cia – Page 81 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Fish Braised in Sundried Tomatoes

Anna sent me a pack of sundried tomatoes from her recent trip to Argentina so I went searching for recipes using them as the main ingredient. There were a lot of proven recipes for spreads and pastes, so I stuck with one of them and just used it on fish I bought for my weekly omakase bento at work. The heavy cream was rather random but I needed to dilute the tomatoes’ saltiness without losing the consistency of the braising sauce. It was also the only thing I had handy in the fridge. Toss with some basil chiffonade and serve with an unsalted orzo and you should be all set.

Any white fish will do here. Cod will be excellent, but a lower-priced Swai is good, too. And you know what? I spread the sundried tomato paste on a portobello mushroom and grilled that for the vegetarian in the group, and he liked it, too.

Ingredients:
4 fish fillets
a splash of heavy cream
a handful of sundried tomatoes, soaked in hot water for at least 15 minutes, patted dry with a paper towel
a handful of basil leaves
3 cloves of garlic
a splash of sherry vinegar
oil, salt, pepper

1. Make sundried tomato paste. Using a food processor, pulse tomatoes, garlic and basil, adding some oil until you reach the consistency of paste. Season with pepper. Transfer to a container.
2. Lightly salt the fish. (The tomatoes will add more saltiness.) Sprinkle some pepper, too. Using a spatula, spread some of the paste onto the fish.
3. Heat some oil in a large skillet. Add the tomato-covered fish and cook for about 3 minutes per side, uncovered. Lower the heat and add the heavy cream. Gently scrape off the bits and pieces under the fish, cover and steam for an extra 5 minutes. Uncover and transfer the fish to a plate.

Aquavit

65 East 55th Street between Park and Madison Avenues
212/593.0287
about $90 each for six, with several drinks, with tacked on 20% tip
♥ ♥

I dragged five others to the Aquavit Cafe earlier this week to take advantage of Herring Week, the annual celebration for all things herring. I had such a fun time eating with new people who were down to eat herring prepared in different ways. This was my first time back at the restaurant after they moved a couple of years ago. The cafe is bigger and looks more like a hotel lobby restaurant. I didn’t get past the bar and to the main dining room, but I would bet that the waterfall is now gone. Chef Marcus Samuelsson now has a sushi restaurant and his name is mentioned in more food events around the city, but the Scandinavian spirit that he introduced to diners like me is still well and alive.

The herring buffet was situated along the entrance to the cafe. The two times we made the trip to serve ourselves, we had to watch out for the waiters and the busboys. But oh, we wanted herring and did we get some! There was the usual pickled herring, vinegar-y and lip-smackin’ good. There was smoked herring, flaky and perfect with a Whale’s Tale Ale. There were interesting and delicious combinations like herring with onions and carrots, herring in a light green sauce that we thought was made out of dill and herring with caviar. Then there were the odd ones that surprisingly worked: herring egg salad and herring paté. And ones that didn’t: herring with sweet tomato sauce and herring with curry.

The buffet wasn’t all herring, which was quite a relief after we’ve filled our empty stomachs with the almighty fish. I had smoked salmon topped with pickled cucumbers, roasted potatoes slathered with gravy, Swedish meatballs with lingonberry sauce and anchovy pizette with a cherry tomato. I skipped the bread and the greens to make more room for a second trip to the buffet. We forced ourselves to eat the included desserts, not because we wanted anything sweet but because we wanted something to cleanse our palates. The Arctic Circle was a goat cheese cylinder filled with passion fruit, topped with a tarty and refreshing sorbet of black currants. (I love me some tarty desserts!) Two in the group opted for the chocolate with several other ingredients I barely recall now.

It was a good time until we got our bill. Even though we chose to do the buffet, a 20% gratuity was automatically included because we were a group of six. We ended up paying almost $100 each including our drinks. Even though the bill was up to par with my usual night out with friends, I thought this was quite pricey considering we had to get up and serve ourselves.

I love herring, but maybe I’ll stick with the Formica tables in Grand Central Oyster Bar during Herring Week next year.

OctoDog’s Frankfurter Converter

When Jen first showed me the link to OctoDog, I squealed. I didn’t care if the toy was $16.95 apiece; I wanted one. A few weeks later, I squealed again when a box came in the mail and my red OctoDog was in it. I immediately wanted to try it, but to be honest, I don’t eat too many hot dogs at home. Off I went to the neighborhood grocery store where I spent several minutes in front of the frankfurter aisle trying to decipher which was long and big enough to fit in my OctoDog. From a quick glance, the OctoDog seems to be pretty thick. I knew that it wasn’t going to work for the skinny Sabrett hot dogs. I had to pick from what New York street vendors call sausages.

Back at home, I followed the easy instructions that came with the OctoDog. I took the OctoDog apart including the “eyes”. I then inserted the hot dog inside the “tentacles” and replaced the eyes which essentially held the hot dog in place. I pushed the hot dog in using the OctoDog base–this cuts the lower half of the hot dog into “tentacles”. I then pulled the base out and removed the “eyes” that held the hot dog in place. A little shake and the hot dog fell off the tentacle hold and voila! A hot dog with eight “arms”!

Why don’t you just go to their Web site and see the illustrated How-To? It sounds more appetizing without bothering with too many words.

I was thrilled to have made my own OctoDogs. I heated a small skillet with some oil, gently fried the hot dogs by rolling them in the hot oil. I served them with a couple of fried eggs and some fried rice for a Sunday breakfast, Filipino hotsilog (hot dog-siningag-itlog), or hot dog-fried rice-fried egg, style.

I don’t know any kid out there who needs convincing to eat a hot dog and I don’t know why any one would refuse to eat a dressed up hot dog with “legs”. At almost $20 including shipping and handling, it’s an unnecessary toy that’s fun to have in your kitchen for your child and your child at heart.

Rhubarb Sauce

The two Rs of spring–ramps and rhubarb–came and went but I was fast enough to get my yield in this year. With the ramps, I pickled and sautéed; with the rhubarb, I made dessert and this sauce. I was craving fish after an hour-long workout in the pool and I ended up taking home a whole branzino with me. (From Whole Foods, not the pool.) In the end, it was the wrong fish to match with this sauce because branzino is so rich that it doesn’t really need any help to taste good.

The next day, I served this rhubarb sauce with fried and breaded tilapia fillet and together, they made the perfect match. A little tangy and a little sweet, it gave life to an otherwise plain white fish.

Update: Cameron alerted me to a Jamie Oliver recipe using pork belly with rhubarb sauce. So I browned some cubed pork belly and braised them in rhubarb sauce for about 1 hour at 350º.

Ingredients:
6 pieces of rhubarb, chopped in half-inch pieces
a small knob of ginger, peeled, minced, chopped
1 small red onion, finely chopped
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1 cinnamon stick
a pinch of whole cloves
1 star anise
salt, pepper

1. Place rhubarb, 1/4 cup water and ginger in a small saucepan. Simmer for 5 minutes and set aside.
2. In another pan, combine sugar and cider vinegar with 2 cups water and bring to a rolling boil. Add the onion. Cook for 2 minutes. Drain to discard the onions. Remove cinnamon, cloves and anise. Add this mixture to the rhubarb. Season with salt and pepper.

Pork Chops with Guinness Beer

The pork chops from DeBragga.com glistened in the morning light coming through the kitchen. I couldn’t get over how beautiful the marbling was. Pork chops are easy to find but they’re never beautifully cut like these, almost like lamb.

I’ve cooked a lot of tried and true pork chop recipes for this Web site but I wanted to try something new for this batch. I used Mark Bittman’s ribs recipe using stout beer. That looked so good and I wanted to try it for pork. A little bit of browning and braising were all it took for the meat to fall apart from the bones. I even had to skip the roasting part and just served them straight from the Dutch oven. Golden brown on the outside but soft inside, they were the perfect pick me ups for a lazy weekend lunch.

Ingredients:
4 pork chops, seasoned with salt and pepper
1 bottle or can of Guinness, or any stout beer
3 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp of allspice
2 red chiles, crushed
1 small knob of ginger, peeled, minced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
oil, salt, pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350º. In the meantime, brown pork chops in a large Dutch oven with hot oil over medium heat, about 8 minutes per side. Remove chops and set aside. Discard oil except for 2 tbsps.
2. Return the pot over medium heat. Sauté garlic and ginger. Toast cinnamon sticks, chiles and allspice. Add the chops back in and pour in beer. Using a wooden spoon, scrape off the bits and pieces from the bottom of the pan.
3. When oven is ready, cover the pot and braise in the oven for 1 hour, turning the chops after 45 minutes. Serve chops on a plate with some of the beer sauce.