Marie Mitchell’s fried fish with coconut baked rice and pickled blueberries
Marie Mitchell’s fried fish with coconut baked rice and pickled blueberries
A summery recipe, plus an essay on the sweet pleasures of delayed gratification. Words by Marie Mitchell.
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Welcome to Vittles Recipes! This summer we are featuring some of our favourite cooks as guest recipe writers. Our regular roster of columnists will start up again next week after a well-deserved break. This week’s guest writer is Marie Mitchell. You can read our archive of cookery writing here.
Marie Mitchell’s fried fish with coconut baked rice and pickled blueberries
A summery recipe, plus an essay on the sweet pleasures of delayed gratification.
What I really love about summer is the produce. Despite the confusing, climate-change-influenced summer we’ve been having, blueberries are very much in season in the UK, which excites me because I’m a fruit gal. I love being able to enjoy them when they’re at their prime. I know they’re in the supermarkets all year round, but a blueberry in winter to me feels criminal, and it tastes like it too. The delayed gratification that comes with cooking with the seasons, waiting for things to reach their best, is something I want to pass on to my daughter. To me, it is an art, one that we are losing because of the immediacy with which we can eat anything and everything we want, especially here in London.
Recently, I’ve been cooking low-key meals for me and my family that require minimal effort, but that still feel romantic, meals that almost make me feel like I’m flirting with myself. I’ve been busy, having released my debut cookbook in June, which means that the time I have with my family, and the meals I eat with them, have become all the more precious. I want to celebrate what lands in our fruit and vegetable box each week – ingredients, like blueberries, that should be used at their peak. But I also want to lean into what we already have in our home, basics like rice and coconut milk (without them, what is life?).
With that in mind, here is a recipe for summer from my kitchen: quick fried fish, with pickled blueberries and coconut baked rice. This combination, which feels like a family staple, came about by including a little of what we all love: rice, for my sweet one, my daughter, fried fish for us all, and the blueberries, well, for me. (I often think that the trick to pleasurable cooking is to make sure there’s a little something that’s just for you in the meal.) Pickling the blueberries adds an additional dimension to the meal, feeding into the way I like to eat, adding some sharpness to home comforts and simplicity.
This is a meal that still feels indulgent, because each mouthful is delightful. As we sat in the garden for our first al fresco meal this year, it felt like a moment. And as the nights draw closer, and the winter arrives, I can think about how next summer, I can make this meal, and be reminded of all that was happening in summer 2024. But I can also remember how I found a moment to be present amidst it all, and cook something with the ones I love.
Fried fish with coconut-baked rice and pickled blueberries
Serves 4
Time 1 hr 20 mins
Ingredients
for the coconut rice
200g basmati rice
10 garlic cloves
4 round shallots (or 2 banana shallots), quartered
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp ground white pepper
¼ tsp ground pimento (allspice)
5 fresh thyme stalks
60ml olive oil
400ml coconut milk