparation for me.

As I promised in my previous post about octopus that I would try to include more fish recipes so here is one that is not only yummy but super fast and only uses a handful of ingredients.

Inspired by Annie Sibonney's recipe at the secret food society in Spain


Substitute Hake for Cod or Haddock (they come from the same family) I went with a lighter fish like Ocean perch. Or use any white fish of your preference.

You're going to need a nice fresh bunch of parsley (chopped finely)

Garlic
Good olive oil

Clam juice or stalk

Flour

Salt

I don't cook with alcohol either so no white wine for me. Here is the original recipe, I remembered the preparation on tv so just went with it but use the recipe if you're more comfortable using exact amounts.

This dish was so good that I didn't even miss lemon!! Wine is acidic so you may want to substitute something with a note of acidity if you're omitting it.

Don't forget to get a nice crusty piece of bread, you'll want to mop up those juices!



2 comments:

Anna said...

I would give my life for Spanish sardines, and that's not even half as good as this recipe...I would say, for this, my life? anytime!!! LOL! Great recipe!

Noor said...

WOW mashAllah LOVE your blog and so glad I found it. I am also a foodie :)

Noor in KSA
http://www.tasteofbeirut.com/