Tilapia over Griddled Watermelon

Very much a spur of the moment, put-together kind of dinner ...

I had the following:

• Tilapia Fillets
• Leftover Pico de Gallo
• Red Onion
• Watermelon
• Soured Cream & Coriander
• Icelandic Ash Salt & Black Pepper

... and so, large steaks of watermelon were dropped onto the griddle pan while I mused over the remainder.

I bulked out my Pico de Gallo from Friday with some chopped red onion - otherwise, it's tomato, cucumber, sweetcorn, olives and pickled onions.

The sauce was just soured cream let out with lime juice and some chopped coriander stirred in.

Tilapia needs little more than a couple of minutes each side in a frying pan with some lovely butter.

Served out, the Pico de Gallo went down first, scattered around, watermelon steaks next with the fish on top. Sauce over, touch of Icelandic black salt and some black pepper.

Lovely!

Leftover Fish Taco Breakfast

Friday nights are for spicy, silly, messy fun ...

Most recently, we've been enjoying Fish Tacos. White fish, usually coley or pollock, large onion, lots of coconut oil, shredded peppers, spice mix and we're done. Pico de Gallo and guac alongside, usually some Mexicana cheese (cheddar with chillies mixed in) and some soured cream. The tacos? Cos lettuce leaves.

I always make too much and so, the morning after the night before, we get to enjoy it all over again ...

... simply re-heated, scrambled eggs or an omelette alongside.

Too gorgeous!

While I like Cos lettuce, I have tried primal-style tortilla before using manioc flour and it works out very well, but this morning, I happened upon this fantastic idea: One Ingredient 100% Mexican “NOT CORN” Tortillas— LEGIT! And Paleo

... next time!

Coconut Chicken Curry

Hell froze over!

I'm going to give you a recipe ...

No, really, I'm not kidding, it's not April Fool's Day, I've not been possessed, just that I made up a really cool (well, hot) curry last night and I while I followed no recipe, making it up on the spot, I think it's worthy of writing down.

I know, I know ...

I've been down on recipes for, well, forever, what with all the "what if my dodo eggs are larger than yours?", "what if I can't get Tibetan goat tears?", "what can I use instead of Guatemalan psycho-ward chillies?" ... you get my drift ... and I still don't think it worthy of a recipe, it is worth writing down.

So, here goes ...

Ingredients

2-3 Large Chicken Thighs (see, I've already broken the recipe - is it two? is it three?)

1 Large Onion (yes, define "large")

30g Butter/Ghee (or more, if you like more)

1 tsp Turmeric Powder

6-8 Red Chillies (milder chillies are best - we want colour and flavour, and heat)

3-4 Garlic Cloves (three if they're huge like mine, four, otherwise)

Inch Ginger (erm ... yeah, an inch from a thinner part? or thicker, if you like ginger)

2 tsp Poppy Seeds (I guess Nigella Seeds might do ... Mmmmm! Nigella!)

Half tsp Fenugreek Powder

Half tsp Asafoetida Powder

Halt tsp Black Pepper

Pinch Sea Salt

4 Cloves (more, if you like a powerful aromatic blast, less, if you don't want to feel like you've just been to the Dentist)

Can Coconut Milk (how big a can? I don't know ... 200ml?)

2 tbsp Desiccated Coconut

Method

Forget what's written below and do your own thing ... I did.

I jest ...

Peel and chop the onion in half, shredding each half and committing to a large lidded skillet with a damn good knob of butter or ghee. 30g is good. Turmeric over, low heat, let it caramelise and colour in the turmeric.

Take the chillies (seeded), garlic (peeled), ginger, poppy seeds, fenugreek, asafoetida, black pepper and sea salt, and mash into a paste. If you're like me and don't have (space for) one of those heavy pestle and mortar things, a bowl with the business end of a baseball bat will do ya!

Once the onions are caramelised, pour in the paste, fry off for a short while and then add in the coconut milk and the cloves. Sprinkle in the desiccated coconut and bring to the boil.

Lay your chicken pieces in (skinned), lid on and gently simmer for 30-40 minutes, topping up with a little water as necessary, but in the end you want a reduced, thick and sumptuous dish.

Ready to eat?

Serve on the bone into bowls with rice alongside ... or whatever your favourite rice substitute is. For a full dish, no rice or substitute necessary, cubes of squash or sweet potato will do just perfect.

Serves 2

Naturally, I didn't to any of this and my ingredient list did vary a little ... but, who's counting?

Enjoy!

Now, who's going to be the first to say, "sod chicken, I went with some firm white fish and it was delicious!"?

Lamb's Liver, Onions, Mushrooms & Gravy

What a way to start the day!

Tunnelling through the freezer draws looking for something to defrost for an evening meal, I happened upon a bag of something or other ...

... and then it twigged! It's leftover gravy.

With liver in the fridge ... check ... mushrooms available ... check ... and an onion ... check ... it's time to cook up some breakfast.

Using a good knob of butter, shredded onions are softened for a few minutes and pushed aside to make room for the liver, gently cooked on each side for a minute or two, then in with the mushrooms to soak up all the spare fat and the gravy (now defrosted) poured over.

Simmer for a short while to reduce and really thicken up, then onto a plate.

Wolf down without pausing for breath!

Sweet & Sour Cod

I had some cod to eat ... and some pointed sweet peppers.

Making up a sauce from condiments: Maggi Chilli Sauce, Worcestershire Sauce, yuzu juice, rice wine vinegar, tomato puree, fish sauce, honey, garlic powder and black pepper, I simply poured that into a large skillet with some shredded onion, shredded sweet peppers and some coconut oil.

Cook through ...

In another skillet, touch of butter and fry off the cod, cut into pieces.

Just prior to serving, stir some bean sprouts through the Sweet & Sour Sauce, plate up the code and pour the sauce over.

Fun!

Paleo Renegade ... Recap

Three months on with a 'Renegade Diet' inspired eating regime ...

Feast on a great evening meal
Fast for 16 hours
Begin a period of easy eating: light protein and fat but little carbohydrate
Begin a period of feasting: pretty much whatever macronutrient ratio you like for evening meal

With an ancestral context, that fits very well with what Cordain spoke of regarding food timing and availability during the day.

Upon waking, we have a scratch, a piss and walk around, picking over the leftovers from last night's feast ... which, no, there isn't any since the dogs gnawed on what we left last night.

So, as the new dawn fades and the day yawns before us, we head off to work ... today, to the office, factory, farm, wherever, ancestrally, out into our land to hunt and gather.

During the day, we might happen to cross a stream, spear a few little fish, pick a few rock dwellers from seaside pools, catch a small animal, pick a few berries, that sort of thing, and so ... maybe around noon you're ready for a little light lunch.

Back to the camp late afternoon with the spoils of the day, in modern terms, the money we've just earned to pay for the things we've got stored away in our cupboards, fridges and freezers; an evening meal for the family to be the focal point. Now we can eat something starchy.

Well, as a recap, I don't seem to have gained or lost any weight other than the usual loss of a couple of inches around the waist that I get this time of year - lean for spring, bulked for winter - but I think that's perfectly natural and absolutely evolutionarily accordant for a northern European.

I do feel great! I never really went in for breakfast, but now I absolutely enjoy my lunches, certainly with no heavy carbohydrate and never feel pogged, sluggish or dull in the afternoon and always hit dinner without any sense of already feeling full and having to go through the motions, ending up feeling even more pogged.

Mrs does like something upon waking and so some yoghurt and berries does her well.

Here's a couple more lunches ...

... I love this format!

Chilli Con Carne Lasagne

Friday night is Chilli Night!

I always make way too much, which is great since we've loads leftover for lunches with a baked potato, lettuce wraps, that kind of thing ... but recently, I've taken to making up a leftover Lasagne for Saturday night.

To make this you'll need the following: leftover Chilli Con Carne, tortilla and cheese sauce.

For two people, I find about 500g of leftovers is right, perhaps bulked out with some mushroom, aubergine or courgette. Three tortilla, too, so follow the madness in my Manioc Tortilla recipe. Finally, some cheese sauce for which I find about 100g let out with a little cream is just right.

Build your lasagne ...

Spread maybe a third of the cheese sauce into the bottom of an ovenproof dish, lay a tortilla and cover with half of the Chilli. Now, another tortilla, the other half of the Chilli, top with a tortilla and pour the cheese sauce over.

I like to split a chilli down the middle, de-seed and lay that over the top before committing to the oven for 20 minutes at 180C to heat through.

Once ready, serve out with green salad and enjoy.

Cauliflower Cheese

One you all of us paleo+ primal some dairy is alright by me folks out there ...

So many cheese sauces are built on a flour-based roux - melted butter, flour and milk. My cheese sauce wipes that slate clean and goes back to basics: cheese and something to let it out.

If you're in, you'll need cauliflower, cheese, double cream (heavy cream for folks following from the wrong side of the Atlantic), English mustard, sea salt and black pepper.

Yes, English mustard. I simply can't see this working with other mustards although, if you're in a fix for English, I think I'd be bold enough to say that a chopped chilli would be fun.

Anyway ...

Talk a good sized cauliflower, sufficient in bulk for two people. Cut the florets off the stalk, reserve the stalk for soup or something and put the florets over some boiling water to steam. Sprinkle a little sea salt over to bring out the flavour of the cauliflower.

Grate some cheese. How much? Well, enough to cover the cauliflower. As a general figure, 300g ought to be plenty. Cheddar is excellent, mature perfect, but go with any hard cheese ... or even experiment with some soft cheeses. As an aside, blue cheese and spot of cream, melted, works lovely over purple sprouting broccoli.

In a saucepan pour in a little cream - 50ml is good to get that 300g of cheese started. In with the cheese and on a low heat just get it melting. The cheese will melt and that little cream will just let it out so it's not just melted cheese but a sauce. Stir in a half teaspoon of English mustard.

Look at the consistency once melted and add in a little more cream to just let it out to a running sauce - it should pour off a spoon.

We're done ...

Spoon out the cauliflower into a bowl and pour over the sauce, garnished with whatever herb you have kicking about and a grind of black pepper.

For a more sumptuous version, sprinkle more cheese over and place the bowls under the grill for maybe a minute, until the cheese has melted.

Whole Dover Sole & Jersey Royal Potatoes

Dover Sole is a lovely fish - great texture, great flavour, four fillets and easy to cook.

If you're one for filleting fish, there are two on top and two below. Or, you can cook it whole ...

Give the fish a good wash, slit just behind the gills and pull out the guts. If you're squeamish about your food looking at you, remove the head. Also, there's a skirt of spines around the edge which can be removed - I chose not to as it's easy to just pull aside when on the plate.

Prepare any vegetables you want with the fish, since it will only need something like 10-12 minutes to cook through. I went with some purple sprouting broccoli, which is bang in season, and a few Jersey Royals. They're potatoes. Special potatoes. For a full run down on Jersey Royals, hop over to their website.

So, your vegetables are not far off ready, under a pre-heated grill push your fish in.

I go with about 200-225C and have the fish about 6 inches from the heat. This will cook through quickly and indicate that the cooking process is going well by scorching and bubbling the skin.

After about 5 minutes, flip the fish over and cook the underside.

I also made up a little butter sauce with butter, lemon juice, capers and chopped parsley.

Serve up, fish as the main piece, sauce over, vegetables around the side.

To eat the fish, pull the skirt away and then gently draw the fillets from the top away from the bones. Now, lift the whole bone structure off whatever is left on the plate and enjoy the fillets from the underside.

Turkey & Prawn Pilaf Stuffed Peppers

Stuffed peppers should not be overly wet on the inside, so try to keep "wet" ingredients to a minimum.

Pilaf is a Middle Eastern, Turkish, Persian, Uzbek, even North African dish of rice cooked in a seasoned broth, a term which I'm using in the broadest of sense since the rice will be cooked in broth, but inside a stuffed pepper.

You can stuff your peppers with anything you like, but here, I went with: minced turkey, prawns and cauliflower rice.

In a skillet, brown off the mince.

Meanwhile, steam some cauliflower and add to the skillet, crushing gently as you go and expelling as much liquid as you can.

Add some spice: ground coriander, perhaps some chilli powder, a little sea salt and some black pepper.

When the mixture is good and dry, simply lop the tops off a few peppers and stuff them up.

Place the peppers into an ovenproof dish (no lid), slip the tops back on the peppers and now pour in some bone broth. Stock will do if you don't have broth.

Into the oven at, say, 170C (350F?) for maybe 20 minutes, maybe half an hour, by which time the broth is reduced and the peppers good and soft.

Serve out into a wide brimmed bowl, slicing the peppers open and pouring more broth over.

Crab Senza Linguine

Prior to ancestral eating, my Crab Linguine was one of my wife's favourite dishes; a simple preparation of crab, chillies and lime over linguine.

Ancestral eating has knocked traditional linguine out and while I could use a rice-based replacement, a perfectly good and actually nutritious replacement can be found in juliennes of courgette or carrot ... but ... I think I've found a perfect linguine now.

Nosing around a Polski Sklep (Polish food store) near work I was reminded of something I actually found many months ago: a curious jar of what looked like noodles.

The best I could get out of the shopkeeper at the time was that it was celeriac. Upon translating the ingredients, it was, indeed celeriac, in salt, vinegar and sugar.  No drama - simply soak in water for an hour and we're good to go ...

Ingredients

Vegetable Noodles - Juliennes, spiralized or bottled
Crab Meat - Fresh or canned
Flavours - Fish sauce, spring onions, garlic powder, coriander & chillies
Fat - Coconut oil

How much? Well, one crab each or, say, 170g of meat per person. Noodles to suit your appetite, chilli and fish sauce to suit your taste, garnish as appropriate.

Method

Heat the coconut oil in a decent sized skillet, one which you can toss happily.

Add in the crab meat, your vegetable noodles (drained, if bottle preserved), chopped spring onions, chopped chillies, a touch of garlic powder and toss through.

Flavour with a dash of fish sauce. If using canned crab meat preserved in brine, skip the fish sauce.

Heat through and add a generous amount of chopped coriander, folded through.

Serve

Serve, lifting out with a couple of forks into bowls, gaining air and height. Garnished with more fresh coriander and perhaps a grind of freshly milled black pepper.

We had an Insalata di Caprese and a boiled egg alongside.

Zuppa di Pesce [Fish Hunter's Stew]

Fish Hunter, rather than Fisherman, since I didn't partake of any of the actual fishing, just hunting down the bargains at my local supermarket ...

I came away with some monkfish, cod, scallops and mussels.

At the time I had no idea what I was going to do with this lot, thinking most likely a succession of meals, but when I got home, I thought, "why not just bung it all into a pan with some tomato?".

... and so, that's what I did.

Ingredients

I decided to call this Zuppa di Pesce since it is in that tradition of simple Italian stews made the whole country over from whatever was left from selling off the day's catch married with simple local ingredients.

I did not shop for the ingredients ...

Again, in the same tradition, I used what I had.

You'll need ...

Fish - whatever you have, can find, can catch or can swipe from the cat
Sauce - Onion and tomato, that's a must ... any bulk you like, marrow, for me
Flavours - Garlic, fennel, tarragon, parsley, basil, black pepper and sea salt
Fat - Olive oil

Method

First, make up the sauce.

Chop onion and in a large skillet get it softening in a good glug of olive oil. Don't concern yourself about the oil oxidising, just keep it on a lower than boiling heat.

To the onion, add some shredded fennel and a sprig of tarragon.

Add in some chopped garlic, a little sea salt and some black pepper.

More herbs, so parsley for depth and some basil, shredded for aromatics.

Now, in with the fish ...

Cube up your larger, white fish and push into the sauce. It will now cook through.

You could push in your shellfish, put the lid on and serve just like that, but I cooked my scallops and mussels alongside, adding in at the last minute.

Scallops just want colouring up in butter, mussels de-bearded, washed and simply steamed open in a little white wine.

Serve

Combine the lot in your skillet, take to the table and serve.

How awesome is that? ... and who needs pasta?