Preparing a Fish Dish Trivia Quiz

Answer: Lohikeitto

Lohikeitto is a salmon chowder, a thick creamy soup made with boiled potatoes, carrots and leeks. Like many Scandinavian dishes, it uses dill for flavouring, as well as allspice. Rather than being blended, the vegetable chunks are served whole. Online recipes recommend making your own fish stock to really capture the flavour, though shop-bought stock is fine too.

All the other answers are Finnish dishes. Kalakukko is a pie, with fish baked inside a loaf of bread; kesäkeitto, or 'summer soup', is a soup made with summer vegetables; and loimulohi is salmon nailed to a plank with wooden pegs and cooked over an open fire.

Answer: Myanmar

Mohinga, or mont hin gar, is the national dish of Myanmar and is traditionally served as a breakfast food, though it can be eaten all day round. It consists of a rich broth made with fish sauce, gram flour or toasted rice, garlic, onions, fish paste, ginger and lemongrass; the fish used is usually catfish, and it also contains rice noodles. The mohinga shown here is garnished with coriander and fritters, which can be made with gourd, chickpeas or onions; other garnishes can include crispy onions, fish cake made with a type of fish paste called ngapi, or hard-boiled eggs.

Mohinga is traditionally eaten with a type of soup spoon called a 'mohinga zun'; it is a short Chinese soup spoon with a deep bowl.

Answer: True

Ceviche is highly popular in Peruvian coastal areas and is considered to be a quintessential Peruvian dish, to the point that it has its own national day (28th June), and it was included on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2023. UNESCO's argument for including it was that it is consumed both socially and on special occasions, such as the feast of St Peter (patron saint of artisanal fishers), and its preparation involves specific knowledge and practices, from catching the fish to preparation. Different recipes are also passed down through families, and communities can work towards sustainable measures for protecting fish species used in ceviche preparation.

Peruvian ceviche involves pieces of raw fish being marinated in key lime juice and served with sliced onions and chillis. Sea bass is the traditional fish of choice, though other regions may use shark (Trujillo) or sole (Lima), and it is traditionally served with slices of sweet potato and corn on the cob. Some variations include toasted corn or seaweed.

Answer: Hawaii

Clockwise from top left, this Hawaiian lunchbox contains rice, lomi-lomi salmon, kālua pork with noodles, and lau-lau. Lomi-lomi salmon is a Hawaiian fish and tomato salad, similar to pico de gallo; although salmon is not native to Hawaii, and tomatoes and onions were introduced to the islands by the Spanish horticulturalist Francísco de Paula Marin, it is still considered a Hawaiian dish. 'Lomi-lomi' is the preparation method, in which the salmon is rubbed with salt, before being cubed and mixed with chopped onions and tomatoes. Some versions include spring onions, chillis or cucumber.

Kālua pork is pork cooked in an underground oven, while lau-lau are taro leaves.

Answer: Smothered

The literal translation of 'étouffée' is 'smothered' or 'suffocated', and the shrimp in this dish certainly is smothered in sauce! Smothering is a technique used in Cajun cooking, which involves cooking meat or seafood with liquid in a covered pan on a low heat.

The sauce is a roux, a mixture of flour and fat (such as butter), mixed with tomatoes; the roux is a blond or brown roux, which means that it is cooked for a certain period to give it a nuttier taste. Crawfish étouffée is a popular variant.

It became a restaurant fixture in Louisiana in the 1950s.

Answer: A month in the French Republican calendar

'Thermidor' sounds like some kind of heating implement, but it's actually a month! More specifically, during the French Revolution, Republicans created their own calendar that was used between 1793 and 1805. The calendar began on the autumnal equinox and Thermidor was a summer month that started on 19th or 20th July, also known as 'Fervidor'. A play by Victorien Sardou, which was heavily critical of Maximilien Robespierre, was named for the month and performed in Paris in 1891. Although the origins of lobster Thermidor are unclear, it is thought to have originated around this time in Paris; one source claims it was launched at Chez Marie, a Parisian restaurant, and the owner named the dish in honour of the play.

Lobster Thermidor is served in a lobster shell. The meat of the lobster is cooked in a wine or Cognac sauce and topped with melted cheese, usually Gruyère. An early version at Maison Maire also contained mustard and tomatoes.

Answer: Marseilles

Along with footballers Eric Cantona and Zinedine Zidane, and 'La Marseillaise' (the French national anthem, first sung on the streets of Marseilles), bouillabaisse is one of Marseilles' most famous exports. Its name comes from the Provençal verbs 'bolhir' and 'abaissar' ('to boil' and 'to simmer'). Originally, fishermen in Marseilles used bony rockfish that they could not sell, but bouillabaisse can now contain other kinds of fish. Traditional recipes include red racasse, sea robin and European conger eel; turbot, hake, mullet and monkfish can also be used, along with shellfish and seafood such as octopus or sea urchins, and langoustines if you're feeling fancy. Provençal herbs are used for flavouring, such as fennel and bouquet garni.

The broth and fish are served separately, along with vegetables such as leeks or carrots that are simmered along with the broth. Rouille, a thick mayonnaise-like sauce made with breadcrumbs, garlic, egg yolk and cayenne pepper, is spread on slices of bread rubbed with garlic, which are served floating in or alongside the broth.

Answer: No

Unlike mohinga, crab Rangoon does NOT come from Myanmar! It's an American dish. Cream cheese, one of the stuffing ingredients, is not traditionally eaten in Myanmar. It was originally on the menu of Trader Vic's, a tiki-themed restaurant chain, in Beverly Hills in the mid-1950s. The identity of the creator is unclear; both Victor Bergeron, the founder of Trader Vic's, and Joe Young, a Chinese-American cook, have been credited with creating crab Rangoon. (Incidentally, Victor Bergeron also invented the Mai Tai cocktail.)

Crab Rangoon consists of little parcels of fried pastry stuffed with crab meat, onions, garlic and cream cheese, and is mainly served in Chinese-American restaurants. Sauces such as plum sauce, sweet and sour sauce or duck sauce are served alongside the parcels for dipping. The pastry can be twisted into a wonton shape, or folded into a triangle or four-pointed star.

Answer: Moqueca

Although all the dishes in the answers are Brazilian, moqueca is the one you're looking for. (Feijoada is a black bean and meat stew, a brigadeiro is a chocolate truffle and a coxinha is a fried dumpling made with chopped chicken meat.) There are many varieties of moqueca around the country, but the most typical variety contains tomatoes, coconut milk, onions, garlic, lime, coriander and fish or seafood. The fish or seafood used depends on the region; in Bahia, it can be dorado, shark, whiting or sea bass, while the Manaus variety uses freshwater fish. Vegetarian versions with plantain instead of fish also exist.

Moqueca is typically cooked in a clay pan, as the clay keeps it hot. It can be served alongside rice and plantain stew, or garnished with hard-boiled eggs.

Answer: Saffron

Paella is originally from Valencia, and the seafood variety shown here is 'paella marisco'. It is traditionally cooked in a large wok-like pan, from which it gets its name, and saffron is used to colour the rice, although turmeric can be used as a substitute.

The traditional Valencian paella includes tomatoes, beans, rabbit or chicken and olive oil along with the saffron rice. Paella marisco leaves out beans and uses lemon slices as garnish; paella mixta uses both seafood and meat. Restaurants in Spain traditionally serve paella on Thursdays, and you'll always see huge pans of it at the many tourist restaurants on Las Ramblas in Barcelona.