Crusted Orange Roughy with Mashy Peas and Warm Garden Salad (AND homemade tartar sauce)

Ok, so I think its time to admit that I have a food crush on Jamie Oliver!!!

I don't think I've ever been disappointed when I have followed

one of his joints.

Since I have to work on mother's day, we celebrated today, saturday.

The Dutchess got an orchid, an electronic blooming flower and 3 cool necklaces.

To top it off I did what any aspiring chef would do...I made her a (semi) fancy dinner.

I pulled out my christmas gift, J-Livers book "Meals in Minutes".

After flipping through several pages, I landed on a winner,

Tasty crusted cod, my mashy peas, tartar sauce and warm garden salad.

We went to Kroger Marketplace to gather ingredients.  The cod

did not look good, so I chose orange roughy.

This recipe kept me pretty busy, so there aren't many photos, but

I got the most important ones...the crusted fish, and the completed plate.

So the fish is slightly cooked with olive oil, s/p and fennel seeds.

Meanwhile, I started to cook the mashy peas, which consists of

potatoes, broccoli and peas.  I also made the paste that is the first 

layer on the fish.  It consists of garlic, anchovies, sun dried tomatoes, basil, 

parmesan cheese, lemon and balsamic vinegar.

I used a food processor to make a paste, which got coated 

on the roughy.  Then I created bread crumbs with crusty bread,

and the oil from the anchovies, and topped the fish with it.

With a drizzle of olive oil and some sprigs of fresh herbs, my fish 

was ready to go back in the oven.

The potato, broccoli and pea mixture gets simply mashed

with a knob of butter.  The recipe calls for some mint sauce,

but we don't have, nor do I really know what that is.  

I substituted a few mint leaves instead.  The warm salad

consists of panchetta, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, arugula 

(or rocket as J-Liver calls it) and watercress...obviously...warmed.

The tartar sauce was made with capers, parsley, anchovies, 

lemon and mayonaise.  

This was a great and fairly simple meal to cook.  The tartar and salad

was pretty rich, but the mashy peas was a bit on the bland side

which actually provided a great contrast.  The meal

was light-ish, delicious and fairly healthy, however the warm salad was 

the standout.  The bitterness of the arugula was tamed

by the savory and delicious balsamic, panchetta and garlic

Both the Dutchess and I thoroughly enjoyed this.

We have tons of the tartar sauce left over and we think

we might try it on a rotisserie chicken.

I will add this to my arsenal of culinary delights, and don't be

surprised if you see some of these elements in other blog posts.

Fed, the flock was!