Columns

It’s beetroot season baby and with great power comes great responsibility. These bad boys are practically gagging to be pickled, candied and served fresh. The delicateness of the fish nestles into the warm, creamy kumara mash, but the punchy, vibrant beetroot salad takes this dish to a whole other level. Everything is easy to make but the overall impression is deceptively impressive; serve to a lover or a worried relative. This recipe isn’t our cheapest, but consider reinvesting your cappuccino money into fish. It’s healthy, yet fatty and truly delicious. So c’mon, it’s been a warm winter, let’s celebrate cheaper power bills and alcohol blankets with a vivacious fish dish.

Salad

Vinaigrette (if you don’t have this handy, vinaigrette super easy to make. Just mix an oil, something acidic, and throw in a little salad dressing and seasoning. Consider: olive oil, lemon juice and mustard. We chose olive oil, pesto and vinegar. Taste along the way until you find your funk)

1. White vinegar
2. 1 tsp of sugar
3. ½  beetroot, finely sliced
4. ½ bag of mesclun greens
5. 1 red onion, sliced
6. Finely sliced carrot or cucumber, whatever floats your boat

To prepare

Look, salad is really fucking easy, just toss everything together. All I will say is, pickle the red onion and beetroot beforehand. To pickle something, just put it in a small bowl and cover with half vinegar, half water and a teaspoon of sugar. Leave for 15-20 minutes, but can be longer or shorter, it doesn’t matter. When finished, take out of the vinegar and, boom, your salad just got slightly more interesting and flavoursome. Add some toasted nuts or seeds if you like a bit of crunch.

Mash

This is really a collection of whatever root vegetables you have floating around your pantry at the moment. We used: 1 kumara, 2 potatoes, 3 cloves of garlic, but it can be anything. Carrots, pumpkin, whatever needs using up.

4-5 tsp of butter

Salt and pepper

To prepare

1. Roast the veggies in the oven until nice ‘n’ toasty. It’ll probably take about 30 minutes. They don’t even need a tray - just shove ‘em in.
2. Once done, peel/pop the veg out of their skin and place in a bowl.
3. Using a fork, start going to smash town. Add in teaspoons of butter to help bind/add creaminess/butter is delicious, I don’t have to justify this. Add as much as you want.
4. Season to taste.

Fish

1. 1-2 fillets of white fish per person
2. Salt and pepper
3. Lemon to serve
4. 2 tsp of butter and cooking oil (we like olive oil because we have no sense of self) 

To prepare

1. Mop some fish juice off the fillets using a paper towel before cooking.
2. Place a saucepan of oil (and butter if you have it) over medium high heat.
3. Cook the fillets for 2-3 minutes on one side, basting the top with the hot oil or butter until cooked through.

Serve straight away, place fish over mash and plate salad on the side. Always make fish last, since you can heat up mash in the microwave but the fish… he’s different.