Do you fancy cold fish? No, neither do I. Actually, I didn’t know what it was when I took it out of the freezer; it was something white and shrivelled, with a touch of grey for good measure. It could have been chicken breast – a very old chicken breast that had languished in the freezer unnoticed for several years – but, as it began to thaw, it seemed more fishy than chicken-like. The other plastic bag plucked from the lowest drawer in the freezer at the same time definitely looked more like chicken. Before deciding what to cook for dinner last night I held up the ‘lucky dip’ bags of thawing frozen animal parts and plumped for chicken on the basis that, although rather small for a dinner for two, at least it didn’t smell fishy.

So I sliced the small portion of chicken breast into four slivers (to make them look less identifiable, aswell as more plentiful) and popped them into the griddle pan (that gives those attractive barbecue-style stripes) along with sweet chili peppers, onions and tomatoes. Done that way the chicken “goujons”, as I called them, were quite nice (for two dieters) and in my mind’s eye I already had the idea of cooking the fish in the same manner for a light lunch today.

~~~

“It would have been better deep fried,” I said two hours ago. At the time I was putting the plate on the table before Chris.

Chris eyed the fish suspiciously. Being bereft of batter or breadcrumbs, the fish appeared to be rather naked, white and unappetizing.

“Would you like some toast with it?” I asked, as if toast was a perfectly normal thing to accompany barbecued fish strips.

“No thanks,” he answered, so I didn’t feel able to have any either.

“At least it doesn’t smell too bad,” Chris held the plate up to his nose for inspection.

“No, it can’t be that old.” (Earlier Chris had suggested that it was two years old.)

“It must be the cod we put in the freezer a few months ago. It’s funny how nice it looked before it was consigned to the freezer,” Chris’s mouth turned down at the corners.

“Isn’t it?” I agreed and we both nodded.

At last, after the chit-chat and prevarication, we each took up a knife and fork, and I waited a moment longer to watch Chris cut into one of his pallid goujons and bring it to his mouth. Seeing as he didn’t spit it out I decided to do likewise.

“Does it taste right to you?” I asked after swallowing my first small mouthful.

“It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever tasted.”

“Oh, no, certainly not. My attempt at Chinese cookery – without using a recipe – was much worse; and my beetroot soup was the foulest thing I’ve ever tasted! My cakes without sugar weren’t very nice either,” I concurred.

“But it’s one of the nastiest fish dishes I’ve ever seen,” admitted Chris as he pushed a water-logged ashen flake of nude fish with his fork.

“Let’s not eat it then, if we don’t want too…” I said perkily.

“And we don’t want to,” my husband was already closing the knife and fork together on his plate.

“How about a nice piece of toast?” I rallied.

“But not on this plate please,” Chris laughed.

So Chris had toast and lemon curd from a clean plate and I had toast and honey. The cooked cod goujons went into a bag and back in the freezer, just for a short spell longer… until I go to the farm again. I wonder if Rosie’s dogs will like a bit of a cold fish? Think I’ll bring along a tin of tuna, too, just in case!