Fish and chips

I should mention at the very start that this is not the traditional 'fish-n-chips' that you find at the friendly neighbourhood take-away of every street in Britain. Those are fried and then usually fried again in a batter of flour, spices and beer for best texture, colour and flavour. I love those, but when I'm cooking at home, deep frying is first of all not the best way I would like to cook, and of course it leaves the kitchen quite messy. So mine are the oven baked 'chips'. And fish was cooked on an electric raclette grill. The recipe is as easy as it gets.

Take some russet potatoes. 4 large ones work well. Cut them into wedges of a thickness you like. In a seperate bowl, add about
2 tablespoons of olive oil,
some very finely chopped garlic - I used 2 cloves,
a teaspoon full of cumin seeds
freshly cracked pepper and salt.
If you like it spicy, add some cayenne pepper. I also added some de-seeded green chilli finely chopped. (Now that I am thinking how I had prepared it, some ready-fried onions would have done much good too!).
And as I do in a lot of my recipes with starchy potatoes, a generous teaspoon full of 'Herbs de Provence' - a mix of dried Italian herbs. Mix it all and rub the potatoes with this mixture.
Bake them in a 350 oven for about 15-20 minutes.



For the fish, take some fresh filleted fish. They are usually made with cod but any dense fish works fine. Make a rub using a tablespoon of olive oil, 1 clove of garlic very finely chopped, salt, pepper, a tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon, and again some de-seeded green chilli.
Rub this mix on both sides of the fish, and cook it on medium - each side for about 5 minutes.
Plate it up, and have it as is or with a slice or 2 of some bread. Share