The Beach House is in quite a Nanna street. The lovely Nanna who lives across the road gave us a big bowl of figs recently. We were super grateful for these as we used to be able to nick them over another neighbours fence, but they cut their tree right back, and there are no longer any overhanging branches laden with figs. The Farmer and I think it was a bit rude of them really....
Anyway, I used some of the figs to make a little fig salad which is really yummy. If you like figs. Figs seem to be one of those foods that people either love or hate.
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| Fig Salad |
This is just a few figs cut up with some feta crumbled on the top and then some fresh basil thrown over the top. I dress it with a drizzle of olive oil and another drizzle of balsamic. It is very simple.
We also have lots of crayfish on holiday. For non Australians these are like lobster. The Beach House is situated in a cray fishing town and so we can either catch our own crays or buy them very cheaply. I have recently discovered this little marinade for crays which is very easy and super yummy.
These are the ingredients.
- 2 green crayfish (ie uncooked)
- 3 lemons
- 1 tablespoon of dijon mustard
- 2 teaspoons of dried dill
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| A Green Cray |
Now the first bit is not for the faint hearted. (Make sure the cray is already dead!) Wrap a tea towel around your hand and grab the cray head, twist and pull and it should come off the body. Then cut down the long axis of the tail and rinse all the yukky stuff out. Do this to both crays. Then mix the juice from the lemons, the mustard and the dill in a jar and give it a really good shake. It should then look like the picture below.
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| Marinade |
Taste the marinade, the flavours should be kind of equal, as in neither the lemon or the mustard should predominate.
Then tip it into your half cray tails as below.
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| Marinading cray tails |
Pop the cray tails in the fridge for an hour or so. Then remove and pop under a hot grill for about 6-8 minutes or until the crayfish flesh is cooked. Keep an eye on it as it can cook quite quickly.
I normally serve this with steamed vegies or a simple salad and potatoes. Yummy and very easy.
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| Lemon, Dijon and Dill Crayfish |
One cray tail (ie two halves) will serve one person.
I have also marinaded peeled green prawns and scallops in this mix and got The Farmer to barbeque them on a clean hot plate. That was pretty special too...
Soon enough though I will be back at The Farm, staring into the freezer, trying to work out what to do with mince for the third time in a week!
14 comments:
Your crayfish looks yummo! Pity my husband doesn't eat seafood, I would love to be able to have dishes like this in summer.
My Farmer can't eat crayfish, which is great because it keeps him from picking off my plate! Yummy. How rude of those neighbours to trim their fig tree.
Oh, love crayfish. Yum, yum, yum! To expensive in the city though. We get some when we visit family who have a cray license. Figs? Meh! (But if I did like them, your salad would be lovely)
Can't beat fresh, fresh food can you? Will mental note that marinade... thanks AFW.
They both look absolutely delicious!
Oh those crays look fab!
SSG xxx
Sydney Shop Girl blog
PS - the kindness of Nannas....
Oh how delicious those crayfish look - and the figs too. We have a fig tree in our garden - I keep picking the figs but they look a bit brown and dry inside? Not normal I don't think. Are they not ripe yet? X
Oh wow, what a life!! This sounds and looks fantastic.
Thanks everyone.
Amanda and Fussy Eater's Mum - Shame about the husbands who don't eat shell fish!
Tas - I wouldn't buy them in the city either. They are $12-15 each here and at least half the time we catch them or someone gives them to us. Too spoilt.
Georgie - Love fresh food.
Emma - They are delicious. So yummy that The Farmer saw my blog post and then decided I had to make them for dinner!
SSG - I love Nannas, can see why you chose your career path...
Semi Expat - To be right the outside needs to be slightly splitting open... I think if the inside is tight and brown they aren't quite ripe. Some types don't ripen until March/April.
Our beach house is in a Nanna type street too - but at 200m from the beach, I'm not complaining ;)
Annette - I do think Nannas add a certain something to a street.
So yummy! Figs and crayfish are definitely amongst my most favourite and inaccessibly priced foods. My in-laws have a big block in the hills with lots of fruit trees and I have coerced them into planting a couple of figs for me. Now if only there was a crayfish tree...
Oh my!
Figs and crayfish. Two of my favourite things.
{Hello, nice to meet you. Trying to place where you are, having grown up in the wheatbelt myself and now living on the south coast...}
Hi Lucy - Thanks for your comment. We love figs and crayfish too. Such summer flavours.
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