FISHY-FISHY

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.