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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Harissa #2

 

My friend Jack, brought me 2 pounds of Super Cayenne chiles. They were kept overnight in the 'frig and the next morning, in my propane bbq, fire roasted, most for 10-12 minutes, a few that didn't get the flame first for another 4-5 minutes.

In total that was 

964 grams of Super Cayenne (raw weight before roasting)
950 grams -- after roasting

After removing the burnt skins, removing the stem they weighed: 476 grams.

That's quite a loss of product, but I'm not unhappy. The 2 pounds was but $10.00 (US dollars in September 2018).

Here are the remaining quantities of ingredients.

Salt 8 grams
Brown Mustard seeds 20 grams
Caraway seeds 25 grams
Cumin (powder) 15 grams
Garlic, fresh 8 grams (paper husk removed)
Garlic, granulated, 5 grams
Pickled Lemon 25 grams
Mint, leaves, fresh 10 grams
Rosewater 4 grams
Lemon juice with it's zest, 43 grams
Olive oil, as needed to make a paste.
Sodium Benzoate .7 grams (700 milligrams)

Sorry, I don't have these in ounces and 1/10 of ounces.

Wearing gloves, I peeled the skins and de-stemmed the chiles. Into the food processor bowl with metal blade went the chiles. Over that the mint leaves and fresh garlic, left whole.

In a spice grinder went the salt, caraway, mustard, and cumin. That was reduced to a fine powder and poured over the mint and garlic. Next the juice and zest of the lemon were tipped in.

About 30 pulses got the mass to a fine enough puree to allow the processor to run continuously until the ingredients blended and pulled into a mass. While the machine ran, extra virgin olive oil was added. I eyeball this. It's not hard to see how much olive oil is needed.

Next, the bowl with it's ingredients not fully blended was weighed and the sodium benzoate weighed on a scale that can resolve (weigh accurately) tenths of a gram. As only seven/tenths of a gram of benzoate salt is needed, it must be an accurate weight. After it was added, the processor bowl was replaced and the mass mixed a few more times.

Refrigerate after standing on the countertop a few hours to allow the flavors to meld.

Sweet Lime Chutney

Around 1995 I found a small cookbook titled: Curries of India by Harvey Day. Long out of print, this small book is a priceless collection of authentic Indian and Asia Minor recipes. I present just one here. The booklets were originally published separately but were combined into one binding. Each book kept it's original pagination.

CAVEAT: Dates burn easily. Do not leave the pot unattended. Stir like crazy. You are warned.

Curries of India
The Second Book of Curries (Book 2) by Harvey Day
Jaico Publishing House 125 Mahatma Gandhi Road
Bombay, 1
©1963
Fifth Impression 1978
India's Own Pocket Editions

Page 57

Sweet Lime Chutney

25 limes or lemons
2 oz salt
½ pint vinegar
¼ lb raisins
¼ lb dates
1 oz ginger, fresh
1 oz garlic - finely chopped
½ oz red chiles, dried
½ oz mustard seed
4 oz brown sugar

Divide the limes (or lemons) into quarters but do not separate the pieces. Rub the flesh with salt and expose the fruit to the sun for three days, turning daily, or put in a warm oven until dried off. Remove the seeds, grind the fruit in the vinegar and other ingredients, bring to a boil and simmer for half an hour. Allow to cool and bottle. Can be used at any time.

My notes: Key Limes if available. I believe that the pint refers to the British Pint, hence that is 18 fluid ounces, not the U.S. 16 of white vinegar. The limes called for would be an Indian variety which in the West we call a Key or Mexican lime. These are much smaller than the typical supermarket lime, known in the trade as a Bearss Lime. They should be had as yellow as possible. Key limes will ripen if kept in vegetable compartment of the refrigerator. They ripen quite slowly. The dates are pitted. I would use a moist date for this recipe, ex. Medjool. If you cannot find moist ones, use dry dates, but soak them in water, overnight.

Mr. Day's use of "finely chopped" may be confusing to some. Does he mean a large dice, etc.? I would aim for pieces about 2mm on a side or 1/16". Red chiles. Ahem. Mr. Day uses the Indian-English spelling of Chilli. I would suggest jaggery as it's now an available ingredient. In Harvey Day's day, they equipment used would be a vegetable chopper, pictured below. You should use your food processor.

Helpful Hints: Put the salted limes in a glass casserole and place in the sun in mid-July. (Northern Hemisphere, January in the Southern Hemisphere) Bring the casserole in the house overnight and set on a dry countertop, un-covered. During the day, rotate the fruits once in the morning and a second time in the early afternoon. But in any event, twice a day. The fruits' skin must reach dryness to prevent spoilage. I am going to use .1% of sodium benzoate in mine. I will put the sodium benzoate in the vinegar and allow it to dissolve before proceeding with the making.

Cedar Planked Swordfish - also know as Swordfish Oscar

Everyone who has eaten this says it's a first rate fish dish. And I say that too. 

Smoldering Cedar Plank

4 swordfish steaks (6 to 8 oz.)
2/3 cup of mayonnaise
1/3 cup of Dijon mustard
1 clove of garlic, mashed
1/2 tsp. of salt
1/4 tsp. of white pepper
1 tbs. of caper jar liquid OR
1 tbs. of lemon juice
6 oz. can of crab meat - well drained of all liquid

16 ozs. asparagus - peeled if thick

Use caper juice or lemon juice, not both.

High Heat Inferno

Mix the ingredients well, except the asparagus. Add the swordfish steaks and allow to marinate for 30 minutes minimum.

Do not soak the cedar plank. It is deliberately destroyed in this recipe to create the smokey flavor.

Using a portion of the sauce, spread a thin layer on cedar where you will put the steaks. Next, add the steaks and then cover the steaks on all exposed sides with the sauce.

Put the asparagus in a bowl or casserole and drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Use tongs and mix the oil over the spears.

Preheat the grill 5 minutes, slide the cedar plank onto the grill, close the lid and cook 12 minutes. Add the asparagus and cook it for 3 minutes. So start the 'gus when the countdown timer reads 9 minutes to go.

Use a metal spatula to take the steaks off the plank.

COOK'S NOTE
The quality of the canned crab meat is part of the "making" of this dish. Drain all the liquid. The can of crab I bought was, in June 2014, about $4.00 at an upscale market. The next time I made this dish, I found a can of crabmeat for $2.00. I wish I had spent the extra $2 - this recipe deserves the best quality ingredients.

Côtes de Porc Sauce Moutarde et Herbes de Provence

So the market had pork chops on sale. Center cut and about 5 to 6 ozs. each and I haven't had a pork chop in a while, so I bought the "family pack" of 10 chops.

I remembered that I had some Herbes de Provence in the spice cupboard and wanted to use that up, too.

Netsearching for pork chops and herbes de provence (in the French language) came up with:

Côtes de porc sauce moutarde et herbes de provence

So I do owe whoever dreamed this recipe up gratitude. I will add this to my permanent repetitive book of things I like to cook.

For those of you who don't speak French, I will give the recipe in English.

For two chops or two for dinner. You can easily make this for 4 to 6 by increasing the ingredients proportionally.

Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 15 minutes

1 cup of rice (per 2 people)
2 pork chops, about 5 ounces each. They can be larger, but not much smaller.

crème liquide allégée - no quantity is specified and the instructions call for reducing it. To my best understanding, this is like American "Half and Half". Our Half and Half is about 10% cream, 90% milk. The French have theirs at 15% and I used heavy cream and am happy I did. You can make this with heavy cream and milk.

2 tsp. Dijon Mustard (not Yellow Mustard here, please)
3 cloves of garlic
1/2 onion, diced, per 2 people
sage leaves, fresh
Herbes de Provence (I have Penzey's in the cupboard, but any will work)
salt
pepper

First, using a paper towel dry the chops. Put them on a plate or pan and sprinkle each chop with salt and pepper and then cover them with the herbes de provence. Reserve.

Start making the rice. The chops take 15 minutes in a skillet or frying pan and the skillet will need 10 minutes to preheat. Time your rice accordingly. Mine takes 4 minutes to reach a boil, 25 minutes of simmering and will then stay quite hot for 30 minutes thereafter, if I don't uncover it.

I use my small toaster oven for heating plates and keeping food warm. It will be used for keeping the fried chops warm while making the sauce.

The French recipe calls for putting the chops into a non-stick skillet and starting the cooking from a cold pan. I didn't do that. The purpose of the cold pan is to prevent the chops from cupping or curling. This can be achieved by making 3/16 inch deep slits around the perimeter of the chop, every two to three inches. 

Add a light film of olive oil to the heated pan. Cook the chops on each side for 7 1/2 minutes. Meanwhile chop the onion and mush the garlic. Have ready the sage leaves and cream or half-and-half and the mustard. If you don't mind the cream and mustard should be standing on the counter at the start of the chops cooking to lose their 'frig-chill. After the chops are done, remove them to a warm oven.

Add the onion and fry 5 minutes until they are translucent. Add the garlic at the 3 minute mark. Add the cream. You will have to eye-ball that based on how much you like sauce with rice. Raise the heat, add the mustard stir to incorporate.

Now for the hard part.

Remove some of the sauce and onions to cover the chops. Add the sage leaves to the skillet and allow to cook 5 minutes longer. Serve the rice, pan sauce and the chops and onion sauce on top.

I had no fresh sage leaves. I used powdered sage. I cannot complain.

Mustard Recipes English & French - Cooley's Cyclopedia

Cooley's cyclopaedia of practical receipts and collateral information in the arts / Arnold J Cooley.

London : J. & A. Churchill, 1872.

q.s. means: quantum sufficiat or satis, as much as suffices.

Mustard for the Table

The common practice of preparing mustard for the table with vinegar or still more with boiling water materially checks the development of those peculiar principles on which its pungency or strength almost entirely depends To economise this substance we should use lukewarm water only and when flavouring matter is to be added to it this is better deferred until after the paste is made The following forms for made mustard are much esteemed for their flavour.

Preparations:

1 Mustard (ground) 3 1/2 lbs; water, q.s. to form a stiff paste; in half an hour add of common salt rubbed very fine 1 lb; with vinegar, grape juice (verjuice), lemon juice or white wine q.s. to reduce it to a proper consistence.

2 To the last add a little soluble cayenne popper or essence of cayenne

3 Lenormand. Best flour of mustard, 2 lbs.; fresh parsley, chevril, celery, and tarragon of each 1/2 oz; garlic, 1 clove; 12 salt anchovies; (all well chopped); grind well together, add of salt 1 oz.; grape juice or sugar q.s. to sweeten; with sufficient water to form the mass into a thinnish paste by trituration in a mortar. When put into pots a red hot poker is to be thrust into each and a little vinegar afterwards poured upon the surface.

4 (Moutarde A L'Estragon.) From black mustard seed (gently dried until friable) and then finely powdered 1 lb.; salt 2 oz; tarragon vinegar q.s. to mix. In a similar way the French prepare several other mustards bу employing vinegars flavoured with the respective substances or walnut or mushroom ketchup or the liquors of the richer pickles.

5 (Moutarde Superbe) Salt 1 1/2 lb.; scraped horseradish, 1 lb.; garlic 2 cloves; boiling vinegar 2 galls; macerate in a covered vessel for 24 hours strain and add of flour mustard q.s. (galls are gallons)

6 (Patent) Black ginger (bruised), 12 lbs.; common salt, 18 lbs.; water, 15 galls.; boil strain and add to each gallon, flour of mustard 5 lbs.

Mustard Leaves (Rigollot's) are made by spreading moistened mustard on paper and drying.

My First Post: Feta & Fetish, a Taco Treatise, Root Beer and More

FETA & FETISH
2003

I had my first true Greek Salad with a Persian friend. He had an odd name, maybe even by Persian standards. Kamran Manoocherie. I think his first name is the origin of our English name Cameron. I was living in Albuquerque New Mexico at the time and the only Greek restaurant in town made a Greek salad with briny black olives and Feta cheese. It was delicious. Surprisingly, it was at Costco that I found black olives for sale in New Mexico, a place not known for it gourmandaise. So it made all the more sense that Costco would have briny olives. Costco sold them in one-kilogram tubs. So I now had one of the two most important ingredients in a Greek Salad. OK, OK, I hear you . . . a man’s cooking column with a salad recipe? “Come on?” I hear you guys saying . . . but I gotta tell you . . . A Greek Salad is a satisfying meal in the summer. Some pita bread, a beer or glass of wine and you can still move around out in the heat.

Move forward a few years, I still make Greek Salad, even though I now live in Los Angeles. But, I have made one improvement. Rather than break up the Feta Cheese with the tines of a fork and eat the cheese mixed whole into the salad; I mix the Feta with the salad dressing and some hummus. The cheese and hummus cause the dressing to thicken and caress the greens and veggies like Dennis Rodman to Carmen Electra. Ooopppsss! Sorry for that allusion.

It would be a good idea to purchase your black olives and Feta from the same place if that is at all possible. There are some ideas for the types of cheese and olives at the end of this column.

Here is the list of ingredients, including the dressing, which starts out as a common vinaigrette recipe.

Casa del Marco Dressing

½ to ¾ cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1-2 Teaspoons of Dijon Mustard
1-2 Tablespoons of Wine Vinegar (red, white, sherry, champagne . . . it doesn’t matter which, it should be sharp and tangy)
½ Teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper
¼ Teaspoon of Salt
1 clove garlic, peeled and pounded into a pulp with the salt
½ Teaspoon of Oregano, Greek Oregano if you can find it. It is milder than the Mexican variety, which at least, in the Western part of the US is much easier to find
1-2 ounces of Feta Cheese, broken up with a fork, for easy mixing -- If you are friends with a cheese monger, ask him to get some Dodoni Feta. It is the least salty tasting of all the Greek Feta Cheeses, and comes from the largest dairy cooperative in Greece. Fantis is the importer into the US. Or ask them to find it for you on the net at: http://aridjis.com/dodoni
1-2 Tablespoons of Hummus, or more to taste (Freshly made at a Middle Eastern grocer, if possible)

Into a clean, empty, glass jar with a tight fitting lid, mix the mustard and the vinegar. Peel the garlic and chop it with the salt, to help extract all the garlic goodness. Add the garlic-salt to the vinegar. Add ½ a tablespoon of olive oil. Fix the lid and shake like crazy for 60 seconds. Repeat the oil and shake for a similar length of time. Repeat until the oil is emulsified. Which means well mixed. But, if you have a stick blender, just throw all the ingredients in a jar, bring on the stick blender and 30 seconds later, it’s done. I swear by these tools. Cuisinart makes one for about $100, but I’ve seen them at the supermarket for $10 to $20. If you don’t have the stick, once the olive oil is well blended, add the remaining ingredients. Put a cover over the dressing and let it rest on the counter or table for at least 30 minutes before using.

There is no salt in the above, because the Feta has plenty and the garlic got run over with salt, too. If, after the dressing is made, it is not salty enough, add some more of something salty, even salt, if you have eaten all the Feta cheese.

Why do I have you make the dressing first? So that the flavors have time to meld. Are you actually going to measure out the Feta by the ounce? Not likely, dude. Break up a 1” cube. If more crumbles off the block, pop it into your mouth and say: “yummmm”. It would be a good idea to make the dressing in the morning, or the night before you are going to use it.

There is also some prep work for the salad makings as well. I wash my lettuce and then dry it in a salad spinner (see below). Once spun “dry” I put it in an open bag in the ‘fridge, overnight. The cold helps completely dry the lettuce, which if damp, when dressed, doesn’t taste right.

While you are at the store, with your shopping list in hand to buy the ingredients for the dressing, also remember to purchase:

End of Part 1.

Greek Salad with Hummus Vinaigrette

1 head of Iceberg lettuce
1 head of another lettuce – such as red leaf, Romaine, just not another Iceberg
1 cucumber – ask your produce man if they get Persian cucumbers – if they do, buy 4 of them
1 green bell pepper
1 red bell pepper
1 Cup of Kalamata Olives – Taste them, if they are too salty, soak them in water for 20 to 30 minutes before adding to the salad. Fotis and Sons, Importers has the extraordinary Mani Province Kalamata Olive, which has more flavor than any other olive I’ve ever tasted, including the olives of Nice, France.

Tomatoes – here you must buy the most expensive tomatoes you can afford. As they are not cooked and/or have extra ingredients added, they must have as much flavor as possible. They also must point out, by their acidity the flavors of the other ingredients in the salad, and the redder they are, the better they look in the Greek Salad.


1 Red Onion
1 Lemon
Other ingredients
a package of pita bread, 14 jack if you can find it
do you have some salt? A pound of salt has to be on hand . . . no you won’t use it all for this recipe beer or wine – by wine is meant a rosé

AS A REMINDER TO THE FORGETFUL, OR FOR THOSE COMPLETELY INEXPERIENCED IN MAKING SALADS

You won’t be using all the lettuces, or the onion, so if you need plastic wrap or zip-lock bags don’t forget to buy those as well.

Here’s the tricky part of giving this recipe, some markets wash their lettuces and some don’t. If you are the paranoid type, when you get home, wash the lettuce in a colander in the sink. Allow the lettuce to drain the water away thoroughly before putting it in the ‘fridge, at least 30 minutes. If you are serving the salad to your food loving friends, you can probably forgo the washing, after you tear off the outer leaves.

At last, it’s time to put the salad together, this will require about 45 minutes. Don’t get fidgety. Begin by finding a bowl large enough for the amount of people who will be blessed by your service of Greek Salad. Four is a good size for a sporting event. Peel the cucumber, seed it, (say, you did make the dressing already, right? If you forgot, make the dressing before starting on the cucumber). I pray you have a vegetable peeler, but if you don’t try your teeth, or a sharp paring knife. Peel the cuke. Using a spoon, carve out the seeds and discard them. Cut the remaining cuke into ½” cubes. Put the cubes in a colander and sprinkle them with salt. (about 1 tablespoon will do, this is why I reminded you to buy salt) Put the colander in the sink or on plate to drain. They need 30 minutes. Meanwhile, if the lettuces are wet, dry them with paper towels, or in a salad spinner . . . yea, I know, it’s probably not cool for a guy to own a salad spinner, but I own one. Maybe I should do a column on cooking cool versus jerk cool . . .

Returning to the instructions:

Once the lettuce is dry or dry-ish. Tear it by hand into bite size pieces, over the salad bowl. If you make enough salads, eventually you may come to the same conclusion that I have that hand-torn is better then chopped up. At least for “house” and other such salads.

Next, using your vegetable peeler, skin the bell peppers. The skin of these things is hard to digest, when uncooked. They won’t skin perfectly, but a little skin won’t matter, I hope. Cut the peppers into bite size squares, or rectangles or triangles. Whatever shapes you fancy. Toss them into the bowl. Cut the onion in half. Peel off the outer first or second layer of onionskin. Chop the onion into bite size pieces. I would cut them from stem to stem, and then into bite size pieces. Toss into the salad. Core the tomatoes, if you want to be really fancy, peel them as well. Cut them in quarters, over a sieve. Using your tomato shark, or the tip of a paring knife, remove the seeds and the yellowish-green goo into the sieve. Toss the tomato pieces into the bowl. Using a spoon, a wooden spoon would be best, lightly rub the goo, over the salad bowl. Why? Because the goo has some of the best of the tomato flavor. You will only get ½ a Teaspoon or so of this liquid. Discard the seeds. Taste one piece of cucumber. If it is too salty, rinse the remaining cubes, lightly. Shake the colander and add the cukes to the bowl. Toss the salad. Open the tub of olives, and toss a cup of the olives into the bowl. Grab the dressing, and dress the salad. (if the salad wasn’t dressed, why are you looking at it? Are you a pre-vert?) Heat a nonstick pan over medium high heat, for 2 to 3 minutes. Meanwhile, using tongs, dish the salad onto salad plates or into salad bowls. Cut the lemon into wedges and serve each guest one wedge in their salad bowl. Once the pan is hot, cut the pita bread in half-moons, heat the pieces, two at a time, and when you have a few heated through, serve them, alongside the Greek salad, with the beer or wine. Tell your guests that the olives have pits, and serve them a napkin to put the pits on. I guess you could pit the olives, but that makes them look bad.

Ahh! Summer! The flavors meld incomparably on the palate.

Oh – don’t forget to wrap up the lettuce and onion. If the weather stays warm, you’ll want to make another Greek Salad before the week is out. Note to self: you’ll probably need to buy more beer or wine and some more of that pita bread, a little more Feta.

End of Part 2.