My Son

So, the other night, I was making some Kofta. Remember, I made that one a while back, and I'm the only one in my family that will eat it...?

Well, suddenly my son says he wants to cook something, too. My first reaction is to sigh and roll my eyes, because I'm kinda stressed putting this meal together already. But, he's insistent, and I want to teach him how to cook, and especially how to cook in the Dutch Oven. So, we start looking around at what to cook.

He grabs a bag out of the fridge which contains the tiny fillets of a fish he caught on an outing a couple of weeks ago. Really, the fish should've been thrown back, but it was still in the legal keeper range, and it was the only one he'd caught thus far, so we kept it. Good thing, too, as it was the only thing caught in the whole boat the whole day. I think I'm cursed, but that's a subject for another blog.

Anyway, I latch onto this as a great idea. We can make this work. I grab up my 8" oven, and we pour about a half cup of rice in the bottom, with about a cup of water. On top of that, the fish fillets. Then some seasonings. Hmmm. Seems like the lemon pepper isn't shaking out so smooth. He opens it up and shakes. You guessed it--it dumps!

We spend a few moments scooping out as much as we can, and put it out under the coals, next to my 12" of Kofta.

Before long, they're both bubbling. One time, he checks it and stirs it up a bit, and of course the fish breaks up. That's what I'd expected it to do, so it's really a rice dish with fish and lemon for flavor.

It actually turned out not too bad. It was a bit sour from too much lemon pepper, but not intolerably so. The fish was cooked fine, and my boy had the experience of dutching with his dad, and cooking a fish he'd caught. A pretty good evening, doncha think?

Oh, yeah, about the Kofta...

I did it pretty much as the old recipe was, except that I did 3 cups of water instead of two. That made for a more "sauce-y" mixture. I also lightened up on the parsley, which I liked, and the lemon juice, which I didn't like so much. I do like it with more lemon. I did the salad, too, and that was yummy. I chopped up the jalepeno bits more so this time, so it gave an edge to the whole dish instead of getting a hot bite once in a while.