Day 95: Fennel baked fish

The first day post-Olympics and I think I was feeling sad that it was over. Or maybe it was fatigue from watching three hours of the closing ceremony while I got on with a marathon of my own kind - housework. Either way, I think my mood spilled over into my enthusiasm (or lack thereof) when deciding what to make for tea this evening. I was feeling at a complete loss as to what to make. Despite only being allowed to pick from one cook book; despite having planned what I’m going to make each day since Friday night, there are times when I don’t really feel like making what I was going to. It’s also difficult when Dear Husband is still under the weather so, I thought I’d make the croissant pudding as I had all the ingredients.

There I was with my dish, chocolate chopped, half of it in the dish en route to a fabulous bread and butter pudding, only to discover that my packet of croissants had gone blue moulded. It must have been the extreme heat over the past few days. There’s one down side to not buying food that is not loaded with preservatives. All the same, I’ll stick to the fresher stuff. At least I know what I’m eating. Anyway, with a few tiny, silent screams into myself (!) seeing as the babies were in close proximity, I got the cookbook out again to flick through for another recipe. You see, I’d seen Nigella Lawson one night making a similar bread and butter pudding using croissants for her supper where she comes home late having missed dinner. According to Nigella, the bread and butter pudding using croissants is the perfect supper dish in those circumstances. I also thought it would be a great comfort dish for Dear Husband. Unfortunately, not to be. Tonight anyway.

I also realised this evening that Rachel and Nigella share many similarities in their cooking ethos which is probably why they (along with Ina Garten) are my favourite chefs. Now, I know Nigella loves short-cuts for many of her recipes (and who could blame her?!) but, in fairness, it’s still good, honest, homemade food that she makes. Rachel, by contrast, doesn’t necessarily look for short cuts but, in the general scheme of things, a lot of the types of dishes Rachel makes, Nigella does too and vice versa because a lot of them are classics or modern well-established family favourites with the odd extravagant dish thrown in for good measure. Well, that’s my opinion anyway.

Getting back to tonight's recipe and Dear Husband, my patience had then run out so I told him that it was going to be Fennel baked fish for tonight’s tea and, if he didn’t really like it, he could just throw it out to the dogs. Either way, I was making it. I think I heard him say something like “Not really feeling up to fish…” but I chose to ignore it. Just like I am when feeding the babies, tonight I was in Mammy Mode with Dear Husband too and when I'm in Mammy Mode, I'm not one to mess with.

To start off, I sliced a bulb of fennel very thinly. Not sure if I did it correctly but I halved it and then sliced each half as lightly as I could. Having just sharpened up all my big knives at the weekend, I took my time with this one. My hands are precious to me and I want to keep them with all ten fingers thank you very much. I then put the sliced fennel in an oven-proof dish and set two pieces of cod on top before pouring some white wine over and seasoned them. I gave the cod a dusting of dried tarragon also. The recipe said to use tarragon, dill or chervil but dried tarragon was the only thing I had. Just before putting them in the oven, I covered the dish with tin foil and cooked it all for 20 minutes. At that point, I took the dish out of the oven, peeled back the tin foil and poured the liquid from the dish into a small saucepan. The foil went over the dish again and into the oven by which time I had switched it off which is what the recipe said to do. Into the saucepan, I added double cream and stirred the mixture for 5 minutes while it thickened. I served the dish on its own with the creamy sauce poured over the cod and fennel.

The verdict…

Complete and utter shock result - 10 marks out of 10! Would you have ever thought?!! No, neither did I. Honestly, I’m shocked. I really thought he might not like it at the best of times but considering his appetite is still in recovery mode, I thought he would have taken two bites and then out to the dogs. But then again, what really do I know about cooking?! He said (and I quote) “Absolutely beautiful. All the flavours worked so well together!”. Hang on a minute – has someone replaced my husband with a food critic because he’s actually starting to sound like one?! The chances are though that I think he is actually catching ear shots of my cookery programmes as he flinches room to room as I love nothing more when I’m cooking to have cookery programmes on the TV at the same time; that is, whilst my two babies happily play (albeit when they’re not fighting over toys which is the stage they’ve just approached!).

Overall, a surprisingly excellent recipe. Never did I think that this dish would reach the heights of full marks but there you go. It was an extremely simple and quick recipe to make and, therefore, it’s no surprise that it’s made The List. I have this recipe pink-sticky-noted already for a quick Saturday lunch or evening tea. If any of you readers make this one, let me know how you get on! I really was delighted with this one…