Steamed Blue-eye with Chermoula

Make up a batch of chermoula and you'll find a million ways to use it. This paste of middle eastern herbs and spices is wonderfully fragrant and goes well in a variety of dishes whether they be roasted, baked, steamed pan fried or barbecued. Use chermoula as a marinade, a stuffing, curry paste, as a filling for bread scrolls or as a pasta sauce, it is versatile and completely delicious. This steamed fish is based on a Neil Perry recipe in 'The Food I Love' and is an impressive way to start steaming. If you haven't started using the Varoma you are really missing out, so get going with it. You don't have access to good fish? Use chicken breast fillets bashed flat with a rolling pin instead. For vegetarians, do warm chermoula  poured over steamed or roasted vegetables and rice. 

You need to steam this fish in a bowl of marinade inside the varoma, so make sure you select a bowl or flat dish that can sit securely inside the varoma without rocking or wobbling. The bowl can go either on the tray (up the top) or on the bottom with the tray removed. 

Chermoula

Ingredients

Rind of a lemon peeled with a vegetable peeler

10g cumin seeds

10g turmeric (ground)

1 tablespoon of chilli flakes

5 grams sweet paprika

1 teaspoon of seasalt

1 red onion

3 garlic cloves

70gram flat leaf parsley

40g coriander leaves stems and roots (washed well)

150g extra virgin olive oil

20g lemon juice

Method

Place lemon rind in the Thermomix bowl and grind for 20 seconds on speed 9

Empty the bowl and put the lemon rind aside

Add cumin seeds, turmeric, chilli flakes paprika and salt to the Thermomix bowl and grind for 30 seconds on speed  8 or until the spices are powdered.

Add garlic cloves and process for 3 seconds on speed 6

Add coriander and parsley, onion, olive oil and lemon juice processing for 15 seconds on speed 5 or until a smooth paste has formed.

Scrape the resulting chermoula into a bowl, leaving 100g in the Thermomix bowl for the Blue-eye marinade.

Steamed Blue-eye with Chermoula

Ingredients

100g Chermoula

30grams of honey

10grams of lemon juice 

100g water

Grated lemon rind (reserved from chermoula recipe)

2 Blue-eye fillets 200g each

200g basmati or jasmine rice

Broccoli and snow peas

Method

Combine all ingredients except the lemon rind in the thermomix and mix on speed 3 for 5 seconds. 

Place your fish fillets into a bowl or plate, pour the chermoula mix over the fish and top with grated lemon rind. 

Measure 200g rice into steamer basket and rinse under running water

Measure 500g water into the Thermomix bowl and place the basket of rice in on top

Close the Thermomix lid and place the varoma on top

Put your bowl  of fish into the varoma and on with the lid

Cook for 15 minutes at Varoma temperature on speed 4

When there are eight minutes to go, being careful not to spill the fish marinade, add brocolli florets to the varoma and allow to steam, then add the snow peas in the last 2 minutes.

Neil Perry says a flat fillet of fish will only take 4-5 minutes to steam and this has also been my experience. So if using flat fillets rather than chunky ones, leave the bowl of fish out of the varoma until the last 6 minutes of cooking time.

Serve on a bed of rice with marinade poured liberally over the top, place broccoli and snowpeas on the side. Magnificent!