redacted recipes

Bacon-Wrapped Scallops

Seriously, is there anything better than bacon-wrapped scallops? I mean what's not to like?

 

The combination of thick, juicy bacon and succulent sea scallops topped with a little smoked salt is pure perfection.

Make a salad with some roasted beets and goat cheese and open a bottle of crisp white wine. Just do it. You'll thank me.

Bacon-Wrapped Scallops

Buy some sea scallops. If your scallops are large, as ours were, you will need one strip of bacon per scallop. If they are smaller, you can probably use half a strip of bacon per scallop.

Partially cook the slices of bacon (you want the bacon to be flexible and nowhere near crispy) and then wrap each scallop secure with a toothpick or on skewers. The bacon should overlap a little.

Broil the bacon-wrapped scallops, turning once, until the bacon is crispy and the scallops are opaque. Sprinkle with just a little sea salt. We like smoked salt on ours.

Oh, Where Have You Been, Billy Bi, Billy Bi?

Welcome to Whisk Wednesdays! I've joined Shari of Whisk: a food blog   and a bunch of other intrepid bloggers in the weekly adventure of working our way through a classical cooking curriculum from Le Cordon Bleu at Home.

This week's lesson was to prepare Billy Bi, a soup made with mussels, onions, wine, cream and seasonings. Though there are several stories of the soup's origin, the most popular is that Maxim's chef Louis Barthe named it after a regular patron who particularly loved the soup, American tin tycoon William B. (Billy B.) Leeds.

As I made this soup I found myself wondering if it's a bisque or a velouté-based soup. The nice thing about cooking along with a group is that you can send out an email with these sorts of questions. Shari came up with a great response: 

"Is it a bechamel or a velouté base? Béchamel is similar to velouté, but the liquid that's added is milk not stock. This soup has both stock and cream with a roux. I would say that it starts with a velouté since that's the order the ingredients are worked in..."

Billy Bi is surprisingly easy to make, given its rich and complex flavor. The ingredients list is short and sweet, consisting of butter, shallots, celery, white wine, water, mussels, black pepper, heavy cream and chives. The recipe did not call for any salt, but I added a pinch when I tasted it before serving. Preparing the soup was a breeze and consisted of these three basic steps:

1) Make the initial broth by cooking the shallots in a little butter before adding water, wine and some celery... and then steam mussels (in their shells) in the broth.   Collect the cooked mussels and set aside. Strain the broth to remove any sand, as well as the shallots and celery.

2) Shell the mussels and divide them into two portions. Put the strained broth back in the pot along with half of the mussels and cook until reduced by about a third. Strain the broth a second time, mashing up the mussels to extract all of their briny goodness, and then discard the poor dear things (kitchen culture can be so brutal).

3) Make a roux, and whisk in the strained broth. Let it simmer for a bit to develop it's full mussel-y flavor, and then add heavy cream and the remaining mussels. Sprinkle with chives.

Simple, right? The recipe called for a new pot with each step, a concept I immediately rejected. I found it simpler to just strain the broth into a bowl set aside for that purpose and then to re-use the same pot I'd started with. Even so, I had a shocking amount of washing up to do later. 

Were all those dishes worth it? Decidedly so! I would never have tried making this soup if it hadn't been assigned to me and I'd have missed out on a really wonderful experience. Billy Bi tastes like pure essence of mussels, or perhaps like mussels in their Platonic ideal form. Indeed, Jack paid me the highest compliment, remarking, "This is of restaurant quality, and I don't mean just any restaurant, I mean a good restaurant." 

Next Week: Julienne Darblay (Creamed Leek and Potato Soup with Julienned Vegetables) page 133-134

Gotta Try That! Bourbon-Maple Seared Scallops

Thanks heavens for Food Gawker, RecipeMuncher and FP Daily... who stepped in while Tastespotting was on hiatus. If it weren't for their generosity in giving us more places to drool over beautiful food I would never have seen the very fabulous photo of Bourbon Maple Scallops taken by Meryl of Inspired Bites. And if I hadn't seen it and followed the link to her recipe my daughter Sophie would still be ignorant of her new-found love of scallops.

Seriously, people, try this recipe. It's easy and it's spectacular.

Bourbon-Maple Scallops

1 pound of fresh sea scallops
1/4 cup Bourbon
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 Tbs olive oil
salt
pepper

Lightly score the tops and bottoms of the scallops with a crosshatch pattern, making sure your knife doesn't slice too deeply.

Whisk the liquids and seasonings together and pour over the scallops, letting them marinate for 15-30 minutes. Saute on a medium-high flame for 2-3 minute per side. Plate them up and drizzle the pan juices over the top.

This post goes out to Bookmarked Recipes, a weekly event hosted by Ruth's Kitchen Experiments.

Pancakes on Parade: Pajeon or Korean Fish and Vegetable Cakes

 

"Flapjacks, crêpes, pajeon, dosa, blini, tortillas, crespelle, jian bing, pikelets, ataif, blintzes, bánh cuốn, palačinka, injera …the varieties are as endless as the cooks who prepare them and the countries they hail from."

So wrote Susan, of The Well-Seasoned Cook, in her Pancakes on Parade announcement. A call for pancakes, any kind of pancakes, is hard to resist and so was deciding what sort of pancakes to make.

I was able to rule out traditional American breakfast pancakes right away, having been traumatized by sogginess as a child. I still won't eat them, and I shy away from syrup, as well (syrup + big thick pancake = soggy), though I do love a nice crispy waffle with jam on top. I could go on about my childhood trauma, but I'll spare you and just get to pancakes I do like.

I love savory pancakes of all sorts and particularly Korean jeon (or jun). Jeon are pancake-like dishes made from a sturdy batter of flour, eggs, water and a little oil. Different fillings result in different dishes, and include scallions, shellfish, white fish, meats and all sorts of vegetables.  Even though the name of the dish changes with each type of filling used, most people just call any Korean pancake pa jun (or pajeon) which is actually the well-known version made with scallions.

Pajeon are large pancakes made in a skillet, requiring cooking on both sides. Although the batter is very sturdy, they can be a little tricky to flip if you've really loaded them up with filling. You can watch Mark Bittman prepare them here, and see the recipe I adapted here.

Korean Fish and Vegetable Pancakes
adapted from Mark Bittman in The New York Times
Serves 4 - 6 as an appetizer and 3 for a main meal

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon canola or other neutral oil, more as needed
1 1/2 cups water
5 scallions, green parts only, cut into 3-inch lengths and sliced lengthwise
20 chives or 5 chopped scallions
1 medium carrot, julienned
1 small yellow or green squash, trimmed and julienned
1/2 pound firm white fish, cooked and flaked
1 tablespoon rice or white vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon hot pepper oil
3 - 4 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar

In a medium bowl, mix the flour, eggs and oil with the water until a smooth batter is formed. Stir in the scallion greens, chives, carrots, squash and fish.

Heat the oil in an 8- inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Ladle in about a quarter of the batter and spread it out evenly into a circle. If the batter seems too thick you can thin it with a little more water for the next ones. Turn the heat down to medium and cook until the bottom is browned, about 3 minutes, then flip and cook for another 2 minutes. Repeat with the remaining batter.  As the pancakes are finished you can drain the on paper towels, and place in a warm oven to keep hot.

Make the dipping sauce by mixing together the vinegar, sesame oil, hot pepper oil, soy sauce and sugar.

Cut pancakes into small triangles and serve with dipping sauce.

Linguine With Fresh Clams

Back when I was young and just starting out on my own one of the first dishes I learned to make was pasta with white clam sauce-- using canned clams. It was easy, inexpensive, and (to my unsophisticated palate) exciting and unusual. You probably know the recipe-- saute some garlic in olive oil, add fresh chopped parsley, a little  white wine, a can of clams with juice, and toss with hot pasta. To my shame, I think I plopped a can of parmesan cheese onto the table, too.

I've gotten a little pickier about seafood in the intervening years (and there have been a lot of years since then!), and now I wouldn't think of making the dish without fresh clams. It's still a ridiculously easy recipe, though.

Linguine With Fresh Clams
serves 4 - 6

1 pound linguine
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cloves garlic, sliced thin
Pinch of crushed red pepper
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup bottled clam stock
1½ pounds littleneck clams, scrubbed
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup chopped flat leaf parsley

Start the pasta cooking once you have prepped all of your ingredients.

Heat the oil in a medium stockpot over high heat and add garlic, cooking for about a minute. Add the crushed red pepper and cook for a few seconds. Add white wine and clam stock and cook until the mixture reduces by half, about 3 minutes.

Add the clams, cover the pot and cook until the clams open, discarding any that remain closed. Remove the clams with a slotted spoon to a bowl.

Bring the liquid that the clams have cooked in to a boil over high heat and cook until reduced by half. Season with salt and pepper, and stir in the pasta and parsley. Return the clams to the pasta and serve.

PS/ This post is retroactively submitted to Presto Pasta Nights, hosted by Ruth of Once Upon A Feast. Thanks for the nudge, Ruth!

Mediterranean Sea Bass with Preserved Citrus

Also known as European Sea Bass or Branzino, this little fish tastes a bit like perch, with a similar white, firm flake and a mild sweetness that will remind you of fresh scallops. With relatively few and easy to remove bones, and firm flesh that holds its shape when cooked, it's well-suited for pan frying or grilling, or in this case for broiling.

In keeping with it's Mediterranean origin I prepared it simply, with a little preserved lemon, kumquat and kalamata olives.

This recipe is lovely with fillets, too, if you don't want to deal with a whole fish, though you will want to change your cooking method, as it is very difficult to flip fillets. Julia Child advocates use of liquid when broiling fish, based on a method she learned from George Berkowitz. This allows the top side of the fish to brown beautifully, while the bottom side cooks through and is kept moist and tender in the liquid. The fish is dried with paper towels, seasoned with salt and pepper, and placed in a buttered shallow baking dish. The top of the fish is dried again and buttered or oiled. White wine or water is poured to half the height of the fish and the fish is broiled, brushing once or twice with butter or oil, until done.

Mediterranean Sea Bass with Preserved Citrus
A one pound fish will feed one person, so adjust the recipe accordingly.

3 whole Mediterranean Sea Bass, about 1 pound each, scaled, gutted, gills and fins removed
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 preserved lemon
6 preserved kumquats
6-8 kalamata or black olives, pitted and halved
Salt and pepper

Rinse  half of a preserved lemon under cold water, discarding the pulp. Thinly slice the peel lengthwise. Slice the preserved kumquats in half, also lengthwise.

Rinse the fish and thoroughly dry with paper towels in and out. Season with salt and pepper in and out and place in the broiler pan, piling the preserved lemon and kumquats on top. Drizzle with the olive oil.

Turn the oven on to broil and set the fish under the broiler for about 5 minutes. If the preserved lemon and kumquats begin to char you can push them down next to the fish. Carefully turn the fish over, rearranging the lemon and kumquats back on top if they are not too brown, and cook another 5 minutes.

Depending on the thickness of your fish it will be ready. If it is thicker than 1 inch, turn the flame down and let it finish in the oven for a few more minutes.

Remove the broiling pan from the oven and add the olive. Let the fish rest for a few minutes while the olives warm through. Place the fish on serving plates, topping with the lemons, kumquats and olives. Pour and pan juices over the fish and serve.

Mini Pie Revolution Event #3: Fish Pie

Fish pie is a traditional British dish, usually made with white fish (cod, haddock or halibut). It's oven baked in a pie dish but not usually made with the shortcrust or puff pastry toppings-- instead it's topped with mashed potatoes before baking.

Not being a traditionalist, and really wanting to make a fish pot pie for current Mini Pie Revolution event, I decided to put the potatoes in the filling and top it with a savory pie crust. Of course I could have just made Stargazey Pie, which does traditionally have a crust on top, but I really wasn't up to dealing with the little fish heads looking back at me.

I used a Jamie Oliver recipe, which he describes as "homely, comforting and moreish," adding that it's a "cracking recipe." We agree. The end result is surprisingly delicate in flavor, and very filling. Serve it with a green salad and a glass of dry crisp white wine and you're all set.

Fantastic Fish Pot Pie
adapted from a Jamie Oliver recipe
serves 6

6 potatoes, diced into 1-inch squares
2 eggs
1 onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, halved and finely chopped
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup heavy cream
2 good handfuls grated mature Cheddar or Parmesan
1 lemon, juiced
1 1/2 heaping teaspoons English mustard
1 large handful flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
1 pound haddock or fresh cod fillet, skin removed, pin-boned and sliced into strips
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Put the potatoes into salted boiling water and bring back to a boil. Carefully add the eggs to the pan and cook for about 8 minutes until hard boiled, by which time the potatoes should be just cooked. Drain the potatoes and set aside. Remove the eggs, cool under cold water, then peel and quarter them. Set aside.

In a separate pan slowly fry the onion and carrot in a little olive oil for about 5 minutes, then add the heavy cream, and bring just to a boil. Remove from the heat and add the cheese, lemon juice, mustard, and parsley.

Put the potatoes, fish and eggs into a bowl and mix them gently, seasoning with salt and pepper. Divide the mixture into 6 small baking dishes or ramekins, pouring an equal amount of the creamy sauce over each.

Quickly make the pie crust:

1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp ground tarragon
2 tbsp butter, cut into small pieces
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup milk

In the bowl of a food processor, dump the flour, baking powder, ground tarragon and salt. Pulse a few times to combine. Drop in the butter and process until incorporated into the flour. Add the milk slowly, while processing, until it comes together. Remove from the processor, form into a ball and roll out. Use a large ring (make sure it's the right size for your baking dishes) to cut out 6 circles. Place a circle on top of each pot pie and cut an x in the center. Brush with a little beaten egg yolk thinned with water.

Place the pot pies on a baking sheet and then into the oven for about 25 - 30 minutes.

Preserved Kumquat Update: Fish en Papillote

About three weeks ago I experimented with preserving kumquats using the same method I use for lemons. Every day I looked at my lovely jar full of kumquats, watching them get more and more translucent until I thought it might be time to test them out.

When you use preserved lemons you generally rinse them off before adding them to whatever you're cooking, and I was curious to know if this would be necessary for the kumquats. I rinsed one and tried it, and then popped another, unrinsed, into my mouth. I liked the unrinsed one best-- the extra saltiness contrasted really well with the sweetness of the rind.

I decided to try them out with a modified version of a fish tagine recipe Jack and I are very fond of. But as I was only cooking for the two of us, I thought I'd bake the fish en papillote. Success! The preserved kumquats imparted a lovely briny lemony-orange flavor to the dish without stealing the distinctive Moroccan flavor we love so much.

Sea Bass with Preserved Kumquat en Papillote
for two

2 sea bass fillets
1/2 cup minced fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 tblsp minced fresh cilantro
1/8 cup olive oil
1 tsp sweet paprika
4 threads saffron, toasted and crushed
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 lemon
4 preserved kumquats, cut in half (they should already be nearly cut in half from the process of preserving them-- just finish the job and remove any pips)
6 cracked green olives
Thinly sliced onion and red pepper

Mix the parsley, cilantro, olive oil, paprika, saffron and ginger. Add the juice of half of the lemon. Place the fish fillets along with half of this mixture into a large zip lock bag and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours, turning the bag over now and then.

Preheat the oven to 450.

To assemble, place a marinated filet on a large rectangle of parchment paper, so that the length of the filet is centered along the length of the paper, and arrange the thin slices of onion and red pepper on top. Carefully balance the preserved kumquat halves and olives on top of the onion and pepper. Spoon a little of the marinade over the top. To create the package, bring the two long ends of the parchment rectangle together and fold the ends closed, getting very close to but not quite touching the fish. Tuck the remaining sides under the packet and place the whole thing on a baking sheet. Repeat for the other filet.

Bake for 10  minutes per inch (thick). I usually get nervous and add another 3 or 4 minutes to that.

To serve, place the packet on a plate and carefully (steam is hot!) tear it open.

If you find that the fish is not quite done, your microwave is your friend. Pop it in for 30 seconds, and check it. Give it another 15 seconds, if needed.

More Secret Snack Dinners

This is how lazy I've gotten on my own here without Jack, people. Tuna melts! But I'm not ashamed.

It isn't that I don't want to cook a "real" meal for myself or that I don't think I deserve it. It's that I honestly like this stuff. I really, really like making a meal of a baked potato with left-overs on top. I really like tuna melts. I love grabbing some tortillas and a can of refried beans for fast tostadas.

This little habit of making simple snacks for dinner is a tradition, in a funny way. When I was a kid my Dad traveled a lot-- he's a geologist who, and in those days, was sent all over the country (and sometimes out of it) to work on various projects. My Mom mostly kept right on serving "proper" dinners while he was away but would also, every now and then, just make something easy. Sometimes it was a meal of French Onion Soup, and sometimes it was Tuna Melts, and sometimes we'd just have artichokes (I loved that). By the time we were teens, we'd told her that we quite liked these snack-like dinners and it became the norm when it was just the three of us. I think we all felt we were getting away with something, which made it more fun.

Jack is back tomorrow and I've made sure I have our traditional meal of cheese, bread and wine on hand and at the ready. And then, because Jack really does prefer "proper meals" I'll get back in the habit of preparing them again. In the meantime I'm thinking about tonight's secret snack dinner.

Mad As a Fish

Goodness, there's been some major cookage in South Williamsburg lately. Ann's been churning out baked items like a crazed baked-item-churning thing: mince pies, cookies, mini pies... she's been like a woman possessed, and as a result the apartment is in desperate need of pie exorcism. To that end Sophie and I were ordered to fill a couple of rucksacks and haul them to school/office on Monday. It was either that or give the neighbourhood wildlife an early festive treat, and that would never do. So last Sunday I decided it was high time I reclaimed the kitchen for a few hours so that I could knock up a couple of old favourites. One was a dessert recipe of my mothers (which will feature in the next "Bad Teeth and Lousy Food" post), the other was Salmon en Croute.

This is a dish which appeals to me because it is easier than it looks, can be prepared well ahead of cooking and, above all, is damned tasty. If you have a childish sense of humour like me you can also have fun making the thing look comical and giving your guests a laugh before they take a bite and start drooling. I've served this with new potatoes and green beans, but it also goes well with salad, mixed grains... anything that gives a lighter balance to the rather rich pastry and succulent salmon. Here's what you do.

Salmon en Croute
Serves 6 - 8

2 skinned tail fillets of salmon, about 1lb each or slightly under
A large bunch/bag of watercress
I tsp grated lemon rind
1 beaten egg
1 oz pine nuts
2 oz softened butter
1.5 lb puff pastry
Cherry tomatoes and watercress for garnish

Heat your oven to 400 degrees. Wipe and season the fillets. Pick the big stalks off the watercress (tedious, but I think it's worth it) and blanch. Drain well. Lightly grill (broil) the pine nuts (this doesn't take long - just until they're very, very slightly browned.) Chop the watercress and mix with the pine nuts, butter, rind and a little salt and pepper until you have a lovely buttery green paste.

Roll out two pieces of pastry so that each is at least a good couple of inches bigger than your fillets all around. Place one fillet  skinned side down on one  of the pieces of pastry (If one fillet is slightly larger than the other, make it that one.) Evenly spread the stuffing over the top of the fillet and lay the other one on top, skinned side up.

Brush the pastry surrounding the fish with beaten egg, lay your second piece of pastry over the top and firmly press it down around the fish so that it sticks to the eggy bit. Now trim off the excess pastry, roll it out again and you can use it to get 'creative'. Add fins, eyes, smiley face..., use the end of a spoon to press "scales" into the beastie's back and sides. Go nuts. You can be clever and try to make the thing look realistic if you're that way inclined, but it's much simpler and much more fun to be silly, I think. Like this!

He could do with a dorsal fin and maybe a visit to the radiation detox unit, but I think he's cute, so there. Put your creation onto a lightly greased baking tray, brush the whole thing with beaten egg then bake for 35 - 40 minutes. When he comes out he'll look crisp, golden and luscious. And possibly googly-eyed, if you're lucky.

As you can see, I surrounded him with watercress and cherry toms. It's nice to make a simple white fish sauce to serve on the side, and hollandaise works very well too. If all has gone as it should you'll find the salmon will be perfectly cooked and the filling moist and tasty. This one turned out pretty well in spite of our much-complained-about dodgy oven. I called him Sammy.