What's cooking? part 4

I am definitely making the next pate with dark rum - I think that will be awesome. I don't know I've ever seen ox anything over here, except oxtail but that is just from regular beef cattle. My butcher is from some Slavic country and was so pleased when I bought the chicken livers - I'm going to see if he carries tongue and some other exotica (for the US); it's difficult to get things like trotters and beef cheeks and skin-on pork belly most places.

i have decided i want to make cioppino. any tips? it seems daunting.

Mr. Jaq used to make it all the time! But we haven't had it for an age. It seemed pretty straightforward - I'll ask him when he gets back from the gym.

do you have a recipe?

if you're okay with bouillabaisse instead of cioppino, then i'd recommend mark bittman's recipe. it's a long list of ingredients, but it's actually very straightforward.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE2DD163CF936A35751C1A9679C8B63

Alas, Mr. Jaq doesn't remember a) how to make it or b) where he found the recipe. No wonder we haven't had it since forever.

you can totally play with the amount and types of shellfish involved, btw. last time i made it, for example, i didn't include a flaky, white-fleshed fish - just the monkfish. also, i cut down the amount of shellfish and added a pound of squid. i like strong flavors, though, so i was pretty liberal with the seasoning measurements (including saffron, which i don't consider to be optional).

yeah, it seems like something you can play around with a lot and still have it turn out yum. i have just been browsing recipes... some of them call for making your own fish stock to use in it, and i don't know if i have that in me! (now all those years of being pissed that my dad's tupperware container's labled 'fish stock' were crowding up the freezer like giant chunks of wasted space are coming back to haunt me!)

i like bittman's take on the issue of stock:

Though some will argue that bouillabaisse must contain fish stock, any time you add a few pounds of fish to a simmering stew there is enough fish essence to make stock superfluous. If additional liquid is needed, water will do just fine.

that said, if you're going to put shrimp into the dish then you can improvise a stock using the shells pretty easily and quickly.

it's difficult to get things like trotters and beef cheeks and skin-on pork belly most places.

I'm in a state of shock over this. Come to the Old Country and we'll cook parts of the animal it never even knew it had.

I made the best korokke I've made ever yesterday. For bento lunches.

one of my local greengrocers sells bags of shiitake mushrooms the size of my head, for a pittance, so every day for about the past week I've been eating them fried up in a kind of rudimentary teriyaki sauce -- equal amounts cooking sake, mirin and soy sauce, plus some sugar, a pinch of salt, and a dash of ginger. It's sliiimy but so good.

I made some excellent rockfish last night based on this:
http://www.hometownannapolis.com/food5_rockfish.html#herb

Except I used v. little mustard, added milk to the batter, and we didn't have regular potato chips, just Salt & Vinegar kettle chips, and I like everything blackened so I used a lot of pepper and some paprika and etc.

one day I am going to have my standardized seasoning blends so I don't have to go scrabbling through the spice cupboard every time I break out a frying pan

served on orzo with hearts of palm salad (TY GF) it ruled except for the one bone I swallowed

Last night I improvised a whole bunch of hearty, Sunday dinner AWESOME.

Crockpot required, approximate cooking time 6 hours on low.

Chicken rub:
Paprika, kosher salt, pepper, lemon pepper

Sauce:
Can of condensed Cream of mushroom soup, 1/2 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup chicken stock, hot dry mustard, generous squirts of Sriracha hot sauce.

1. Rub chicken breasts all over, place in bottom of crock pot.
2. Slice the five remaining mushrooms about to rot in the crisper, put on top of chicken.
3. Mix together sauces, pour in.
4. An hour or so before the end, add frozen cooked new potatoes.
5. Fifteen minutes before the end, add frozen peas, turn to HIGH.
6. Serve with veggies and enjoy!

The broth was delicious. While I was waiting for my boyfriend to get home I totally "buttered" a piece of bread with it. Nom nom.

I made pesto for the first time on Saturday! It was delicious! I can't believe I didn't try it years ago but I think I used to be nervous about basil (food issues). Does anyone have pesto suggestions etc to refine my next attempt?

HOT TIP from Montenegro, where I'm not really cooking at all, due to the fact that we're staying with my in-laws: my mother-in-law made chicken liver tonight, and it was excellent, not least because of the unusual yet totally right-on addition of fresh DILL. No joke, it totally works!

speaking of dill -- lemon-dill potato salad, you are a treat.

My dad is picking a 5-gallon bucket of green beans every other day and my mother is forcing me to take some off their hands, so in self-defense I stir-fried a bunch with a ton of garlic and a little soy sauce and sesame oil, to get away from the standard southern method. SO GOOD. Need to go buy more garlic now.

Funny you should say, I am IN LOVE with sesame oil right now. I'm saving $$ by eating Ramen noodles, but with steamed green beans and sliced scallions and sesame oil on everything, it doesn't taste like I'm skimping at all.

omg i want all the green beans!!!!!!!!!! they were like $3.49/lb in my veggie stand the other day :(

so after a week of fresh (and not to mention extremely affordable) ahi tuna sashimi and marlin ceviche, i am really not happy with the frozen seafood mix from trader joe's i sauteed to throw on salad for dinner. u_u

where in nyc can one find quality fish that is not like $20/lb?

blue moon at the union square greenmarket or pure vida at the mccarren park market. the gramercy fish market is very nice, but on the pricier side and (i assume) not convenient for you. i used to buy fish in chinatown, but you have to spend some time looking around for a store that you're comfortable with.

i started reading shark's fin and sichuan pepper over the weekend. it's very informative and interesting, although dunlop can get a bit "cheery englishwoman" at times for my taste. a nice selection of recipes are included. what's cooking? tomorrow night, it's going to be fish-fragrant aubergines.

Last night I made arepas (yellow corn) with smoked gouda, shredded chicken (leftover from lunch) and sofrito (leftover from something else I made a few days ago) and man was it good. They were little towers of taste:

sofrito
chicken
gouda
arepa
chicken
gouda
arepa

sauteed green beans on the side

yumz

next time i might mix the cheese in with the masarepa and then pan-fry them

nommm.

yeah, i need someone to teach me how to shop for and identify good fish before i could do chinatown.

this reminds me i forgot to take my frozen mahi mahi out to defrost for dinner tonight. damn it.

i'd recommend checking out the mccarren market this weekend. the fish/seafood that pure vida sell are caught by their boats (same w/ blue moon), so you're getting a very fresh product.

yeah, definitely! i keep meaning to go up there. must make a point of it this weekend.

Am trying to cook nutritious+delicious food for pregnant wife so have a big pot now bubbling with white beans, smoked ribs (yay montenegro!), onion, carrot, garlic. Will eat with steamed greens w olive oil and lemon. Not the most summery of dishes (it's a million degrees here), but I still think it's gonna be great.

i'd be astonished if it wasn't, that sounds awesome

today I made potted smoked mackerel with pickled cucumber, I'm fairly pleased with the results but it's too early to tell

did not get to mccarren last wekend bc of beach trip but hopefully this sat it is ON!

matt that combo sounds awesome!

Pregnant so soon?!??!??! Congrats, goob, I missed that one somehow.

Yeah you're telling me! Thanks; we're generally excited, but the excitement is punctuated by huge waves of fear and anxiety and nervous laughter. Oh, and nausea.

I'm loaded down with cherry tomatoes, mostly yellow ones -- if I can see my way through these work deadlines, I'm going to pickle a bunch of them. Don't see why it wouldn't work -- but I wonder if I should process the jars after I seal them or not. I want the tomatoes to retain their shape, so as little cooking as I can get away with will be good.

i bought huge bunches of radishes and cilantro at the greenmarket. i have some avocados for another attempt at guac for a party tonight and want radishes to be one of the dipping utensils. also string beans. and cucumbers (the latter two not from greenmarket).

i also got some nice fresh blueberries that i haven't figured out what i will do with yet.

Blueberry yoghurt cake om nom nom, faling that just toss them with a little shredded mint and a glob of creme fraiche

and thanks, the cucumber was possibly too acid a cure cos there was a lot of pepper in with the mackerel, but I started another batch today with some dill and thyme which I have high hopes of

last night i had some fresh blueberries with cucumber slices. yummy combo! wish i'd had mint and yogurt to go with.

I was making gazpacho this morning with the overload of tomatoes we have -- using a recipe that called for putting the blended veggies & bread through a fine strainer. That left me with a bowl full of tomato/cucumber/garlic/bread solids, so I thought I'd see if I could do anything with it.

Sauteed some chopped onion and more garlic in a lot of olive oil, added a big double spoonful of the tomato stuff, a spoonful of chili paste, a bit of sugar, some lime juice and a little water, then quickly cooked some big shrimps in the sauce, and threw in some leftover cooked noodles at the end and tossed it all together. I was worried that the cucumber would be a weird element in it, but it tasted great. The dissolved bread solids gave the sauce a nice thick stick-to-the-noodle texture.

ok I didn't write this down as usual because I'm an inveterate eyeballer/finger-taster but DAAAAMN I'm a genius tonight

seared crusted tuna!:
big hunka tuna bright pink and thawed
lotsa black pepper
lotsa parsley flakes
lotsa ground macadamia nuts with some herbs in it from whole foods
little sea salt
little paprika

rub all over the tuna and sear in buttered pan on low heat like five minutes a side, transfer to plate, slice and serve

WITH AMAZING SAUCE!:

sriracha and/or sweet chili garlic sauce
mango chutney
plain ol' white vinegar
sesame oil

sorry I got no proportions I was just basically emptying a few bottles and watching the pretty colors

SO GOOD

sounds zingy (in the good sense not the idiot lol sense)

we had a stall at a festival this weekend just gone and were knocking out belly pork butties with onion relish which went down a storm

take one pork belly, bone out the ribs and reserve for chef treats, score the skin incredibly heavily, cuts no more than 1cm apart, salt the skin more than seems necessary and leave for half an hour, brush excess salt off, sprinkle crushed coriander seed and mustard seed, glug olive oil all over and put in a stupidly hot oven until you've got good crackling, then turn the oven down and give it a bit more until it's cooked out (if you don't get the requisite crispiness from the oven portion it out and crisp it up under the grill)

onion relish: onions sweated down with ww vinegar, healthy slosh of balsamic, horseradish, mustard powder, paprika, chilli (I use a puree of roasted birdseye at work but dried flakes'll be fine), low heat, long time until it's kind of like jam

combine two between two slices of bread, buy a beer, watch some endearingly slapdash bands

Tonight I am making:
-Mussels steamed in coconut milk curry broth
-nasu shigiyaku (miso eggplant)
-sea scallops w/ salad greens (don't know what dressing to make so please give me ideas!)

Oh everything from the farmers market! Would it be weird if I put cippolini onions in the curry broth?

I'd go for some kind of fresh ginger/garlic/lime dressing for the salad w/ scallops. Don't know about cippolini onions being weird in curry, but sure sounds tasty.

Matt's pork belly sandwich sounds amazing.

Last night - spicy tofu and edamame beans. Hotter than hell in a good way (tongue tingled for about half an hour afterwards), and the tofu tasted good even to this confirmed carnivore.

the cippolini onions were delicious in the curry broth! perfect for scooping up in the outer scallop shell. the broth was soooooo good and i was very happy to have bread to dip in it.

the only thing that didn't come out so well were the eggplants, i need to revisit that recipe.

Cooked the inaugural pan of bacon in the new (to me) kitchen this morning! We have been eating out so much due to working/moving/traveling exhaustion/laziness. But I can tell this is going to be a very happy place to cook.

yay!

last night we were going to make some soup out of the leftover broth, but got full on bruschetta with tomato, shallots and salami

i've been making this frittata from farmer's market vegetables at breakfast and can't stop thinking about it all day!

2 eggs + a blop of milk
1 small tomato
1/3 of a bell pepper, chopped up small
1 green onion stalk
small handful cilantro
smoked paprika
salt + pepper

nom nom nom nom