"Friday Cooking".2

Simple Fish Stew with paprika

This is a recipe for a simple but very tasty fish stew. It is my brothers and my version of the recipe. Every ingredient is cheap easy to source. The preparation time is about 15-20 minutes depending on your cooking experience.

Ingredients(For a 5-6 liter pot)

You will need about 1.5 kg of fish filet for this recipe. I love to use pangasius, but it can be cod, haddock, salmon etc.

450g of onions

800g of potatoes

400g of mixed bell-peppers

250g of celery

250g of carrots

4 tablespoons of sweet red paprika powder, 2 tablespoons of salt and 2 teaspoons of ground black pepper

Cooking method

Heat the oil on high heat until it starts to smoke. Add onions and saute until they get "glassy", add the red paprika powder and cook together for about 2 minutes. Add a glass of water add salt and black pepper.  Add the rest of the ingredients and cook together for another 2 minutes. Top up the pot with cold water until it covers the ingredients inside. Bring up to boil and add the fish, -it can be frozen, but ideally, it has to be defrosted- bring up to boil. Reduce the heat to minimum and simmer for about 5 more minutes.  

Serving suggestion

I usually would buy some Gnocchi (Italian potato dumplings) and serve it with those. But it can be served with bread, pasta, cooked potatoes.

Gnocchi

Enjoy!

Friday cooking

Today I will introduce you to one of the simplest and most iconic dishes in Ukrainian Cuisine, the Borsch. This dish was present in my family's  cuisine for decades. There are many recipes out there, but as many other dishes it comes down to individual taste and cooking skills on how you will prepare it. Below you will see a simplified, basic and cheap version of the dish.

Ingredients used:

350g onions

250g carrots

400g potatoes

400g white cabbage

350g red cabbage

400g of beetroot, 700g of chicken meat, 1.5 tsp of salt and a bit of black pepper

First, we will need an at least 5 liter capacity pot for the vedge and a smaller pot -about 2.5/3 liter pot for the meat. 

Place the meat in the smaller pot and top it up with water add a half of tablespoon of salt, put it on maximum heat, cover and cook until boil. When boiling, reduce the heat and simmer for about 1 hour. 

While the meat is cooking wash, peel and dice all the vegetables.

Place the pot on maximum heat and add about 2 tablespoonfuls of oil. When the oil starts smoking add onions and saute until they become glassy.

Add the carrots, potatoes and beetroots next. Saute them together for about 10 minutes.

Next, add the cabbage along with a 1/2 tablespoon of salt and some black pepper. Saute together for another 10 minutes.

Your chicken broth should be ready by now. Add the broth along with the meat (some people prefer to remove the meat) to the vegetables. Bring the soup up to boil and -top up some more water if needed- and reduce the heat. Simmer the soup for another 10-15 minutes -you can add some more seasoning at this point.

Voila! Your soup is ready to eat.

Serving suggestion

My grandmother and her mother used to serve it with a choice of sourcream, raw onions, bread, raw garlic and bacon. You can also put some horseradish cream in the soup.