Vietnamese or Thai food is ideal for hot summer days. Here's a recipe that serves as a basis for all kinds of dishes. We usually use it with shrimps and / or fish, but it works just as well with veg. We never tried meat, but I don't see why that shouldn't work also.

Thai Basil

Ingredients (serves 2-3 people):

• 3-5 cloves of garlic
• 1-3 fresh small thai chili
• 1 tablespoon cane sugar
• 1 fresh ginger root (roughly sized 60 x 30 mm)
• 1 fresh lime
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 5 tablespoons sunflower oil
• 3 teaspoons thai or malaysian curry or spice mixture
• 20 - 50 leaves of fresh thai basil (depending on the size...)
• 10 - 20 leaves of fresh mint (again, depending on the size)
• 1 handful of unsalted peanuts
• Your choice of fish, shrimps, other seafood or alternatively vegetables

Preparations:

1. Peel and chop the garlic cloves into small bits.
2. Chop the chili into thin slices, don't throw away the seeds, - use them. Wash your hands thoroughly after this!!!
3. If you have large basil and mint leaves, rip them up into smaller bits and put them in a bowl to have them at hand when needed.
4. roast the peanuts in a pan just like that, no oil or fat needed for this. Keep stirring until nicely brown. Put them to the side and have them ready for later.
5. Chop your fish or vegetables into dices (maybe 30 x 30 mm) or make sure your shrimps are unfrozen and ready to go in the pan.

Cooking:

1. Put the oil in the pan and turn on the heat (1 notch below maximum)
2. While the oil heats up, you can already add the garlic, chili, cane sugar, salt and the curry or spice. Let it sizzle while stirring until the garlic starts to turn brown.
3. Throw fish and / or seafood or alternatively vegetables in the pan - cook for about 10 minutes (depending on your choice). Depending what type of fish you chose, it may crumble into tiny bits - that's just fine, especially when using fish alongside shrimps.
4. Put what you've cooked into the bowls you will serve the food in, add thai basil, mint and peanuts to the servings, squeeze lime over it and mix it up a bit. Remember that you're using the basil and the mint more like a salad than a herb in terms of quantity, so give each serving plenty of it. Enjoy!

Tip: Goes well with the "Sensational Soup" as starters and a green papaya salad alongside.

Another cook book I recently bought is Fish by Tom Aikens. I can only recommend it, especially to people who like fish but are concerned by the state of our oceans and fish stock.

"We are constantly being told about the benefits of eating fish and seafood - high in protein, low in fat and rich in nutrients. Yet we also know that species like cod and tuna are in danger of extinction while unscrupulous trawlers are over-fishing waters around the world. In this stunning new collection of fish recipes, Tom Aikens takes readers with him on a voyage of discovery. Having travelled to fish markets and spoken to fishermen worldwide, his recipes include new takes on ever-popular fish, such as sea bass, scallops and oysters, as well as ideas for lesser known but underfished, species like megrim sole, ling and gurnard. While urging us to ensure that we eat only sustainably sourced, line and net-caught fish." randomhouse books

Read this interwiew with tom on seafood choices an organisation mobilizing and connecting world leaders who support action for a sustainable supply of seafood and healthy oceans through responsible business, management, policy, and regulation.

This is one of our basics. Fast and delicious, perfect for one of the way to many working days when supper has to be quick. It turns out different every time depending on what is around.

There are a few basics though:

Brown rice
Salmon ( could also be mackerel or eel )
Avocado
Cucumber
Onion
Cilantro
Soya sauce
Hoisin sauce
Sesame oil

Cook the rice, fry the salmon and the onions, cut the cucumber and the avocado into cubes, mix everything together, season with some sesame oil, serve in a big bowl.
Now that's fast isn't it?

Beautiful additions to this dish:

Fresh shiitake mushrooms ( almost a must ) fried
Fresh lime to season
Auster sauce
Shrimps
Thai basil
China cabbage and carrots fried

The sauces go wonderfully with this dish but be careful not to put to much into it, otherwise it get's slimy as my husband said yesterday.... charming isn't he?

One of our favorite winter dishes. Comfort food, simple, sometimes we eat it straight out of the pot. Perfect  after a windy day in the garden or even better at the beach ( why o why do I live in switzerland ?) . Unbelievable, but it's more than 4 years that we have not been to ireland.  How could that happen?

600 gr smoked haddock , I buy it frozen sometimes you have to ask your fishmonger for it because they don't have it on display.
2 cups peas frozen, fresh or in the glass
1 big onion
Potato mash, I like it fast so I usually take the organic instant one. But if I have time I make fresh mash.
Parsley
5 dl Milk
Butter
1 Bay-leave

Slowly fry the onion till soft and golden, ad the peas cover with vegetable stock and let it simmer till the peas are cooked. Season with salt and pepper.
Put the fish, 2, 5 dl milk and the bay leave in a big sauce pan. Ad some water just as much to cover the fish. Let it simmer for 5 minutes. Take the fish out and carefully remove all the bones and the skin. But pack into the sauce ad the parley.

Make the mash. Don't forget to season with nutmeg.

I put everything in a big pot ( you can also use an oven tray ). Tart with the peas, then the fish with the sauce. The last layer is the mash.

Cook in the preheated oven for approximately 1 hour.  220°.

Wild fennel grows everywhere here in sardinia so I was happy to find a recipe
in the fantastic "Made in Italy cook" book from Locatelli that uses wild fennel.

• 2 tbs sultanas
• 2 good quality tomatoes blanched and peeled
• 2 tbs pine nuts
• 12 sardine filets roughly chopped
• 2 tbs olive oil
• 3 finely chopped garlic cloves
• 1/2 glass of dry white wine
• handful of chopped parsley
• handful of chopped wild fennel

Soak the sultanas in hot water for 30 min.
Spread the pine nuts on a baking tray and put into the preheated oven (180°), just long enough to turn them golden. Remove from the tray.

Briefly fry the garlic till he starts to color, don't let burn. Add the chopped sardines and cook for 1 minute. Season and add the with wine. Allow to evaporate the alcohol. Put in the tomatoes, pine nuts, drained sultans and turn off the heat.

Meanwhile cook the pasta. Add to the sauce add a little more olive oil. Toss in the parsley and the fennel.

To prepare the vongole let them sit in a bowl of salt water 30 min, they will breath and filter the water, releasing any sand they have inside.
Rinse in cold water and separate any open ones, they are dead. You can drop every single one into a metal bowl, dead but closed ones will open and you can throw them away.

Heat some olive-oil in a pan. Fry lot's of chopped garlic till they start to colour, add a some chillies ( we like the dish rather spicy ) and the clams. Let them cook for approximately 30 seconds then add two glasses of dry white wine and cover the pan with the lid to allow the clams to steam open.

Don't eat any clams that did not open.

Meanwhile cook the pasta, mix with the clams and some more olive oil.

here in sardinia we bought local, slightly different clams than we buy at home.

In a bowl put green olives, fresh wild fennel seeds, Noilly Prat, olive oil, black pepper, a pinch of sea salt, some nutmeg. Rest for an hour.

Grill sardines with garlic inside, salt, black pepper, olive oil on the outside.

Chop one or two shallots, heat olive oil in a pan, throw in the shallots, quench with the fennel / Noilly Prat / olive mixture - simmer for five minutes on low heat.

Serve the sardines straight from the grill adding the fennel "sauce" straight from the pan as quick as possible - best directly at the table.

Serving suggestion: with grilled vegetables.

We finally arrived in sardinia for a 3 week holiday. The first few days we did nothing except lazy beach life and quick pasta dinners and the  occasional fish from the grill.
Grill-fish means lots of bones and leftovers. Time for fish stock.
When I got up in the morning,  the house was filled with the smell of simmering stock.

Fish stock:
Throw the left overs from yesterdays fish ( we had spigole ) in a big pan add lot's of water, celery stalks, parsley, laurel, carrots, chill, fennel seeds and onions. Season with pepper and cook for several hours.
Make lot's you can freeze it and use it an other day.

For the soup just ad fennel, onions and celery stalks and season with  salt and pepper. Bring to boil and cook for several minutes, ad fish, mussels and scampis cook till everything is ready.

We served the soup with grilled bread, rouille and aioli.

Rouille:
I did not remember how one makes a proper rouille so I just  pounced  2 chilies, some withe bread that I soaked in milk and some olive oil the mortar. I did not ad garlic. Not that I don't like it but there is plenty of garlic in the aioli and that's enough for me.

The aioli:

Aioli is basically a fresh mayonnaise with lots of garlic in it. What I do is instead of raw garlic I use braised one.
I cook a whole garlic head in a little white wine and vegetable stock in the oven for about 1 hour. For this I use a small oven tray and cover it with aluminum foil.

One of the best things: Trout straight from the grill eaten in the garden with some fresh garden vegetables.

bamboo + seaweed

NIKUMAN - steamed stuffed meat. similar to dampling

HAMO Oshi Zushi - hamo : like eel from the sea

Unagi donburi - Unagi is eel

Kakiage tempura