A sense of plaice.

“God, Conor you’re very funny. I was reading that post you did about, what was it? last night. How do you come up with your ideas for the blog. It’s about food isn’t it? That one last week, what was it? God, it was so funny. How do you think of the things you say, like, eh, eh, eh. What was it about again? You know the one you did. It was so funny… God, yeah, etc. etc. etc ad nauseam.”

So went a very one-sided conversation with an acquaintance of mine. Now, when I say acquaintance, I mean a bloke that I don’t know very well and like even less. He may read this and find it very funny too, even if he can not remember what it is about. I didn’t find the experience very funny. It undermines my efforts. What am I doing here, creating vacuous laughs for the sub normal or creating excellent dishes for the average punter or puntess to try? I need to realise what I am at and why. I need to find a sense of place.

Now there’s a good idea, a sense of place. What about a small play on words and call the post “A sense of plaice” and then do Baked Oriental Plaice on Bok Choi and Fresh Noodles. Nothing funny in that. Damn him and his moronic ways.

I was lucky enough to get a beautiful big plaice in George’s Fish Shop (They occasionally run funny competitions on their Facebook page). For this less than hilarious dish, you will need the stuff in the picture above and some chili oil and garlic. The full list includes the following:

• A fresh 1kilo plaice
• 2 chilis
• Spring onions chopped into small pieces
• Dried Chinese mushrooms, reconstituted and sliced
• Plenty of Bok Choi
• 2 cloves of garlic chopped
• Ginger cut into shreds
• Half a kilo of fresh noodles
• Soy sauce
• Chili oil
• Chinese rice wine (or some of your maiden auntie’s sherry)

Perhaps dried noodles would cause more of a smirk but let’s go with the fresh ones this time. Wash the bok choi.

Beautiful Bok Choi. One of my favourite oriental ingredients. Nothing funny about that.

Put a big pot of water on to boil. Wash and clean the plaice. Rub the underside with some oil and place (geddit?) it in a roasting tray. Chop the mushrooms and sprinkle over the fish.

Chopped reconstituted Chinese mushrooms. They would break you up if they could.

Sprinkle on the spring onions, ginger and chopped chilis. In an attempt to raise a laugh, drizzle on some chili oil, soy sauce and rice wine.

Ready to go into the oven. Not really a side slapper, don’t you agree.

At this stage, you can chop the garlic and fry it in the wok, adding the bok choi as soon as the aroma of garlic starts to rise out of the wok. Stir fry this until it is cooked to your taste. I like it with the green bit floppy and the white bit crunchy. Pop the noodles into the boiling water. They don’t need a lot of cooking. At this stage, take the fish out of the oven. It has been in there for a less than side-splitting 15 minutes at 200 degrees C.

Oriental Baked Plaice just out of the oven. Hilarious, NOT, don’t you think?

Drain the noodles and get ready to serve. Stack some bok choi in as entertaining a way as you can imagine. Top this with some fish and the other bits from the oven.

Oriental Baked Plaice, Bok Choi and Fresh Noodles. No kidding!

There may not be much to laugh about here but, it was delicious. I do feel I have found my sense of plaice if not of place, if you know what I mean.

Funny that…