139 posts tagged “seafood”

Haven't done this one in a long, long time. Part of the reason for that is that Thai green curry paste is so damn fiery — to the point that after my first encounter with it, I made my own paste... But this time around, I made a mistake, and ended up having to simmer things a bit, which mellowed the paste a lot. An accident that made the dish better — you don't see that too often. But it happens.

And yeah, the small kaffir lime leaf was for decoration. Of course, them things were used in the dish. They are fantastic.

Now this was absolutely excellent. I used to think of this as "fiskeKrateng" because I'd only ever heard of it — I never saw it written down. My hearing is possibly a little impaired. But "fiskeGrateng" — hey, that makes sense: it's that French au gratin thing, isn't it? Well, I had a try at it a little while ago, and it turned out shit. Well, the "inside" — the filling — was good, but the topping wasn't. And the topping really is the key here. It's gotta be nice and crispy and whatnot.

This time around, I really got it right. The topping, I mean. And (as is often the case, of course), I accidentally used a much bigger pan that required, and ended up with far more crust, than filling. (As a child, I would always try to snag a little more than my fair share of the crispy top, than the filling.)

But the real deal about this dish isn't the "au gratin" part. What makes this a really unique dish (well, as far as I know) is that you mix eggs into the thing — and not just that: you whisk the egg whites separately (to stiff peaks) and then fold them in. So you end up with something that is almost souflé-ish in texture. I've not seen anything similar in any other cusines.

This is very cool. It's my mother's food, and I had to ask my sister for some very vital details on this one. I mean, it is a conseptual thing, and it's so rare to find food that makes use of any radically interesting methods — but this ones does. And what's more, it was part of my childhood.

The original recipe called for the use of coconut meat, which isn't very popular around here, so I just used coconut milk the last time around, but it ended up tasting very coconutt-y. This time, I decided to use toasted, ground cashew nuts instead. I don't know of anything that could replace coconut, but I figured I'd give it a go. It turned out really nice.

The cashew was mixed into a paste with the meat from three stripey Pete tomatoes that were skinned and seeded, and had most of its water removed. This mixture was thrown into the wok after I'd stir-fried some diced garlic, Jalapeño pepper, galangal and lemongrass paste over very high heat. Next, some brown sugar, turmeric (the color of this dish just screams turmeric, hehehe), lime juice and some torn kaffir lime leaves. After about 20 minutes of simmering, I buzzed it in a blender till smooth (galangal takes quite long to go soft) and returned it to the pan, pushing it through a sieve. Finally, I ended up adding some coconut milk, but let it simmer long enough to blend the flavors together.

I stirred in some cilantro towards the end, and served it over rice, garnished with more cilantro and a couple of very thin slices from a very hot Jalapeño. Very tasty. Would work very well chicken also, I think.

Christ, what a mess... I saw a show — Molto Mario I think — that featured a fish fillet with pancetta, wrapped in parchment or foil, and baked. It also reminded me of a Jamie Oliver salmon with lemon thyme, wrapped in prosciutto. So I sprinkled some lemon thyme over tilapia fillets and wrapped them in thin bacon, and in tinfoil. This was done on the grill along with some pre-cooked potato wedges. Served with a salad. The salad adds to the mess, but obviously, the worst looking thin is the fish and bacon. Not a good idea, that. It could have worked with prosciutto, but with bacon, I shouldn't have wrapped it in tinfoil, but just cooked them as is. Not that that's an easy task on a grill, with thin fish fillets. Oh well, I did learn a few things though.

Oh dear.

I've been trying to recreate a fish au gratin dish from my childhood. I loved the crispy crust on this dish so much that I always tried to scoop up a bit more than my fair share... But I'm having problems recreating the crust. Last time, the filling was too wet, and I poured too much oil over the crumbs, so they ended up completely soggy. So this time I left the filling (the sauce) a little thicker, and used a lot more breadcrumbs. Way too much breadcrumbs. And not enough cheese.

The breadcrumbs did far more to spoil the look, than the taste (well apart from the crust, which obviously was a complete failure), so overall it was really very tasty.

I sautéed some lightly floured potatoes to brown the edges (the crispiness would obviously fade, but that browning does create a little extra taste) and set them aside — same with a small dice mirepoix and chopped tilapia. This was put in a baking dish with a thick Béchamel sauce flavored with dill, thyme, Dijon mustard, white pepper and salt. Topped with lots (ie., far too much) of homemade breadcrumbs, and some commercial Italian seasoned breadcrumb, and finally some grated Jarlsberg.

The last line-caught salmon I cooked, I was too elaborate, so I wanted to go simple on this one. Salt, pepper, and garlic oil. The potatoes were mostly just an experiment, parboiled, tossed in garlic oil and grilled along with the salmon. They were overcooked when par-boiled, which gave them a fluffy texture (but also made them break apart a lot easier), but they were actually quite excellent. These were done over very high, and close heat.

The sauce was a frozen leftover crayfish thing, that I added a little blue cheese to and reduced. This was fantastic in its own right, but in the end it turned out to be overpowering. I never thought salmon was a delicate thing, but compared to crayfish, it certainly is. And in retrospect, I feel just downright dumb to not realize that asparagus would obviously be too delicate in flavor for such a sauce.

Oh yeah, and I overcooked the salmon. I haven't done skinned salmon fillets on a high and close heat very often. I should do something about that.

Still, a good meal, though.

Tilapia poached in a garlic, chili and coconut milk stew, served over spinach rice.

Plain rice is a little unimaginative, but I have no problem with it, if it is just used to soak up the sauce from a stew such as this. Still, this dish was lacking in vegetable so I decided to chop of a bunch of spinach and stir that in just as the rice was finishing. It worked a treat; definitely something I'll have to keep in mind.

The curry recipe was very simple, but I had some problems. First off, it calls for eight cloves of garlic (which I did use), and four fresh chilies — Thai, Serrano or cayenne. I've never had fresh Thai chilies, but I understand they can be very hot. Serranos, as hot chilies go, are on the mild side. Cayennes, well — they are murder. That's what cayenne pepper is made from. Four of those, and this dish would have been completely inedible. I used one small, fresh Jalapeño, and that gave it a gentle heat — it would have worked if it was a little hotter, but this was fine.

The coconut sauce was made by blending the garlic, chilies, salt, turmeric, some flour (for thickening) and a can of coconut milk. The uncooked garlic gave the mixture a very sharp, bitter flavor that never faded. Next time I think I'll use half the garlic.

Mustard seeds were throw into a hot wok, along with one finely chopped red onion. Once softened, the coconut mixture was added along with some curry leaves and a finely chopped, skinned tomato. The fish was placed on top, the sauce spooned over it, and it was left to simmer until flaky.

The problem here was that I had too much flour in the sauce so it became so thick that it didn't simmer properly — it was just too gooey and there wasn't enough bubbling, so to say. So the fish was undercooked (which you can clearly see from the red coloration on the fish — cooked tilapia is white when done). So I had to dilute it with water and return it to the pot after having taken the picture. Embarrassing.

But in the end, quite tasty. 

Wafer thin crêpes filled with shrimps in a Béchamel type sauce from Smart Balance fake butter, peanut oil, 1% milk and flour along with yellow onions, scallions, white and cayenne pepper, lemon juice and salt. Asparagus on the side.

Very tasty. And apart from the crêpes, very simple. The use of low fat milk, margarine and groundnut oil (as opposed to cream and butter) had an impact on the taste, but I can't quite tell whether it was good or bad — taste, or health-wise.

Julia Child famously said "I just hate health food." I think that was mostly because she appreciated good food so much, but in fairness, you can't help but wonder that some of those uh, "old fashioned" opinions came from people who never had much of a weight problem. Not because they were biologically lucky, but because they lived in a time when people lived a much more active life — by necessity, if not by choice.

So while I appreciate that anti-health food opinion, I also think that we shouldn't be scared of holding a differing one, in our day and age. Still, one argument says that if you use proper butter and cream you won't eat as much — and if it says low fat, calories, or "can be part of a healthy diet," people eat buckets of it. Insightful stuff.

But the most interesting bit was probably that this meal killed to birds with one stone: it was both low fat and calories, while at the same time, it miraculously made me eat less.

Because it just didn't taste as good.

Am seriously starting to feel confident about my grub at this point... This was a very improvised meal, made with leftover, frozen aloo mutter akuri (potatoes, peas and carrots), along with a blended garlic mirepoix flavored with my homemade curry spice mix and some sour cream. This was topped with grated parmesan and breadcrumbs (made from my last baguette attempt). I poured oil over it, to create that crispy crust, but I used too much — and the whole thing was too wet, so it ended up fairly oily looking. But still, it was crisp. Oh and roma tomatoes from the garden.