I wanted to share this delicious recipe with you on Friday but ran totally out of time! Never mind, I got here in the end. If you love fish, you are really going to love this wonderfully delicious recipe!
We really love fish in this house. Not only is it quick and easy to cook, but its fabulously tasty and oh-so-good for you! I especially love lemon sole. It has a beautiful texture and a wonderfully mild flavour that lends itself perfectly for use with other flavours!
This recipe I am sharing is adapted from one I found in Olive Magazine a number of years back. It borrows heavily from Oriental flavours with its use of ginger and red chilies. Yes, it is a bit spicy, but not obnoxiously so!
I get my fish from Seafresh, an on line Fish Monger. Their products are always high quality and so very fresh, plus their delivery service is impeccable. Did you know that when you buy fish as the grocery store that is labelled as being fresh, it is often more than a few days old, or it has been frozen already and thawed out. I think its a real shame as fish is not cheap, and for my money I like to know that I am getting the best quality that I can. That has never been a problem for me using Seafresh! I cannot fault them on any level.
The Lemon Sole comes in a 1KG package, skin on, with there being 4 to 5
fillets per package. I skinned it, which is very easily done. I am not
a person who is that fond of eating fish skin, but some people love it.
If you are like me you can find a video on how to do that here.
A good sharp boning knife is all you need. Of course you can also cook it with the skin on. Its all a matter of preference.
The ginger used in this recipe is Stem Ginger in Syrup. Essentially this is knobs of fresh ginger that have been boiled and the preserved in a sugar syrup. You can use both the knobs themselves and the syrup. I am never without a jar of this on hand. Its not just for cakes and baking as this delicious recipe will testify!
You will need one ball of the ginger and 1 TBS of the syrup. The ball of ginger gets minced, along with 2 cloves of garlic . . .
To that you add half of a minced red chili. You could use a whole chili, but I find that far too over-powering myself. I want to also be able to taste this lovely piece of fish!
A TBS of the ginger syrup and a TBS of dark soy sauce are added as well.
You lay your fish in a single layer on a baking tray, spoon the ginger dressing over top and then pop it under the grill. Its as easy as that!
4 to 5 minutes later you are rewarded with beautifully, perfectly cooked pieces of fish with a gorgeously flavoured dressing!
It is a tiny bit spicy from the chili, but not overly so, and of course the ginger also has a bit of a kick, but there is also that luxurious sweetness from the syrup . . .
And of course the saltiness of the soy . . . these flavours blend so perfectly together and really work with this lovely and delicately flavoured piece of fish!
You could serve it with some stir fried vegetables or an oriental salad. I served it with some steamed brown rice and a mix of beans, legumes and baby corn. Beautiful as always!
Gingered Lemon Sole
Yield: 2
Quick, easy and really delicious! If you like fish you will LOVE this!
ingredients:
- 2 skinned and boned fillets of lemon sole
- 1 ball of preserved stem ginger
- 1 TBS of stem ginger syrup from the jar
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
- 1/2 small red chili, seeded, trimmed and finely chopped
- 1 TBS dark soy sauce
instructions:
How to cook Gingered Lemon Sole
- Preheat your grill to high. Mince the stem ginger and put it into a bowl, along with the ginger syrup, garlic, red chili and soy sauce. Whisk together well.
- Place the sole fillets onto a baking tray. Drizzle the ginger mixture over top. Pop under the heated grill and cook for 4 to 5 minutes, or until the fish flakes easily with the tip of a fork. Cook time depends on the thickness of your fillets. Remember it will continue to cook a bit upon resting.
- Serve hot, with the pan juices. I like to serve this with some steamed brown rice and a mix of steamed vegetables.
I love cooking with fish, its just so very versatile and healthy. I plan on eating more of it in the new year as I am determined to get and eat a lot healthier over the next year! But first Christmas . . .
A few things about Seafresh:
- Same Day dispatch on orders received before 1 PM.
- All packages are carefully hand packed.
- Free delivery on orders above £50, £8 on orders below that amount.
- Responsibly and sustainably sourced.
- Air Blast Frozen at source within 4 hours of being caught.
- Wide variety to choose from.
Follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Note - Today's recipe feeds two perfectly, but can very easily be multiplied to feed more people.
The recipe I am sharing with you today comes from an old Waitrose Cooking Pamphlet from 2009. I was still working at the Manor when I picked this up at the shops.
I always had it in my mind to bake these and I can't believe it has taken me ten years to do so!
Crisp and buttery these delicious shortbread fingers get their lovely peppermint flavour from the use of crushed strong mint candies.
You put the candies into a food processor, or spice grinder and grind them into a powder. You won't be able to grind them totally into a powder, but if they are mostly powdered with a few tiny bits, that will work fine.
The short bread dough itself is made totally in the food processor. You simply tip the flour and cold butter cut into bits into the bowl of your food processor and blitz.
You want the mixture to resemble fine dry bread crumbs. Once you have that then its time to tip the ground peppermints and a small quantity of sugar into the food processor and blitz again.
Blitz until the mixture comes together into a sort of thick paste. No worries if you don't have a food processor. You can do this with an electric whisk. It will just take longer.
The dough then gets pressed into the bottom of a 9X5 inch loaf tin that you have buttered and lined with baking paper. Make sure you use enough baking paper that you can just use the paper to lift the shortbread out of the pan with after baking.
Over here in the UK, you can get loaf tin paper liners, much like cupcake liners, so I used one of them. Easy peasy.
They take about half an hour to bake in a slow oven. Don't be tempted to rush them. They will be done when they are set, and golden brown.
They shouldn't look greasy. Lift them out while almost immediately and then carefully cut them into fingers (crosswise) while they are still warm.
If you wait until the shortbread is cold, it will be impossible to cut them without them breaking and crumbling.
If you have waited too long, just rewarm them briefly in the oven, just so that they are warm and slice-able.
They smell all lovely and pepperminty when they are baking. Very nice and Christmassy!!
Once they have cooled you can get on with the business of glazing them. More peppermint flavour comes from the chocolate glaze.
You will need a bar of good quality dark mint flavoured chocolate. I used Lindt. Break this up into bits and melt it and then spoon and spread it over the top of each finger.
You will also be melting some white chocolate to drizzle decoratively over top of the dark. They sure do look pretty when they are done!
Christmas and shortbread . . . well . . . you can't have one without the other! It just ain't human!
Mint Chocolate Shortbread Fingers
Yield: About 10
Crushed peppermints and melted minted dark chocolate give these buttery shortbread fingers a fresh taste that everyone will enjoy. These can be the "after-dinner" shortbreads!
ingredients:
- 44g tube of Trebor extra strong mints (1.5 ounces of something like Altoids mints)
- 125g plain flour (1 cup less 2 TBS) (all purpose)
- 100g unsalted butter, cold and cut into bits (7 TBS)
- 25g caster sugar (2 TBS)
To glaze:
- 100g bar Lindt Dart Mint Intense Chocolate chopped (3 1/2 ounces)
- 50g of good white chocolate, chopped )1.5 ounces)
instructions:
How to cook Mint Chocolate Shortbread Fingers
- Preheat the oven to 165*C/325*C/gas mark 3. Butter a 9 inch by 5 inch loaf tin and line with baking paper, leaving an overhand to lift it out with.
- Crush the peppermints in the bowl of a food processor until it becomes very small pieces, mostly powdered. Remove and set aside.
- Add the flour and the butter to the food processor. Blitz until it resembles fine bread crumbs. Tip in the crushed peppermints and the sugar. Blitz until it comes together into a firm paste. Tip out and press evenly into the bottom of the loaf tin.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, until set and golden brown. Remove from the oven and lift out onto a cutting board using the paper overhang.
- Using a sharp knife, carefully cut crosswise into 10 fingers. Allow to cool completely before proceeding.
- Melt both chocolates by your preferred method. (I use the microwave on high at 30 second intervals. It took my microwave about 45 seconds to melt the dark chocolate and 30 to melt the white.) Spoon and spread the dark chocolate over each shortbread finger, allowing some to drip down the sides. Drizzle the white chocolate decoratively over top. Leave in a cool place to set and then store in an airtight container.
These are crisp and buttery with a lovely peppermint flavour. They go down a real treat with a hot cuppa or better yet, a couple of scoops of peppermint ice cream. Yum!!
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
Christmas fruit cake. It is a "love it" or "loathe it" kind of a thing. I am from the "love it" camp myself. All the Christmas's of my childhood contained at least two fruit cakes, a light one and a dark one.
My mom would also make a delicious War Cake! We had very fruity Christmas’s growing up!
The Christmas Catalogue used to have options where you could buy a ready-made fruit cake, the tops of them highly decorated with nuts and glace fruit, decoratively placed and beautifully glazed.
My, but they looked very pretty, and enticing. They always carried a hefty price tag.
My mom would often buy a slab of fruit cake and make us a delicious War Cake to enjoy as well. We loved both.
Mom's War Cake was lovely and moist and filled with large sticky raisins. You can find the recipe for that here.
Most of the department stores had their own versions of fruitcake as well, with the most popular one being the ones offered at S. S. Kresge. Kresge's was an American department store, at one time being the largest discount retail stores in America.
It was renamed Kmart in 1977 and later evolved into the Sears Holdings Corporation, after Kmart bought out Sears.
In any case they were famous at Christmas for both their light and their dark fruitcakes. My sister had a recipe that she got from her late MIL for their light fruitcake, which she had lost, but which she said was the best fruitcake ever.
I did a search for her and came up with two recipes, one for a light cake and one for a dark.
I have already baked my dark fruit cake, or Christmas Cake as it is known over here. That is a recipe I am very happy with and not likely to ever change. You can find that recipe here. It is excellent.
I was very keen however to try the light fruit cake recipe and so this week I did. It called for 2 pounds of Kresge Extra Fancy Mix, which I assumed was a mix of candied and dried fruits.
I used glace cherries (in three colours), glace pineapple, dried apricots and chopped glace citrus peels. I prefer to buy my citrus peels whole and chop them myself. I always buy all of my glace fruits from Buy Whole Foods Online.
They have the best assortment to choose from and their prices are quite reasonable. I have never had any problem with their delivery or packaging either.
I always rinse my glace cherries in hot water and then dry them before using them. That's what Delia Smith does and I just figure if she does, then it must be an important thing to do!
I also used dried apricots and I cut them into chunks. I didn't see any need to chop the pecans. I did toast them first.
I was very pleased with how the fruit cake came out. It is really jam packed full of fruit and nuts.
It cuts beautifully with a serrated knife, and keeps beautifully wrapped tightly and stored in an airtight container.
I am gifting one to a friend and Todd, believe it or not, has already made short work of half of the one I am keeping. I'm hiding the rest of it so that we have it for Christmas!!
Kresge's Light Holiday Fruit Cake
Yield: Makes 2 loaves
This light fruit cake is jam packed with plenty of fruit and nuts. Makes one loaf for keeping and one for giving away.
ingredients:
- 150g butter (2/3 cup)
- 125g granulated sugar (2/3 cup)
- 2 large free-range eggs beaten
- 240ml fruit juice or water (I used fresh orange juice)
- 60ml liquid honey (1/4 cup)
- 280g flour, sifted (2 cups)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 910g extra fancy mixed glace fruit (2 pounds) (I used a mix of glace cherries, glace citrus peels, glace pineapple and dried apricots)
- 150g raisins (1 cup)
- 60g whole pecans (1/2 cup)
- 140g additional flour (1 cup)
instructions:
How to cook Kresge's Light Holiday Fruit Cake
- Preheat the oven to 135*C/275*F. Butter two 3 1/2 " by 7 1/2" loaf tins and line with waxed or baking paper, leaving 1/2 inch of paper to extend beyond the edges of the tins all round. Set aside.
- Rinse and dry your glace cherries. Place into a bowl. Chop the citrus peels into small bits. I used combination of grapefruit, pomelo, orange and lemon peels. Cut the glace pineapple into chunks. Chop the dried apricots. Put the citrus, apricots and pineapple into the bowl with the cherries. Add the pecans and raisins. Mix together and then stir in the flour to coat it all well.
- Beat the butter and sugar together well. Beat in the eggs and then stir in the fruit juice and honey. It will look well curdled, but don't worry about it. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon. Stir into the creamed mixture to combine well and then fold in the floured fruit/nut mixture. Spoon the batter into the two prepared loaf tins, dividing it equally. Do not smooth down or press into place.
- Place a cake tin filled with 480ml/2 cups water on the bottom rack of the oven. Place the loaf tins onto a baking sheet and place into the oven on the rack above the water. Bake for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or until the cakes are firm on top and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean with no batter clinging. Store in an airtight container.
I don't think my photos really do this lovely cake justice. It looks very jewel-like when cut up. Colour me very happy with it! I will make again!
So what about you, are you a "love it" or a "loathe it" fruit cake person?
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