You have a night to yourself, its Saturday, and the kids are out with their friends.  For the first time in 7 days nobody really needs you for anything and your time is your own.

For me, these evenings are the perfect times for a fancied up evening supper in front of the TV, say a nice bottle of wine, a murder mystery and somebody to argue with as to “who dunnit” over top of some nice food.

The nice thing about making a smorgasbord is, that you can basically put what ever you fancy on the table and munch away.

So, last night, we had an old Inspector Morse on stash, some fresh fish in the fridge, a few vegetables hanging around, some focaccia bread and, as usual, a fridge that is overly full, in fact, bursting at the seams with condiments.

The nice thing about a supper like this, is that you can get everything ready and marinating, and then when its time to sit down, it only takes 15 minutes to get on the table.

Salmon - I had a bottle of an Asian condiment, and basically, its ingredients were chives and ginger, figured why not.  Grabbed a sandwich bag, sliced the salmon fillet into 4 small pieces and popped it inside, added a couple of tablespoons of this green interesting smelling sauce stuff, and one quick massage later, salmon was prepared.

Tip: there are all kinds of interesting jarred Asian sauces, why not try a few of them. Salmon is a great fish for pairing with strong Asian flavors.

Marlin - For this, I cubed the marlin, added to a small dish, drizzled over the top a couple of teaspoons or so of Tamari and sesame oil, then a generous grating of ginger and garlic. Stirred it up a bit, and in the fridge it went, that’s 2 down.

Tip: Tamari is a bit milder than most soy sauces, but marlin is still a white fish, so its best to avoid adding too much. 

Tip: be really careful not to overcook marlin.

Shrimp - I am going to call this, “shrimp with shells on, marinated in a disgusting amount of garlic“.  3 cloves of garlic, zest of half a lemon, a few tablespoons  of olive oil and a bit of fresh ground black pepper.

Tip: Cooking shrimp will shells on helps keep them moist and flavourful. When serving drizzle over a little of the garlic butter, so that once they are unshelled,  you can mop up the butter with the shrimp and enjoy the garlic flavour.

Salad - I sliced up a couple of romaine lettuce leaves, added some home grown tomatoes a neighbour gave me. A small sprinkling of white diced onion, and some radishes I found at the supermarket - they came in 3 different colors and made the individual salads quite pretty.  Serving in their own personal bowls is a nice touch and stops the dressing mixing with other things on a plate.

Tip: When preparing a salad ahead, romaine lettuce is one of the most forgiving - allowing you to prepare a salad an hour or two ahead of serving - just keep the salad covered in the fridge.

Dressing.  Found a bottle of honey Dijon dressing, tasted quite nice but a little sweet for me, so added some of the juice of that lemon, a pinch of salt and a drizzle of olive oil and gave it a quick whisk. 

Dressings are typically a mix of acid, oil, sweet and salty - so turning up the other dimensions turned down the sweetness. 

Tip: There is nothing to stop you using shop bought salad dressings as an ingredient in your own dressing, or adding to it with your own personal touch.

Garlic Focaccia bread:  Basically whisk softened butter or margarine, and some grated garlic - to taste. 1 clove of garlic to about 4 tablespoons of butter is probably an average strength.

Half the focassia down the middle and spread each side generously with the garlic butter, wrap in tinfoil, and have ready for cooking later.

I find grating the garlic (or mashing it) the easiest way of evenly distributing its flavor in the butter.  Once this is cooked you can cut up this bread into what ever shapes you please.

Carrots, not necessary, but, we wanted to see what the yellow carrots tasted of as our supermarket has just started stocking them. I had some traditional carrots so did a few of each - I think this looks pretty and is fun as it allows you to compare the flavors onced cooked.

So here we go, one of my favourite ways of cooking carrots - add them to a pan that has a good fitting lid - a tablespoon or two of water and of butter, and some of salt and pepper, seal the lid and let them semi-steam in the butter - they keep their flavour and color so well this way.

Line up the movie to start, set the table, let the wine breath - maybe a little taste test, oh yessss, that’s better. Basically you now have half an hour to kill while everything marinates, so why not have a second glass.

So, the cooking part.  The carrots are your critical path - that is because with a 15 minute cooking time they are going to take the longest to cook.  So turn the heat on underneath them until the steam starts and then turn them to low.

Time to get the salad and dressing on the table, and preheat the oven to around 400 degrees.

About 7 minutes before zero time, get the garlic bread in the oven and turn the heat up on your skillets for cooking the fish.    5 Minutes to go, add the salmon, face down, and the marlin to their respective pans adding a little butter first. 

Turn the heat down to medium low for the shrimp and add to the pan with a tablespoon of butter and a grinding of salt.

Tip: I cooked the shrimp on a lower heat so that the garlic and lemon zest did not burn. The shells helped them keep moist, I turned them a few times, and basted them with the oil.

Now rush it all to the table, call the husband, hit the play button on the movie and have a quick toast with the wine, and start munching. Nice.

Food Critic (my husband) comments:

Salmon is nice, not had this before, its mild but I can taste the chives and I can taste the ginger - he seemed happy to try something new.  For me, to be honest, I have tripped over some better food marriages. It was nice to have something new, but I think the experiments need to continue.

Carrots - we decided the yellow ones were really sweet.

Marlin - the fish was super fresh, - when you have fish this good, and a nice simple marinade, you simply can’t go wrong. 

Shrimp, garlic and lemon came through, next time could I cook more of them - ahh nice.

The garlic bread was great, even if i say so myself, Focaccia is both crusty and chewy, and the big holes in the bread catch lots of melted garlic butter, napkins are needed for chin cleaning!

And finally, the murder mystery - so neither of us got who dunnit right, with the usual twist at the end both of us were fooled all along.