Fish & Veggies Baked in Parchment Paper

The South Arm Multicultural Community Kitchen made a main dish of fish and veggies.

This Fish and Veggies Baked in Parchment Paper is a healthy and nutritious meal in a pouch.

Ingredients

• 2 thick fish fillets
• 1 small zucchini, or half of a medium zucchini, cut into thin matchsticks
• 1 small carrot, cut into thin matchsticks
• half of an onion, cut into thin slices
• 1/2 red bell pepper, cut into thin matchsticks
• 1 to 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 1 lemon, zest and juice
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley, plus more for garnishing

Source: South Arm Community Kitchen

The above recipe serves two

Roasted Tilapia top with Sweet Bell Peppers (Mbisi)

Minoo invited me back to the South Arm Multicultural Community Kitchen as there is a participant from Congo sharing a couple of recipes from her home country.

Marianne shared a Roasted Tilapia recipe in the kitchen. Marianne has been in Canada for five years; the first four years in Ontario and the last year in BC. She enjoys the milder weather of British Columbia.

Marianne (third from left) is planning to attend cooking school here and she joins the community kitchen to gain experience working in the kitchen.

Ingredients

• tilapia (Marianne had prepared 5 to 6 fish for the kitchen)

Marinate

• 1 teaspoon garlic and ginger paste
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 3 teaspoons paprika
• 2 cubes Maggi seasoning
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 teaspoons Mustard Mesquite seasoning
• 3 sweet peppers, cut into strips
• 4 roma tomatoes, cut into chunks
• 1 onion, cut into rings
• salt to taste

• 1 lemon for juice
• vegetable oil

Source: Marianne

Fish Taco

A member of the Gilmore Park Church community kitchen requested for fish recipes in her feedback form. So, Minoo came up with two fish recipes for this week’s kitchen.  One of the recipe is Salmon and Potato Chowder which I had blogged about two years ago.

The other fish recipe is Fish Taco. This is an easy and fun recipe where you can involved your kids to participate in assembling their own meal. You can vary your toppings to your preference.

Ingredients

White Sauce

• 1/3 cup mayonnaise
• 1/3 cup plain yogurt
• 1/2 teaspoon hot sauce or to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon lime juice

Fish Taco

• 4 x 2oz Mahi Mahi fillet or any other white fish
• cilantro, finely chopped
• green cabbage, thinly sliced
• Tomatoes, diced
• Lemon or lime juice
• Corn or whole wheat tortillas

Minoo brought up the issue on eating fish that are sustainable. The consumption of fish over the last century has drastically reduced the fish population and this has an effect om the world’s marine ecosystem.  So, we should make a conscience choice in choosing a sustainable food source to preserve the food chains that we depend on. Here is the Canadian Seafood Guide to help Canadians purchase ocean-friendly seafood. If you want to learn more about sustainable seafood, here is a link for your reading pleasure.

The above is the sustainable logo on packaging that we can look out for.

Source: via Minoo

Crispy Baked Fish

Fish is the main course for the South Arm Cooking Club for Seniors. This is an easy and nutritional dish. It uses only a few ingredients and you can have a healthy meal.

Fish is a rich source of omega 3. Canada’s food guide encourages us to eat fish at least three times a week. Marian served the Crispy Baked Fish with some Orange Glazed Asparagus which I had blogged before. Marian also prepared an orange honey glazed for the fish on the spot since we had extra oranges from the asparagus recipe.

Ingredients

• 4 pieces white fish fillet like tilapia fillet
• zest and juice from 1 lemon
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 eggs
• 2 1/2 cups crushed corn flakes
• oil to grease the pan
• salt and pepper to taste

Orange Honey Glaze

• juice from 1 large orange
• 2 tablespoons honey
• a splash of dry white wine

Source: Marian

Serves 4

BBQ Fish 2 Styles

Jorge decided to do a BBQ for the last kitchen in the South Arm Cooking Club for Seniors before the break in summer.

For the BBQ, we had fish, chicken and a variety of vegetables. For the fish, Jorge selected Trout. We had two different types of marinates, one recipe from Jorge and the other Asian flavour recipe from Linda.

Ingredients

Jorge’s recipe:

• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 1/2 bunch of parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 8 trout fillets

Linda’s recipe:

• juice of 1 lemon
• lemon zest from 1 lemon
• 1/4 cup sherry or dry white wine
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons Maggie Seasoning (optional)
• ground black pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup finely grated fresh ginger root
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 pounds fish fillet (or chicken or pork or large scallop)

Prep time: 10 minutes; Cook time: 10 minutes; Serves 8

Cheesy Fish and Spinach Casserole

Minoo shared a Cheesy Fish and Spinach Casserole recipe in the Gilmore Park Church Community Kitchen.  She also made mash potatoes as the side dish to go with the casserole.  This recipe serves 6.

This Cheesy Fish and Spinach Casserole is very simple and quick to make.  It is a great recipe for a quick meal when you have a long day and do not want to labour in the kitchen.  Kids will love this cheesy dish complete with vegetables and protein.  All you need is a side dish of carbohydrate like mash potatoes, home made potato wedges, a simple noodle or rice dish.

Ingredients

• 1 bag fresh spinach (you may use pre-wash baby spinach)
• 1 cup cheddar or parmesan cheese, grated
• 1/3 cup breadcrumbs
• 1 egg beaten
• 1 lb Basa or any while fish fillets like Cod, Sole, etc
• salt and pepper to taste

Red Cooked Tilapia

June Duo shared a fish recipe in the South Arm Community Kitchen. She called it Red Cooked Tilapia. Jane bought two fresh Tilapia from some Chinese groceries stores, not frozen ones. You can find live fish in some Chinese groceries stores where the fish monger will catch the one you pick and kill it for you there and then. This is very common in the Asia as freshness is the key to a delicious meal.

The Red Cooked Tilapia is sweet and sour and the spices used were able to overcome the fishy odour. This dish goes well with steamed rice.

Ingredients

• 1 Tilapia
• 2 green onions, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
• 1 inch ginger, peeled and sliced
• 2 to 3 tablespoons ketchup
• 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoons cooking wine
• 1/4 teaspoon 13 spices powder (can be substituted with 5 spice powder)
• 3 star anise
• 1/2 teaspoon wild pepper corn
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 package of chicken seasoning
• 1/2 cup frozen mixed vegetables
• 2 to 3 tablespoons oil for frying

Fried Salmon Fillet

Once again, Julie shared in the South Arm Community Kitchen. Julie told us that when Vanessa called her on Monday for her help, she could’nt sleep that night as she was worrying of what to demonstrate in the cooking club. She is such a good friend to Vanessa that she would not say no to her.

As she was doing her rounds for the ingredients for her demonstration, she met a friend who works in a fish processing factory. This friend of her offered her some salmon fillets from her work place. That’s when Julie got her inspiration of her dish, which is Fried Salmon Fillet.

The Salmon Fillet is crisp and goes great with the home made salad dressing. The salad dressing is made with egg yolk, sugar, vinegar and olive oil.

Chinese New Year Series: Yee Sang

Check out our other Yee Sang post and video here.

Eating Yee Sang in Malaysia and Singapore is a tradition every Chinese New Year. Yee Sang is basically a Chinese raw fish salad. Unlike Japanese, Chinese do not eat raw fish, preferring it cooked. However, this is the only Chinese dish which we know contains raw fish. However, I must add that this is a dish invented in Singapore and is popular only in Malaysia and Singapore. So, if you ask Chinese outside of Malaysia and Singapore, they will very likely not know what Yee Sang is.

Half the fun in eating Yee Sang is by a communal tossing of the salad with chopsticks. The action of tossing is known as Lo Hei which symbolizes increasing prosperity, abundance and vigor. That is why this dish is very popular among businessmen.

We gathered around the table with the kids to toss the Yee Sang. We had to make sure we briefed the kids how to toss or else, heaven forbid, they will throw the salad all over the place! They were excited over this alright. However, most of the kids does not like Yee Sang but the adults do.

The Yee Sang is characterized by it’s colorfulness. It is served in a large flat platter with vegetables arranged around a small serving of raw fish in the middle. It had been many, many years since Suanne and I have last eaten Yee Sang. So, we were glad when Jess told us she knows how to make it. It looked really good and it smells great too … just like the Yee Sangs I used to know.

Salmon Motoyaki

We had a few oyster shells left over, twelve in fact. I know that the all-you-can-eact sushi places reuses the shells from the oyster motoyaki to serve what they call the Seafood Motoyaki which is basically motoyaki with salmon. This is Suanne’s version of the Salmon Motoyaki.

The salmon are first diced into small enough chunks.

The basic ingredients are the same with what was used for the oyster motoyaki — Japanese Moyannaise, diced onions and some fresh ground pepper.