The first of the (at least) 26 new meals we’ll cook this year was blackened spiced fish with cucumber salad from Donna Hay: Instant Cook. Picked this book up from the book man last year and so far everything we’ve cooked from it (admittedly, maybe only 3-4 things) has been pretty excellent – and actually pretty quick.

We chose barramundi as our “firm white fish”, replaced the ground oregano with dried (mostly because we could not find ground anywhere), and used 1/8 tsp ground chilli rather than 1/2 tsp chilli powder (is there a difference? we’re really not sure – it was plenty spicy).

It was incredibly easy – brush the fish with vegetable oil, sprinkle with spice and fry in a non-stick pan. The salad was a really simple cucumber | scallion/shallot/spring onion/whatever you call it | mint with a greek yoghurt + lemon juice dressing – could have done with a wee pinch of salt.

blackened spiced fish with cucumber salad | donna hay: the instant cook p.132

The whole thing was pretty gosh-darn excellent and we all gave it a 4 kitties.

Definitely will try this again (great for week nights), especially as we try to get more fish into our diet – there is an excellent fish monger in Leichhardt who we’d love to patronise more frequently.