Here we go again, on our endless quest for the balanced meal. This one is really good for anyone who is recovering from illness or injury, or for those of us who are trying to get a little more fish into our diet.
Looks pretty good doesn’t it, and it tasted even better!
Rub a little oil onto your potatoes and pop them into a hot oven for about 40 minutes. With 20 minutes still to go it is time to make your white sauce, you can use the classic white sauce recipe (reduce the recipe to 1/3) or the gluten and dairy free version, both are in Back to Basics. Once you have that done stir in the zest and juice of one lemon, one tablespoon of chopped capers and one teaspoon of chopped fresh chives.
Set that aside and set up your steamers. Just have a look here for a tic, I want to show you my set up.
At the top of the photo I have a stainless steel strainer over an inch of boiling water with a pot lid to cover it, this is for my fish, people do use a bamboo steamer, like the one I have here for my veg, but I never do, I would never want to use it again if I cooked fish in it, the stainless steel one I can scrub and put through my dishwasher and it will be good as new, the bamboo one I would feel I had to put in the bin, is up to you, but I always think, safety first.
So I have my bamboo steamer and my stainless steamer, both have boiling water underneath, treat these with caution, steam is hotter than boiling water and will burn much faster. Place your fish in the stainless steamer, I have a nice bit of snapper -
Cover and steam for about five minutes.
Tumble your veg into the bamboo steamer, I have used asparagus and green beans here, a perfect foil for a delicate fish like this. Steam for two minutes and then check it.
Looking good, fish one out with a fork and bite, if is ready to your liking plate them up, if not quite, put the lid back on.
So all up our fish has been steaming for about eight minutes, let’s have a look at it now.
What do you think? Looks cooked, doesn’t it? But fish can be tricky, best way to tell is to lift it out onto a plate and use two forks to pull it apart at its thickest point. A fillet of fish that is cooked will flake readily, a fish that is not cooked through will not flake. This is what I mean -
See? Cooked. Pop that on your plate with your steamed veg and baked potatoes, quickly warm your white sauce back up, careful, don’t split it after all that work! Spoon some sauce over the fish, dress the asparagus and beans with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a squeeze of lemon, dust the lot with some black pepper and wa-la. Round, or balanced, meal number four (since we are counting).
As we have been doing, for those of us who are interested in the nutrition of things let’s have a quick look. We have our proteins and some really good fats in our fish, as well as selenium, iodine, zinc, manganese, magnesium, phosphorus and that all important omega 3 fatty acid. We have good fats in our avocado and olive oils, as well as in our almond milk, which is also going to give us a boost of calcium, Vitamin E, copper and more. Lots of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants in our steamed veg, with a boost of Vitamin C in the lemon we squeezed over it. Some good carbohydrate and insoluble fibre in our baked potatoes and some really interesting anti-inflammatory compounds in our capers, which we will talk about another day. So a really good round meal. Good for our bodies, good for our brains, just all round good for us really, just watch out for fish bones! A fish bone in the throat is no fun, I know that from experience!
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