Red Snapper Stew

From Sunset (Lane Publishing's) Cooking for Two or Just For You.

 This is one of the first recipes I ever cooked for myself that I would qualify as being a true gourmet dish. I have made this dish for over 45 years now. 

 

16 ozs red snapper, boned and skinned
1 bell pepper, green, seeded and cubed
1 whole onion, quartered and quartered
15 oz. can tomatoes, whole or diced
12 ozs. tomato juice
¼ cup wine, white, dry
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
½ tsp salt
½ tsp oregano leaves
3 tbs olive oil

Instructions
Batterie de Cuisine: 3-4 quart pot, knife, garlic grater, small bowls for holding ingredients.
Prepare the fish by drying it with paper towels. Cut into 3/4 inch cubes. Put in a bowl and reserve. Cut the bell pepper along the stem side, remove the top (lid) and pull out the seeds from inside the bell pepper. If desired, using a vegetable peeler, skin the pepper. Cut the stem away from the meat and cut the remaining into dice. Cut the pepper into sections, then into 3/4 inch cubes. Skin the onion and remove the stem and root end, slicing 1/8 inch from each end. Cut the onion in half, from top to bottom. Lay the sides flat, cut in half again, turn around and cut again, making the onion sliced into eights.
Reserved the pepper and onion in a bowl. Peel and grate the garlic and put in a condiment or small cup. Add the 3 tablespoons of olive oil over the garlic. It is important that the garlic go first, or it will flow out in the next step, which is not wanted.
 

Heat the pot over medium low heat. When hot, pour the olive oil from the condiment cup, leaving behind the garlic for the moment. Raise the heat to medium high, add the onion and pepper cubes (pieces). Stir to coat the cubes with the oil. When they are coated, using a spatula or your finger, add the garlic and any remaining oil. Stir to mix the garlic into the vegetables. Sauce the vegetables for up to 8 minutes over medium high heat. The onions are to soften. You can cover the pot for a minute at a time to get some stem to help with the softening.

Next add the tomatoes (if whole) and break them up with a spoon. If using diced tomatoes, add them. Next add all the remaining ingredients, except the snapper. Over medium-high heat, bring the pot to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and add the fish. Cover and simmer 8 minutes longer until the fish is flaky and can be prodded with a fork.
 

Serve with crusty French bread (a baguette) and a lettuce salad. 

While any leftover can be eaten the next day, it never tastes quite as good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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508. Court-bouillon.*

Take three carrots, four onions, six shallots, and two roots of parsley, which pick and wash. Mince them. Put a small lump of butter into a stewpan, with the above roots, and fry them till they begin to get brown. Moisten next with two bottles of red wine, a bottle of water, a handful of salt, some whole peppercorns, and a bunch of parsley and green onions, seasoned with thyme, bay leaves, sweet basil, cloves, &c.

Let the whole stew for an hour, and then strain it through a sieve, to use as occasion may require. If you should have no wine, put in some vinegar. The court-bouillon is better after having been served several times than on the first day. It is excellent for stewing crawfish. Any wine will do for
the court-bouillon, even if sour. It is a famous thing for stewing crawfish.

* This is a very proper dish for a Roman Catholic family during Lent. It is always good; only add a glass of wine to it every time you use it. Use it for marinade, &c. &c.

The above recipe is taken from

THE French Cook; or, The Art of Cookery Developed in All It's Various Branches. by Louis Eustache Ude. Formerly Cook to Louis XVI, King of France and at Present Cook to the Right Honorable Earl of Sefton.

LONDON : Printed for the AUTHOR, and sold by J. EBERS, 27, Old Bond Street; and may be had of all the Booksellers in the United Kingdom. 1813.

The above exists in several editions, the dates of those range from 1813 to 1841.

I reproduce the above as it reminds me of the famous Chinese lu shui sauce (Master sauce) which must be reboiled every few days to keep it from spoiling. And I'm certain that this stock would require that too, after it's first use with poaching or simmering fish. In the past, the court bouillons I have made have been frozen and that eliminates the need for reboiling every few days.

By "after a few times" is meant that the fish flavor becomes more pronounced on the tongue after being used a few times. That is certainly true for the lu shui as well. A necessary.

Parsley roots are a relatively modern addition to the foodstuffs I see at produce markets. I don't recall such as little as 25 years ago.

By way of comparison, here is a court bouillon recipe I found two decades ago.

Barataria Bay Terrebonne Estuary Fish Court bouillon

1 cup cooking oil
4 bay leaves
water (approx. 2 quarts)
flour
6 lbs redfish
2 large onions, chopped
1 can tomatoes
1 tbl Italian seasoning
1 can tomato sauce
1 small jar green olives, chopped
Salt and red pepper to taste
1 can mushrooms
2 large bell peppers, chopped fine
2 heads garlic, grated
1 cup green onion tops, chopped
1/2 stalk celery, chopped fine
2/3 cup parsley, chopped

Heat cooking oil in heavy pot; add flour and cook until dark golden brown. Add onions, bell pepper and celery; cook about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes, tomato sauce, olives, bay leaves, and water. Adjust amount of water according to desired thickness of gravy. Cook on medium heat about 1 1/2 hours.

Add fish (fried, precooked or raw), mushrooms and grated garlic. Cook about 1 hour. Add onion tops, parsley, Italian seasoning, salt and water. Simmer, on low heat, slightly covered, for 1/2 hour. Serve on hot rice or spaghetti.

The Barataria Bay recipe is reproduced here as the website that hosted it is no longer publishing it. 

Title: Baked Basa with Herbes de Provence and Capers

Baked Basa with Herbes de Provence

with Capers and Anchovy Butter

Basa is a recent food product. I believe it's a farmed fish.

Yield: 2 servings
Cooking Time: 10 minutes
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Category: Main Dish
Cuisine: French

Ingredients


12 ozs. basa fillet
1 tbs. capers
2 tsp. anchovy butter
1 tbs olive oil
1 tbs butter
1 tsp herbes de provence, heaping
2 tbs. lemon juice
1 clove of garlic, whole, peeled
1/4 tsp. salt
1 pinch black pepper



Instructions

Remove fish from 'frig 20 minutes before cooking time. Cut the lemon in half.  Rub both side of fish with a few drops of lemon juice. This will prevent the fish from easily breaking during serving. Sprinkle the fish with salt and pepper and the herbes de provence. Oil the cooking utensil with the olive oil. Bake the fish at 425 degrees for 10 minutes.

During the 10 minutes the fish is baking, heat a small utensil and melt the butter and anchovy butter  together. Add the capers and hear them sizzle. Add the garlic clove and cook until it colors a little.
Cover and reserve.

Place the fish and pour the sauce over the fish. Serve while hot. Serve on warmed plates.

Jalapeños Stuffed & My Twist of Malt Vinegar

Some years ago, while in Tijuana, I was shopping at the Plaza Rio Tijuana, B.C. While waltzing down the aisle, I spotted some canned tuna stuffed chile jalapeños. I bought a can and a can of the sardine stuffed jalapeños. I can recommend the tuna stuffing. The sardines are too dense and the chiles don't break up the sardines as well. The tuna is also a better flavor with the chiles. The Koreans also make tuna with crushed chiles in the can. Also good, but it's better to open a can of tuna in oil, drain the oil and sprinkle the chile caribe on it. I save the oil from the tuna fish cans and once I have enough, I like to use it to fry fish.


The recipe for making stuffed jalapeños isn't hard to make. The trick is in aging the chiles a day or two before eating them. Allowing the flavors to meld.


Title: Stuffed Jalapeños
Servings: 16
Cooking Time: 8 to 15 minutes
Preparation Time: 30 minutes
Category: Appetizers
Cuisine: Mexican


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Ingredients
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16 oz. Chiles jalapeños (green, big & firm)
10-12 fl. ozs. Vinegar -- I would use malt vinegar, it goes well with fish. I'm unsure whether Mexicans use malt vinegar in their culinary cannon.
1 tbs. each of Orégano, marjoram and bay leaf
1 tsp. black pepper, crushed
2 tsp. salt
1 whole onion, half-moon sliced, (i.e, sliced Mexican style, from top to bottom)
1 head garlic, peeled (a good 10 to 12 cloves)
1/2 tsp. cloves, ground


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Instructions
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You can stuff the chiles with tuna, cheese, sardines, shripm, salt cod, ham or what-have-you.




With the tines of a fork, prick the chiles and simmer them in a brine made of water, vinegar, oregano, marjoram, bay leaves, whole black peppercorns, cloves, and garlic, onion and salt to taste. Once the chiles are almost fully cooked, remove them, reserving
the liquor, cut a slice along the length and remove the seeds and veins carefully, so as to not break the chile open, a tomato shark would work well. Next add the stuffing. Return the stuffed chiles to the pot they were cooked in, add a little olive oil to cover and refirgerate until use. It is advisable to make the stuffed chiles one or two days in advance of use, to allow flavors to blend well. If you want to make the chiles a little less hot, once the chiles have slits in them simmer them a minute or two in sufficient water and baking soda. Rinse in several changes of water to remove all traces of the baking soda and stuff as directed above.