Recipes #8 and #9: pan fried haddock with cucumber salad

 Today’s post is a 2-for-1, but rest assured, both recipes can be made independently and separately with good results!

Recipe #8: cucumber salad 

This is super quick salad recipe that you can whip up in a few minutes and impress the pants off of your dinner guest(s). I’m making a batch for two diners here.

Ingredients:

Directions:

Slice the cucumber(s) in thin rounds with a sharp knife. A mandoline would work well, but ours is still in its original packaging and I’m afraid of it, so I just used a paring knife and sliced directly into the serving bowl (no cutting board = less clean up = less neatly sliced = I don’t care). Likewise with the red onion. I just used a small amount of the red onion you see pictured above. We want the onion to be a sidekick to the cucumber, not a leading lady.

Next, squeeze a wedge of fresh lemon juice in the bowl, shake a few shakes of dried dill (or a good anmount of chopped fresh dill if you have it), add a glug of mayo and a spoonful of sour cream. As always, don’t measure, just start with modest amounts and add more to get the desired flavour and consistency.

Mix it up, taste and adjust as necessary, and it’s done. It tastes better than it looks.

Recipe #9: pan fried haddock 

If you’re lucky like we on the east coast of Canada, you will have access to tremendous fresh local haddock year round. If not, you could try this with frozen haddock, or another white fish. I remember enjoying sole when I grew up in land-locked Ontario. But I avoid cod because I don’t want to eat worms. At least, not knowingly.

Ingredients:

I am using a nonstick large frying pan and recommend that you do too. I get 3/4 of a pound (340g) of fish for two diners. I use gluten free all purpose flour but you can use regular flour (unless you’re making this dish for me). The baking soda may or may not make a difference, but I read about using it somewhere to enhance the dredging fry experience, so I keep doing it.

Add a small pile of flour, a generous pinch of baking soda, some salt, and some smoked paprika to a large plate.

Mix it all together, then dredge your pieces of fish in the floury mixture. Meanwhile, heat a few glugs of neutral flavoured oil in your pan on medium high.

When the oil is shimmery hot, add a tiny piece of floury fish to see if it sizzles. Sizzling = ready to fry. Carefully lower your floury pieces of fish into the hot pan.

Keep your silicone flipper tool handy and move the oil around and the pan around and the fish around *very gently* to fry them evenly but avoiding breakage, if possible.

This is how they look when they’re almost ready to flip, with golden browning at the edges:

Flip very carefully to avoid breakage!

Phew! Now fry the other side the same way. Don’t walk away! Watch this pan like a hawk!

I wanted a bit more browning so I flipped mine again and oh no! Breakage! But don’t panic, they still taste fine. Just no photo finish like in the other recipe blogs, but je m’en fous!

As you can see, the final result is fine, but most importantly, it tastes great! And with a side of basmati rice, served with our cucumber salad, a wedge of lemon, and some hot sauce, we have a perfect little East Coast dinner for two.

Or, as this particular hot sauce was previously called, Shuckin’ Delicious!