2008 June | Wrightfood

Yielding the perfect Crispy Fish Skin

June 27 th 2008

13 Comments

So I have decided that every now and again, when something springs to mind, I would share some of the stuff I have learnt about seafood – whether it is purchasing, cooking or presenting. I have received quite a few emails about cooking fish, so why not share some of my responses with everyone, rather than just a single person!

Anyone that reads this blog knows that I am pretty nutty about fish. Lets face it, it’s fantastic. I can think of no other protein that has so many different flavors and textures, and can be presented in so many different ways.

(more…)

Posted in technique | 13 Comments »

Pan Roasted Striped Bass, roasted tomato puree, grilled fennel and olive/anchovy tapanade

June 24 th 2008

13 Comments

Something crazy happened when I walked into Mutual Fish at the weekend. I went there with Copper River Salmon money. Yep, that stuff ain’t the cheapest fish in the store. But, and this is a big but, I walked straight past it. It looked amazing, but at this point no where near as good as some of the most beautiful white fish I have ever seen. Striped Bass.

(more…)

Posted in Seafood Recipes | 13 Comments »

Seafood Risotto

June 20 th 2008

10 Comments

“oohhh, I am so looking forward to your Fathers Day dinner” said Danika, with a rather cheeky smile on her face. Yep, that is right folks, I cooked my own Fathers Day dinner, and was bloody happy about it. Not that Danika isn’t a good cook – far from it, she is awesome, but it is just me and cooking. I obviously love it (who the heck would have a food blog if they didn’t!!!). Cooking, above anything else relaxes me. If I have had a tough day at work, I am, it has been said, not that fun to be around until I get into the kitchen.

Click to continue to this seafood risotto recipe

Posted in Seafood Recipes | 10 Comments »

My photography portfolio is now online!!

June 19 th 2008

5 Comments

OK.. so it isn’t like I don’t have a thousand other bloody things to do, but… I really wanted to put together a website that just had some of my better food photography on it – no odd stories or anything. Without further ado

Behold… drum roll…..

http://www.mattikaarts.com/photography

NOTE: I cannot code HTML to save my life.. Apparently this looked like junk in Firefox.. Who uses firefox anyhow?? Oh, turns out lots of people. A good friend of mine took pity on me, and recoded the thing in CSS, so it should look fine for everyone now. Even you Mac users.. LOL.

Posted in blog | 5 Comments »

Baking for PEPs - Pistachio Almond Tuiles, and Apricot Tea Cakes

June 17 th 2008

15 Comments

Bastards. Complete bastards. I have had to do some baking. Sounds odd I know - a cook that doesn’t much like to bake. Well, that is me! Baking always seems like a black art, sometimes it goes great, other times I am left swearing at a rock cake that was never meant to be a rock cake.

So. PEPs was at our house this weekend, on Fathers Day none the less. I had to bake on Fathers Day. Evil Bastards. We had managed to not host the meetings for a while, mainly due to the kitchen renovation, but it was now our turn - well and truly our turn.

Continue to see this tea cakes recipe

Posted in Baking recipes | 15 Comments »

Wrightfood blog is 1 year old!!!

June 16 th 2008

6 Comments

Nuff said really! This blog is now one year old.

The last year has been awesome. Lots of changes, lots of developments. I reckon the food on here as got a lot better, along with the photography. Thanks to everyone that leaves comments (both good and bad), this wouldn’t be the same without all of you.

Posted in blog | 6 Comments »

True Cod and clams, sea beans/rocket/English peas, fines herbs fish broth - and cooking with Dearie

June 9 th 2008

19 Comments

“Dearie? Who the heck is Dearie?” you ask….. The answer, my Mum. Yep, we call her Dearie. That isn’t her name, it isn’t even remotely close. Somehow, somewhere in my childhood we got to calling her Dearie. It just stuck. It now seems really odd in fact to call her Mum. Dearie she is. It rather suits her actually, as anyone that knows her would say.

Continue to see this cod recipe

Posted in Seafood Recipes | 19 Comments »

Spam-a-lot

June 3 rd 2008

11 Comments

Maybe I should be happy with this, because it must mean I get more visits to my blog, but just of late I have been getting a ton of spam posts. A couple of hundred a day. This is all pretty new to me to be honest, and I really don’t have much of an idea about how to handle it.

I know there are some spam blockers out there for Wordpress based sites, but it looks like a lot give false negatives. I don’t want someone’s hard written comment to get labeled as spam, and I miss it.. nor do I want to have to troll through a spam folder to make sure there isn’t anything that it might have screwed up..

It looks like most spam I get is on older posts.. I was wondering if there was just a way to turn off commenting on older posts - no one seems to comment on stuff more than two weeks old anyhow.

I would love to hear from people about how they deal with the rediculous amount of blog based spam, yet still manage to process the genuine comments effectively. Either comment to this post, or email me at matt(at)mattikaarts(dot)com

Thanks everyone for making this blog a complete giggle to write!

Posted in Uncategorized | 11 Comments »

Caramelized Miso Rice cakes, crsipy skin salmon, sesame julienne vegetables

June 3 rd 2008

14 Comments

I was wondering this weekend what to cook for a blog post. We normally trot off to a farmers market, get something special, and I work a decent(ish) dish out of it for a nice, lovely blog post. This weekend I was stumped. I normally muse over things a bit through the week, so that I have an idea of what I want to do at the weekend. I didn’t this week. Work has been crazy, and I haven’t thought about much else.

(more…)

Posted in Seafood Recipes, vegetables | 14 Comments »