Happy Easter everyone! Hope you all have some feasting and chocolate eating this long weekend. We have both Mondays and Friday off for Easter. Is that the same the world over?

I thought it fitting to write about fish today since Good Friday is traditionally a day when you abstain from meat, but apparently, fish is fair game. Personally, I don’t morally differentiate between eating fish and meat, but hey, I didn’t make the rules. If you don’t eat meat on Good Friday, you don’t eat meat on Good Friday.

We don’t eat fish and chips very often. It’s not one of our regular takeaway choices – it’s a summer treat reserved for afternoons spent at the beach.

Fish and chip shops here can be a bit hit and miss. Fresh fish comes at a price. The fish and chip shops by us are either too greasy or too expensive so it’s easier just to go without. Our too greasy local was to be just around the corner from our Sandringham flat and their “number 1 combo” for $6 gets you 2 fish, 2 sausages and a scoop of chips. At that price, you could get a combo each. But a combo each will do you wrong. You break out in sweats and you need a lie down and some quiet time, your eyes will temporarily cross and glaze over. Just for comparison, there’s an award winning local fish and chip shop where $25 gets you 2 fish and 2 chips. Just enough to curb a fish and chips craving, but not a feast. No Frills. No oysters or scallops or sauce. We always get oysters, scallops and sauce. I guess $10-12 of good fish and chips to feed 2 adults would be the ideal. If anyone can recommend a local fish and chip place that can bet their sweet bippy on, I’m all ears.

When I was little, my parents steamed flounder for dinner with a ginger matchsticks, spring onion ribbons, a spoonful of oil and a drizzle of soy sauce. Perfect with a bowl of rice and some chinese greens. Flounder bones are large so it makes eating whole fish easy. You can scoop out a strip of meat using a spoon. Just scoop towards the head a the bones will stay on the frame. We were never kept away from bones as children. I think it’s important to learn how to eat meat and fish with bones and it’s quite Chinese to grapple with your food. Eating bones is a fun pastime and I enjoy working for my food. I’m not the only one, my maternal grandma only eats fish heads. My sister and I would get a segment of flounder eggs each. I used to love eating those sacs of eggs. The eggs are nothing like cavier, but they are super soft, almost powdery and have a very mild taste. I would imagine that every egg was a fish and I was eating hundreds of fish at once. You run your tongue inside your mouth and you can feel tiny eggs separate and crush.

I love flounder. I have a special place in my heart for this flat, asymmetrical fish. The meat is smooth and delicate and has a sweet flavour. I would be a very happy girl if I had a flounder net to catch a couple of fresh fish for dinner every now and then.

So a bit of Chinese and a bit of Kiwi, I baked some homemade lemon pepper potato chips and a couple of garlic butter flounder and The Koala whipped up this fancy coleslaw. With flounder costing less $5 a fish, this dinner is cheaper than takeaways. Mind you, this isn’t something you would eat at the beach. So I guess with takeaway fish and chips, you pay a premium for the convenience.

Baked Flounder for two

Ingredients
A couple of flounder
A few pats of butter
Some spring onion
A few cloves of garlic
Salt
Pepper 

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 200°C.
2. Wash the flounder, pat dry and slice a large X on both sides of the fish with a sharp knife.
3. Tear off 2 pieces of foil large enough to fit each fish on and to wrap up. Lay the foil on a large shallow roasting dish.
4. Rub oil on both sides of the fish and place on top of the foil.
5. Finely chop the garlic and rub the garlic into the cuts of the fish. Sprinkle the rest of the garlic on top.
6. Top with sliced spring onion and butter.
7. Salt and pepper generously.
8. Wrap up the fish and bake for 25 minutes.
9.  Serve with oven baked chips and coleslaw or whatever else you like.