Valentine's Day Recipes: Calamansi Baked Fish & Toblerone Chocolate Fondue

by Justine C. Tajonera

We stayed in for Valentine's Day. But I cooked two things: a healthy (I think) fish fillet lunch at home and some (unhealthy) fondue after dinner at my Dad's place.

Calamansi Baked Bangus Fillet (adapted from the Lime Baked Fish of the South Beach Diet Book)


What you'll need:

• 1/4 kilo bangus back fillet (or half the pack)
  
• 1/4 cup calamansi (or Philippine lime) juice (from freshly squeezed calamansi)
• 1 teaspoon dried tarragon leaves
• 1/4 cup chopped green onion tops

Procedure:

1. Arrange the fish fillet in a baking dish (on my end, I lined my toaster pan with some wax paper and then put the fish fillet in it)
2. Sprinkle with the lime juice, tarragon and onion tops (on my end, I added salt and pepper to taste)
3. Bake covered at 325 degrees F for 15-20 min or until the fish flakes easily (on my end, I left it uncovered but put some butter on the tops of the fish and toasted in the toaster oven for 20 minutes)

The Verdict: A bit sour and a bit peppery but overall, pretty good and healthy.

We ate the fish at home and paired with some sauteed crunchy Baguio beans and some corn (scraped off the cob) that we microwaved with a bit of butter. I enjoyed making this as it was really easy to do and I knew it was healthy (well, except for the dabs of butter!). It also didn't take too long to make.

For Valentine's Dinner Dessert: Toblerone Chocolate Fondue with Banana


Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/asbjorn_floden/2402328243/

What you'll need:

• 1/2 cup cream (on my end, I used Nestle cream in a tetra pak box)
• 2 bars of Toblerone chocolate (we bought the V-Day gift variety which consisted of one milk chocolate bar and one white chocolate bar)
• 1 tbsp of brandy (better if Cointreau or Kirsch Brandy... on my end, I made the mistake of putting in 1/4 cup of Carlos Primero Brandy and ended up adding the second bar of chocolate to make up for all that brandy!)
• 1 piling of Lacatan banana (sliced horizontally, just keep adding until the sauce is finished)
  

Procedure:

1. Put all the ingredients in one microwaveable pot.
   
2. Nuke in the microwave (I got the term "nuke" from my sister. I love it!) for less than a minute and stir with a wooden spoon or a spatula and keep nuking and stirring until it's a well-blended chocolate-y and gooey mass of fondue dip.
3. Dip in the sliced bananas and enjoy.
   

The Verdict: Nakakalasing (gets you drunk)! But after adding the extra bar of Toblerone chocolate, we just kept going.

This was really, really easy (except for my mistake with the brandy!). It's great for any kind of cook (although, some would want to cook this in a proper sauce pan on low heat). I enjoyed the simplicity and the yummy goodness of this fondue and I expect to have more of it in the future. Maybe, I can mix in dark chocolate later on. Also, when I do find some Cointreau or Kirsch Brandy, I'll see how this recipe goes.