Brazilian Seafood Stew

We're officially in the rainy season here, which means I'm officially in the soup season too. And pretty much in coconut milk season year round, so this stew recipe, modified from Bon Appetit's Fast Easy Fresh cookbook, is a regular go-to for me.

My dear friend Amanda was coming cover for dinner and a Christmas knit session (one project down, 600 or so to go), but I knew we were heading to the Whip for cask ales first. (Have you been yet? Sundays at 4:00, the perfect weekend ender.) I needed a one-dish wonder we could whip up (no pun intended) as soon as we got home.

I actually confused two recipes in my head when I was grocery shopping (I also adore James Barber's One-Pot Wonders, and his recipe for 20-minute bouillabaisse), so I picked up a pound of mushrooms. It's not in the Bon Appetit version, but I threw them in. I also left out the required shrimp and upped the fish portion (basa fillets in my case). I'm pretty sure prawns (unless they're local spot prawns) are one of the no-gos on the Sea Choice list, but now I don't know about Basa. Gah, so much to think about.

I also upped the lime juice and added a bit of sugar at the end, giving it a little more sweet/sour kick.

Either way, this recipe rocks. Amanda and I had it done in about 20 minutes flat, prep and all. All right, maybe 25. But we had two (and a half) Whip pints to keep us moving.

Brazilian Seafood Stew recipe
adapted from Fast Easy Fresh, Bon Appetit

4 tablespoons olive oil
juice of 2 fresh limes (about 4 tbsp)

2 pounds white fish fillets (Basa, in my case), cut into 1-inch pieces
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1 1/2 cups chopped green bell peppers
1 lb mushrooms
2 garlic cloves, chopped
3/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
2 cups chopped tomatoes (I use canned in the winter. Winter tomatoes, IMHO, suck.)
3/4 cup canned unsweetened coconut milk
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 cup chopped green onions
3 tbsp sugar

Whisk 2 tablespoons oil and lime juice in large bowl. Add fish and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper; stir to coat. Let stand 15 minutes.

Heat remaining 2 tablespoons oil in large pot over medium heat. Add onion, bell peppers, mushrooms, garlic and crushed red pepper; sauté 5 minutes. Mix in tomatoes, coconut milk, half of cilantro and half of green onions. Add fish with marinade. Simmer until fish is just opaque in center, about 5 minutes. Season stew with sugar, salt and pepper. Transfer to bowl. Sprinkle with remaining cilantro and green onions.

My First Ever Whole Fish

Vince and Cristina initiated me into a completely new culinary realm this weekend. The cooking of a whole fish. The experience was pretty funny (the pictures below will tell that story).

Unfortunately, I can't really share any wisdom on how to do it because all I really did was observe. Although I did learn from Cristina that when you're choosing a fish, you should try to find one with very red gills and no clouding in the eyes.

Preparation seemed to involve a careful cleaning, some oil, spice, and onion both inside and on the fish, and finally baking at 400.

The end result was really delicious, but pretty laborious to eat. There seemed to be a lot more inedible carcass than meat.

American Thanksgiving

As the New Year waxes luminously before me I thought it high time I fulfilled my commitment to post and boast this most stupendous gastronomic occurrence. While American Thanksgiving provided the form for this culinary happening, improvisation was the rule of day as friends, local and international, created tantalizing treats both savory and sweet. At the risk of offering a less than complete rendering, our menu consisted of:

• Stuffed Game Hens with Mushroom Miso Sauce
• Fruit Stuffing
• Butterflied Leg of Lamb
• Roasted Salmon with Hoisin Glaze
• Spicy Lamb sausages
• Andouille Cajun sausages
• Southern-style baked Macaroni & Cheese
• Butternut Squash with Orzo and Sage
• Green Leaf Salad with Blue-Cheese & Pomegranate
  
• Scalloped Potatoes
• Corn Casserole
• Fresh Baked Bread
  
• Mont Blanc
• Pumpkin Custard
• and yes, much, much wine
  

Stuffed Game Hens with Mushroom Miso Sauce
Unquestionably, this is the best mushroom sauce I've ever tasted, which says a lot given that I'm from the land of gravies and sauces. I used a combination of chanterelle, oyster, shiitake, and brown cremini mushrooms.

The sauce consists of:

• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 8 oz wild mushrooms, trimmed and sliced
• 1 cup chicken stock (or substitute vegetable stock)
• 1/4 cup light miso
• 2 tbsp whipping cream
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp chopped chives

1. Heat vegetable oil and sesame oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms and saute for 3 minutes, or until softened.
2. Combine stock, miso, cream and soy sauce. Stir into mushrooms. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, or until slightly thickened.
   
3. Drizzle sauce and sprinkle with chives.

Fruit Stuffing
All fruit stuffings are not created equal. Orianne chose a recipe from "A Matter of Taste" by Lucy Waverman and James Chatto. The recipe makes about 12 cups and can be cooked on its own in a greased baking dish, baked, covered for an hour at 375.

• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup butter
• 2 cups chopped onions
• 2 cups chopped celery
• 2 green apples, peeled and chopped
• 8 cups fresh breadcrumbs (Ori used Challah bread)
• 1 cup dried prunes, cut in half
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 1 cup chicken, turkey or vegetable stock
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh tarragon, or 2 tsp dried
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp dried marjoram
• Salt and freshly ground pepper

Heat butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onions and celery and saute for 5 to 8 minutes, or until softened.
Add apples and saute for 2 minutes.









Combine onion mixture and breadcrumbs. Stir in prunes, cranberries, stock, orange juice, tarragon, ginger and marjoram. Season well with salt and pepper.


Roasted Salmon with Hoisin Glaze
Alright, for all you Salmon lovers out there, here's an easy and delicious way to prepare salmon. I prefer to cook the salmon at a higher temperature as it gives a firmer texture. The rule of thumb is to roast at 450 for 10 minutes per vertical inch when the salmon is measured at its thickest point. This recipe makes 8 Claire-sized portions (as opposed to Rochelle-sized portions which are 20% less). BTW, this dish is served well cold, room temperature or hot - thus making it ideal when struggling to land a number of dishes all at the same time!

• 2 center-cut salmon fillets, 2lbs each (I always ask the seafood shop, or Capers, to cut off of a large fillet so as to prevent getting the tail end which thins out too much)
• 1/4 cup hoisin sauce
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp hot Asian chili sauce
• Salt and freshly ground pepper (yes, you absolutely must have a pepper mill!)

1. Place salmon skin side down on an oiled foil-lined baking sheet.
2. Combine hoisin, wine, vinegar, oil, chili sauce, salt and pepper. Spread over top and sides of salmon. Refrigerate for up to 4 hours.
3. Preheat oven to 450.
4. Roast salmon for 15 to 25 minutes, or until white juices just bein to appear on the sides. Remove from oven - fish will continue to cook as it cools.

Spicy Lamb & Andouille Cajun sausages
The only advice I'll offer up for preparing sausages on the stove top is to butterfly them and garnish with sauteed onions & peppers.


Southern-style baked Macaroni & Cheese
Comfort food par excellence! While I have no images of this Southern staple - which I had for almost every Sunday dinner (which means lunch for you Canadians) while growing up in Tennessee - I'll include the recipe as so many have asked.

• 1/2 lb cheddar cheese (I realize "orange" cheddar is a bit faux pas these days, but from an authentic Southern American and, dare I say it, aesthetic stand point I'd really suggest violating this unwritten social norm.)
• 1 cup cooked Macaroni Noodles
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Pinch of sugar (a key subtlety often missed.)
• 2 tbsp butter
• Enough Whole milk to mostly cover the noodles (ok, you can use 2% but really with all that cheese does another 1.5% of milk fat really matter?)

1. Cut cheese into cubes in a 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 qt. baking dish, ungreased
2. Stir in 2 eggs & add cooked noodles, salt and sugar.
3. Cover with milk and put pats of butter on top.
4. Cook for 45 minutes to 1 hour at 350 - until top starts to brown nicely

Butternut Squash with Orzo and Sage
This here is a staple Claire dish, and once you've tasted it you know why. The recipe is included in the photo - contact C.M. to fill in the details.



Green Leaf Salad with Blue-Cheese & Pomegranate
Delectable greens prepared by Carla and Chris - wonderful souls (and skiing comrades to boot!)


Mont Blanc
Just take a look at Cristina's Dec 12 blog and you'll get the full low-down on this beauty (including the dessert!)

Until next Thanksgiving...
May 2008 be a year full of uplifting experiences with wonderful friends, great food and delicious wine (ok, and the occasional interloping next door feline).

Food-i-licious Nights*

EVENING ONE: SAUCE, SCHMAUCE
Location: Claire’s home
Origin of food: Choices and the Liquor Store

Ms. Claire and I met up in the early evening to plan our meal and happily decided to make an eggplant parmesan for dinner. We had differing recipes so we divvied up the work – the marinara sauce to her, and the eggplant and assembly to yours truly. But first things first, we had to get groceries, which included a bottle of cava and a bottle of red (which, with the help of Kristin, we finished(!)).

Onto the food: First I sliced the eggplant and roasted them. In the meantime, Claire started her sauce… which includes no chopping. Now, I know that some readers on this site might be slightly shocked by her methodology (as I was), but I can tell you that it was surprisingly delicious and I will never doubt Claire again. She peeled the tomatoes, and the onions, and just stuck them in a pot along with some basil and spices to reduce (see below for pic). And that was it. While this may seem like no proper way to make a sauce, Claire has since assured me that the recipe “hails from Italy” – and really, who am I to argue with such pedigree?



Once the aubergine was roasted, we coated them with some benko breadcumbs and began the layering process of sauce, eggplant, and mozzarella cheese. I usually use buffalo, but Choices was lacking, and we used a less moist mozza, which still worked very nicely. We stuck it in the oven heated to 375 for about 20 minutes, and then turned it up to 450 for another five to get the top a little crusty. Once done, we sliced up some baguette and had a delightful (and slightly drunken) meal. Unfortunately, we do not have a photo op for the finished product because we were so hungry.

EVENING TWO: AN ODE TO GARLIC
Location: Claire’s home
Origin of food: Choices and the Kits Wine Cellar

Seeing the success of our previous encounter, we decided to have another fun-filled evening of cookery and wine. After a short debate between tomato soup and roasted veggie couscous, we settled on pan fried cod, garlic mash, sautéed spinach, with homemade aioli. The recipe for the cod, mash, and aioli are all found in Nigel Slater’s “Real Cooking.” This menu is one that I’ve done before, and can easily be multiplied for a lovely dinner party for large numbers.



First things first, we opened a bottle of 2001 Gran Feudo Temperanillo-Cabernet Sauvignon-Merlot blend. Very yummy.

Aioli: We did all our prep (potato peeling and debating between washing the fish or not), and then proceeded with the first of two attempts at the aioli. Lacking a mortar and pestle, I finely chopped the garlic down to a clump of mashed garlic. Then we beat two eggs and added some salt and the mashed garlic. Now, here’s the tricky part. The first time around, something went wonky and we were stuck with a pool of yolk and olive oil. *sigh* But Claire, being the genius that she is, checked online, and discovered that we had to literally add the oil one drop at a time until the mayonnaise forms. So we started again with the whole chopping garlic process but this time were extremely cautious with the oil. It worked! And we had proceeded armed with the knowledge that the very least, we had a kick ass aioli to look forward to.

Garlic Mash: While the aioli was in process, we had put water on to boil and cooked the cubed potatoes (along with two cloves of garlic – hence “garlic mash”). We strained the taters, and Claire made an excellent mash. Adding butter and cream, she whipped (with a fork, no less!) the potatoes into a light and fluffy concoction that made me very happy *yay!*

Spinach: We made the spinach and cod last because they took the least time to cook. This was already 1.5 hours after we started (mainly due to the mishap with the initial aioli). Luckily, Claire was prudent with her decanting measures, and we had not run out of wine *double yay!* For the spinach, I smashed two cloves of garlic and browned them with salt in a super hot pan. Then I threw in the spinach, and added a dash of milk. I gave the spinach a toss or two, and once they had all changed colour, they were ready to go.

Cod: By this point we were starving, so no time was wasted. The recipe called for some oven time, but we got cod that had no skin, which meant less cooking time. We went for a pan-fried version. We seasoned the cod with salt and pepper. In a med-high heated pan, I added some oil and butter so that the pan was completely coated and then some. I placed the cod into the pan and let them sizzle for about 3-4 minutes on each side. We decided to take them out when the fish was just cooked (with a little pink in the middle, which was gone by them time we plated).



And voila! A decidedly garlicky and delicious meal for two.

*NOTICE: My apologies for the tardiness of postings. But I am technologically inept and therefore have just realized that it is possible to transfer files from my cellphone to my laptop via BLUETOOTH (which I now firmly believe is the best invention ever.)