Cooking well doesn’t mean cooking fancy. – Julia Child

I have this mindset when I come across a recipe, it should be short, all the ingredients should be freely available and in my mind, when I go through the recipe, I should get a feeling the end product is going to be good.

Good food bring families together. Sometimes, during the week you need a break from the routine cooking. That’s when I cook dinner in one dish.

This bake is simple, creamy, cheesy and easy to make. I’ve used red snapper, its a super light bake, there is no overdose of white sauce or cheese and neither is it ‘fishy.’ This recipe of mine is a keeper and every time you make it, go ahead and get creative, could be adding caramelised onions or a little minced capsicum. The options are plenty, after all happiness is experimenting in the kitchen.

Ingredients:

• Fish fillet ( Codfish/sea bass/red snapper) -1kg
• Onion minced -3
• Ginger minced -3 tbsp
• Green chilli minced 4-5
• Pepper and salt
• Macaroni -1/2 cup, when boiled -3/4 cup

For the white sauce:

• Butter -3 tbsp
• Flour- 3 tbsp
• Milk -21/2 cups (boiled and cooled)
• Cream -1/2 cup
• Cheese-2 slices or cheese spread-3 tbsp
• Mixed herbs seasoning -1 tbsp
• Chilly flakes -1 tsp
• Salt
• White pepper
• Ajinimoto -a pinch ( optional)

To sprinkle on top:

Freshly ground breadcrumbs

Method:

For the white sauce:

• In a pan, on a low flame melt 3 tbsp of butter.

Add flour and stir gently.

Add milk in a steady stream and stir till thick.

To the sauce add cream, cheese slices and all the seasonings.

Keep aside.

For the fish:

• Thoroughly clean the fish and boil the fish with pepper, salt and a bay leaf. Flake the fish and check if it’s bone-free. Remove the bay leaf.

• Bring lots of water to boil to which a tablespoon of oil and salt has been added, add the macaroni and cook till la dente.

• In a pan melt 2 tbsp of butter on a medium flame.
• Add onion, ginger and chilli minced, sauté till light brown.
• Add flaked fish, cooked macaroni salt and pepper.

• Keep aside.

To assemble:

• In a buttered dish, spread a layer of white sauce, then spread a layer of fish on top.
• Repeat the process ending with white sauce.
• Sprinkle breadcrumbs on top generously.
• Bake in a preheated oven 180 deg.c for 30 minutes.
• Serve with hot garlic bread.

Chefs tips:

• Fish has to be cleaned with a little rock salt and then washed with a little curd or buttermilk.
• In the place of chopped garlic, you can also sprinkle garlic powder.
• You can add grated cheddar cheese in the place of cheese spread / cheese slices.

• Panko crumbs can be mixed along with bread crumbs and sprinkled generously on top before baking.
• The secret ingredient to cooking a fine dish is always LOVE.
• This bake serves 6-8.

Till my next post,

Cheers

Rose