12 new potatoes, halved
3 Anaheim chillies, halved and seeded
1-1/2 tablespoons cumin seed
6 cloves garlic, minced
1-1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/2 lemon, sliced
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup water
salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees.
2. Coarsely grind together cumin seed, garlic, salt and pepper in a mortar and pestle. Stir in lemon juice.
3. Lay chillies in the bottom of an ovenproof dish and add water.
4. Coat potatoes with olive oil and place on top of chillies. Drizzle with prepared sauce.
5. Bake, covered, until potatoes are fork tender, about 40 minutes.

Makes 4 servings

12 three ounce fillets cod
8 dried red chillies, broken apart
6 green chillies, chopped
1 teaspoon turmeric
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 cup mustard seed
water
salt and pepper

1. Combine chillies, turmeric, olive oil and sugar. Coat cod with mixture and refrigerate for half an hour.
2. Mix together mustard seed and enough water to form a paste. Place a portion of the mustard seed on top of each fillet and season with salt and pepper.
3. Wrap fillets in banana leaves, if available, or in a tinfoil pouch. Transfer fillets to a bamboo steamer.
4. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and steam cod until firm and cooked throughout, about 20-25 minutes. Allow to cool slightly before serving.

Makes 6 servings

I haven't done much cooking with fish at all yet, so I decided to pick up some cod and try an entirely different recipe. I named this Calcutta Cod because I thought it had a nice ring to it. The original dish was technically supposed to be steamed in banana leaves, but such a thing is not available here, thus the use of tinfoil. I would've just put the fish directly onto the steamer, but for some reason I thought the fish would not be infused with as much flavor this way. Perhaps I'll be able to verify that some day. This was frozen cod, so I thought that the amount of moisture in the fish sort of took away from the seasoning. I tried to pat it dry, but there was still a fair amount of liquid in the foil afterwards.

The chillies were pretty, but I mostly scraped them off because I didn't want to hurt myself. My mortar and pestle isn't the greatest and didn't break up the mustard seed very much. Perhaps this would've imparted much more flavor, but as it was there wasn't much other than fishy heat. The addition of another spice or two, or maybe a squeeze of citrus, would've easily made this from ho hum to quite tasty, I think. It's worth experimenting.

Whether or not people in Morocco would actually eat something like these Moroccan Potatoes is beyond me, but they're basically roasted with cumin, chillies and lemon. Somewhat surprisingly the cumin really took a backseat on this one and the lemon flavor was deeply infused into the potatoes. The chillies were edible by themselves, but coupled with the chillies in the cod I was reaching for a glass of milk before dinner was over. I'm definitely coming around to spicier food now though. I wasn't so sure if it were possible to grow accustomed to the heat, but apparently so. It's a good thing, too, because I can finally actually taste the differences in peppers and spices now, rather than just have it singe my tongue.

I wasn't really completely satisfied after eating this meal, so I polished off another pound of blueberries. To suggest something you might actually want to fill up the plate with, perhaps Indian Spiced Chickpeas or for something less starchy, maybe this Cabbage, Carrot and Apricot Salad.