Necessity is most definitely the mother of invention…
Picture this.
You’ve been working like crazy in the lead up to the easter break. You wake up on Good Friday remembering that it is a public holiday and that you’ve forgotten to get to the shops in time. There are a few things in the vegetable crisper, but aside from that, not much else – except wine, but its always on hand these days given how stressful its been at work. It’s not looking good.
You jump in the car and drive around for a while trying to figure out how the hell you are going to piece together dinner. It’s soon confirmed that nothing is open.
Then, you have an idea – there’s that fish and chip shop around the corner that is bound to be open on good friday. Sure enough it is, and they let you buy two gorgeous pieces of barramundi from them. Ok, its a start.
Back home and you rummage through the kitchen for 15 minutes. This yields spelt flour, sour cream, corn, avocado and coriander. You follow this up with a 30 minute rumination on the ingredients at hand to find a way to turn them into something flavourful. Spices add flavour, and you have a full spice rack with almost every spice available for purchase in the land of spices… because, that’s how you roll. Blackened barramundi – CHECK.
Ok, you can serve the barramundi with a side salad, but that’s boring, and you avoid boring at all costs. There’s got to be something interesting you can do with spelt flour. Flatbread. You search a few flatbread recipes and come across a recipe with plain flour that uses yoghurt as the binding agent. Ok, so you can use spelt flour instead of plain flour and sour cream instead of the yoghurt. Like for like.
You make the flatbread, cook the barramundi on the flat grill and throw it together with lettuce, corn salsa and coriander.
The result? It’s good… actually its really good. It’s excellent.
The moral? Life is always going to be hectic, but you really can make a lot from very little if you are willing to experiment.
Blackened Barramundi with Spelt Flatbread
SPELT FLATBREAD
1 cup wholemeal spelt flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sour cream
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
BLACKENED BARRAMUNDI
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tbsp smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes
1/2 teaspoon sea salt flakes
pinch ground pepper
2 barramundi fillets (about 300g each)
Spray olive oil
TO SERVE
Corn Salsa
Lettuce
Coriander
SPELT FLATBREAD
In a medium bowl place all ingredients and mix well to form a dough. Transfer to a floured bench and knead for two minutes then form into a ball. Wrap in glad wrap and place in a the fridge for an hour to chill (in the meantime, prepare the barramundi for cooking).
Divide the dough into six balls then roll each one out into a circle about 18cm in diameter on a floured bench. Set aside until ready to cook. Spray a grill pan with olive oil and heat on medium high. Cook each flatbread one at a time for 2 minutes each side till grill marks form. Serve immediately.
BLACKENED BARRAMUNDI
In a small bowl mix together cumin, coriander, garlic powder, paprika, chilli flakes, salt and pepper. Spray the barramundi fillets on each side with olive oil then coat the fillets evenly on both sides with the spice mixture.
Preheat panini press on medium (or a fry pan if you don’t have a panini press). Add fillets to panini press and cook for 4 to 5 minutes then gently turn over and cook for another 4 to 5 minutes till the fish is opaque and flakes easily.
Serve the barramundi (broken into six pieces) in the flat breads with lettuce, corn salsa and coriander.
In other news, I found out last week that I was a finalist in the food category of the Best Australian Blogs Competition run by the Australian Writer’s Centre. I was extremely surprised and elated to be a finalist – thanks AWC. Congrats to all the other finalists and to Christina from The Hungry Australian for taking out the top gong!
I love how you can just easily think up something this gorgeous to cook in your head. No recipe. If I was in your position, I would have ended up getting knee deep in too many recipe web sites or worst still my ever increasing heap of cookbooks only to end up being to indecisive and find a restaurant that is still open!
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It doesn’t always come that easily Martine! But when it does its very satisfying. 🙂 and don’t think we haven’t all just decided to go to a restaurant when it all seems too hard.
Loving the little spice party you’ve got going here, Bella. And a big yes to the barra!
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Thanks gorgeous! It means a lot coming from the spice king!
ooh ive been wanting to experiment with different flours for a while now, going to try spelt soon!
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Its such a great flour to use and behaves just like plain flour when cooking so it makes it much easier to use.
Creative cooking under stress! I love it. Great job — this is a lovely dish.
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Dear Amanda,
This meal looks anything but a spur of the moment recipe, well done!
What a great story of churning out something great out of what seemed like nothing at the time. Such a stroke of inspiration at a time when you needed it most — love it! I have been actively trying to replace my red meat intake with fish (because I just feel healthier after), this would be a good time to do just that!
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I just love blackened fish such a great combination of spices. It looks too delicious in that flat bread that you have cooked so perfectly. I did the same thing at easter I was stuck without ingredients as I was so busy I just forgot it was ah holiday.
so amazing that you got to come up with a recipe like this at the last minute. looks really delicious! congrats on the award!
Love the look of these! But I confess when you got up to the part about remembering the fish and chip shop, I presumed that’s where the dinner idea would end. Fish and chips! Ha. That’s the way I think anyway. lol
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Gorgeous recipe, Amanda. I love the look of these. And thanks for the sweet shout-out, too – it’s still sinking in to be honest! x
When you made these and described them to me, they sounded amazing. Now I have actually seen the photos I am drooling all over my keyboard. Well done you clever cookie you.
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