delectabilia
Mostly healthy - Always delectable
The citrus and anise flavours complement the salmon perfectly. Slow baking ensures the flavours meld, yet the salmon remains moist and succulent. The citrus butter sauce further enhances the flavour, while adding a creaminess to the texture as only a beurre blanc style sauce can.
Scallops are one the most subtle and delicate tasting shellfish and so deserves a sauce that highlights their qualities and character. This velouté style parsley sauce, using salmon head stock, brings out the best in these succulent delicacies.
Caramelised onions are great. Caramelised fennel is even better – the anise flavour coming through amongst that delicious sweetness. A black garlic and balsamic sauce tops the scallop, bringing some balancing sour and umami notes to that sweetness.
Salty sweet pancetta wrapped scallops are so delicious on their own, but when combined with the umami packed mushroom risotto, this dish exceeded all expectations.
While scallops are delicate, mussels are bold. Especially these big juicy New Zealand gren lipped mussels. These mussel spring rolls on mashed peas and topped with chilli jam, deliver bold flavours and wonderful textures.
An alternative take on fish and chips, with the chips replaced by grilled haloumi cheese and a tasty sweet and sour mango and walnut salad. No need for the traditional sauces when you have a salad like this to compliment the fish.
Miso paste is smeared on the corn and caramelised as its grilled. Miso is also in the marinade for the salmon. So lots of umami to balance the sweetness of the corn and red peppers, and saltiness of the ponzu dressing.
With some prawn shell stock left over from a tom yum goong dish, what better way to utilise it than in a roasted pumpkin and chickpea bisque.
I had a “taste defining” seafood chowder in San Francisco years ago and have been trying to recreate something as satisfying ever since. This one comes very close.
This garlic and anchovy pasta is inspired by the Italian standard. Add some truffle infused oil, a black garlic and balsamic drizzle, and we have something a little different from the dish that inspired it, yet worthy of a place at your table.
So simple, yet the complexity of tastes and textures in this smoked salmon wrapped poached egg dish belies that simplicity.
Plump and juicy New Zealand mussels in a light crispy tempura batter, on a bed of crisp white radish (crisp in both taste and texture). The sea grapes reinforce the seafood theme and add their own “bubblewrap” effect.
Fresh and delicate flavours abound in this dish of seared scallops on pomelo salad. It certainly does what an appertiser is supposed to do, stimulate one’s appetite. Sweet scallops balanced with the sour and salty citrus salad was a perfect combination.
Miso, wakame, and roasted red peppers transform the salmon head stock into something divine. Add the flaked salmon, and the carrot and daikon waffles, which act like dumplings, and you have a salmon miso soup as nutritious as it is delicious.
This crispy skin salmon dish is all about colour – the vibrant look and the vibrant tastes. Reminds me of autumn.
