Fish Fillets with Prawns and Spinach Rice & Hazelnut Crepes with Chocolate Sauce

Main: Fish fillets with prawns
Women’s Weekly Dinner Party Cookbook No. 2 Page 12

Dessert: Hazelnut crepes with chocolate sauce
Women’s Weekly Dinner Party Cookbook No. 2 Page 14

Hi there everyone,

Hope this weeks little cook-in finds you are well and happy. We had a lot of fun at Wine Wednesday this week because we had some ring-ins. My very old friend from Wagga Wagga came to visit and asked if they could stay an extra night to experience a Wine Wednesday. My boys love these beautiful people so it made for a really fun night and an added, interesting perspective on the food. Besides that, my friend sets a beautiful table, as you can see.

This is an extremely old WW cookbook and it is really great to look back on the type of cooking we all did in the 70’s. In most cases it does require a little imagination to ju ju it up a bit. The main course is like a mornay. The fish is cooked – in the recipe it is suggested that you cook it in the oven – however, I poached it which I feel saves the fish fillets from getting leathery. A basic white sauce is created using some of the juice from the “poached” fish. Now, this is where I feel it got bland. There was no real added flavours. I don’t know about you but I like a fish sauce that has a little cheese in it, perhaps a teaspoon of mustard, a dash of worcestershire sauce. Hey, you may like just the mild, if somewhat boring, flavour of the fish and that’s okay but if you try this dish please taste and adjust. The prawns are added to the sauce to cook through which only takes a few minutes. It is served over the rice which has steamed spinach added. The overall thinking was that the spinach did nothing for the rice and this dish would have perhaps been better served as a pasta dish stirred through fettucine or a pasta bake with cheese on the top. Everyone enjoyed it, however served like this it was nothing to rave about. The little salad of tomato and asparagus was light and delicious but also unremarkable. 6.8 was the score on this one. We did enjoy some yummy MUM champagne along with our wine this week, courtesy of the Wagga tribe.

Now for dessert. You ask yourself, how can I go wrong with beautiful crepes??? Well, this received two 5’s in the scoring which, of course, brought down the average. With this recipe and others in this book, there is a level of assumed knowledge that you need to be aware of. The recipe calls for toasted hazelnuts. It doesn’t tell you how long to toast them in the oven or at what temperature or even to blitz them afterwards to make a fine powder from them so I have added these instructions to the recipe for you. Crepes are always hard to get going in the pan at first but I find that after the first one I manage to flip them just fine. The recipe only made four so double it. The thin layer of the hazelnut paste folded up in the crepes is certainly delicious, however, I have a tendency to overdo the chocolate sauce when serving. I was told that it overtook the flavour and we lost the hazelnut. So – beware the chocoholic…… But seriously, what could be nicer that warm crepes with ice cream and chocolate sauce???? I will definitely be doing these again even if it’s just for the MAV and I. These received 8!

My dear friend from England arrives next week for six weeks so we will have some fun getting her perspective AND she has said she would love to cook for one of the Wine Wednesdays during that time. A guest chef so to speak. How exciting!!

Until next week,

From my table to yours with love. x

Fish Fillets with Prawns on Spinach Rice

You will need to Ju Ju this recipe up a bit. Use your imagination – add cheese, mustard etc.

The Fish with Prawns

6 fish fillets
1½ c water
6 peppercorns
1 shallot
1 clove garlic
salt
60 g butter
6 shallots extra
2 tbsp flour
⅓ c cream
375 g green prawns
2 tbsp chopped parsley
285 g can champignons

Spinach Rice

1½ c long grain rice
1 bunch spinach
90 g butter
1 onion
1 clove garlic
S & P

The Fish with Prawns

Shell & devein prawns, cut prawns in half lengthwise. Remove shin and bones from the fish fillets; put fish into baking dish with water, wine, shallot, peeled whole garlic clove and salt. Bake covered in moderate oven 20 minutes, then add prawns to dish cover cook further 10 minutes, or until tender. Remove from oven, remove fish and prawns from liquid, arrange over spinach rice; keep hot. (please note: this can be poached on the cook top also)
Strain off liquid, reserving 1½ cups of liquid. Melt butt er in pan, add chopped extra shallots, cook 1 minute. Add flour, stir until light golden brown, remove from heat, stir until sauce boils and thickens, reduce heat, simmer 3 minutes. Add cream, parsley and drained champignons, stir until sauce is heated through. Spoon sauce over fish and prawns.

Spinach Rice

Cook rice in large saucepan of boiling salted water 12 minutes or until tender; drain. Wash spinach, remove white stems, chop leaves roughly. Put spinach in saucepan with ¼ cup of boiling water. Cover tightly, cook until tender, approximately 3 minutes. Drain, pressing out all moisture, chop spinach finely. Heat butter in pan, add peeled and chopped onion and crushed garlic, cook until onion is tender, add rice, spinach, salt and pepper, cook until heated through. Spoon rice onto serving plate, top with fish, prawns and sauce.

Hazelnut Crepes with Choc Sauce

Crepes

⅓ c plain flour
2 eggs
1 tbsp vegetable oil
pinch salt
¾ c milk

Filling

90 g butter
⅓ c hazelnuts (roasted and blitzed to find powder)
¼ c icing sugar

Sauce

30 g butter
¼ c icing sugar
½ c sour cream
2 tbsp tia maria or kahlua or similar
vanilla ice cream to serve

Crepes

Sift flour into bowl, add eggs, oil, salt and 2 tbsp milk. Beat until smooth. Beat in remainder of milk; refrigerate 30 minutes.
Heat heavy pan, grease with butter. Pour a thin layer of pancake batter into pan, brown on one side. Turn, brown other side. Turn out onto plate. Repeat with remaining mixture.
Spread a thin layer of hazelnut filling over each crepe, fold into triangles. Place crepes, slightly overlapping, in lightly greased overproof dish. Cover, bake in moderate oven 15 minutes or until heated through. To serve, arrange crepes on serving plate, top with a scoop of ice cream, pour sauce over.

Filling

Combine softened butter, toasted and blitzed hazelnuts and sifted icing sugar; mix well

Sauce

Place butter and chocolate in sauce pan, stir over moderate heat until melted. Add sifted icing sugar; mix well. Remove from heat, add sour cream and liqueur, stir until smooth and glossy. Serve warm.

Fish Fillets with Prawns and Spinach Rice & Hazelnut Crepes with Chocolate Sauce