Oven-roasted Filet of Grouper

This oven-roasted filet of grouper recipe is one of our favorite ways of cooking fish in the oven. The topping of thinly sliced onions and lemons keeps the fish from drying out, plus they add a lot of flavor.



While I was in Cairo on my house-hunting trip, one of the first things I asked about is the availability of seafood, particularly fish. Seafood probably features on the house menu at least once a week in some form: Lemon sole, whole Red Snapper, Prawns, Grouper, Salmon steaks. Pan-fried, grilled, oven-roasted, étouffée or courtbouillon.

I figured we are only about three hours from Alexandria and the Mediterranean Sea so there should be seafood in abundance here, possibly even a fish market.It seems I was wrong.Fortunately my nearby Carrefour has a newly renovated, well-stocked seafood department but that’s the only option I know of so far.

Anyone from Cairo out there reading who would like to set me straight, please, please do. Last week we had Grouper – oven-roasted and topped with an abundance of sliced onions and lemons that kept it moist.Any fish would do here so use what you have.

Ingredients
800g or 1 3/4lb fish filet
2 small onions
1 large lemon
Sea salt
Black pepper
Olive oil
3 generous tablespoons of butter

Method Preheat the oven to 200C or 400F.Cut all the scraggly bits off of your filet and make sure all bones have been removed. Slice your onions and your lemon very thinly.Using your hands, mix the two together and make sure to pick out any lemon seeds.

Drizzle a little olive oil in the bottom of your baking tray and sprinkle a fish-sized area with sea salt and a good few grinds of black pepper.

Lay the fish in the baking tray and sprinkle the top with sea salt and black pepper.

Heap the fish with the lemon and onion slices.  Balance the butter on top and drizzle liberally with olive oil.

Roast in the preheated oven for 20-30 minutes, depending on the thickness of your fish.

Enjoy!

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Lemon Lime Passionfruit Cream Tart

Expat. Expatriate. Person who lives in a country that is not his or her own native land.  I have figured out over my last 25 years as same, that the term expat is not widely known among people who do not live overseas or travel extensively.  Those who are familiar with the term often have some exaggerated preconceived notions of what it means and they usually involve a fancy lifestyle and living high on the hog. 

I cannot deny that there are many advantages to expat living, especially if one is sent somewhere wonderful (And here I quote my friend, Valorie, who, upon being told that my family was being transferred from our mutual location of Balikpapan, Indonesia, to Paris, France, exclaimed, “People don’t LIVE in Paris, Stacy!  They go there on holiday!) but there are also disadvantages.  The biggest one is saying goodbye to people we have worked with, cheered at school sporting events with, parented our children with, grown to love. 

This is a long and very round about way of saying that I went to a going-away party last night.  And the only thing that eases the pain of saying of goodbye is good food and good drink. And spending the evening laughing with good friends.

Here’s what I brought along:

Lemon Lime Passionfruit Cream Tart

This recipe has three parts but don't be alarmed. None of them are tricky. We will blind bake a crust though, which just means we are going to bake it for a little bit before we put the filling in. 

Ingredients
For the crust which fits a large 11-inch tart tin:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup shortening (Crisco is my preferred but I have had to use butter in some countries where Crisco is not available. It works but the crust is not as flaky.)

5-6 tablespoons of cold water

1 egg for the egg wash after the crust is blind baked

For the filling:

8 large eggs

1 1/2 cups or 340g caster sugar

1/2 cup or 120ml double cream170g of passionfruit pulp in syrup (which is just a dab less than 150ml or a little more than a1/2 cup) or the same volume of fresh passionfruit pulp plus an extra 1/2 cup or 115g sugar) 

1/3 cup or 85ml lime juice

1/2 cup or 120ml lemon juice

Confectioner's or powdered sugar for sprinkling

For the optional topping:

5-6 fresh passionfruit

1 tablespoon cornstarch or cornflour

2 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon of butter

Method

Put the flour, shortening and salt together in one bowl. Using a pastry blender or two knives, cut the flour into the shortening until you have small crumbs.

Add the cold water a tablespoon at a time, blending with the tines of a fork, until the mixture forms a soft dough which can be rolled into a ball.   

Flatten the ball into a patty and wrap it in cling film and chill in the refrigerator for at least half an hour.

When you are ready to bake, preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C.  Roll the dough out into a circle to fit your pie pan.

For more information about this handy rolling bag, check out my quiche recipe.  You can, of course, do it the old-fashioned way but it will be easier to insert in your tart pan if you roll it out on some parchment or waxed paper. 

Put the inside of your tart pan on the dough or the whole pan if that's what you are using. 

Center the rim part and put your hand under the whole thing.  Flip the crust over and remove the rolling bag or your parchment. 

Gently ease the crust into the tart pan. 

Turn the edges over and crimp them to make them look nice.  Poke the crust all over with a fork to help it stop puffing up when baking.

Cut a piece of parchment paper the width of your tart pan.  Fold it in half and then in half again.

Now fold it one side to the other so it has a point, as if you were making a paper airplane.

Fold that in half again so the point is very pointy. 

Trim the paper to the diameter of your pan and open up to reveal a circle. 

Push this gently into your crust and top with dried beans or ceramic baking beads. 

Bake for around 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, start the filling.

Whisk together the sugar and eggs in a bowl.  Set aside.  

Remove from crust from the oven and allow to cool slightly. Turn the oven down to 350°F or 180°C. Remove the beads.

Beat your spare egg from the crust ingredients and add a splash of water.  Apply it to the crust with a brush. This eggwash will keep the crust from getting soggy when the filling is put in it. 

Give the egg-sugar mixture another good whisk and slowly stir in the cream and the juices.

Put the cooked tart shell back into the oven and then pour the filling into it – This helps reduce spillage.

Bake for around 40 to 45 minutes or until the filling is set, but still semi-wobbly just in the middle. Give the baking pan a gentle shake at 40 minutes and, if too much jiggles, leave it in again for 10 minutes and test again.  Just the very center should wobble.

After cooling for an hour, the semi-wobbly filling will have firmed up to the perfect consistency; soft and smooth. If you cut it before it has had time to rest it will pour out or be extremely gooey.

Now we are ready for the topping. (You can skip this step and serve with just a sprinkling of confectioners' or powdered sugar but it sure looks pretty and tastes good too.)

Cut the passionfruit open and gently scrape the pulp out into a fine sieve, over a bowl to catch the juice. You don’t want to get the white part of the peel, just the pulp.  

Let it drain for a few minutes then pour the juice into a small pot.  Whisk in the cornstarch and sugar and make sure there are no lumps before putting the pot on the heat.

Turn the heat on, to medium, and keep adding in the juice that is dripping into your bowl from under the pulp as the mixture warms.  Whisk constantly until the sauce starts to get hot and thicken ever so slightly.

 Add in the pulp and cook until it is thick but still pourable. Take the sauce off the heat and whisk in the teaspoon of butter. 

Pour the sauce on top of the tart and spread it around.  Allow to cool completely before trying to serve.

Enjoy!

This recipe was adapted from Jamie Oliver’s Lemon Lime Cream Tart in The Naked Chef, now available, apparently, in paperback or, if you prefer, the version I have.

Rosemary Lemon Chicken Stroganoff

Rosemary Lemon Chicken Stroganoff is made with the delicious leftovers of Nigella's Rosemary Lemon Chicken. You'll make extra just to be able to make this, I promise!

A few years ago, my cousin Connie sent me an email asking for family recipes to include in a cookbook she was compiling.  They didn’t have to be originals but they did have to be family favorites. Among those I sent her was Nigella Lawson’s Butterflied (Spatchcocked) Chicken with Lemon and Rosemary  because it is one of my go-to dishes both for company (because it can be prepared ahead and can just be stuffed in the oven when the guests are arriving) and even for weekday dinners (for the same make ahead reason.)

When it is just us, there are hardly any leftovers because I do one whole chicken with a couple of breasts (preferably on the bone for flavor) tucked in the pan extra. When we have guests, my congenital Cajun defect will not allow me to only cook how much I think people can reasonably eat; I have to cook more than enough. So, then, sometimes there are leftovers.  In the past, the leftovers have languished in the fridge, possibly being nibbled on as cold chicken, re-warmed chicken or even made into chicken salad. Inevitably, I end up throwing some away.

The last time we had leftovers, I did something different. I took all the chicken off the bones, discarded the lemon rinds, deglazed the pan and tipped the whole rest of the dish, including the pan juices, into a freezer bag and then popped it into the freezer. My plan: Rosemary Lemon Chicken Stroganoff (although I hadn’t actually named it yet) to serve over pasta. First, of course, you'll have to make the original recipe! And then use the leftovers for this lovely dish. 

Rosemary Lemon Chicken Stroganoff

Ingredients
Leftover chicken with lemon and rosemary – deboned, lemon discarded, plus juices from the deglazed pan. I had about a pound of stuff altogether.
2 heaping tablespoons of Greek yogurt
1/4 cup full cream
1 tablespoon corn flour or starch (and a little more cream to dissolve it in)

Method
Remove the bag from the freezer and thaw. I cut the bag apart and popped the whole frozen lump into a pan with a lid and covered, over a low heat. Once it is thawed enough, remove the lump from the pan and chopped the meat on a cutting board.

In retrospect, I surely should have chopped my chicken up before I froze it. Live and learn. Return the chicken to the pot and add the yogurt and cream.   

Turn the heat way down because you don’t want it boil.  Dissolve the corn starch in a little more cream and add it to the pot.

Cook slowly for just a couple of minutes until it thickens. Grind in a little more fresh black pepper. That is it!

The yogurt adds a little more tartness to the already present lemon flavor and it is delicious.

Serve over the pasta of your choice (my choice is almost invariably linguine) with a side dish of, perhaps, steamed broccoli. 

Enjoy!

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