Cod Fillet Wrapped in Bacon with Simple Salad

This is an incredibly simple dish, which I prepared with the second half of the bargain cod fillet I obtained yesterday. For those who are wondering why I am cooking with cod when I am advocating, "The Big Fish Fight," campaign, full details can be found in yesterday's post. Essentially, however, my supermarket had sold out of the allegedly cheaper cuts of fish when I visited and I instead had to, "Settle," for a beautiful, bargain priced piece of cod.

Ingredients per Portion

1/2lb fillet of cod
2 rashers of bacon
4 lettuce leaves
6 cherry tomatoes
6 slices of cucumber
1 clove of garlic
3 large basil leaves
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Salt and black pepper
Little sunflower oil for baking

Method

For this recipe, the skin should be removed from the cod fillet, prior to cooking. You could of course ask your fishmonger to undertake this procedure for you but it really is not difficult, provided you use an appropriate knife and follow some simple instructions. Rather than try to describe the technique, I have included a short video below which shows the process carried out. The fish in the video is salmon but the procedure is identical for cod. Click on the arrow in the centre of the screen below to play the video.



When you have finished, you should be left with something like this:

You will see that this particular fillet is not of uniform thickness. What I simply did was tuck the thin flap over the main body of the fillet, before wrapping it carefully in the two rashers of bacon. A little sunflower oil should then be placed on a large sheet of foil and the package wrapped loosely but securely. Put it on a baking tray and in to the oven for 20 minutes at 375F/190C/Gas Mark 5. (Oven should of course be pre-heated.)

The salad can be prepared while the cod and bacon is cooking. The lettuce and basil leaves should be roughly chopped and the tomatoes and cucumber slices halved. The garlic clove should be peeled.

Place the extra virgin olive oil in to a small bowl and grate the garlic in to it. The rest of the ingredients should simply be added, along with some seasoning, and carefully stirred.

When the bacon and cod is ready, the salad should be spread on a plate, the bacon and cod sat on top and a final sprig of basil added as a garnish.

This Is Totally Awesome

Click here.

OK, maybe not totally awesome, but on a scale of 1-10 of awesomosity, this has got to be a 7+.

Laura Tyson Gets Lost in the Faculty Lounge

Economic genius Laura Tyson has written an article telling us all why the jobs haven't come back. "There's not enough demand!" she cries. Actually, Laura, more demand isn't the issue. We get paid too much. That's the deal. We don't have the jobs because companies can hire Chinese, Indians or Mexicans for far less. More regulations, more government spending and more debt isn't going to solve this problem. We just get paid too much. You have to compete for jobs and right now we're losing that competition.

Update: This was unnecessarily nasty and I wanted to delete it, but some of you took the trouble to comment, so I'm leaving it alone.

TRICK OF COOKING THICK CURRY

When cooking curry put salt after one    or two boil from this way curry will be   thick 

Valentines

I haven't made Valentines since I was a little kid. Even then I don't think I ever really "made" them. Mostly I would pick out a pack of Care Bear cards and hope that the cute boy in the class would notice me. This year I took it upon myself to make my own Valentines. After making Christmas cards this year, I was excited to start on these. I really like making cards I've learned. It's more fun when you and your neighbor are good friends and you can do it together in your p.j's with a glass of wine. Enjoy!

CLICK TO ZOOM

Leonard Marshall on Overcoming Adversity

My daughter was feeling a little low yesterday. All around she sees other girls for whom things seem to come easily. Some get A's without trying, others are great athletes. After we talked for a while and I shared some stories about people who were more naturally gifted than me, I spent some time looking for something to share with her. I liked this one particularly. Enjoy.

Soups using Whole Grains

Martha Rose Shulman is a cookbook author who has been writing about lighter cuisine since the late 1970's. Her first book called the Vegetarian Feast is a wonderful compendium of vegetarian fare. Mediterranean Light is another. At the end of each recipe she  includes the nutritional content of the food allowing you to judge whether this is a recipe that fits with your nutritional goals. Articles by her are often found  in the New York Times. I found this article, on using whole grains in soup recipes, in the Times blog.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/soups-with-heft/

Soups using Whole Grains

Martha Rose Shulman is a cookbook author who has been writing about lighter cuisine since the late 1970's. Her first book called the Vegetarian Feast is a wonderful compendium of vegetarian fare. Mediterranean Light is another. At the end of each recipe she  includes the nutritional content of the food allowing you to judge whether this is a recipe that fits with your nutritional goals. Articles by her are often found  in the New York Times. I found this article, on using whole grains in soup recipes, in the Times blog.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/soups-with-heft/

Cabbage Turkish-style: Kapuska

Here in Turkey cabbages or lahana feature bigtime in winter. Look at this laden stall in my local Istanbul market in Selami Çeşme.  Not only is the number of them impressive but their size is too. Have you ever seen such enormous cabbages?  When buying,  you should look for firm heavy ones and  avoid any that have been cut as some of the nutritional value will have been lost. Yes, cabbages are a rich source of Vitamin C, fibre, iron, calcium, and potassium so not to be sniffed at.  A nice fresh cabbage will keep in the fridge for up to two weeks in a plastic bag.

Last week when I was at this very stall, I overheard a woman say to the man that she wanted a good one because she was going to make kapuska which is a traditional Turkish dish although it doesn’t sound it.  Because I wanted to photograph the stall, I thought I’d better buy one too. In fact, I bought a modest half cabbage and I thought to myself why don’t I make kapuska ?  And so today I did.

Ingredients for Kapuska with Rice

1 medium cabbage/lahana

1 onion

3 cloves of garlic

4 tbsp rice, rinsed

1 tbsp tomato paste/domates salçası

1 tbsp red pepper paste/biber salçası

1 chilli pepper, deseeded and chopped

Salt and Pepper

1 tsp thyme/kekik

2 litres water

Olive oil

Method

§  Peel off the coarse outer leaves of the cabbage and discard. Cut the remaining cabbage into chunks and wash.

§  You will need a large saucepan. Chop onion and garlic. Saute in a little olive oil for 3-4 mins. Add cabbage and saute for a further 5 mins. Add Salt and Pepper.

§  Add both tomato and pepper pastes, the chilli, thyme, and rice. Gently mix together. Add the water.

§  Bring to the boil, cover, and then simmer for 10 mins or until the cabbage and rice are done.

 

Tips

1.       NB This recipe is for 1 cabbage. I used my half and this has made more than enough for 4 people. I simply halved all the ingredients above and it worked beautifully. I made it earlier in the day and I am sure it will taste even better now.

2.       Check the seasoning carefully. It needs salt!

3.       Kapuska has many versions: with meat, rice or bulgur, or with beans. This is only one.

4.       Turkish tomato and pepper pastes are delicious. I could eat them straight out of the jar with a spoon! If you can’t find the pepper one, don’t worry, just use a little more of the tomato paste.

One more word about cabbage which I found by chance on http://www.inmamaskitchen.com/ :

'May the leaves of your cabbage always be free from worms.'
Irish Blessing

'It's no use boiling your cabbage twice.'
Irish Advice

I liked those!