This is another of those recipes that allow personal taste to dictate the ingredients. I don't really I like to tell people what to use and how much, but more to show you how I have done it to allow you to try it and change it a bit to your own taste. I prefer to call it a suggestion than a recipe.
The first part of the dish is the halibut. This was trimmed to the desired portion size, and placed onto a greased tray. Then seasoned with sea salt, pepper and fresh lime juice. This is then baked in a moderate oven for eight or nine minutes until just cooked, the left to one side for a couple of minutes.
The second part of the dish is the noodles. Here I used dried Chinese noodles. These are a great convenience product. If you prefer you could use spaghetti or linguini. These are both easily obtainable from your local supermarket. The noodles are cooked in plenty of lightly salted boiling water. These should only take a couple of minutes to cook. Once cooked they need to be drained to remove as much water as possible.
The third part of the dish is the dressing. This is where most of the flavor comes from, and this is where your taste comes to the fore. I have used a selection of fresh ingredients that all need to be chopped into very fine dice. They should be kept separate at this stage, as different ingredients need to be added at different times. The selection I used was red onion, garlic, lemon grass, mixed chillies, ginger, fresh white crab meat and lots of chopped fresh coriander.
In a pan I heated some olive oil. Into that I added the red onion, garlic, chillies, lemon grass and ginger. These were gently fried to let out their flavor and to soften. This mixture was then mixed with a good drizzle of oil. Into this the crabmeat was added. This needs to be warmed through properly but not cooked too much. When it is all hot, add the well-drained noodles and mix well. Just before these are going to served we add a lot of finely chopped fresh coriander. This will add a great bright green colour to the noodles as well as adding freshness to the dish. Then at this point the noodles need to be tasted to check the seasoning. If everything is seasoned too early, sometimes the crabmeat can make the dish a little too salty.
Now to serve the dish we simply put a small pile of the noodles in a large pasta bowl and added the halibut on top. If there are any juices on the fish tray after cooking, gently tip these over the fish as this adds flavor.
I hope that you enjoy this dish, and remember if there are any ingredients that you are not keen on, well just leave them out. Or of course if you like spicy food you can increase the amount of ginger and chilli to add that extra zing.
I hope you enjoy it.
Paul Vincent, Head Chef.