Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Harissa fish


My fish, very saucy and coriandery. Also please admire the cat tray.
...and I'm back. Still haven't given up. I have some excuses for not advancing in my project, namely that this summer I was actually in Jerusalem, where most of the cooking I did was pasta with tomato sauce and tuna. But hey, when you're living the holy city you can't cook it as much.
Anyway, I decided to try another fish recipe. I changed so much stuff that I won't bother to allude to the original recipe, which, for one thing, is supposed to be sea bass. I'm not sure how to find seabass outside of England. So I went for sole. I think any white fish might work, but preferably one of the more delicate ones.
Anyway, here goes:
sole filets
flour
a tbs of harissa.
salt.
For the sauce:
vinegar
cinnamon
a tbs of honey
chopped coriander
Spread harissa (I use sambal instead, we've been here before) on the soles. Cover them in flour, fry in a pan (mine didn't fry).
Take soles out of pan after a few mins, add vinegar and cinnamon and some more water. Simmer. Add water if necessary. (You're supposed to put onions as well, but I don't do onions that much. You're also supposed to put yet another of those unfindable magic ingredients, edible rose petals).
Add honey.
When it looks ready, pour on fish. Add coriander (as you can see from the pic, I was heavy handed with the coriander, but what can I do, I have a soft spot for coirander).
This was a fun dish. The sweet and sour, or rather sweet and spicy effect was pretty good (according to the book you can add currants as well, which would probably work very nicely). The advice was also to add rice or a green, I just put some very ordinary frozen spinach next to it, and I must say it worked well and was spiced up by the sauce too.
So I was happy with my come back recipe, though it's probably really great if followed properly, but it's not practical for me to do that. Jerusalem is not only cooked but adapted and simplified, but it's still true to this amazing city' heart.

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