Chermoula spice mix

I've never before had so many spices in my pantry. I am loving learning how to use them and all the different spice blends there are from all over the world. Not to mention all the delicious food I've been cooking up, and inevitably enjoying the heck out of tasting. 

One spice mix I love is Chermoula. There are plenty of different versions around, but with basically the same spices, in varying amounts.

This is one that I have used to bake fish. It works. It's awesome, it's delicious, and will totally have you wanting to lick the plate. It would also be great with just about any other meat you want to whack it on, with or without the yogurt.

You will need:

500 grams to 1 kilo of fish fillets(I used hoki, also known as blue grenadier)
1/2 cup greek or natural yogurt

Chermoula paste
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1 brown onion, finely chopped
60 mls of lemon juice
4 tablespoons finely chopped coriander or parsley, or a mix of both
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoons ground turmeric
pinch cayenne pepper, optional
salt and pepper

Process all together to a paste, or near enough.

Using half a cup of paste, mix with half a cup of greek yogurt.

Spread all over fish in a baking dish and marinate for 15 minutes.

Cover with foil and bake at 190C for 20 - 30 minutes depending on how thick your fish fillets are. 

Serve it up and enjoy!

You can refrigerate or freeze the leftover paste and rub it on steak or chicken on another night.
I have used the leftover paste in a red lentil soup before too, which worked out very well.

This is the first time I tried cauliflower rice. I didn't mind it. I grated half a cauliflower, you could use a food processor, then spread the cauli in a single layer on a tray and baked for 15 minutes at 200C, stirring and turning once halfway through.


Do you have spices in your pantry?

Are you a coriander fan? I love the stuff!

An InLinkz Link-up

Lemon butter tarts, three ways

Thursday I posted my recipe for Lemon Butter. Here are some easy tarts made using that butter. I bought the tart shells ready made from the bakery section in the supermarket, which makes life a lot easier. Heck if you don't want to make the lemon butter, you can even buy that in a jar at the supermarket!

Lemon tarts

This tart is the easiest. Just spoon in some lemon butter and put some whipped cream on top.

Lemon yogurt tart

This one is my favourite. Use half a cup of vanilla yogurt, mix it with half of cup of lemon butter. Spoon into the tart cases and top with mixed berries.

Lemon Butter cheesecakes 

For every 100 grams of cream cheese, add in a good tablespoon of lemon butter. Beat until fluffy. Spoon into tart cases and top with a sliced strawberry. Place a dab of cheesecake mix on top and place a blueberry to top it off.

Fancy wancy for not much effort.

Open Slather

An InLinkz Link-up

Lamb feast with friends

We had a dinner party on Saturday night. The kids equalled the adults. Three 3 year olds, a two and a one year old, and a 6 month old. With 6 adults all talking at once, and 6 kids vocalising and running from pillar to post, we had a very noisy household, a good noisy.

If I do say so myself, the food was good too. There is a certain satisfaction in successfully feeding a crowd, and seeing everybody happy. 

On Thursday night, I still had no idea what I was going to cook. That was until I watched Masterchef's masterclass with Heston Blumenthal, and his roast lamb. It was a lamb leg studded with garlic, rosemary and anchovies and slow roasted. I did however cook it for twice as long as he suggested, we prefer our lamb not still baa-ing and pooping in the paddick when it gets to the plate.

I roasted it for an hour on 100 degress, then roasted it at 150 for the next two and a half hours. I removed it from the oven and wrapped it up with alfoil and let it rest for about half an hour.

Roast browned and studded with garlic, anchovy and rosemary

  

I used my cake cooler as a rack (multi-purposing at it's best). I just bent it a bit
over the same pan I had just made foccacia in!

I made a burghul pilaf, garlic and mint yogurt and chick pea salad.

Just in case there were some less adventurous, plus the kids, I made roast potatoes, corn and broccoli and the Heston suggested jus(fancy for pan juices made into a sauce) to go along with it too. I also had a tossed salad and some homemade foccacia. 

It was a great feast that went down a treat. I was surprised at how the yogurt went down, it was amazing with the lamb, burghul and the bread, most of us were going back for seconds just to get a bit more garlic yogurt.

Garlic and Mint yogurt
375 grams greek yogurt
2 garlic cloves, crushed or chopped finely
1/3 cup of finely chopped mint
A small squeeze of lemon

Mix all together. Keep in the fridge until ready to serve.

I made this about 5 hours beforehand  the garlic really had intensified in that time. 

When it came to serving, I just put everything in the middle of our big table and let everyone help themselves. It was awesome. 

My delicious leftovers lunch on Sunday