… Sticky Rice & Dressed Greens
Tonight I cooked for Art, Beverly and Charlie. It was the third meal in a row involving some kind of seafood. Although the recipe is called Asian Sea Bass, the list of ingredients does say you can use either bass or bream. I used bream because it was on offer at the supermarket. I have never cooked bream before. I’m not sure if I have even eaten it before. I probably have but I can’t remember when.
The fish is basically steamed. It is supposed to be put in a high-sided roasting tin and then left on the hob on a medium heat, covered with tin foil. If I was using a gas hob and if I had all four burners working I would have done this and had the roasting tin straddling two burners. On an electric hob this is less easy and with only three rings working and two other pans to go on the hob I’m struggling. All four fish just fit in my biggest frying but only when strategically placed. This therefore takes up my biggest working ring and the fish are very tightly packed in making it less likely that it will all be cooked in time.
Once the fish is on, this isn’t a hard meal to cook. The prep, chopping and so on can all easily be done in the fifteen minutes.
My meal is not cooked in the fifteen minutes. The greens are. The fish is not quite cooked and the rice is far from cooked. By necessity the rice has had to be on a small ring and even on full heat it is not cooking quickly. I’m done in a frustrating nineteen minutes. Frustrating because this time is due entirely to the hob and has nothing to do with the recipe. Never mind!
The meal is lovely. I enjoyed the sea bream. My guests seemed to like it to. This is another meal where coconut rice is cooked (a tin of coconut milk is added to the rice with some water). This goes really well with the lovely delicate Asian flavours.
It will be a few days until another 15 Minute Meal can be cooked, with a busy Sunday, seeing the Hives on Monday, work Christmas meal on Tuesday and Wednesday is looking busy too.
Who with: Art, Beverly and Charlie
How long: Nineteen minutes and three seconds
