What if salsa + fish?

Everything is a recipe if you think about it

When the heat combines with a busy work week, and you toss in some social plans during the evenings, I find everything gets scrambled. The day to day — putting on clothes, forming words using my lips and mouth and air from my lungs — is fine. But sometimes, usually on my way out the office, it hits me that I have no idea what comes next: What’s for dinner? What is Rob doing again tonight? What’s in the fridge?

There was a time, especially working from home, when I had a routine, and a knack for muddling things together. Leftover roast vegetables went into a grain salad, cubes of roast squash blitzed into soup with the coconut milk in the cupboard. That’s never felt harder right now, which feels weird. What’s in the freezer? Haven’t got a clue.

So the food I’m making now is deceptively simple. It’s fresh and basic, but delicious. A piece of fish and something carby, with a rudimentary green salsa drizzled on top. One thing I like to do: any herbs (basil, dill, coriander, parsley), a chopped shallot (spring onion is also good), a chopped chilli, if you have a clove of garlic, chop that too. Something acidic — lemon juice, vinegar, and stir it. It’s not authentic enough to be chimichurri but it’s the same rough principle. And it’s really good with just-picked-up staples like white fish, rotisserie chicken, or a tray of roasted chickpeas.

Another favourite is a simple pasta sauce with fresh vegetables – one so good I’m going to write it down for another edition. Sometimes I roast leeks before chopping and folding them into a spicy arrabiatta-style sauce, sometimes I’ll cook down tomatoes but add courgette and red pepper.

This week I want to share a novel dish I made with, of all things, some leftover salsa.

We’d not made tacos for ages, so we bought soft tortillas, a couple of steaks, and shredded some lettuce. And we made a salsa from the New York Times that looks more complicated than it was – it uses chopped pineapple, padron peppers, and dried oregano. It was so flavourful, even if we couldn’t get the tomatillos they recommended.

We had enough salsa leftover that it seemed a waste to chuck it out. So a couple of days later I bought some fresh cod, roasted it in the oven, and five minutes before it was done, spooned a generous wallop of salsa over it, to let the fresh and spicy notes season the fish. We ate it with roasted red peppers and potatoes.

The same could be said for any dressings or sauces – do they work elsewhere? This would have been nice with chicken thighs, too, or even just spooned in a sandwich. I suppose the point is, everything is a recipe if you think along the right lines.

Food, lately

The simplest pasta sauce – cherry tomatoes, anchovy, garlic

Taco night

Sometimes you just crave a sausage roll and a strawberry daquiri.