Rock Cod and Heart of Palm Salad

Who doesn't think of hearts of palm when they think of Alaskan rock cod??

Obviously everyone but me. Actually, I just had a bunch of things left over, in the cupboard, whatever, and sort of threw together a meal. Simple and fast and healthy and tasty. Well, relatively healthy. Butter's wholesome, right?

This is my favorite way to cook cod/rockfish/snapper (probably because it's really the only way I know how. hmm). I always make a dry rub of some sort, put it on the fish, and then cook it slowly in a pan with some butter or olive oil. Squeeze a bittie lemon at the end, and voila! Pretty easy.

Dry spice rubs are incredibly easy to make, and if you have a dozen or so herbs and spices in your possession you can do just fine. Improvise. I often like to use smoked paprika as a base, but I don't always have some. Dried thyme (not powdered) is one of my favorite components... I usually have about 3 or 4 herbs/spices, and then nearly match their volume with sea salt, and some black pepper. You can use cumin-oregano-chipotle, or thyme-coriander-mustard-pinch o' allspice, or oregano-thyme-smoked paprika-red pepper flake, or really whatever you think would go well together. "Sweet" spices like allspice should generally be used in very small quantities, hot spices like cayenne or chipotle in moderate quantities, and dried herbs like oregano and thyme in large quantities. If you want it to be super duper tasty, use fresh thyme in place of dried. It just occurred to me that I have a pot of fresh thyme sitting out on the deck, and that some of it is still perfectly usable, and I used dried. Oh poo. Such is life... More for a later date, then.

As for the salad, it really had no inspiration. I made an Italiany-type "vinaigrette," and I'm not sure if I can call it that because it contains no vinegar, only lemon juice. What's that? My linguistic ignorance is showing?

Oh yeah, I made the vinaigrette for the hearts of palm that I wanted to eat, because hello, hearts of palm... vinaigrette... duh. And then I had this arame seaweed that I rehydrated and put in there because it was interesting and nutritionally valuable, and leftover cooked emmer farro, and some celery for crunch. It would have been nice over a leaf of romaine, or with some chopped up parsley in it, but I didn't have any romaine, or parsley. I got kalamata olives out with the intention of using them too, but as the salad came together, I realized I didn't really want them there. Maybe I'll try them in a bit of it tomorrow for leftovers.

Oh. And I thought I would mention this, because it's not necessarily an obvious point. For salad dressings, any Italian sauces, or un-sauteed garnish of food requiring olive oil, extra virgin olive oil is typically used. The difference between extra virgin and regular olive oil is that the former is the most unrefined form of olive oil available. Virgin olive oil has not been chemically treated during production, and extra virgin olive oil is "extra" because it is selected specifically for flavor. Smell a sample of regular olive oil and one of extra virgin olive oil and you will detect a difference, and it's not subtle. The taste of a good extra virgin olive oil is really worth a few extra $$ per bottle, and it really is crucial in a raw application such as a dressing. If you still really don't care about the flavor, just go with vegetable oil, because it tastes more or less the same as regular olive oil, at a much lower price. FYI, the reason olive oil is chemically treated is to significantly lengthen its shelf life, preventing early rancidity (to which extra virgin is prone if stored a long time) and increase its smoke point (the temperature at which heated oil begins to smoke and create carcinogenic free radicals).


HEART OF PALM SALAD

2 tbsp lemon juice
1 clove garlic, pressed
big ol' pinch of dried oregano (not powdered)
big ol' pinch of thyme (not powdered if dried, and minced if fresh)
giant ol' pinch of salt
a few generous grindings of black pepper
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 14-15 oz can hearts of palm, drained and cut into 3/4-inch pieces
3 tbsp dried arame seaweed, rehydrated in a bowl of water for 15 minutes and chopped a bit
1 rib celery, cut into 1/8-inch slices
1 cup cooked brown rice, emmer farro, or spelt or wheat or rye berries

1. In a medium serving bowl, whisk up the lemon juice, garlic, dried thyme and oregano, salt, and pepper. If you don't have a garlic press, you can finely mince the garlic, but get it as tiny as possible and smash it a little before or after chopping it. Garlic flavor is in the garlic juice! If you have a fresh lemon you can squeeze for the juice, then fabulous. But as I usually need more juice than is economically feasible to get from a bunch of lemons... I do go for the bottled stuff. If you do that, make sure it's fresh (not old), and not from concentrate. I like the Lakewood brand, which uses Florida lemons. It seems to have the best flavor.

2. While whisking, slowly drizzle in the olive oil and keep whisking until it's all mixed up. It's fine if it separates a little. It should be pale and slightly opaque.



3. Dump all the other ingredients in the bowl with the dressing. Mix it up. Mmmm.

ROCK COD

1 rock cod, true cod, rockfish, or snapper fillet, about 1/3 - 1/2 pound
pinch o' dried or fresh thyme (not powdered)
pinch o' dried oregano (not powdered)
pinch o' mustard powder
pinch o' paprika
big huge pinch o' sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp buttah
lemon wedge

1. So you have your fish fillet. Rinse it a bit, in case it's fishy, which it isn't, because you bought it the same day it was packed. But rinse it just to be safe, and pat it dry on a paper-towel-lined plate. Run your fingers along the fillet lengthwise, both directions, both sides, to feel for bones. If you feel some (they are like little hard nubbins), take some kitchen tweezers/pliers/heck-even-shears and pull them out (pull in the same direction as the bone). Nobody likes finding bones in their fish.

2. Get your dry rub all ready. Put the thyme, oregano, mustard, paprika, salt, and pepper all together in a wee bowl and mix it up until it looks pretty much... mixed. That was pretty easy.

3. Sprinkle the dry rub all over the fish, on both sides, and pat it in. You can even rub it in, because, after all, you didn't make a rub so you could sprinkle.



4. Heat up your butter in a stainless skillet, 10 inches is fine, over medium-low heat. You can probably do this earlier, like before you make the rub, but you don't want to risk the butter burning before you're ready for it. Don't be tempted to turn up the heat too much, because the fish will not be happy. This is a slow fish.



5. When the butter starts to brown, lay your fillet down in the pan. Don't worry if the skinny bit comes up the side a little, the fillet shrinks some and it's in there long enough to cook through. When you put the fish in, the pan should hush you a little. Not a lot, as in "SHHHHHH! This is a library!" but instead like, "shhhhh... go to sleep..." Take its advice and turn the heat down to low-ish.



6. When the fish just begins to flake and has the palest of browns on the underside (a 3 minutes, maybe), turn it over. Don't be sad if your fillet turns into several fillets at this point. Nobody really cares that much.





7. You will know when the fish is done. It starts to fall apart. If you poke it, it feels tender and kind of soft. Looking at a cross-section of a flake, it's completely opaque.



8. Take the pan off the heat and tent some foil over it, and let the fish rest for 5 minutes or so. I used this time to make my heart of palm salad, but my fish was only kind of warm when I ate it. Which was fine with me, but maybe you like getting your tongue burnt. I don't judge.

9. Put it on a plate with the yummy juice that released into the pan, the browned butter solids and whatever else is in the pan. Squeeze some lemon onto it. The leftover buttery fish juice is great if you have some french bread to dip into it, or if you're a plate-licker.





The best part is, because you didn't smoke up the house by cooking butter over high heat, nothing burnt onto your stainless pan and it's super-easy to clean.

PROS: each dish delicious in its own right. Relatively healthful, with lots of fun textures. Easy cleanup.
CONS: the dishes didn't work together as I'd hoped. The lemon on both of them competed with each other and made me wish I'd had the two on separate occasions.

Lobster

I'm going to be horribly cliche here. I went to Maine, so I cooked some lobstahs. Maybe it's not cliche. Maybe there's a good reason for it.

In any case, for a lobster rookie, cooking them is not a difficult task. Alarming, maybe... but difficult? Hardly! As long as you have the right equipment.

First of all, you have to go to your family's cottage in Maine and drag out the old lobster pot. It's huge. About four times the size of a regular stockpot. Lobsters don't like to go in pots and will try to sabotage your efforts, but if the pot is large enough they really don't have much of a choice. If your family doesn't have a cottage in Maine, sucks to be you. you can probably still cook a lobster if you can find the right pot (make sure it has a lid).



Your next step, obviously, is to get ahold of some lobsters. One lobster per lobster-eater is the way to go. Unless you have two very small dogs who plan on eating lobster as well, in which case they can split one. To get lobsters, go to Simpson's Seafood off Route 1 just south of Wiscasset. It's the home of Superfresh. If you can't get there, they ship.



After you get your lobsters, what's left to do but roll up your sleeves and get down to business?





LOBSTER

1-5 hard-shell lobsters
~1 tbsp good sea salt
2 oz (half a stick) butter
4-6 slices fresh, crusty bread
1-2 lemons in wedges

1. Put a few inches of water in the bottom of your lobster pot. 2-3 inches should do it. Put it over high heat and cover the pot so it heats faster. We want this sucker hot.

2. Put the butter on a low simmer in a little pan. Instead of clarifying it, brown it. Over the course of lobster-cooking, you should be able to easily achieve this goal. But don't let it get black, or it will taste kind of like burnt butter. Or a lot like burnt butter. It will take a long time to brown if you keep it on low heat, which you should do. The butter is browned when... well, when you see that it's starting to brown. Not that hard.

3. When your pot of water comes to a boil, add the salt and stir it to dissolve. You don't want undissolved salt sitting on the bottom of your pan, as it will corrode aluminum and damage stainless steel.





4. As soon as the pot comes to a rolling, hardy boil, it's ready for lobsters.



Take them out of whatever they're in (you can leave the rubber bands on their claws) and drop them right in headfirst. Quickly. The shock of going from cold to boiling hot kills them instantly. Cover the pot immediately.



5. Leave the lobsters in their bath for 20 minutes. You may hear a high-pitched whine at some point. No, the lobsters aren't screaming in pain. They are dead, and steam is whistling from out their carapace. Kind of like a kettle.



6. While the lobsters are steaming, slice up your bread and wedge up your lemons. You'll be glad you did.



7. After your time is up, turn off the heat to the lobster pot and fish them out with tongs. Place them directly in a cold-water bath or colander with running cold water. This stops the cooking process and allows you to handle them.



8. You might want to put the cooked lobsters on a rimmed baking sheet or pan. When you rip them apart to eat them, they release a lot of delicious lobster broth. But as good as it is, you probably don't want it all over your table or shirt.





9. Eat up. You might need some tools. Something to crack the tougher parts (like the claws), and something to pick out the more delicate parts (like the legs). These help:



You can eat just about anything on a lobster. If I were you, I probably wouldn't eat the shell. Or the "vein" (intestine) running down through the tail. The green goopy stuff is the tomalley (liver), and it's delicious. Suck the juice from the legs. And anything else that gushes out when you rip something off.

Due to the distraction of the author during feeding time, she is unable to bring you pictures documenting the best ways to eat a lobster.

I will tell you, though, dip the lobster meat into the browned butter and squeeze a little lemon on it. Also dip the bread in the browned butter. You're in for a treat. But all you'll have to show for it is a bunch of mangled lobster carapace pieces. C'est la vie.

PROS: easy. cheap ($4-$5 a pound). deeeeeelicious.
CONS: it stares at you before and after you cook it (but it doesn't judge.) Also, lobsters are detritivores, which means they eat whatever's lying around. And you are what you eat...


PS: I got a new Canon 50D. I loves it.

Biscuit Cassoulet

I've got to hand it to Isa and Terry. They sure know what they're doing. Go check out their book (well, one of them) right now.

One of these days I'll really start making my own recipes. Sure, I do that now, but only about once a month and I never blog about them. Maybe they're so delicious I just don't want people to know.

For now, though, I'll stick with this cassoulet. It's the second time I've made it - which is saying something, since I rarely make the same thing twice (unless it's my special lasagna, or cookies or something). It reminds me a lot of the pot-roasty, beef-stewy type home-cookin' that I used to love so much. Only, you know, without that pesky meat.

Just about everything in this dish you can find at the farmer's market in midwinter. The leeks, potatoes, carrots, and garlic are all from vendors at the University District Farmer's Market in Seattle. The flour for the biscuits was obtained from a vendor at the market until I dumped it on the floor and had to borrow my mom's AP flour (these things happen. I've learned to frown really hard for two minutes and then forget about them). The vegetable broth is homemade from veggie scraps I save during my cooking (I'll blog about that sometime).

I missed the onions by a month or two, so I had to get them from the store (poo), and the beans I could have gotten from one of the many dried bean vendors at the market but I forgot about it, and thus the bulk aisle once again comes to my aid. Frozen peas could have easily been obtained fresh in summer and then frozen at home, but I'm silly and don't think to do things like that most of the time. Buttermilk too, they sell at the market, but I'm never there early enough (it sells out fast) so it also came from the store. But the point is that I could have gotten it straight from the farmer. I think the only things you can't find at the market here are salt, pepper, cornstarch, leavening agents, and sustainable palm oil (non-hydrogenated shortening).

That said, if you're not trying to eat locally, all these things can also be found in the grocery store. It's just not nearly as fun to get them.

Oh, and this recipe can be vegan - but I used buttermilk for the biscuits instead of soy milk/vinegar because I had buttermilk in my refrigerator. But I didn't have any soy milk. So there you have it.


BISCUIT CASSOULET
adapted slightly from the "Leek and Bean Cassoulet with Biscuits" from Veganomicon by Isa Moscowitz and Terry Romero

CASSOULET
1 lb (3 smallish) purple potatoes, cut into cubes - about 3 cups (any small waxy potatoes will do, but these are so colorful)
2 tbsp cooking oil, olive or otherwise
1 lb carrots, peeled cut into pieces smaller than the potato cubes
1-2 cups chopped onion (I used yellow, but red would have been spectacular)
2 cups thinly sliced leeks (make sure you wash them really well, mud gets into places on a leek you've never even heard of)
3 cups vegetable stock
3 tbsp cornstarch or arrowroot powder
2-3 cloves garlic, pressed
1-2 tbsp chopped fresh thyme leaves
1/2 tsp salt (or as needed)
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/4 cup frozen peas
1 cup cooked navy beans, rinsed

BISCUITS
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup shortening (go natural, not carcinogenic)
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

1. Put potatoes in a small pot of boiling salt water. Cook for 10-15 minutes until just done. Don't make them too soft, because they'll cook more later and you don't want them to fall apart. Or maybe you do, what do I know? Drain them once they're cooked and set them aside. They can sit at room temperature for awhile.

2. Heat a large (12 inch), ovenproof saute pan or cast-iron skillet over medium heat (no higher, because your leeks will get mushy and your onions will burn). By ovenproof, I mean no nonstick coating, no plastic handle, no rubber anywhere, just all-metal. Add the oil, carrots, onion, and leeks.



Let these saute for awhile until the onions turn translucent and there's a little browning action. This should take about 10 minutes.

3. While that's cooking up, whisk the cornstarch into your vegetable stock. It's important that the vegetable stock is cool or cold when you do this, because cornstarch will clump up and be awful if you whisk it into something hot. You'd have little weird unidentifiable lumps in your stew, and nobody would ever eat at your house again. On another note, I used half cornstarch, half tapioca starch because I ran out of cornstarch. I don't recommend this. It won't thicken properly.

4. When the carrot mixture has achieved proper sauteedness, add the garlic, thyme, salt and pepper to the pan and stir it up to coat the rest of the vegetables. Only let that cook about a minute - you should smell the garlic but it shouldn't be anywhere near brown.



5. Heat the oven to 425°F. Add the cooked potatoes and the peas and dump in the stock (give the stock a quick whisk right before you dump it in). Mix it all up to be uniform.



Turn the heat up to medium high and bring to a simmer. Turn it back down and simmer for 7 minutes. Turn it off afterward and carefully stir in the beans.

6. In the meantime, whip up some biscuits. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Using a pastry cutter or fork, cut in the shortening (toss it around and mash it a bit) until it is full of little lumps. You don't want it creamy-smooth, and you don't want large fatty bits either. Slowly pour in the buttermilk while you continue to mix it up with a fork or pastry cutter until everything is moistened and it's a little lumpy. Knead it up a few times with your hands to give it a little workout, and then you're ready to roll.

7. Ball up bits of dough (I made eight biscuits, but you could do 10 or 12) and drop them in the skillet over the cassoulet, spaced evenly apart.



8. Put the whole thing in the oven and keep it there for 15 minutes. The biscuits should be getting nice and golden. Take it out very carefully using doubled up potholders on the handle (don't forget that the handle will be hot). You might need two hands to do this without disaster, especially if you're using cast iron. Serve this puppy right away - make sure there's a biscuit in every bowl. Tada! Dinner.

PROS: easy to get ingredients, tasty, comforting, colorful, hot and full of goodness
CONS: well... it's not low-glycemic. full of lovely calories!

Caribbean Crab Soufflé

There are a few times each year that I like to prepare lengthy, course-filled meals with expensive ingredients. New Years Eve is one such occasion. I was blessed this holiday to enjoy Dungeness crab, succulent mushrooms, ratta"stew"ie (more on that later), and green salad. Food during these long course-by-course meals is slow, and more filling.

Dungeness crab (or any crab, for that matter) is not cheap. But at least, here in the Pacific Northwest, it's local and in season right now - and it makes the SeafoodWATCH's "Best choices" list. But how to make a meal to feature crab? Everyone makes crab cakes... something different would be nice. My grandma made KILLER crab salad with celeriac for Christmas. I can't find any recipe resembling it anywhere, so what to do? I need a crab dish to sweep in the new year.

It just so happens that I'm the lucky recipient of five (count 'em - 5!) different new cookbooks from Christmas. Flipping through them (well, flipping through two, as three were vegetarian), the recipe that caught my eye (haha, caught... you know, like in a crab trap) was crab soufflé. Caribbean crab soufflé.

And I love anything with excessive amounts of beaten egg white!

Not to mention this yearning in the back of my mind to return to the warm, sandy, quiet beaches of the coastal Caribbean city of Cahuita, Costa Rica. (It's not really a city... more like a small town. But "town" starts with a t, not a c.) Although, I don't know how much soufflé anyone actually makes there. I guess it's the seasoning that counts.

It was surprisingly simple to make, once all the crab was out of the shell, and as soufflés go, it was pretty sturdy. Serve it on an ocean blue plate and it makes you want to dive in the gentle, salty swell of the sea. And cast your crab traps.


CARIBBEAN CRAB SOUFFLÉ
from The New Basics Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins, tweaked slightly and scaled down by 1/2

1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
2 tbsp unsalted butter
3 tbsp minced celery leaves
1 clove of garlic, pressed
1/4 tsp curry powder
1/4 tsp dried thyme leaves
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 1/2 tbsp flour
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp milk
2 egg yolks
4 oz fresh crabmeat, cartilage removed
3 egg whites
1/8 tsp fresh lemon juice

1. Prepare your mise en place. If you buy a whole crab (cheaper and fresher), you will not know how much it weighs, so be prepared to a) give it your best guess, or b) have a scale on hand. Pick it carefully out of the shell, from the legs and the body cavity. It's so good. Make sure to get all the shell bits out. You may also want to mix up the spices (curry powder, thyme, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper) ahead of time so you can just chuck them all in at once.

2. Prepare a 4-cup soufflé dish (those round white ceramic things with the ripply sides) by generously buttering the inside. Preheat the oven to 400ºF.

3. Toast your coconut! Lucky us, we had some shredded coconut leftover from making rundown in August (fresh shredded coconut freezes beautifully). You can toast it in an 8-inch pan for a few minutes, until it's lightly browned and all dried out. Ours took a little while, since it was never dried. Put it aside when it's done.

4. Heat up another small pan over low heat and melt the butter in it. Cook the celery leaves with the garlic and spices. Stirring a bit, cook for a few minutes. The garlic shouldn't brown, but it should smell really awesome.



5. Add the flour and stir it to coat the contents of the pan. Cook no more than a minute before adding milk and increasing the heat to medium.



Stir constantly! If you don't, it might scorch on the bottom, resulting in blackened, bad-tasting food. When the milk begins to simmer, take it off the heat. It should be thick and smooth. If not, keep stirring on the heat until it is. (Of note: if you are using rice milk, it will never get thick or smooth. just don't do it. soy should probably work, though.)



6. When it cools a little, whisk in each egg yolk, one at a time. If you do it when the mixture is too hot, the yolks will cook instantly and get all clumpy. That texture is undesirable for many a reason, not least of which is that it's gross (but mainly because the yolks will no longer provide the thickening richness that they would if they were properly mixed in). Mix in the crab and coconut at this point.

7. In a nice metal bowl (for reasons that a food chemist would understand), beat the egg whites with the lemon juice to soft peaks. The "soft peak" stage of egg whites is achieved when you lift the beater or whisk out of the bowl of beaten whites, to leave a floppy point, like a santa hat. Finish it off carefully by hand to stiff peaks - but don't let it get dry. When in doubt, underwhip a little. The "stiff peak" stage looks more like a witch's hat, and goes very quickly to dry oblivion, which is pretty useless and unrecoverable.



8. Put about a quarter of the beaten egg whites into the crab mixture and gently fold with a rubber spatula to "lighten" the custardy crab. Put the lightened crab mix in with the rest of the egg whites, and very gently fold with a rubber spatula in a forward circular motion. Cut down the center of the whites with the spatula and pull it back up toward you again on the bottom of the bowl, folding over the top again and cutting down the middle. Rotate the bowl as you do this until it's mostly incorporated but a wee bit streaky. The more you fold, the more you deflate the air bubbles in the egg whites, so don't get OCD about mixing it completely.



9. Scoop all this into your buttered soufflé dish and stick it straight into the hot oven.



Bake for roughly 25 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and it's all puffy. Serve it right away, before it deflates! It should still be moist inside, but cooked.

PROS: great flavor, hard to mess up, nice and spicy
CONS: would like more crab flavor


I'd make this again, surely. I'd like to try it with some kind of fish, too.