seasons change.

Well......there'll probably be a blog post in this spot pretty soon.
Possible topics of discussion: there is no such thing as Cheap Dirk Fish anymore; the easiest imaginable fried polenta recipe; A Late Summer Diet.

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breaking the chains.

Cleaning up my phone I found this mysterious picture: I know what it is but not why there would be a picture of it.

As a break from the wattle-gazing that's going on around here, it's convenient that this is also a food blog. It's no secret that I/we seem to be growing ever more in love with pickled things over the years, probably because our tastebuds are getting old and saggy, but whatever the cause, I found another new pickle that, while it's a lot of chopping, and a little frying, and kind of feels like a bit of work while you're doing it, and boy are these a lot of commas, etc: then it sits in the fridge for 24 hours and your aged-ass moth-eaten brain has almost entirely forgotten about the prep work by then. Suddenly you're all, "Crikey, who left this bright yellow incredibly healthy-looking Nyonya/Malaysian fish pickle in my icebox? I shall bite into it right now", etc.

It's really, realllly good. One of the more obviously restaurant-quality Asian things I can make, which is interesting (to me) because there are so few ingredients. It really is the Nyonya/Malaysian version of this, so if you do it right it's another perfect treatment for oilier fishies. The post-cooking marination does something extremely complementary (and complimentary, but more the former) to the texture of this particular fish.

Which is not the fish that the original recipe calls for, which I got from here, obviously my version is totally inauthentic, I'm using dirt-cheap (but sustainably fished!) Alaskan salmon, and I didn't technically "deep-fry" anything. And some more different colors would be a good idea (adding the green chiles for example), and then check out their sprinkle of sesame seeds, which every recipe I saw included. Tragically I didn't have any so I can't comment. I left the chile peppers cut big so I could choose spicy or non-spicy bites. And I added black pepper b/c turmeric needs it in order to be bioavailable or something scientific like that.

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nyonya fish pickle. 

500g wild salmon or mackerel
olive or coconut oil for frying

5 tbsp olive or coconut oil
20g fresh turmeric (three pinky-sized pieces), peeled and julienned
50g fresh ginger (the standard "2-inch long piece"), peeled and julienned
30g garlic (ended up being about 5 cloves), peeled and etc
2 green Holland chiles
2 red Holland chiles
5 tbsp (or slightly less) raw sugar (I used one disk of palm sugar b/c that's all I had, HOW FUCKING GOURMET AM I BITCHESSSS)
1 tsp salt
freshly cracked black pepper to taste
200ml white vinegar
1 tsp white sesame seed or even a drizzle of tahini, I know it sounds weird but it worked for me

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Fry the fish in as little oil as you can to be able to call it frying. I cooked my filets 3 minutes per side and, while that doesn't sound like much, and it's true they were "just cooked" when I took them off, they kept cooking while they rested, and then the very vinegar-centric soaking finished whatever needed finishing. They were pretty perfect 24 hours later.

I can't remember if I wiped the pan out here, it could've gone either way. Let's say I did. Then you add the 5 tbsp of oil and fry the turmeric until it's lightly browned, about 5-7 minutes. Remove it and then do the ginger and garlic together, which I normally wouldn't do b/c ginger always seems to take a little longer, but again it worked perfectly, about 5 minutes, don't burn your garlic. Remove the ginger and garlic and then do the chiles.

And then put the oil and whatever's in the pan into a pickling jar or sealable glass bowl and let it cool. Then add sugar, vinegar, salt and pepper and combine with the fish pieces and rhizomes and chiles and whatnot. Something like that, I did whatever the original recipe told me to do. Cover/seal and put in the fridge for 24 hours.

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tang.

This doesn't look like much, but the first version went by so fast I'm thinking about making it again tonight. It's from the rich tradition of Spanish escabeches and salpicóns and all other manner of marinated and pickled fish, served cold or at room temperature. Obvs wild salmon is not a requirement here, just any slightly oily fish that really tastes like something on its own. If you are using wild salmon, Kalamatas were key, I wouldn't substitute another olive.

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wild salmon in olive escabeche.

2 medium carrots, cut into 1/4-inch-wide, 2-inch lengths
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for frying
1 sweet onion, thinly sliced
2 tsp dried thyme
4 to 8 bay leaves (8 if they're good ones)
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
Salt and freshly ground pepper

4 wild salmon filets (about 500g total)
1/2 cup kalamata olives, chopped very fine

This is kind of how you do it, not my instructions yet, they're still the original Food & Wine instructions. You'll be able to tell when they're mine because the words "shimmering" and "dollop" will be gone. Probably also "spooning".

Using a mandoline, cut the carrots into thin strips. In a small skillet, heat 1/4 cup of the olive oil. Add the carrots, shallots, thyme sprigs, bay leaves and garlic and cook over moderate heat until the vegetables are softened, about 6 minutes. Remove from the heat. Stir in the vinegar and season with salt and pepper. Let stand for 10 minutes.

In a large nonstick skillet, heat 1/4 inch of olive oil until shimmering. Season the mackerel fillets with salt and pepper and add them to the skillet skin-side down. Cook over high heat until the skin is browned and crisp, about 4 minutes. Turn and cook the fillets for 1 minute longer, until almost cooked through. Transfer the fillets to a large, shallow glass or ceramic dish, skin side up. Top with the vegetables and their marinade. Let stand at room temperature for 3 hours, occasionally spooning the marinade over.

Discard the thyme sprigs and bay leaves. Arrange the mackerel on plates and spoon the vegetables and their marinade on top. Dollop with the tapenade and serve.

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ghost gift.

Someone brought us some really excellent exotic spice blends from the American southwest, just east of where I'll be in a few weeks. Three spice blends to be exact, but we will be waiting to talk about and cook with them until the fair mooperbird returneth.

Someone else finally gave in to their sugar craving yesterday, it had been a whole week, come on cut him some slack. He made something that he has now hidden very far away in the back of the refrigerator in hopes that he will forget about it for another week or so.

Actually, it's not so bad health-wise. I do wonder if you could eliminate the honey altogether or if that's what's giving it its viscosity. I say this because it's almost too sweet the way it is right now, and plus if you were just using coconut milk and coconut sugar then damn this would be the healthiest caramel of all time.

And lastly, it's not really "caramel", in terms of consistency, it's "caramel sauce". It won't harden into a non-pourable state. It would still probably be an excellent healthier sub for something like sticky toffee pudding. I got the idea here.

In other news, I am officially sick of butternut squash. I went from "man I love butternut squash" two weeks ago to "please make it stop" this morning. That was only two squashes. Or squash probably. Two squash.

Tonight back to fish, which reminds me that the ol' Cheap Dirk Fish is not really so so cheap any more. The "Wild Alaskan Salmon" that used to be €2.99 for 700g is now €3.99 for 500g. And they've done it so slowly and just so damn sneakily that if I bought it more often I might not have noticed. The bags are still the same physical size, there's just less in them. And Dirk's price markers are so, mmm, what's the word, haphazard that it really takes some moderate effort to figure out what things in the freezer cost.

Anyway, yes, white people problems. Hey how about you be a white person that makes some heathier caramel sauce while I be a white person that goes to the gym.*

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salted coconut caramel cream.

1 can coconut milk (400ml)
1/4 cup really good honey or pure maple syrup
1/4 cup (I used one 60g disk/tablet) palm sugar or coconut sugar, apparently not always the same thing, coconut sugar is better if you can find it
1 tsp good vanilla extract
1/2 tsp coarse sea salt

Put the first three ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a good simmer and then reduce it for a good amount of time, whisking often but not too often. The original recipe says to do this for 15 minutes, I did 45 in an attempt to achieve extra brownness. When maximum brownness has been achieved, turn off heat, add vanilla and salt. Let cool, put in the fridge, should last 3 weeks or so.

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* For the record I mean that as "white person" as in "white people problems", a distinction of class not color. Fight the power (?).

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poppy.

Above: Shokomonk's white chocolate with poppyseeds. Below: last night's besan-battered Moorish catfish (Spanish + Creole ideas), plus black beans, plus the last dollop of Surinamese hot sambal. It might not look like much, but for me it was a perfect plate of food, with the added bonus that finishing the last of the Surinamese sambal means it's time to try a new one.

fassoulia.

Went into the center yesterday for a drinkie-poo and some sun with the Moop and the KK, ended up on the Leliegracht at Spanjer & Van Twist, where I think I have never ever been before. Pleasant enough place to drink and chat, though in terms of food I'm not sure it would ever be wise to venture beyond the "fried" portion of the menu.

That little neck of the woods sure is picaresque (sic) though. OK, here are some options for tonight's North African-Jewish idea, another Saveur ripoff.

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boulettes de poisson.

400g cod or haddock
½ cup very finely chopped almonds, or almond flour
¼ cup finely chopped parsley
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground coriander
¼ tsp ground ginger
5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 egg, lightly beaten
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

2 tbsp butter
3 tbsp tomato paste
2 cups stock (I used chicken)
2 cups whole, peeled canned tomatoes with juice, crushed
1 tsp sugar, plus more to taste
1/2 tsp cayenne
1 tsp crushed red chile flakes (I used pul biber)
1/2 tsp ground allspice

1/2 cup chopped cilantro for serving

I served it with buttered rice, yogurt probably would've been good too. These were the "meatiest" fishballs I've ever encountered, not in a bad way.

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fassoulia (long-cooked green beans in tomato sauce).

1 large onion, chopped
6 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 tsp garlic powder
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp cumin
400g fresh string beans or runner beans
1 can diced tomatoes (2 cups or so)
1 cup beef or vegetable broth
salt and pepper

Cook for 45 minutes.

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by any other name.

Ok, this experiment has been brewing for a few weeks now. Today I find myself mildly hungover and have thus limited my goals for the day to 1) shower 2) grocery shopping and 3) making dinner for Moop since she's continuing her crusade to douche the upstairs (NOTE: my mother has pointed out that "douche" is not a generally understood term in this context, where it means "to clean thoroughly but with a coarse, hurried technique, as if you run a meth lab and you've been tipped that the cops are on their way").

Here is the aforementioned experimental amuse. Turns out that if you accidentally overpuree a batch of the fritter mixture it also doubles as a very mysteriously lifelike veggie burger substitute after you add a little brown rice or bulgur for texture.

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kamaboko + black-eye pea fritters with grapefruit-avocado salsa and/or garlic mayo. 

100g surimi (or possibly reversed proportions, 200g surimi and onc cup of peas)
2 cups cooked black-eyed peas, unsalted if possible
1 canned chipotle chile
1 whole scallion minus wiggly roots
2 tbsp cilantro
2 tbsp fresh mint
juice of one blood orange
1/2 tsp smoked salt, or to taste
1/4 tsp smoked paprika, or to taste

1 egg

1 grapefruit, supremed
1 avocado, chopped
1 small red onion, chopped fine
1 tbsp cilantro, chopped, torn, whatever
juice of 1 lime

1/2 cup mayo
1 clove garlic

bottled tomatillo sauce for a-drizzlin'

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Don't process the cakes too much. You could actually pulse the surimi and herbs a couple times first then add the beans and egg last, pulse it again, and fry from there.

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he all growed up.

Above: Poppy's 9/11 birthday party, with both exploding and non-exploding cake.

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Used to be a time when I'd "borrow" things from my parents' cookbook library, like "permanently". Then came a time when I'd wonder why they had so few cookbooks. Now's the time when their cookbook shelves are a-heavin' again and I'm finally, just now, this year, old enough to not steal any of their shiny new books.

I'd had my eye on their copy of Steven Raichlen's Barbecue Bible for a few years now, because even though it looks horribly generic and cheap on the outside, it's actually chock full o' smart, useful recipes for just about every fucking thing you'd ever want to do on a grill. Lots and lots of interesting Indonesian and Malaysian things, a host of unusual Caribbean things, and even some Iranian and Afghani things I'd never seen or heard of before. Plus dozens of useful, accurate, authentic salads, sides, rubs, sauces, marinades, etc etc etc. I think it's a great book.

So this year I decided that I'm a big boy now, time to man up, so I bought one used on Amazon for 10 bucks. I made something nice out of it in Phoenix a few weeks ago, a coriander-grilled cod with a fresh northern Thai relish of tomatoes, basil, fish sauce, and lime, simple but great. And tonight is a non-grill adaptation, this French Antillean thing below.

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panga with french west indian caper sauce. 

4 catfish or cod or other firm white fish fillets

marinade
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp fresh or 1/4 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp black pepper
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 Scotch bonnet/habanero pepper, minced

sauce
2 tbsp cilantro, chopped
2 tbsp fresh lime juice
2 tbsp water
2 tbsp EVOO
1 tbsp capers
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 1/2 tsp minced Scotch bonnet/habanero
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 large shallot, chopped

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anatomy of a murder.

I've made cá kho tộ before, and it was a little too sweet for the Mara, I think there wasn't enough black pepper. This time it was pretty perfect, except that I didn't really have time to totally reduce the sauce to the stickiness everyone says it's supposed to have. But it tasted goooooooooood.

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vietnamese catfish in caramel sauce.

600gr catfish filets
6 tbsp fish sauce
4 tbsp palm sugar
4 tbsp minced shallots
4 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp black pepper or more to taste (very important, don't skimp)
3 tbsp caramel sauce (basically take 4 tbsp sugar and 1/2 cup water, simmer for 10 minutes, don't burn it, you'll have a little left over)
1 cup water
1 green Holland chile, thinly sliced
2 tbsp coconut oil
1 tbsp toasted coconut
4 or 5 scallions, chopped 
a little chopped cilantro

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Serve with optionally coconutted jasmine rice or definitely coconutted bulgur, which I will explain soon.

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this is how we clean the pantry.

This was highly edible, almost really super good. I'd had dried black-eyed peas sitting around for a long time so I made a very harissa- and garlic-centric hummus out of them last night. Today I tried an Israeli-style hummus-crusted fish with it, then served it with a pile of cilantro and the leftover ruby kraut from the tempeh thing.

Drizzled with sriracha, it was a totally gourmet lunch, but would've been even better with a drizzle of a tahini cream sauce and some quick beet or cucumber pickles. I must warn you, this makes a lot of hummus.

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black-eyed pea hummus with harissa.

3 cups cooked black-eyed peas
2 garlic cloves, minced
6 tbsp fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1-2 tbsp harissa
2 tbsp EV olive oil
1 or 2 tsp ground cumin
3 or 4 tbsp tahini
salt to taste
possibly water for thinning, or more olive oil

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codebreaker.

This dinner is a mystery solved. A trusted food friend brings you foodstuffs back from an exotic location, but you can't read the package. You can't even type the language to Google Translate the shit.

Closer inspection reveals that there are in fact a couple of English words, so you Google them. Eventually you manage to find out that what you are holding is a starter kit for making hoba miso, from Takayama, Japan. Here's Wikipedia Japan's article, Translated.

This is hoba miso with catfish in place of the usual beef and/or mushrooms (I know, it looks like tofu). It was really really good, we were licking the magnolia leaf at the end, but it's quite unphotogenic, no? Apparently it can be made to look better.

Basically: I pan-fried the catfish in butter and sesame oil for 3-4 minutes per side, with a tiny bit of salt and raw sugar added at some point in the cooking process. Then I rigged up a fake hibachi (grill pan with foil on top), slathered the magnolia leaf with miso, placed it on the fauxbachi, added the fish and scallions, and waited 10 minutes or so (over low heat) until the miso was bubbling and starting to caramelize. Serve. 

intrepid.

I don't even think she's on a bike, just wearing the helmet for protection.

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OK so I should really be working right now? But I just made something that literally took 5 minutes of effort and left me wondering, "Why don't you just cook like this more often?".

Here's how it went tonight, but I'm sure this could be streamlined: take a bag of Cheap Dirk Fish (mine was Alaskan salmon). For each filet, sprinkle/rub unto/onto it: about a tbsp of Surinamese masala + a tsp of Surinamese X-Hot sambal. Broil for 12-15 minutes (probably 5 minutes too long, but I don't like to undercook Cheap Dirk Fish). Remove from oven and slather/drizzle each filet with 1 tbsp pumpkin chutney from De Avondmarkt and 1 tbsp of ketjap manis (this is why you didn't salt anything earlier). Broil for another 5 minutes without burning the sugars in the ketjap and chutney. Zero effort, big happy mouth time.

A banana-cardamom milkshake would've been the perfect sleeping pill afterwards but there is work to be done.

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There'll be more to this post when procrastination comes a-callin' again, but for now, I don't want to forget that The Girl Who Ate Everything was just on a terribly well-researched trip to Sweden and has lots of good info here on her blog, but also here on Serious Eats.

And, uh....here's this. Don't watch the original until after you see their version, but do watch it to appreciate the effort that went into the tribute. I didn't really laugh until he made the vinaigrette and then I had to watch it again.



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steve the laser mouse.

Oh, look.

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Mara is cooking tonight, and this makes me happy...it feels like a long time since we've cooked dinner specifically for each other.

I was just reading something random this weekend about the process of deciding what's for dinner, and it made me realize that many, many food bloggers linger on this step when posting a recipe.

But why? Is it just like any other creative activity that you might document, so you give a little back story on your thought process? I don't know, I'm not so sure there's not more to it, something pleasure-related in the recounting of how you decided what to eat, that whole dopamine/anticipation thing. Research this, will you?

Regardless. Tonight we had fish defrosting and we wanted something comforting. To me, fish and comfort do not necessarily belong in the same sentence unless possibly it's a sentence about something other than food, but there's this one thing Mara makes that we both seemed to be gravitating towards: she does some kind of stuffed fish a couple of times a year, and it's always good, but we never write it down, so this is tonight's attempt. It contains the controversial fish and cheese combo, a controversy that I don't totally understand because they always seem to taste pretty darn good together. Maybe more cheese = more comfort.

I filed this under Southern Cooking because it reminds me of something you'd see in a Louisiana kitchen (kidding, more like this or this), maybe even a Louisianan Italian one, except they'd probably use cream cheese somewhere, and pecans instead of pine nuts, and scallions somewhere, and of course there'd have to be shrimp or crab in the stuffing or on top...all of which sounds pretty good.

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baked fish stuffed with spinach, pine nuts, and raisins. 

4 tbsp butter
4 fillets of catfish, tilapia, cod, etc.
a bag of fresh spinach, WASHED (ahem)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp olive oil
3/4 cup or less pine nuts, toasted
3/4 cup or less raisins
1 tbsp Cajun seasoning (or substitute, say...cayenne, garlic powder, onion powder, and thyme)
1/4 cup or more Gouda, shredded
salt
pepper

Melt butter in small saucepan, add raisins, let sit, possibly transferring to a smaller bowl if butter does not cover raisins. Your goal is plump raisins.

Butter a baking dish. Saute spinach and garlic in oil with salt and pepper to taste. Add the butter-soaked raisins (reserving the butter), the cheese, and the pine nuts to the spinach. Stir to combine.

Roll the spinach mixture up in the fish fillets. Pour the reserved butter over the fillets and sprinkle with cajun seasoning. Bake for 20 minutes at 200C.

white radish.

It's quite a challenge to use up a whole daikon when you're cooking for one. One person I mean. Luckily I was totally out of other food, so I had to improvise, and lo, behold, etc: this came out totally satisfyingly for a light snack. I was trying to think of another Japanese flavor that would've been nice here. Pickled ginger would've been my first choice but we were out. Could've gone totally wrong anyway, this was fine. Proportions are, as always, approximate.

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daikon, smoked mackerel, horseradish salad.

1 cup daikon, cubed smallish
200 grams smoked mackerel filets, shredded
2 tbsp prepared horseradish
apple vinegar to taste
a little stevia or sugar to taste, or an apple, cubed
optionally, 2 tbsp of sweet onion, chopped

Combine, eat immediately.

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BYOHS.

Back on MFSDxiv. Which was actually THE most successful diet I've ever undertaken. I lost more than a few kilos. Didn't look totally gross and blobby at the beach. Felt good. Now wearing clothes that haven't fit for years, thus validating my having kept them around. Learned how to use some new ingredients, made some pretty tasty food. So I'm back on for a couple months. Exceptions would be upcoming dinners at Fenan Klein Afrika and Marius.

Critical Success Factors: 0) no alcohol 1) no sugar 2) no grains 3) no eating after 9pm 4) daily exercise. Go me.

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Another Critical Success Factor would be 5) developing a homemade jerk seasoning recipe that didn't have any sugar in it. Tonight, just getting back into MFSDxiv, I marinated some Cheap Dirk Fish in Walkerswood jerk (2 tbsp Walkerswood to 2 tbsp olive oil to 600gr Alaskan wild salmon, do NOT add any additional salt) and broiled for 20 minutes. A little too long, but this fish isn't good enough to eat underdone.

I ended up with a completely doable Jerk Product that was enjoyable as it was, but would've been way more enjoyable if I knew that it was completely in line with MFSDxiv.

So I try to recreate from scratch.

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bringie me banana.

New guest-appropriate grilled fish dish discovered tonight. Don't really know what it's called yet. It's essentially bali burgers crossed with Mara's old sate lilit recipe and wrapped in banana leaves instead of being skewered.

This was my first time cooking with the leaf of the banana (I know!), and really, they're great. Immediately two big fish-grilling problems are solved: one, there's no potential for sticking, which I don't care about so much if it's just the two of us, but if people are coming over it's nice to serve them something that doesn't look like it came out of a tumbledryer. And two, there's a vastly reduced potential for charring-beyond-recognition something with sugar in it.

If that weren't enough, it's also a way to use Cheap Dirk Fish for a dinner that seems fancy as all get-out.

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ikan something.

A two-inch knob of ginger, peeled

A four-inch piece of turmeric, peeled

the useful part of 1 lemongrass stalk
10 good-sized shallots

10 candlenuts

6 cloves of garlic

5 red Holland chiles

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tomato

1 tsp belacan/shrimp paste

3 tbsp peanut oil

1 tsp salt, or more to taste (i used more than 1 tsp, but not sure how much...we test again soon)

2 tbsp light brown, thin tamarind paste (maybe half that if you've got the thick, almost-black concentrate)

2 tbsp palm sugar

10 tbsp flaked unsweetened coconut

100ml coconut milk

5 green Thai chiles, minced (this is what the original recipe called for, we didn't do it, we will next time)

10 kaffir lime leaves, snipped into very thin slivers

1 kg catfish filets

Process first 12 ingredients in food processor until paste-like. Saute paste over medium-low heat, stirring often, for 10-15 minutes or until harsh taste is gone. Add tamarind and sugar, remove from heat and let cool. When cool, add coconut, coconut milk, like leaves, and fish, and stir to combine thoroughly. At this point I fried up one tiny bite's worth of the mixture so I could taste it and adjust the seasoning.

Ideally let the fish/paste mix sit for a couple of hours. Then make banana leaf parcels out of it. Grill for 10 minutes per side over a medium-hot fire. I ended up having them on the grill for almost 30 minutes with no discernible ill effects. This recipe makes 8 packets. Serve with sambal.

lamb, beef, whatever.

At DD's birthday last night we had a seating plan, which worked out wonderfully I thought. I mean, just look at what happened as soon as people got out of their assigned seats (above).

Photos here.

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Today I needed to use up some Cheap Dirk Fish I'd defrosted ("Alaskan Wild Salmon" it's called...it's nothing like what you normally think of as salmon, I wonder if it's humpy). This is an adaptation of a recipe from Cradle of Flavor, I would happily do this again.

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ikan boemboe roejak (spice-braised fish).

1-2 tbsp tamarind concentrate

3/4 cup hot water

4 shallots, peeled

3 cloves garlic, peeled

1 piece fresh ginger, 2 inches long, peeled

2 red Holland chiles, stems removed

700gr Cheap Dirk Fish

4 tbsp peanut oil

2 pieces cinnamon stick, each 4 inches long

5 cloves

2 whole nutmegs, cracked open

2 thick stalks fresh lemongrass trimmed and tied in knots, or 2 tsp dried lemongrass

4 tbsp ketjap manis

3 canned tomatoes, crushed

4 tbsp water

Combine tamarind extract and hot water, stir, set aside.

Add next four ingredients to food processor, blend to a paste, adding a little of the peanut oil if you need to.

Gently fry paste until garlic and ginger no longer smell raw, about 5 minutes. Make sure you don't burn your garlic.

Add fish, stir to coat fish with paste, saute for 5 minutes or so, taking care not to burn the paste.

Add rest of ingredients (including tamarind water), simmer for 45-60 minutes until nicely reduced and things taste right. Remove lemongrass (if using fresh) and warn diners about the remaining whole spices (cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon). Or remove them, but I like to leave them in if there are going to be leftovers.

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nog een keer.

Sorry for the semi-gross pictures...they were taken in the dark.

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Wow, it seems that I'm having a real day off. Like not the kind of day off where you drink beer and wander around a foreign city with a loved one, and not the kind of day off where your next work day is something shitty or stressful and it won't stop creeping into your brain, and not the kind of day off where you're at someone else's house eating their holiday hors d'oeuvres...

But like, a day off. A little reading, a little vacuuming, a little laundry, downloading some new music, a little cooking while listening to new music...good stuff.

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As I mentioned, I was having a real day off today, and at a certain point in the proceedings I realized that I hadn't really cooked in weeks. How's that, you say? It's true. But I'd been itching to see if the Momofuku recipes were as good as they looked. Plus I also had this cheap Alaskan wild salmon that needed using...

So the starting point was Momofuku's Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Fish Sauce Vinaigrette (recipe here). It seemed so unlikely, and yet it was made from things we eat all the time, save the Rice Krispies.

Upon tasting, it was instantly obvious that this is something we should repeat often. And yes the Rice Krispies totally work (though, like a bhel puri, you only have about 15 minutes to eat the dish after the Krispies are added).

NOTE: If you're going to try this recipe yourself, it's really worth noting that European brussels sprouts are much smaller than American sprouts, so adjust your cooking time accordingly. For me it took them about 8 minutes (instead of 15) once I put the skillet in the 200C oven. And you really don't want to overcook the sprouts for textural reasons.

The other Momofuku recipe that got made today is the Pickled Mustard Seeds. Also really surprising and totally good. After simmering them for 45 minutes the flavor becomes milder and the texture reaches an almost caviar-like pop. You can immediately see that they'll be awesome with smoked salmon or, well, pork.

And in fact, they're pretty awesome with the below salmon recipe as well, which is not from Momofuku. I hadn't totally sorted out the evolution of the recipe by the time I served it, but some experimentation with the leftovers has revealed that sriracha mayonnaise was the missing ingredient. I could also see how julienned and quick-pickled carrots would be a helpful garnish.

+++

ginger soy salmon with pickled mustard seeds and sriracha mayonnaise.

3 garlic cloves
1 cup scallion greens
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tbsp mirin or sake
1 1-inch cube peeled fresh ginger
2 tsp sugar
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp sriracha or dochujang
750gr wild salmon fillets

yellow mustard seeds

sugar

salt

rice vinegar

water

sriracha

mayonnaise

Combine first 8 ingredients in a food processor. This is your marinade and later, your basting sauce. I marinated for 3 hours and that was just about good enough. Broil at 200C for 15 minutes or so, basting with the reduced marinade if you feel like it.

catfish étouffée.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Hmm, I have no idea when this post is from; it was a Draft, and then I published it just now, and now its lost its "originally written" date.

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ORIGINAL POST: No time for inspired commentary, but wanted to get some pictures and recipe notes up: above, test kitchen muffin tasting (*blushes*); middle, my "peanut butter" roux; below, resulting catfish étouffée.

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Étouffée (from here on out tilde-less). When I first started cooking from scratch, back around 1990, some of the first things I cooked were what we non-Louisiana dwellers have come to think of as "Creole and Cajun food". In 1990, "Cajun cooking" had just ridden an improbable decade-long wave of huge trendiness in America, and it was nearly impossible to find an American cookbook without a jambalaya or red beans & rice or shrimp Creole recipe (here's a brief bit by Chuck Taggart about that whole phenomenon, and here's something more academic). I know jambalaya was one of the first delicious things I cooked at home.
























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catfish etoufee.

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1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp black pepper
2 tsp onion powder
2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tbsp dried thyme

6 tbsp butter
1/2 cup flour

3 stalks celery, sliced
1 medium onion, sliced
1 bell pepper, seeded and chopped (optional)
3 cloves garlic

1 can tomatoes
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp Tabasco sauce, or more, to taste
1 bottle dark beer (not stout, but something dark)
2 bay leaves

600gr catfish, cut into bite-size pieces
a mess o' scallion greens

balm, me.

As the title of the last post said, "OK!" Which means, among other things, OK, I'm back. I haven't been feeling, eh, "100%" for the past few days, and haven't been eating much other than imaginary sandwiches (also see previous post). That ham, avocado, tomato sandwich was real, though, but it didn't fix whatever badness lurked inside me.

So today I went outside thinking "what's the healthiest possible food I could eat?" This is a pretty tough question to answer definitively, but lots of things came to mind: vegetables of course, dark leafy greens and bright orange things and stinky cruciferous things. But I was also craving protein, so I picked up the "sale tilapia" at the Dirk (frozen, don't worry...that's the only kind of "sale fish" I buy) and a big head of cabbage, thinking I'd make some kind of zuppa di pesce thing.

But my mind is still in the tropics. So we turn to the great tradition of tropical cabbage dishes. Don't laugh, there probably is one, I just can't think of anything except that wickedly spicy cabbage from Jamaican Foods in Athens, GA. I'll have time to use the InterGoogle eventually, and I'll return triumphant, you'll see.

I basically took a recipe for Surinamese cabbage (half of a cabbage) with masala (1 tbsp or so of Nandan brand Hindustani masala) and added 1 jar of "No-E" chicken broth (as in no additives), maybe a cup of sliced leeks, and 500 gr fish. I felt like I was channeling some Portugese influence via the ol' Mystic Pipeline (which I haven't used in some time, so bear with me) until I added some ginger.

Portugese-Surinamese? Or is it just Chinese with some Indian spices? I'll sort out the lineage later...right now it smells very good and will hopefully set my insides right.

UPDATE: This was totally delicious, especially after I added some adjoema and a sprinkling of seroendeng. Why do these flavors go together? I don't get it. I'll totally make this again, but it's so ugly I can't imagine ever serving it to anyone.

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