Ota ika round 3

I've blogged about ota ika before, not long after a trip to Tonga and again more recently.  It's a dish that would be somewhere in my top 5.  So fresh, so refreshing, full of flavours straight from the outdoors.  We had gurnard cerviche (another term for ota ika) at a local restaurant, Fahrenheit (amazing, by the way!), over the weekend, so determined to whip up a batch at home for our Monday-night meal.  

This time we used snapper, but have used gurnard, trevally and tarakihi in the past as well.  The key is to use more lemon or lime than you think you need, and more herbs.  We used a kaffir lime leaf too, finely chopped.  

2 fillets fish

3 lemons, juiced

1 tin coconut cream

heaps of fresh coriander

1 kaffir lime leaf

2 tomatoes, half a telegraph cucumber, 1 red onion, 1 capsicum - finely chopped into salsa

1. Cut fish into small pieces.  Cover with lemon juice.  Cover bowl and place in fridge for several hours to cure. 
2. About an hour or 2 before ready to eat mix through all other ingredients.  Return to fridge. 
3. Serve with extra coriander and some chopped nuts or seeds.  

Lemon herb butter (for outta this world fish!)

Fish, roast potatoes and steamed vegetables.  A pretty standard early-week dinner staple at our house.  Last night was that night, but I wanted to try something new.  I was thinking of swapping out the crispy roast tatties for some other form of potato dish (maybe rosti?), but in my recipe trawling stumbled upon this little beauty of a sauce from Chelsea Winter.  Lemon, herbs and garlic butter, drizzled all over our snapper.  It was tangy and divine!  I was supposed to fry up some capers too, alongside the fish, but I forgot - will have to make this again next week!!  

Makes enough for 4 people's fish 

50 g butter

1/2 cup finely chopped herbs (I used chives, parsley and basil - dill would be nice too)

1 clove garlic, crushed 

zest of one lemon

1.5 tbsp lemon juice

1/4 cup capers, to fry alongside the fish

1. Melt butter and cook garlic on medium heat.  Cook for a few minutes, remove from heat and stir in lemon juice, zest and half the herbs.  
2. Drizzle over cooked and plated fish.  Sprinkle with remaining herbs.  

Nek level banana choc chip muffanos

Who doesn't love a freshly-baked muffin?  Banana choc chip and blueberry would be my favs.  Oh, and apple cinnamon.  

These little beauties are a recipe from Chelsea Winter's latest cookbook, Eat, and I was curious to try a recipe which used brown sugar and curdled milk was used (buttermilk would work here in place of the milk + lemon juice).  I'd heard through the grapevine that they were "the best banana choc chip muffins ever!", and they have lived up to that praise!  

Now, what makes these nek level?  I didn't have any choc chips, so used mini M&Ms.  YUMMMMM!!  

1/2 cup milk

1 tbsp lemon juice

200 g butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 cups flour

3 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla essence 

2 very ripe bananas

1 cup choc chips (or similar hee hee) 

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees fan-bake (or 200 normal bake).  Grease muffin tins (I made 24 mini muffins and 6 normal ones).  Probably would make about 18 normal sized ones? 
2. Add lemon juice to milk (in a mug, or something non-metallic) and set aside to curdle.  
3. Mix dry ingredients in large mixing bowl.  
4. Beat eggs in another bowl until smooth.  Melt butter and brown sugar in saucepan until just melted.  Add butter, milk and vanilla to eggs and whisk to combine. 
5. Pour egg mixture into dry ingredients and whisk to combine - don't overmix it, just enough to combine everything.  Once combined fold through the banana and chocolate.  
6. Spoon into muffin trays (fill to top).  
7. Bake for 10 minutes (mini muffins) or 20 minutes (normal muffins) - they'll be slightly golden on top but still nicely soft in centre. 
8. Once removed from oven leave in trays for 10 minutes before turning onto cooling rack.  Enjoy!!