Amuse Bouche

Smoked Trout and Duxbury Oyster Chowder

I confess here that I never used to enjoy a variety of fish.  I was strictly a swordfish, tuna and cod kind of girl, but over the last couple of years I have made a concerted effort to branch out.  Trout was one of the fish I never thought I would like, but recently I have come to love it. 

One of the things that I have always loved was smoked foods. ANYTHING smoked = good. I cannot tolerate salmon cooked, but smoked salmon is heaven.  Smoked salt, smoked paprika, I love my single malt scotch all peaty and smoked and Islay bound. Laphroaig, Lagavulin, Caol Ila, Ardbeg all heaven, like drinking the essence of a fire.

During the summer I started picking up packages of Duck Trap smoked fish for cocktail hour because my stepdad is a big fan.  He loves the smoked mackerel, which I like as well, but my favourite is the smoked trout.  I had picked up a package in Trader Joe's a week ago and an idea for a chowder had been simmering in the back of my mind.

Yesterday out on my travels after cutting off 12 inches of my hair off and buying new clothes...what else do you do after a major haircut(?), I swung by the Whole Foods on the Winchester line and picked up some Duxbury Oysters and a few other ingredients and headed home.  Oh and in case your interested...they had cardoons!  I never, ever see cardoons.  I'm going to read up first and then go back and get some of them to try.  Anyway, back to the chowder.  While I was driving home I realised that the one tool I do not posses is an oyster knife. 

I was doing a mental inventory of husbands tools and trying to figure out how the heck I was going to open those oysters without stabbing my palm and bleeding all over them. When I spied a small knife, rather like a cheese knife in one of my drawers, you can see it in the top right of the photo above, so I wrapped each oyster in a dish towel folded thick and began to wedge away at the hinge.  It took a few tries on some of the beasts, but as you can see in the bowl I have a nice supply of oysters and the glorious liquor with them. 

When I went to start my chowder base I also remembered that I had a great fat medium in the meat drawer.  Instead of the typical salt pork or blanched bacon that most chowder bases use, I was going to use guanciale.  I picked mine up at Russo's a few weeks ago, but Bill over at John Dewar in Newton has told me that he will start carrying it again soon. Guanciale, for the uninitiated is cured pig cheek.  Like salt pork, it can be too salty to cook without removing some of the surface salt, so I did blanch it for a few seconds in boiling water. The flavour is much more intense and tasty compared to salt pork and it is the true product to use if you are making an authentic carbonara.  Don't worry, if you make this chowder you can use bacon, pancetta or salt pork, whatever you like or can find, I just happened to have some guanciale around.

I hit the fridge, grabbed some more ingredients and the chowder was off.  I was really pleased with the result, base not too thick, plenty of smokiness from the trout, a hint of the Mediterranean with saffron and briny sea from the oysters all in about 30 minutes.  Go on try it, let me know what you think.

Smoked Trout and Duxbury Oyster Chowder

6 Duxbury Oysters, cleaned, shucked (keep the liquid - the liquor)

1 8 oz package of Smoked Trout, I prefer Duck Trap, skin removed and pieces broken up by hand into various sized chunks

1 ounce guanciale, chopped into small cubes and blanched in boiling water for 30 seconds, drain

1 leek, rinsed well, sliced into thin half moons

1 bunch of scallions, white and green kept separate (they go in at different times)

2 TBS flour

2 TBS chopped chives

4 cups fish fumet (if you can't find bones to make your own fish stock, substitute clam juice from the grocery store or seek out a good fishmonger, mine sells house made fish fumet(stock) frozen)

4 ounces heavy cream, I prefer HighLawn Farm as theirs is NOT Ultra Pasteurized which really ruins cream for cooking, plus it tastes amazing

1 pinch of saffron threads crushed in the palm of your hand or in a mortar and pestle

kosher salt and pepper to taste

In a large saucepan, over medium heat, sauté the guanciale until it begins to render some of the fat and the pieces begin to crisp up. When the pieces are uniformly browned, add the leek and stir.  Toss in 2 TBS water and cook, stirring occasionally, until the leeks have softened.  Add the white scallion pieces and stir again. Cook for 2 minutes and add the chopped chive and green scallion tops and stir again.  Sprinkle over the flour and stir everything well, cooking for 1 minute.  Now pour in your fish fumet, clam juice or fish stock and cream and stir, turn up the heat to medium-high and bring to a high simmer or even a low boil (180 - 212) stirring occasionally.  The base should begin to thicken slightly.  Turn the heat down to low and add the saffron threads and the smoked trout, put on a lid and cook over very low heat for 10 minutes to allow the fish to warm and the taste to permeate the chowder base.  Taste your chowder, add salt and pepper to season it and if the fish still hasn't permeated everything, put the lid back on and cook for 5 more minutes.  Just before serving, taste a final time and adjust seasonings and add the oysters.  These will cook in about a minute, so don't leave it long on the stove after they go in.

Serve with a nice crusty bread and a bottle of Conclass Rueda - 2006.  So good.

Whole Dover Sole in a Salt Crust

The problem with my fish market being one more town South of my own is that I can only get there on Friday and Saturday, the rest of the time I am beholden to Whole Foods and their woefully miniscule fish selection.  Friday I headed out shopping fully intending to make myself a smoked trout and oyster chowder recipe I had been kicking around in my head and maybe pick up a piece of fish for 'he who is not so brave'.  I walked into Captain Marden's and spied Whole Dover Sole. 

DOVER SOLE(!) for the same price as Swordfish or Tuna at Whole Foods.  I know I am heading to the U.K. in two months time and will likely be able to have all the Dover Sole I want, but damn...there it was in front of me. Out the window went the chowder, well maybe just out the window until later.

The first time I make any new fish I try the simplest treatment possible so I can really taste the fish.
Before I had reached the local Roche Bros to pick up the rest of the grocery list I already knew I would bake it whole in a salt crust.  I grabbed some lemons, some chervil - a lovely delicate herb, and a few others like tarragon,thyme and rosemary that I knew I would need over the week.

The most fascinating thing to me about flat fish is that they start out their life as a round fish with eyes on either side of their heads.  Later, as they begin to mature and lose their air bladder causing them to head down to the ocean floor to feed, they begin to flatten out and one of their eyes migrates around to the top.  There is never a guarantee that the eye that migrates will land even with the other eye which can make flat fish look a bit wonky.

The sole had not been gutted which is rather unusual these days to find in a fish market so I slit the side and pulled out the livers and cleaned the slit out the best I could.  I cut off the fins with scissors and rinsed the fish thoroughly.

Whisk up a few egg whites until frothy and dump in about a pound of kosher or sea salt - I have done this method before with just a bit of water to make a paste instead of egg whites, but I find that egg whites make a firmer crust to keep the fish protected.  In fact, this method is so foolproof, it makes it really difficult to screw up.  Into the mixture of salt and egg whites I mixed in some thyme leaves packed some of this mixture on the bottom of the pan.  Instead of stuffing the cavity of the fish with aromatics, I opted to just place them in the salt pack instead, so I laid down a line of lemon slices and thyme sprigs, put the fish on top, sprinkled on a few tarragon leaves and then closed the whole thing up with more salt making sure that the fish was completely encased.

Popped it in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes while I made a sauce.  Again, keeping this simple so I could taste the sweet delicate fish I made a beurre noisette (unsalted butter cooked until it is a nice nut brown colour and smells of nuts), I tossed in a splash of white wine, some capers and some minced chervil, salt and pepper.

When the fish came out, I poked a hole through the salt and took a reading with an instant read thermometer to be sure it was at 130F.

Now comes the fun part.  Take the back of a knife and tap the spine across the salt crust to crack it open.  Peel off the skin and discard and then using a fish slice or a thin spatula, gently lift off the filet, whole if possible, and lay it on a plate. There will be two fillets on each side of the fish so remove the second filet and place it on the plate.  Now, very much like a Tom and Jerry cartoon, lift the tail and the entire frame will come out clean.  Be happy that you are doing this in your own kitchen with no one to watch.  This entire filleting process used to commonly done table side to the ooohs and aaahs of the diner.  That sort of service has died out over the years.

Remove the two filets from the other side. 

I plated this with one of my favourites, butter beans, and poured the sauce over both the beans and the filets. Oh My.  So good for such little effort.  Really.  This whole dish can be executed in 30 - 40 minutes and it was worth every last bite.

Mussels

Mussels / Moulles

I told you .  We're all about the mussels here lately, and when I say 'we', I actually mean 'me' because his majesty would never consider eating them. This is literally dinner in 15 minutes from door to table.

Rinse the mussels in some cold water, check for those that won't close or react when you tap their shell. Pull out any large beards and discard. Change the water, rinse once more, drain.  in a nice large pot that has a lid add the following. Chop a bunch of parsley, a bunch of scallions (spring onions) a few cloves of garlic.  Oil the pot, saute, more like a sweat really, the scallion, then garlic. Tip in the rinsed, de-bearded mussels, dump in a glass or more of some good white wine and if you have it around, some clam juice.
Bang on the lid, cook until the mussels open.  Remove the mussels to a warmed bowl, discard any that didn't open.  To the pot, add the parsley, some salt and a few grindings of pepper, stir.  Add 2 TBS of my favourite cream, (makes it primal not paleo) if you want, to enrich the liquid and then thicken it all, if desired, by adding a beurre manie (some butter and flour mashed together to form a paste)(skip for paleo/primal) and bringing it up to a quick high simmer, taste again, adjust seasonings and dump that whole mess over your mussels.  Bring an empty shell bowl and a loaf of crusty French bread (skip for paleo/primal and just dive in) and about 20 napkins.  Dine happily.  Lather, rinse, repeat, once a week.  Quite an inexpensive and yummy way to get your omega 3.

La Viglia

Well, here we are.  Thankful to not be in a hospital bed.  Thankful that our shopping is done, a duck is in the fridge awaiting its destiny tomorrow and the tree, that has been standing naked for a week, is now happily decorated with presents tucked around its skirt.

Husband opened his birthday gifts this morning and when we went over to create a cook this afternoon to drop off a gift, he got to make his own chocolate cupcake.  He's quite pleased.
Soon we'll head over to my cousin's house for la viglia, feast of the seven fishes, with all my crazy Italian relatives.  Each year I give husband the choice to dine in a lovely quiet restaurant or attend the 500 decibel event that is my family gathered at Christmas. Surprisingly each year he chooses to attend the Sopranos express.  Go figure.

My cousin Johnny (8 days older than me and not about to allow me to forget it), who is also head cook tonight, has always sung and more importantly he has always been an enormous fan of Elvis. Years of family gatherings always, ALWAYS, included a Karaoke segment long, l-o-n-g, before anyone stateside knew what karaoke even was. One of his teachers was one of the guys in a local group called Boston Rockabilly. He finally went in the studio with them and made a CD called "ode to a king".  This is my crazy Elvis lovin cousin Johnny doing my favourite track on the CD, Little Sister.

So as I leave to celebrate Christmas with my crazy family, I'd like to wish the best to you and yours. 

Buon Natale!

Barramundi

A lot going on here at house of Amuse Bouche.  Puppies (well, 11 year old puppy, but aren't they always puppies?) needs to have 2 teeth pulled.  In case you ever need to know, swelling and a lump under a dogs eye means dental issues.  Who knew?  She goes in Thursday for the procedure.  Cross your fingers please.  I love me some puppy I do. She'll need to eat soft food for a few days, so if any of you make your food for your dog, let me know any suggestions you might have.  I really don't want her to have the canned stuff...makes them windy dontcha know.

Anyway, what you see above is me trying to branch out and eat different fish.
A recent trip to Captain Marden's had me asking for two little barramundi fillets and a big fat scallop.
The first time I try a new fish I like to keep it simple as possible.  Slashed the skin, sea salt and pepper grinds on both sides a searing hot pan and some crispy skin.  The scallop was sliced in half and got a few seconds.  That lovely bottle of Brix 8 in the background was used as a dressing on some seared baby spinach and garlic and the other side dish was a variation on a warm German potato salad (skip for paleo, ok for primal).  I loaded it with fresh dill, chive and scallions.  This dish will certainly be a repeat, the fish was sweet, delicious,  light and flaky and the skin crisps up great and is thin enough to enjoy eating. Next time I make it I'll work out a recipe and add it here.  And there WILL be a next time.

Barramundi is currently farmed in the U.S. only in Western Mass at Australis Aquaculture in Turner's Falls, making this fish not only sustainable, but good for the locavore as well and bringing some much needed jobs to the Western part of the state.  Try some, You'll like it.

Ginger chile Tuna with Cold Sesame Noodles

Trust me, you want to make this.

Ginger Chile Tuna with Cold Sesame Noodles

Sit a nice piece of tuna in a bowl of rice vinegar, ginger, sesame oil, soy sauce, honey and cilantro with a nice chopped up serrano chile seeds and all. Let it hang out for 30 minutes or an hour.  Heck, have a cocktail. Then grill it, making some nice grill marks, and all the while continue to glaze the fish with the marinade.  Keep the fish as pink as you like it in the center.

Serve with a side of soba noodles tossed with a mixture of sautéed ginger, jalapeño and garlic tossed in a blender and whizzed together with peanut butter, a little tahini, brown sugar, rice vinegar, soy sauce, garlic and sesame oil.  Pour that mixture all over your soba noodles, toss in some sliced scallion and some toasted black and white sesame seeds, chill for an hour or so and then serve.

I'm in the throes of developing recipes for The Hungry Traveler week, visiting Ox Farm in Concord this afternoon and reviewing two new cookbooks Street Food by Tom Kine and Adventures of an Italian Food Lover by Faith Willinger.  Detail on all of these are coming soon.

Striped Bass with Potato, Corn and Sungold salad with Herb Oil

The day stared out with my weekly trek to the Waltham Farmer's market, basket in hand and no distinct ideas about what I would be cooking.  I picked up some corn, a bunch of red onions, a few fresh dug potatoes, a zucchini and a basket of peaches. After a winding ride over to Russell's in Wayland for a few monarda to appease our new hummingbird visitor and an anemone to flower through to the frost I wound my way over to Wellesley to go back to Captain Marden's.

I've lived in Newton for 12 years now and after years of complaining that I live in New England, 12 miles as the crow flies from water and I can't find a decent fish market I finally have found one, right on my back doorstep.  Whole paycheck was really beginning to get on my nerves.  Several afternoons after work I tried to stop buy and buy some fresh fish for dinner only to find salmon and tilapia to be my only choices.  I hate both.  Well, let me clarify here, I love salmon raw, I love salmon smoked, I absolutely hate salmon cooked. Trust me, I've tried that recipe too, I still hate it. My only knowledge of Captain Marden's was seeing their preprepared frozen dinners in the freezer case of my local grocery store.  You know the kind, cod stuffed with a bread filling or fish sprinkled in buttered crumbs, etc. I think I had this twisted idea of Captain Marden's as being one of these blue rinse places.  I could not have been further from wrong.  Located off the main drag in Wellesley one half of the building holds a sit down restaurant and the other half is a large, clean fish market stocked to the gills (sorry I had to) with more kinds of fish in one place than your local Super 88.

Soft shell crabs, steamers, lobster tanks, coho salmon, lemon sole, mahi mahi, striped bass, halibut (steak and filet thank you very much), trout, snapper, the list goes on and on. The great staff will tell you all you need to know about the catch, cut you a piece to order, offer suggestions on how to cook it or tell you how much you might need per person if you were say throwing a dinner party.  If you walked in to the shop with your eyes closed you would not know that you were in a fish market at all.  That my friends is some FRESH FISH. Consider this my new home for finding fish on my side of the river.

I bought a piece of striped bass and started calculating how I was going to cook it as I packed the cooler in the truck and headed off to buy a few more ingredients.

Since I had never had Striper before or Rockfish for you mid Atlantic folks I decided simple was the best option for the first time.

First I made a salad of sungold tomatoes out of the garden sliced in half and tossed with corn cut off the cob and left raw, half of a red onion sliced ultra thin on my ceramic hand slicer, a few basil leaves plucked from out back stacked, rolled like a cigar and snipped into thin strips with scissors.  Drizzle some peppery Tuscan EVOO and a sprinkle of champagne vinegar, season with sea salt and toss it all together with your hands.  Cooking is so much better when it is a tactile event.

Then I took those fresh potatoes, cooked them for about 5 minutes until they were just starting to get soft, drained them, cut them in thick slices and sauteed them in some olive oil and a little butter for colour.  In the center of the pan I cooked more of the thin shaved onions to make frizzled onions. 

Back into the garden I plucked some chive,thyme and oregano I snipped that with scissors into the blender, put in a few TBS of my garlic confit (from the French Laundry, cook garlic cloves in good olive oil on ultra low heat for an hour or two until soft, preserve in the oil and store in the fridge - use liberally) that was hanging out in the fridge.  I kicked on the blender whired it all up with more EVOO.

I took the fish, scored through the skin, rubbed in sea salt and loads of fresh ground black pepper. This went into a searingly hot pan coated with a little canola and seared for about 4 minutes.  After checking that the skin was crisp it was flipped over and cooked for 1 minute.  I took it out of the pan, put it in the oven at 400 to finish it.  For fish the rule is 10 minutes per inch of thickness so it hung out for about 4 - 5 more minutes and then it was all plated together.

A bed of those potatoes, on went the fish, on the sides went the corn salad and over the fish some of that herb oil passed through a small sieve and sprinkled on top, the frizzled onions.

This was the antidote to the week of barbecue, pork and pork with a side of chicken and pork fest.

I loved the striper, meaty and clean tasting with a texture a bit like skate wing.  I'll be buying this fish again and again.  I made husband taste a bit as he wasn't brave enough to "risk" his dinner on a fish he had never tried before (I made him halibut and mushy peas, cause people he's a BRIT he likes mushy peas from a CAN), he smiled a nod of approval so I do believe a new fish may be added to his repertoire as well of course he'll still want it fried with mushy peas, but it's a start people, it's a start!

Bivalvia Ostreoida Pectinina a la Normandy

A summer salad

Seared scallops on a bed of pickled red onion, artichoke hearts, scallions, oil cured tomatoes and butter lettuce with Camembert-Cider dressing

Summer in New England

Fried Clams: The Clam Box, Ipswich, MA

Soft Shells (crab and clam)

I was inspired this week by a food blog I saw (that I of course can't find again to link to it) that mentioned Whole Foods in Fresh Pond having Soft Shell Crabs. Having hatched this plan in my seedy little brain, I stopped by the store after giving my tutoring student his Italian Final at CSCA.

The soft shell crabs were already prepared (faces removed, apron removed, etc) so it would be easy to whip these up for dinner last night.  I knew I was going to turn them into some sort of Po Boy application and as I looked around for an oyster or two to add to the mix I noticed some gorgeous, tiny steamers. There was dinner sorted.   

Since I was already in the neighborhood I also went by the Iggy's  bread store in the bowels of an industrial park off Fresh Pond circle and picked up some Brioche rolls for husband and a few of the French Rolls for my Po Boy.  I was so good.  In the door, purchase intended items and OUT!  The temptation in the place is soooooooo bad.  I also noticed off in the corner they have a fridge dedicated for CSA pick ups from The Farm School.  I'm going to check with them and see if they have any openings left.  I missed the boat for both Land's Sake as well as the one in Waltham this year. Every year I say I am going to do it and every year it manages to pass me by.  I think the lure of strolling around a farmer's market to pick my stuff generally beats the take what is available and make it work option.

To make those lovely, crunchy soft shell crabs you see above I made a beer batter of 1/2 a bottle of whatever was up in the fridge mixed with 1/2 a cup of flour and 1/2 a cup of cornstarch with a bit of baking powder, salt, pepper and Frank's Red Hot mixed in.  It's an amazing batter that is based on a beer batter we used often in school from Chef Tony lawless who now runs the gorgeous Pilgrim's Inn in Deer Isle ME.  I salt and peppered the outside, dipped them in the batter and they hit the pan of oil for 2 minutes on each side.  Served on an Iggy's French roll with watercress, tomato, sliced red onion and a home made tartar sauce of dill and sweet relishes, pickle juice, capers, paprika and a few other things.

Crunchy with a squirt of ocean inside each bite.  Husband was squeamishly watching me eat them still disbelieving that I eat the whole thing shell and all.  He wouldn't even press the shell when I tried to show him how soft they were earlier before I cooked them.  He just squished his face up and said, "Ugh...I don't fancy that".

Ha! more crab for me pal.