Spicy South Asian Roasted Fish

[Meg] When I saw this recipe, it reminded me of a wonderful Ina Garten recipe (which I'll share next time we make it). They are both simple and delicious because you combine a few ingredients to make the sauce, smother the fish in it, and then roast the concoction in the oven. 

This recipe calls for halibut and that's what we used but I'm going to find a less expensive alternative the next time we make it. Anyway, the sauce includes fresh lemongrass, ginger and lime juice, chili sauce (we used half Heinz and half Sriracha), coconut milk, fish sauce and garlic. Blend in the processor and pour over the fish. Bake for about 15 minutes. Wow - seriously, it was just incredible! We paired it with leftover Fiery Sweet Potatoes and tangy cole slaw. In terms of presentation, there was a lot of orange on the plate so we lost some points for that. But the flavor was fantastic! Here's the link to the recipe.

  
[Tyler] This is one of the best things that I've ever eaten...ever, no joke. I fear actually that there was some kind of perfect storm that resulted in the onslaught of flavor we loosed upon our taste buds. Will it ever be as good as the first time? Experience tells me it will be much better.

Two things - no three things stood out for me.

First the halibut was wonderful. I could tell when I washed it; it was firm, it was not slimy and it didn't smell fishy. Second, the fish sauce we used was, let's say, well aged and this turned out to be a good thing. In the final dish, the fish sauce was discernible (this is not generally the case in my experience) but it was wonderful! Lastly, the spice was perfect. The Heinz chili sauce (which I didn't even know we owned) was sweet and tangy while the Sriracha brought the spice and heat to the party. Oh, and the lemongrass was definitely present and lent a wonderful freshness to the dish. OK, four things. I can't wait to make this again! 

Buvez: This is getting boring isn't it.

Fiery Sweet Potatoes

Tyler and I have been previewing some Thanksgiving side dishes lately in preparation for the Big Day. In addition to brussels sprouts, we made a recipe for sweet potatoes that I saw in the New York Times. Our local Coop had yams but not sweet potatoes. Some people use them interchangeably but the sweet potato has much more nutritional value so I shopped around to find them.  

The recipe calls for baking the potatoes in the oven for about an hour until they are "very soft". I cooked mine for an hour and twenty minutes and they probably could have cooked a little longer. I peeled and mashed them and then put them in the fridge until dinnertime. 

That evening, Tyler and I mixed coconut milk and Thai red curry paste and combined it with the mashed sweet potatoes. Then we added brown sugar, unsalted butter and salt, and baked it in the oven. They were delicious - kind of sweet and exotic, but not too spicy. I think we would add a bit more curry paste for additional heat next time, but for the average palate, this level was perfect. Here's the link to the recipe.

The combination of the brussels sprouts (shown below with a couple of Tofurky kielbasa), the fiery sweet potatoes, and some of Meg's famous tangy cole slaw made for a great meal!


Buvez: Stuck on the Big A IPA for this hearty fall fare - and it works!

Brussels Sprouts!

This years participation in the local CSA at Cedar Circle Farm brought many unfamiliar (to me) vegetables into the house. Kale, bok choy, and mustard greens all made their way through our kitchen this year. One of the more welcome sights late in the year was a stalk - a legitimate tool for home defense - of brussels sprouts. 

I know brussels sprouts are not too popular in general. Last week I heard Jane Stern refer to them on The Splendid Table as one of the 10 most hated foods (how can you hate food?) in America. However they have always had a spot in my heart and about ten years ago Meg and I started making them a regular part of our Thanksgiving Day meal. My family can attest to this. 

So what to do with this stalk of delight? Meg found the answer in this wonderful recipe that we cooked up the other night. It combines applewood smoked bacon (we are lucky to have the North Country Smokehouse nearby in Claremont NH) with apples (still using apples from our own trees!), red onion, some vinegar and of course the brussels sprouts. 

There is always the question of how much to cook the brussels sprouts - you want them tender but not too chewy. I cooked them more than the recipe called for but they were still a bit underdone in Meg's view. Despite their small size, I think next time I will cut them in half as many recipes suggest.

Regardless, they were wonderful with a tangy fruitiness that joined the comforting earthiness of the brussels sprouts. My family might just have another form of brussels sprouts to enjoy this Thanksgiving!

Thirds?

Thirds.

I've had a portion. It was good enough that I had another. But wait - it is good enough that I need to go back and have one more portion. 

Despite girth-like evidence to the contrary, this doesn't happen to me very often - but it did the other night when we had the Moroccan Chickpea Stew. It was so delicious and wonderfully spiced and so ... approachable... I simply couldn't resist it. 

As I slowly cleaned up my last bowlful, I was reminded of Teresa Lust's wonderful book Pass the Polenta where she describes the phenomenon of "thirds" while relating her grandmother observing her father learn about polenta: 

In her experience, if a guest ate only seconds, he had done so merely to be polite. The meal was not so bad that he would refuse a second taste, but perhaps not so well prepared that he would lose sight of manners. The genuine culinary triumph came when a guest succumbed to the flavorful temptations on the table before him and dove in with abandon for a third helping.  

I succumbed BIG TIME!!

Khitcherie unda (Indian Eggs!)

A true Sunday brunch entry today; the kind that inspired this blog. Meg made Indian Eggs, or as Madhur Jaffrey - who inspired their construction in our house - calls them Khitcherie unda: scrambled eggs Indian Style.

Meg starts by dicing onion, tomato, cilantro and green chilies and sauteing all this in a small (I mean it) amount of butter. In our case we get a couple packages of these chilies from the Indian store in Lebanon (yes, we have one). They are found in the freezer and we keep them there as well, in two zip lock bags to keep them "fresh". They are pretty darn hot so we don't go through them too quickly.

Anyway while that's cooking and making the house smell fantastic, you beat eggs well in a separate bowl and when the onions etc. are ready, you add the eggs to the mix.

Then the magic happens. Meg has a way of very gently cooking eggs, letting the curds form slowly and stopping before things get dry, that makes her eggs sublime. She repeated the performance today and the results were transcendent.

And spicy!! Today's incarnation had four of the spicy chilies which was a perfect heat level for me and I'm glad to say also for her.

Buvez: I stumbled here a bit. We had a snakebite made with Guinness draft and Dogfishhead Festina Pêche. It was nice, but this meal really needs a fine IPA such as the Smuttynose Big A double IPA.

I love Sundays!

Saturday...

It's Saturday night and time for some more martini poetry, this time from Dorothy Parker:

I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
after four I'm under my host.

Moroccan Chickpea Stew

Last night, we merged two recipes that I had found a couple of years ago in Cooking Light; one for Moroccan Chickpea Chili and the other for Moroccan Chickpea Stew and we came up with a great hybrid.

The recipes were pretty similar, but there were a few key differences. They both called for onions, carrots, garlic, chickpeas, tomatoes, and various spices. But the chili called for celery and the stew recipe added jalapeno (unseeded) and potato, so we added them all. The spice combo was great. Both recipes called for cumin, turmeric and salt. The stew also had chili powder, which we added. The chili included ground ginger, freshly ground black pepper, cinnamon and ground red pepper. Cowabunga! 

We added some organic vegetable broth and let it simmer for awhile. When the veggies were tender, we served the stew with rice and garnished with cilantro. Great hearty meal!