WHB #104 : Celebrating two years

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This week, Kalyn of Kalyn’s Kitchen is celebrating Weekend Herb Blogging’s Two Year Anniversary with a bit of a splash. Expect a great collection of vegetable/herb recipes, and also a contest to find our favourite herb and vegetable for 2007. My money is on basil and zucchini; they are both incredibly versatile, easily obtained and of course, delicious.

Having said that, my contribution this week doesn’t feature either of those ingredients. Instead, it’s a light and tangy cucumber yogurt sauce which I slathered over a crisp filo parcel of fish. To make the fish parcel, I buttered some filo sheets and used it to wrap up a few portions of fish that had been seasoned and brushed with an Indian curry paste. I love using filo because it’s one way of adding interest to your dish without it being overly unhealthy (unlike using puff pastry, for example). Also, the parcel steams the fish a little, so the result is a moist and tender piece of fish in a puffy, crispy shell, cooked in a virtually foolproof way.

On to the sauce, which really doesn’t require a recipe. All you need to do is add coarsely grated cucumber to some European style/Greek yogurt (or traditional yogurt, according to preference), season well and finish with a combination of freshly chopped herbs of your choice. I used a selection from the pots of herbs on my balcony : mint, chives and flat leaf parsley.

The mint I grow is actually chocolate mint, which does taste remarkably like an after-dinner mint, and is often recommended to be used in chocolate desserts or in tea. It is however not so strong that it can’t be used in savoury cooking as well. It’s a hardy herb that grows like wildfire (the word “invasive” pops up often when describing mint; I stuck a little branch containing a small root from the original pot, into a new one to see if it would grow and it did!). Unfortunately there’s also some chocoholic bug on the balcony that I haven’t managed to catch yet, that seems to love eating the mint exclusively. This is despite mint in general, having supposedly natural insecticide properties.

While I haven’t tried growing it, the cucumber is one vegetable I nearly always have in the fridge. I love them in sandwiches and as a plain, cooling accompaniment to hot curries or rich food. I have previously also used cucumber in this recipe.

Happy 2 years of WHB, Kalyn!

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4 Comments »

  1. Kalyn said,

    October 12, 2007 @ 10:14 pm

    This sounds just delish! I love filo too, and cooking fish this way sounds like a great idea. Very funny about the chocoholic bug. I actually haven’t tasted chocolate mint but I’ve been curious. Thanks for helping us celebrate the two year anniversary of WHB!

  2. Liz & Louka said,

    October 14, 2007 @ 1:58 pm

    I don’t know about mint having insecticide properties. We used to have a pot on our balcony, but it was regularly infested with little green caterpillars which ignored all the other plants. However, it did manage to overgrow all the other herbs in the pot.

  3. Joanne said,

    May 11, 2008 @ 7:52 pm

    Hi I am looking for recipes to replace mayo with plain yogurt, but am not sure what to add to yogurt to give mayo taste. Can you help?

  4. Y said,

    May 11, 2008 @ 9:02 pm

    Hi Joanne! Quite often I use greek/european yogurt instead of mayo, as a dressing. I like the tanginess. I’m not sure if this would be what you’re after, but what I usually do is add some balsamic or Forum red wine vinegar to the yogurt, mixed with plenty of seasoning and some olive oil to thin it down to the desired consistency. This is particularly great with potatoes, like a healthy version of potato salad.

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