Fishing for warmth

I know it’s the end of February, but Britain has been COLD this winter. Snow showers are regular and temperatures have been hovering around the 0 degree celsius mark for months. It’s more WILD than MILD, which is what London winters normally are.

But that’s enough moaning. Time for some optimism to bring on the warmer weather. And what a day I picked to start writing again. The temperature may reach 10 degrees today, and it’s been sunny all morning. And the sun is staying up after 5 pm these days. The dark days–the 3pm sunsets–are over!

As an encouragement for the eminent arrival of warmer days and to celebrate making a deadline today, I made  a Caribbean-style lunch for us. I say Caribbean-style because this particular meal would usually be made with snapper, grouper, or parrot fish–something gotten out of the actual sea– and would come, served with a little sand here and there on a 20-year old plate with cracks on the edges and would be enjoyed while sitting around in the delicious heat with friends or family enjoying a view like this:

Anyway, using the jar of escoveitch pepper sauce that Burgess made at the end of the summer from the hot peppers grown in our garden (with seeds smuggled in from Florida), we had pan fried rainbow trout and festival. Bet no one’s ever done THAT in the Caribbean!

As we spooned out layers of beautiful vinegar-soaked red pepper, onion and scotchies over the sizzling fillets of trout, we had our doubts about whether it would taste ‘right’.

But it was better than right, it was WICKED!!!!!

It was just like we were sitting off at Hellshire or Fort Clarence beach, like in this picture.

We just needed the Red Stripe.

And the heat.

And the beach.

And the sea.

Ok, I’m beginning to lose the thread of optimism here.

We should have taken pictures of our lunch to show you, but we were too hungry to wait!

Recipes

Fried Rainbow Trout

Rinse rainbow trout fillets with vinegar or fresh lemon juice. Then marinate in a mixture of milk, salt, pepper, dried rosemary, and any dried spices you like. Dust on both sides with a batter made of flour, breadcrumbs, salt and pepper. I didn’t use eggs (because I didn’t have any) and the batter ‘stuck’ just fine.

Place fillets, skin side down, in a pan with vegetable and olive oil mixture at medium heat. Use enough oil to completely cover the bottom of the pan. Cook both sides of the fish. You’ll know the first side is finished when it starts to curl up and you can see the that the skin is browned.

When finished, drain fillets on paper towels and then place on a plate. Spoon escoveitch sauce generously over the fish, to your taste.

Escoveitch Sauce

Roughly chop these vegetables and place them in a clean, sterilized jar, layering them neatly to make it decorative, if you like. I tend to just chuck them in, but Burgess did this layering thing which made it quite pretty.

• Onions
• Scotch bonnet peppers
• Bell peppers (any colour)
• Cucumber (optional)

Add allspice berries and stalks of thyme. Top up with white vinegar to cover all of the ingredients. Seal the jar and store at room temperature. Leave to infuse. The taste changes over time, as does the vibrancy of the colours. Open the jar and taste an onion or something once in a while. But be careful!

Festival

In a large mixing bowl, combine some flour (if you must measure it–use about 1/2 cup per person), slightly less cornmeal (about 1/4 cup per person), even less sugar (1 tsp per person) and a sprinkle of salt. Mix dry with a fork to get out all the lumps. Then, SLOWLY drizzle in some water. The idea is to mix it all up with your hands until the dry ingredients are bound together.

I lightly rub some vegetable oil on my hands so the flour mixture doesn’t stick. Once the mixture is bound, you can shape the dough. The most common shape is a long oval. I do a slight variation on this so that I don’t ever have too much soft ‘middle’ in the festival. Pick off handfuls and rub in your palms until it’s in a nice egg shape. Then hold at both ends, pull, then twist a bit. It should look like a twisty pastry or a big cheeto when you’re finished.

Place the festivals in a pan on low-medium heat, the oil heated until sizzling. Brown on all sides, turning often. Take them out when the festivals are brown on all sides and drain on paper towel.

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