Greek style marinated vegetables

Taken from the BBC website

Ingredients
2 tsp butter
1 tsp vegetable oil
½ onion, sliced finely
2 garlic cloves, crushed
20g/¾oz green beans, blanched
45g/1½oz carrots, blanched, and sliced
½ lemon, juice only
85g/3oz button mushrooms, sliced
1 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped
1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil


Method
1. Heat the butter and vegetable oil in a frying pan and sauté the garlic for one minute.
2. Add the green beans, the carrots and the lemon juice, and sauté for a further 2-3 minutes.
3. Add the sliced mushrooms and the chopped herbs. Cook for a further minute, drizzle with olive oil and serve immediately.

My mom told me she wanted to boil some long beans and carrots for lunch. I thought it was boring to just do that and so I went surfing on the BBC recipe website to find a recipe for it. And this is what I found. It's actually pretty appetizing; the contrasting savoury taste of fried garlic and onions and the sourness of the lemon juice. My mom likes it but I don't think my dad does as he's averse to sour foods.

Baked fish with fresh herbs (thread fin)

From Gordon Ramsay's Healthy Appetite

Ingredients

1 seabass, about 1.1kg
Few rosemary sprigs
Handful of large basil leaves
1/2 Lemon, cut into wedges
2 large garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced

Heat the oven to 200 degrees. Score the sea bass on both sides and rub all over with salt, pepper and a little drizzle of olive oil. Pick the rosemary sprigs off the hard stems. Roll a large basil leaf tightly around each rosemary sprig. Insert into the slashes in the fish, along with the garlic slices.

Lay the sea bass on a lightly oiled foil-lined baking tray. Stuff the cavity with the lemon wedges and remaining rosemary. Bake for 15-20 minutes until the flesh is opaque and just cooked through.

Simple dish to make and healthy as well. It really depends on how fresh your fish is. The seasoning, herbs, they serve to bring out the full natural flavours of the fish.

Red snapper and tomato chowder

From Gordon Ramsay's Healthy Appetite
Ingredients

2 medium onions, peeled and roughly chopped
2 celery sticks, trimmed and roughly chopped
2 large carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
2 large waxy potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
1 yellow pepper, cored, deseeded and roughly chopped
few thyme sprigs
1 bay leaf
400g chopped tomatoes
900ml fish stock
150 g green beans, cut into short lengths
600g cod fillets
flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped

Heat olive oil in a heavy-based pan. Add the onions, celery and some seasoning and cook, stirring, over a medium heat for 6-8 minutes to soften. Add the carrots, potatoes, yellow pepper and herbs, and saute for 5 minutes until the vegetables are lightly golden.

Add the tomatoes to the pan and pour in the stock. Cover and simmer for about 7-9 minutes until the vegetables are tender. Now tip in the green beans. Give the mixture a stir and simmer for another 3 minutes. Check the seasoning.

Lightly season the cod fillets and lay them on the vegetables in the pan. Cover the pan again and simmer for 3-4 minutes until the fish is opaque and just cooked through. Using a spoon, gently break the fish into large flakes. Ladle the hot soup into warm bowls and scatter a handful of chopped parsley over each serving.