Cooking Local When Abroad

Cooking Local When Abroad

Whenever I'm abroad, I think it's so important to immerse yourself with the local culture, and one of the main aspects of that is the local cuisine.

This will force you out of your culinary comfort zone and perhaps cook with, or try, new ingredients which you wouldn't usually have access to back at home.  I love visiting local markets - not only does this ensure you are cooking with super fresh ingredients, but it also allows you to speak to the locals.  It gives you the opportunity to get advice as to how they would cook certain things – it's their turf, after all, so they probably know what works best.  

Usually, at home, I cook with sea bass or salmon for the most part. However, I went to the fish market today and wanted to source some local fish.  I appreciate that cooking with an ingredient you've never used before can be a little interdating, but that's also part of the excitement.  The national fish of Barbados is flying fish, so that's exactly what I bought. 

I created my version of a Caribbean inspired dish.  Blackened flying fish, BBQed plantain, burnt pineapple salsa with a simply dressed salad.  Go check out my IGTV for the video, but here's the recipe for the marinade.  You can use this marinade for any fish or meat, it's better to leave it to marinade for a couple of hours but if you don't have the time it's not essential.

Time To Marinade

(This will be enough for 4 sea bass fillets) 

Marinade:

• 1 tsp cumin

• 1 tsp paprika 

• 1 tsp dried thyme

• ½ tsp garlic powder

• ½ tsp onion powder

• ½ tsp cayenne pepper

• 2 tbsp olive oil 

• Salt and pepper

• Juice of 1 lemon  

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