Don't Fear the Flounder

Cooking fish can be a challenge. I was lucky enough to be a fish butcher for a while and believe that being able to butcher your own fish gives you  flexibility: you can use a fillet, a whole fish, a stuffed fish, etc . So this is the first in a series of entries that will show you how to prepare a fish.

But enough of this gross stuff! Let’s talk about dinner.

The blurry photograph is flounder sauteed with chanterelle mushrooms and marcona almonds, deglazed with an off-dry riesling. It is accompanied by garlic-sauteed kale/collard mix and a pan-fried grit cake.

For the Flounder: Season the flounder with salt and pepper, and powder lightly with flour. Heat a couple tablespoons ofoil in a pan on medium-high heat and throw in the marcona almonds and chantrelles. Stir them around a bit to keep from burning. Once the mushrooms start to soften, push them and the almonds to the side and put the flounder in the pan. Two minutes on each side should be all you need to get the flounder a little brown . Deglaze the pan with a splash of wine to make sauce for the fish.

For the Grit Cake: Start by having grits for breakfast. (My favorite excuse!) I am a Southerner. I have PRIDE in my grits. My favorite brand is Anson Mills. This particular brand has great flavor on its own just boiled in water. A good rule of thumb is to start with 4 cups of cooking liquid to 1 cup of grits, which will make way too much for any one meal. Towards the end of the cooking process, I add another cup of milk or cream to smooth out the texture. (You can have these grits for breakfast while they are still soft and creamy) Whatever you don’t eat, spread them out in a pan (I like a rectangular pyrex) and go about your day while they chill completely. Now you can cut out fun shapes and pan fry them in olive oil. Do not move them around, but wait until the edges are browning nicely before you turn them over.

For the Collards and Kale: Tear the greens into bite-sized pieces and wash. Mince a garlic clove and put it in a pan on medium-high. After about 30 seconds, toss in the greens and turn them over occassionally. If necessary, add water to help steam them along.

AP Option! Pick up a whole flounder to gut and filet yourself! There are several good videos on Youtube but of course I am going to show you mine. I promise the amateur filmmaking will get better as soon as I figure out the whole lighting thing.

This Week’s Multi-meal Hero: GRITS

Ok so maybe I am milking the southern food goodness, but grits really are amazing. Check out the math:

Cooked Grits + Cold + Fry = Grit Cakes

Warm Grits + Cream  = Creamy Grits

Warm Grits + Cheese = Cheesy Grits

Warm Grits + Truffle oil = Truffle Grits

Grits + Scallions pureed in milk = Scallion Grits

I am going to start sounding like Bubba from Forrest Gump (SHRIMP AND GRITS)

Spicy Tomato Soup

Spicy Tomato Soup

This is one of my all-time favorite recipes.

And you don’t have to be an experienced cook. You can make this soup if you are willing and able to 1) cut vegetables into smallish pieces, 2) have a blender that can puree.

So why is this soup so great?

1)      It’s the comforting tomato soup of your childhood - for grown-ups. Spice is nice, and the smoke of the chipotle gives it character and nuance.

2)      This soup can be a complete meal with the addition of rice, couscous or orzo.

3)      It can be used as a sauce on scrambled eggs or polenta.

AND! If you aren’t making this soup for vegetarian Jews, like I was, lose the olive oil for sautéing and cut up 6 strips of bacon. Render the fat by cooking the bacon on medium low heat. Before the bacon has the chance to get crispy, add the carrot and onions.

Ingredients sometimes make a better picture than the finished product. Well ok, not true. But my guests ate all the soup before I could get a photo.

For dinner last night, this soup was my first course, which I served with a miniature grilled cheese sandwich. Other garnish options I have used in the past: Fried Basil Leaf, Fried Chipotle Pepper, Basil Marshmallows, Crème Fraiche, Basil Cream Fraiche , and gazpacho quenelle*.

Hero of this dish: Liquid Smoke

Some of you may have been clever enough to notice that this is not one of the ingredients in the recipe. That is because I am a big ol’ cheater! When this soup is made with both bacon and chipotles it is smoky and spicy. Sometimes too spicy for those of us who are glow-in-the-dark pale and vegetarian. In this case, only put in half a chipotle (no bacon of course) and one tablespoon of liquid hickory smoke. It turns tomato soup into a smoky treat that any southern belle would be proud to partake.

Now for the rest of the meal!

Beef tenderloin with thyme and roasted balsamic mushrooms, sautéed sage carrots, caramelized onions with green beans, sweet and Idaho roasted potatoes and roasted Brussels sprouts.

This beef tenderloin was seasoned with a suet of sausage drippings, fresh thyme, salt and pepper. It was a 5 pound piece that needed 45 minutes to cook at 375 degrees. The mushrooms garnishing the dish were sautéed in olive oil. Once they began to release water, I added balsamic vinegar. After the mushrooms were finished I kept them warm in the same pan as the finished beef tenderloin.

The Brussels sprouts were roasted with just a little olive oil at 375 for 25 minutes.

The potato wedges just needed a little salt, pepper and powdered sage at 375 for 45 minutes. 

The carrots were cut into an elongated oblique shape. I crisped fresh sage in olive oil (butter works great too) before throwing in the carrots. This dish is also amazing with truffle peelings. Use stock to give these beauties a glazed effect.

The most time consuming item to make on this menu is the caramelized onions and green beans. The green beans are boiled in salted water and then cooled in ice water until needed again. The caramelized onions are sliced super thin on a mandolin and sautéed in a non- stick pan on low heat for 45 minutes stirring occasionally to evenly cook the onions. Once the onions are brown, then turn the heat to high, toss in the green beans and mix.

* Leave a note in the comments for any of these recipes if you would like further instructions.

Soup's Up

Baby, it is cold outside. And there is no greater savory comfort than SOUP. For today’s recipe we have vegetarian (or faux) pho.

“Having experienced this pho, I feel that the waves of jealousy washing over me at this moment are completely justified.” – Anonymous house guest #1 posting in response to this photo on Facebook. Come on! You can trust Anonymous house guest #1, it’s 2 through 6 I worry about.

Now the recipe I have posted on Foodbuzz is just the beginning. Pho can be highly seasonal if you are willing to take tradition and dance la cucaracha on its sombrero. My pictures show some of the healthy and tasty variations with which I have experimented. Carrots (use a mandolin with teeth blade in to slice these really thin or a peeler if you don’t have one) and red onion ( again with the mandolin but no teeth) are still available at your farmers’ market as well as your grocery store. 

The addition of julienned red bell pepper is more of a summer addition, and good broccoli may be hard to find in the winter, but Brussels sprouts shaved thin will cook up just fine when you pour the boiling liquid into the bowl. Green and red cabbages shaved thin are also delicious. Treating the cabbages with a little vinegar beforehand will soften them up and flavor them even more. Leading us to this dish’s hero…

Hero of this dish: Rice Vinegar

Like so many other broth-based dishes, pho can be a little flat and heavy. Just a tablespoon of rice vinegar will give your broth a hint of sweetness and acid, making your soup lighter and more complex.

New Year's Resolution

My New Year's Resolution of 2011: Start a food blog. Why? I want to chronicle all of the eating, drinking and farming we're doing at my Fourth Floor Farm.





Meal #1
New Year's Eve dinner was made in a stranger's kitchen on a electric range (gasp): Papparadelle with Chestnuts, Mushrooms and Spring Peas.

I know what you're thinking. The traditionalists are crying out, "But that's just a variation on the classic Italian dish without the boar!" (Yes, it is. This is the burden I bear of having vegetarian and Jewish friends.) The seasonally-conscious folks are wondering how I got spring peas in winter, or are accusing me of unsustainable practices. But no! I was fortunate enough to shop at The Berry Farm, a market that was plentifully stocked from its greenhouses in the back.

The hero of this recipe: DRY VERMOUTH.

In an attempt to keep this dish on the lighter side, I took out the heavy cream I would normally have used to bind all of the components' flavors together. So naturally the dish was missing something.

Culinary math:
 Sweetness (Chestnuts) + Texture (Pasta) + Savory (Mushrooms) + Freshness (Spring Peas) - Binding component (Cream) = Lackluster pasta

BUT

Substitute Dry Vermouth = FABULOUS

From Blogger Pictures