Cooking with the Dutchess:
By Hanneke Eerden
The Dutchess has been so busy lately! I hope you didn’t miss me too much, and if you did, you can always find me at one of these two website: www.TheDutchessCooks.com or (new!) www.BarBQBoozers.com. But now I’m back in La Prensa San Diego! With delicious and easy recipes for you and your family!
Today we’re going to make a dish straight from the grill, a dish with fish from the grill! Since Summer has started on the 21st of June, there’s no excuse not to grill. What’s better than enjoying a warm day knowing that your dinner will be a grilled dish, straight from your barbeque?? One thing I have to admit, I love that idea but over here the weather is slightly different from the one in CA. The last few weeks it seemed almost like fall, storms, rain, hail, not much fun for a girl who loves to grill I tell you that! All I can do is hope for a weather change, or move. But before I start thinking about that, I want to show you how to make this awesome summer dish!
Do you grill often? And do you have a gas grill or do you use charcoal? These questions I can answer with: yes, I grill as often as the weather allows me (believe me when I say that grilling in a storm is not my favorite way of preparing a dinner!). As I mentioned in one of my previous articles, I have a Weber kettle grill. And I use charcoal, or to be more precise, I use coconut shell charcoal. I found out that this type of charcoal makes it possible to grill at a high (think steaks for example!), and constant temperature if you want or need that. Plus it allows to you grill longer with the same batch than traditional lump charcoal and the cubes are easy to use. What’s not good about these reasons!
For today’s fish I choose a fish that happened to be on sale, Cod Fillet. And I know fish fillets aren’t easy to grill, but there are lots of tools for that, which prevent the fillet from falling between the grill grates! This time I used the deep fry basket for it, and that worked perfect too! When grilling a dish like this, you can choose if you want the fillet grilled directly above the hot coals (watch out that it doesn’t burn!) or more slowly, placed away from the coals (indirect). I choose for the first option.
I served this fillet with a hot tomato/red pepper sauce I made earlier that day on the stove, pasta and a green salad.
The ingredients for the sauce:
1 onion (diced)
2 garlic cloves (mashed)
a big splash of Tequila
1 roasted red bell pepper
1 can of peeled tomatoes
about 10 olives (black or green, what you like)
ground chile pepper (I chose Chimayo pepper and a little bit of the very hot Bhut Jolokia),
and some olive oil.
Start with adding some olive oil in a pan, when the oil is hot add the onions and keep the temperature low. After a few minutes you can add the garlic, stir for a few seconds and then immediately add the Tequila (about ¼ cup) . Bring this to a boil and let it reduce for a few minutes.
In the meantime slice the bell pepper into stripes. Add these, the peeled tomatoes, the chile pepper and olives to the sauce and bring to a boil.
As soon as it’s boiling, close the lid and let it simmer for about 30 minutes. If you like a smooth sauce you can mash it in a blender, but you can also serve it without doing this.
As always ~ Bon Appetit