Eating in is the new Eating out : Fried Rice and Escovitch fish
Corona Virus is here and as a foodie nothing hurts more than watching all your beloved restaurants shut down. What will happen to the business owners, how will staff pay their mortgages and rent , will the industry fully recover …soo many questions and uncertainties. I was going to play my little part prior to the forced closures by following Jay Rayners ( food critiques ) advice “Only write positive reviews and where dishes fail to live up to standard…write nothing”, but alas the shut down means all we can do for now is to practice social distancing , get takeaways and as a blogger….actually cook. Yikes !!!!.
Now people often ask me if I can cook and thanks (NOT ) to this global pandemic they will soon find out because I am starting to realise, that man can not live by Uber eats or deliveroo alone. In this crisis one needs an elderly person to pick up ingredients from stores filled with raging zombies that have a thing for loo rolls and bags of rice. As a health professional who often finds supermarket shelves ransacked by hordes, having an elderly person (someone aged 65 and above will do the trick, they may need to show ID) helps to ensure you have the basics .
Some of you might wander what the process Escovitch means. Its simply cooked fish marinated and pickled in a spicy vinegar source, a bit like a ceviche ( raw fish ). You find it a lot on Carribean fried fish dishes . It is also quite popular in Latin American and Mediterranean countries , albeit goes under a slightly different name Escabeche.
So here goes my fried rice and escovitch fish blog post.
Fried fish Ingredients, sourced by Elisha’s mum (age 65)
3 large Red Sea bream 2tbs of Tropical sun fish seasoning 2 Lemons 1/4 cup white vinegar Flour Oil Spring onions
Wash the sea bream under a tap of cold running water and place in a bowl. Pour some white wine vinegar on the sea bream , let it rest for 10 minutes , wash the fish and pour the vinegar into your sink. Add the juice of 2 lemons to the fish and sprinkle in your fish seasoning and diced spring onions
Coat the fish with flour and fry in vegetable oil until golden
A dressing made up of diced white onions and spring onions, peppers ( red and yellow ) , quarter scotch bonnet , lemon juice and white wine vinegar is sautéed for 5 – 10 minutes and poured on the fish to give it that extra juicy kick. We placed the fish in an oven for 10 minutes whilst waiting for the rice and this produced the tastiest Escovitch fish to have ever come out of the kitchen.
Fried Rice Ingredients
3 cups of basmati 1 tbs thyme 1/2 tbs curry 3 knorr cubes 1/2 cup of mixed veg Vegetable oil 3-4 Cups of chicken stock Salt
Place 3 cups of basmati rice in a bowl, soak and wash with cold water. Pour the water down a sink and repeat this soaking and washing process 5 times. Pour 3 table spoons of vegetable oil in the frying pan and fry the rice for 3-4 minutes. In a separate pot fry thyme , Knorr chicken cubes , salt and curry for 1 – 2 minutes. Add the fried rice and cover with chicken stock on medium heat. Leave till the rice absorbs the stock ( might take 20 odd minutes) and then pour in your mixed veg. Cover with a foil on low heat for 20 more minutes. You can always add a little bit of stock or water if the rice isn’t ready.
The final plate pic can be seen below. This was one of my tastiest home cooked meals. Elishas mum ( featured in my Dominica blog post ) gave it a 10/10 and that’s a big compliment considering she spent a big part of my fried rice cooking time screaming …..” is it done yet ??? You said 10 minutes 20 minutes ago …..are you under pressure chef “…Elisha offered her support by laughing through my ordeal.
Have put together a 2 min video . Check it out of course .
There goes my Escovitch fish blog post. Feel free to drop any ideas or any of your fave recipes below.
Thank You to restaurants and supermarkets
Ps since I had the idea of writing this blog post, a few restaurants I blogged about in previous posts ( Casa do Frango and Begging Bowl ) and supermarkets have done a lot for healthcare professionals such as myself. Casa provides NHS discounts for their chicken takeways and the Begging Bowl brought some fruits to my hospital , Kings. Thanks for the support and we will be here to get you back on your feet when this pandemic ends
