Teatime Scientist: Lionfish party for the cookbook challenge week 3!

Lionfish cookbook challenge week 3!

This week we had 12 lionfish ready to make lionfish loveliness happen, there was a two course lionfish dinner this week, with an appetizer of bacon wrapped lionfish to start. They looked like fancy little canapés, and despite my thoughts of strangeness of mixing bacon and fish and that's all, it works! I also liked the recipe as there is two ingredients and that's it!

Also, if you want to be extra fancy, the colourful spines of the lionfish can be baked in the oven (the venom from a lionfish is only in the spines, and heat denatures the venom making them harmless) and then used as toothpicks! I don't know many fish that come ready with their own fancy toothpicks!

Lionfish canapés, the fastest food to disappear!

The taste testers-about to eat!

And after..the thumbs up all round

This week the lionfish party really did become a party when everyone turned up at once, I had a brief panic as it looked like there was hundreds of people flowing into our kitchen and I wasn't sure there would be enough food!

We had 19 lionfish tasters round this week, and with some people bringing starters and some bringing dessert, a box of wine appeared (you know its a party when a box of wine appears) and it was turning into a nice party.

Lionfish pie

And here is the dish this week, lionfish pie. And pie is in the British sense here as it is a yummy potato mash pie, no pastry in sight. And in an addition, Jai added a creamy cheesy sauce on top ( that had a fancy name but I don't remember it). So lionfish mixed in a muchroomy white sauce and topped with cheesy mash!

Ready for the pie!

Luckily, there was enough pie to go around and everyone got to try some, although we still don't have enough forks and this time even had to have a few lucky people share a plate (our bit for sustainability!) but still, what more could you want on a cold February night (relative remember-it's colder for the Bahamas!) than some comfort food outside sitting around a fire pit.

This recipe is an easy to make, quick dish for lots of people and is pretty cheap and fun to make. You catch and fillet some lionfish (the fun bit) and then get a load of potatoes and some onions etc and you are all set.