Dear LPG

I have to admit to never having heard of this country until I checked on an Independence Day’s website, and when I found the recipe for Coconut Fish, I could feel a good start to this year’s cooking experiments; blending fish and coconut sounded just up my street.  As usual, I constantly research before deciding where my food journey is going, and this recipe looked like one I would not be able to mess up.  I recognised every ingredient and could get them all in any English supermarket, not to mention the bonus.  My eyes were drawn to the 10-minute cooking time and the 10-minute preparation time that helped me recognise the potential success I could see in this quest for culinary excellence.  After all, just how wrong can you go in 20 short minutes?

But there is always something. None of my usual taste team members were available (an extended Christmas holiday), so I pressured my mother in as a substitute.  She said that she was on the way, so I got marinating, but then she called to tell me of a delay.  By then, I had already started the 10-minute immersing of the fish with the lime, and I did not know what to do for the best.  Instead of rescuing it from its lime dip, I decided to wait, with dunked fish, for her arrival, and the nearly 30 minutes taught me something.

In most cases, when it comes to recipes that dictate the time for getting your protein enthused with flavour, the minimum required time is stated, and it is good to leave it a bit longer, but if the marinade is predominantly acidic (i.e. pure lime) and the organic part of the meal is as delicate as a bit of fish; leaving it in for three times as long as the recipe instructs will allow the acid to get to it a little too much. 

Result: excellent flavour, but my square cuts of fish were far from square by the time I got frying.  

Mum liked it, and I loved it, but the picture shows my square cut's lost definition.  

I will try something more ambitious for February as we make our culinary way over to Serbia. I hope to have something exciting and made without one of my many little added complications to share then…

CB, Lewisham.

CB has found a few instructional tutorials for her February cooking plan…

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