Working and living alone in London i have realized how important it is to prepare something to eat which can be equally simple but tasteful also. Something that you can show off to your friends, but also make it by yourself when you are coming back from work and want something that requires not a lot hassle.
Category: Seafood
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Tasty Clams with mustard sauce recipe
Couple of weeks ago i had the opportunity to go to the London Borough market where i was looking to get some nice fishes….or anything good in general i could find.
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Easy to make rice with mixed Sea Food
As summer has finally arrived in London the mood has started to change also. Well, to be honest when we say summer its some sunny days every now and then…but still that is better!
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Traditional Cod with Garlic sauce
The following recipe, I’m guessing that it will make many people wondered why it is tagged as a greek traditional. The fact is that it has not been promoted as much as any other greek recipe’s but it is one that has been in the Greek table for many years.
Cod with skordalia sauce (garlic sauce) is a dish that is being cooked traditionally in Greece on the 25th of March, as a way to celebrate the day which independence fight against the old Ottoman Empire started in 1821.
The history behind is a bit weird as there are different myths and stories on why that specific dish became so traditional, and how it started to be the typical dish to eat at that day. Also no one knows why the cod needs to be “pastos” meaning “salted” in order to have the dish. Maybe because according to one legend at that time many English were sending salted cod in Greece for exchange to raisins…
Another story is that 25th of March is always happening on the 40 days of fasting before Orthodox easter. Because of the importance to the celebration for religion also , the church is allowing to all the Christians to eat that day only fish. As it wasn’t possible to get fresh fish on the mountains they were eating salted cod which slowly became as the casual dish at that day.
Nobody really knows!
Either way, what we really care to this is on the recipe and the real secret on this dish lies on the skordalia sauce that Ive talked about it in a different post which you can find over here.
Explaining how to make the haddock will be bad for all the UK readers of this blog as it is well known that it is one of there traditional dishes and they know it i guess by heart 🙂
Cod with Skordalia Recipe (Bakaliaros Skordalia)
Either way here it is
- 300ml of lager beer
- Around 1 and 1/2 cup of self raising flour
- Salt pepper
- Oh yeah and pieces of cod cut in various sizes.
Step 1
In a big bowl put the beer and the flower and stir them until they become properly mixed. Put them to the fridge for 20 minutes. In the meantime put salt and pepper on the cod as much as you want
Step 2
After 20 minutes take the mixture out of the fridge and “dive” the cod pieces inside . In a pan with couple of frying oil that is all ready preheated you add the cod pieces and fry them on both sides until they have that red cover on both sides.
Serve them -necessarily- with the Skordalia recipe in order to have the proper traditional greek cod and garlic sauce recipe.
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Cuttlefish with Spinach
When you get a call from your your brother saying:”im in the fishmonger….what do you want me to buy?” Well, you don’t know exactly what to answer….so the most natural answer that came to my mind was….”whatever you want”….and so he did.. A cuttlefish was what he decided to take amongst some others.
So the first thing that came to my mind was to find a nice recipe that it is used in Greece for that and i had already one in mind. Most of the times when i was reading about cuttlefish, everyone was talking about cooking it with spinach and indeed it looked in the pictures really good.
So why not try it?
Nope, its not chocolate, just the ink from the fish! What i didn’t took into consideration was the amount of time it needed for the cuttlefish to be cleaned. Honestly as you can see in the picture it was a blood both or…an inkbath. I have to say that at some point i couldn’t really understand what i was cutting due to the enormous amount of ink…. Thankfully i made sure i didn’t cut any fingers. There is one teeth that you need to make sure you remove from the cuttlefish which is exactly in the middle, and a big bone on the back…and you are ready to cook it!
The following recipe is a classic during the great lent that happens before the orthodox easter. As it is full in vitamins and protein, cuttlefish with spinach is a great alternative for meat. The question that everyone has though, is why we dont cook it more often as it is really easy to make and it shouldn’t give you any trouble. In this case i had to clean the cuttlefish but if you have your fishmonger do the job for you then the rest (as you will see) is easy!
Ingredients for cuttlefish with spinach
- 1 cuttlefish , chopped and cleaned
- Around 1 kilo of spinach cut in really thin slices
- A small bunch of dill chopped
- 3-4 small mint leaves chopped
- 1 t/s of tomato paste
- 1 large onion chopped
- 2 garlic cloves
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper
- 1 glass of ouzo or white wine
Method
Ideally you should have cleaned the cuttlefish from the ink and removed all the bones from the fish. Some people throw the ink, some others use it to cook the fish together with the ink. Its up to you. When i asked my about it he had the following thing to say.
Only the cuttlefish throws away its ink to escape from the predators. We eat it!
Captain Jacob (My father)Here is the trick though that i learned recently. Take it a deep pot and put in high heat for 3-4 minutes and let it burn without anything other than some salt. Afterwards, throw in the cuttlefish and stir it for couple of minutes.
Add then, the two garlic cloves as well as the onions. Stir and then add, the dill, and then pour the glass with ouzo. Let the ouzo evaporate for 1-2 minutes.
Now, add the tomato paste, salt and pepper and finally the spinach. You need to be careful, as the spinach, will remove a lot of liquids. We need to add around 200gr of water and let it boil for 20-30 minutes. Its better though to add the water slowly and observe as you dont want to make it a soup.
When its almost ready, add the zest from one lemon,and then juice from the lemon and its ready to serve!
Enjoy 🙂
