Aroma Cucina

Kitchen Wizard's Secret Weapon for Divine Dinners

What is the emergency, go-to, secret weapon that I try to keep in my fridge at all times? And it’s not ketchup, although mustard takes second place. First place goes to:....Veal Stock!

If Merlin the Magician waved his wand in your kitchen, he would give you this Secret Weapon.  It’s the painter’s white canvas, it’s the keyboard to your computer, it’s  butter on your toast, the magic in your saute pan.

Michael Ruhlman compares it to turbo charging your Mitsubishi... your kitchen is now faster and more fuel efficient.

It’s a flavor bump, adding depth and intensity to a sauce. It’s the umami bridge that literally blends the components of your dish together.

There is a toll to be paid in order to enjoy all this fast freedom: you need to make some veal stock.
I hear you.. where can I find veal bones? At your butcher, you should be patronizing a butcher anyway.

They’re expensive compared to chicken bones. Correct! But, you’ll get extensive use from the bones, it’s worth the $$.
It takes hours to make it. Correct again, but it’s not like your standing next to the oven, frozen in time, while the bones are roasting. Stop whining.

The How-To of Making Reduced Veal Stock Kitchen Magic:
4-5 lb veal bones
1 large carrot
1 large onion
3-4 ribs of celery
Peppercorns,  salt, vegetable oil, herbs(rosemary, thyme, sage)
1/2 can canned tomatoes
4-5 good sized glugs of white wine, enough to cover the bottom of the roasting pan

In a large roasting pan, lay out the bones and lightly salt and pepper them. Roast the bones for about 1 hour at 350F/180C. Remove from the oven when they are toasty brown and the smell is intoxicating.

Meanwhile, roughly chop the peeled carrot, celery and onion. Add a little vegetable oil to the bottom of a large stock pot and add the chopped vegetables, another sprinkle of salt, a small palmful of peppercorns, and a bit of rosemary and thyme.
Saute until the vegetables are a  little burned, this caramelization adds color and flavor to the broth.
Add the roasted meat bones to the stock pot.
Using white wine, deglaze the veal bone roasting  pan, dissolving all the tasty browny bits and add the wine and meat juices to the stock pot.
Add enough cold water to the stock pot that you cover the bones.
Lightly simmer for about 2 hours. That means little bubbles gently swimming to the top of the pot. Skim off any of that icky foam.
After two hours,  first remove and discard the bones. Then strain the stock through a fine mesh colander and pour the strained stock back into the pot. (It’s much easier to strain the stock if you pull the big bones out first, less mess and less weight to deal with.  Reserve the bones for a worthy dog.)

Add 1/2 cup canned tomatoes, turn up the heat to a slow boil,  and start reducing the stock.
 After boiling for about an hour, strain the liquid once more and move to a smaller pot. Continue reducing until the stock liquid  become thick enough to coat a wooden spoon, and the boiling bubbles look like syrup.
Reducing time will depend on how much water was in the stock pot to begin with and the temperature you are using to reduce the stock, but plan on a few hours.
Be careful, because at this syrupy stage, you could burn your precious elixir and that would be a real drag.
When you have the stock reduced to about 1 1/2 cups of liquid, carefully pour it into a very clean jar.
Let it cool, then refrigerate the stock. The fat will come to the top and you can remove it later.  What’s left, is Veal Kitchen Magic.  It will keep in your fridge for 3-4 weeks; just be sure to use a clean spoon every time so no other food particles can contaminate it and encourage mold.


What to do with Veal Kitchen Magic:
Saute a a piece of pork, a piece of codfish (yes, it works very well with a meaty fish), chicken breasts, turkey bits. Whatever protein strikes your fancy. Remove the protein from the sauce pan, keeping the meat or fish on a warm plate, add flavoring like chopped mushrooms, a splash of wine and a teaspoon or so of Veal Kitchen Magic to the saute pan. Swirl these ingredients around in a pan, voila!,  you have your sauce a la minute.

Pork chops with green peppercorns: Once the pork chops are cooked, add green peppercorns, mustard, your veal kitchen magic and a shot of whiskey to the pan. Cook for 45 seconds, remove and pour over the pork chops.

Lemon Chicken breasts: Remove the cooked chicken breasts from the pan, add veal kitchen magic, a glug or two of white wine, deglaze the pan, finish with the juice of a fresh squeezed lemon. Add capers if you are feeling happy.

Codfish Delight: Remove the codfish from the pan. Add chopped mushrooms, veal magic, lots of fresh pepper, a little white wine. Cook until the mushrooms are soft, finish with a squirt of lemon juice.

It all builds off the basic saute and stock. It’s like a painter’s white canvas,  it’s like playing jazz in your kitchen. It’s your secret weapon.
This blog post was inspired by a class I gave on Saturday. I hope you guys had as much fun as I did!

High Altitude Chopped

I’ve got at least 20 years of experience under my belt, or in my ski boots, whatever the case may be, but I still think high altitude cooking is a royal pain. The Lodge at Snowbird is 8100 ft above sea level, which means water boils at around 185F. It means the little white Zolfino beans that I lovingly carried all the way from the Italian village of  Anghiari, that usually cook in 45 minutes, are still rock hard 2 1/2 hours later.   It means pasta that should cook in 16 minutes was done in 8 minutes. There is no rhyme or reason.
It’s not that temperatures don’t mean the same, but is a rare steak rare at 140F, or is it bleeding red, or that funky grey overcooked color?
  Do you know anything about Snowbird? It has a reputation for being a tough, rugged, testosterone mountain, but in reality, it’s a tough, rugged, testosterone mountain. The ratio of men to women is roughly 750 to 1. Maybe I’m exaggerating. I refer to the hot tub as being a “man tank” bubbling away with tired man flesh. The occasional women who show up are ogled like pin up girls from the 1940’s. There is a certain tough girl glamour for those of us who ski with the boyz. Connected to the hot tub, is a large heated swimming pool and that’s where our clan usually gathers, and the conversations range from the weather (it’s an obsession), the conditions in Mineral Basin, did you hear the avalanche bombs this morning,  and what’s for dinner.
The ‘what’s for dinner’ part of the conversation is always the most serious. Fresh food ebbs and flows depending on if anyone has gone down into the valley to shop, or has someone passed along some mountain stash, or is it time to break out the frozen vegetables? If we tap into Kevin’s stash of canned goods, then things are dire.

 It’s like playing an endless game of Chopped. In your mystery basket tonight you have: 1 package of scallops, 2 boneless pork chops, 2 cajun sausages and 1 orange bell pepper and an onion. Too easy!  Cut up the pork and sausage into bite size pieces. Thinly slice the onions, thickly slice the pepper and saute the ingredients until done.
Remove from the pan and add a few chili peppers, chopped garlic and quickly sear the scallops. Finish with a zap of soy sauce and hot sauce. Toss together. Finish with finely chopped fresh basil and serve over rice.

For last night’s finale dinner, we started with one tri-tip steak, but the party was too big for just one tri-tip, so we added shrimp to the mix. The last bit of fresh broccoli needed to be eaten. Salad greens were a distant memory, but we had celery in abundance. And there was a last minute request for couscous. So here it is, dinner made in 30 minutes.

Sear the tri-tip. Have staff open all the windows and doors so we don’t set off the smoke alarm. It’s good to be the Queen of the Kitchen with a minion of hungry men willing to do  my bidding.
While the tri-tip is searing, chop the broccoli and thinly slice the last of the ginger.
Give a trusted kitchen companion the super sharp mandolin and let him slice the celery for the celery and blue cheese salad. Keep a close eye on the companion so that we don’t wind up with finger salad.
In the shrimp pan add all the remaining garlic cloves in the house, a few chili peppers, a small glug of olive oil, a knob of butter, a bay leaf, a few shots of hot sauce. Turn the heat on medium low.
Add the remaining frozen peas to the boiling couscous water, add some Vadouvan spice that you had forgotten all about, add the couscous, turn off the heat. One dish done.
Saute the broccoli. Realize the men folk are wolfing down almonds. Grab a handful and chop them up to finish the broccoli.

Turn up the heat on the shrimp pot.

Check on the tri-tip which is resting comfortably.

Toss the shrimp (with their shells on) into the pan and toss vigorously. Complain loudly that there isn’t enough heat. It’s good to get a disclaimer out there early. No one is listening anyway. Hit the shrimp with a good sized glug of cognac.  Remove the shrimp from the pan, add another knob of butter and let it melt and mingle with the spices. Add a few more shots of hot sauce, a couple of squirts of Worsteschire sauce and the rest of  lemons left over from the cocktail making frenzy that went on while you were cooking.

Slice the tri-tip, drizzle generously with truffle oil and sit down with the gang.

Serve. Eat. Laugh a lot. And that’s what high altitude mountain cooking is all about. Sort of makes cooking at sea level boring, doesn’t it?
I’m already missing the clan, but I’m  certainly happy to be a member.

Side Stripe Shrimp Ceviche

Super sweet, tender, tasty, side stripe shrimp, why haven’t I met you sooner? If I knew I had a steady supply of these babies, I’d be planning all sorts of experiments with them.

There isn’t much info on side stripe shrimp, and after a glass of wine, it isn’t even easy to say side stripe shrimp three times fast. Latin name: Pandalopis dispar. I have no idea how that is pronounced and shouldn’t there be an ‘e’ at the end of dispar? What’s up with those Latin guys...cheap with their vowels if you ask me.

The side stripe comes from the northern Pacific and are farmed off the BC Pacific Coast although they do turn up in small quantities in Oregon and Washington. Generally considered to be sustainable, but there is conflicting info.

Rant alert:  What is it with the fish conservancy groups?
Why do they make it so hard to figure out if something is ok or not? Yes to yellow fin tuna if it is pole caught. How am I supposed to know if the fish at the market is pole caught?? If you ask, you know the fish guy is going to tell you whatever you want to hear. Sorry for the rant, but if it takes me 45 minutes of trolling on the internet and I’m still confused, whats a normal person supposed to make of the situation?  (I’m thinking googling side stripe shrimp for over an hour makes me just a wee bit obsessed.)

With side stripe, the general lack of info  seems to stem from the fact that, because it is such a small harvest, there isn’t much info. The biggest problem seems to be damage done by bottom trawling. So you are on your own here; they seem generally OK and I’m going to run with that.   Rant over.

Poached Side Stripe Shrimp Ceviche  (adapted from this Williams Sonoma recipe)
 2 lb side stripe shrimp
1/2 cup of ketchup (yeah...ketchup...we had to go out and buy some!)
1 large shallot, minced
1/2 red onion, minced
Juice of 2 limes and 1/2 lemon
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 t salt
Chili pepper and hot sauce to taste
1 cup of white wine

Finishing Touch
1-2 ripe avocados
juice of 1/2 lemon and a few pinches of salt

Technically this is not a ceviche because the shrimp are cooked, oh so quickly and gently, they barely noticed they were being poached.

Peel the shrimp and discard the shells & roe. Or freeze the shells & roe and use for your next batch of fish stock.

In a blender, add the shallot, onion, garlic, chili pepper and whizzz until they are minced. Add the lemon juice, salt and ketchup. Taste. Add hot sauce to get the heat where you like it...remember the heat will intensify as the shrimp marinate. 

In a small saucepan, bring the wine to barely a simmer. One or two bubbles rising. Add the shrimp, stir, count 30 seconds and remove from the heat. Strain, but reserve the juice which will be the most amazing pink strawberry milkshake color. Freeze it for the next batch of fish stock or if you need a shrimpy flavor boost in another dish. I used it in the sablefish chowder. Excellent stuff.

Combine the shrimp and sauce and chill for at least 2 hours.

When it is time to serve the shrimp, dice the avocado and toss with the lemon juice and a pinch of salt.  Serve a mound of shrimp next to a few spoons of avocado.

Serve it alongside the shrimp ceviche with lots of tortilla chips. Watch out...because you know someone will go into the kitchen, dig up the bowl with the left over sauce and start scooping it up with the chips and then be shamed into sharing with everyone else. Another alert: that may well be you! (or Jim....)

Sablefish Fisherman Style & Superbowl Chowder

Joe at Gotham Seafood may have thrown down the gauntlet, but I do believe we rose to the sablefish challenge.

In case you are wondering, fresh sablefish is a cod fish is a butterfish, is a fine, fine tasty fish.
One of the highest in omega3 fatty acids, it’s also richly delicious and healthy to boot.

On Night One we had our Black Sablefish done up as a ‘brodetto’,  Veneto Fisherman Style.

Fish Stock:
2 medium carrots
3-4 stalks celery
1 medium onion
Salt, Pepper, Bay Leaves
Olive Oil
All the fish trimmings (head, tail, fins) and the shrimp shells

The Sauce:
2 cups of fish stock
1/2 cup white wine
4-5 peeled garlic cloves
4T butter

The Finishing Touch:
1 lb side stripe shrimp
parsley
2 cloves fresh garlic
juice of a lemon
glug of white wine

Prep: Cut off the head, tail and fins. Cut the body into large steaks.
Make a fish stock with the fish trimmings.

Fish Stock:
Roughly chop the carrots, celery and onion and saute in a few tablespoons of olive oil. Add about a quart and a half of water and the fish trimmings. Simmer for 1/2 hour, then strain and return to medium heat and reduce by half.

The Fish:
Dredge each fish steak in salt and peppered flour.

In a large saucepan, add a few tablespoons of olive oil and the peeled cloves of garlic. Saute the garlic until it is dark, dark brown and remove from the pan and discard. I know, tossing garlic doesn’t sit well, but this bitter burnt garlic. Feel better?
 Working in batches, saute the steaks. When all the steaks are done, place in an oven proof pan and keep warm in the oven.
In the saucepan, add 1 1/2 cups of the reduced fish stock, and the wine, and futher reduce by half and pour over the fish. Keep warm.

The Finishing Touch:
Peel and roughly chop the side stripe shrimp.
Finely chop the parsley and garlic together.
In a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the shrimp and parsely/garlic and cook for only a few moments, until the white of the shrimp turns from translucent to milk white.

Pour over the top of the fish and serve.  A loaf of crusty bread for dunking wouldn’t be a bad idea, but let me tell you, there is no crusty bread to be had in Snowbird..or maybe in all of Utah.

What to do with leftover sablefish?

Superbowl Chowder
All the leftover sable fish, picked clean of bones and skin
1 large onion
2 T butter
2-3 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into small cubes
2 cups of milk
2 cups of frozen corn
salt, pepper, smoked paprika & hot sauce


Finely slice the peeled onion and gently, slowly, lovingly saute the onions in the barely melted butter. Think of melting soft onions gently relaxing and giving up their oniony goodness into the air.  Add the cubed potatoes, leftover fish with all of the sauce & juices, liberal amounts of pepper, corn and simmer for about 30 minutes. Add the milk and cook for another 10 minutes.   
Taste and add more salt and pepper if necessary.  Serve with a dash of smoked paprika and hot sauce on top. 
A good winter chowder even if you aren’t watching the Superbowl.

Mussel Soup with Lemon Saffron Aioli

Fish soups are called ‘brodetto’ in Italy and every Adriatic coastal town has their own version. Brodetto di San Bendetto is flavored with green tomatoes, Brodetto di Porto Recanati with saffron, alla Fanese with tomato puree, and in Ancona with puree AND fresh tomato.  I don’t live near the coast, I like the French Provencal style of fish soup and I don’t have to play by the rules, so here is Brodetto di Montone.

Warning: it is messy to make, it takes time, the words slow, fast and easy do not appear anywhere within this recipe. However, the words delicious and worth the effort do appear.

The soup has three parts: the soup base, the crunchy garlicky toasts, and the saffron aioli.

Soup Base
1/2 kilo or 1 lb of small, whole fish
1 chopped carrot
1-2 stalks chopped celery
1 chopped onion
4-5 plum tomatoes
1 cup tomato puree
1/2 cup brandy
Salt, pepper, olive oil

1/2 kilo of mussels, or shrimp or clams

Saute the carrot, onion, celery in a few tablespoons of olive oil in the bottom of a soup pot. A little brownage is OK, but not too much.  Add a 1 1/2 liters of water to the pot, bring to a boil, and toss in the whole fishies.
Now, if you can’t get an assortment of small fish, get whatever non-oily fish that you can find that still has it’s head on, or at least has bones. Under no circumstances use frozen fish fingers. Bones are flavor. If you use a fish filet you wont’ get the the depth of flavor. Oily fishes are too strongly flavored, so avoid fish like salmon or mackerel.   Let simmer for about 20 minutes and then turn off the heat.

While the stock is cooking, make the aioli.
 
Lemon Saffron Aioli
1 medium egg, yoke only
1 cup olive oil
Saffron threads
Juice of 1 small-medium lemon
1 T mustard
1 medium size HOT chili pepper, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced

In a heavy bowl, add the egg yoke, mustard, garlic and chili pepper.  In a little dish, steep the saffron in the lemon juice.  Now, slowly, slowly, in a thin thread, whisk the olive oil into the egg yoke, mustard, garlic & chili pepper. You are making an emulsion, so the oil must be incorporated fully before you can add more oil. You’re not making that much, so don’t bother with the food processor, a little whisking is excellent aerobic and upper arm exercise, quite whining. If the sauce breaks, which means it doesn’t look like mayonaise, it looks like oil globs in a sea of egg yoke, consult Harold McGee for repair instructions. When you are finished adding the oil, whisk in the lemon juice and saffron.

Store the aioli in the fridge while you finish making the soup.

Strain the liquid from the soup and put it back in the soup pot. What is left in the colander is the vegetables, the fish meat and bones. Pick through the pile, reserving the meat and vegetables, tossing out the bones and skin. This part is yucky, messy and hot. Get over it.

Put the fish meat back and vegetables back into the soup base and then either using a stick blender or a regular blender, puree the soup, adding in the tomato puree. Return to the heat, add the brandy and let it gently simmer. The soup is done. Bravo! Brava!
 Crunchy Garlicky Toasts
1 stale baguette
2 cloves garlic
1/2 or more of a HOT chili pepper
1 T Oregano
1 T fresh chopped parsley
1/4 cup Grated parmigiana cheese
1/4 cup olive oil

Slice the stale baguette...if you only have a fresh baguette, slice it and stick it in a warm  oven until the pieces are hard.

Blend all the other ingredients until you get a fluffy, mousse like consistency.  Spread a bit of the mousse on each slice of bread and bake at a medium oven heat 300F/150C until the mousse is brown, melted, bubbly.  Take out of the oven and let cool. Make more than you think you should because these disappear immediately. 

When you are ready to serve the soup, toss in the mussels or shrimp or clams or whatever you want. When the mussels or clams are open, serve immediately with the toasts and the aioli.


The soup base freezes well, so make a big enough batch that you can freeze it and then you can have this delicious, worth the effort soup, anytime you want. Buon’appetito!

Scallops and Parsley Pasta

  Not just any scallop, but a cappasanta, it’s a giant scallop with its erotic roe still attached.  They/ve been in the fish market for the past few weeks and I just love them. My standard way to cook them is a tiny bit of butter, a splash of Cognac and a few sizzling minutes under the broiler.

But, they’re too expensive to have enough to make a meal out of them so I figured a little pasta would fill in the gap.

Just in case you can’t get cappasanta at your local fish market, use a good sized diver scallop in a small ramekin dish.  You want an oven proof container that will hold in the juices.

Prep the cappasanta as mentioned above. Little butter, little Cognac. That’s it. Don’t be fooling around with lemon, garlic and that other stuff. Trust me on this one.

Use a soft egg noodle pasta and cook the pasta.

In the meantime, puree fresh parsley, butter and a clove of garlic. See, this is where the garlic comes in. Feel better?

When the pasta is just about cooked, put the scallops under the broiler.

When the pasta is done, toss with the parsley and garlic butter and set aside.

 

Working quickly, so everything will stay hot, remove the scallop from its container or shell, add a portion of the pasta, quickly swirl it with the scallop juices and place the scallop back on top.

 

Garnish with fresh thyme blossoms if you are lucky enough to have some in the garden. If not, don’t worry,  you’ll still be very happy. This makes a beautiful pasta starter course, with a crisp white wine. (Whoever says drink with a floppy, saggy white wine? No one…so crisp white wine it is!)

Summer Broiled Shrimp and Fresh Herbs

Ssshhhh...I'm not going to say this too loud or the Weather Gods might hear, but I think our weather has finally turned from eternal rain to sun.

   In the spring, a livelier palate changes on the burnish'd hearth
  In the spring, a young cook's fancy, lightly turns to to thoughts of grill.

Apologies to Alfred Lloyd Tennyson, but as soon as the warm weather comes I want to eat things light and barely cooked. I want to eat things from the sea, I want to eat grilled shrimp, and linguine with clam sauce, and those little crabs that come from the Veneto. And I obsessivley go online to find a cheap place to stay at the beach.  So I guess spring has sprung into summer here in Montone and it's about freakin' time.

This is how we celebrated the arrival of warm sunshine with a dish that could be a light meal of its own, or served as a finger licking starter:

Summer Broiled Shrimp and Fresh Herbs
500g or about 1 pound of whole shrimp
Fresh herbs: parsley, basil, sage, fennel fronds
Lemons
Olive Oil
Coarse Sea Salt

I like whole shrimp, which means they sill have their heads. The heads hold in the juices, and that makes for better flavor. If all you can get is decapitated shrimp, that's fine, but you'll need a bit more olive oil to keep things moist.

Prep the shrimp by laying it flat on your cutting surface, and using scissors, carefully cut the shell horizontally, along the length of the tail. Remove the top half of the tail shell, and leave the bottom length of the tail shell intact. This is a little bit more time consuming than totally shelling the shrimp tail, but its worth it because the remaining bottom half of the shell becomes the juice holder-inner.

Using a broiler proof dish, like a metal sizzle plate, line the plate with a  1/2" deep layer of coarse sea salt or kosher salt.  Sea salt is  cheap in Italy so I can use as much as I want. Kosher salt may be a better bet in places were 'sea salt' is a precious treat.

Arrange the prepped shrimp on top of the salt and treat the fish to a fine drizzle of olive oil.

Finely chop your fresh herbs, whatever you have on hand, but make parsley the biggest presence in the herb bunch. Go  easy on the rosemary, thyme, sage herbs as they pack a big flavor wallop, and can mask the shrimp flavor. One tiny clove of garlic couldn't hurt.  If you have some fennel in the garden, snip some fronds to add to the mix.   Set aside.

Broil the shrimp until done; hopefully you have a good broiler that really cranks out the heat because the faster you can do this, the better.  Depending on the size of the shrimp and the broiler heat, this shouldn't take more than 4-5 minutes. I like to wait until I have some charred shell because I adore that smell.

As soon as the shrimp are done, add another tiny drizzle of olive oil, sprinkle with the fresh herbs and serve immediately with some cut up lemons.
Have paper napkins on hand, although this dish encourages lots of finger licking.

Its good to sit in the sun and eat shrimp!  Now, if I could just find a cheap beach house.....

And in case you were wondering, I butchered Alfred Lloyd Tennyson's poem "Locksley Hall", where the 11th stanza  goes like this:
In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

Full poem here, it's worth the moments it takes to read it.

Thanksgiving Traditions

I hope everyone had a very fun and tasty Thanksgiving weekend. For those of you not in the States: it’s a marvelous holiday that still hasn’t been overly tarnished by commercialism. Friends and family meet for a meal, and that is what Thanksgiving is all about.

Our Thanksgiving was a happy marathon of seeing family and friends, drinking amazing wines, preparing and eating some seriously good food.

 

We try to observe and uphold tradition in our family and two things that are absolute necessity are  Oysters Rockefeller and toys at the table.

We’ve progressed from hanging spoons on our noses to blowing up latex gloves and putting them on our heads, I really don’t know how to describe the mayhem that was caused by the walnuts with the condoms inside and there isn’t much that can top the hillbilly fake teeth, although this year’s fake mustaches and red wax lips were pretty hilarious. Picture a large table of food, mashed potatoes piled high, sweet potatoes covered in walnuts, juicy turkey, gravy, ok you get the picture. Everyone comes to the table and immediately dives for their red wax lips.   

 

Although to be fair, the other cause of frenzy in our family is the Oyster Rockefeller feast. My cousin makes THE best oyster Rockefeller in the universe. Really.

Goes like this:

     1)   Procure a lot of oysters.

     2)   Wake up early on Turkey Day and scrub a lot of oysters. This is a labor of love, lots of cold  water and grit.

     3)   Assemble shucking team in the basement, near the woodworking equipment.

     This is an all male team and it was a proud day, a few years back, when my son made the team.

     4)   Designated Swamp Girl and Cheese Girl must be in position.

      Swamp is the mixture of chopped spinach, garlic, walnuts and sour cream that gets  placed in precise amounts on top of the opened oyster.

       Cheese Girl sprinkles the cheese on top of the swamp and takes   care of oyster baking tray management.

      Cheese Girl must be young and pretty. Alas, my cheese days are over and I’m now Swamp Girl.

     5)   Trays of oysters go into the oven until the oysters are bubbling hot.

     6)   Everyone gathers around, burning their fingers on the shells, and slurping

      down the delicious contents.

Is it true that laughter aids digestion?

 

 

The Saturday after Thanksgiving is developing into the Anti-Turkey festival. All the people who couldn’t gather on Thursday gather on Saturday for a lobster feast. Of course this involves the ritual of hypnotizing all of the lobsters so that they will be relaxed, happy and tender. This year, we were also treated to a truly outstanding ceviche, and I vote this gets added to the annual, traditional Anti-Turkey menu.

 

All of this is just my way of saying that I’m thankful, happy and grateful to have my family, to share laughter and to embrace tradition.

 

 

 

Easy Whole Roasted Fish

  A whole fish, with all of its bones still inside where they belong, is going to taste better than a filet. This is the whole truth and nothing but the truth. You can adapt this recipe by laying 2 filets on top of each other, but its nowhere near as much fun.

 

Ingredients:

All the fresh herbs you can lay your hands on: parsley, marjoram, oregano, thyme, sage, mint (yes, a little mint is a wonderful addition), rosemary.

1 fish, such as an orata, small sea bass, red snapper

Tiniest sprinkle of salt

Some tin foil

 That’s it.

 Take your clean and gutted whole fish and lay it on a sheet of tin foil large enough to wrap the fish, stuff all the fresh herbs into the cavity. Sprinkle both sides of the fish with a little bit of salt.  If you are using filets, place the herbs between the two fillets.

Wrap the fish up, taking care to keep the seams of the foil wrap facing up. Add another layer of foil, also facing up. This keeps the juices from dripping out, and makes it easier to unwrap and eat later.

Now you have choices. This is a wonderful preparation for the grill. Place the fish packages (one fish per package) on the grill and turn once or twice.

Or you can roast the fish in a preheated oven, 350F, for approximately 30 minutes, depending on the size of the fish. Filets should take about 20 minutes.  This is a forgiving recipe, so if you are worried about the fish being done, turn the oven off and leave the fish in the oven for another 10 minutes, it won’t dry out because you’ve sealed in all the juices in the foil.

A variation on this preparation is to include a few tomatoes and potatoes and then you have an all in one dish and very little cleanup, which totally works for me! Dice the potatoes into small bite size pieces and par boil for about 5 minutes. Lay on top of the fish along with small tomatoes, sliced in half. 

You can either wrap the fish in foil as above, or in oven parchment paper, but if  you use paper, then don’t cook the fish on the grill, ok?

 

Simple, delicious and an excellent choice for that quick and easy summer, don’t-want-to-be-in-the-kitchen mood.

In the time it takes to boil water: Pasta with Shrimp and Bottarga

 It’s summertime and I don’t want to spend any more time in the kitchen than I have to.

400 g shrimp

3 cloves of garlic, minced

½ cup diced fresh tomatoes

1 thinly sliced shallot

2 T finely chopped parsley

A bit of finely spiced fresh chili pepper, depends on how hot you like it and how hot your chilies are

Shaved bottarga*

*Bottarga is compressed, dried fish roe, usually either mullet or tuna. You can find at Italian specialty stores or buy some from the fine people at Gustiamo. I recommend the whole bottagra, not pre-grated.

Put your pasta water on to boil.

 Start chopping up your garlic, tomatoes, shallot, parsley, and chili pepper.

Once the pasta water has come to a boil, you’ve salted it, added the pasta and stirred, get out a sauté pan large enough to hold all of the shrimp laying flat, not piled on top of each other.

Add 1-2 T olive oil to the sauté pan and when its good and hot, add the shrimp. Cook for 1-2 minutes, turning the shrimp.

 

Based on 8 minute cooking time for the pasta, you are about halfway ready to eat. Another 4 minutes and you're done.

 

Add all of the chopped ingredients to the shrimp pan and toss thoroughly. 1-2 minutes cooking time.

Drain the pasta.

Place the pasta in a pretty bowl, and grate 3 T of bottarga over the pasta. Place the shrimp on the pasta, but before you pour the sauce over the pasta, melt a good sized knob of butter in the pan, scraping up any brown bits. Now pour the sauce over the pasta and bring it to the table so everyone can oooh and ahhh over the shrimp, then toss everything together really well.

 Have paper napkins on hand for sticky fingers because all these shrimp are in their shell and you have to peel them and get deliciously messy. Don’t even think about peeling the shrimp first, and I know you would never, ever buy pre-peeled shrimp.

 

A nice cold white wine. A little tomato salad, and you are all set. This is our first beefsteak tomato, sprinkled with some fresh basil and marjoram, salt and a few drips of olive oil. Now that is summer on a plate.