I’m always on the hunt for different things to eat.  I go through phases where I’ll eat vegetarian for days on end (unintentionally) and then stretches where I’m basically a carnivore (equally unintentionally).  I often find myself looking for balance and often turn to fish.  Usually my go-to fish is salmon, pretty much [...]]]>

I’m always on the hunt for different things to eat.  I go through phases where I’ll eat vegetarian for days on end (unintentionally) and then stretches where I’m basically a carnivore (equally unintentionally).  I often find myself looking for balance and often turn to fish.  Usually my go-to fish is salmon, pretty much for convenience but I’m trying to get better about buying other types of fish.  Oftentimes when I go to Asian restaurants (particularly Thai and Chinese restaurants) they do some really striking whole fish dishes that I always want to order but never do.  I decided to play around and try to recreate one of those dishes chez moi.

I started out with a visit to my usual fishmonger in Kensington Market where we’ve been buying fish for years.  I opted for Red Snapper because it’s one of my favourite types of whole fish.  I also find it to be pretty versatile and the flavour isn’t too obtrusive.  Price-wise it’s generally affordable and is usually in the $3-4/lb range.

I did some searching and liked the idea of flavours that I’m used to like ginger, sesame, garlic and soy.  I also wanted the preparation to be simple so I wanted to do some sort of steaming in a packet type deal.  After some research I decided to do a simple technique where I put the fish in a foil packet and top with a sauce, seal it and cook.  Easy to execute and and better yet, easy to clean. Everyone wins!

This fish turned out really well.  The sauce was just what I needed with the fragrance of the ginger and garlic, nuttiness from the sesame and a wee bit of heat from the pepper.  It also made for a striking presentation.  I have traditionally been freaked out by fish heads but I was able to overcome this and even deboned my fish myself.  Clearly I’m growing up.  For the record I did NOT put the fish head on my plate, that stayed in the kitchen. I could not have those eyes looking at me.  My only beef was that I wish the skin was crispy.  Obviously you don’t get crispy skin by steaming but I kind of wish you could.

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The other [...]]]> Shrimp and grits is likely in my top 20 favourite foods.  I make it fairly regularly and if I go out and see it on a menu I must order it.  Unfortunately shrimp and grits is a bit of an anomaly on Toronto menus so it makes the dish even more special.

The other day I was craving shrimp and grits but wanted to switch things up a bit.  I didn’t want to do a fancy shrimp and grits but I wanted something a bit above just making grits and sauteeing shrimp.  I ended up on one of my fave sites, the kitchn and came across this recipe.

First of all the photos on that post make the food look amazing.  I love the way the gravy clings to the shrimp!    What really sucked me in was the liberal use of bacon (I know, what a surprise). And. That. Gravy.  Heaven only knows how I’m not 500lbs!

If you don’t mind the looming threat of 3rd degree grit burns, this recipe is dead easy.  I can’t be the only one that has to duck from sputtering spattering grits as they cook? Am I?  The shrimp comes together while the grits cook and dinner ends up on the table in less than an hour.  Seriously, this dish is a party in my mouth each and every time.

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As I’ve mentioned before salmon is a staple in my kitchen. For better or worse. Truth be told I’m getting kind of tired of salmon. It’s not the most interesting fish. It’s ALWAYS around. And it’s an easy fish to make look good. Maybe I just need a challenge, but I’m [...]]]>

As I’ve mentioned before salmon is a staple in my kitchen. For better or worse. Truth be told I’m getting kind of tired of salmon. It’s not the most interesting fish. It’s ALWAYS around. And it’s an easy fish to make look good. Maybe I just need a challenge, but I’m kind of bored with salmon.

Despite being bored, I have a lot of salmon in my freezer to go through which means playing around with different flavours. I’ve been wanting to do a fish with Indian flavours and this recipe by Madhur Jaffrey sounded just about right.

One thing I love about my kitchen is just how stocked my spice cupboard is. I make food from a variety of different cultures so I’m constantly buying new spices. Even I was surprised to see that I had every single spice required for the recipe including brown mustard seeds and fennel seeds. Who knew?

This is one of those dishes that is quick and ridiculously easy. The salmon only has to marinate for 30 minutes and then the actual cooking time is pretty negligible. If you know how to stir and simmer you can make this.

The salmon turned out well, although I wish there was a bit more sauciness to it. There was a lot of flavour because of all the spices and a nice kick of heat from the chilies. I served this with rice and if I weren’t feeling lazy would’ve made a vegetable alongside, but that wasn’t in the cards.

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A few weeks (months? time flies) ago thanks to The Twitters I was connected with the folks at one of my fave tea shops, David’s Tea. They sent over 3 different teas for me to do some experimenting in the kitchen with: Exotica, The Glow and Honeybush Lemon Ginger.

The [...]]]>

A few weeks (months? time flies) ago thanks to The Twitters I was connected with the folks at one of my fave tea shops, David’s Tea. They sent over 3 different teas for me to do some experimenting in the kitchen with: Exotica, The Glow and Honeybush Lemon Ginger.

The obvious thing to make was some iced tea with some inclusions. Those will come, but with fall setting in I’m not really in the mood for iced tea. Then I remembered reading about a technique called tea-smoking. Tea-smoking is just what it sounds like – you smoke food using tea leaves. The tea leaves are combined with rice and usually sugar and you smoke away.

I’ve heard about this technique being used with fish and even chicken. Since I’m not much of a chicken fan I decided to smoke some salmon. I smoked salmon a few months ago using my wok with great results. I did a traditional smoke with wood chips. Knowing that my wood chip smoking worked I was totally pumped to try it with tea.

I wanted to do salmon with Asian flavours so I put together a simple marinade with a bit of soy sauce, ginger, garlic, honey and chili flakes and let it marinate for about an hour. My tea of choice in this case was the Honeybush Lemon Ginger because I thought that it mind lend a nice hint of citrus and ginger to the fish.

To smoke the fish I combined equal parts of the tea, brown rice and sugar. I lined my wok with aluminum foil and added my smoking mixture. Then I placed my bamboo steamer (loaded with the salmon) on top and started smoking. The mixture didn’t have any trouble smoking and burnt out quicker than expected. After about 10 minutes the salmon was cooked through.

For an extra blast of flavour I made a glaze of honey and ginger that I brushed on top of the finished dish.

Unlike wood-smoking, tea-smoking imparted a very subtle flavour to the fish. I definitely picked up on the grassiness of the tea leaves and also picked up a bit on the ginger (and not because it was in the glaze and the marinade). I think next time I’d play around with upping the amount of tea in the mixture to see how that works out.

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I first wrote about mussels a few months here and it was the first time I had ever made mussels. Since then I have made that recipe a few times and it continues to be delicious.

Mussels are something that I make when I have the apartment to myself.  My [...]]]>

I first wrote about mussels a few months here and it was the first time I had ever made mussels. Since then I have made that recipe a few times and it continues to be delicious.

Mussels are something that I make when I have the apartment to myself.  My “roommate” doesn’t do mussels and I generally cook for two so I forgo them.  Recently I was gifted with the place to myself for almost a week so mussels were definitely on that week’s menu plan.  While I love my usual recipe I wanted something different so I turned to Lidia Bastianich and she had a recipe for mussels in tomato sauce.

Because of the lack of chopping here this recipe is EVEN EASIER than my usual recipe.  How is that even possible?  Bastianich recommends soaking the mussels in water with cornmeal in it to clean them.  I decided to skip this step since a good scrub seems to do the trick. Once cleaning was done it was on to making the super simple sauce.  And by super simple I mean frying sliced garlic and then adding tomatoes, herbs.

This dish could be a great appetizer sans pasta but with a ton of crusty bread to mop up the saucy goodness.  I needed a meal so I served the mussels with pasta.  In the end I had a lot of sauce left on my plate, luckily I had a baguette on hand to mop up the goodness.

I’m always amazed by how much of an elegant and cheap meal mussels make.  This time around I paid $1.99/lb for the mussels.  I bought only a pound since I knew I was eating pasta as well and it was the perfect portion. I’m sure if I calculated the cost of this meal it would come in under $5.  This is definitely one of the greatest meals I’ve made in awhile.

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Going through recent posts it feels like I’ve barely posted any dinner ideas as of late.  Between traveling updates, my balcony garden and lots of desserts, it seems that dinner has fallen to the wayside.  Truth be told in the summer I get a bit lazy and will do a lot [...]]]>

Going through recent posts it feels like I’ve barely posted any dinner ideas as of late.  Between traveling updates, my balcony garden and lots of desserts, it seems that dinner has fallen to the wayside.  Truth be told in the summer I get a bit lazy and will do a lot of random market goodness meals, but I guess I’ve also been cooking a lot of old favourites vs. experimenting.  There’s just something about the pace of summer that switches things up.

I’m forever on the hunt for new ways to cook fish.  Fish fillets are one of my favourite things to have in the freezer because they don’t take long to defrost and I’m more likely to have a healthy meal if I’m doing it up with fish.

Usually when I’m looking for something new to try I’ll check a site like Epicurious for inspiration. On this particular day I knew that I wanted to make something with sole and was kind of leaning towards making the classic French dish, Sole Amandine.  While not really a classic I was intrigued by this recipe. I’m a sucker for Brussels sprouts, so this was totally up my alley.

This recipe is super simple and perfect for a light meal. This would have worked nicely with some boiled potatoes but I opted to just stick with fish and sprouts.  I’m excited to make this again when I can eat Brussels sprouts from my own garden… assuming they ever turn into Brussels sprouts!

Enjoy!

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Since I always keep a stash of fish fillets in my freezer, I’m always on the lookout for new ways to use them up. When it comes to whitefish I don’t have a go-to recipe since I usually make fish a different way each time. What can I say? I like [...]]]>

Since I always keep a stash of fish fillets in my freezer, I’m always on the lookout for new ways to use them up. When it comes to whitefish I don’t have a go-to recipe since I usually make fish a different way each time. What can I say? I like to keep things moving.

I came across this recipe in Ina Garten’s (aka Barefoot Contessa) book Back to Basics but never got around to making it since Prosciutto requires a special supermarket trip (I refuse to buy the prepackaged prosciutto and instead like to have the deli slice the amount that I need). I recently discovered that the Sobey’s around the corner from me has prosciutto in their deli case so I was in business.

This dish is equally suited for a weekend or a weeknight.  I made this during the week and it made things a bit easier since I cut up the potatoes, parsnips and carrots the night before to save on prep time.  The actually cooking of things is pretty easy.  The vegetables are pretty much “set it and forget it” and you can even throw in the fish while the vegetables cook leaving you time to have second glass of wine clean the kitchen counter.

This meal totally worked out.  I love when a recipe gives me my main and my side all in one!  I managed to overcook the vegetables a but but they were still great.  Honestly, I need to do more vegetable roasting.  The fish/prosciutto combination was pretty darned good. It’s in your best interest to use the best prosciutto that you can get your hands on here.  I used cod as my fish and a decent prosciutto and was really happy with the results.  This recipe is definitely a different one for my regular cooking AND is good enough to make for a company.  A definite keeper.

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One of the cookbooks in my collection that continues to delight me is Marcella Says…” by Marcella Hazan. Sure, the recipes tend to be kind of labour intensive (do I REALLY need to peel my bell peppers?) but they really work. I really need to invest in Hazan’s classic cookbook, [...]]]>

One of the cookbooks in my collection that continues to delight me is Marcella Says…” by Marcella Hazan. Sure, the recipes tend to be kind of labour intensive (do I REALLY need to peel my bell peppers?) but they really work. I really need to invest in Hazan’s classic cookbook, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.

As the weather starts to (slowly) warm up and acknowledge that we’ve technically moved on from winter and onto spring, I find myself wanting lighter, brighter foods. What could be lighter and brighter than a risotto featuring asparagus and shrimp?

I made this recipe on a weeknight and because of that I opted out of peeling my asparagus. Yes, Hazan insists on peeling the asparagus but that just felt a wee bit crazy to me. Plus, my asparagus were on the thin side and I just knew that peeling them would be a pain in my butt. Another interesting bit in the recipe is the use of beef bouillon. I’m used to seeing risotto recipes using chicken broth/stock but never a bouillon cube and water. I was skeptical but I did have beef bouillon cubes in the pantry so I decided to give it a shot.

This was definitely one of my favourite risotto recipes.  The asparagus make it feel like spring, the shrimp make things lighter but the slight beefiness makes it a tiny bit heavier and more substantial feeling.  My only issue is that it’s hard not to overcook the asparagus (and to a degree the shrimp as well) in this dish but the flavours don’t really suffer, it’s more of a texture thing.

For a partial view of the recipe click here. See Marcella Says…” by Marcella Hazan for the full recipe.

I’m always looking for [...]]]> Every once in awhile I buy a new cookbook and I get my money’s worth very quickly. Recently I’ve been loving Ina Garten aka Barefoot Contessa’s How Easy Is That?. The recipes are delicious and really easy to make. A lot of great dinner party recipes too.

I’m always looking for new fish recipes switch up my proteins.  We generally keep a ton of salmon in the freezer to make it easier but recently we’ve had cod and tilapia on hand as well to switch things up.  When I saw the recipe for Caesar Roasted Fish I was pretty intrigued.  I love Caesar salad and was curious how that would translate to fish.

The sauce has the traditional flavours that you would expect in Caesar dressing including garlic, anchovies and creamy goodness.  The sauce on its own was pretty great and would work really well with chicken.

The finished dish was great!  I liked that it was a tad indulgent with the creamy sauce but still light enough to not feel too indulgent.

I served the fish with some roasted potatoes (using my new trick where I parboil the potatoes before roasting) and some sauteed broccoli rabe and it was a great meal.

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