Cyclone dish, tilapia and lemon verbena!

It's been raining for 3 days and very windy. It's cyclone time! My lemon verbena tree couldn't stand the strong wind neither did the chillies. So I had to go into the garden this morning and made new cuttings, collected seeds and came up with what I call a cyclone dish. The wonderful thing about seasonal food is that I don't quite know what I'd eat from one day to the next which spare me from wasting time planning. Rivers are overflowing and tilapia fish are in abundance. Since I live not far from a lake, people come to my door to sell tilapia. So I decided to make a dish out of the broken plants and the fish. This is the result, a delicious, spicy tilapia in lemon verbena sauce!

You will need quite a lot of lemon verbena leaves. It is very easy to plant it in your garden but do not make the mistake like myself where I never prune it so it got to 3 meters high and cyclone brought it down. This plant has a very beautiful, strong fragrance and has a slight lemon taste to it. I use this plant a lot for tea.

You will also need a big tilapia fish, cleaned thoroughly. I must say that I am eating here a foreign introduced fish to Madagascar that has put our endemic fish species into disappearance. May be if we eat more of them, they will be eradicated. Here is an interesting video and article about the change in rivers and lakes in Madagascar.

• Put a bed of onions, lemon zest, lots of lemon verbena leaves in a non-stick frying pan.
• Stuff some more of that combination inside the fish itself.
• Put the two types of chillies (cayenne and habanero) washed and unopened next to it
• Add salt and pepper
• Cover and let it sizzle with its own juice
• Turn the whole fish to cook making sure you do not break it.
• Finally, drizzle a little bit of oil on top and cook 3 minutes more before serving!

Bidens pilosa - Asteraceae or Anatsinahy

Bidens pilosa, or Anatsinahy in Malagasy.
In the highlands of Madagascar, we eat quite a lot of leaf vegetables. It is easy and cheap because it grows everywhere. This one is a strong medicinal plant that lots of generations have been using in my family. When you look it up on the Internet, it has so many names and so many usage so make sure you search for it with its scientific name to avoid confusion.
It is considered to be a weed, a nasty one since it can take over your whole land! But in Madagascar, we eat so much of it, you will be surprised that it is almost disappearing in my region. People love its tender young leaves so they pick it up too early. After few years, there aren't many left and they wonder why. It has to be left alone to spread more seeds to get more Bidens pilosa! I grow it in my garden these days because I particularly like it for tea, for salad, to stir fry quickly and to mix it with raw peanuts. It has a bitter taste but that is where the good stuff is! I recommend not to take that away.
I stumble upon this site to find out more about Bidens Pilosa, Anatsinahy.