Connections – Poached Fish with Garlic Paprika Sauce

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Surprisingly at sometimes few connections just happens. This was the case with professor from Santiago. By the end of the training, he arranged a group dinner in one of the local restaurant so I could taste fine Galician cuisine. Before reaching the restaurants we stopped by his house where I got to meet his lovely wife and two adorable boys. Briefly he made plans to take me around the city and market along with his family. I was overwhelmed by their kindness and affability. In between I got to know he loved cooking and he is a food blogger too, though it has been dormant for a while (Prof. if you are reading this, the world would love to learn more of your Galician recipes…so please post more!). Oh you know how it works between the food blogger’s the endless topics on love for food, photography, cooking and eating! I promised; next time if I go for training again I will carry a goodie bag of spices so I could cook some for them.

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Apart from fish, padrón chilli peppers I adored the olives. They were served unpitted, well cured and crisp, believe me I the could go on and on. We dinned at Dezaseis SL a beautiful place, loved the ambiance and decor with cozy light setting. They knew what to order for me. They were very focused to introduce Mr. Octopus to me. For the worst senario mussels, clams and prawns were ordered along with some great wines. Oh my God, those tentacles scared me along with the chewy meat; so Mr. O wasn’t certainly for me. The whole group was disappointed by behaviour towards Mr. O. I excused myself saying its more of an acquired taste so I shall take more training next time. Now, I have to find excuses for next time “wink”. We finished off the dinner with the famous delicious almond cake and orujo liquor with the flavours of coffee, herb and saffron. For a person with low alcohol tolerance, even few table spoons will be enough to put off. Though I pretended to taste I was only sniffing my short glass. Absolutely, a great fun evening to remember.

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1-Food Home Fran

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As decided during the weekend we met along with his family walked around the city ate fresh churros, by then Prof. invited me his house for a lunch where he was going to cook some ray fish and sardines. On a beautiful sunday afternoon in his house, I leant how to cook this ray fish and sardines. This simplicity of this dish makes it even more delicious and those sardines are the best ones I ever had. Its two sardines sandwiched together with finely chopped garlic and parsley and deep fried in olive oil. It will serve as a great starter. We ate happily along with my favourite chillies. And those cookies were baked by little boys and his mama for evening tea time which we had in their friends house. As a souvenir from an Indian girl, I wrote the names of the boys in Hindi which they have it in their room pasted. I was later told that one of the little boy was disappointment as his friend told him what I had written for him was not true. I have strong feeling that his friend would have probably been my language teacher in my pervious birth and he would have found a spelling mistake ha ha! Anyhow thank you Prof. and all you guys out there for the hospitality, this was a trip I enjoyed the most and will always cherish. And I hope I managed to recreate your ray fish!

To my reader simplicity of this Galician recipe will make your life easy without disappointing your palate.

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Recipe adapted from here

Connections – Poached Fish with Garlic Paprika Sauce

Prep Time: 2 hours

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes

Serving Size: 4

Connections – Poached Fish with Garlic Paprika Sauce

Ingredients

  • Recipe adapted from here
  • For Poached Fish and Boiled Potato
  • Ray Fish (only wing of this is used) - 500 grams (or any white fish)
  • Sea salt - 1 to 1 1/2 tspn
  • Potato - 500 grams
  • Bay leaf - 4
  • Onion - 1
  • Adequate Water to boil potato and fish
  • Salt
  • For Sauce
  • Good quality olive oil - 100 ml
  • Garlic Pos - 4 to 6
  • Smoked Paprika powder - 1 1/2 tspn

Instructions

    Poached Fish and Boiled Potato
  • The fish is covered with mucus like liquid, get them cleaned and cut them large chunks. I got them done at the market.
  • Pat the fish dry using kitchen towel.
  • Salt the fish generously and let them aside for two hours. This process enhances the flavour of fish.
  • Close to end of 2 hours of marination, peal the potatoes and slice them into round pieces of about 2 cm thickness.
  • Fill half of the pot with water and bring it to boil.
  • As it gets to boil add 2 bay leaves, half onion, required salt and potato.
  • Let it cook until potato is cooked to soft.
  • Remove the cooked potato out of water.
  • In another pot bring water to boil, add other half of onion and 2 bay leaves.
  • Remove the excess the salt from the fish and add it to boiling water.
  • Cook fish until soft.
  • Remove the boiled fish out of water.
  • For The Sauce
  • Peal the garlic and slice into thin slices.
  • Pour the olive oil in a sauce pan and fry the garlic in the olive oil until pale golden brown.
  • Take care not to over heat the olive oil.
  • Take the sauce pan out of heat add paprika powder until powder gets roasted.
  • Make sure that oil is not extremely hot as this will burn the paprika powder.
  • If the oil is extremely hot let it cool for while then add the paprika powder.
  • Str well, the sauce is ready to be served.

Notes

Serve Fish and potato along with red sauce.

!Frying Padron Chilly Pepper : Deep fry padron chilly in olive oil and serve with sea salt!

!Apart from ray fish you could use any white fish or monk fish

4 comments

  1. Anna Johnston says:

    WOAH! Your pictures are absolutely stunning. I love it when you meet people and really connect. There is something special, a bit magical ‘if you will’ I reckon. :)
    Looks like a lovely dish too. Although, not keen on leaving the fin bit on. Thanks for sharing your amazing adventures, its so cool I have blogger mates all over the world. From the comfort of my office, I get to trip all over the place experiencing many amazing things. :)

  2. Devaki @ weavethousandflavors says:

    Dear Ananda, I get what you mean by the food is easy to do without disappointing the palate. I LOVE it already and am eager to make this on a weeknight.

    How wonderful that you spent time in Santiago. It’s on my list!

    ciao

    Devaki @ weavethousandflavors

    PS: Great to have you back!

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