A fishy 5:2 fast diet recipe in more than one way:
While I’m busy cooking 5:2 diet recipes I’m also working on my food photography. Or, more accurately, I’m working on my food styling. This 5:2 fast diet recipe looks and tastes amazing. BUT, I just never seem to have the patience or the styling skills to transfer what I see on my plate to the camera. The first time I made this recipe recently, my brother phoned just as I was serving. And, even if you say ‘I’ll call you back’, it seems to take long enough for the food to start to spoil or, in my case, for me to feel rushed when I’m taking my photos.
So…as you can see the result is blurry – the peas and samphire look a bit over cooked and, it’s just not a good picture.
I had half a packet of samphire left. And, decided to try again. It IS a very good recipe – an adaptation of something we were taught to make at the Grand in Brighton, using samphire, which I love, to add a little extra and make up for the reduction in butter from the original recipe.
- 140 g Hake or Cod or Coley
- 100 g Samphire trimmed and washed
- 50 g Peas Fresh or frozen
- 50 ml White Wine
- 1 Spring Onion chopped
- 6-8 Clams
- 10 g Butter
- 5 ml Olive Oil
- 1/2 Lemon
- 1 handful Fresh Parsley chopped
- Melt the butter and oil in a heavy based frying pan
- Heat the wine with an equal quantity of water in a saucepan with a lid
- Put the fish service side (white flesh side) down in the hot fat and cook for a few minutes till golden brown
- Turn the fish and continue to cook for 2-3 minutes. Then remove from the pan and keep warm
- Place the clams, samphire, peas and spring onion in the wine and water mixture. Cover with a lid and cook over a medium heat
- Once the clams are opened, discard any that do not open.
- place a bed of samphire and peas in soup bowl. Add the fish and surround with the cooked clams
- spoon over a little of the remaining liquor and garnish with freshly chopped parsley
And now for the fishy part of the deal…
I decided to try again the next day. I went shopping but the fridges and freezers in my local Waitrose had broken down and there were no clams. I had no cod left in the freezer at home. And, the only suitable shellfish were shelled whelks!
In a fit of ‘I really want to do this properly’ I found a lovely piece of hake that John from DelishFish had sent me earlier in the year. And, I washed up the clam shells from the night before. Is this really what food styling is about?
So behold, my rather prettier photo…of hake masquerading as cod, with whelks in clam shells for the 5:2 diet fast day.
This is a really lovely dish, perfectly suitable for a 5:2 diet fast day at around 350 calories for a healthy portion. And, it works very well with hake OR cod. But, I’d strongly advise using real clams and not trying to fake it with whelks – even if you do still have some clam shells lurking in the kitchen.
Practice makes perfect eh Fiona? How I feel your anguish! A lovely dish to add to your 5.2 repertoire!
lol well I wouldn’t recommend cheating with clam shells and whelks! But the basic dish is really good, even if my photos are not quite there yet!
This looks very nice, I have some monkfish in the freezer and will try it on my next fast day!
I’ve got a bit of a thing going for clams at the moment Angela – I think this dish works well because it’s very easy to cut out the butter and oil by using the samphire and clams to add ‘depth’