salt-cured salmon

Curing salmon is one of the easiest things you can do at home, and the results are usually pretty stellar. It's a simple matter of putting a salmon filet in a plastic bag with some table salt, sugar, and whatever other flavors you want. A regular sized filet will take two days or so. You want to take it out when its firm to the touch. At that point, you'll have something that approximates smoked salmon. Salty deliciousness! I used pepper and bay leaves to keep the flavors pretty neutral this time around, but you could easily use fresh herbs (dill would yield Gravlax), or other spices - smokey chipotles come to mind. Then just eat it like you would smoked salmon. Perfect on a bagel with cream cheese, a quiche, or in pasta. Simple as that!

 

Cure Mix (for 1-1.25lb Salmon Filet)

50g (1.75oz) Salt*

35g (1.25oz or 2.5tbs) Sugar

Whatever else you want!

Directions

Buy a salmon filet that's pretty evenly sized (buy the middle of the filet, not end bit)

Mix salt, sugar and other herbs/spices, and rub on salmon

Place salmon filet in plastic Ziploc bag

Leave in fridge for 36-48 hours (depends on thickness of fillet), flipping once or twice to redistribute salt brine that forms.

It's ready when the salmon is firm to the touch (think smoked salmon or cooked salmon)

Rinse/pat excess salt off and serve cold! (will keep 1week refrigerated)

* Salt Guide

Measuring by weight is important with salt, but if you must use volume measurements, here's a rough conversion for this recipe:

1.75oz Regular table salt = 3tbs

1.75oz Morton's Kosher Salt = 4tbs

1.75oz Diamond Kosher Salt = 6tbs

okonomiyaki

You like pancakes? Yeah, me too. Now imagine a savory pancake full of pork, seafood, and/or your favorite crunchy vegetables. You can eat it for brunch, lunch, dinner or even a late night snack! Not a terrible idea huh? Okonomiyaki is exactly that, a wonderful savory Japanese pancake you can eat at any time of the day. It's pretty deliciously amazing and I'm convinced that if we got a few marketing geniuses from Kellogg together, we could sell it as the perfect hangover food here in the US. For the time being, if you want one, you'll probably have to do a little searching on Yelp or Chowhound or... just make this wonderful disc of deliciousness yourself!

The first time I was introduced to okonomiyaki, I was in Tokyo, in a restaurant that pretty much only makes okonomiyaki. Actually they don't make it - you make it! They give you the batter, whatever ingredients you want in it (just like you might order a pizza here), but then you cook the thing yourself. Having a griddle in the middle of each table might not fly with lawyers in the US, but the Japanese seem to manage just fine. Besides, watching your friends attempt to flip their pancakes is rather amusing too. Ingredients run the gamut from thin slabs of pork belly to fermented soy beans and chunks of octopus. Pretty much anything goes. In fact okonomi mean "what you want" and yaki means "grilled."

As I said, there are a few key ingredients and then the rest is up to you. The base is essentially just pancake batter. In its most basic form, its flour and water. Traditionally grated mountain yam is added to make it slightly gooeyer (read: mucussy) and dashi stock is used instead of water. Eggs and baking powder aren't uncommon additions either. However you make it, the end result should be something that resembles a traditional pancake batter in terms of consistency. The other two ingredient that you probably don't want to skip are chopped cabbage inside the pancake and okonomiyaki sauce on top. The sauce is often described as similar to Worcestershire Sauce, but sweeter and thicker. You'll have to go to your nearest Asian grocer to find it, order it online, or just make it yourself (this recipe is easy!)

Once you've made your batter, what you mix into it is entirely up to you. Today I used shrimp, calamari, shimeji mushrooms, cabbage, and green onion. I also added small bits for fried tempura batter (see above) called tenkasu. This adds a nice crunch. Regular potato chips could be easily used as a substitute in a pinch. Depending on the size of the pancake, you'll need to cook it at least 3-5 minutes per side on a griddle or frying pan. I also cooked my seafood beforehand so that I wouldn't have raw calamari in the middle of my dinner! Finally, it's also rather common for okonomiyaki to have strips of pork belly placed on top and cooked into the pancake. I decided to save that for next time...

To finish it all off, the dish is traditionally topped with the aforementioned okonomiyaki sauce, mayo (don't forget the mayo!!!), nori (seaweed), and bonito flakes. Perfect!

 

Okonomiyaki (serves 3)

1 cup flour

3/4 cup dashi (or water)

2 eggs

1.5 cup chopped cabbage

Optional

2 green onions, sliced

1/2 cup  chopped calamari and shrimp, cooked very lightly

1 cup shimeji mushrooms, cooked very lightly

1/4 cup tenkasu (fried tempura batter, can substitute potato chips)

Toppings (to taste)

Okonomiyaki sauce

Mayonaise

Nori, finely chopped

Bonito flakes

Directions

Mix the flour and dashi until smooth

Gently mix eggs, cabbage, onions, calamari, shrimp, mushrooms, and tenkasu into the batter

Poor onto hot griddle and shape into pancake (can divide into 2-3 small, or 1 very large pancake)

Cook 3-5 minutes per side depending on size

Brush okonomiyaki sauce onto one side, remove from heat

Add mayo, nori, and bonito to taste

cold cod and gribiche

Sometimes the simplest things are the best right? This meal could easily be reassembled into fish cakes or a soup. However, I decided to serve it simply and keep each ingredient separate and intact. No muddled flavors here - what you see is what you get. The center piece was some steamed cod, chilled and served with a gribiche sauce. Gribiche is essentially mayonnaise with chopped hard boiled eggs, capers, pickles (preferably french cornichons), some lemon juice, and herbs (usually tarragon, parseley, and chervil). It's a perfect accompaniment for fish, crabcakes, or if your so inclined, tete de veau. In fact it's great on a lot of things and a perfect opportunity to make your own mayo.


Tom's Cod & Gribiche Plate (serves 2)
2/3 lb cod or other white fish, steamed
1/3 cup gribiche sauce (or as much as you want!)
1 tomato, quartered and seasoned with salt
1 egg, hard boiled, quartered
1 yukon gold potato, boiled until tender and sliced
8-10 olives, preferably oil cured
12-15 asparagus, steamed

Gribiche Sauce (1/2 cup)
1 large egg yolk
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1/4 tsp lemon juice or vinegar
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 hard boiled egg, finely chopped
2 tbls cornichon (or sour pickle), finely chopped
1 tbls capers, finely chopped
2 tbls parseley, finely chopped
1 tbls tarragon, finely chopped
1 tbls lemon juice
salt and peper

Directions
Mix the mustard, egg, and lemon juice
Slowly drizzle in the oil as you whisk up your mayonaise
Add all the remaining ingredients and adjust seasoning

vietnamese (inspired) noodle and shrimp

My introduction to Vietnamese food some 15 years ago was a bowl of room temperature vermicelli noodles topped with grilled pork, various herbs, peanuts and a bowl of a fish sauce concoction on the side. I didn't quite know exactly what I was eating, but I knew I liked it - a lot. While I eventually went on to discover all the other dishes that make Vietnamese cuisine one of my favorites, Bún Thịt Nướng and other noodle dishes still hold a special spot in my heart.

With the temperatures now hovering awfully close to 100 during the day in Atlanta, a cool noodle salad seemed like a perfect dish to have for dinner tonight. I didn't really feel like making the dish as authentically as possible. Instead of grilled shrimp which is more traditional, I made a delicious shrimp cake flavored with lemongrass, ginger, garlic, and fish sauce (a poor man's crab cake!). I also opted to serve the whole thing on a plate instead of a bowl, since it just seemed to work better with the ingredients I had. The lettuce was tossed with nuoc cham (dipping sauce), a little canola oil, and some coconut vinegar. The noodles were topped with a mix of cilantro, basil, and mint. Of course, I didn't want to stray too far from the original, so the whole thing was served with plenty of nuoc cham on the side. yum!

Shrimp Cake (Serves 2)

1/2 lb raw shrimp, peeled and cleaned
     1/3lb roughly chopped with knife
     1/6lb pulsed in a blender
2 Tbls oil
1/2 onion, small dice
1 stalk of celery, small dice
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbls ginger, minced
1 serrano pepper, minced
1/2 stalk of lemongrass, minced
1 tbls fish sauce
2 tbls mayo
2 tsp mustard
1/3 cup bread crumbs, fresh if possible

Slowly cook the onion, celery, garlic, ginger, pepper, and lemongrass on a skillet with 1 tbls oil on medium heat, 10 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes.
Mix all the ingredients together and shape 2-4 patties. The pulsed shrimp binds everything together, but you may need to adjust the bread crumbs depending on the type you use.
Cook 2-3 minutes per side, or until cooked through, on medium high heat using the remaining oil.

Nuoc Cham
1/3 cup lime juice
2/3 cup water
5 tbls fish sauce (I use 3 Crabs brand)
4 tbls sugar
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 serrano pepper, minced

Mix all ingredients, dissolve the sugar, and adjust all ingredients to taste. I added just a touch of vinegar to mine to brighten the flavors. Serve cold.

Other Ingredients
Chopped lettuce, sliced cucumber, and strips of carrots
Chopped mint, cilantro, and basil
Chilled cooked vermicelli rice noodles (1/3lb = 2servings)
Salad dressing: nuoc cham, canola oil, white wine vinegar

garifuna tapado

As you may have noticed, I get much of my inspiration in the kitchen from my past travels. A couple years ago, I went on a whirlwind 10-day tour of Guatemala. In that time I managed to climb a (very) active volcano, visit the amazing Spanish influenced town of Antigua, tour the ancient Mayan ruins of Tikal (also known as Yavin 4 for you Star Wars nerds), kayak across beautiful Lake Atitlan, and finally spend some time in the remote Garifuna influenced Caribbean port-town (turned back-packer destination) of Livingston.

Of all the places I visited, the best food memory I have is of a delicious coconut and seafood soup I thoroughly enjoyed in Livingston called Tapado. As is often the case when different cultures mix, people adopt the best parts of each cuisine and develop something unique and exciting. Tapado is just that, a beautiful soup influenced by the Maya, Garifuna and Ladino people of the region.

One recipe kept appearing in all my Google searches, but frankly, it just didn't seem complete, so I adapted it slightly. The soup base is fresh coconut milk. It's seasoned with ground annatto (achiote), salt, pepper, oregano, and cilantro. I also added a bit of garlic and ginger to the mix. Veggies include onion, red bell pepper, tomato, and a mix of starches (yuca, green bananas, ripe plantains, ripe bananas are most typical). Finally, the recipe recommends adding snapper, but what I had in Livingston had a mix of fish and shellfish. Crabs, welks, shrimp, snapper, pretty much whatever is fresh out of the ocean will work very well.

I did learn to make fresh coconut milk for this recipe. To do so, you simply take a brown coconut, remove the meat from the inside and then blend it with a 3-4 cups of hot water. After the coconut meat is finely ground, you strain out the liquid and that's your coconut milk. Much lighter than the stuff you get in a can! I didn't use any yuca, but I did throw in a ripe plantain, a green banana, and a couple small boiling potatoes. For the seafood, I used two lively blue crabs, a handful of whole shrimp, and some small whole white perch, which I initially seared with the garlic & ginger.

So, the end result? Well as you can see above, the soup turned out to be a bit more of a stew. I added a few too many starchy ingredients I guess, but that didn't diminish the flavor. It was relatively easy to prepare, but a bit more challenging to eat - crab, whole shrimp, and whole fish made for a messy dinner. To simplify, you could certainly use pealed shrimp, fish filets and larger crabs. The flavors were great though, and the whole thing is very filling. Below is a picture of the bowl of Tapado I ate in Livingston - obviously the main difference is that the broth was much thinner. Otherwise, not bad for a first try.

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Garifuna Tapado (serves 3-4)

Ingredients
1 brown coconut
4 cups hot water

1 tbls canola oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp ginger, minced

1 medium onion, large dice
1 red bell pepper, large dice
1/2 tsp ground annatto
1/2 tsp dried oregeno
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 tbls salt (to taste)
1 bay leaf

6-8 small boiling potatoes, halved
1 green banana, sliced

1 very ripe plantain, sliced
1 large tomato, large dice2 blue crabs
8 large shrimp, deveined
4 small perch

2 tbls cilantro, chopped for garnish

Directions

• peal the coconut, cut the meat into small chunks and blend in hot water until very finely chopped
• strain coconut water and reserve
• cook garlic and ginger in oil over medium heat (1 minute)
• add onion, pepper and spices, and cook over medium-high until onions begin to soften (3-4 minutes)
• add coconut milk and bring to a boil
• add potatoes and green banana and cook on medium high heat until almost tender (8-10 minutes)
• add a little water if you need to thin it out and bring back to a boil
• add plantain, tomato, and seafood and cook until everything is cooked through (4-5 minutes)

Serve hot with cilantro garnish and enjoy!

kung pao shrimp

It was a pleasure seeing some of you in Chicago this weekend at the Kellogg reunion. Thanks for all the input and kind words about the blog. Certainly good inspiration for me to keep at it.

Although thoroughly exhausted from the long weekend, the first thing I did when I got home was to jump back into the kitchen. There wasn't a ton to work with in the fridge, but there was just enough to pull together a pretty delicious plate of Kung Pao Shrimp. Back when I ate Chinese food three times a week from Won's Oriental Restaurant as an undergrad, the Kung Pao Chicken was one of my go-to favorites. God only knows how many pounds (tons?) of the stuff I ate. Spicy, crunchy, salty, tangy, and slightly sweet sweet... what more could you want?!

I did a bit of research post-cooking, to read up on the history of this dish. Feel free to read the full story here, but basically it was created in the 19th century by a Qing Dynasty official in the Szechuan province. The original version of the dish is made with Szechuan peppercorns, which provide that unique mouth numbing sensation. Since the US banned the imporation of Szechuan peppercorns until 2005 (for fear that they would carry a tree disease that can wipe out entire crop of citrus trees), the version of Kung Pao that became popular in the US used different types of chilies. Not the end of the world, but it was certainly lacking that numbing sensation that only the Szechuan peppercorns can provide.

Since I didn't actually have any chicken in the fridge I went with whole shrimp I had stashed away in the freezer. Yes whole! As in not guillotined! Gasp! Using whole shrimp is a phenomenal way to add A TON of flavor into your shrimp dishes. Not only does it add a certain sea urchin-like sweetness to the dish, but it helps add flavor to the shrimp meat itself. If you have the option of cooking with whole shrimp, do yourself a favor and give it a shot. Peeling the shrimp at the dinner table makes it a bit messier to eat, but I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

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Kung Pao Shrimp (Serves 2)

Ingredients
1/2 tsp canola oil (ideally infused with szechuan peppercorns)
1/4 tsp sesame oil
1/4 cup unroasted peanuts (using roasted is ok)
1/2 large onion, sliced or diced
1 large carrot, sliced
2 celery ribs, sliced
1 large bell pepper, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1" knob ginger, minced

1/2 lb shrimp (use any protein here)


Sauce
2 tbls soy sauce
1 tbls Shaoxing rice wine (sherry wine is a good substitute)
1 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp rice wine vinegar (apple cider vinegar is a good substitute)
1 tsp oyster sauce
2 tbls chili sauce, adjust to taste (use Szechuan peppercorns if you can!)
1 tsp cornstarch
2 tbls water

Directions
If using unroasted peanuts, stir fry on high heat in the canola and sesame oil (1min), otherwise skip this step
Add in vegetables (including garlic and ginger) and stir fry on high heat (5min)
Disolve cornstarch in water
Add all ingredients into the vegetables and cook till shrimp are cooked through (3-4min)
Do not overcook the shrimp!!!!!!!
Serve with white rice

shrimp & grits

We've been in the South for a while now, so I have a better idea of what grits should taste like. Why they are especially popular in the South and nowhere else is beyond me though. It's almost exactly like polenta. The only difference is that it's a coarser grind and sometimes it's made with hominy instead of corn. In the supermarkets down here, you can find all sorts of flavors and varieties. Stone-ground grits (as opposed to instant) are the most "authentic", but they take about 30 minutes to cook. Nevertheless, as I embarked on my first grits adventure, this is what I went with. The basic recipe for stone-ground grits is basically a 4:1 ratio of liquid (I used half milk, half water) to grits, along with whatever seasoning you want (butter and salt usually, though cheese makes a regular appearance too). To cook, you simply add the grits to the boiling liquid and slowly cook them till they soften up and reach the desired consistency.

Sauteed shrimp and bacon is a very popular accompaniment to grits down here, but I wanted more for this dish!! So for the shrimp, I made Acadian peppered shrimp (recipe below). It's a Cajun dish I learned to cook some time ago that I always go back to because it's easy (almost all the ingredients are likely to be in your pantry) and delicious! It's loaded with A LOT of freshly ground black pepper, herbs and plenty of butter. It's really a perfect dish to serve alongside grits. I also added a small slice of goat cheese, sauteed pea sprouts, lardons and a fried egg to the plate. Pretty darn good. Even a true southerner might agree!

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Acadian Peppered Shrimp (serves 3-4)

Ingredients

6 oz salted butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbls lemon juice
2 tbls freshly ground black pepper
1 bay leaf, finely ground in spice grinder or keep it whole and remove before eating
1/4 tsp fresh oregano, finely chopped (can sub dried)
1/4 tsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped (can sub dried)
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
3/4 tsp hungarian paprika
1lb shrimp (raw, shell-on, deveined)

Directions

• Combine all the ingredients except the shrimp in a saute pan and cook on medium for 15 minutes (you want to brown the butter slightly)
• Add the shrimp and cook 4-5 minutes, mixing once or twice, until all the shrimp are just pink
• Serve immediately with fresh bread, grits, or anything else to sop up the delicious butter sauce!

spring

It's actually practically summer here in Atlanta, but I'm not ready to let go of spring just yet. On the menu tonight - simple roasted trout and asparagus, paired with a fresh fennel salad. All these flavors go together wonderfully. I used the broiler and a touch of olive oil to cook the fish, avoiding the mess that usually occurs when you roast whole fish (since the fish cooks from the top and not the bottom). The asparagus cooked in the same amount of time as the fish (20min). And the fennel was sliced super thin and dressed with lemon and olive oil. Salt and pepper on everything and dinner's ready!

happy valentine's day

I went to Whole Foods fixated on a mushroom & seafood combo for dinner. I came back with something I'd never purchased before. After pacing back and forth between the mushroom and fish sections several times, I settled on these wonderful little Hedgehog mushrooms from Oregon. Of all the mushrooms there, they certainly looked the freshest. As always... when in doubt, fresh is the way to go. Turns out they have a similar nutty flavor similar to Chanterelles, with just a bit more bite (and just as exorbitantly priced...) A good start to the dish.

As for seafood, the selection was uninspiring today. I went with large scallops that looked pretty tasty and according to WF won't make me completely responsible for destroying the universe (they were yellow). The dish came together pretty easily. I seared the scallops on very high heat with salt and pepper and cooked the mushrooms slowly in butter, along with onions, thyme, salt and pepper. Nothing fancy here, but a winning combo if ever there was one.

For desert I made a nice little cake (ok wasn't so little...) The key ingredients included plenty of fresh ginger, molasses, cinnamon, nutmeg, and even some black pepper?! This was another recipe courtesy of David Lebovitz, whose cookbook is a pleasure to cook from even if you don't like to bake. This cake came out spicy, moist, and delicious, and it didn't even contain an ounce of chocolate! Neither Amity or I thought this was a problem though :)