Fish, Veg, Veg, Veg

Menu: baked wrapped tilapia again * eggplant relish again * three-tomato salad * tilapia-influenced coleslaw

I don’t usually re-run recipes quite so quickly, but we enjoyed the baked wrapped tilapia from my first post so much that I went ahead and did it again. This time instead of the chile garlic sauce, I used fresh hot peppers from this morning’s farmers market run, but otherwise it was unchanged.

I used a few of the ingredients … the wasabi oil and chopped garlic … to make a dressing for shredded cabbage for slaw… I added some chile garlic sauce, a little bit of Steen’s cane syrup for sweetness, Steen’s cane vinegar, a splash of mirin, and finally a spoonful of Miracle Whip light to finesse the line between creamy slaw and vinegary slaw.

For the eggplant relish, again, I roasted two small heirloom ivory eggplants from the farmers market in the same 400-degree oven with the fish packets and a red bell pepper. I chopped the peeled pepper and eggplant together and stirred in a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. That was it.

Finally, I sliced three kinds of heirloom tomatoes purchased at the market this morning, ground fresh sea salt over, and sprinkled a chiffonade of basil over.

I would definitely do it again.

Fish, Noodles, Salad

Menu: salmon with hoisin-chili sauce * soba noodles with mushrooms and spinach * cucumber salad

Last night, I was really looking forward to the leftover Accidentally Amazing Black Beans. This afternoon, swamped by work, I forgot about that, and compiled a grocery list. On the way home, I stopped at our new H-E-B and picked up two nice little salmon filets. I knew I had the rest of a large tub of fresh spinach leaves, and while I was wandering around H-E-B thinking about what to have with salmon and spinach, I came across an end-cap freezer display of Central Market “Exotic Mushrooms in Cream Sauce” and remembered that there was a packet of soba noodles in the pantry.

(Central Market is the Whole Foods concept of H-E-B, our terrific Texas grocery chain. Central Market has specialty and organic groceries, but you can also buy Splenda and Coke. Central Market just absolutely rocks, as does H-E-B, whose community involvement should serve as a role model for businesses everywhere. Meanwhile, H-E-B has started marketing Central Market-brand products in its regular stores. Perfect cycle.)

Hoisin Salmon
2 salmon filets * 2 T hoisin sauce * 1 tsp chili garlic sauce * 1 tsp soy sauce
Preheat oven to 450. Put filets in oven-safe pan, skin-side down. Mix remaining ingredients; spoon over, and spread across surface of fish. Bake 10 minutes per 1-inch-thickness of fish (tonight I did it for about 7 minutes).

Soba Noodles with Mushrooms and Spinach
Exotic Mushrooms in Cream Sauce mix (includes Nameko mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, and oyster mushrooms; heavy cream, parsley, garlic, salt, pepper)
Fresh baby spinach leaves
1 bundle soba noodles

Cook mushrooms according to package. Boil noodles according to package directions. Drain noodles; add to mushrooms in large saute pan. Add spinach; cook and mix. Splash in a few shakes each of soy sauce and sesame oil, and a drib of juice from a jar of pickled ginger. Stir; let simmer or stay warm on low.

Cucumber salad
1 pickling cucumber, sliced thin * Drew’s Thai lime salad dressing

Cook’s sustenance
Vodka-tonic (really really must pick up that Plymouth)
wasabi rice crackers

Cook’s soundtrack
Coldplay, “Clocks”
Jack Constanzo, “I Love Paris”
Bill Lloyd, “All at Once You Unzipped”
Fountains of Wayne, “It Must Be Summer”
XTC, “Happy Families”
Shuggie Otis, “Island Letter”
Journey, “Separate Ways”
Patsy Cline & The Jordanaires, “Always”
Alejandro Escovedo, “Velvet Guitar”
Bananarama, “Robert DeNiro’s Waiting”
Coldplay, “Proof”
Caetano Veloso, “The Man I Love”
Derek & The Dominoes, “Bell Bottom Blues”
Zero 7, “Distractions”

How did it turn out?
Delish. The salmon done at the higher temperature was moist and tender (until now, I had been cooking it longer at a lower temp). The soba noodles were terrific, and I could imagine that they would also be good cold.

Would I make it again?
Yes. I make salmon frequently and will do it at the higher temperature for the shorter time from now on. And the soba noodles were tasty and should be good left over. I’ll be tussling with M to see who gets the last leftover Accidentally Amazing Black Beans and who gets the soba.

Fish, Grain, Salad

 

Menu (Serves 2):

Baked wrapped tilapia filets . red quinoa with sun-dried tomatoes and roasted yellow peppers . cucumber/cherry tomato salad . banana cake with chocolate-chip/pecan streusel & coffee ice cream

 

I have no real excuse for not cooking on Saturdays. M and I like to take our yellow dog, Bailey, to the farmers market, and see what demands to be taken home. This week we picked up pickling cucumbers for salads, cherry tomatoes, and little peaches. Then on our grocery store run, we bought tilapia.

I’ve got a good cookbook collection, but I tend to check online first. Epicurious yielded a baked wrapped tilapia recipe from Chef Duncan Pickford in the June 2003 issue of Self billed as “Tori Amos’ favorite recipe” (this had nothing to do with my picking it), and since it suggested a substitution of parchment paper (which I have) for banana leaves (which I don’t), it seemed worth a try.

As usual, the recipe was a starting point:

Ingredients:

Topping:

• 1-inch cube fresh gingerroot, finely chopped or grated
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped or grated
• 2 green onions (green part only), finely chopped
• Fresh chile to taste
• 1 cup finely chopped cilantro
• 2 tbsp grapeseed (or safflower) oil
• Dash of toasted sesame oil
• Dash of soy sauce
• Dash of fish sauce
• 4 tsp dark maple syrup
• 4 fillets (4 oz each) fresh tilapia (or other firm-fleshed whitefish) 

I planted cilantro earlier this season, but our deer munched quite a bit of it. They did not, however, bother with any of my basil, so I had lemon basil, and the Mexican marigold that had been pruned out in an earlier munch had grown back. I gathered about a cup’s worth of a combination of those herbs and chopped them finely. I added them to the ginger, diced finely because I can’t find my ginger grater. M doesn’t like onions, so I didn’t bother with those. I have eleventy-umpteen condiments of all cuisines in my refrigerator and pantry, but no fish sauce or fresh chilis (or chiles), so I got out the Huy Fong Vietnamese chili garlic sauce. Sesame oil, check; soy sauce, check (wheat-free tamari); wasabi oil substituted for grapeseed oil; Steen’s cane syrup; substituted for maple syrup.

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 400°F. Combine all topping ingredients in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Place a fillet on each banana leaf and divide topping evenly among them, spreading it over the top. Fold each banana leaf over to form a packet around each fillet and seal the edge of each packet with a small piece of aluminum foil, crimping it tightly. Place on a baking sheet and bake 25 to 30 minutes.

(Parchment paper substituted for banana leaf.)

Quinoa

1 c red quinoa (I used Ancient Harvest Inca Red)

2 c water

6 dried sun-dried tomatoes, cut into slivers

1 yellow bell pepper, roasted, skinned, and chopped

1 T olive oil or butter

Put quinoa, water, and sun-dried tomatoes together in saucepan; cover, bring to boil, let boil 5 min. Leaving cover in place, let sit 15 minutes or until fish is done. Toss with olive oil/butter and chopped pepper; salt to taste.

Cucumber-cherry tomato salad

2 pickling cucumbers; ends trimmed, sliced lengthwise into quarters, cut into quarter-moons

8 cherry tomatoes, quartered

Divide between two plates; grind fresh salt over, dress with salad dressing of choice if desired.

We don’t have dessert every night, but this morning I had to do something with several too-ripe bananas and turned to Epicurious for help. The leftovers of our banana coffee cake were excellent rewarmed and accompanied by a little scoop of Blue Bell coffee ice cream. recipe here, not much modified except to cook in a 9″ round pan because thanks to a childhood with the occasional Sara Lee, I think of coffee cakes as round)

Chef’s sustenance:

1 vodka-tonic with fresh mint and cucumber

rice crackers

Chef’s soundtrack:

Bill Withers, “Lovely Day”

Love Tractor, “We All Love Each Other”

The Notting Hillbillies, “Your Own Sweet Way”

Shuggie Otis, “Cold Shot”

Journey, “Any Way You Want It”

The Dukes of Dixieland, “Original Dixieland One Step”

Randy Newman, “Last Night I Had a Dream”

Alejandro Escovedo, “Wedding Day”

Violent Femmes, “Blister in the Sun”

PJ Harvey, “We Float”

How did it turn out?

Surprisingly wonderful. I was, frankly, cranky about having to cook the tilapia. A wonderful balance of heat and sweet. I had the leftovers for lunch and it held up. I don’t know that the sun-dried tomatoes added anything to the quinoa, but the peppers certainly did.

Would I make it again?
Yes. Soon, probably.