My Food Geek

My parent’s birthdays were Sunday and Tuesday respectively. I thought it would be nice to celebrate both days together so I invited them over to my place for a nice dinner. I already planned on serving them my Daring Baker’s dessert, the Bostini Cream Pie, but I didn’t have a main dish to serve. After talking with my mom about the plans, she mentioned she’d like to have seafood. This seemed like a quite wide open answer but I decided I could take yet another challenge and come up with something.

I knew I wanted to try and make something my parents weren’t expecting so I decided to take some inspirations for the halibut dish I made a while back. I was pretty sure that my parents, being from New England, would expect their seafood deep-fried or broiled since that’s the norm around these parts. Going against the grain, I decided to go with pan searing, as I was sure they weren’t expecting it.

I made my way over to the local Whole Foods to see what sort of interesting seafood they had fresh and available. I eventually settled on a nice loin of cod and some mahogany clams. While I was there, I picked up a small bag of multi-colored, fingerling potatoes: red, gold, white, and blue, to round out the dish. I also managed to get some fresh, local green beans from a nearby farm stand that would find their way into this dish.

The fish was seasoned with a mix of pink alea sea salt, sichuan pepper, and black sesame seeds that I coarsely ground up. It was then seared in coconut oil until a nice crust formed and was finished in the oven. The fish was cooked until just done - medium well. I par-boiled the potatoes, drained them, and finished them in a coconut milk and butter sauce that was seasoned with sichuan pepper as well. The green beans were quickly stir fried in sesame oil, ginger, garlic, and drizzled with soy sauce. The clams were steamed in rice vinegar, ginger, garlic, and star anise. They were then removed from the steaming liquid and topped with a coconut milk reduction. The whole dish took on a Pan-Asian theme before I even realized it.

I’m not sure my parents have tasted my cuisine since completing culinary school and moving away four years ago so I don’t think they knew what to expect. My mom confessed she didn’t usually like green beans but loved my preparation of them (and ate them all). My dad pretty much likes everything and won’t pull any punches when it comes to complaints. His plate was empty and there were no complaints so I’m pretty confident it was a success. It was the first time that either of my parents have tried mahogany clams before (my personal favorite); my mom especially enjoyed them.

We finished the meal off with Bostini Cream Pies which quickly disappeared even though my mom claimed to be full.

Sunday I had guests over for an impromptu dinner. I was mulling over what I should serve, trying to come up with something a little more fancy than pasta or burgers, when the eater suggested we have polenta. While this is a rather vague and wide-open suggestion, I had just the thing in mind with her suggestion: baked polenta with broccoli rabe and sausage with a side of confited tomatoes.

As usual in the foodgeek household, when I want something different and interesting, I have to make a trip to the supermarket to procure all the goods. Sometimes this is a bad thing. You see, when my creative juices start flowing I tend to start adding extra dishes, coupled with the fact that I’m often hungry when I go shopping for these impromptu dinner parties, I buy way too much. Yes, I did it again. So to go along with the polenta and the tomatoes, I also picked up four pounds of mahogany clams, a side of pollack, and half a pound of prosciutto.

While I was waiting in line for a price on the clams I concocted this idea to wrap pollack, a lean white fish, in prosciutto. It worked with scallops, it worked with shrimp, it worked this time, too. I portioned the pollack into two-bite sized pieces and wrapped each one up in the wonderful Italian pork product. They were lined up like soldiers in a small casserole dish, drizzled with olive oil, and seasoned with black pepper. I figured on about 15 minutes in a 375F oven would do the trick and I was not disappointed.

Mahogany clams always seem to be a good bargain. They seem to be less prized because when they are cooked they almost completely open and do not look as pretty. This one little drawback isn’t enough to scare me away from these delicate, orange fleshed quahogs. These are deep, cold water clams and, like most things that live in sand, are sometimes a little bit gritty. I washed the clams, then again, then left them in a big pot of water, then washed them again, and then again. While you would think that this would produced a sand-free clam, there were still a few bits of sand and grit here and there. I figured my guests would understand the few bits of sand, I really did try my best to provide a sand-free experience.

The clams got a quick steam in white wine, garlic, and ginger. When they were all opened up, I removed the clams, reduced the liquid, and fortified it was some butter. This sauce was poured over the awaiting clams for everyone to enjoy.

I just so happened to have a pint of grape tomatoes leftover from my trip to the Reading Farmers market on Tuesday. These were some of the sweetest grape tomatoes I’ve had in a while. They were the perfect match for a quick tomato confit. I know this isn’t exactly an authentic confit, but the name has stuck. I slow cook the tomatoes with a few cloves of garlic in olive oil in a small pan. When the tomatoes were softed and warm, I drizzled a little balsamic vinegar over the top and put them aside to cool. By the time we ate, they were room temperature and fully infused with flavor. They were a good topping for the polenta.

The main attraction was actually quite simple to prepare. While I was bathing the clams several times over I whipped up a quick batch of polenta. Polenta is nothing more than boiled corn meal. It is a really easy dish to prepare and I rarely use a recipe. This time I boiled up 3 cups of milk with half a stick of butter. When the milk came to a boil and the butter was fully melted, I started adding in cornmeal. I just keep adding it in until the mixture becomes a thick, yet smooth, mixture. I then cook this over medium low heat while continuously stirring. This can be quite a workout but it is worth it in the end. I then turned the whole mess into a 1/4 sheet pan, covered it with some shredded Pecorino Romano cheese and baked it in the oven until it was good and firm with a nice crispy crust on top.

I topped the polenta off with some pan fried, sweet Italian, fennel flavored sausages. I didn’t mind too much that it was creating a mess in my frying pan, I had plans for that wonderful brown fond! When the sausages were perfectly cooked, I added some extra olive oil and quickly sauteed the broccoli rabe. All of the glorious sausage juices and fond in the pan were quickly absorbed by the greens tying the whole dish together.

Everything got served family-style and didn’t last all that long. While I wish I could cook like this every day, I fear that I would either go broke or fall hopelessly out of shape.

No, I’m not talking about taking revenge on sea life; I’m talking about what we ate for dinner. I first made this dish back in my culinary school days in Cambridge. At the time, I thought it was very strange to be to go through all the trouble of cooking something only to later eat it cold, but I was wrong.

I served up this cold dish with a cilantro herbed polenta that I first cooked like normal polenta and then grilled it up in preparation for the tilapia. The polenta was also delicious cold, so there’s no real reason why this whole dish couldn’t be prepared a day or two ahead of time.

The eater also wanted to note that the tart, vinegar-y goodness of the raisin and nut mixture is very difficult to stop eating for long enough to get any leftovers.

Marinated Tilapia with raisins and pistachios
1 lb tilapia filet
flour to coat fish

½ c onions
½ c carrots
½ c celery

1 Tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp red pepper

½ c raisins
½ c pine nuts or pistachios

1 ½ c white vinegar
½ c dry white wine

Coat both sides of fish in flour seasoned with salt and pepper. Heat a large skillet to medium high heat and pour in enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Fry fish on both sides to golden brown, about five minutes per side. Remove fish from pan and set in a shallow baking dish and reserve.

Add vegetables to the pan used for frying the fish and cook about two minutes or until slightly softened. Add spices and cook for about one minute or until fragrant.

Add raisins, nuts, vinegar, and wine and cook over high heat until the liquid is reduced by half.

Pour mixture into the baking pan with the fish. Let sit to allow the flavors to blend for 30minutes or place in refrigerator for a day or two.

Serve at room temperature.

The eater’s Mom was in town this weekend for Mother’s day, a quick visit, and a business trip. She played the role of gracious house guest, taking us out to eat several times over the weekend. Monday night I thought I would give her a taste of what I’ve been cooking lately.

I decided on an unadulterated, simple, seared halibut. I was aiming to keep the dish to an Asian theme using blanched mizuna and a Thai red curry sauce. I wanted to keep the dish simple but elegant and I think I managed to pull it off in the end.

The halibut was the one of the best looking fish I could find at Whole Foods; while they aren’t known for their affordable prices, they do have a quality fish monger. I’m always impressed by the quality of the fish and the attention to detail on the fish’s origins; it’s also nice to know that this wasn’t caught using some of the more sinister fishing methods. After talking a bit with the fish monger, I decided on an oversized, two pound, monstrosity of a fillet.

The dish required just a little bit of prep: chopping onions, cilantro, and sweet peppers, washing and trimming the greens, and skinning and portioning the fish. The end result, I was told, was a restaurant quality dish.

Seared Halibut with Asian Greens and Red Curry Sweet Potatoes
4 six ounce fillets of Alaskan Halibut

1 medium bunch of mizuna

5 sweet potatoes
1/2 cup diced onion

1 tablespoon red curry paste
1 can coconut milk
1/2 cup sake
1/2 cup chopped cilantro

Salt, white pepper, oil
fresh lime juice

preheat oven to 350F

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and quickly blanch the mizuna. Shock them in a large bowl of ice water to stop the cooking and reserve.

Place sweet potatoes in a large pot of cold water and cook over med-high heat until fork tender.

While potatoes are cooking, saute the onions in oil and add the curry paste. Add the sake and most of the coconut milk reserving a little to adjust the consistency of the sauce. Add cooked sweet potatoes and cilantro and keep warm.

Rub both sides of the halibut with oil and season with salt and white pepper. Heat a large stainless or cast iron frying pan until very hot. Do not add any
oil. Add the oiled fish, presentation side down, to the frying pan and sear
on one side until a nice crust forms. Remove from skillet and place on a baking sheet with the seared side up. Finish cooking in oven for 7-12 minutes.

Warm up mizuna and place on a heated serving plate. Add potatoes and top with halibut. Artfully drizzle sauce around the plate and top off with a squeeze of lime juice.