Garlic lime shrimp

It’s winter here now and you guys from the Northern Hemisphere keep tempting me with your ice creams and sorbets... Not to mention the cherry recipes, right, Susan? :)
To make things worse, the Mail Service is working again and yesterday I finally received the July issue of Bon Appétit – loads of ideas for barbecues and grilling outdoors. I’m not a fan of barbecues, but Joao loves them. And I even think he would be interested in grilling on the weekends, but we live in an apartment – no yard.:(

So, no barbie. But that doesn’t mean he can’t have something he absolutely loves: shrimp. For the hubby, the simpler, the better. And the recipe I adapted from the DH mag #37 was a huge hit.

I cooked the shrimp using a frying pan, but also posted how to make them on the grill, if anyone wants to give it a try.

Garlic lime shrimp
from Donna Hay magazine

1kg large raw shrimp, peeled, tails intact
1/3 cup (80ml) lime juice
4 tablespoons garlic infused olive oil, divided
2 garlic cloves, finely sliced
salt and freshly ground black pepper
chopped flat leaf parsley, to taste
lime wedges, to serve
aioli or mayonnaise, to serve

Place the shrimp, lime juice, 2 tablespoons olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper in a bowl and toss to combine. Cover with plastic/cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Remove the shrimp from the refrigerator and strain any juices – remove the garlic slices, also. Drizzle the remaining olive oil over the shrimp and toss to combine. Heat a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the shrimp, turning to avoid burning. Cook until the shrimp turn pink, about 2 minutes each side – don’t overcook, or they will become rubbery.
Remove from heat, sprinkle with the parsley and serve immediately.

If you want to make them on the barbie: thread three shrimp onto a skewer (if they are wooden skewers, soak them in cold water for 30 minutes before using, to avoid burning). Repeat with the remaining shrimp. Heat a barbecue over high heat. Barbecue the shrimp for 2 minutes each side or until cooked through.

Serves 4

Grilled Tilapia with basil-chive butter and parmesan steak fries

Yesterday Joao and I celebrated our 2 year and a half anniversary – I was (still am) recovering from a horrible flu that got me last week so we decided to stay in and celebrate it at home.
A nice meal made with love was mandatory!! :)

The recipe for the fish was taken from the July issue of Bon Appétit – I adapted some details. If you want to make it like the one in the magazine, use halibut instead of Saint Peter fish (Tilapia) and spring onions instead of chives.
I seasoned the fish with garlic, lemon juice, salt and pepper and marinated the fillets for 2 hours, even though it’s not asked in the recipe.

The potatoes were taken from this book, and they were delicious – the only problem was that I used waxed paper instead of parchment paper and I had to peel the potato spears off the paper. Next time, a spritz of cooking spray will do the trick – thank you, Lydia, for the hint on the spray, I’ve been using it like crazy! :)

Grilled Tilapia with basil-chive butter
from Everyday Food: Great Food Fast and from Bon Appetit magazine

1 ½ cups (loosely packed) fresh basil leaves
4 tablespoons chopped chives
8 tablespoons (½ cup-112g) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
6 x 170g (6-ounce) Tilapia fillets
extra virgin olive oil

Finely chop basil and chives in a mini food processor. Add butter, 2 tablespoons at a time, and process until blended, stopping occasionally to scrape down sides. Transfer to a small bowl, stir in lemon zest and season with salt – I used a little freshly ground black pepper, too.
Prepare barbecue (medium heat) or grilling pan.
Rub fish fillets on both sides with olive oil. Grill until fillets are just opaque in center, about 4 minutes per side.
Transfer fish to plates and immediately spread some basil butter over fish.
Serve, passing additional basil butter alongside.

Serves 6.

Parmesan steak fries

3 large egg whites – I think 2 would be enough
coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 baking potatoes, 220 to 280g (8-10 ounces) each
1 ¼ cups (125g) grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 220ºC/425ºF.
In a wide shallow bowl, whisk the egg whites with 1 teaspoon salt until frothy.
Cut each potato into 6 long spears; add to the egg whites and turn to coat.
One at a time, lift the spears out of the egg whites shaking off excess.
Working over a plate, sprinkle with the parmesan cheese until coated (do not shake the excess). Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Bake without turning until the potatoes are fork-tender and golden brown – about 30 minutes.
Season with salt and pepper before serving.

Serves 4

Baked salmon and witlof (endive)

Fish – definitely, one of my favorite types of food. I grew up eating fish at least once a week – my mom used to say that fish was good for the brain; one should eat it to get smarter. :D

I had a very good piece of salmon in my freezer and I decided to use it for dinner. I had Karin’s recipe in mind, but didn’t find goat’s cheese in the supermarket I stopped by. So I opted for something else.

I liked the fish but didn’t like the baked witlof so much. :(

Anyway, this recipe made me glad because I’ve had this book forever but I’d never cooked anything from it.
There are no amounts in this recipe – you’ll have to adapt it to the number of people you want to serve.

Baked salmon and witlof (endive)
from The Cook's Companion

Toss sliced witlof with melted butter and scatter around a slice of raw salmon on a sheet of buttered foil or baking paper. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper.
Fold up the parcel and steam for 5 minutes or bake at 200ºC for 8 minutes – I baked it for 10 minutes but it was not good for my taste. I opened the parcel and baked for another 8 minutes.
Serve with a squeeze of lemon, a garnish of parsley and boiled potatoes – I had mine with chopped carrots, cooked in olive oil and onions, sprinkled with chopped parsley (not pictured).

Garlic chickpeas with cumin fried fish

This dish reminds of my dear friend Valentina – she is crazy for chickpeas and I’m sure she’d love this.



There’s not much left to say about Donna Hay’s recipes – they look good, taste fantastic and are not over the top complicated to put together. Her success is totally deserved – she’s the real deal, in my humble opinion.

What a delicious way to have chickpeas – they were the perfect side for the fish, which was unbelievably easy to prepare and full of flavor, even though I didn’t use the chilli.

This is my contribution to this week’s Weekend Herb Blogging – I keep forgetting to mention that it was created by the lovely Kalyn - this time hosted by Rinku from Cooking in Westchester.

Garlic chickpeas with cumin fried fish
adapted from Off The Shelf: Cooking From the Pantry

3 tablespoons olive oil
3 leeks, shredded
1 tablespoon shredded lemon zest – I used lime zest
3 cloves garlic, sliced
2x 400g cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
¼ cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
salt
freshly ground black pepper

Cumin fried fish:
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 small red chilli, seeded and chopped – I didn’t have any at home
4 x 200g firm white-fleshed fish, cut into pieces
salt

Heat a frying pan over medium heat. Cook the oil, leeks and lemon zest, stirring occasionally for 8 minutes or until the leeks are golden and a little crisp. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the chickpeas and cook for 5 minutes or until heated through. Stir through the parsley and salt.

To cook the fish, heat a frying pan over medium heat. Add the butter, olive oil, cumin and chilli and cook for 3 minutes. Add the fish to the pan and cook for 2-3 minutes on each side or until just cooked through.

Place the chickpeas on serving plates, place the fish on the side and serve with a lime wedge.

Serves 4.

Pasta shells with Italian tuna and artichokes

photo by Terry B

Last January my foodie friend Terry cooked a recipe I’d sent him: rice and beans, Brazilian style. After that, I thought it would be lovely to cook something he would send me the recipe for, and to have some of this witty text and beautiful photos around here.

Terry, time for you to take the stage:

"When Patricia graciously invited me to do a post here at Technicolor Kitchen, it was still winter in Chicago, where Blue Kitchen is based. Naturally, I thought of roasts and stews and other hearty cold weather fare. Then I remembered that it was summertime in Brazil. The Internet has made the world seem so tiny that I sometimes forget how big it really is.

So next I thought of this dish, one of my summer favorites--a quick, colorful pasta that makes a great lunch or light supper. And the only thing you cook is the pasta, so the kitchen doesn't get too hot. A great idea, except that I was in the middle of moving--hunting for an apartment, packing, painting, deciding what to keep and what to get rid of... and then the actual move itself. Now that I'm finally getting around to sharing the recipe, it's autumn in Brazil. Oh, well. It's still pretty tasty, no matter when you make it.

In Italy, a no-cook pasta sauce like this is called a salsa cruda. The room temperature sauce slightly cools the cooked pasta, and the pasta slightly warms the sauce, making for a meal that feels less heavy than many pasta dishes. The shells catch bits of tuna, the capers and other ingredients, delivering big taste with each bite.

A note about the tuna. For this dish, bring out the good stuff--quality tuna packed in olive oil. The olive oil becomes part of the sauce. I use a brand imported from Italy. As you can see in the photo, the quality of the flesh is far superior to the ground-up mush you often find in canned tuna.

photo by Terry B

Pasta shells with Italian tuna and artichokes
Serves 4

2 6-ounce (168g) cans imported Italian tuna in olive oil
1 6-ounce (168g) jar artichoke hearts, drained, bigger pieces sliced in half lengthwise
¼ cup capers, drained
grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 large garlic clove, minced
½ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
freshly ground black pepper to taste

340g (12 ounces) medium pasta shells

Bring a large pot of water to boil to cook pasta. While water is coming to a boil, mix the salsa cruda ingredients in a large bowl, big enough to hold the pasta as well, once it's cooked. Do not drain the tuna--add the olive oil it's packed in to the bowl. Break up larger chunks of tuna into bite-sized pieces.

When water comes to boil, salt it generously, then cook pasta according to package directions, until al dente. Drain pasta, add to salsa cruda and toss. As the hot pasta mixes with the salsa, the fragrances you'd been noticing as you worked with the ingredients will explode. Garlic, lemon, parsley, tuna, artichoke hearts... and my favorite, the briny tang of the capers. Divide into four pasta bowls or plates and serve."

My thoughts about the dish: it’s just delicious! João had a big plate of pasta and kept saying how wonderful it tasted – and it’s so hard to cook for him sometimes.
I had seconds, Terry, and I wasn’t supposed to. :)

These are the things I had different from the recipe:
- I couldn’t find Italian tuna, so I bought a Spanish one that was packed in extra virgin olive oil. Very tasty and quite similar to the photo Terry sent me;
- I love capers, so I used a bit more than the amount on the recipe;
- I’m a basil worshiper so I added a handful of leaves to the salsa cruda.

This is my version of Terry's pasta:

Terry, this post was so much fun! I’m hoping we can do this again sometime!

Salt-baked fish stuffed with onion farofa

I’ve posted several beef recipes because those are the dishes I usually cook for João. This time I’ll post a delicious recipe of something I love so much – fish.
My mom cooked fish at least once a week – she used to say that it was good for the brain. :D

Flipping through a cookbook I found this beautiful fish, made in a very unusual way – I immediately knew I had to try it. I know my grandmother roasts rump this way, using this huge amount of salt, but doing the same with fish was something totally new to me.

On the original recipe, sprigs of dill are placed inside the fish before baking it. I went for a Brazilian touch and filled the fish with farofa. You can use dill if you want to.

I knew I had achieved tremendous success when my beef-and-potato eating husband asked me when I would make this recipe again. ;)

UPDATE: Many of my dear readers asked my about farofa - it's a very traditional Brazilian dish. It may have different flavors and sometimes it's great to use leftovers that have been around for a while. Click here to know more about farofa and here to see the delicious carrot farofa I made a while ago.

Salt-baked fish stuffed with onion farofa
from Kitchen: The Best of the Best

1.5kg whole snapper, gutted but not scaled - I used "namorado", a fish with a firm and white flesh
1.5kg coarse-grained sea salt

Farofa:
1 large onion, finely sliced
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped
50-70g manioc flour
salt
freshly ground pepper

Start with the farofa: heat olive oil in a medium saucepan, over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until golden – stir every now and then so it won’t burn.
Add the parsley and the manioc flour, mix well. Season with salt and pepper and remove from heat. Set aside to cool – the farofa has to be completely cool before you fill the fish with it.

Prepare the fish: Pre-heat the oven to 200ºC/400ºF. Rinse the fish and pat dry with paper towels. Open the cavity and gently start to stuf the fish with the farofa:

Secure with string or toothpicks.
Put approximately 1/3 of the salt on the bottom of a roasting pan to just cover the metal. Carefully put the fish on the salt and then pack the remaining salt around and over it. Using your hands, sprinkle some water over the salt, just enough to lightly dampen it. Press the damp salt with your hands to firm the packing around the fish.

Bake the fish for 30 minutes (I baked mine for 50).

Remove the pan from the oven and crack the salt encasing the fish. Carefully remove the salt from the fish, using a pastry brush to brush off any loose salt. Using a sharp knife, cut the skin down the center of the fish and pull it away from the flesh. With a spatula or large knife gently remove the flesh from the fish and place on a serving platter. Serve with a baby leaf salad, lemon wedges and lemon sauce or lemon mayonnaise.

*The scales prevent the fish from absorbing the salt so it’s essential that your fish isn’t scaled when you purchase it.

Serves 4.

Spaghetti marinara

João loves seafood but I’d never made anything aside from pasta with shrimp…
I felt a little reticent when he asked me for spaghetti marinara – I wondered if I could pull that off…
Luckily, I was able to find the seafood medley mentioned on the recipe, so it was a nice first time. Everything was clean, chopped and frozen – no traumatic contact with slimy stuff. :D

I made ¼ recipe and added king shrimp, seasoned with salt, pepper and lime juice and grilled with olive oil.

There was a thunder storm going on during our lunch, so I didn't have much light to photograph our food. :(

Spaghetti marinara
from Quick Food

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 cans tomatoes, diced (395g each)
65g (¼ cup) tomato paste – I omitted
450g spaghetti
450g seafood medley – see note
8 mussels, beards removed, scrubbed – I omitted because there were mussels in the seafood medley I used
2 tablespoons shredded fresh basil
salt
cracked black pepper

Heat the oil in a saucepan over medium heat, add the onion, and cook for 5 minutes or until soft and golden. Add the garlic and stir for 1 minute of until aromatic. Add the tomatoes and tomato paste and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 20-25 minutes or until the sauce becomes rich and pulpy. Stir the sauce occasionally during cooking.
Season with salt and pepper. Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti in a large saucepan of rapidly boiling water until al dente. Drain well, return to the saucepan and keep warm.
Add the seafood mix and the mussels to the tomato sauce, and cook for 2-3 minutes or until the seafood is cooked and the mussels are open – I had to trust the cooking time specified on the recipe because I couldn’t taste the food.
Discard any mussels that don’t open.
Stir in the basil. Toss the sauce through the warm pasta and serve.

Serves 4-6

Note: Seafood medley – mixed seafood – is available in many supermarkets. Alternatively, make your own by buying different types of seafood, such as octopus, fish fillets, and squid, and chopping each into bite-sized pieces.

Fettuccine with prawns and fresh herbs

I love fish, but I'm not a huge fan of the other types of seafood. I'm allergic to some of them, so I stick to something more common: shrimp. I must admit that I don't know what the fuss is all about...

I love choosing new recipes to try but my husband is a picky eater and it gets in the way (he doesn't read the blog - lucky me!).
I always feel like preparing and tasting everything but have to slow it down a little because he's a little conservative with food.

Sometimes, when I'm going through a cookbook, he sees a photo and says "would you make this one?" - I really like that! It spares me a lot of work. :D
That's what happened with the pork loin I made the other day - sorry, the recipe is in Portuguese - and this pasta, which was taken from this wonderful book.

I was a bit disappointed with the shrimp - they looked so big at the supermarket and almost disappeared in the pot! :\ The dish tasted good though.
I added lemon zest even though the recipe didn't call for that.

We had friends over for dinner that night, so I took the photo on the following day with the remaining pasta. And the forked shrimp was the sole survivor. :D

Fettuccine with prawns and fresh herbs

400g fettuccine
100ml olive oil
3 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped - I omitted
16 raw king prawns, peeled and deveined
250g cherry tomatoes, halved
1 handful flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
12 basil leaves, torn
30g chives - I omitted
juice of 1 lemon
zest of 1 lemon - optional

Cook the fettuccine in a large pot with boiling salted water until al dente.
Meanwhile, heat the oil in a frying pan, add the garlic, stir briefly, then add the prawns. Cook until they're pink.
Add the tomatoes and cook for 1 further minute - I cooked for a little longer since I wanted it to be juicier.
Drain the pasta and return it to the pot. Add prawns and tomatoes, the herbs and lemon.
Toss it together and season with salt.

Serves 4.