Mediterranean cuisine

Programme Episodes (07.05.2011)

INTRODUCTION

Our next hero is a journalist in the fullest sense of this word, he was a physician in the past, he is a collector today and as it turned out, a little bit of a cook.

“My wife is an athlete so she is constantly on the move due to never-ending practice routines and competitions. So like it or not, you will learn to cook. You will try to do it. At first, you make regular things like scrambled eggs and fried potatoes. Then, you just get bored with it which usually happens after the second week and that’s when you start experimenting and learning everything through trial and error. Constant traveling is an advantage of being a journalist. You can have a couple of days off and if you are in a foreign country you can just see the sights and try new things which I like very much. By the way, if you ask properly you are allowed to go to the kitchen and see how they cook in restaurants. – And you obviously do that. – Yes, I especially like it when they cook in the streets. I can watch and try to remember everything afterwards.”

IN THE KITCHEN

“Daniyar, I can see a lot of food here, what are we going to cook? – You know, the peculiarity of this masterpiece which I’m going to make is the fact that it pertains to Mediterranean cuisine. So you can say that it’s Turkish, French, Italian or Spanish cuisine, just as you like. In fact, they all have one thing in common which is fish! – Seafood? – Yes, simple as that. And the most interesting thing is that even men can cook these simple things. It is believed that men can either do nothing in the kitchen or cook delightfully. I’m an average man which is why I will cook something very simple yet delicious and beautiful.”

Rice will make a wonderful side-dish for this meal. We put a saucepan with it on the heat during which Daniyar is gutting the mackerel.

“The most important thing in gutting a fish is not to damage its gallbladder. Otherwise, you know what happens. So, I advise you not to gut the fish with knives or forks. It’s better to do it with your hands. It’s easier and safer - I know that for sure.” “We are going to stuff it with vegetables since Mediterranean cuisine chiefly consists of rice, olives and, - plenty of vegetables – plenty of vegetables and garlic. It’s crucial. Mediterranean meals are almost never salted. – does garlic substitute salt? It has garlic. Yes, that right.”

“While Daniyar is gutting the fish, I’ll cut some vegetables for stuffing.”

All the vegetables are cut into small cubes.

“Daniyar, why did you choose mackerel for this dish? – Well, because mackerel is a very beautiful, tasty and healthy fish which is very important. You know I had a very long process of selecting fish to cook. Cooking the common sole is just plain ordinary. Common sole is known to be cooked quickly which is not that interesting. For example using big fish is, - not good-looking -, yes it’s tasty but it doesn’t really look good.” “I will start making the marinade sauce for our fish. As I’ve already said we practically won’t use any – salt – right, salt. We will use natural olives, garlic, olive oil and a tad of lemon. – Do you think that all of this can replace salt? – We’ll see. – Ok, let’s do it.”

“When women cook they only want it to be tasty, quick and not always neat. – It’s not true. – It is for the most part. While men in the kitchen, they try to somehow…Yes, they will make a big mess, all the dishes will be dirty but it must be something beautiful.”
“When women cook they want their dish to be good for the health. Does this apply to your dish? – Well, yes, given that it consists chiefly of healthy products and plus it can used as part of the Mediterranean diet which is very popular.”

According to medical research, people in Mediterranean countries rarely suffer from obesity and certain other diseases. Their secret lies in the so-called “Mediterranean diet” which is all about consuming large amounts of fresh vegetables, fruit and dishes out of grain crops.

“Cutting carrots in straws is rather difficult and time-consuming. Daniyar, I wanted to ask you if we can replace the knife with a grater. – You actually can. – We are not losing anything right?”

“In fact it is possible. The whole point is that when you do it with a grater it’s mechanical work. – And not creative? – You don’t lend your soul to it and when you start cutting every single carrot piece with a knife separately you have heart in your work and it’s a creative process. The dish comes out tastier. – What will you do while I’m engaged in this creative process? Mechanical work?”

Daniyar turns to the help of a blender. He has already put all the necessary ingredients into a special container.

“We are adding some lemon, lemon juice to be exact. Then we close the lid. It will result in a miracle now!”

“I will now dice some sweet pepper and you, Daniyar, will probably get down to the onions. They have been waiting for their turn for far too long now.”

“Our viewers may have noticed that we have red onions. It actually doesn’t matter that much, it’s just that red onions look nicer.”

“I will grate cheese on a coarse grater and what will you be doing in the meantime? – I will baste our fish with marinade sauce and leave it for a while. – With this green sauce. – Its marinade which we made by mixing greens, garlic, olives, mayonnaise and pepper.”

15 minutes are enough for the fish to soak up the marinade.

“We are continuing to make stuffing for the fish. We will need some olive oil to saute the vegetables.”

“The oil is heated up so it’s time to add vegetables there. We put them all in at once. We will stew them literally for just 5 minutes.”

“Our stuffing is ready. The last thing we have to do is to stuff the fish with it. – Wonderful. – How are we going to do that? – Like this. – Using a spoon.”

We sprinkle green peas and sweet corn over the main stuffing and then some grated cheese which will make the stuffing stick together under high temperature. Now we use toothpicks to give the fish that natural look.

“It is very important to stick the toothpicks closer together so that the fish doesn’t fall apart and keep all the small pieces like peas and corn inside. – without scattering it around the sheet.”

“We take two types of baking trays - a standard one and a mesh one. What do we need a mesh baking sheet for? We put the fish this way on the top so that all the juice goes down to the vegetables as the rest of vegetables are used as a vegetable cushion here.”

“I will allow myself to make some adjustments to the look of this dish and garnish it with a slice of lemon.”

“Now our fish is beautiful both on the inside and on the outside. We will just need to bake it.”

Recipe

2 whole mackerel

Stuffing

150 grammes of Sweet pepper

200 grammes of tomatoes

100 grammes of Carrots

100 grammes of Onions

100 grammes of Canned peas

100 grammes of canned sweetcorn

200 grammes of cheese