Yesterday we decided to incorporate one new ingredient into our lives every week. It keeps our guests guessing and makes us look like we know a lot more about food than we actually do! “Oh Dhaarrling, you must try Yam leaves, they are absolutely divine!” This week we have a couple of newbies; Yam leaves and Flowering chives. Don’t be put off if your local supermarket doesn’t supply these goodies as neither are essential, The Yam leaves can be substituted with banana leaves or tin foil and the flowering chives are just like normal chives but have an edible white, purple or pink flower which is slightly peppery in taste but not mind blowing.
So today we have white wine, & avocado oil marinated dover sole with hand picked rosemary and basil from our teeny herb garden and cherry tomatoes wrapped in Yam leaves. Accompanying this are New Potato Hasselbacks stuffed with thin slices of garlic and rosemary, topped with Sumac. Sumac is a purple lemony herb used a lot in middle eastern cooking but this can easily be substituted for lemon zest. We also wilted some spinach, Bok Choi and the remainder of the Yam leaves for some healthy greens on the side.
For the Sole Parcels
- 300g of Dover Sole (or your fish of choice)
- 100g cherry tomatoes
- Half a red onion
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 2 Tbsp of avocado oil
- 2 Tbsp of olive oil
- ½ a glass of wine
- A few torn fresh basil leaves & some rosemary
- Yam Leaves
Cooking Method
Marinate your dover sole in all of the above ingredients except for the tomatoes and leave for an hour. When you are ready, moisten the yam leaves with water, lay one or two pieces of fish on half a leaf, add your quartered tomatoes and wrap it up trying not to have any gaps. The fewer gaps the more the parcel with steam and you will end up with nice moist fish. Place in the oven for 30 mins at 180Deg C 355F.
For the Hasselback New Potatoes (From now on we shall refer to them as Hasselhoffs – Thanks David)
- 4 -6 small potatoes
- 1-2 cloves of garlic
- 1 sprig of rosemary
- ½ teaspoon of Sumac or the zest of half a lemon
- Salt & pepper
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
Pierce and microwave your potatoes for 4 mins (not essential but I always microwave my potatoes before roasting, you can par boil if you prefer but I like to cut corners where possible). Rinse with cold water so that you can handle them and place two chop sticks either side of your potato (for detailed hasselbacking method see the Sweet Potato Rainbow Roasties post.)
Thinly slice the potatoes and garlic and place a couple of slices of garlic in the gaps. Inalternating gaps, place some rosemary and finally sprinkle with sumac (or lemon zest) and a good glug of olive oil before grinding some salt and pepper and placing it in the oven with the fish parcels. The potatoes can be used as a time guidance for the fish parcels.
For the wilted Spinach, Bok Choi & Yam leaves
- 2 handfuls of spinach
- 2 handfuls of bok choi
- 2 handfuls of chopped yam leaves
- ½ onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- olive oil
On a medium heat sauté the onion and garlic in a small amount of olive oil. Bit by bit add your leaves as they will shrink down as they cook. This generally only takes about 2 mins so should be held off until the rest is just about ready.
Enjoy!
A Caveman and a Modern woman 
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