Writing With My Mouth Full

Crayfish Creamed Corn Soup

I had enough crayfish meat and crayfish broth leftover from the crayfish rice that I decided to make soup. At first, I was just going to use the broth and add some vegetables, but after tasting it, I knew something was short. My mother said she imagined the soup to be thicker because the crayfish taste was so concentrated. So I put on my coat, braved the winter weather with pajamas on and ran to the corner deli and bought a can of corn and a pint of milk. Using a blender, I made my own creamed corn. I wanted to test it first before I used the rest of the broth so in a smaller pot, I simmered a small dollop of the corn with some of the broth. When the mother hen approved, I made a bigger batch good enough for four people at work the next day.

Ingredients:
2 pounds crayfish, washed
bacon
1 can of kernel corn
1 cup of milk
2 ribs of celery, cut in smaller pieces
1 red onion, halved
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
1 green bell pepper, finely chopped
1 chayote, peeled and diced
salt, pepper, oil

1. Make crayfish broth. Separate the crayfish heads from the tails. Put the heads in a big soup pot with some water and let it boil. Add onion and celery ribs with some salt. Simmer until ready to use. Peel tails and devein. Chop in smaller pieces.
2. In a skillet, render fat off bacon until crisp. Remove to a plate lined with paper towel. When cool enough to handle, finely chop bacon. Set aside.
3. In a blender, purÃ©e corn while adding a little bit of milk slowly. The consistency should be creamy without being too thick.
4. In a soup pot, transfer the crayfish broth without the solids. Simmer and add the vegetables. Cook until the chayote is soft. Add a little bit of the creamed corn slowly until desired consistency. Season with bacon bits and pepper. Serve with country bread.

Related post/s:
How to cook your rice with crayfish

Crayfish Rice with Bacon

Tomatoe, tomatoh. Potatoe, potatoh. Crayfish, crawfish. No matter what you call these small lobster lookalikes, they’re good to go in a big soup pot. And you know what? They’re even better with bacon. They were selling them alive in Chinatown but they were left out in the cold–that made it easy enough to pull their heads from their bodies. I put all the heads in a soup pot to make broth while I chopped up some vegetables for this recipe. Peeling the tails was another story. It’s a lot of work with so little yield; I should have gotten more than two pounds. But in the end, my rice was delicious and it was even better with some barbequed pork.

Ingredients:
2 pounds crayfish, washed
bacon
4 ribs of celery, 2 finely chopped, 2 cut in smaller pieces
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
1 green bell pepper, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 red onions, 1 finely chopped, 1 halved
3 cups rice
salt, pepper, oil

1. Make crayfish broth. Separate the crayfish heads from the tails. Put the heads in a big soup pot with some water and let it boil. Add the halved onion and the big celery ribs with some salt. Simmer until ready to use. Peel tails and devein. Chop in smaller pieces.
2. In a skillet, render fat off bacon until crisp. Remove to a plate lined with paper towel. When cool enough to handle, finely chop bacon. Set aside.
3. Using some of the bacon fat, sautÃ© garlic and onions. Add crayfish, celery and pepper and sautÃ© until tender. Season with salt and pepper. Add rice and 3 cups of the crayfish broth. Cover and cook the rice in medium fire. Check often and add more broth to keep it from drying. When rice is almost done, fluff with a spatula and mix until combined well. Turn off the fire, cover the pot and let the remaining heat finish cooking the rice.

Related post/s:
Crayfish Creamed Corn Soup

Ushiwakamaru

136 West Houston Street off Sullivan
212/228.4181
$150 for three people with six drinks, without tip
â™¥ â™¥

I’m always walking on Houston Street, but I have to admit that I never pay attention to the restaurants on the street. There are a few off Sullivan Street, right before you turn towards Bleecker, but I’ve never been inclined to check them out. We wanted sushi one night after a few after-work drinks in SoHo but Blue Ribbon was, as usual, packed and there was quite a wait at Nagomi. Yama or Tomoe are not good options to me so I was delighted to eat good sushi at Ushi Wakamaru. The uni was fresh and the ankimo creamy. The otoro was still the most expensive on the menu but it was still less than what Gari would charge. They accommodated my requests for salmon skin and shiso leaf makimo before we closed our tab. They didn’t take unfamiliar requests like shiso with pickled carrots and daikon–something Sushiden wouldn’t refuse–but they pretty much met my expectations.

Cote-d’Ivoire: Tilapia with Alloco

This recipe was very close to my heart because Filipinos fry plantains and fry fish, too. It’s always cool to find out that a country so far from the Philippines have the same way of serving an ingredient. Esther told me that this recipe is a very famous goute, or a small meal eaten between 3 and 6pm, in the Ivory Coast. (That’s merienda to the Filipinos.) Her recipe included one Maggi chicken bouillon but I used homemade chicken stock instead. I grew up with Knorr bouillons in our cupboard and know that it has a lot of salt so I decided to skip it even though the African store in my neighborhood sells them. I wanted the dish to be flavorful without using artifical ingredients. The stock gave the sauce some flavor and at the same time kept it from drying up. In New York City, it’s impossible not to find plantains in any bodega. You can certainly substitute plain bananas but they’ll fall apart when frying, so if you do, try to use the firmer ones.

Ingredients:
1 tilapia, cleaned
3 yellow ripe plantains, halved and then sliced lengthwise
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 large tomato, roughly chopped
1 medium onion, roughly chopped
red pepper powder
salt, oil

1. Make the piment d’alloco, or thick, hot tomato sauce. In a saucepan over low fire, heat some oil and sautÃ© onions. Add tomato and simmer until thick, about 20 minutes. Slowly add chicken broth to keep it from drying. Season with salt and red pepper. Set aside.
2. Prepare the alloco. Using a skillet, heat some oil and fry plantains until both sides are lightly browned. Remove to a plate lined with paper towel.
3. Rub salt all over the tilapia. Using the same skillet, fry the fish in hot oil until both sides are golden brown. Serve with the plantains and pour over tomato sauce.

Tia Pol

205 Tenth Avenue between 22nd and 23rd Streets
212/675.8805
$84 for two people with three drinks, without tip
♥ ♥ ♥

If you’re looking for a good tapas place in New York City, Tia Pol is most likely recommended. I rarely make it around the Chelsea neighborhood, so I visited about two years after the entire city has already fawned over it. Ever since they opened in 2004, the wine hasn’t stopped flowing and the customers haven’t lost their patience waiting for a spot. We waited for about 45 minutes to be seated with our glasses of wine one warm winter night. When we finally made it, it was as if the bartender was waiting for us all along. She was very busy, yet attentive. She forgot to bring out the lamb but everything else we ordered lifted our spirits. The food brought us back to Catalunya. The owners of Tia Pol say they opened a tapas bar because of an on-going love affair with Spain. I give it three stars for the same reason.