I never knew that you were untrue

[venta]

Every so often you hear of an odd combination of ingredients someone is cooking, and think "no, really?". Oh yes, they assure you, really. Sometimes, of course, you think "no, just no" (a colleague of mine recently recommended chicken-breast stuffed with nutella. Eww. I mean, he likes it, go him. But I don't think I'll be trying it.)

Yesterday, wondering what to cook out of the things I had available, I was suddenly moved to wonder whether smoked haddock and pesto would be a good idea.

(I originally typed "smoked haddock and peston", there. No economic pontificating was involved in, or harmed by, this cooking episode.)

I sprinkled some lemon juice on the haddock, covered it with pesto and popped it, wrapped up in foil, into the oven to bake. And cooked some gnocchi to go with it. (And tidied the kitchen, and managed to take a chunk out of the back of my hand on the hinges of the spare-room wardrobe).

Aesthetes will be pleased to know I was using undyed smoked haddock, so the sight of a fillet coated with bright green sauce wasn't too much of a visual assault.

Anyway, it wasn't vile, it was... fine. OK. But I'm not really sure the peston (damn, did it again) pesto brought anything very much to the party, really. Smoked fish is a strong flavour, and while I'd thought the smokiness might compliment the pesto it didn't, it just quietly overruled it.

In summary: no.

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Oh, good choice of song. So many shades of green!

[venta.livejournal.com]

One kudo to you for spotting it :)

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Pesto is nice with mild white fish like cod and haddock though.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes, that was partly the logic :) I've made a sort of pesto-y crumb-y crust for white fish before, and that works pretty well.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Also a thing I do when I have fish going spare, especially smoked fish: shallow-fry it on both sides in oil in the wok. Throw in garlic when you turn it from one side to the other. When the outside is slightly brown add some kind of steamable vegetable and chuck it around in the fishy oil a bit. Then add water sort of halfway up to the top of the fish, put the lid on the wok and let it gently steam until the veg is about done, and the fish will be too. Then rescue the fish and (in true cookbook style) put it on top of the rice you've been cooking for the last ten minutes or whatever it takes, and put a bit of creme fraiche and some salt and pepper and dill in the wok with the veg and mix it all up into a nice gooey sauce. Then pour it over the top of everything and it is yum. Sometimes I put a bay leaf in the rice as it cooks and some saffron for its last couple of minutes because it seems good.

Or of course kedgeree, which in my kitchen involves enough turmeric to turn you yellow for a few days.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that sounds good, I shall have to try that. Thank you.

The original plan yesterday was kedgeree (with, indeed, a resultant yellow kitchen) but I had to have a rethink when I remembered I'd eaten all the eggs.

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I wonder if it might work better with a different type of pesto - a parsley one maybe?

[venta.livejournal.com]

You'll have to make that experiment on my behalf, because I really dislike parsley :)

Can you make pesto from spinach, do you think? Would that work?

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

You can make it with rocket (and walnut instead of pine nuts) -- that has a good strong taste which might hold up against the haddies. Not tried with spinach but I see no reason why not.

[metame.livejournal.com]

Spinach pesto works well. Bags of flavour, and I'm also thinking that making it fresh would probably help it to stand up to the smoke.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I like spinach. I like pesto.

I have never made pesto.

But I have shops! and the internet! and, er, probably a free hour at the weekend somewhere.

I will report :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Arse. This is going to be one of those times when having a food processor would be really useful, isn't it?

[metame.livejournal.com]

Yes. I'd really wait til you have one. The handheld ones which attach to a small pot are perfect for it...

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

Smoked haddock needs a poached egg. They're like cheese & biscuits, Bogie & Bacall, or bacon & more bacon.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree. Well, I'll accept boiled eggs in the case of kedgeree.

I'd already eaten the other half of the fillet with a poached egg the day before. I was (see other comment elsehwere) planning kedgeree until I realised the lunchtime sweetcorn fritters had finished off the eggs.