granted, not my best work with the new camera. but that night i was determined to eat hot food. an oft declared rarity for a food blogger. so instead of a well taken photo to entice you with, let me explain as best i can how to cook swordfish properly, as told to me by michael pardus, chef instructor at the culinary institute of america in hyde park.

you see, for me this is a big deal. for years swordfish had been low on my list of fish to eat, let alone cook. it was always kind of dry and uninteresting – flavorless if you will. and then michael cooked some up one evening and i was forever changed. it was moist, tender and flavorful which somehow in and of itself sounds a bit like an ad for cat food (and i do so wish i could have come up with better words) but believe me when i tell you, that these three words were never more true…

ok, the swordfish. the trick, the secret, the mystery – it’s a complete revelation. and here’s what you do.

you treat the swordfish as though you’re cooking a steak.

just start out with a piece of fish that’s at least an inch thick and let it sit in some olive oil, salt, pepper and whatever else you might be using such as herbs or lemon zest for about 15 minutes. get a good sear on both sides and then move the fish to an indirect heat source, either into the oven if you’re searing stovetop or to a part of the grill with no direct heat beneath it. let the fish cook until it’s about 5 minutes away from being done and take it off the heat and LET IT SIT as you would a ribeye. it will continue to cook, the juices will redistribute and it will be the best piece of swordfish you’ve ever eaten.

*cooks note – this piece of fish was less than an inch but my grill goes to 900 F so i was able to get the sear without overcooking. i think that within reason, the thicker the fish, the better. an inch and a half would be perfect. judging doneness is tricky unless you do it all the time, which i don’t so there’s always some anxiety involved. but if you can cook a steak properly you can do this as long as you know that the flesh of this fish is way more delicate and it will cook faster than a piece of beef.

so now you know.

this fish sat upon a bed of swiss chard simply sauteed with some olive oil and garlic, some salt and pepper – but let’s talk about the yellow squash for a moment shall we? it’s peaking nearly everywhere right about now and THIS is one of the things you must do with it. i got the idea from jennifer at last night’s dinner who got the idea from melissa clark who wrote about it in a magazine that’s going to have to remain nameless because if i typed the celeb’s name, my keyboard would explode in my face. ok?

anyway, jennifer described the dish as follows:

"It’s an extremely simple dish, ribbons of summer squash dressed with a drizzle of olive oil and a spritz of lemon juice, tossed with freshly grated parm and toasted pine nuts – just five simple ingredients, but they come together in perfect harmony. It’s particularly nice when you get a bite of everything together – the flavors and textures play really well together, with crunch and a slight bitterness from the pine nuts, the salty, pebbly parmesan, and the perky lemon dressing all jazzing up the mild, tender squash."

i highly recommend making this. it’s yet another example of the whole being so much greater than the sum of its parts. pine nuts are pricey right now but find them in bulk and just buy a handful. or splurge and just freeze the rest until you make this – again and again.

oh, and one last thing about the swordfish. if you happened to warm some olive oil in a small pan with some capers and anchovies and garlic and red chili flakes and lemon zest and parsley? perhaps even a chunked home fresh tomato from your garden thrown in there too? and drizzled that over the fish before serving?

it would be yum-O!

when you make something that has only 4 ingredients, that all get crushed together, with no heat applied whatsoever, what can possibly make your dish stand apart?

using pesto in your cooking, if only on occasion – is pretty much obligatory. it’s a flavor bomb. a crowd pleaser. pesto works on nearly everything one might imagine. we all like it. we all make it.

and i am here to tell you why mine is better…

1. olive oil – use ligurian. why? ligurian olive oil is not looking to overpower. it is light and fruity, unlike the more powerful tuscan and sicilian oils – and if you use a stronger, heavier, spicier oil, it’ll kill the flavor of your pesto. better to buy the light bertolli from your supermarket that tastes neutral. come to think of it, a spanish oil might work well here due to the gentler, buttery nature of those olives. regardless – think light. or just pick up some ligurian oil.

2. basil – fresh from the garden, picked minutes before using and soaked in water for a few minutes – otherwise it is too strong.

3. pine nuts – mediterranean. not chinese. these are long and slender. not the squat triangular version. they are lower in fat and higher in flavor. and they’re hard to find. and wildly expensive. but then, you’ve come to expect this of me…

4. cheese – i use mostly parmigiano, sometimes mixed with a little pecorino

this time around, i didn’t use a mortar and pestle, but i wish i had, if only to get the creamier texture. and i added some garlic – although not too much – that this saturday when i make it again, i won’t. and the pasta, the shape is called casareccia – a curving twisted tube that holds the pesto beautifully. although it’s a stellar italian dried pasta, this will be replaced with freshly home-rolled thin sheets made with a blend of ap flour, 00 flour, seriously farm fresh eggs and white wine.

the black tomatoes bought at my local farmers market the day before, were roughly chopped and thrown in raw, right on top. the pesto was thinned with some of the hot pasta water and then it all got tossed together. i regret not taking an ‘after’ shot. this dish is my kind of rustic, beautiful food.

all in all it was a perfect lunch on a sunday summer afternoon, accompanied by a wonderful bastianich rosé.

but this coming saturday night’s pesto? it might just kick this one’s proverbial ass.

stay tuned…

(the perfect pesto) <— for your viewing pleasure

ok. this was good. as in very good. as in i won’t go all yoplait ad on you, but this was another definite do-over. and the sooner the better.

i take very little credit as this plate of pasta was nothing more than a blend of: the latest post from rachel eats‘ blog, along with the addition of some murray’s cheese mail-ordered burrata. i’ve since found out – and to my surprise, that trader joe’s carries "burrata", but my obvious thoughts on that were although it’d most likely do in a pinch, there’s no way it could be even close to the same quality as these delicate cream filled mozzarella balls made in italy on monday, and at my door on wednesday…

because you deserve a closer look…

it’s hot as hell in nashville. we’re on day 10 of 90+ degrees with the usual humidity issue, and well, cooking is only so appealing. the ovens are off limits but i will boil a pot of water and saute some onions – and happily.

but here’s what i won’t do. although i preach high quality ingredients and authentic preparation, here’s another ceF ruling to go along with the whole ”i don’t do pastry crusts" thing. so now you can just go on ahead and add to that – "i don’t slip the skins off tomatoes". because honestly, it just seems SILLY. yet despite this blatant admission, i still struggle with the fact (if only ever so slightly) that this conscious oversight would be sneered upon by better cooks than me. i mean the italian nonas do things for GOOD REASON. but then i quickly rationalize the whole thing – i honestly don’t think it changes the experience. and i’m at peace with tomato skins – though i have succumbed to certain other kitchen practices such as always trussing my chickens.

adding to the list of ‘do’s', i also have claimed the red onion as my personal onion of choice for nearly all cooking purposes. i just like them better. and they look beautiful on my counter.

an important component of this dish is that you barely cook the tomatoes. for the record, mine were not home grown, as those are not quite yet available in nashville, but joyously coming soon. still, what i’d picked up at TJ’s were juicy and tomatoey. i used a fair amount of chopped basil from my herb pots, adding it the same time i added the chopped tomatoes to my pan of slowly sauteed onions, thinly sliced into half moons. you salt, you pepper and you’re done in 15 minutes. if that.

and then i strayed away from the recipe because I AM A REBEL and cut a creamy burrata ball in half and plopped it on top along with some more fresh basil. it’s a perfect dish. it just is. even with the aforementioned skins still thinly present…

but by far, the best part of dinner was the company. we had new friends over – emily and kevin. they brought extra tomatoes (in case), bread (i had none), wine (2 bottles of pino grigio) and a glazed lemon almond poppyseed cake that was quite good and tangy. and while we all sat there happily digging in to our respective slices, emily took her first bite and i watched as she sat there wrestling the flavors and consistency in her brain, thinking out loud about all of the things she perhaps could have done for it to have been better – and how she could improve upon it the next time.

and i thought to myself, i’m going to love this chick…

update  – with 3 reports now in on trader joe’s burrata, i am strongly recommending that you stay far away. my good friend heidi robb who i trust implicitly says, "Take a big hearty PASS. Their Mandara buffalo mozzarella is more burrata like than this insipid stuff."

because that’s what was in my pantry – and fridge – and freezer. friends were coming by on short notice and i needed to shop from my ever abundant kitchen. anything to appease some of the guilt from being perpetually overstocked and avoid a trip to the market. so although this was pretty much a throw together kind of dinner, there was a lot of to choose from. i try and do better in this regard, but i am a serial food buyer – forever curious.

it may soon be time for another month or so of "eating down the house". it could use happening…

but i had a box of beautiful saffron pasta that had been waiting patiently to be used, and some pinky orangey skinned snapper fillets that had been bought on a whim and thrown in the freezer nearly too long ago, plus the tail end of a bag of medium frozen shrimp bought for my sweet old kitty and used as treats. he’s been gone 4 months now and it was time to finish them up. pancetta is always a staple in my freezer, and i had an onion, some garlic, the remains of a still fresh bunch of parsley, a bottle of pinot grigio and a little glass vial of saffron that i’d been hanging on to…

there’s not much here in the way of a recipe. i could get specific but it’s really unnecessary and quite frankly, i couldn’t even begin to remember. feel free to use shallots instead of onions. for the pork – you can use chorizo, bacon or italian sausage instead of pancetta. or try some dry vermouth instead of white wine. add mussels, lobster, clams… it’s all going to work together – and it’s going to be delicious.

the onion gets cooked for a few minutes in olive oil, then add some diced pancetta, followed by a few minced garlic cloves. next the wine – i used about half a bottle, then add the saffron. throw the pasta into the water and add it into the pan when it’s just barely done – al dente to the max. i cooked the fish in a smoking hot cast iron skillet, crisping the skin really well. the shrimp were thrown in at some point but i can’t recall exactly when.

regarding the saffron, i used a full half gram of hand harvested d.o. from la mancha.. a big fat pinch. i’m a more is more kinda gal. and it was wonderful. and i’d do it again. and soon.

like many of you, this is the way i cook nearly all the time. i wing it. i change things. i substitute. i was inspired by a post i saw a few weeks back and it got me thinking.

and that’s really all it ever takes…

i was going for bluefish because robin raved about it, but there was none to be had. not in nashville. so instead, i came home with pompano. and now, i love this fish. it’s mild and firm – almost snapper-like. and it broils and grills beautifully, maintaining a flakey texture. so, see what happens when you’re open to all the universe has to offer? you get fresh, sustainable fish – and all good things.

and buddhist philosophy meets quantum physics? priceless…

whole foods had the whole fish on ice. and since it comes from the floridian gulf, not too far from here, well, it seemed the thing to do in light of the no bluefish scenario. the pompano, just in that day, was filleted for me on the spot, and i asked for the head and skeleton in a separate bag for a future fish fume.

this dish was found on caviar and codfish – and it drew me in. just a basic super hot broil with a compound butter. so, ok – compound butter. let’s talk about this…

actually, ruhlman gives us the quintessential and (as one has grown to expect from him) most eloquent rundown on compound butter right here. i strongly suggest that you have a look as it gives you insight to the classic options.

i ran with the combination that robin used because it sounded heavenly and i had everything i needed in my kitchen. so i left my butter (i use danish lurpak) out on the counter to soften, and then using a fork mixed in some finely diced parsley and minced garlic, meyer lemon zest, salt and pepper – and basil. the basil from my freezer. can i tell you about this? because i quite liked it.

i get a lot of requests to review products and books and i often refuse because i know the product is a bad match for me. but an email came from daregal asking me to try their frozen herbs and being that i’m not much for gardening or running to the market for one ingredient, as in basil for a compond butter – i was intrigued. so a box was shipped overnight and in it came about 8 containers of both individual frozen herbs (basil, cilantro, parsley, dill, oregano) and a few of their blends. when you shake the containers you can hear that everything is loose, not frozen together in a cube like the trader joe’s herbs that you may have seen. you just open the top and shake out what you need. daregal says that all their herbs are processed within 3 hours of being harvested. so they’re picked, washed, chopped, misted lightly with a vegetable oil to prevent sticking and then flash frozen. they are supposed to last for up to 3 years in your freezer. strangely, both a scary and a handy thought.

anyway, i’ve got my 8 containers lined up in a row in the door of my freezer and i’ll be using them here and there, and then i’ll be reporting back. you can count on me. yes you can. but only because I CARE.

but first and foremost, i can assure you that the flavor was all there. obviously this isn’t a substitute for the fresh basil leaves on a caprese sandwich – but it was perfect for this application. bottom line is dried basil is a joke. probably the biggest rip-off in the food world along with dried parsley. but this product actually retains it’s basillyness. (basillyness?)

i set my oven to a high broil and moved the shelf up close to the element. then i heated a cast iron skillet on my stove until it was smoking hot. into that went some of the compound butter and then the well dried fish, skin side down with more butter set on top – and then under the broiler for a few minutes – then out to baste and check for doneness, and then back under just briefly. in the meantime, some salted water had been boiled and green beans thrown in. those took about 4 minutes to decrisp and become tender and everything was ready at the same time.

i’ll be broiling fish a lot more now. i’ve been won over. it was absolutely perfect.

same dish, much less butter. as in, my plate.

still good. not as. oh well.

in less than three weeks i take off for nyc for the tri-annual mommy visit, haircut and restaurant go around. therefore all socializing over food has now come to a screeching halt and my already compromised caloric intake needs to come down even further in preparation for what inevitably becomes quite the food-centric getaway. until then i am TRYING VERY HARD to figure out a way to order light and not feel the need to eat everything. or drink too much wine. and still have dessert. but not over do it.

in other words i am going to attempt to not be me.
wish me luck with that…

but the other night, overall, i thought i did quite well. there were 6 of us for dinner and i was in my kitchen and in control of the menu. beforehand i had boldly told my friends. no nibbles or appetizers, no salad – or dessert. i’m serving one thing. and a loaf of crusty bread, which for the record i personally abstained from – as well as the impressive wines that my friends brought over, because i am not only disciplined and strong (albeit in small spurts), but obviously also a masochist.

under these circumstances, i knew whatever i made had to be pretty striking. i also knew i was going to do a seafood dish but couldn’t face the selection at nashville’s ‘whole foods’. i considered a few cioppino recipes and even glanced at julia’s bouillabaisse. but then i wandered over to suzanne goin’s ‘sunday suppers at lucques‘ and i spotted "the dish". page 268-9. mussels and clams with vermouth, cannellini beans and cavolo nero. reading through it, i was captivated by the ingredient list. this was so very my kind of food. for those of you that haven’t been paying attention, i gravitate towards simple italian food, stressing the quality of the ingredients – ad nauseam.

i called d’artagnen to ask who they considered to be their seafood equivalent and they reminded me of browne trading. the way i see that is: if it’s good enough for eric ripert and daniel boulud, then i’m in. so i ordered my fish from them, which turned out to be a good move on my part. after speaking to nick for awhile about what was freshest and best, that’s about when i i decided to veer from the recipe, if only by upping the seafood ante. goin called for using clams and mussels, and to that i added 3 small lobsters, scallops, haddock and the last of the wonderful maine sweet shrimp, which was to be used as a garnish due to its inability to take much heat. i also doubled the recipe. because you just can’t have too much of a good thing…

and that, dear readers? is the very philosophy that gets me into trouble…

the largest serving vessel in my home is my 16" wok. i rarely use it because, well, it’s just huge. but this was the perfect thing for this dish and i was grateful that i had it around.

everything was piled into the wok which filled it to the brim – and somehow our italian seafood dinner looked quite at home, all nestled in the unfamiliar asian skillet. i wish i’d been more ‘on it’ with my photo’s, but once that seafood was ready to rock and roll, i had other things on my mind. so cary, being the good boyfriend, grabbed the camera and took some shots.

the recipe is both straight forward and detailed  – a testament to goin’s book which leaves very little room for any error with a lot of very helpful techniques and explanations… go and buy this book. seriously. it’s a great one…

the beans were of course from rancho gordo. they were soaked for a few hours, although goin throws hers in dry. the bean component was made the night before and i’ve got to tell you, it is beyond truly outstanding.

here’s how it works: toast 2 teaspoons of fennel seeds until brown and then pound them roughly in a mortar. in a medium pot heat 1/4 cup of olive oil and when hot, add to that a sprig of rosemary and a crumbled chili de arbol. sizzle for a minute and then add the fennel seed and a cup or so of diced onion along with a tablespoon of thyme leaves. sauté until the onion is wilted. add the beans and coat them for about a minute and then add water to 3" above the beans. bring to a boil and the reduce heat. place a paper towel over the beans to keep them submerged and add 2 teaspoons kosher salt after about 30 minutes (mine took longer to soften) and then cook adding water as necessary. you want to have a good amount of bean liquid that is starchy and rich. because this is THE STUFF that makes the final dish sing. there’s no fish stock used in this recipe.

and even if you don’t make this dish then just make these beans. and serve them with roast chicken. or with a poached egg and broccoli rabe. the beans themselves will knock you over. you will make them and then you will love me because i will have opened your eyes to greatness. they way i see it, it’s the very least i could do...

i also must tell you that these little sweet maine shrimp are very delicious little suckers, but you have to treat them with the utmost respect. too much heat and they turn to a mealy mush. after the dish was done and off the heat, these were placed on top of the rest of the shellfish and the residual warmth was all that was needed.

a perfect 1990 barbera sits beside a grassy tuscan olive oil. one bowl to eat from, and another for the shells…

a precarious balance – a profoundly visual metaphor for life…

the kale gets blanched in salted water and wrung out and cut into ribbons. olive oil goes into a (wide not tall) hot pot followed by diced red onion, a bulb of chopped fennel, tons of sliced garlic, chiles, rosemary, thyme and salt and pepper. then the greens for about 10 minutes until they break down – and then the beans along with the liquid. after a few minutes add the clams and then a couple of minutes later the vermouth and then the mussels. let it all steam until the shells open and then stir in a few tablespoons of butter. i forgot to taste for seasoning but i lucked out. it was just right.

when i make this again, and i will, i think i’ll keep it less busy. the lobster was wonderful but extraneous, the haddock got knocked around by the shells and shredded – making for a heartier broth, but really in the end was unnecessary. the browne trading’s scallops were fresh and phenomenal, as was all the seafood. they’d be a do-over for sure, if only because cary loves them best.

goin’s ‘sunday suppers’ is a seasonal book – from market to table. this recipe was listed for fall, which although we’re completely faced in the other direction, it still felt right on a cool and rainy friday evening. we talked, they drank, and we laughed our asses off for 4 hours. everyone chipped in on the seafood tab which eased the $ load and we couldn’t have had a better seafood dinner anywhere in nashville.

and i’ll venture to guess that no one missed dessert in the least…

back in the days of no car and a 12 lb puppy (also known as early march ’09), i was home watching martha stewart. which honestly, i hardly ever do. but let’s face it, she gets the best guests. chef after chef they make the pilgrimage to the martha from a wide array of great restaurants, shooting the breeze with the quintessential homemaker – who is perhaps the worst interviewer/conversationalist on tv – while they cook up rather remarkable food. and i am here to tell you, it can totally draw you into the martha vortex. you, meaning me. or us – if you’d like to join in.

anyway i was younger then – and it was raining. and on that day the shows theme was ‘atlanta’, which although only a 4 hour drive from nashville, is one i rarely take. but i hear the atlanta restaurant scene is damn fine, which then naturally conjures up all kinds of longing. envy. gluttonous thoughts. you name a deadly sin and i’ve conjured it.

so, the chef from ‘repast‘ was on martha, doing an interesting version of crab cakes. and i just happened to have a pound of jumbo lump meat sitting in my refrigerator along with nearly every other ingredient – except the lemongrass and the raw shrimp which were easy purchases.

mostly easy because chris picked them up on his way over. i literally willed the ingredients to my door.

cooking with chris is truly wonderful because for the most part he does everything. and i like that in a sous chef. plus he’s way better with a knife than i will ever be. and he also cleans up really nicely. and i mean – my kitchen.

crab cakes tend to be bound with varying amounts of breadcrumbs and i loved the fact that these are held together with a shrimp mousse. but what initially sparked my interest was quite simply that the overall ingredient list screams huge flavor burst. and i am nothing if not a fan of the flavor burst. actually perhaps i am a slave to the flavor burst.  i’ll need to contemplate which of those rings more true and i’ll be sure to report back.

1 cup heavy cream (i used half and half)
1-inch piece lemongrass, crushed
1-inch piece ginger, crushed
1 star anise
1 dried birdseye chile, crushed
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon Tabasco
1 1/2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil
3 scallions, trimmed and thinly sliced
1 pound fresh medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 large egg
1 pound jumbo lump crab meat, picked
zest of 2 lemons
1 cup cornmeal
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon canola oil

come on… does that not sound just lovely? but listen, i had to lean it down a bit by making a different dairy decision. half and half is about as much fat as i can bear. i think using cream would be the way to go if only i lived in an alternate universe and wanted that fattier mouthfeel – but not for me. not that day. maybe not ever. although it could happen. tomorrow. because the flesh, it is weak in the face of fat grams…

so then:

place cream, lemongrass, ginger, star anise, and chile in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. remove from heat and let cool; strain, discarding solids. stir in fish sauce and tabasco; set aside.

heat sesame oil and olive oil in a small skillet over medium heat. add scallions and cook until soft, 1 to 2 minutes. remove from heat; let cool.

place shrimp and egg in the bowl of a food processor and process until smooth. with the machine running, slowly add cream mixture; process until well combined.
In a large bowl, mix together crabmeat, lemon zest, and cooled scallions. gently fold in shrimp mixture.

line a baking sheet with parchment paper (i used a silpat) and sprinkle with cornmeal. place a 1-inch high round cutter about 2 1/2-inches in diameter on baking sheet. fill cutter with crabmeat mixture, packing down slightly. repeat process until all crabmeat has been used, about 8 times. transfer to refrigerator to chill, 6 to 8 hours.

preheat oven to 350 degrees. heat butter and canola oil in a large ovenproof skillet over medium high heat. place crab cakes, cornmeal-side down in skillet and cook until golden, about 2 minutes. turn crab cakes and transfer skillet to oven (i never did this) until cornmeal side is golden and crisp, about 5 minutes. serve immediately with butter sauce.

and we’re talking yuzu caper butter sauce. ok, so i am down with a little butter sauce. afterall, it’s just a. little. butter sauce. but no. chef joe truex’s recipe is using well over a pound of butter for 4 people. after using a cup of heavy cream in the cakes. sorry chef. no can do. so we improvised and used about 1/3 of that, cut into some yuzu juice, capers and shallots. and it was more than plenty. crazy freakin’ chefs… they are trying to kill us. i swear… so unnecessary.

all in all it was a good dish although i’m not running to make it again. the shrimp mousse was a fine idea and good for future reference. it would translate well to any number of seafood related cakes or stuffings. i suppose my biggest issue was that i didn’t pick up much of the spice infusion flavoring in the finished product, and that was somewhat disappointing. so next time i’d hit it a bit harder to get the flavors more pronounced.

but it was different. and interesting. and it brought me and martha closer together and quite frankly, we needed that.

and well, chris cleaned up so very nicely. it was almost like it never happened…

the literal translation of bagna cauda means warm bath. but in my world bagna cauda is a truly delectable warm and sexy mixture of anchovy, garlic, butter and olive oil in which to dip vegetables, bread and really whatever else you deem appropriate. because dear readers, i am not here to judge you and you certainly don’t need to report back to me…. but just so you know, i personally settled upon baking more of the wine infused batali pizza dough, this batch completely unadorned and fortified with a cup of ‘white whole wheat’ flour, along with simply grilled tiger shrimp, raw celery stalks, chunks of red and yellow bell peppers, radicchio and endive. sadly, there were no cardoons in sight. had there been i would’ve been even happier than i already was – if that could have been possible.

i finally bought a can of "real" anchovies, unlike that unrealized inferior product that comes in little tins and jars. this is the industrial sized can from italy. the kind that real chefs use. because although i am a hack, i still want my food to be as good as i can make it. and since i’m only willing to go so far, i wind up relying heavily on the best ingredients i can get my hands on. you can pretty much fool all of the people all of the time with this method of cooking. take that, abe.

so let’s talk about this whole anchovy business, shall we?

this is a very large and empty can that once housed a school of sicilian anchovies weighing in at one kilo.

i forgot to take a shot of the full can, if only so i could show you the salt packed anchovies all neatly crisscrossed in rows. i only used about 8 of the little fish and the rest quickly went into a container and were covered with olive oil to keep them relatively oxygen free and ready for action at my beck and call – for the next 2 years – which is about how long it’ll take me to go through them. AND by the way you have to chop off the tails and remove their guts and backbone. i was not aware of this prior to my $28 purchase. but if i had it all to do over again, i’d snap up a can of this fishy goodness in a ny minute. they are barely comparable to what i’ve used in the past…. and if mario were god, and if god were in heaven – he’d be smiling down at me. as it stands now he has no real idea that i exist which – funny enough, is how i feel about god…

but i digress…

so i made the bread. and then i made the bagna cauda. after that i chopped up the peppers and grilled the shrimp. the spread got laid out on my table along with the lettuces and a damn fine bottle of barbera (2006 agostino pavia & figli barbera d’asti ‘blina’) that at $16 just thrilled me. and it was uncorked. and then we ate. and it perhaps wasn’t a gorgeous spread, inappropriate for even a novice photo shoot such as this – but it was incredibly good to eat. of this much i can assure you.

naturally, the calories were relatively high but i had eaten sparsely (again) that day, and once again reigning it way back the next. but it felt like clean food. i felt really good after i ate. and after weighing myself yesterday i’m down about 11 lbs in 6 weeks… so in 4 months i should be me again. and i will have done it without torturing myself. torture is bad. when it comes to myself i have a total no torture policy, though i make no guarantees what i am capable of doing to you.

and back by popular demand: grace, the amazing growing puppy - at 14 weeks.

(she’s all mine and you can’t have her…)

i used tilapia. o’charley’s perpetual "catch of the day". and really,  it’s a nothing kind of fish. farmed. not terribly exciting, yet i buy it all the time. tilapa is inexpensive. you can’t seem to overcook this fish. it crisps up with minimal oil. and it goes well with almost anything and everything. it’s definitely not the fish you have a fling with, it’s the one you marry. i have flings with, say, chilean sea bass – expensive and rich. but tilapia is your everyday fish. you can totally count on tilapia.

so my latest greatest is to chop up a fennel bulb and throw it in a pan with 2 teaspoons of oil and get it all browned up. i added minced garlic and some capers – an anchovy would work nicely too, and then a minute later some chopped fresh tomatoes (good canned are an option). and oregano. i love oregano. it’s right up there with thyme as my favorite herb. and rosemary. and basil. anyway, just season that up, add a bit of water, cook it down for a few minutes and put it on top of whatever’s going. fish. chicken. pork chops. pasta. italian sausage, giant lima beans… then add a few good olives. the fennel frond garnsh was for you – because i care. especially after the beige food assault of ’09.

while adhering to ‘the plan’, not only do i count every calorie but i weigh everything. because i am neurotic that way and because i secretly kind of like it. i realize this eccentric ‘production’ isn’t for everyone but i can’t impress upon you enough how effective it is. i am trying to set myself up for success. because failure is just not an option. speaking of which, do you remember when wynonna went on oprah, all "i need to put myself on my list because i do sooooo much for my fans and family that i have no time to eat right even though i have a personal chef and trainer on staff"? it just wasn’t pretty on so very many levels. (personally, i think she left oprah’s studio and her first stop was shoney’s… bless her heart. (fyi – this is what they say in the south.))

i often make this for dinner even with fennel at $4 a bulb. and hey, by the way, is it me or are ‘whole foods’ produce prices out of control? anyway, the good news is that you get everything on that plate for in the neighborhood of 375 calories – and that right there is a caloric bargain. and c’mon. you gotta admit. that’s awesome…

UPDATE!!! THIS JUST IN:

Farm-raised tilapia has very low levels of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids, but high levels of omega-6 fatty acids, new research shows. Researchers say this combination could be dangerous for some patients with conditions including heart disease, arthritis, asthma and other allergic and auto immune diseases.

The study is in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. Senior study author Dr. Floyd H. Chilton is quoted in the article: "If you’re in a vulnerable population such as a heart disease patient, you need to be very careful with what you’re eating, and that includes everything. But when it comes to fish, there’s not a more important thing you can do for heart disease than eat the right type of fish or take dietary fish oil. There is evidence that you may harm yourself by eating the wrong kind of fish, and [farmed] tilapia and catfish are the two that fall into that category."

and now 2 complimentary puppy pics of grace at 10 weeks old on her 7th day at home. because she is just too damn cute not to show off.

merle, my loved and adored burmese kitty: february 1, 1994 – december 25, 2008

happy new year. it’s been so seemingly long now since i’ve written that i barely know where to begin except to say that i’ve thought of you. often. like every time i cooked or ate i’d think – i’m a food blogger and i should be telling somebody something about this. and then i’d go watch a movie.

but first of all, thanks for supporting ‘menu for hope V‘ and for bidding on the mullet roe from ‘rk’s black hammock smokehouse’. the total worldwide effort raised over $60k which will make a real difference in the lives of so many african children. or it could buy me the bmw i’ve had my eye on. you decide. anyway, i hope that a ceF reader wins the mullet roe because then you’ll finally understand just what i’ve been going on and on about regarding this esoteric florida delicacy.

and please note that i truly believe that you are all more than worthy of this amazing foodstuff and i can assure you that if i were empress there’d be mullet roe sacs for each and every one of you. because that it the kind of empress i would be. and if being empress were an electable position, smoked mullet roe and bottarga would be my platform, and my campaign slogan would be "smoke fish eggs, not your enemy" or "more sacs, less tax". granted, the concept needs tons of work. but i would totally be there for you in this way.

and thanksgiving in december was finally celebrated on ny’s eve. and after i read through every suggestion that you left in the comments, we took it all to heart and as many of you suggested, opted for sheer simplicity. we kept the food close to the ground with few ingredients. i roasted 2 chickens using the infallible zuni café method of salting smaller sized birds and covering loosely in the fridge for 2 or 3 days, then hitting them with a very high heat for about 50 minutes. the result – crisp skin and moist meat every time. i baked a simple cornbread using olive oil and made the stuffing using that and chicken sausage, red onions, garlic, celery, sage and veal stock. i also caramelized some brussels sprouts in a heavy skillet and hit them with a balsamic glaze and then roasted some sweet potatoes in nothing more than olive oil and salt. the cranberry sauce had fresh orange zest along with the juice, just a bit of brown sugar and a cinnamon stick.

at dinner, santos toasted to his beautiful wife rudrani, recognizing the auspicious evening and upcoming year with an excellent bottle of tattinger’s and we ate our dinner with a bottle of cotes du rhone. we felt grateful to not only be alive – but together, looking forward to the best year of our lives, if only because it is the one we will be living.

and being the exciting people that we are, cary and i were in bed at 11:30pm and flicked on the tv to watch all the festivities in nyc and do the whole pretend countdown (we’re on central time) and DID ANYONE ELSE SEE DICK CLARK AND GET FREAKED THE HELL OUT? it was, shall we say, NOT GOOD. it wasn’t the slurring due to the stroke it was "the face". he looked like he had died 2 days before and was embalmed, then put in full make-up and propped up in a chair. NOT GOOD. we both got the willies and quickly changed the channel. so much for going out with grace… i think much of america collectively gasped when they saw him. it kind of broke my heart.

and there was actually some food worth mentioning that happened to get cooked and then photographed in my kitchen during the tail end of ’08. so i thought i’d purge what was left in my files and hit you with it all at once in the name of starting fresh and not being wasteful.

this first dish, which i’ve now made perhaps 4x and have neglected to mention it to you, dear readers, is a smashing thing to eat. it’s a total wow and you need to make this one soon. grilled haloumi with caramelized fennel. oh. my.

just grill the fennel in some olive oil until it caramelizes, toss it with chopped italian parsley and spritz with lemon. then top it with the grilled halloumi. it is so much better than you might imagine it to be. so even if you are sitting there thinking, "no – i get it. that would be excellent", then you go and make it and it’s like crazy good and everyone thinks you are a brilliant cook and talks about you for days on end. i saw this dish on an australian blog called souvlaki for the soul. besides his beautiful food, the guy is a serious photographer. anyway, you heard it here second. now go make this.

jennifer? i told you i was going to make this and i did. and then i bought the book because ‘sunday suppers at lucques‘ by suzanne goin is most definitely a must own. and romesco is a must have in your repertoire. it works with nearly everything and although i’ve no recollection what fish this was, it was an excellent accompaniment to the romesco along with steamed broccoli.

romesco sauce
from ‘sunday suppers at lucques’ by suzanne goin

5 ancho chiles
2 T raw almonds
2T blanched hazelnuts
1 ¼ c extra virgin olive oil
1 slice country bread, about 1 inch thick
1/3 cup canned san marzano tomatoes
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 T chopped flat leaf parsley
½ lemon for juicing
kosher salt

preheat the oven to 375. soak the chiles in hot water for about 15 minutes, then seed and stem them. spread the nuts on a baking sheet and toast them for 8-10 minutes. remove from the oven and set aside. fry the bread in a bit of the olive oil, then let it cool and cut into cubes. return the pan to the stove, heat the chiles for about 2 minutes, then add the tomatoes. cook them until they break down and the juices are reduced, then turn off the heat and set aside.

pulse the nuts, bread and garlic in a food processor, then add the chile and tomato mixture and pulse again to combine. pour in more olive oil while the machine is running until you have the texture you want. taste for seasoning, then stir in the lemon juice and parsley.

ok. i know. not beautiful. but i am so incredibly proud of what’s going on in that bowl you just couldn’t know. you see, peter and heather are constantly cooking all these amazing asian dishes filled with mysterious ingredients to the point where i personally find it to be borderline between annoying and inferiority complex causing. my problem? i’d say so. but a few weeks ago i whipped up this little number using only what i had on hand. undoubtedly a red bell pepper would have come in handy along with some bamboo shoots or something else with color but it tasted pretty damn good and it contained the following, in no particular order:

white miso
mirin
shoyu
raw chicken breast
a chopped shallot
frozen peas
sriracha sauce
fresh rice noodles – sold refrigerated in the vacuum sealed bag
gochujang
sesame oil
my poultry stock

never to be duplicated, but again, it was a proud moment – especially since there is no chinese food in nashville worthy of buying unless you count ‘pf changs’. sad but true.

presenting, farinata – a thin chickpea pancake/pizza like thing that’s pretty popular in liguria. i saw farinata mentioned somewhere and then i found this recipe on the food & wine website – and well it’s very much my kind of food. yes yes, i scorched the top a bit with my broiler but really it was no big deal – just a very surface ring of black. you basically mix garbanzo flour and water and let it sit for a couple of hours. then you preheat the oven to 500f, skim any foam off the batter and add salt, rosemary (i think i used sage) and olive oil. then heat a cast iron skillet in the oven for 10 minutes, add some olive oil to the pan, add the batter and bake. again, i made the mistake of deciding to brown the top a bit more and i took my eye off the oven…

but there were no complaints and it went fast…

this was from the ‘king arthur flour whole grain baking‘ book. i’m pretty sure this recipe called for peaches but i loaded it up with 3 pears being that i had just bought a huge box of them to support a friends daughter school choir. great idea… so much better than gift wrapping or magazines. anyway, i lowered the amount of sugar the recipe called for and well, cary ate the entire loaf in one day.

vegetables on brown basmati rice. exciting, i know. please try and contain yourselves. but for the record we’ve got brussels sprouts, carrots, onions, garlic, broccoli and some lovely briney olives lightly sauteed in olive oil and finished with a balsamic glaze. and i must tell you, it was quite delicious. and since i took a picture of it, i felt the need to share. because not only am i needy that way, but also because the rice had the perfect bite and the vegetables were cooked to that crisp but not overdone finish. i got lucky on this one. it was a moment in time where all the planets aligned just so, and the vegetable gods smiled down upon me. and i was grateful and appreciative and all those things that the vegetable gods expect one to be.

scarlett runners from rancho gordo dusted with espelette. there’s some pan fried tilapia back there with a spicy green olive tapenade on top. but the beans and the espelette were seriously good. and even more seriously basque.

but regarding the espelette… like if ever you were to get some? think eggs. scrambled, deviled, fried or perhaps just one orange egg yolk sitting atop a small mound of sheeps milk ricotta mixed with a bit of orange zest, sprinkled with this extraordinary pepper and then tucked carefully between 2 sheets of thin pasta…. yes. think that.

so dear readers, for the record – my personal ‘o9 resolution is to lean down both physically and financially. and i’m heading in that direction, yes i am. and there’ll be more on that later.

and although i may be 4 days late, allow me to raise my virtual glass to you. here’s to a kinder, gentler new year…

maybe the only thing better than eating bottarga, is eating gifted bottarga that was domestically caught in tampa bay and cared for by a man with a generous heart, the soul of a true food lover and the mind of a meticulous craftsman, .

you see, i have this friend…

last year he sent me a box that contained a smoked mullet fillet which was just plain excellent, along with some of his smoked mullet roe which was beyond divine. if you can somehow imagine… the roe sacks were still a bit soft, all yolky and smoky and well, it’s a flavor pop that i can’t bestow proper justice on with only a few words – but dear readers, i will try. think insanely good. as in memorable. one of those foods… and – it is unavailable for purchase. anywhere.

this year i got a bit more of the same – plus, through tedious research and tenacity my friend decided to salt and sun-dry a fair few of his precious roe in the florida air. and he nailed it with his technique. the bottarga he created was as good as the italian stuff, if not better, because it was just so fresh.

when you pay $70 for a double lobed mullet sac, you tend to use it a bit sparingly. but still, that amount could easily serve 10, which if you do the math is not really all that crazy especially, if served over spaghetti. but when it shows up at your door with no credit card receipt, a pure gift, sent only to be enjoyed wholeheartedly – well, then you can go just a little bottarga crazy. so the one full size double lobe was grated into my very best olive oil and the pound of pasta was divided between 5 of us and garnished with this precious gold, the only other additions being finely minced garlic, meyer lemon zest and juice, chopped parsley and a cherry pepper that added just the slightest kick.

my bowl of pasta, pre tossed… we all loved it. truly and passionately.

so, to recap - please note that there is no heat involved in the making of this sauce. there was the warming of the bowls in the oven – and of course the cooking of the pasta, which when done got quickly tossed with all the aforementioned ingredients. i’ve used other methods, but this way really works as well as you could wish for…

this was our first course, the smoked mullet fillet on toasted millet bread. or as i like to refer to the dish, "mullet on millet", (chef keller – please feel free to use this) with just some olive oil and thinly sliced meyer lemon. the meyer lemons are so mild that the rind is really easy to eat and i’m a lemon rind eating kinda gal from way back. and yes, granted, i could have cut the slices thinner but my knife skills are not that impressive and this is one of those things that makes me a total lightweight/hack/novice when it comes to cooking… but i can live with this fact and that’s why the culinary gods created mandolines for when i feel the need to impress…

a huge thank you, RK… one day we shall feast on bottarga together!

bottarga post #1 - fail…

bottarga post #2 - faith restored…

bottarga post #3 - the friend appears in my life… changing the way i look at bottarga entirely

bottarga post #4 - experimenting still, but now becoming the norm…

and hopefully a post #6 will be in my immediate future.

oh, how i love this stuff…

i have a recipe for a flourless chocolate cake, found years ago in a ny times sunday magazine, that is unbelievably good. if baked with all the best ingredients, it costs $40 to make and serves 20 generously, weighing in at over 2 lbs.

i rarely make it. and now there’s a good chance that i never will again…

because i’ve found a new chocolate cake. and it’s the one for me. as in forever.

except for one thing. and it’s a very funny thing. you see, the recipe calls for 6 tablespoons of butter. and i don’t know how it happened, but i used 16. yes dear readers, the entire package of plugra butter went into my cake. as in more than double the called for amount. hee.

i keep wondering how i slipped up. granted, it was the 5th recipe i’d made that day. so maybe i was tired – or perhaps even momentarily distracted. but somehow, regardless of the miscalculation it was ‘screaming crazy’ good. it was ‘call each other on the phone and talk about it the next day’ good. but now i’m thinking that this particular incarnation of my new favorite chocolate cake has sadly fallen into the ‘once a year only’ good category…

on the upside, at least now i have learned that 1 T butter = 1/2 an ounce…

new bittersweet chocolate cake
adapted from alice medrich’s pure dessert

8 oz 70% bittersweet chocolate
6 tablespoons unsalted butter (i used 16, as in 8 oz. – hee)
3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
scant 1/4 t salt
1 t vanilla extract
1/3 cup plus 1 T (1.2 ounces) all purpose flour
whole nutmeg for grating

position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 350. line the bottom and sides of a 9" round baking pan with foil

place the chocolate and butter in a double boiler that is barely simmering and melt until smooth. stir frequently. when quite warm, set aside.

in a medium bowl, beat the eggs, sugar, salt and vanilla with a hand-held mixer on high speed until the eggs are thick and light colored about 2 minutes. whisk in the warm chocolate and then fold in the flour.

scrape the batter into the lined pan and spread evenly. bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 25 minutes. cool on a wire rack.

invert the cake onto a rack and peel off the foil. turn right side up on a cutting board. while still warm, grate liberally with the nutmeg.

there is something about a 9" round, single layer, simply adorned cake that appeals to my inner aesthetic. it feels elegant to me. and so although medrich offers this cake recipe as her "new bittersweet brownies", made in an 8" square, only suggesting as an afterthought the round pan with the grated spice, i for one, could not imagine serving it any other way…

the question is, when i make it again, i wonder how much butter i’ll use?

*authors note – i posted once again on thursday night smackdown while michelle is on a short hiatus. please click on over and read about my foray into ‘cheater bbq’.

since i believe in the law of averages, and my last post was a novella (bless those of you that read…), i give to you the grilled peach in 100 words.

i sat these georgia beauties cut side down in some olive oil and then sprinkled them with a good flakey salt. after a trip to the grill, my peaches were dressed with creme fraiche, tasmanian honey and some pan toasted almonds.  because it’s what was here. 

it seems like all the cool people are using mascarpone and pistachios.  but let me tell you, this was truly not shabby. 

at all.

(inspired by proud italian cook)

              

my rss feeder broke.  and i didn’t realize it for 3 months.  mostly because i (still) don’t even understand what exactly an rss feeder is, or what it does – talk about being oh so techno savvy… but my stat’s were dropping off and well, try as i might to just ignore the cold hard numbers, i started to take it personally.  was it something i said?  something i cooked?  where did so many of my bleaders go and why would they leave me after all we have meant to each other? 

but before i called my therapist, i called mark from simpler computing! and he quickly came to my rescue – again.  thank you mark.  you solved the mystery and now once again you are so totally my blero. 

so listen up – all you techno losers out there that just like to cook and write and take a little photo here and there, but do not want to bother your pretty little heads with html and templates and embedding and wordpress editors that suck and the like, call mark.  today.  he can tweak your blog into submission.  AND he likes to cook… (btw – ceF is still under construction as i type so please bear with…)

speaking of liking to cook… here’s the deal.  i cook a lot.  but sometimes it’s just dinner.  and sometimes it’s not my idea of a blog worthy post.  and usually it’s just that i’m too lazy to write.  but it’s totally me, not you.  you, i adore.  you make my life better, adding an entirely new fangled dimension that did not exist just 16 months ago. but still, i am often unmotivated, or perhaps even more often than that, i’m just reading OPB’s…

so what happens is that some of these dishes fall by the blogosphere’s wayside.  but i thought since we were dealing with feeds and feeding, i’d show you what gets fed around here to my immediate world.  so i’m going to hit you with a fair few of what i’ve not bothered to bother you with until now, along with some pictures. take a deep breath – here goes…

look familiar?  this one was made with the half and half, as per ripert’s recipe.  was it better?  yes.  did i LOVE it?  not so much.  it’s ok.  kinda brunchy, not desserty.  i like custard.  life is good.  and eric, you’re totally cool and sexy and hot and all those things.  but my tony still has you beat, big time. i hope you can understand…

ok so i realize i am blogger #4721 to make jim lahey’s no knead bread.  but i did it.  quietly.  and it was a good and crusty loaf of bread that if nothing else looked very, very impressive. 

i baked it in my romertopf that i dug out and dusted off.  although it stays unused and because it looks so beautiful – i keep it.  i’m sure you understand such things.  so, i soaked the terracotta in water and then baked the bread as per the direction for a dutch oven.  i felt my dutch oven was too big and i didn’t want a 2" high bread.  somehow, this worked out quite nicely.  so take a chance, dear readers – bake no knead bread.  oh, and have i made this again since?  nope.  will i?  maybe, probably not.

this was made quite awhile ago.  it was panko encrusted chicken livers served over what i think was swiss chard and finely sliced ‘delightful tiny purple potatoes’ and shallots sautéed with pimm’s and port.  what?  you think they may not have been tiny and delightful?  you are sooooo wrong….

i present to you… delightful. tiny. purple. potatoes.  i only wish i could have been in the room when the marketing team thought of that.  can you imagine what the discussion would have sounded like?  i only know they were republicans with bad haircuts.  after that, i know nothing.

so now you ask, what the hell is that?  that, my dear readers is a watermelon salad with mint leaves, chili oil and feta – topped with a very anti-locavore piece of barramundi from costco via australia.  in a previous life i lived down under (husband #1) and ate this fish regularly.  perhaps i didn’t need to sit the barramundi on top of the watermelon, but it seemed like a good idea at the time… and it was our dinner that night and we were happy enough.  so stop smirking.  thank you.

i made this last weekend and it was good and rich and saucy and chicken thighey – all that with trofie pasta thrown in for very good measure.  it’s what patricia wells eats when she’s at home in provence, a recipe that i picked up from feeding groom.  oh and it’s got sherry vinegar and garlic cloves and dijon mustard and lots of tarragon and minced sundried tomatoes… it’s more wintry than it is septembery in nashville, but i had 4 chicken thighs in the freezer and suddenly this just happened…

ok are you ready to hear what this was supposed to be?  what it almost was… what i wished it might have been and what it could be if i ever decide to take it on again?  salted butterscotch pudding with chocolate covered bacon.  thank you and goodnight.  the end.  by claudia. 

except it never really thickened properly.  and benton’s bacon is crazy salty.  so salty that i forgot just how salty it was therefore making it an out and out wrong bacon choice.  because it seems that is actually possible.  to make a wrong bacon choice.  you’d think not, but what this dessert needed was a thin cut good bacon that crisps up in a curly, artsy strip, and only then could it be dipped into lindt chocolate and put into a pudding recipe that WORKS.  because this recipe did not.  and another blogger tried it and it didn’t work for her either.  so. oh well,  we all drank our pudding and chucked the wayyy too salty pork.  seemed sinful but we got over it.  we lived and learned, moving onwards and upwards – with the comforting knowledge that bacon rarely ever lets you down…

so not even a little pretty.  AND the wrong color bowl.  but it was just a simple dinner of fresh crowder peas with bacon.  the bacon did just as it should, redeeming itself from the previous mishap.  there was something else served with this but really, i have no idea… i think it was grilled tilapia.  unexciting, quick and easy and not exactly memorable – but hey, not every night can be foie gras…

OK – EVERYBODY STAND UP AND STRETCH.  NO REALLY.  BECAUSE I AM NOT DONE.  BATHROOM BREAK?  GO ON.  I’LL WAIT….

oh, hi, you’re back.  wonderful, because i was worried… ok, just a few more…

this was lazzaroli’s sweet potato and ricotta ravioli.  i dressed it up with a side of kale, done in a sauce of olive oil, cream, honey and sage, and then dusted the pasta with nutmeg and parmegiano.  again – super fast and easy.  (tommy noodles, you are a nashville godsend… thank you for giving me an option that is first rate and still allows me to get creative.)

yes, i too jumped on the bandwagon thanks to michelle from thursday night smackdown and all the rest of you that grilled the hell outa a bunch of pizzas…  except michelle was the one who took my call on a saturday night so i could get very specific information about the whole pizza grilling process.  this particular pizza was taken from her post and it was damn fine.  i cooked down some swiss chard in a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper, and used copious amounts of minced garlic and ricotta.  i also sliced up a big ripe yellow tomato with red stripes running through it (we will miss you beautiful heirloom tomatoes),

awesomeness, no?  well yes – but… from here on in i’ll stick to the pizza stone with my oven set to broil and 550f… because grilled pizza is too damn white on top.  and flipping it before the toppings go on doesn’t allow the cheese and sauce to bake into the dough and well, my grill runs hot (it’s infrared) so even on the lowest setting it never got the top brown and i kept having to turn the flame on and off so as not to scorch the bottom and was nervously moving it to the top rack and well, i like my pizza stone in my oven.  so if i had a real charcoal grill which i don’t and do not plan on getting because it’s too much work and i am not willing (go on – think of me what you will but there are extenuating circumstances… like a boyfriend who is also happy with oven baked pizza’s), maybe that would be better.  but as it stands, and i repeat – i am a pizza in the oven kinda gal – set to broil on super high heat with the stone on the very bottom rack.  but i made the obligatory grilled pizza.  yes i did.

i present to you… voodoo mac and cheese

do you read gild the (voodoo)lily?  if not, you need to read gild the (voodoo)lily…  heather is very smart and very funny and this bitch can cook.  and i mean that in a good way.  heather is another one of those foodcentric people that seriously knows how to put ingredients together.  like if you turned your pantry over to her, she’d blow your mind.  and you’d be thinking all, why didn’t i think of that?… and the answer is because she KNOWS MORE THAN YOU DO.  plus she’s a botanist.  a freakin’ botanist... so she’s always growing and foraging and well, it’s a little bit intimidating.  heather could totally kick your ass and never even touch you…

anyway, back in july she made something called garden mac.  for her it was merely a ‘clean your fridge out’ kinda dinner, and i’m thinking – mac and cheese with roasted tomatoes in a bechamel base?  sign me the hell up. 

the ingredients i used were as follows; mostaccioli pasta, the 4 cheeses were – asiago, parmigiano reggiano, st jerome and fontal.  and for the garden part – fresh thyme and heirloom tomatoes, kale, onion, squash and zucchini.  i drove all the ingredients about an hour south, down to my friend shannon’s house and we spent the day cooking and drinking wine and talking and laughing and then we sat out on the porch overlooking her farm and had a late lunch…

and for the grand finale i give to you an extremely abbreviated version of my veal stock mission…

bones arrive from snook’s.  i tried for weeks to find a local source.  nada.

20 lbs.

because i am awesome…

i made brown and white stock.  i followed the ruhlman way.  it is the only way. (great version here)

otherwise when you die, you go to culinary hell where you are forced to live on nothing but shoney’s buffets. (please click on the shoney’s link.  there are no words…)

and hey, thanks so much for reading.  i realize this post was a commitment. 

you can go now…

this is all straight out of lidia bastianich’s book, ‘lidia’s italy’.  it has begun to irk me that for all the wonderful cookbooks that i have lining my shelves, i find myself rarely cracking the covers.  i need to do better in that regard as i am well aware that nearly every book i own contains a mini university.  and especially in this case where i adore lidia’s food, and have since i was a kid – and there’s so much to learn… and i’d be well suited to learn much of my italian repertoire from her.

these are two recipes that i know i will go back to again and again – together and on their own.  they’re pure sicilian… and well, that has a personal allure that i can barely explain.  the two cities i dream of spending time are palermo and barcelona.  i’ve been to barcelona – but many years ago and for only a couple of days.  and i’ve never been to sicily.  ever.  although i have been to the amalfi coast, twice… but i need to cross the strait of messina.  it is something i feel strongly about.  maybe ’09 will be my year…

tuna or africa?  you decide…

frankly, i’d have to say that the tuna steak right there is about as good looking as a tuna steak gets.  it was bought from costco which could potentially mean food coloring, waxing, plumping and extra added mercury… i’ve really no clue how any of that works but was willing to take my chances with this surreal looking piece of fish.  wait, i just googled this and sho’nuff, the odds that my tuna was gassed with a smokeless carbon monoxide (banned just about everywhere but the usa) is probably near 100%.

it’s yet another case of the old "too good to be true" reality, here to bite us once again…  but see how we learn together?  it was worth my ingesting artificially induced watermelon red colored tuna – just so we could have this moment…

the tuna steaks come off the grill and get a drizzle of olive oil and a shake of the oregano bouquet…

tonno riganatu
adapted from ‘lidia’s italy’ by lidia bastianich

stir thinly sliced garlic, salt and pepper into extra virgin oil and let it sit for up to an hour.  reserve some of the oil for later and use the remainder to marinate the tuna for 2 or 3 hours making sure the steaks are well coated on both sides.  flip them about 3 times through this process.  heat the grill to hot, oil the grates and sear for 2 minutes and then flip for another 2 or 3 minutes.  the flesh should not be fully cooked and will continue to cook when taken off the grill.  remove to a platter.  stir dried oregano into the garlic infused oil and immediately brush over the fish.  sprinkle with some coarse sea salt and serve.

a perfect accompaniment to this dish is ‘panelle’ which translates to fried chickpea polenta, in foodspeak.  there are 4 ingredients in this panelle and 3 of them are water, salt and olive oil.  the 4th is garbanzo flour which i found at whole foods.  imagine the three way love child of polenta, french fries and hummus and meditate on that for a moment…

panelle is where it’s at.  this stuff is crazy good.  you mix it up, slow cook it like polenta for about 20 minutes and then you cool it on a sheet, cut and pan-fry in olive oil.  i made a quarter of lidia’s recipe and then cooled it in a small round cast iron pan, hence the triangles.  i believe it is traditionally cut into squares.  but i’d eat them in mickey mouse head shapes.  because they are awesome.

panelle
adapted from ‘lidia’s italy’ by lidia bastianich

4 cups water
1 tsp coarse sea salt
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil plus more for frying
1/2 pound garbanzo flour

pour 4 cups water, the salt, and the olive oil into a saucepan, and gradually whisk in the garbanzo flour until smooth.  set over medium heat, and whisk constantly as the batter slowly heats.  it will thicken and eventually steam but does not need to boil. cook and keep whisking, scraping the bottom and sides of the pan frequently, until the mixture is quite stiff and starts to pull away from the sides as you stir it, 15 – 20 minutes.

turn the batter onto an oiled 9×13 baking sheet and spread it quickly with a stiff metal spatula before it cools and sets, so it fills the pan in an even layer.  wet the spatula with water and and smooth the top of the batter.  let cool for an hour or longer , until completely firm.

cut pieces with a sharp knife into whatever size and shape you like.  lidia recommends 1 1/2 inch squares for appetizers and 2×3 inch bars to accompany a main course.  lift the cut pieces with a spatula and seal the remainder with plastic wrap and refrigerate for longer keeping.

cover the bottom of a skillet with 1/8" of oil and set over medium heat.  when the oil is hot, lay in the panelle, leaving plenty of space between them.  fry about 3 minutes until the underside is crisp and golden and then flip and and brown the 2nd side about 2 minutes more.  drain the panelle on paper towels and eat while they’re warm.

in palermo they pile these fried panelle in layers onto a semolina sesame seed bun and then top it with fresh sheep’s milk ricotta and pecorino romano.

see why i need to go there?

exhibit A

10 months ago i was introduced to bottarga and initially it didn’t go well.  but really what i had gotten my hands on was bottarga’s ugly step cousin – some dried powdered tuna roe.  it was, in my opinion – overpriced and somewhat pointless.  wanting to understand the hype, from there the bottarga experience went from here (bad) to here (heavenly) to here (domestic, smoked and yes, heavenly).  and now i am enamored with the stuff…  because dear readers, listen to me,

IT’S THE BACON OF FISH…

that’s right.  it is that good.  stupidly good.  it is absolute comfort food and it kicks mac and cheese’s ass from here to sardinia.  i’ve had it three times in two days.  and i could easily have it again tonight.  but i am saving it.  because otherwise it would be all gone and that would be just too sad.

the first night i decided to do it with bread crumbs and i used panko which was cheating and i have regrets.  for what i would want in a breadcrumb, it’s a little too uniform, a little too crunchy – without having true substance.  it’s meant to be used as a filler, or a coating for pan frying.  really, it’s just a far cry from being italian and i know that neither mario nor lidia would have ever used panko.  the italian gods knew that i’d thrown them an asian curve and well, next time i swear i will use a proper bread.  because we’re talking bottarga here, folks.  and it’s best to keep it all as it should be, if you know what i mean… and if you’re reading, i think you do.

exhibit A – i browned the panko in some olive oil with a touch of butter, then added salt and pepper and thinly sliced garlic.  i grated about 1/4 cup of bottarga, zested a lemon and used some of the juice, chopped parsley and some minced chile pepper.  i tossed it all with the pasta and grated some more bottarga on top.

and to all you egg fans out there, listen to this.  the leftover breadcrumb bottarga mixture?  i had saved about 2 tablespoons of it and the next morning i had it with a quickly fried egg – and it was outstanding.  but truly outstanding.  it was a gabrielle hamilton dish, a wannabe prune brunch menu item.  but hers would have been served on a perfectly grilled slice of peasant bread with chopped cherry tomatoes. 

gabrielle are you listening? 

exhibit b

exhibit B – no bread crumbs, but everything else was pretty much the same.  except no heat was used, just a raw mix of olive oil, bottarga, lemon zest, parsley and chile - tossed with the hot pasta.  equally good if not better, and lighter for a warm august night in nashville.

and now can we please talk about the pasta?  i know it looks like spaghetti, but dear readers, no… this is chitarra which entails an entirely different pasta making process. shaped like guitar strings, this square edged noodle is made by pressing sheets of semolina dough through tight rows of metal strings.  and if you want the low down, i suggest you get the big picture from francois over at fx cuisine, because i just buy chitarra. but francois… well he is an insanely obsessive gastronome.  i love this guy.

if you’ve not tried bottarga, then i suggest that you do.  it’s very orderable and your $70 investment will make ten very generous portions. it comes in two lobes and one can be vacuum sealed and placed in the refrigerator for another time.

bottarga.  i ‘m telling you…

i made this up. i just opened up my fridge and started grabbing jars and after the 4th i stopped. i suppose i’d call this dish moroccan. i mean, i could really call it anything i pleased – as long as i didn’t call it late for dinner… hee.

i just grabbed some organic roasted peanut butter, harissa, preserved lemons and some honey – and that was the sauce. is this a sauce? well it is now. cause i made it up. honestly we really liked this. it wasn’t too much of any one thing and it kind of transformed the 4 ingredients into an entity unto itself – "ceF’s moroccan’ish sauce". the carrots and chickpeas were sauteed in blood orange juice, freshly ground cumin, with a touch of sugar and salt. the fish was pan fried tilapia, served over brown rice pasta with chopped green onions.

all in all, it was really freakin’ good. i’ve got a small jelly jar full, and i’m thinking its next appearance will be with a roasted chicken. or seared scallops. or a grilled flank steak.

hey, did i tell you that i made it up?

dear readers, i’m past the point of caring who chooses to defend this statement – but overall, the mexican food in nashville is Not. Good. it is the subject of many a local conversation and frankly, i am OVER the topic and am currently inconvincible of anything otherwise. for the most part, i’ve just given up. unless of course i decide to go it on my own – which i did – but not really. because hey, i have new foodie friends. and they not only love to cook, but they’re extraordinarily agreeable and easy to get on with which totally helps this fledgling relationship because the older i get the more ADD i become which can often make hanging out with me a bit of a chore.

so brad is the ‘true cook’ of the couple, but that joanna… she is very well versed in the art of the knife. and any woman that can happily slice and dice while making interesting conversation in my kitchen?  total keeper. there are those that cook in solitude, and i do this most often. no tv, no music. the time goes by quickly and i am more than content. but if you were to offer to help? i’d put a knife into your hands before you could ask ‘what’s for dinner?’ i love to "direct" in the kitchen. and when i win the lottery i’m not hiring a personal chef, i’m hiring a personal sous chef.

we decided to do a saturday night dinner thing, and i had fish tacos on my mind because i just happened to be in the room when martha’s show was on and emeril had just signed his life away, jumping onboard the ‘martha-god’ mothership. so the BAM-man was nervously smiling and kissing martha’s golden ass – while subserviantly making a poblano and avocado salsa to put over his halibut tacos with a grilled corn salad on the side… and well, despite the whole media love-fest freak show happening before my eyes – i was carefully paying attention. because i love me some fish tacos. truly, deeply and with feeling.

grilled fish tacos with roasted chile and avocado salsa
very adapted from emeril via martha (because i can)

2 poblano peppers
1/2 haas avocado
2 T olive oil
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup chopped cilantro
juice of 1 lime
1/2 t salt
1 t cayenne powder – or to taste
1 halibut fillet (about 1 lb)
white pepper and salt
olive oil for your cooking surface of choice
8 corn tortillas
chopped onion
cilantro and avocado as toppings

blacken the skin of the peppers directly on your stove top or grill personally, i use a butane torch which works surprisingly well cool, remove skin and the seeds (i let them sweat in a covered bowl and use a tea towel to rub off the skin) add to blender peppers, avocado, oil, water, onion, cilantro, lime juice, salt and cayenne blend till smooth season the fish and grill however works best for you heat the tortillas then you put it all together and you turn yourself around cause that’s what it’s all about…

grilled corn salad
adapted from emeril via martha

we opted to omit the tomatoes and if i had it to do over i would leave them out again as i think they would detract from the dish.

4 ears of corn, in their husks
2 jalapeno chiles
1/2 cup chopped red onion
1 T very finely chopped garlic
1/4 cup cilantro, roughly chopped
2 T mint, roughly chopped
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt

submerge the corn under water while in their husks and soak for an hour, then grill the corn over a low to medium heat for about 25 minutes until the husks are blackened. do the same with the jalepenos for about 6 minutes or so. remove husks and silk from corn, remove kernels from cob and place in a large bowl. stem, seed, and finely chop the jalapenos and add to bowl with corn along with the onion, garlic, cilantro, mint, lime juice, olive oil, and salt. stir to combine and serve

brad suggested a side of beans to round it all out and after days of (i am so very sure) relentless hand wringing and agonizing over how he might seriously impress me with a killer dish – he decided upon a red mole which i then strongly insisted be paired with not just any bean, but with my vaquero ‘rancho gordo’ beans and brad happily obliged – not that he had much of a choice after my 10 minute non-stop dissertation on the many and varied attributes of those beautiful heirloom beans of which i have become so fond. i soaked, cooked and lightly salted the beans and brad arrived with a bowl of the mole from rick bayless’s book, ‘mexican kitchen‘ – and quite honestly the dish was phenomenol if not the best thing we ate all night. today, when i glanced at the recipe in the book i saw precisely why that was – as well as why i instinctively winced. it’s a total major production – if not reminiscent of my all too recent and never to be repeated mole making experience. joanna remarked how the mole would be even better the next day and i told her it was too bad that she would never know, and then refused to let them bring any of the leftover beans home – because i am like that. i’ll tell you about the exploding dessert when i am able, recovered and ready to talk about it.

which is like so not now…

in keeping with my fish obsession, the next species up was the thunnus albacares – or tuna steak.  also the one fish that cary would actually consider ordering at a restaurant on the occasional blue moon, so i knew this dinner would be favorably received.  just last week, jennifer from ‘last nights dinner’ had done a pork belly with salsa verde which got my attention and then a few days later while thumbing through alice waters’,  ‘the art of simple food’ - a new book that i totally love and that you need to get - there was a grilled tuna recipe with a variation topping of a salsa verde made with marjoram, an herb that alice says goes well with tuna steaks. 

and i for one am quite sure that alice knows such things…

salsa verde (geared towards tuna steaks)
adapted from ‘the art of simple food’ by alice waters

about 1/2 cup of very good olive oil
2 finely minced garlic cloves
finely grated zest of 2 lemons
2 T roughly chopped capers
about 1/2 cup total of finely chopped flat leaf parsley and marjoram – heavier on the parsley
1/2 t sea salt
ground pepper

so on a cold winters night the outdoor grill got fired up and a few thick slices of a good italian bread got lightly oiled and toasted along side the .9 lb single fillet.  i kept the fish rare on the inside as one would do with tuna to avoid it being too dry.  i undercooked it the first time around so it went back on the fire after it got its photo made.  the second time around it was perfection personified – plus it got reheated after sitting around in front of the camera lens.  sadly, not all my dinners can say that…

fish fish fiiiiish… i am singing your praise.

i guess you recognize me now as the the #1 fish cook in all the land.  as you should.  so thank you for noticing.  no less than 3 fish dishes in 10 days with a hunk of tuna sitting in the fridge waiting on its turn tonight.  so, is there such a thing as too much fish, you ask?  how could you so much as think such a thing?  absolutely not!  i have only just begun my fish-o-rama extravaganza.  are you lovin’ it?  c’mon, you’re wishing that you too were in the fish period of your culinary life.  picasso had blue, i have fish. and if that makes no sense in the real world then i will just continue to dwell in my own little fantasy fish land, filled with a plethora of scaled and gilled oceanic dinners.

the challenge here was cary.  if i kept it light and not too fishy, i figured he’d be ok.  and lest you think i was trying to force fish down the unwilling mans throat, i want you all to know that i have come far in this life and happily offered to make him shrimp.  but he was amenable to the fish thing so i was then even further determined to make this dinner go down in a positive way.  afterall, i had a lot of future fish dinners at stake here.  and perhaps i could win him over, one great fish dish at a time…

recently someone out there in the blogosphere either did some fish tacos or suggested i do fish tacos but i can’t find the post or comment - or remember who it was.  because i am well on my way to being old.  and i can recall very little.  so if you are reading this and it was you could you please remind me – and whoever you are, thank you.  because i loved my dinner.  and so did the fish hating boyfriend.  ok to be fair, he doesn’t hate all fish.  he just dislikes most - and then hates smoked salmon.  so no lox and bagels around here for sunday brunch - regardless that this food pairing is programmed into my DNA.  but that’s ok because i live in nashville which is not exactly the lox and bagel capital of the country by any means – nor are we most likely in the top 50 lox and bagel eating cities.  so i save that for trips home to nyc and my mom always hits zabars for me which scratches that itch quite nicely.

i had corn tortilla’s in the house but that was about it, so off to ‘whole foods’ i went.  for the main attraction i decided on cod because a) it’s not a fishy fish and b) it was on sale and looked beautiful.  i almost went for the mahi but it looked kinda fishier because well, it is.  i was handed my pound of cod and from there i hit the produce section and headed home to prepare our dinner.

i began with the mango salad.  i chopped 2 mango’s, peeled and seeded then diced a cucumber, a red onion, some jicama and a few green onions.  all that got hit with some fresh lime juice and salt.  done.

for the sauce i used some organic mayonnaise, lime juice, cayenne pepper and crushed garlic.  i bought a savoy cabbage and used a few leaves, slicing them thinly and set that aside. 

the pan got well heated, then in went the olive oil.  about a bit less than a minute later i added the cod, cut up into chunks and seasoned with salt and cumin powder.  the fish cooks quickly and i removed it to a paper towel covered plate.

next, heat the tortilla’s.  i did mine in the same pan i cooked the fish.  then quite simply the hot tortillas got topped with the cod, sliced cabbage and sauce.  cilantro is then a must – unless you’re one of those weird ‘super-taster-cilantro-is-soapy’ people.  and just what is up with that, i will never know. 

i realize to be truly authentic fish taco’s need to be fried.  so right here and now i apologize to anyone of mexican descent who is aghast at this bastardized dish.  i just did whatever sounded good in the moment and really, these turned out just wonderfully. 

next time i might use the red onion on the taco themselves, as the mango salad already had the green onions.  the reddish purple color would look and taste good directly on the taco .  oh – and a lime wedge on the side.

this is a total must ‘make again soon’ dish.

but honestly, when you’re a food blogger, that rarely happens…

fish again!  hooray! and within a week of the snapper.  double hooray!  i am so very thrilled and delighted to be making fish!  an overreaction you say?  perhaps.  but i’ll be making up for the under abundance of fish eating that had been happening over here - so brace yourselves because you’re going to be seeing some heavy duty fish cooking going on.  i mean, what was i thinking?  gimme fish over chicken breasts ANY day.  so now you know.  me and fish.  we’re a team.  i just kinda forgot about fish and now i am making up for lost time. 

i defrosted my halibut fillet and began taking stock of what was lying about on my kitchen counter.  garlic, a lemon, a chili pepper, some olive oil – and a cippolini onion?  sounded good to me.  cause grilled onions work on everything.  i would even bet you anything that they’re totally amazing on a peanut butter sandwich.  with bacon.  wow.  i gotta do that one…

so then i grabbed the capers from the fridge and proceeded to do the minimum.  i crushed (yes crushed not minced but crushed) garlic in some olive oil, then i minced up the ’mild but a little bit hot’ pepper, added a squeeze of lemon and some capers – no heat.  i pan fried the fish in olive oil til crispy, removed the fish.  threw the onions into the pan.  and voila.  this was so fast and easy and well – just plain silly good.

the greens got drizzled with a balsamic reduction.  period.

i opted for no salt due to a très chic mid-week wedding that i’ll be attending in south georgia on wednesday.  if you have to ask what the correlation is between that and no salt, then i’m thinking you wouldn’t understand.  but really, with those ingredients sitting atop that fillet, i didn’t even miss it. 

ok.  maybe just a very little. 

but barely…

it’s the craziest thing because i love fish.  and at restaurants, i order fish almost all the time.  but i’ve stopped making fish.  not shellfish.  just fish fish.  why, you ask?  because on cary’s short list of things he prefers not to eat, fish fish is at the top.  he lives for crab and scallops, he’ll eat shrimp for days – but if it’s shell-less then he’d just assume not.  he just does not like it and although i think that it’s just him being stubborn, i have come to realize at this stage of my life that it’s so very not about what i think.  boy am i happier living with this mind-set… but hey, i am so not complaining.  because my ex wouldn’t touch any kind of cheese.  or pasta.  or garlic.  and he also wasn’t big on lamb.  it was heartbreaking.  and my best friend angela?  her list is long.  no pears, no cauliflower, no eggs or goat cheese, brussels sprouts, cooked spinach or squash.  but she eats fish, so i invited her to lunch.

i eat everything/anything.  twice.  i may not love raw carrots.  but if you put them in front of me, i’ll still eat them - especially dipped into whatever’s going.  cary can eat 5 big raw carrots au naturale in one fell swoop and often does.  but not fish.  so i never make it.

until today.  i got tired of reading about all of ’last night’s dinner’s‘ great fish dishes and then moving on.  so in the midst of a day full of timed appointments, the very kind of appointments i try to avoid, i dashed off to the market and bought 4 (four) kinds of fish.  i kind of went a little berserk in the fish department.  i bought a hunk of beautiful sea bass, some red snapper, organic tilapia and halibut.  i was deliriously fish happy.  yes i was.  if there were a fish dance that i knew of i would have done one right there in ‘the fresh market’.

instead, i pretty much did what jennifer does.  (WWJD) except i’m just hopeful - and she’s world class.  if i say it once, i’ll say it a hundred times.  dish for dish, ms. hess is the real deal.  the woman kicks some kitchen ass.  i have a total crush on her food.  night after night in a seemingly effortless fashion she churns out thoughtful and seasonal dinners.  on my next nyc trip i am going to have lunch with jennifer and find out all her secrets.

ok, so first into a pan went some oil followed by about 5 cloves of minced garlic, a sliced sweet onion and a sliced fennel bulb.  then after about 6 or 7 minutes i added a big splash of dry vermouth.  about 2 minutes later in went a can of san marzano crushed tomatoes, some fresh thyme and lemon zest.  it all got seasoned with salt and pepper, and cooked on a low heat for 10 minutes.  the lightly salted fish got pan seared in olive oil using carol’s ‘french laundry’ method by making sure they are super dry before pan frying.  i also first got the pan superduper hot, then add the oil and then let that get supererduperer hot and then the very dry fillets hit the oil.  mine came out impressive with that coveted crunchy surface.  nothing stuck to the pan even a little which surprised me to no end…

i made this dish with both a skinless chilean sea bass fillet and with a skin-on red snapper fillet. 

both were insanely good.

so you have a blog.  and some people read it.  and you get email.  which is nice.  and every so often you get a big surprise like this and then other times you might just get a message from some guy in florida who participates in smoked mullet competitions and is himself an aficionado of the ‘roe sac’.  and the world gets smaller still.  unbelievable…

if i may share this with you…

FRET, I live in Florida and we are at about the height of our mullet roe season now. Next weekend is the annual Terra Ciea Mullet Smoke Off.  Although, uh, ‘culturally removed’ it is the source of all things good about mullet fish. Let me tell you about bottarga made on the spot. 
 
Rather than dried, it is slow smoked at 115 degrees F for anywhere from 6 to 12 hours. The resultant product is nearly dry, but has not reached the temperature to ruin the texture and make it grainy. If we get the fire too hot (135F) the roes turn into a hard dry puck, with a grainy cornbread texture and little taste. The dried kind the ‘foreigners’ make is good, but it needs a little help to live up to the standard of Florida “Cracker Caviar”. 
 
The flavor  of a smoked bottarga is a combination of salt+fish+egg yoke+smoke flavor and it has a soft but firm texture. By peeling the sac off the outside, and gently mixing the eggs with a small amount of olive oil. it becomes the most beautiful red orange yellow gold caviar you have ever laid eyes on. I cannot describe what happens inside the mouth, other than it grows rapidly on the palate until the flavor is bigger than your mouth.

Here’s the kicker. I have 4 pair in my fridge right now, perfectly smoked and ready to eat. Just came out of the smoker and on Sat. I will make one more pasta dish, penne with bottarga garlic alfredo, and then will have to give the rest away. Next weekend at the mullet cook off there will be so much it will go to waste. If I could share some with you, I know you would enjoy this treat, it is the stuff you had expected, and so much more. I will think of you hungry guys while the competition rages.  RK

so ok, now i am totally enamored with this mullet smoking RK guy.  he’s obviously got one helluva serious passion for fish roe.  and he wants to share it – with me!   and i am so all about sharing.  sharing makes the world go round!  sharing and money.  or perhaps it’s money and sharing.  yeah, money and sharing.  still.  all good.

and yes, it crosses my mind that RK could be a serial killing cyber stalker, sending me arsenic flecked fish eggs.  but i quickly disregard that potential scenario as one that feels at most like an outside chance, and decide that something this good is perhaps worth the risk of death.  i have nothing, if not an adventurous spirit.

the details are long and involve the infamous b3 from the past bottarga classes, fed-ex, dry ice, a pick up across town in the midst of a rain storm – and my dear friend and fellow food fanatic, rick.  the mullet roe hit town last tuesday and on thursday afternoon rick and i gathered in my kitchen and had ourselves thanksgiving, christmas, new years eve and our birthdays – all rolled in to one.  our afternoon also involved a very decadent and full bodied rideau 2005 petite sirah which we felt held up beautifully to the very deep and rich flavor of the roe.  overall i’d say while usually quite pleased with my daily existence, we were especially happy to be alive during those particular 3 hours. 

RK had enclosed a letter with our care package.  it was both instructional and inspirational.  he spoke of creamed mullet eggs on toast with lots of black pepper, that’ll make you cry.  he suggested whisking 1:1 into chicken eggs with sauteed green onion and globs of brie to yield a killer omelet.  he’s added slices to mac and cheese.  and something about the roe being insane in an oyster and spinach white lasagna…

he also said: “simple is best.”  a food philosophy that i tend to adhere to.  “a saltine cracker, a thin swipe of cream cheese, a skin-on slice of roe and a drop of lemon.  hmmm, what else could one ask for?  ‘cept maybe one with a piece of a smoked mullet fillet with a few drops of hot sauce.  oh, and beer…”.

but we went our own path, with a paper thin sliced lemon, some parsley and tomato blushed stokes english mayonnaise on a baguette with a sprinkling of dill leaves.  and some off the cuff riff on taramasalata made with one entire smoked roe sac, olive oil, milk soaked bread, garlic, onion, parsley and lemon juice – all tossed in the vita-mix and pureed.  and in between all of that we’d take the orange sliced coins of roe, just ever so lightly grilled on a hot plate - and place them on top of some bread with olive oil and lemon – or sometimes just popping a bit into our mouths au naturale.  we loved the stuff.  but really… the grilled halloumi - a cheese from cypress that browns not melts, sandwiched with some lemon and parsley and a smoked coin drizzled with olive oil?

just. too. much.

now i’ve got a smoked mullet fillet in my freezer that i’ve yet to experience – a tease, RK says - and 2 more pair of roe sacs currently reside in my dehydrator set to very low heat.  they were soaked overnight in water, as per his directions which leached out some of the excess salt and then in another 2 days they’ll get vacuum packed to prolong their life and i’ll use them similarly to their high-end foreign cousin, the sicilian bottarga. 

RK ended his letter with: “hope a taste of florida warms your day, it has warmed mine sending it to you”.

rick and i both got the slightest bit choked up… 

ok class.  after a brief hiatus we return with more ‘fun with bottarga’.  only this time, armed with our knowledge from the last course we are going to use the right kind of fish roe.  ok?  so did everyone bring their dried mullet sac with them?  good.  let us proceed. for those of you that read along you may recall my last stint with bottarga.  it was not a raging success to say the least.  i generously referred to that dish as ‘nice’ but even a lame description such as that was a total stretch.  quite honestly the whole experience left me somewhat confused as to  a) why anyone would want to pay $75 for a hunk of dried out cat food and  b) why anyone would want to eat dried out cat food at any price.  so i called market hall foods - bottarga supplier to the stars – to discuss the quandary and they were kind enough to ship me the mullet bottarga to replace the tuna bottarga in question.  and so my best bottarga buddies, from here on in to be referred to as ‘b3′, once again crossed the county line, showing up with a loaf of bread, a lemon, some parsley and a fine bottle of red – ready for whatever fate the bottarga gods had in store for us. first my b3 grated the bottarga and we added some australian olive oil – a 2006 yellingbo to the bowl. 

the roe absorbed most of the oil which deepened the color considerably.  note: reserve some bottarga and parsley for plating.

to the pan i added the oil saturated bottarga, fresh lemon juice, minced garlic and parsley.  nothing else.  the bottarga has a perfect salt balance on it’s own and the salted pasta water flavored the de cecco #7 linguini.  the bottarga was warmed gently, not cooked.  the drained pasta was then added to the pan and tossed with the bottarga.

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as luck would have it, the bottarga gods smiled upon us that night.  i really loved this dish.  fishy, but rich – with depth.  the brightness of the lemon and hint of garlic were perfect against the roe.  and the quality of the oil melded these flavors into a winning combination.  now i get the whole bottarga hype.

and as an aside, i find pasta to be extremely photogenic. 

anyone else?