Archive for the 'seafood' Category
Aside from the idea that this is a fresh and spanking-clean new year (really, what’s different between this Tuesday and last, besides a new calendar on my wall?), mostly in January I want to eat more cleanly, with more of the veggies I’ve so woefully neglected for the past month or two. Since around Halloween, really, and then there were those almost two weeks spent in Jasper, where there was salad, but mostly morning pastries and buffets and martinis and chocolate and cheese. And then it was winter and Christmastime, and wait.. I’m not coming up with a valid excuse here, am I?
And today, back at my desk and forced to answer phone calls and emails, and open that stack of mail from the bank and Revenue Canada (which they always seem to send on Fridays or right before Christmas, or on the Friday right before Christmas), I feel like I should also be eating my broccoli.
And so I took it as an opportunity to try a recipe I’ve been meaning to give a go – and served it in shallow dishes I unearthed from the basement (in an attempt to declutter) that were a wedding gift in 1994 and I’ve maybe used once. I’m going to use them now. 1994!! The New Year is supposed to be all about newness and possibility, but every year it winds up being a bit like a mini midlife crisis.
In a good way, of course. I’m happy to be here, to be ringing in 2012 with those I love, even though technically I was in the bathroom at midnight. The collective lull of the holidays allows enough of a breather to take a look at life and which steps to take (or not) next. What I want to spend my time and money and energies on. To talk myself out of starting too many new things, or to be too fearful of same. And to be thankful that we get the luxury of choice.
Would it be too much to ask for a longer lull, so I can start the new year being able to see my desktop? And although I still wonder why eating broccoli should be so much more virtuous than eating shortbread, at least it makes life seem more tacklable when you feel less Jabba-the-Hutt-ish.
If you time it right, the rice will cook in exactly the same amount of time as the broccoli and shrimp take to roast. If you go ahead and toss the lemon wedges onto the pan too they’ll get all roasted and squishy, and you’ll be able to squeeze far more of the juice and soft pulp over your shrimp and broccoli, if you like that sort of thing. Be warned roasted lemon wedges have more give than a raw one; Mike doused the front of his AC/DC T-shirt in lemon guts.
Spicy Roasted Shrimp & Broccoli
Adapted from The New York Times and The Wednesday Chef by way of Everybody Likes Sandwiches – this recipe gets around.
2 large heads of broccoli
3-4 Tbsp. canola or olive oil
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. ground coriander
1/2 tsp. chili flakes
salt & freshly ground black pepper
10-20 large raw shrimp, shelled and deveined
1 lemon, zested and then cut into wedges
Preheat oven to 425F.
Toss the broccoli with about 2 tablespoons of oil, the cumin, coriander, 1/4 teaspoon of the chili flakes, and half the salt and pepper. In a small bowl, toss the shrimp with the remaining chili flakes, salt and pepper, olive oil and the lemon zest. Cut the lemon lengthwise into quarters.
Spread the broccoli out on a parchment-lined rimmed baking sheet, add the lemon wedges if you like, and roast for 10 minutes. Add the shrimp and cook for 8-10 minutes more – just until the shrimp are opaque. Serve over rice, with a squeeze of lemon. Serves 2.
January 03 2012 | one dish and seafood and vegetarian | 28 Comments »
There hasn’t been much cooking this week – there have been late nights and early mornings and an emergency dentist visit. I’ve been simultaneously catching up from being away in Austin and getting stuff done before we leave for California. Feel free to hate me – I might.
We’re leaving Sunday, all of us, Ben included, and the boys are nearly beside themselves with excitement over going to Disneyland. It’s a requisite visit, isn’t it? For all parents of kids under ten?
We go to San Francisco first, which I’m nearly beside myself with excitement over. (Note to self: wear sandals. No wool.)
I’ve been on the afternoon show on CBC all week too, which means being in the studio until 6, with not much motivation to cook by the time I get home. On one of those nights-I’m not sure I can distinguish which-I ran some raw, tail-on shrimp from the freezer under warm water in a colander to thaw them while I got changed out of my work clothes, and had almost the same barbecue shrimp we always order at Memphis Blues in Vancouver. It turns out all they do is saute them in plenty (plenty!) of butter (I was a little more stingy) and a good shake of their all-purpose dry barbecue rub. They serve them in shallow bowls, swimming in salty butter, with wedges of cornbread, and they are divine. It’s a good thing Vancouver is so far away.
You could of course use any spice rub – the same you might use for ribs, brisket, pulled pork and the like – or a curry or tandoori blend. Heat a generous pat of butter in a heavy skillet, add a drizzle of olive or canola oil and when the foam subsides, throw in as many raw, peeled, tail-on shrimp as you want to cook. Add a generous shake of the rub. Toss them about in the pan for a couple minutes, just until they turn opaque – don’t overcook them, or they will curl up tight and end up tough – pour into a shallow bowl and serve with cornbread or crusty bread, for mopping.
And then, while the boys are at grandma’s for a sleepover, crawl into bed before midnight for crying out loud.
June 10 2011 | seafood | 20 Comments »
Check it out! I made fish & chips from scratch today. Before 8 am, even.
I made chips the easy way – using that new method I learned from Cooks Illustrated. I put them on, sliced the fish, dredged and fried it, and the whole lot took under 30 minutes and made a great many people very happy.
I made a wobbly mayo to go with, using a generous spoonful of grainy dill Brassica mustard.
And the mushy peas – boil peas, then mush them with a dab of butter, splash of cream, and salt and pepper. Yes, I realize it’s not authentic, but it’s yummier than most mushy peas I’ve had.
Beer Battered Fish (for Fish & Chips)
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, divided
1 1/2 lb cod or haddock filets, skinned
1 12 oz. bottle cold beer
canola oil, for cooking
coarse salt
Put 1/4 cup of the flour into a shallow dish. Cut the fish fillets diagonally into 1-inch wide strips.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the remaining 1 1/2 cups flour, a pinch of salt and the beer – you should have a mixture with the consistency of pancake batter.
In a shallow, heavy pot, heat a couple inches of oil until it registers 375°F.
Pat fish dry with paper towels and dredge in the flour, shaking off the excess. Coat a few pieces at a time in the batter and then into the oil. Cook, turning as needed, for 4-5 minutes, until deep golden and cooked through. Transfer to paper towels to drain and cool, then sprinkle with salt. Serves 4-6.
February 22 2011 | seafood | 15 Comments »
Oy.
I don’t mind sharing with you guys the fact that I’m feeling a little dogpiled these days. New drama has unfolded – an enormous laundry basket of it – all over my already tipping plate. Family stuff – Mike’s family (and thus mine – why did I not carefully screen potential in-laws and select some who love to cook and have a house in the south of France?) – and of course I just can’t get into it all without laying down so much background it would take a year to bring you up to speed. And you probably wouldn’t believe me anyway, but it would make a fabulously addictive reality TV show. Can’t we ALL just meet up for (spiked) coffee somewhere sometime and have a big ol’ chat? OH THE STORIES I COULD TELL YOU.
So we’ve spent much of the past few days in and out of the hospital, dealing with grown-up stuff that makes me want to curl up on the couch in my legwarmers and eat peanut butter toast in front of Happy Days. How did I get to be the adult here? Isn’t there some boss of me around to tell me what to do?
But besides all that, Sue and I have a book due in three weeks. An actual, real, crazy-long manuscript that has to be finished June 1. Which is very exciting of course, but the homestretch is always a little daunting. Of course in that same stretch of time (3! weeks!) I have (many! big!) stories due for Swerve, Avenue, Dogs in Canada, Parents Canada and City Palate. I have a two-day foodstyling gig and a cooking segment of my own on BT on the 17th. (And three to five other TV spots, some in Edmonton, which I haven’t yet booked.) I have meetings as part of the Slow Food Calgary steering committee, I’m teaching a class at the Cookbook Company, emceeing the Art for the Senses event at the Glenbow on the 27th (the same night as W’s kindergarten orientation-sniff), I have board meetings and work to do to organize the upcoming Gallery Calorie party in the park (you should come to that – seriously – eating and drinking and shopping on a Saturday afternoon for great causes) and ditto Ramsay Rocks, and I’m helping (sort of) rejuvenate the Hillhurst-Sunnyside Farmers’ Market. (As I type brownies are baking for the CSA Movie Night tomorrow – which is free! The movie and the brownies, that is. I’m hoping there will be some left.)
Of course I still have a weekly CBC show to do, and write here, and at the Family Kitchen. We have friends who are moving and we’ve offered to help paint, and others having a CD release party. We’re going to the Rocky Mountain Wine and Food Festival this weekend, and a birthday bash. Edgar Farms is having their asparagus festival. And somehow my days wind up filled with minutiae. Can you drown in minutiae? Hey, that’s one of those words that starts to distort itself when you say it over and over: minutiae minutiae minutiae minutiae. I wonder why I’m not getting any work done?
And a four year old. Did I mention I have a BOOK due in three weeks?
(Whitecap: Please don’t have a heart attack. I’m totally on it.)
Which is not to drone on about how busy I am – everyone is – I just don’t have high hopes for dramatic and interesting meals on our own table in the coming weeks. They’ll most be experimental and bean-based, others for stories and so not really sharable here. Dinners this week have been blurry – last night my sister ordered Chinese, and tonight she made a cookie sheet full of cheesy nachos I couldn’t get enough of. In between we’ve eaten huge bowls of almond-heavy Ichiban salad, quesadillas, the last of Aaron Douglas’ soup, and plenty of avocado sandwiches, on account of a bagful that all got ripe at the same time.
But I came across this recipe for mussels, which I made last week in under 15 minutes not realizing everyone had to scatter for soccer, meetings and miscellaneous after dinner stuff. I promptly forgot about them and never posted the recipe, but my sister has hardly stopped talking about them. I’m not a huge mussel fan, but I run with mussel fans, and it’s great to see how easy it is to make them happy. I had no idea how simple they were to cook – it would never have occurred to me that a wide, shallow bowl full of brothy mussels would take ten minutes to throw together. Seriously – this is ridiculously easy, and looks ridiculously not. I love that.
Mussels with Garlic, Tomatoes & Lemon
1 Tbsp. butter
1 Tbsp. olive or canola oil
5-6 garlic cloves, crushed or finely chopped
1 Roma tomato, finely chopped
1 lb. fresh mussels, scrubbed and debearded
a splash of white wine (optional)
juice of half a lemon
1/2 cup heavy cream or half & half
chopped fresh Italian parsley or basil, for garnish
In a large, heavy saucepan, heat the butter and oil over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and cook for a minute.
Add the lemon juice, mussels and the wine and cook for a minute, to reduce the liquid; add the cream and cover. Simmer until the mussels are opened, which will take about 5 minutes. Discard any that don’t open.
Stir in the tomato and divide between wide, shallow bowls; scatter with chopped parsley and serve immediately with crusty bread. Serves 2.
May 05 2010 | seafood | 24 Comments »
Feel free to hate me for what I’m about to tell you: we have too much crab. I did work for them, though; with late-night runs down to the dock in the cold rain to haul up the trap in the pitch dark, with a dead flashlight, chasing the spidery little beasts across the slippery dock and coaxing them out of the trap doors into the pink Easter bucket covered with butterflies that has become the Tofino crab bucket. All the while completely freaking myself out and trying not to get pinched. Have you heard the sound crabs make when piled on top of each other in a bucket and strapped to the passenger? Sort of half hissing, half clicking, claws creeping up over the edge in an attempt to pull themselves out. The sound I imagine giant bugs or aliens might make. But hey – for the price of a fishing license and package of hot dogs, I’m not complaining.
This week I’ve become an expert at determining the sex of a crab – a skill I never thought would come in handy. (You can only keep the males.) I also learned, with my friend K, that crabs love hot dogs, and that if you drop the trap off the dock (with aforementioned dogs dangling in an empty water bottle strung up with wire and jabbed with a pocketknife) when the tide is out, as it comes in the crab will come with it, and stop in for a delicious all-you-can-eat buffet.
Too much crab isn’t quite as dreamy as it might sound – the glut of shellfish brought back Mike’s gout, and the excessive melted butter that served as dip has not helped my pants fit any better. After two nights of steamed crab legs, it occurred to me that one could do more with fresh crab than make a mess of the kitchen table with crackers and pots of garlicky melted butter. What do I love that contains crab?
California rolls. I’ll be the first to stand up and admit I’m a wimp when it comes to sushi. I scrape off the roe (it reminds me of the time my uncle dangled the smelly, bright red giant fish egg bait at me on a fishing trip, making me throw up) and I don’t venture beyond at best a slab of raw tuna or salmon. You can forget the eel and abalone and urchin – I’m happy with a nice safe California roll. Or a dynamite roll, if there is the option of crispy tempura shrimp.
Of course I have no sushi mat, but when I stopped in at the teeny Beaches grocery store I bought a bag of jasmine rice and a perfectly ripe avocado; I had bought a bag of toasted sesame seeds at a wee Asian shop in Ucluelet, just because it seemed such an odd thing to be able to buy in a town with only one grocery store and (I think) no traffic lights. I thought I’d deconstruct the whole mess – which is what happens when I try to eat one anyway – and do a sort of layered salad of sorts.
Poking around to make sure I wasn’t forgetting what went into a California roll, I discovered I wasn’t quite as originally brilliant as I had thought for the previous five minutes. I found a couple sushi roll salad recipes, which was fortuitous as I took their advice to season the rice with a mixture of rice vinegar and sugar, which made all the difference. Beyond that I added grated carrot, chopped cucumber, sliced avocado and a mound of crabmeat, moistened with a little mayo. Feel free to add some sliced nori, if you’re into that sort of thing. I’ve been crawling around on far too many seaweed-covered rocks lately.
Deconstructed California Rolls
If you’re starting with fresh crab legs, steam them for 7-8 minutes in a covered pot with an inch or two of water. (Make sure your husband gets rid of all the bits of shell when he picks out the meat.)
1 cup long grain white or sushi rice
1/4 cup rice vinegar
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 carrot, grated
2 green onions, thinly sliced
1/4-1/2 English cucumber, diced
1 ripe avocado, peeled and sliced
1/2 lb. (or as much as you want) lump crabmeat (cooked)
1 Tbsp. mayo
salt to taste
toasted sesame seeds, for sprinkling (optional)
chopped fresh cilantro (optional)
Cook the rice however you would normally cook it, then spread it out while still hot on a rimmed baking sheet. Bring the vinegar and sugar to a simmer in a small saucepan, then pour it over the rice, tossing it about to coat.
When the rice is cool, put it into a bowl and add the carrot, green onions and cucumber. Divide among 4 wide, shallow bowls. Top with avocado. In a small bowl, stir together the crab, mayo and salt; divide between the bowls, and sprinkle with sesame seeds and cilantro.
Serves 4.
One Year Ago: Green Pea Hummus and Pink Popcorn
April 12 2010 | salads and seafood | 20 Comments »
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