Seabass Tarator

I finally made the seabass dish I had been planning for ages; I had the stale bread for breadcrumbs, Andrew was returning from hiking Mt Ararat so I had an audience, and I was thoroughly sick of lamb. So the time was ripe.

What I didn't have was fish. There is a fishmonger just down the road, but I'd never actually seen fish in their refrigerated cases. Instead, the glass fronts are inhabited by bits of styrofoam with big, hand-printed letters spelling out the types of fish they sell and how much they cost per kilo. So at the very least I knew the fishmonger had a bit of nonbiodegradable signage that said levrek (seabass) 28 lira/kg.

I approached the men in the shop and showed them my shopping list which said 'levrek' and then three different words for 'fillet' in Turkish, since I wasn't sure which was the right one. A considerable amount of pointing, misunderstanding, grumbling and bad Turkish (on my part) ensued. Eventually, I worked out that they would bring the fish to my flat if I gave them the address. So, sure enough, an hour later, four beautiful seabass fillets arrived at the door. Sadly, they cost 38 lira (about £15).

Tarator sauce is my new favourite thing; it's garlicky, a bit crunchy and very yummy. And it's incredibly easy to make (thanks to amazing things called food processors). You take stale bread, ground almonds or hazelnuts (almonds in my case), several cloves of garlic, and a bit of water and process it. It gets very thick, at which point you slowly add olive oil, with the motor running, and more water if necessary to make a hummus-like sauce. I poached the fish in salted water with a little bit of lemon juice and few sprigs of parsley, drained it and added a generous portion of tarator and a bit of paprika for garnish. Since there are plenty of carbs in the sauce itself, I bypassed rice and just served it with salad. And the best part is the two unused fillets (now frozen) and the remaining sauce keep well, so we can have it again in a couple weeks. Sadly, it looks rather anaemic on the plate, but it was truly delicious!

French National Day (Bastille Day) was on Wednesday. We were only going to go for an hour, and ended up staying several because there was PORK. And champagne. Pork products are hard to come by in Turkey, so when the little trays appeared stacked with pork terrine, pork pate, and french cured meats, we didn't say no. And, well, who says no to champagne?! And French cheese.