November 10, 2009

Results - Roast Wild Barramundi with King Prawn and Fennel Salad

Barramundi with fennel and prawn salad 2

My first EPIC fail! Woo hoo! I can get it behind me and move on! For a while, every time I attempted a new restaurant recipe I though, "Is this the one that's going to end my wining streak?" There were a couple there where I though the degree of difficulty was a little higher than what I was used to, surely I'll fail there, but in the end it was the easiest recipe of all that made me come undone. I even had a video to watch and I still managed a royal muck up of it!

Barramundi with fennel and prawn salad

Lets look at the positives first. It tasted delicious! Fennel and prawn are such a great combination, The salad so impressed me that I will never eat them apart again! Except maybe in tempura prawns, garlic prawns oh cant forget prawn dumplings!...hmmm maybe every prawn dish imaginable, just take my word for it....it tasted good. The tomato and basil salad was pretty tasty too. Who could beat the awesome power of tomato coupled with the sexy aroma of basil? It was such a spring dish, and considering the extremely warm weather we've been having around Melbourne, it was a great way to say goodbye to spring and hello to summer, a whole month early!

tomato basil salad
Basil and Tomato Salad

fennel and prawn salad
Fennel and Prawn Salad

I hear you say what went wrong?, how did you stuff it up? Well thanks very much for totally over seeing the ugliness of the dish, you're so kind. I vividly remember Michael Lambie saying in the video to be extremely careful about skin sticking to the pan and ruining the crispy skin texture. I've never really had this problem before, and I LOVE crispy fish skin so I do my best to get the money shot. But this time, I don't know what happened, I sprayed my pan with non stick oil, waited for the pan to get really hot, I even dried the barramundi skin to make sure it would turn out extra crispy. But I guess the skin gods were not on my side this day, and I suffered from bad skin even after I'd gone through puberty!

barramundi fillets

Getting the fish out of the pan was disaster number 2. I planned on presenting it the wrong way up, but some how I managed to put a big great gaping hole in the nice fish flesh. I did make two portions of this dish, and the other fish faired even worse! Poor Daz, he always gets the rejects.

chopping board full of goodies
Everything chopped up ready to go!

The last issue with the dish was more of an oversight than an error. When making the tomato basil salad I cut my tomatoes up and put them in the bowl without removing any seeds. The Dressing ended up being quite watered down by the tomato juice. So I would suggest only using the tomato flesh and try to scoop out as much of the seeds and innards as possible. I always try to make the best of a bad situation, so turned the tomato juice/left over salad into a delicious dipping sauce. I added a little extra olive oil and Daz and I dunked out bread like bread had never been dunked before! It was like a deconstructed brucchetta.

sliced fennel
Sliced fennel

Despite the few mishaps, the dish was actually very tasty. Its extremely difficult to get Daz to eat something that isn't capable of mooing, fish being one of the worst! But he really enjoyed this dish. The Barramundi has a pleasant un-fishy smell and that seemed to appeal to him. I was really shifty and didn't explain any of the components of the dish to him before he started eating, he didn't realize he had eaten fennel (his arch nemesis of the vegetable world) until he was taking his last bite. *insert evil laugh here* I have some left over fennel in the fridge, I might try my luck again and see if I can get the same results.

Barramundi with fennel and prawn salad 3

13 comments:

penny aka jeroxie said...

Seriously, it still looks great to me! If Daz doesn't want to eat it, I will ;)

CC11 said...

So the presentation ins't restaurant perfect, who cares as long as it takes good. Some of my tastiest dinners have been fugly.

Betty @ The Hungry Girl said...

Hehe.. good work being sneaky with Daz! I think the dish still looks great, despite what you think! I would've gladly eaten it :)

OohLookBel said...

You honestly have nothing to worry about - the dish looks great to me. I rarely cook fish because of the fishy smell that invades the house, but if your barra was good, then I'll give it a go. And the fennel prawn salad is a must!

Anonymous said...

It looks good! I will eat them anytime. Gorgeous pictures as always!

Arwen from Hoglet K said...

The taste is what counts, and it sounds like it was great! Good job tricking Daz into eating the fennel - it makes a hilarious read.

Agnes said...

Oh, that is so tricky of you, getting Daz to eat fennel!

And it's not a fail if it tasted delicious. :)

Conor @ HoldtheBeef said...

You did the fish that way on purpose so that it was less work to cut into and eat!

Looks bloody tasty :)

Rilsta said...

I'm with the others - so long as it tasted good, it's not a fail and it looks great too!

Julia @Mélanger said...

I have only eaten at Taxi once, on a visit to Melbourne. I recall the delicious mandarin souffle that ended my meal - of course, I would remember the dessert!

This dish looks just amazing. I agree about the pairing of seafood and fennel. It works so well.

3 hungry tummies said...

The fish does look a little sad but I think it still taste good! Must be just one of those days!

Saucy Thyme said...

Hello :) I just started reading your blog and it is awesome! keep those posts coming!

ps. love your idea of turning leftover salad and the dressing into a sauce!

Amy @ cookbookmaniac.com said...

This looks so delicious i want to dive into the screen with a knife and fork!