New York is a foodie city, pretentious enough that our local upmarket supermarket has a produce butcher who will cut any vegetable that you buy into the shape and size that you desire. I have never felt the urge to avail myself of this department's services though I like to people watch, especially recently watching the produce butcher earnestly dicing a single onion for an impatient shopper. I will admit to frequenting their ready to cook section only in order to buy vegetable noodles. I cannot bring myself to buy a spiralizer, and in my soul lurks the knowledge that zoodles and veggie noodles are twee, but I still like them.
This week's 20-minute challenge was really easy and I came in way below the time that I expected. 16 minutes and 48 seconds - not bad for a week night dinner of a salad and fish with an interesting side and a sauce...
4 turbot chops
1 avocado
1/2 clove garlic
1/4 tsp hot sauce, coriander if you have it, regular if not
1/2 cup boiling water
1/3 cup olive oil
1 Tbps vinegar, I used cucumber vinegar but red wine would be just as nice
Salt and pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 400.
Line a baking tray with tin foil. Pat the fish dry with a paper towel and lay skin side down on the baking tray. The lovely thing about turbot is that when it is cooked and you remove it from the baking tin, the skin will come off in one piece and stick to the aluminum foil, alieviating you of the tedium of having to get it off prior to serving. Salt and pepper generously as turbot is quite bland (in a good firm fish way). Place in oven and cook for 10-12 minutes, depending on the thickness of the chop.
While the fish is cooking prepare your vegetable noodles. Put a glug of oil in a pan and, when shimmering, add your vegetable noodles. I cooked zucchini and yellow squash noodles with some purple onion, red and green pepper, crushed fennel seed and pink salt. Turn the heat to low and let cook, stirring occasionally while you get on with the rest.
My salad was easy; I threw together a quick vinaigrette of Dijon mustard, red wine vinegar and pumpkin seed oil and tossed in my bitter greens.
Then I made the Avocado Hollandaise. The inspiration recipe is below, supposedly invented to be served with eggs Benedict. It is a very easy, vibrant green sauce and I will make my (more sparky than the original) version again and serve it with cold poached salmon or green vegetables. Not with eggs.
Put the avocado, peeled and pitted, the vinegar, the garlic, the hot sauce and the boiling water together in a large bowl and blitz with an immersion blender until creamy and smooth. With the immersion blender on, add the olive oil little by little until it has all emulsified and the sauce has come together. Taste and season with salt.
Check that the vegetables are cooked through and remove from heat if they are. If they are not, then now would be the time to increase the flame a bit so that you get the cooking times of fish and vegetable side dish right.
At this point in time, you should still have just enough time to wash the immersion blender and clear away any spoons or dishes that you have used into the dishwasher before the fish needs to come out of the oven.
Remove fish from oven. As mentioned above, it should slip right off of its skin and all you have to do is to slide a piece of it on to each of your plates, along with a generous portion of the vegetable noodles and a dollop of sauce. Serve with the salad on the side.
Inspiration recipe, here.