Spontaneously elaborate

  How exciting! After yesterday's meandering blather, today has been so inundated with action packed excitement that the subject of today's post has changed, (in my head at least), repeatedly throughout the day. The subject I've decided on comes from a last minute surprise event that caught me a bit off guard. Buckle up, this gets hectic.

  There have been a number of little tasks that kept me busy today, including chopping up kimchi, which you almost ended up reading about. Dinner therefore wasn't high on my list of priorities. Somewhere in the dark recesses of my foggy grey matter, there was the knowledge that I had a head of broccoli and some sweet potatoes available. Added to that I guessed there was some fish lurking in my freezer so this meant I had enough to cobble a plate together. Consequently I didn't have to do any more supper related thinking so I got back to tweaking the website, (which is coming along nicely, thanks.)

  As the time flew by rapidly, I would occasionally be interrupted with thoughts of cooking tasks but I ignored them until it suddenly dawned me I was late and had to take care of the element that took longest to cook, the sweet potato. At the moment, my favourite method involves cutting it into chunks, adding oil and a sprinkle of salt and putting it into a hot oven for about half an hour. Do you remember my post recently about using oft repeated recipes to experiment and my phenomenal scrambled eggs? This was another such opportunity so as the sweet pots went into the oven I sliced an onion to ribbons and put it in a saucepan over a low heat to melt. The plan was to add the marmalade to the sweet pots and crumble some feta over as well as some toasted walnuts. I was looking forward to trying it out.

​​​​​​​  All of a sudden I was in full flight. I'd come across a courgette that looked lonely so that also got hacked into chunks, sprinkled with roughly chopped garlic and lemon zest before being sent to keep the sweet pots company. The broccoli got cut into florets and put over steam. Time was starting to run out so I started prepping the plates. I threw on some leaves and a few stunning, late-summer cherry tomatoes then finally turned my attention to the fish. As a special bonus I had found some turbot which I had pulled out to defrost. I really didn't want to overcook it so timing was everything.

  To finish the onion marmalade I tipped in some sherry and let it reduce while I heated up the oil and butter in the fish pan. As soon as the fish went in, other elements started hitting the plates. The sweet potatoes got tossed in the marmalade, served and garnished. The courgettes landed next followed by the broccoli leaving a little gap for the fish, which I'd managed to flip and baste with the cooking liquor before killing the gas and allowing the residual heat to keep it warm.

  Finally the fish hit the plate, but I'd lit the gas just before I lifted the fish out so when I squeezed in the juice from half a lemon there was enough heat to make the sauce that dressed the turbot. It was a long way from the three element plate I'd thought I'd be serving, but what a delightful surprise. While being happy the fish was perfectly cooked, the star for me was the sweet potato dish. I'll definitely be revisiting that one again.

Kirk out

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