So, yeah.
About that promise I made to cook my way through The Little House Cookbook (my most influential cookbook of all time, remember) … It’s been over a year since I made that promise. And I’m now just getting to part two of this culinary journey.
What can I say? It’s been an interesting year.
Thank goodness for The Recipe Redux. This month’s theme brought The Little House Cookbook right to mind.
Stir up some of your earliest culinary recollections. Did you stand at your grandmother’s elbow to learn to cook? Or did you learn by stumbling through a cookbook by yourself? Share a healthy recipe and the accompanying story about one of your first cooking memories.
The earliest memories of my journey to kitchen competence involved plunging through some of the more obscure recipes in The Little House Cookbook. (That, and layering deli meat and salt in a bowl and microwaving it. As I suspect readers of The Happiness in Health would prefer a recipe without nitrate-laden meat as the main ingredient, I will gloss over this unfortunate aspect of my culinary past. Although, I’ve now draw attention to it with a lengthy parenthetical remark, so.)
Baby J reaches for as many crabapples as his pudgy hands will hold (i.e. none).
My first recipe was, of course, the famous apple turnovers which I revisited a year ago. One recipe I never made? Crabapple jelly.
Crabapples can be tricky to find, not least because fresh crabapples taste like an apple that’s given up on life and shriveled in upon itself to become a husk of its former sweetness. (I realize I’m not really selling these little fruits. Trust me. Add a few ingredients, and you’ll want put crabapples on everything.) These fruits are quite tart, so they tend to shine best when combined with naturally sweet foods.
We found crabapples at a nearby farmstand and walked away with about three pounds of these special fruits. To preserve them until I had time to prepare chutney, we made crabapple jelly from The Little House Cookbook.
On its own, crabapple jelly tastes mild and pleasantly tart. Where the unique flavor really stands out, is in this beautiful spiced chutney.
This chutney combines the sweet-tart flavor of crabapple jelly with fresh peaches, raisins, and whole coriander. The taste is rich, with an unexpected hint of spice and citrus from the coriander seeds. I decided to showcase this unique sauce in grilled fish tacos.
Peter was more than happy to use his beloved BGE.
The chutney was a treat over grilled rockfish. We enjoyed it with cabbage slaw and cilantro inside whole grain wraps. While the recipe looks complicated, it’s simple to pull together. Enjoy!
[bctt tweet=”Try something new this week: #Crabapple Peach Chutney! #thereciperedux”]
Grilled Fish Tacos with Crabapple-Peach Chutney
Prep Time: 2 hours (including marinating time)
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Ingredients (4 servings)
Grilled fish
- 2 pounds firm white fish, such as rockfish
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper, ground
Chutney
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 cup onion, chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds
- 1/2 teaspoon ginger, ground
- 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1/4 cup raisins
- 1/4 cup crabapple jelly
- 1 small peach, pitted and chopped
- 3/4 cup water
- Salt and pepper
Wraps
- 4 whole grain wraps
- 2 cups cabbage slaw
- 1/4 cup cilantro
Instructions
Place fish ingredients in a large covered dish or Ziploc bag. Plac ein refrigerator and allow to marinate for at least 2 hours.
While fish marinates, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in medium saute pan over medium heat. Add onion, ginger, and coriander seeds and saute for 2 minutes. Add remaining chutney ingredients and simmer until raisins and chopped peaches are soft and liquid is almost evaporated. Add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.
Prepare grill or grill pan and cook fish 3 minutes per side or until internal temperature is 145 degrees F. Arrange whole grain wraps on four plates and divide fish among wraps. Top each wrap with 1/2 cup cabbage slaw, 2 tablespoons chutney, and 1 tablespoon cilantro. Serve immediately.
P.S. The Little House Cookbook Series continues below!
Part 1: Apple Turnovers
Part 2: Crabapple Jelly
P.P.S. Maybe I’ll finally get to fried salt pork with gravy in Part 3 of this series.
P.P.P.S. Check out more cooking memories from Recipe Redux members:
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I had never paid attention to crab apples! The chutney sounds delicious! I’d love one of those fish tickets!
Hope things are going well!
I hope all is well with you, too, Andrea!
What? There’s a Little House cookbook?! My girls and I LOVE Little House. We are totally going to try to get it at the library. Thanks for the scoop. My grandma made the best pickled crab apples. (:
I 100% recommend The Little House Cookbook! The recipes are so much fun to make 🙂
Wait, aren’t coriander and cilantro the same thing? Or at least similar?
Crab apples will always remind me of Orr from Catch-22:
“Every time someone asked me why I was walking around with crab apples in my cheeks, I’d just open my hands and show them it was rubber balls I was walking around with, not crab apples, and that they were in my hands, not my cheeks. It was a good story. But I never knew if it got across or not, since it’s pretty tough to make people understand you when you’re talking to them with two crab apples in your cheeks.”
I would love to try the jelly, and the chutney as well. Mango chutney is one of my favourite things ever. Tomato and onion chutneys on the other hand, not so much…
Love the picture with the tiny hand! Smaller than a crab apple! 🙂
Hi Christa! Cilantro and coriander ARE form the same plant–the leaves are cilantro and the seeds are coriander. They taste so different, it’s hard to believe they’re from the same plant.
I hadn’t thought of that “crab apple” association — now I will!
I adore fish tacos, and that chutney sounds amazing! I never knew the Little House series had a cookbook! I’d love to try the recipes from there! :D! Thanks for sharing this!
This chutney is genius! Can’t wait to try it!
At what point do you add all the chile in the world? I like the spiffy new website look 🙂
I assume you’ve already done so.
As always, a super entertaining post! Those pudgy little hands are too cute! I always put mango chutney on my fish tacos but now I can’t wait to mix it up with something new next time 🙂