Tuesday 21 August 2012

Lemons and limes

Post party we have an issue.

Specifically we have cornered the lemon and lime supply in East London owing to sending @obotheclown out to get more limes. What were we thinking? Obviously I wasn't because I believe at that point I had a wine in one hand and a cocktail in the other which, if you read my blog, is why I get in to so much trouble.

Anyway.

So we've been looking at recipes that include said popular citrus fruits. Which is why I sort of tried to make steamed lemon tilapia with teriyaki sauce. When I sort of I mean I'd best explain. I love living on the East End, but you can't get tilapia in Lidl. Or mirin for that matter. A recipe adjustment was the order of the day.

So salmon it was. Which Lidl do sell, freezer section if you want the unsmoked stuff. For mirin I could have substituted sherry, but Clare suggested I use Prošek as, like all respectable people, we have it in the fridge. Sensible lady my flatmate. Compared to me. As I'm neither sensible, nor... Oh you, get the picture.

What you need...


  • 3 tablespoons of soy sauce
  • 75ml of mirin/sherry/Prošek substitute
  • 2 tablespoons of sugar
  • half a tablespoon of honey
  • 1 lemon (thank goodness for that!) half squeezed, half sliced
  • 200g of rinsed basmati rice
  • 2 tilalpia/salmon/whatever fillets
  • piece of ginger, shredded. FFS Lidl, why didn't you have this?!!!
  • 1 red chilly (nom)
  • Spring onions, sliced and then left in the kitchen all forlorn.
So, preparing in advance... Glad I did as madam turned up with the ingredients for blinis, more later. Put the soy, mirin/sherry/Prošek, sugar, honey and lemon juice in a small pan, boil and then simmer for 5 minutes. Maybe more as she turned up at that point and you know how we talk. Meanwhile, rice in pan, boil with 400ml of water for 5 minutes then put the fish on top and sprinkle the ginger and chilli. Add the lemons to look a bit flash Cook for another 5 minutes, which might be more as we had a lot to talk about (had been nearly three hours!) and...

...put on a plate, which is bloody tricky I can tell you, add a drizzle of the sauce and forget to add the spring onions. Optionally you can add the spring onions. If you are conventional like that. We won't judge. Much.

Judges.

So that was last night. Tonight we had a choice, the thai beef (now tomorrow) or the blinis that the Contrary One turned up with last night. With caviar. And champagne.

Obvs.

Don't get us wrong, I know there are some that thing we are frivolous, decadent and debauched social butterflies that have napalm on toast and carry chainsaws. It's not true, but in this case we, by chance, have three tins of caviar and a couple of bottles of fizz in the fridge. As you do.

So it was to be a Contrary Tuesday. And blinis. Lots of blinis.

The fizz of choice was Bollinger, which, unfortunately seemed to have had a little shake. So we now have a champagne flavour wall. I'm not sure exactly where the caviar came from, but I do know it keeps appearing in the fridge and comes from Belarus. So, sensibly, I don't ask questions.

I also won't mention the smutty thoughts that we both had regarding stray caviar as it explodes. Ahem.

Where was I?

Oh yes. So the trouble with champagne is, well, we only have a little fridge, and wanted to keep the yellow label for another night. So we had to move on to cocktails. Time for a new recipe, the Pippy No Stockings, which you can see in Clare's version of the evening. It is gorgeous. And used limes. And now we're both slightly squiffy. So time to hit twitter and be debauched...

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