Cook Book Club: February

As regular readers may know, we are soon off (10 days!) on a bit of an adventure to Hamburg and Stockholm, followed by a week of holiday in Portugal. When I saw Jo’s February cook book challenge – let your next (or your most recent) holiday be your inspiration this month – I was at a bit of a loss….schnitzel? Curry wurst? I have done a couple of Swedish things in this challenge so didn’t want to do that again, and the library couldn’t offer up a Portuguese cook book. Plus Hamburg and Stockholm are technically not holidays. So then I thought about where we had been recently – Hawke’s Bay and Sydney. Hmmm…..

So I took a sideways look at the ‘problem’ and thought I always like to eat fish and seafood when on holiday or away somewhere so let’s start there. Then I considered what I might miss when away, and what will I do for comfort food on a snowy day in Hamburg (yes dear reader, there is some of the dreaded white stuff there still). Finally, I looked at what ingredients I had lying around and spotted nice crisp fresh green beans and tomatoes. So combining comfort, fish and seasonal produce I made the puttanesca-style salmon traybake from Ottolenghi’s Comfort. A bit of a stretch from the theme but hope you see my reasoning.

Anyway, first make the oil that will be used on the veggies and salmon. This is a mix of olive oil, anchovies, tomato paste, chilli, coriander seeds, garlic, perserved lemon and maple syrup. Sounds odd but believe me this is good.

Preheat the oven to 200C. Trim the green beans, and place on a parchment lined baking tray with the tomatoes and spring onions (I didn’t have any but am not that keen anyway). Drizzle over half of the tomato anchovy oil, toss to combine and place in the oven for 12–13 minutes, until the beans and tomatoes are starting to soften and taking on a little colour.

Meanwhile, drizzle the remaining tomato anchovy oil (as well as all the solids) evenly over the fillets. Once the beans and tomatoes have had their time in the oven, nestle the salmon fillets among them and bake for a further 8 minutes.

While the salmon is baking, make the salsa from chopped olives (I had black ones on hand), capers, preserved lemon, basil, parsley, olive oil and lemon juice. Spoon half the salsa over the salmon and serve the fish warm with the rest of the salsa in a bowl on the side. We also had potatoes.

My finished picture is not that great, and the very delicious salsa isn’t shown on the fish but never mind, you get the idea. Plus the original had several bit of salmon and I only had two, as well as veggies for two, so it didn’t look as full a serving dish.

It was an excellent dish and so full of flavour like Ottolenghi’s recipe usually are. You can find the recipe here.

Do again? Defintely! 5*

So to March’s theme: We often refer to our favourites, but this month, let’s look at something new. I’m talking about a cuisine or recipe you haven’t tried before, or a cookbook (either on your shelf or from the library) published no earlier than 2025, perhaps a new-to-you recipe website. I’ll be cooking in a strange kitchen in a different country so let’s see what I can come up with.

Thistles and Kiwis is a Wellington, New Zealand based blog written by Barbara, who likes cats, summer and good food. Thistles and Kiwis can be found on Facebook and Instagram @thistlesandkiwi