Baked Cod with Golden Roasted Potatoes & Thyme

The pairing of fish and thyme is a classic combination all over the Mediterranean. Paired with golden roasted potatoes and a salad, it's a simple superb dish.

If you're wondering if this is not just a variation of this, you'd be right. You can't invent new tricks all the time. This is nothing more than the combinatorial approach to cooking which is the proverbial housewife's savior everywhere from Japan to India to the Middle East and the Mediterranean.

The CC will have a lot more to say about this subject but that's for a later post.


Ingredients (serves 2)

1 large cod fillet.

6-8 small roasting potatoes
4-6 sprigs thyme

olive oil
sea salt
black pepper

Recipe

Preheat an oven to 375°F.

Toss the potatoes with olive oil, sea salt and black pepper. Roast them for 15 minutes. Pull them out and toss again carefully to make sure they don't stick to the bottom. Toss springs of thyme all over them. Roast for another 20 minutes.

Meanwhile season the cod fillet by rubbing it with olive oil. Season with sea salt, black pepper and thyme.

Pull the pan out of the oven. Push the potatatoes aside to one side of the pan. Place the cod fillet gently on the other side and roast for 10 more minutes. Don't overcook it.

A quick salad with a nice lemony-vinaigrette pairs really well with this dish. (The salad above has thinly cut radishes added to give it some crunch and textural complexity.)

An Old Woman Fries Eggs

One of the great paintings by Velázquez is that of an old woman frying eggs while a young boy looks on and helps her.

The wonderful chiaroscuro is a joy to behold with the light appearing to come from the left. It was painted during his Seville period.

(Source of painting: Wikipedia.)

But what is she doing?

She is making huevos fritos con puntilla. These are eggs fried in hot olive oil where the oil is flicked around the edge of the egg to achieve a delicate lacey frill like that of a traje de Sevillana.

The evidence is the hot oil that she should be flicking over the edges of the egg whites with her wooden spoon. This is a reasonably high-risk procedure with the chance of hot droplets of oil splashing all over. Her right sleeve covers her hand to protect it but not her left. Most importantly, since this procedure can easily make the egg whites overcooked without the yolk having set, she seems instructing the boy to add a slug of olive oil to the earthenware cooking pot to cool down the oil.

She seems to be about to speak to him but his interest seems to have wandered. He just wants his abuela to make the damned eggs, and enough with the instruction already.

The eternal drama of youth and old age captured in a succint way!

Winter Mac 'n Cheese

When winter strikes, there's nothing like a warm oven and some comfort food.

This, of course, is a classic but it's been gussied up with winter vegetables. It takes a little longer because you have to roast all the vegetables separately but it's wonderful when it all comes together.

The trick with vegetables of the brassica family (brussel sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, etc.) is to roast them. It brings out the inherent sweetness in them without the smelly part (which occurs if you boil them.) They also happen to be absurdly nutritious.

The house will smell really nice with all the roasting and if you really want to amp it up a notch, a little truffle oil will take it to the next level.

Ingredients

4 cups whole-wheat penne

1 head radicchio (sliced into thin strips)
1 small cauliflower (cut into florets)
1 large carrot (diced)

butter
2 cups milk
1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup gruyère (grated coarsely)
1 cup parmigiano-reggiano (grated coarsely)

4 tbsp fresh rosemary (chopped fine)
4 tbsp fresh thyme

breadcrumbs

nutmeg
olive oil
sea salt
black pepper

2 tbsp truffle oil (optional)

Recipe

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Toss the radicchio with olive oil, salt and pepper and bake for about 15-18 minutes. Remove.

Toss the cauliflower with olive oil and pepper (no salt! - otherwise the mixture will be overly salty) and roast for about 15 minutes. Remove.

Cook the penne in heavily salted water until under al dente (about 12 minutes.)

Meanwhile, make the béchamel. Heat the butter. Add the flour, and let it cook at medium low heat until it is golden (but not brown). Add the milk and continue stirring. The sauce will continue to thicken. Add the salt, black pepper, nutmeg, rosemary and thyme, and take it off the heat.

Combine the penne, the sauce, vegetables, the cheeses, and truffle oil (if using) in a oven-proof casserole. Top off the dish with the breadcrumbs (this is the real secret to success!)

Bake covered for about 30 minutes. Bake uncovered for about 12-15 minutes until the top is golden and crispy.

Arroz caldoso con sepia y coliflor

This is an entirely unusual recipe in that it sounds positively weird on paper but is absolutely delicious in practice.

Arroz caldoso is the ultimate comfort food. Rice, protein and seasonings in a soupy broth that is absolutely perfect when the weather gets cold.

Best of all, it reheats wonderfully (attn: office dwellers) and the taste improves with time.

It's Valencian in origin, and originally features cuttlefish (sepia) but lacking that, the CC used squid.

You will notice below that the technique is entirely unusual. Instead of the onions and garlic being sautéed first, the squid is. There is logic here. Squid needs to be either cooked very little, or a long time otherwise you get a rubbery unappetizing texture. This recipe uses the latter method.


Ingredients

2 cups Valencian short-grain rice (substitute by Arborio)
6 cups fish broth
1/2 lb tomatoes (passed through a food mill)
1 lb cauliflower florets
1 lb cuttlefish (or squid) cut into 1/2 inch slices

4 large garlic cloves, minced
1 large onion, coarsely grated

4 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp saffron
1 tsp sweet paprika (preferably Spanish smoked)
4 tbsp fresh parsley (chopped fine)
sea salt

Recipe

Combine the broth and saffron in a pot and keep warm over a very low flame.

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

In an oven-proof casserole, heat the olive oil, and sauté the squid. Sprinkle with the sea salt while this is happening. Stir in the cauliflower, garlic and grated onion and sauté for 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, parsley and cook for 3 minutes. Turn the heat to low and let cook for 10 minutes.

Stir in the paprika, rice, and sauté until the rice is well coated with the mixture. Pour in the broth and boil for 5-8 minutes until the rice is slightly done. Transfer to the oven and cook for 10 minutes, uncovered until the rice is still al dente.

The mixture should be still soupy at this point.

Remove from the oven and let sit for 5 minutes. Serve.

Asari Gohan

This is a basic every day dish that is so amazing that you will be forever checking how you lived your life before it. It's nutritionally complete, visually appealing, complex enough to be served at a state dinner. (In short, the platonic ideal of a Japanese dish.)

It's neither complicated nor hard in the least but it requires a fairly elaborate explanation of how all the pieces actually work.


Ingredients

12-18 clams
1/3 cup sake
1 tbsp ginger (cut into fine matchsticks)

1 cup japonica rice

2 cups kombu dashi

1/4 cup carrots (cut into matchsticks)
1/4 cup shiitake mushrooms (cut into matchsticks)
1 tbsp ginger (cut into fine matchsticks)

2 tbsp tamari (soy sauce)
2 tbsp sake
2 tbsp mirin

1 scallion (white and green parts sliced thin at a steep diagonal)
nori (sliced really thin)

Recipe

The first thing that you must do is wash the rice in cold water. The rice must be "polished" with your hands until all the surface starch is eliminated, and the water runs clear. Typically, this takes anywhere from 4-6 washings.

Drain the rice and let it sit wet for at least 30 minutes. (Yes, this matters.)

Add 1/3 cup of the sake to the ginger. Bring to a boil. Steam the clams. Remove as they open, and shuck them.

When all the clams are done, filter the liquid (= clam broth) through a cheesecloth/paper towel and reserve.

Combine the dashi, clam broth, 2 tbsp of sake, the tamari and the mirin. Add the rice, carrots, shiitake mushrooms and cook till the rice is well done.

The logic of this step is that the rice is cooked in an intensely umami-laden broth that makes it completely irresistible. Add to that the fact that esterification takes place means that it's almost impossible to resist.

Top with the clams, the scallion and the nori, and serve.

The clams add the protein, the scallion and the nori, the textural interest.

The Haul (from Astoria)

Anchovies, octopus, Greek chickpeas, the large white beans, bulgur wheat (of two grades), spanakopita, dried oregano, taramosalata, tzatziki, amazing pita bread.

Hazelnut Crusted Cod with Roasted New Potatoes

One of the tricks that professional chefs have is to give thematic unity to a seemingly disparate ensemble.

The dish below is an example of that.

The cod has been crusted with a mixture of hazelnuts, breadcrumbs, thyme and lemon zest.

The potatoes have been roasted with harissa, olive oil and thyme.

The vinaigrette for the salad in the background is made with lemon juice, thyme and hazelnut oil.

As you can see there's a clear thematic element of lemon, hazelnuts and thyme running through the ensemble.

There is also a clear visual and methodic disparateness. Textures, colors, cooking methods all separate to provide interest but tied into an integrated whole at an underlying level.

Organic Chemistry Rules!

One of the great tricks of Japanese cuisine is to cook "stuff" with sake (or mirin) and dashi.

Traditionally, the simplest dish of rice would have this but it extends in general to tons of dishes.

The reason is something that Coco Chanel would know like (the smell of) the back of her hand.

It's esterification.

When an alcohol and an acid — in this case, the various glutamic acids in the dashi — react with the alcohol, you create a whole range of esters. Esters are what give the fragrant fruity smells that we all love.

Add to that, the umami from the dashi and you realize that just "plain rice" is a killer dish.

As far as the CC is aware, this is unique in the world. He has not seen this technique being used anywhere else.

Break

The CC has been taking unusually long hiatuses as of late but he's going to take an even longer one.

Headed to India for even more culinary adventures. Back at the end of January with wondrous photos and recipes!

New Year's Eve

The menu:

Cheese platter (Stilton, Montbriac)
Crusty Baguette
Figs stuffed w. Almonds, Rosemary & Sea-Salt
Spicy Pickled Mushrooms
Walnuts caramelized w. Rosemary & Sea-Salt
Olives
Figs w. Prosciutto

Plenty of Champagne, of course!

Happy New Year!

Food as Metaphorical Horror

Humans have always had a slightly complex relationship with food in as much as it reminds them of their animal origins. For starters, carnivores that we may be, we have always had a slightly problematic relationship with slaughter and novelists, artists and film makers have exploited that endlessly.

Here are some of the best food metaphors in the interest of horror that the CC knows of in the medium of film.

Rules of the Game

Slaughter as a metaphor for the ruthless elimination of an entire generation in World War I.

Bonus: Made in 1939. Looks forward presciently and sees a repeat upcoming.

Rosemary's Baby

If you can make tea horrifying, you have real cinematic skill.

Bonus: The Lipton tea ad-placement near the end of the movie.

Repulsion

It's straightforward enough to horrify using a skinned putrefying rabbit but it takes a special talent to turn toast and (exhausted) marmalade into one for a horrific sexual frigidity gone awry.

Saló

The perfect meeting of medium and subject. Integrated into the film as a logical progression of horrors, Pasolini mentioned that he intended it as a "commentary on the horrors of fast food".

(You'll have to see this one. Can't reveal it without giving it away.)

Bonus: Nails.

Kitsune Ramen (with Onigiri)

The Warrior Class Enters the Kitchen

After the Meiji Restoration, the carrying of swords was banned for the samurai class. Since there was significant industry in providing swords to the samurai, as basic economic theory would tell you, the merchants evolved the product into something else.

That something was the production of knives for professional cooking.

Japanese knives are unique in the world. They are arguably closer to swords than they are to Western knives. For starters, they are frequently, but not always, single-ground (sharpened on exactly one side.) In the modern world, double-beveled knives do exist (e.g. santoku which evolved as a response to the French chef's knife) but the rule still stands.

They are also made to a much harder temper and and seriously sharp. You can cut a piece of paper just by gently caressing it against the blade.

Also, the number and variety of precision knives is far higher than what you would see in a traditional French kitchen. The level of detail and control is far far higher.

Lastly, the tradition of sword-like skills in the kitchen made evolve as a matter of routine, an equally important culture of safety skills. Japanese chefs cut away from the body never towards it. Equally importantly when doing fine fillet-work, the knife will angle away from the body while the top is restrained with the flat-face of the left hand. At all points in time, the blade is kept away from the body. It is quite amazing to watch a master knivesman in action.

Like all highly evolved technical cultures, there's an elaborate array of knives and an elaborate vocabulary to describe their properties, relative merits and demerits but that's just grind for a later post.

Thanksgiving

The CC has been in absentia for a while. Life sometime gets in the way. But he's back!

Here's the Thanksgiving menu chez CC:

Acorn Squash stuffed with wild mushrooms
♥
Pear, chanterelles & prosciutto stuffing
♦
Fingerling potatoes with figs & thyme
♦
Brussel sprouts with pomegranate vinegar, black walnuts & pomegranates
♦
Pears poached in red wine with stilton

Bibingka

Rice cake made with fermented rice flour and coconut milk. It's very slightly sweet with a smoky flavor. It's baked in a banana leaf, and is best experienced literally out of the charcoal oven.

Pili Nuts

The CC had never heard of them before he went to the Philippines.

They have a very high fat content, and are completely unique in taste. The best way to describe it would be like the bastard love child of hazelnuts and brazil nuts.

They are a delicacy because they have an incredibly short shelf-life (that's because of the high fat content which would cause them to go rancid quickly in the hot climate of the Philippines.)



They are frequently blanched and turned into sugary desserts but they could equally well work in a savory dish like any other nut.

Needless to say, they are quite impossible to find outside the Philippines.

The Yikes Meter!

Seen today on a menu, "pad thai tacos".

There is so much wrong with this the CC can't even begin to enumerate. Perhaps there's a reason that those two countries are so far apart?

This is the kinda bullshit that gives "fusion" a bad name.

The Mathematician's Approach to Japanese Cooking

One of the key insights into the nature of cooking is that all cuisines respect the role of limited resources.

One of these limited resources is the number of ingredients that can plausibly be obtained. Traditionally, this has always been limited by the seasons.

If you have limited resources then you might think that you'd have a limited number of dishes. But you'd be wrong!

Humans recognized quite early on that we are easily bored. We crave novelty and variety. The same ol', same ol' was as dreary a millenium ago as it is today.

Traditonally, most cooking was done by women, and women were responsible for coming up with "inventive dishes" each day (to stave off that afore-stated boredom.) They were forced, at the metaphorical gunpoint, to get creative about it.

Lo and behold, the Japanese discovered the combinatorial game. Have a vast amount of ingredients at hand but assemble a dish with just a few and rotate them daily. In fact, outsource a few so that you only need to assemble the rest (the Ricardo-principle applied to cuisine.)

Needless to say, one can't do this with a hard-core mathematician's approach since that would lead to entirely unappetizing dishes so a few rules are imposed on top of that to maintain visual appeal, textural interest and nutritional completeness.

If you understand this then the rules of the so called washoku become entirely obvious.

The rules of go shiki (five colors), go mi (five tastes), go hou (five methods), go kan (five senses) are nothing more than a rulebook to ensure complexity - visual, textural, and nutritional.

The traditional dish is not made with five ingredients. It's closer to between seven and nine in practice. That would imply that you scale as $$n⁷ where n is the number of starting ingredients (and n is very large to start with.) However, the above rules cut down the number of possibilities.

In any case, you are still left with a vast set to play with. Enough to stave off boredom before the seasons change which will alleviate the boredom anyway, and by the time next year rolls around nobody will remember that you played the same game last year!

Radish Salad with Dried Anchovies (Dilis)

This is an entirely inspired dish that you are unlikely to find in any Filipino cookbook. That's because it's a simple side-dish that is unlikely to make it into cookbooks which tend to feature fancier stuff.

It follows the most primitive principles of food. Use fresh ingredients, and touch them up minimally.

The ingredients are simplicity themselves - white radish (daikon), tomatoes, ginger, patis (fish sauce) and vinegar, along with dried anchovies (dilis.)

Served with warm rice, it's the perfect comfort food, and yet texturally complex and nutritionally complete.


Ingredients

4 tomatoes
1/2 radish
4-6 tbsp vinegar (to taste)
2 tbsp patis
4 green chillies (minced)
2 tbsp minced ginger

1/2 cup dried anchovies
salt to taste

Recipe

Cut the radish into paper-thin slices. A mandoline will help here.

Dice the tomatoes roughly.

Mix all the ingredients together except the anchovies.

Mix in the anchovies right before serving (so that they remain crisp and don't turn soggy.)

The Luck Factor

Well, we've had a late blast of summery weather, and the tomatoes were still super-ripe at the farmers' market. The CC got there early, and they were selling them for very cheap so the CC bought a ton, and made tomato sauce out of it. It was promptly frozen for future use.

When life gives you tomatoes, you must make tomato sauce!