Heavenly Halibut

Have you ever noticed that sometimes when you're cooking, the gods and goddesses of food, just seem to be smiling down on you?  You pick the right recipe, find the perfect ingredients and manage to carry out every process required of you in the right order and without incident.  And the result is so completely worth the effort.  I had one of those this week!

If you've been reading the blog, you'll know that I'm not very brave with cooking fish.  It scares me a little, the result of which is that I tend to play it safe with haddock, salmon, prawns and other known entities.  But when I went to the fishmonger (Pecks in Wednesday Market) they had the loveliest looking piece of Halibut.  So I bought it since I needed a firm white fish for the recipe I wanted to cook.

Image from BBC Ingredients

According to the BBC Food Ingredients pages, Halibut is the largest of the flat fish, growing to a size of 4 metres or more.  Apparently there are also concerns over the sustainability of wild Halibut so (note to self), farmed might be a better option.

If you haven't yet got your hands on one of Bill Grainger's cook books, I can highly recommend them.  I never think of him as one of my favourite TV chefs but whenever I pick one of his recipes, I'm always blown away.  Maybe they embody a little Ozzie sunshine :-)  What I notice is how fresh the combination of flavours always tastes.  Anyhow, I digress...

My chosen recipe - Bill Grainger's Fish Burritos.  Blitz up a big handful of coriander, 2 tsp of paprika, 1 tsp cumin, red chilli, tsp sea salt, black pepper, zest of a lime and 80ml of olive oil in a food processor.  Slather it over your fish (already cut into strips) and marinade for at least 15 minutes.

Then just fry your fish for a couple of minutes each side.

Make a cucumber salad to go with it.  Cucumber (skinned, seeded & chopped), cherry tomatoes, spring onions, coriander, lime juice, red chilli, sea salt and a little caster sugar.

And a little mayonnaise flavoured with the zest and juice of a lime.

Then pile it all into a tortilla with some lettuce leaves for health.

I swear this is heaven on a plate.  And I'm so glad that I've discovered halibut.