One of the great things about "fusion" cooking is how seamless it can actually be.
Canned tuna is not exactly the most exotic of ingredients. It's quite boring and bourgeois and very middle-American. We're just going to use Sri Lankan magic to amp it up a few notches.
There's nothing new about Sri Lankan spices either. They're all there in India but it's the combinations that are new and as the CC has pointed out endlessly, this is just a combinatorial game.
You're most likely to encounter this stuff as "fish cutlets" — the mixture is deep-fried. However, a little dig underneath the surface and you see it also as "fish patties" and "fish rolls" and "fish balls".
There's also the ubiquitous malu paan which is the same fish filling inside a bread that is baked.
For the record, the paan is from the Portuguese pão and is the same as the Japanese パン (pan), the Filipino pandesal (bread with salt), and the Indian paav (a much more accurate transcription of pão.) The Portuguese spread the cult of yeasty bread baking all along South-East Asia.
What matters, of course, is the filling at the center of these concepts.
All the CC has done is to take the patties and stick them in a burger bun (which is vastly simpler) and achieves the same purpose.
Dinner is served.
Ingredients
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp black pepper
1 sprig curry leaves
1 piece of fresh turmeric (or 1 tsp ground turmeric)
1" ginger
4-5 green chilis
2 large potatoes
1 can tuna
1 medium-sized onion (diced finely)
cilantro (finely chopped)
1 lime
salt (to taste)
Note 1: The combination of cumin, coriander, and fennel in the ratio 2:2:1 along with ground turmeric is often used in Sri Lankan cooking particularly in dishes involving fish. It gives it that characteristic "Sri Lankan" taste.
Note 2: While this mixture is freely available in Sri Lanka pre-made, the CC assumes that the majority of the audience will not have access to this. Also, if you're going to add black pepper to the final mix, you might as well grind it all together.
Note 3: Fresh turmeric adds a complexity that ground turmeric simply doesn't. The CC vastly prefers the former but feel free to use the later.
Recipe
Grind the spices to a fine powder.
Grind the ginger, green chilis, and turmeric to a paste. (If you grind the spices in a mortar and pestle, you can do this in the same step.)
Boil the potatoes in water until tender. Peel and mash gently.
Heat some oil in a pan. Add the diced onions and curry leaves and fry for a bit until the onions have softened. Add the spices and ground paste and fry till the raw smell has dissipated. Roughly 2 minutes.
Add the tuna from the can and break it up. Let it cook for 4-5 minutes. Add the boiled potatoes and mix it all well together.
(If you are going to deep-fry into "fish balls", make it drier than normal. Otherwise it should be wet enough to form into patties.)
Dump the whole stuff into a bowl. Let it cool for a bit. Pick out the curry leaves and discard. (They don't do this in Sri Lanka but then the leaves there are more tender than the ones found here.)
Add the chopped cilantro and the juice of one lime and crush gently using a potato masher. Mix and check for salt.
To make the patties, you can just either pan-fry them with some oil (which is the way the CC prefers) or for a fancier richer taste, do the same after an egg-wash and coated with breadcrumbs.
Showing posts with label fish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fish. Show all posts
Monday, October 30, 2017
Monday, April 24, 2017
The Sealing of the Pot
The CC received a clay pot as a gift recently.
It was a classic meen chatti (मीन चट्टी - literally: fish clay pot). The first word is from Sanskrit (= fish) and the second most likely from the local vernacular.
Instructions were provided to "season it" but the CC needs to understand what that means so he proceeded down the rabbit hole (as he is wont to do) about what that really entails.
Clay is quite porous as a material. However, it can be fired at high temperatures after which it becomes hard. That's how bricks are made which has been known since at least Sumerian times.
Clay is also an extraordinarily poor conductor of heat.
These combined facts act as an advantage in fish cookery.
The critical point about a clay pot is that no matter how hard you try to heat it in a reasonable time (= less than five hours, for example), it's very difficult to raise the temperature of the interior of the pot to above 70°C† — which is the outer limit of the temperature that fish proteins denature.
Of course, if you fired the crap out of the pot, eventually it would rise to the temperature of the flame but we're talking cooking here not cremation!
The other critical point is that if you don't raise the temperature beyond the denaturation point of fish proteins, they will stay soft independent of the cooking time. If you held the temperature precisely at a certain point, your fish would stay perfectly tender whether you cooked it for ten minutes or ten hours!
This is how airlines control food, for the record. The temperature is never allowed to get above the denaturation point of the proteins in question — chicken, beef, fish, vegetables, whatever!
The principle of clay-pot cooking is the same as that of sous-vide cooking except that it is being done in an intuitive way rather than formally. It also has a massive advantage over sous-vide in that you can fry or sear the fish and have it cook in the complex juices generated by it. You don't need to worry about the problem of precise timing either which was a useful fact in the frenetic frazzled world of yore unlike modern day times.
There's a price to be paid for this freedom. Nothing comes for free.
The pot is a complex apparatus. If you drop one of your metal pots, it'll get dented. If you drop a clay pot, it shatters and you get to start all over again. (Luckily, they are cheap but that's not the point.)
Poor conduction also goes both ways. It's really hard to raise the temperature and it's equally hard to lower the temperature. A certain boring-ness is required in the usage of a clay pot. You can't just dial the temperature up and down like a metal pot.
Much more importantly, you can't add hot water to a cold pot, or cold water to a hot pot. It will crack. The poor conduction means you cannot have the interior and the exterior at significantly different temperatures.
The seasoning of the pot is really quite simple once you grasp the concepts. You alternate boiling cold water in the pot and toss it out followed by coating it with cooking oil overnight. The water percolates through the pot and mends micro-holes in the clay and the oil conducted via the water generates enough carbon residues to plug the holes. It also generates a non-stick surface at the bottom of the pot over time (exactly like a great cast-iron frying pan.)
There are two fallacies about clay pots and since chez CC, we tend to be the analytic sort, we're going to dismiss them.
The first is that the seasoned clay pot is not porous — it absolutely is! The water inside the seasoned pot has to be going somewhere. It's not evaporating significantly at 70°C‡ so it must be disappearing somehow. It's evaporating through the porosity of the pot. It's being wicked§ away.
This porosity created a bit of a problem for the CC in the second round of water seasoning when the pot had been coated with oil overnight. Enough oil/water was being wicked away through the porous clay that the CC's gas flame went a little crazy. It's basically a baby version of a grease fire. It was such a minuscule amount of oil that it posed no risk whatsoever but it was quite unnerving until the principles had been grasped.
The second which is really the flip of the first is the myth that you can't cook in a dry pot without water. You absolutely can as long if you want to raise the temperature above 70°C. You could quite plausibly cook the clay pot to up to 1000° C but the CC really doubts that your puny stove generates enough BTU's for that. (Your oven only goes up to 275°C!)
Remember, if you do amp up the temperature of the pot, you will not be able to add cold water to it. You must either cool the pot down and start over or heat the water to the same temperature and add it. Most cooks do the former not the later since it's too risky.
In fact, many recipes ask you to first boil stuff till the water disappears, take the fish out, and then use the pot just like a frying pan adding the fish back at the last step. (The reverse is also true. Some recipes ask you to use it like a frying pan and then add the fish and warm water a little at a time thus lowering the temperature back down.)
Let's abstract out the principles of the perfectly seasoned clay pot.
[1] With water inside, the temperature will not go above 70°C until the water disappears.
[2] The clay pot is a very poor conductor of heat.
[3] The dry clay pot will allow you to fire it up to 1000°C.
Now that we've grasped the principles, we're ready to roll.
One of the great glories of Mughal cooking is the perfectly cooked daal. This involves the denaturing of lentil proteins and some of these lentils tend to get slimy if the skins split. The clay pot is the ideal apparatus since it preserves the skin perfectly while letting the water and spices to enrich the dish via osmosis but not allowing the lentils to burst.
The truly great dish of Gujarati cooking is undhiyu (ઊંધિયું — literally: upside-down.) The Mughals totally envied this dish! It's a classic mélange of spring vegetables, complex vegetarian meatball-esque preparations, and spices cooked in a sealed upside-down (sic) pot in the dying embers of a fire overnight at low heat. Same logic goes for long-term low-temperature cooking and the denaturing of the proteins.
If you go to North India during winter, you'll find yogurt served in clay pots. The clay pots are being used for two purposes — heat preservation and water-evaporation. Even in the cold temperatures of the North-Indian winter, the clay pots retain the heat of the warm mixture of milk and bacteria¶ and wick away enough water to make the yogurt rich and delicious.
So this device which is at least 20,000 years old (based on Chinese excavations that date back to 18,000 BC) is truly a magic apparatus. It just requires a little understanding.
We're just the latest in a truly ancient lineage.
† You can verify this quickly and empirically by sticking a finger for less than a second into the water that has been boiling in the clay pot for an hour. Nothing much will happen. If you stuck your finger in real boiling water for even less than a second, you would get second-degree burns!
‡ The CC will not bore you with the details but roughly speaking in an environment with no air-flow (e.g. your exhaust fan) the evaporation rate is linear in the temperature differential between water and air for temperatures around 100°C. Estimating your house to be about 25°C (80°F), you are only getting roughly 60% of the evaporation of boiling water. The rest of the water has to be going somewhere!
§ You can test this by covering a pot and heating water in it. It will never boil but soon much of the water will be gone.
¶ The clay pots have the advantage of porosity. The yogurt bacteria are sitting in there and they help develop the culture implicitly particularly if you make yogurt every day or week in the same pot. (The clay pots that they use are small. Individual use, one might say, in modern parlance.)
It was a classic meen chatti (मीन चट्टी - literally: fish clay pot). The first word is from Sanskrit (= fish) and the second most likely from the local vernacular.
Instructions were provided to "season it" but the CC needs to understand what that means so he proceeded down the rabbit hole (as he is wont to do) about what that really entails.
Clay is quite porous as a material. However, it can be fired at high temperatures after which it becomes hard. That's how bricks are made which has been known since at least Sumerian times.
Clay is also an extraordinarily poor conductor of heat.
These combined facts act as an advantage in fish cookery.
The critical point about a clay pot is that no matter how hard you try to heat it in a reasonable time (= less than five hours, for example), it's very difficult to raise the temperature of the interior of the pot to above 70°C† — which is the outer limit of the temperature that fish proteins denature.
Of course, if you fired the crap out of the pot, eventually it would rise to the temperature of the flame but we're talking cooking here not cremation!
The other critical point is that if you don't raise the temperature beyond the denaturation point of fish proteins, they will stay soft independent of the cooking time. If you held the temperature precisely at a certain point, your fish would stay perfectly tender whether you cooked it for ten minutes or ten hours!
This is how airlines control food, for the record. The temperature is never allowed to get above the denaturation point of the proteins in question — chicken, beef, fish, vegetables, whatever!
The principle of clay-pot cooking is the same as that of sous-vide cooking except that it is being done in an intuitive way rather than formally. It also has a massive advantage over sous-vide in that you can fry or sear the fish and have it cook in the complex juices generated by it. You don't need to worry about the problem of precise timing either which was a useful fact in the frenetic frazzled world of yore unlike modern day times.
There's a price to be paid for this freedom. Nothing comes for free.
The pot is a complex apparatus. If you drop one of your metal pots, it'll get dented. If you drop a clay pot, it shatters and you get to start all over again. (Luckily, they are cheap but that's not the point.)
Poor conduction also goes both ways. It's really hard to raise the temperature and it's equally hard to lower the temperature. A certain boring-ness is required in the usage of a clay pot. You can't just dial the temperature up and down like a metal pot.
Much more importantly, you can't add hot water to a cold pot, or cold water to a hot pot. It will crack. The poor conduction means you cannot have the interior and the exterior at significantly different temperatures.
The seasoning of the pot is really quite simple once you grasp the concepts. You alternate boiling cold water in the pot and toss it out followed by coating it with cooking oil overnight. The water percolates through the pot and mends micro-holes in the clay and the oil conducted via the water generates enough carbon residues to plug the holes. It also generates a non-stick surface at the bottom of the pot over time (exactly like a great cast-iron frying pan.)
There are two fallacies about clay pots and since chez CC, we tend to be the analytic sort, we're going to dismiss them.
The first is that the seasoned clay pot is not porous — it absolutely is! The water inside the seasoned pot has to be going somewhere. It's not evaporating significantly at 70°C‡ so it must be disappearing somehow. It's evaporating through the porosity of the pot. It's being wicked§ away.
This porosity created a bit of a problem for the CC in the second round of water seasoning when the pot had been coated with oil overnight. Enough oil/water was being wicked away through the porous clay that the CC's gas flame went a little crazy. It's basically a baby version of a grease fire. It was such a minuscule amount of oil that it posed no risk whatsoever but it was quite unnerving until the principles had been grasped.
The second which is really the flip of the first is the myth that you can't cook in a dry pot without water. You absolutely can as long if you want to raise the temperature above 70°C. You could quite plausibly cook the clay pot to up to 1000° C but the CC really doubts that your puny stove generates enough BTU's for that. (Your oven only goes up to 275°C!)
Remember, if you do amp up the temperature of the pot, you will not be able to add cold water to it. You must either cool the pot down and start over or heat the water to the same temperature and add it. Most cooks do the former not the later since it's too risky.
In fact, many recipes ask you to first boil stuff till the water disappears, take the fish out, and then use the pot just like a frying pan adding the fish back at the last step. (The reverse is also true. Some recipes ask you to use it like a frying pan and then add the fish and warm water a little at a time thus lowering the temperature back down.)
Let's abstract out the principles of the perfectly seasoned clay pot.
[1] With water inside, the temperature will not go above 70°C until the water disappears.
[2] The clay pot is a very poor conductor of heat.
[3] The dry clay pot will allow you to fire it up to 1000°C.
Now that we've grasped the principles, we're ready to roll.
One of the great glories of Mughal cooking is the perfectly cooked daal. This involves the denaturing of lentil proteins and some of these lentils tend to get slimy if the skins split. The clay pot is the ideal apparatus since it preserves the skin perfectly while letting the water and spices to enrich the dish via osmosis but not allowing the lentils to burst.
The truly great dish of Gujarati cooking is undhiyu (ઊંધિયું — literally: upside-down.) The Mughals totally envied this dish! It's a classic mélange of spring vegetables, complex vegetarian meatball-esque preparations, and spices cooked in a sealed upside-down (sic) pot in the dying embers of a fire overnight at low heat. Same logic goes for long-term low-temperature cooking and the denaturing of the proteins.
If you go to North India during winter, you'll find yogurt served in clay pots. The clay pots are being used for two purposes — heat preservation and water-evaporation. Even in the cold temperatures of the North-Indian winter, the clay pots retain the heat of the warm mixture of milk and bacteria¶ and wick away enough water to make the yogurt rich and delicious.
So this device which is at least 20,000 years old (based on Chinese excavations that date back to 18,000 BC) is truly a magic apparatus. It just requires a little understanding.
We're just the latest in a truly ancient lineage.
† You can verify this quickly and empirically by sticking a finger for less than a second into the water that has been boiling in the clay pot for an hour. Nothing much will happen. If you stuck your finger in real boiling water for even less than a second, you would get second-degree burns!
‡ The CC will not bore you with the details but roughly speaking in an environment with no air-flow (e.g. your exhaust fan) the evaporation rate is linear in the temperature differential between water and air for temperatures around 100°C. Estimating your house to be about 25°C (80°F), you are only getting roughly 60% of the evaporation of boiling water. The rest of the water has to be going somewhere!
§ You can test this by covering a pot and heating water in it. It will never boil but soon much of the water will be gone.
¶ The clay pots have the advantage of porosity. The yogurt bacteria are sitting in there and they help develop the culture implicitly particularly if you make yogurt every day or week in the same pot. (The clay pots that they use are small. Individual use, one might say, in modern parlance.)
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
The Medieval Myth
One of the most pernicious lies about medieval cooking is that cooks used spices to cover up the smell of rotting meat (or fish.)
It just persists and persists and persists and it's just ludicrous on the face of it.
If we can distinguish between these things via smell, surely our fore-bearers were equally talented at it.
Also, spices were not cheap. The Arab and the Venetian middle-men had a stronghold on the supply and they charged pretty hefty premia for these things.
The upper classes who could afford the spices could obviously also afford the best meat and fish that money could buy since it was all local back in those days.
The idea has been thoroughly debunked by scholars like Paul Freedman but the popular imagination keeps it alive. It's absolutely amazing that so silly a meme has persisted for almost a few centuries at this point.
It's very clear to see the antecedents of medieval European cooking in modern terms. Just pick up a Persian or an Indian cookbook. They still have the same relation to spicing that would be expected in Europe in the middle ages.
Nobody in history has ever wanted to eat rotting meat. We have extraordinarily sophisticated tuned apparatuses in our systems to detect against poisoning. They even go into complete and utter overdrive to prevent us from doing so (e.g. vomiting during pregnancy, etc.)
Consider this idea as debunked.
It just persists and persists and persists and it's just ludicrous on the face of it.
If we can distinguish between these things via smell, surely our fore-bearers were equally talented at it.
Also, spices were not cheap. The Arab and the Venetian middle-men had a stronghold on the supply and they charged pretty hefty premia for these things.
The upper classes who could afford the spices could obviously also afford the best meat and fish that money could buy since it was all local back in those days.
The idea has been thoroughly debunked by scholars like Paul Freedman but the popular imagination keeps it alive. It's absolutely amazing that so silly a meme has persisted for almost a few centuries at this point.
It's very clear to see the antecedents of medieval European cooking in modern terms. Just pick up a Persian or an Indian cookbook. They still have the same relation to spicing that would be expected in Europe in the middle ages.
Nobody in history has ever wanted to eat rotting meat. We have extraordinarily sophisticated tuned apparatuses in our systems to detect against poisoning. They even go into complete and utter overdrive to prevent us from doing so (e.g. vomiting during pregnancy, etc.)
Consider this idea as debunked.
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Ikan Kuning (Fish stew with Lime, Turmeric and Basil)
The CC bought some amazing black bass from the local fisherman and was going to make the afore-mentioned steamed fish with fermented black beans, ginger and scallion except that the CC hates repetition and is easily bored.
This is a wondrous dish from southern Indonesia. You see the Indian influences right off the bat (turmeric) and the Southeast-Asian influences (galangal, kaffir lime leaves, basil, etc.) The New World shows up as chilis, of course.
Ideally this dish is cooked with a whole fish or fish segments with bones but let's get real. Just make it with a fillet. It's not the same and it does matter but not substantially so.
Pair it with the most basic rice you can make because the flavors in the dish are already overwhelming.
Ingredients
black sea-bass
4 tbsp lime juice
tamarind
2 shallots (chopped coarsely)
2 cloves garlic
1 red chili
1/2" ginger (chopped coarsely)
1/2" galangal (chopped coarsely)
1 fresh turmeric (chopped coarsely)
lemongrass (sliced diagonally)
1" pandanus leaf
4 kaffir lime leaves
peanut oil
salt
2 cups water
lemon basil (or Thai basil or Italian basil)
Recipe
Note 1: Once you combine the lime juice with the fish, the clock is ticking. Do it after you make the paste, and right before you start cooking.
Make the tamarind water. Pour boiling water over the tamarind and let it steep for 20 minutes. Pass the mixture through a sieve keeping the water and discarding the residue.
Pound the shallots, garlic, chili, ginger, galangal, and turmeric to a paste. Set aside.
Combine the fish gently with the lime juice and tamarind water set aside. Let it sit for 10 minutes.
Heat up some peanut oil till it shimmers. Add the paste, lemongrass, pandanus, kaffir lime leaves and let it fry till the raw smell disappears. Add the water and bring to a boil. Let it cook for 5 minutes.
Add the fish and the lime juice and tamarind water. Let it cook through. This is swift. No more than a few minutes.
Top with the basil and serve at once.
This is a wondrous dish from southern Indonesia. You see the Indian influences right off the bat (turmeric) and the Southeast-Asian influences (galangal, kaffir lime leaves, basil, etc.) The New World shows up as chilis, of course.
Ideally this dish is cooked with a whole fish or fish segments with bones but let's get real. Just make it with a fillet. It's not the same and it does matter but not substantially so.
Pair it with the most basic rice you can make because the flavors in the dish are already overwhelming.
Ingredientsblack sea-bass
4 tbsp lime juice
tamarind
2 shallots (chopped coarsely)
2 cloves garlic
1 red chili
1/2" ginger (chopped coarsely)
1/2" galangal (chopped coarsely)
1 fresh turmeric (chopped coarsely)
lemongrass (sliced diagonally)
1" pandanus leaf
4 kaffir lime leaves
peanut oil
salt
lemon basil (or Thai basil or Italian basil)
Recipe
Note 1: Once you combine the lime juice with the fish, the clock is ticking. Do it after you make the paste, and right before you start cooking.
Make the tamarind water. Pour boiling water over the tamarind and let it steep for 20 minutes. Pass the mixture through a sieve keeping the water and discarding the residue.
Pound the shallots, garlic, chili, ginger, galangal, and turmeric to a paste. Set aside.
Combine the fish gently with the lime juice and tamarind water set aside. Let it sit for 10 minutes.
Heat up some peanut oil till it shimmers. Add the paste, lemongrass, pandanus, kaffir lime leaves and let it fry till the raw smell disappears. Add the water and bring to a boil. Let it cook for 5 minutes.
Add the fish and the lime juice and tamarind water. Let it cook through. This is swift. No more than a few minutes.
Top with the basil and serve at once.
Saturday, June 18, 2016
Steamed Fish with Fermented Black Beans, Ginger & Scallions
Many moons ago, when the CC was in school, the CC learnt this simple dish from his friend. We'd get together to make this because we needed to pool our money to afford the fish and this is not a dish that reheats at all. Make it, eat it, be done with it.
When described it has the barest of ingredients but it is simply bursting with flavor.
The salted preserved black beans (豆豉) are actually fermented and salted soy beans. They are intensely flavored with a salty umami taste (much more intense than soy sauce, say.)
Traditionally, this would be made with a whole fish which is stuffed with the ingredients and steamed. Additional slivered ginger, black beans and scallions would be scattered over the top while serving. A few drops of intense sesame oil completes the dish.
When the CC saw black sea bass at the farmer's market, he knew right away that he needed to make this dish again.
You need to use fish with the skin on. The skin has all the flavor. The CC never understood the idea behind removing the most flavorful part. As the much older Japanese mother of a friend once said, "Why do they remove the best part?"
Why indeed?
Ingredients
fillet of white fish (with skin)
1 tbsp preserved black beans
slivered ginger
slivered scallions
sesame oil
Recipe
Note 1: The recipe below has been adapted to fillets but you can always make it the traditional way. Stuff half the stuff inside the cavity and sprinkle half on top.
Note 2: Don't add salt. There's plenty already in the preserved black beans.
Note 3: You will need a skillet which has a cover.
Heat up some oil in a pan. When hot but not shimmering, place the fillet skin side down on it, Toss the ginger, scallions and black beans over it. Add four tbsp of water and cover the pan. Let the fish steam at medium-low heat until done.
Serve over rice with the other ingredients from the pan. Add a few drops of sesame oil to the fish, and more ginger and scallions if desired.
When described it has the barest of ingredients but it is simply bursting with flavor.
The salted preserved black beans (豆豉) are actually fermented and salted soy beans. They are intensely flavored with a salty umami taste (much more intense than soy sauce, say.)
Traditionally, this would be made with a whole fish which is stuffed with the ingredients and steamed. Additional slivered ginger, black beans and scallions would be scattered over the top while serving. A few drops of intense sesame oil completes the dish.
When the CC saw black sea bass at the farmer's market, he knew right away that he needed to make this dish again.
You need to use fish with the skin on. The skin has all the flavor. The CC never understood the idea behind removing the most flavorful part. As the much older Japanese mother of a friend once said, "Why do they remove the best part?"
Why indeed?
Ingredients
fillet of white fish (with skin)
1 tbsp preserved black beans
slivered ginger
slivered scallions
sesame oil
Recipe
Note 1: The recipe below has been adapted to fillets but you can always make it the traditional way. Stuff half the stuff inside the cavity and sprinkle half on top.
Note 2: Don't add salt. There's plenty already in the preserved black beans.
Note 3: You will need a skillet which has a cover.
Heat up some oil in a pan. When hot but not shimmering, place the fillet skin side down on it, Toss the ginger, scallions and black beans over it. Add four tbsp of water and cover the pan. Let the fish steam at medium-low heat until done.
Serve over rice with the other ingredients from the pan. Add a few drops of sesame oil to the fish, and more ginger and scallions if desired.
Thursday, July 30, 2015
Life's Ceviche, and Then You Die!
The empire of raw fish eating encompasses many realms but the basic idea is very clear. The freshness of the fish is paramount.
Even in older times, people were intuitively aware of the need to "sterilize" the surface of the flesh. They may not have not known about bacteria and clean workspaces but they had empirically figured out that the surfaces of the fish get contaminated quickly in a hot climate.
The solution was a quick bath of the fish in an acidic medium — lime, lemon or calamansi juice, various vinegars, etc.
Different cultures produced variants that lie along a spectrum — sashimi and sushi (Japanese), kinilaw (Filipino) and ceviche (South America and then transmitted further via the Spanish Empire.)
They range between raw and "cooked" via acid. There's also some form in pickling in the mix.
Sashimi for all its vaunted "heritage" is only possible thanks to modern-day fish processing. It's only modern freezers that allow fish to be consumed safely.
Sushi is an older idea where fish were placed with vinegared rice and allowed to partially ferment to develop intense umami flavors. This older style of sushi is seldom found any more. In fact, even slightly recent forms of sushi (Edo-sushi) are rarely found today. The modern-style involves raw fish placed over mildly vinegared rice. (A full treatment of all the sushi styles would take up a book not a blog post!)
Ceviche is widely known these days. Raw fish is mixed with lime juice, spices, peppers, cilantro and sometimes all kinds of incongruous ingredients (avocado?) — this idea from South America spread across the globe with the Spanish Empire. The idea is that the intense acid "cooks" the muscles of the fish. It's easy to prepare to keeps easy with modern refrigeration. No wonder it's a hit at restaurants since it can be made ahead of time.
Kinilaw (or kilawin sometimes) is an ancient style of Filipino cooking. Even though it's tempting to assume that the idea came with the Spanish Empire, the evidence overwhelmingly suggests it was an original ancient indigenous idea that the Spaniards encountered and recognized as being analogous to something they already knew.
In fact, for an ancient idea, kinilaw comes closest to the modern-day ideal of sashimi. The fish are bathed in an intensely acidic broth but they are consumed right away within seconds. Kinilaw connoisseurs can feel the toughening of the fish fibers as the minutes tick away.
It's served with rice. Rice is everywhere in the Philippines even for breakfast! The CC's passion for food has limits. More rice? Again?!? SIGH.
There are also added vegetables — radishes are classic but the CC bets that halved summer cherry tomatoes would be killer too from the umami. There is also lato but you can't find that outside the Philippines. SIGH.
As would the dried anchovies known as dilis in the Philippines although the idea of pairing dried and fresh fish would be looked upon as total heresy. The same idea with dried fish is a "separate" dish. SIGH.
A word about calamansi — these intensely flavored citrus limes the size of a small marble are unique. If you can't find them, the next best bet are the yuzu you find in the Japanese markets. If you can't find those, use a mixture of orange and lime juice but you will not reproduce the intensity and uniqueness of calamansi.
Kilawin is also made with cooked pork and goat. It's a pretty general idea and the general etymological difference between kilawin and kinilaw seems to be whether it's cooked meat or fresh fish. (This is a bit unresearched and sorta folksy, and the CC might be wrong.)
Given the sashimi nature of the dish, if you want great kinilaw, you must make it yourself. There is no other choice. At the CC's farmers' market, there is a local fisherman supplying two kinds of sashimi-grade seafood — tuna and scallops. Hence, the CC makes tuna and scallop kinilaw since that is what is possible outside of the absurdly magnificent "wet markets" of the Philippines.
Ingredients
1 shallot (diced fine)
1" ginger (cut into fine slivers)
2 garlic cloves (diced fine)
2 Thai bird-eye chillies (diced into very thin rounds — add more for spice)
1/2 cup coconut vinegar
6-8 calamansi (squeezed fresh)
salt (read below)
fresh black pepper
2 red radishes (cut into thin half-moons)
1/2 lb sashimi-grade tuna (diced)
6 scallops (cut into 4 half-moons each)
Recipe
Mix all the ingredients except the fish together. Taste. It should have an intensely sour taste but it should also be "rounded". This is hard to explain but easy to taste. You typically won't need salt but you might need a pinch. It should sit together for at least 30 minutes for the flavors to "blend".
Store the mixture and the diced fish in the fridge separately. Mix right before serving.
Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. The clock is ticking. Eat right away if you want magic.
Even in older times, people were intuitively aware of the need to "sterilize" the surface of the flesh. They may not have not known about bacteria and clean workspaces but they had empirically figured out that the surfaces of the fish get contaminated quickly in a hot climate.
The solution was a quick bath of the fish in an acidic medium — lime, lemon or calamansi juice, various vinegars, etc.
Different cultures produced variants that lie along a spectrum — sashimi and sushi (Japanese), kinilaw (Filipino) and ceviche (South America and then transmitted further via the Spanish Empire.)
They range between raw and "cooked" via acid. There's also some form in pickling in the mix.
Sashimi for all its vaunted "heritage" is only possible thanks to modern-day fish processing. It's only modern freezers that allow fish to be consumed safely.
Sushi is an older idea where fish were placed with vinegared rice and allowed to partially ferment to develop intense umami flavors. This older style of sushi is seldom found any more. In fact, even slightly recent forms of sushi (Edo-sushi) are rarely found today. The modern-style involves raw fish placed over mildly vinegared rice. (A full treatment of all the sushi styles would take up a book not a blog post!)
Ceviche is widely known these days. Raw fish is mixed with lime juice, spices, peppers, cilantro and sometimes all kinds of incongruous ingredients (avocado?) — this idea from South America spread across the globe with the Spanish Empire. The idea is that the intense acid "cooks" the muscles of the fish. It's easy to prepare to keeps easy with modern refrigeration. No wonder it's a hit at restaurants since it can be made ahead of time.
Kinilaw (or kilawin sometimes) is an ancient style of Filipino cooking. Even though it's tempting to assume that the idea came with the Spanish Empire, the evidence overwhelmingly suggests it was an original ancient indigenous idea that the Spaniards encountered and recognized as being analogous to something they already knew.
In fact, for an ancient idea, kinilaw comes closest to the modern-day ideal of sashimi. The fish are bathed in an intensely acidic broth but they are consumed right away within seconds. Kinilaw connoisseurs can feel the toughening of the fish fibers as the minutes tick away.
It's served with rice. Rice is everywhere in the Philippines even for breakfast! The CC's passion for food has limits. More rice? Again?!? SIGH.
There are also added vegetables — radishes are classic but the CC bets that halved summer cherry tomatoes would be killer too from the umami. There is also lato but you can't find that outside the Philippines. SIGH.
As would the dried anchovies known as dilis in the Philippines although the idea of pairing dried and fresh fish would be looked upon as total heresy. The same idea with dried fish is a "separate" dish. SIGH.
A word about calamansi — these intensely flavored citrus limes the size of a small marble are unique. If you can't find them, the next best bet are the yuzu you find in the Japanese markets. If you can't find those, use a mixture of orange and lime juice but you will not reproduce the intensity and uniqueness of calamansi.
Kilawin is also made with cooked pork and goat. It's a pretty general idea and the general etymological difference between kilawin and kinilaw seems to be whether it's cooked meat or fresh fish. (This is a bit unresearched and sorta folksy, and the CC might be wrong.)
Given the sashimi nature of the dish, if you want great kinilaw, you must make it yourself. There is no other choice. At the CC's farmers' market, there is a local fisherman supplying two kinds of sashimi-grade seafood — tuna and scallops. Hence, the CC makes tuna and scallop kinilaw since that is what is possible outside of the absurdly magnificent "wet markets" of the Philippines.
Ingredients
1 shallot (diced fine)
1" ginger (cut into fine slivers)
2 garlic cloves (diced fine)
2 Thai bird-eye chillies (diced into very thin rounds — add more for spice)
1/2 cup coconut vinegar
6-8 calamansi (squeezed fresh)
salt (read below)
fresh black pepper
2 red radishes (cut into thin half-moons)
1/2 lb sashimi-grade tuna (diced)
6 scallops (cut into 4 half-moons each)
Recipe
Mix all the ingredients except the fish together. Taste. It should have an intensely sour taste but it should also be "rounded". This is hard to explain but easy to taste. You typically won't need salt but you might need a pinch. It should sit together for at least 30 minutes for the flavors to "blend".
Store the mixture and the diced fish in the fridge separately. Mix right before serving.
Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. The clock is ticking. Eat right away if you want magic.
Friday, March 6, 2015
Poached flounder with baby potatoes, cherry tomatoes & olives in saffron-tomato broth
This is one of the dishes that is extremely simple provided you have the ingredients on hand.
Please read the notes and follow the instructions carefully.
Ingredients
(serves 2)
2 fillets of flounder
8 baby potatoes
12 cherry tomatoes
1/4 cup fresh peas
1/4 cup carrots (sliced into thin batons)
1/4 cup French beans (sliced into 1" length pieces)
1/4 cup black olives
2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup tomato purée
2 sprigs tarragon (chopped)
large pinch of saffron
parsley (finely chopped)
salt
black pepper
Recipe
Notes:
Bring the chicken broth and tomato purée to a gentle rolling boil. Add salt and black pepper. Add the baby potatoes and cook for 12 minutes. When this happens, foam will come to the surface. Skim it.
Add the cherry tomatoes, peas, beans and olives and continue to cook for 4 minutes.
With a slotted spoon, fish out all the vegetables and put them into two serving bowls which can hold liquid.
Bring the liquid to a boil again. Add the saffron and tarragon. Poach the fish in the liquid till it is cooked through - typically 3-4 minutes per fillet. (The CC had to poach them individually but if you have a large enough pan, you might be able to do both at once.)
Lift out the fish and place it gently on top of the vegetables.
Pour the broth over the fish and the vegetables. Sprinkling of parsley and if desired, more black pepper on top.
Serve with some crusty bread.
Please read the notes and follow the instructions carefully.
Ingredients
(serves 2)
2 fillets of flounder
8 baby potatoes
12 cherry tomatoes
1/4 cup fresh peas
1/4 cup carrots (sliced into thin batons)
1/4 cup French beans (sliced into 1" length pieces)
1/4 cup black olives
2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup tomato purée
2 sprigs tarragon (chopped)
large pinch of saffron
parsley (finely chopped)
salt
black pepper
Recipe
Notes:
- You absolutely need both chicken broth and the tomato purée. The umami is a big factor in this recipe. If you don't have chicken broth then you must either make a quick fish broth, or a Japanese-style dashi. This recipe will not work otherwise. The tomatoes and the broth function in tandem.
- Tarragon can be overpowering. Use in moderation. Substitute by fennel seeds.
- Saffron is non-negotiable.
- Obviously, you can use any combination of vegetables you have at hand but use neutral ones. Cauliflower is great as would be some beans. There is considerable leeway here.
- You can use any white fish. Cod is great too. Poaching time depends on the fillet thickness.
Bring the chicken broth and tomato purée to a gentle rolling boil. Add salt and black pepper. Add the baby potatoes and cook for 12 minutes. When this happens, foam will come to the surface. Skim it.
Add the cherry tomatoes, peas, beans and olives and continue to cook for 4 minutes.
With a slotted spoon, fish out all the vegetables and put them into two serving bowls which can hold liquid.
Bring the liquid to a boil again. Add the saffron and tarragon. Poach the fish in the liquid till it is cooked through - typically 3-4 minutes per fillet. (The CC had to poach them individually but if you have a large enough pan, you might be able to do both at once.)
Lift out the fish and place it gently on top of the vegetables.
Pour the broth over the fish and the vegetables. Sprinkling of parsley and if desired, more black pepper on top.
Serve with some crusty bread.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Classic Fish Pie
Amazing British Food? Surely that's an oxymoron.
Not so fast, my fine friends.
In the 18th century, there was very little difference between English, French and Italian food. If you look at the recipes, and they are almost all from the upper-crust of society who could afford to have servants and cooks and people who actually wrote the recipes down (as opposed to just make them), you will notice a strikingly similar set of palates and techniques. All the variation is just in what modern-day parlance is referred to as "locally-sourced ingredients" — what other choice was there back then?
It's the rise of nationalism in the 19th century and the extreme productivity of the early industrial society that led to a sharp distinction in cuisines. For lack of a better phrase, it was a form of "nationalistic branding". Even then, assuredly British cuisine could hold its own against the rest. After all, this was the richest society on earth. Surely nobody rational can believe that they ate badly, right?
It is also important to note that Britain's primary source of wealth was its Empire. A young stalwart called America was muscling onto its economic terrain using the power of technology — in this case agricultural and transportation technology. Midwestern grain could reach Europe cheaper than anything they could produce there. It was just economies of scale.There was a long slow decline in Britain's fortunes that has been documented extensively.
What laid utter waste to British Food was the Great War — World War I.
It destroyed the aristocracy. It destroyed the wealth, the food sourcing, the elaborate techniques, and the accumulated knowledge. You have to remember that a British aristocrat using the power of the nascent telephone (and canning technology!) back then could source food ingredients from all over the world. It was the proto-typical Internet.
It was all completely annihilated.
After that, between the loss of reserve currency status, loss of Empire and World War II, the culture turned into an economic wasteland with predictable effects on its food.
It took another 60 years to recover.
So the CC is going to argue quite forcefully that people who deride British food are looking at it through myopic eyes. Was it awful for about a century? Emphatically yes, but that's for non-reproducible reasons in what is but a twinkling of an eye in world history which happens to be the same as food history.
So you are going to have to dial back the clock and not just look at a modern-day recipe but what exactly were its antecedents. Once you do, you see the same "fresh herbs" and "fresh ingredients" and "attention to detail" that you see in other places.
What would classical English spicing be? Any herbs that grow in a colder climate. Just remember than the British Isles are nowhere near as cold as Scandinavia because of the warm North Atlantic Drift.
English thyme, parsley, bay leaves, rosemary, rue and mint (which is basically a weed and will grow anywhere). The entire cornucopia of spices imported from India since Roman times (pepper, cinnamon, cloves, etc.) and also from the West Indies (nutmeg, etc.)
The sauces are a little complex and heavy for modern palates but then the same goes for Classical French Cuisine which has fallen out of favor as well. All that can be easily addressed. You can lighten the sauce to make it more amenable to a contemporary audience. It's not even hard.
What's presented below is a classic fish pie.
Note the extensive use of fresh herbs. Note the careful three-part technique upfront before the final baking where each step neatly turns into the next one so that not even the slightest iota of flavor or ingredients are wasted.
How does it work?
In the old days, you would have sourced whole fish, whole prawns, etc. Our modern fillets and cleaned fish waste most of the parts that are used to extract even more flavor into the whole. This is our loss both economic and culinary.
First you use all the "remnants" of the fish (heads, shells, etc.) to make a fish broth (step 1). Then the fillets and the shellfish are poached with milk and fresh herbs (step 2). The fish is separated and the milk is strained and reserved and made into a classic béchamel (step 3) with vegetables and the fish broth and more fresh herbs are added into which the flaked fish will be folded in. Optionally, cheese might be added. (If it is, it's with a light hand. It would be a traditional cheddar which has nothing like the aggressive flavor of a modern-day cheddar. It's very mellow and has insane umami particularly when combined with the fish broth.)
The vegetables would've been "seasonal". People back then were just as bored eating the same-ol'-same-ol' as they might be today. Leeks, carrots, cauliflower, peas, asparagus, spinach, sorrel.
Separately, you make mashed potatoes. The dish is layered with the fish below the potatoes and baked till you get a British gratin. The killer step which so few people bother to do these days is that the mashed potatoes on top must be carefully raked like a Japanese Zen-Garden with the tines of a fork so that when they bake, you get not only a gorgeous presentation but crispy-brown bits thanks to the Maillard Reaction.
In the old days, the béchamel and the mashed potatoes would have had cream in them. It would also have have been presented in a pastry crust for formal presentations. All of this can be "lightened up".
This is technique at the highest level!
Ingredients
1 large piece of cod
12 clams
6 whole prawns (reserve the shells)
1 cup water
1 cup milk
2 large leeks
butter
8 tbsp. flour
1/2 cup cheddar (grated)
1 small carrot (diced)
1/2 cup peas
1 bay leaf
12-20 black peppercorns
parsley
nutmeg
parsley
3 large potatoes
milk
chives
sea salt
Recipe
First make the fish broth. Heat up some water with some prawn shells and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. (If not using prawns, use dried fish or dried shrimp to make a broth. Yes, this is important.)
Filter and retain the broth.
Take the clams and add the above broth to it. Steam them in an open pot until they open. Fish them out. Filter the clam broth through a cheesecloth and reserve. Chop the clams and reserve.
Heat the milk, the bay leaf, some parsley and the peppercorns. Bring to a boil. Put in the cod and let it poach for about three minutes. Fish it out. Put it in a bowl and flake it discarding the skin and bones.
Filter the milk combination discarding the bay leaf, parsley and peppercorns and reserve.
Now make a classic béchamel. Heat up some butter and when it is bubbling, add the leeks and let them cook for a bit. Add the flour and let it cook until light golden. Add the milk combination from above and let it reduce till it is thick. When the milk is denatured, add the broth. Be careful not to add the broth until the milk has denatured otherwise it will curdle. Add the grated cheddar, the remaining chopped parsley, black pepper, grated nutmeg and fold in the flaked cod, prawns, and chopped clams.
Separately, cook the potato in salted water till it is tender. In a bowl, mash it with some milk. Add the chives to this mix. The mixture should be on the thicker side not like traditional mashed potatoes which have more liquid.
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
In an oven-proof dish, layer the seafood in the béchamel sauce at the bottom. Top with the mashed potatoes. With the tines of a fork, rake the surface of the mashed potatoes with deep ridges in an attractive pattern.
Let it bake for 30 minutes till the top of the potatoes are lightly crispy.
Serve with a salad.
Not so fast, my fine friends.
In the 18th century, there was very little difference between English, French and Italian food. If you look at the recipes, and they are almost all from the upper-crust of society who could afford to have servants and cooks and people who actually wrote the recipes down (as opposed to just make them), you will notice a strikingly similar set of palates and techniques. All the variation is just in what modern-day parlance is referred to as "locally-sourced ingredients" — what other choice was there back then?
It's the rise of nationalism in the 19th century and the extreme productivity of the early industrial society that led to a sharp distinction in cuisines. For lack of a better phrase, it was a form of "nationalistic branding". Even then, assuredly British cuisine could hold its own against the rest. After all, this was the richest society on earth. Surely nobody rational can believe that they ate badly, right?
It is also important to note that Britain's primary source of wealth was its Empire. A young stalwart called America was muscling onto its economic terrain using the power of technology — in this case agricultural and transportation technology. Midwestern grain could reach Europe cheaper than anything they could produce there. It was just economies of scale.There was a long slow decline in Britain's fortunes that has been documented extensively.
What laid utter waste to British Food was the Great War — World War I.
It destroyed the aristocracy. It destroyed the wealth, the food sourcing, the elaborate techniques, and the accumulated knowledge. You have to remember that a British aristocrat using the power of the nascent telephone (and canning technology!) back then could source food ingredients from all over the world. It was the proto-typical Internet.
It was all completely annihilated.
After that, between the loss of reserve currency status, loss of Empire and World War II, the culture turned into an economic wasteland with predictable effects on its food.
It took another 60 years to recover.
So the CC is going to argue quite forcefully that people who deride British food are looking at it through myopic eyes. Was it awful for about a century? Emphatically yes, but that's for non-reproducible reasons in what is but a twinkling of an eye in world history which happens to be the same as food history.
So you are going to have to dial back the clock and not just look at a modern-day recipe but what exactly were its antecedents. Once you do, you see the same "fresh herbs" and "fresh ingredients" and "attention to detail" that you see in other places.
What would classical English spicing be? Any herbs that grow in a colder climate. Just remember than the British Isles are nowhere near as cold as Scandinavia because of the warm North Atlantic Drift.
English thyme, parsley, bay leaves, rosemary, rue and mint (which is basically a weed and will grow anywhere). The entire cornucopia of spices imported from India since Roman times (pepper, cinnamon, cloves, etc.) and also from the West Indies (nutmeg, etc.)
The sauces are a little complex and heavy for modern palates but then the same goes for Classical French Cuisine which has fallen out of favor as well. All that can be easily addressed. You can lighten the sauce to make it more amenable to a contemporary audience. It's not even hard.
What's presented below is a classic fish pie.
Note the extensive use of fresh herbs. Note the careful three-part technique upfront before the final baking where each step neatly turns into the next one so that not even the slightest iota of flavor or ingredients are wasted.
How does it work?
In the old days, you would have sourced whole fish, whole prawns, etc. Our modern fillets and cleaned fish waste most of the parts that are used to extract even more flavor into the whole. This is our loss both economic and culinary.
First you use all the "remnants" of the fish (heads, shells, etc.) to make a fish broth (step 1). Then the fillets and the shellfish are poached with milk and fresh herbs (step 2). The fish is separated and the milk is strained and reserved and made into a classic béchamel (step 3) with vegetables and the fish broth and more fresh herbs are added into which the flaked fish will be folded in. Optionally, cheese might be added. (If it is, it's with a light hand. It would be a traditional cheddar which has nothing like the aggressive flavor of a modern-day cheddar. It's very mellow and has insane umami particularly when combined with the fish broth.)
The vegetables would've been "seasonal". People back then were just as bored eating the same-ol'-same-ol' as they might be today. Leeks, carrots, cauliflower, peas, asparagus, spinach, sorrel.
Separately, you make mashed potatoes. The dish is layered with the fish below the potatoes and baked till you get a British gratin. The killer step which so few people bother to do these days is that the mashed potatoes on top must be carefully raked like a Japanese Zen-Garden with the tines of a fork so that when they bake, you get not only a gorgeous presentation but crispy-brown bits thanks to the Maillard Reaction.
In the old days, the béchamel and the mashed potatoes would have had cream in them. It would also have have been presented in a pastry crust for formal presentations. All of this can be "lightened up".
This is technique at the highest level!
Ingredients
1 large piece of cod
12 clams
6 whole prawns (reserve the shells)
1 cup water
1 cup milk
2 large leeks
butter
8 tbsp. flour
1/2 cup cheddar (grated)
1 small carrot (diced)
1/2 cup peas
1 bay leaf
12-20 black peppercorns
parsley
nutmeg
parsley
3 large potatoes
milk
chives
sea salt
Recipe
First make the fish broth. Heat up some water with some prawn shells and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. (If not using prawns, use dried fish or dried shrimp to make a broth. Yes, this is important.)
Filter and retain the broth.
Take the clams and add the above broth to it. Steam them in an open pot until they open. Fish them out. Filter the clam broth through a cheesecloth and reserve. Chop the clams and reserve.
Heat the milk, the bay leaf, some parsley and the peppercorns. Bring to a boil. Put in the cod and let it poach for about three minutes. Fish it out. Put it in a bowl and flake it discarding the skin and bones.
Filter the milk combination discarding the bay leaf, parsley and peppercorns and reserve.
Now make a classic béchamel. Heat up some butter and when it is bubbling, add the leeks and let them cook for a bit. Add the flour and let it cook until light golden. Add the milk combination from above and let it reduce till it is thick. When the milk is denatured, add the broth. Be careful not to add the broth until the milk has denatured otherwise it will curdle. Add the grated cheddar, the remaining chopped parsley, black pepper, grated nutmeg and fold in the flaked cod, prawns, and chopped clams.
Separately, cook the potato in salted water till it is tender. In a bowl, mash it with some milk. Add the chives to this mix. The mixture should be on the thicker side not like traditional mashed potatoes which have more liquid.
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
In an oven-proof dish, layer the seafood in the béchamel sauce at the bottom. Top with the mashed potatoes. With the tines of a fork, rake the surface of the mashed potatoes with deep ridges in an attractive pattern.
Let it bake for 30 minutes till the top of the potatoes are lightly crispy.
Serve with a salad.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
The Ballad of Bouillabaisse
William Makepeace Thackeray was a great food enthusiast, and his enthusiasm has been documented more than a few times on this blog. Chances are that most people only know him from either his novel Vanity Fair, or Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece Barry Lyndon.
Modern day readers might not be familiar with the notion of an écaillère — it still exists today. It's the guy — and it's still mostly a guy! — who opens your huîtres (oysters). Also, roach refers to a carp-like fish. Dace is the French loup de mer or the Greek branzino.
Is this a great poem? Emphatically not.
However it's elegiac tone using the device of the memory of the constancy of the dish acts unambiguously like a thumping ostinato that grounds innumerable music compositions in innumerable music traditions.
It's a terrific idea.
Modern day readers might not be familiar with the notion of an écaillère — it still exists today. It's the guy — and it's still mostly a guy! — who opens your huîtres (oysters). Also, roach refers to a carp-like fish. Dace is the French loup de mer or the Greek branzino.
Is this a great poem? Emphatically not.
However it's elegiac tone using the device of the memory of the constancy of the dish acts unambiguously like a thumping ostinato that grounds innumerable music compositions in innumerable music traditions.
It's a terrific idea.
A street there is in Paris famous,
For which no rhyme our language yields,
Rue Neuve de petits Champs its name is —
The New Street of the Little Fields;
And there's an inn, not rich and splendid,
But still in comfortable case;
The which in youth I oft attended,
To eat a bowl of Bouillabaisse.
This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is -
A sort of soup, or broth, or brew,
Or hotchpotch of all sorts of fishes,
That Greenwich never could outdo;
Green herbs, red peppers, muscles, saffern,
Soles, onions, garlic, roach, and dace;
All these you eat at Terré's tavern,
In that one dish of Bouillabaisse.
Indeed, a rich and savory stew 'tis;
And true philosophers, methinks,
Who love all sorts of natural beauties,
Should love good victuals and good drinks.
And Cordelier or Benedictine
Might gladly, sure, his lot embrace,
Nor find a fast-day too afflicting,
Which served him up a Bouillabaisse.
I wonder if the house still there is?
Yes, here the lamp is as before;
The smiling, red-cheek'd écaillère is
Still opening oysters at the door.
Is Terré still alive and able?
I recollect his droll grimace;
He'd come and smile before your table,
And hoped you like your Bouillabaisse.
We enter; nothing's changed or older.
'How's Monsieur Terré, waiter, pray?'
The waiter stares and shrugs his shoulder -
'Monsieur is dead this many a day.'
'It is the lot of saint and sinner.
So honest Terré's run his race!'
'What will Monsieur require for dinner?'
'Say, do you still cook Bouillabaisse?'
'Oh, oui, Monsieur,' 's the waiter's answer;
'Quel vin Monsieur désire-t-il ?'
Tell me a good one.' 'That I can, sir;
The Chambertin with yellow seal.'
'So Terré's gone,' I say, and sink in
My old accustom'd corner-place;
'He's done with feasting and with drinking,
With Burgundy and Bouillabaisse.'
My old accustom'd corner here is —
The table still is in the nook;
Ah! vanished many a busy year is,
This well-known chair since last I took.
When first I saw ye, cari luoghi,
I'd scarce a beard upon my face,
And now a grizzled, grim old fogy,
I sit and wait for Bouillabaisse.
Where are you, old companions trusty
Of early days, here met to dine?
Come, waiter! quick, a flagon crusty -
I'll pledge them in the good old wine.
The kind old voices and old faces
My memory can quick retrace;
Around the board they take their places,
And share the wine and Bouillabaisse.
There's Jack has made a wondrous marriage;
There's laughing Tom is laughing yet;
There's brave Augustus drives his carriage;
There's poor old Fred in the Gazette;
On James's head the grass is growing:
Good Lord! the world has wagged apace
Since here we sat the Claret flowing,
And drank, and ate the Bouillabaisse.
Ah me! how quick the days are flitting!
I mind me of a time that's gone,
When here I'd sit, as now I'm sitting,
In this same place-but not alone.
A fair young form was nestled near me,
A dear, dear face looked fondly up,
And sweetly spoke and smiled to cheer me.
— There's no one now to share my cup.
. . . . . . . .
I drink it as the Fates ordain it.
Come, fill it, and have done with rhymes;
Fill up the lonely glass, and drain it
In memory of dear old times.
Welcome the wine, whate'er the seal is;
And sit you down and say your grace
With thankful heart, whate'er the meal is.
— Here comes the smoking Bouillabaisse!
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Fish Stock
The art of making stock has always been tied with the art of frugality. This is true in cultures across the globe — everything from French and Italian to Japanese. It's the art of actually extracting the maximum amount of goodness from the spare parts so as to not waste them.
This is particularly true in the case of fish stock since it has an exceptionally short shelf-life. Ideally, fish stock is best made fresh and consumed quickly.
Fish stock has always been made from the "unwanted" parts that still preserve a strong amount of both fish flavor and the proteins.
Classic dashi is basically a precise fish stock but the CC has talked about that extensively so we'll skip it this time and talk about the more classical French version.
If you look online, they talk about making fish stock with cod or monkfish. Have you seen the price of any of these lately?
These people are not just foolish; they are positively retarded!
Fish stock is made with any non-oily fish with the spare parts if you will. The heads, the tails, and everything else. (Incidentally, you can preserve these things in the freezer if you don't plan to make it right away. The CC almost always has prawn shells in his freezer.)
Here's a short list of things that make amazing fish stock:
The recipe below is "generic". You can add different spices if you like. For example, the CC frequently adds fresh parsley which since it comes from the carrot family tends to accentuate the sweet carrot flavors. Also, a judicious addition of fennel is a nice touch. However, these are all details to the basic skill that you need to know. So here goes...
Ingredients
1 onion
1 stalk celery
1 large carrot
olive oil
black peppercorns
salt
"fish" (from above)
Recipe
Dice the onions, celery, carrots really fine. Fry in some olive oil they are soft. About 8 minutes. Add the peppercorns and salt and fry for a bit. Add water.
Bring to a boil and let it cook for about 20 minutes. Skim as the oil and impurities come to the top.
Add the "fish" and let cook for no more than 8-10 minutes. You will need to skim one more time.
Pass the mixture through a sieve lined with a cheesecloth.
This is particularly true in the case of fish stock since it has an exceptionally short shelf-life. Ideally, fish stock is best made fresh and consumed quickly.
Fish stock has always been made from the "unwanted" parts that still preserve a strong amount of both fish flavor and the proteins.
Classic dashi is basically a precise fish stock but the CC has talked about that extensively so we'll skip it this time and talk about the more classical French version.
If you look online, they talk about making fish stock with cod or monkfish. Have you seen the price of any of these lately?
These people are not just foolish; they are positively retarded!
Fish stock is made with any non-oily fish with the spare parts if you will. The heads, the tails, and everything else. (Incidentally, you can preserve these things in the freezer if you don't plan to make it right away. The CC almost always has prawn shells in his freezer.)
Here's a short list of things that make amazing fish stock:
- Fish heads and tails.
- Prawn shells.
- Lobster shells.
- Dried anchovies.
- Dried niboshi (煮干し).
- Dried shrimp.
- Maldive fish flakes (basically same as katsuobushi.)
- Clam juice and clam muscles.
- Scallop muscles (finely chopped.)
The recipe below is "generic". You can add different spices if you like. For example, the CC frequently adds fresh parsley which since it comes from the carrot family tends to accentuate the sweet carrot flavors. Also, a judicious addition of fennel is a nice touch. However, these are all details to the basic skill that you need to know. So here goes...
Ingredients
1 onion
1 stalk celery
1 large carrot
olive oil
black peppercorns
salt
"fish" (from above)
Recipe
Dice the onions, celery, carrots really fine. Fry in some olive oil they are soft. About 8 minutes. Add the peppercorns and salt and fry for a bit. Add water.
Bring to a boil and let it cook for about 20 minutes. Skim as the oil and impurities come to the top.
Add the "fish" and let cook for no more than 8-10 minutes. You will need to skim one more time.
Pass the mixture through a sieve lined with a cheesecloth.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Dealing With Invasions
This is arguably an excellent idea: Answer for Invasive Species: Put It on a Plate and Eat It.
With its dark red and black stripes, spotted fins and long venomous black spikes, the lionfish seems better suited for horror films than consumption. But lionfish fritters and filets may be on American tables soon.
An invasive species, the lionfish is devastating reef fish populations along the Florida coast and into the Caribbean. Now, an increasing number of environmentalists, consumer groups and scientists are seriously testing a novel solution to control it and other aquatic invasive species — one that would also takes pressure off depleted ocean fish stocks: they want Americans to step up to their plates and start eating invasive critters in large numbers.
“Humans are the most ubiquitous predators on earth,” said Philip Kramer, director of the Caribbean program for the Nature Conservancy. “Instead of eating something like shark fin soup, why not eat a species that is causing harm, and with your meal make a positive contribution?”
Lionfish, it turns out, looks hideous but tastes great. The group had to hire fishermen to catch animals commonly regarded as pests. Mr. Heffernan said he would consider putting them on his menu and was looking forward to getting some molting European green crabs to try in soft-shell crab recipes.
Last summer, the Nature Conservancy sponsored a lionfish food fair in the Bahamas, featuring lionfish fritters and more. They offered fishermen $11 a pound — about the price of grouper — and got an abundant supply.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Howto: Poach Fish
All poaching is the same idea. Cook the object in the presence of aromatics in a suitable broth.
While fish may be poached in anything from tomato broth to chicken broth, one of the ways to do it well is to add a cup of white wine to the poaching liquid, and slowly bring the liquid to boiling.
The reason is simple.
Alcohol has a far lower boiling point than water. It boils at 78°C as opposed to water's 100°C.
Because fish poaches so quickly, the temperature will not rise above 78°C and you will not overcook the fish.
The same technique works for eggs as well.
While fish may be poached in anything from tomato broth to chicken broth, one of the ways to do it well is to add a cup of white wine to the poaching liquid, and slowly bring the liquid to boiling.
The reason is simple.
Alcohol has a far lower boiling point than water. It boils at 78°C as opposed to water's 100°C.
Because fish poaches so quickly, the temperature will not rise above 78°C and you will not overcook the fish.
The same technique works for eggs as well.
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