A right royal weekend

Whilst I had very little inclination to spend a whole day watching the Royal wedding on TV, I was very grateful to William and Kate for getting married and thereby granting us all another lovely 4 day weekend. I could seriously get used to not working, not least because it gives me plenty of time to try out a few of the more complex recipes from some of my recipe books!

Some of the recipes from the Ottolenghi cook book have been on my list to try out for a while, and I managed two of those dishes over the weekend.

First I tried out the fried Seabass with labneh, pitta and pomegranate.



My budget didn't stretch to seabass this week, so I used coley instead. Its a chunkier fish, but if you can't afford the fancy stuff you just have to put up with that! Here in deepest, darkest Oxfordshire it is not possible to find labneh in the shops, and I hadn't realised ahead of time that I should allow 2 days to make it, so I was forced to improvise for that element. I started off with quite thick sheeps milk yoghurt and drained it through a piece of muslin cloth for an afternoon, and then used that as a spread. It wasn't quite the thickness of cheese, but nearly there, and at least the flavour was right. I spread this on toasted pitta breads, sprinkled a handful of pomegranate seeds over the top, fried the fish, and then topped the whole thing with a spoonful of homemade tomato salsa. I added some steamed spinach and a sprinkle of finely chopped fresh mint to the dish, which weren't in the recipe but were good additions. It was a fragrant and fruity dinner, perfect for a warm evening.

A couple of days later we had the turkey and sweetcorn meatballs with roast pepper sauce.

The sauce came out an amazing colour - almost fluorescent!



I'm a girl who doesn't much care for sweetcorn, but so many people had raved about this recipe all over the internet I felt I should try it out. And they were so right.

My corner of Oxfordshire failed me in sourcing turkey mince, so I used finely chopped chicken instead. Other than that I did this one 'by the book'. The chicken and sweetcorn meatballs are seasoned with a dash of ground cumin and served with a dipping sauce of roast peppers, chilli, and sweet chilli sauce.



I can see why there are so many blog posts out there raving about this recipe. Its easy to make and very yummy indeed. I appreciate that this snap does not make it look that way, so you'll have to trust me!

Its no surprise to me that I have so far loved pretty all the recipes by Ottolenghi which I have tried. What I'm really pleased about is that Dan is also becoming a massive fan. So convenient when our tastebuds agree!

An update 2 June: This week I made the meatballs again, but using turkey this time. Lovely. I served them up with cauliflower and pitta breads for dipping in the sauce. A very good combo.