Pan-fried fish with mango salsa and courgette noodles - 20 minute meal

Friday, January 23, 2015

With a day off work and time on my hands, I decided to get creative in the kitchen. I wanted to make something quick, healthy and of course - it needed to be tasty too! I came up with a pan-fried fish dish with a mango, lime and ginger salsa, served alongside "zoodles" (courgette noodles) and avocado. I used mojarra, which is a very common fish here on the Caribbean coast, although any white fish fillet would do.

To make this quick and tasty dish, you will need:

1 fillet of mojarra (or any white fish you have to hand)
1 courgette
Salt, pepper and a touch of dried chilli
1 avocado

For the salsa:
Half a mango, cut into small cubes
1 quarter of red onion
A thumbnail of ginger, grated finely
Juice of one small lime
1 tbsp of soy sauce
Dash of fish sauce

Method:
1) Start by making the salsa. Combine all the salsa ingredients in a blender, food processor or small electronic food chopper. Blend until smooth - if a little thick, add in water until any lumps have disappeared.
Uncooked zoodles
2) Now get onto the zoodles. Cut courgette lengthways in half (for easier grating) and grate in long strokes to get spaghetti-like strands. Mix in generous seasonings of salt, pepper and a touch of dried chilli. Leave to one side.
3) Place some oil in a pan and heat gently, and now lightly pan fry fish until cooked through.
4) Place fish on plate, and in the same pan throw in zoodles. These need a very brief cooking - literally 1-2 minutes.
5) Place zoodles alongside fish, top with slices of avocado, and top fish with salsa.

A quick, delicious and healthy lunch, in under 20 minutes!
And there you have it. Jamie Oliver eat your heart out - try this Bidmead version of a quick 20 minute meal, and enjoy a tropical taste of the Caribbean coast wherever you are.

Travel BidmeadBites (Part 2)

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Picking up where I left off, the Bidmead sisters travels around Colombia continued, as did my culinary adventures - kicking off with chontaduro in Cali. Eaten with honey and salt, the taste of this fruit resembles (as my sister so correctly noted)...baked beans.
Chontaduro - or a can of beans?
I happen to love baked beans, and therefore these went down quite well. However, eating what proclaims to be fruit while visualising beans on toast makes for a slightly odd attack on the senses. Still, the caleñolove the stuff and I guess I did too!

In Colombia, carne reigns king. Baring in mind my sister is a veggie, headed to a restaurant serving typical caleño food (which happens to be particularly meat-centric), her options were limited to say the least. She could eat one thing on the whole menu of about 30 options, which was aborrajados (fried plantains with cheese). Did I feel bad?
Don't know about my sister, but I certainly wasn't going hungry! 
Clearly I had other things to preoccupy me, like this chuleta de pollo (breaded marinated chicken breast). I should mention this portion was to share with a friend, alongside another dish of lengua en salsa (tongue in tomato sauce). For those of you who are now squeeming - tongue is a delicious, tender and flavoursome cut of meat, which I urge you to try!
Champús...a no no for me.
Moving on to something a bit lighter, champús is a sweet drink prepared with the Colombian fruit lulo, orange, pineapple, dark sugar and...corn. It sounded good until the corn bit right? Despite its popularity in Cali, this drink was just not for me. Next time, I'll be keeping the corn on the cob and the fruit for the juice.

As our time in Cali came to a close we headed to Palomino, a small beach town on the Carribean coast, two hours from Santa Marta. Being back by the beach meant it was time for some fish. The great thing about fish in Colombia is the variety, and the option of lots of fish not found in England. This fish below is corvina, found mainly on the Pacific coast, and other tasty Colombian fishes include mojarra and lebranche, found more commonly on the Atlantic coast.
Corvina, rice, beans, yucca and salad
Leaving Palomino we skipped along the coast to my new-found home Barranquilla, and I was determined to show my sister the best of my city. It couldn't get more barranquillero than dinner in Cucayo. From the bright colours, old-fashioned signs and various adornments on the walls, it screams Barranquilla from the inside out.

Soaking up the colours and cuisine in Cucayo
The food itself is also a tribute to all things costeño: traditional snacks such as matrimono, butifarra and various fritos feature, as well as typical sancochos (soups) and picadas (mixed plates). Me and my sister opted for sancochos (soups), mine of gallina (hen) while hers was a cazuela de mariscos (creamy seafood soup).
Cazuela de Mariscos, with coconut rice and avocado
Overall it was a great dining experience and a perfect place for my sister to get a feel of what Barranquilla is all about.
Some of the gorgeous cupcakes in Nancy Cabrera
Cucayo is owned by Nancy Cabrera, who is perhaps most famous for her cakes here in Barranquilla - queue a visit to her namesake cafe. Nancy Cabrera's reknowned trufa de chocolate is the crown jewel of many delicious sweet treats, so naturally me and my sister felt obliged to see what the all the fuss was about.
The famous trufa de chocolate (chocolate cake)
It was really quite the cake. Rich but not overly so, moist but not soggy, this chocolate cake has earnt its reputation. Me and my sister were big fans, and I will definitely be returning to sample the very beautiful looking cupcakes (nutella sounded particularly good).
Who knows what came over me, but even I ordered a veggie meal!
From savoury to sweet, and onto a sad but inevitable end to the holiday. For our last night, we headed to Arabe Gourmet, a highly recommended arabic restaurant. The menu was excellent, and despite tempting carnivorous options such as marmaón (israeli cous-cous with shredded meat or chicken) and arroz de almendras (rice with almonds, mince meat, chicken and spices), we ordered two vegetarian platters, which were a feast of falafel, hummus, tabuleh, babaganous, fattoush salad and stuffed aubergine.

Just like the aubergines we had consumed, we left stuffed, and very satisfied. I bid farewell to my sister the next day as I headed back to work, feeling rested and ready to get back to my life here on the coast. 6 months in and I've got plenty more eating (and cooking) to do here, so stayed tuned for the next post from Bidmead Bites!

Travel BidmeadBites (Part 1)

Thursday, January 8, 2015

After a wonderful trip back home for Christmas, I hit the road and headed back to Colombia with my sister in-tow. Currently writing this post from the salsa capital that is Cali, here is a brief rundown of some of our culinary conquests so far.

We started off in Bogota, the countries capital, and the home of wonderful dishes such as ajiaco. As I've already eaten ajiaco several times, and even having made it myself, I was tempted by the more unusual bogotano foods, such as milk soup with a poached egg in it, known as changua.
My bowl of changua, and mixed emotions on it.
Traditionally eaten for breakfast, I have to say it was an odd morning mealtime experience for me. The bowl of milk made me feel I was about to eat cereal, but the poached egg evoked desires of toast and bacon. Next time, I might stick to porridge.

My love of meat and all things offal is well documented, and may even verge on excessive. However, my wonderful sister Anna avoids eating our furry friends altogether. While this may raise doubts about whether we really are even related, luckily she eats fish, which meant our stay in the Caribbean island of San Andrés was stress free, as we found ourselves in seafood heaven.
Lobster, chips, patacones and salad. And two very, very happy Bidmeads. 
Bring on this enormous lobster to share, cooked al ajillo (with garlic), on the idyllic island of Johnny Key, a 20-minute boat ride from San Andrés.

For comedy value, I'll include our New Year's Eve dinner in here. After having searched in vain for a fancy joint to enjoy our last meal of the year at (reservations, it turns out, may have been needed), we warmed up for the fiesta in no place other than the island's answer to KFC - KikiRiki, the local chicken shop.
.And there is my gorgeous pescetarian of a sister, wondering which is her fried fish, and which is my fried chicken. Bless her soul.
After much drinking, dancing, and general merriment on New Year's Eve, it's fair the say we weren't feeling our freshest the following day. Not to worry, as fresh ceviche from the seafood shack on the beach was there to nurse us back to normality - beats an English fry-up any day.
Accompanied by the countries best loved crackers, saltines.
Much like with the changua in Bogota, often there will be dishes I am told are traditional to a place, and no matter how weird they may be, my constant desire to sample new cuisines pushes me to try them.
Did I like it? Let me get back to you on that.
Introducing Stew Crab with breadfruit. It may look like pulled pork, but this here is pretty much every part of the crab meat, stewed up. While I didn't dislike it, it wasn't quite what I had in mind, and it's slightly gritty texture was slightly off-putting. Still, glad to have tried some local cuisine before we left the island, we said goodbye to San Andrés and headed down to Cartagena.

I've already done a blog post on Cartagena, and what was now my third-trip to this wonderful colonial city provided even more great food to try.
If it were any fresher I'd have to have caught it myself.
This mixed seafood platter was perhaps my favourite meal of the whole trip so far. Eaten in the sun, with an ice-cold beer, on a boat we were sharing with friends, I took a moment to reflect. This seafood came directly from the sea onto our plate, and with food this fresh, nothing else is needed. A touch of garlic and sprinkle of salt was enough. Sometimes, it´s the simple things that are best. And that is a thought that could be applied to many things, inside and out of the kitchen.

On that note I leave you, as the salsa clubs of Cali wait for no women, not even the Bidmead sisters. Stay tuned for Part Two of this post, where I will write up what comida Cali has had to offer, along with my beloved Barranquilla, and one last trip down the coast.

Check out my Instagram @bidmeadbites for daily updates on what local treats I'm trying, all under the hashtag #travelbidmeadbites.
Eve and Anna climb a church somewhere in San Andrés...until next time!
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