It’s been a while, but I’m back. I try to eat
healthy now and then, which is a little difficult when I’m cooking food for people. The
tough life of a bawarchi on hire. I’ve also realized that the only way to lose
those last 5 kgs is by cutting off a limb. Nothing else is going to help. But
since that’s a little extreme, I’ve started trying out some oil-free steamed
fish recipes, which have turned out to be quite delicious.
What I do is wrap the fish with its marinade and some vegetables in a foil
envelope and place it in the oven for around 30 minutes at 180 degrees. And
ta-dah!
So these are the three marinades I tried and they were quite
lovely.
Honey marinade
This works really well with a slightly stronger tasting and
saltier fish, like salmon. I had a nice fat slab of Norwegian salmon. Mix
together honey-a generous pinch of red chili flakes-garlic paste-salt-pepper.
Don’t make it too sweet, so measure out the honey carefully. Just marinade the
fish in enough marinade to coat it, for around an hour or more.
I then placed it on a layer of asparagus spears with chopped
yellow peppers or any other vegetable you fancy which isn’t too soft, sprinkled
some dried parsley and wrapped it in foil and steamed it.
Mandarin-chili
I had really good quality Mandarins at home, so I squeezed
the juice of a quarter of an orange and cut the other half into circles. You can
now get tilapia filets in the market, which work really well for bakes and
pies. The marinade was of orange juice-garlic-fresh parsley-freshly ground
pepper-salt-chili flakes. Mix together, pour over the fish (again, just enough
to coat the fish) and leave for an hour.
Then take a foil sheet, place mushrooms or zucchini on the
base, drizzle some marinade over it, then place the fish with the marinade, place
the sliced oranges on top of the fish, fold the foil into a parcel and steam.
Ginger-soy
Being a good Bengali, I get a craving for Oriental food
every hour by the hour. So instead of making something “continental”, I decided
to try my hand at one of the fancy steamed fish dishes you get in restaurants.
The marinade was of 1 teaspoon light soy sauce-1 teaspoon oyster sauce-a dash
of vinegar-a dash of fish sauce-1 teaspoon brown sugar-1 teaspoon ginger
paste-chopped lemon grass-chopped bird’s eye chili. I had a handful of mixed
mushrooms and bok choy, which I placed some marinade on as well.
On a sheet of foil, first place the bok choy and mushrooms
and then top it with the fish and marinade.
Wrap the foil into an air-tight
parcel and steam. There’ll be a lovely light sauce with the fish, which you can
eat with rice.
