We ordered a luscious fuchsia yellowfin steak for our weekly fish delivery, and I tried to make a dinner that did justice to the beauty of the flesh of this fish. With sashimi-grade gorgeousness, especially a big hunk like this, my normal policy is to break it apart and do different things with it to avoid plate fatigue. Even melt-in-your-mouth fish or Wagyu beef can get lose its heavenly edge after five or six bites,…
Category: Seafood
How’s THAT for a snappy title? I know, I know. Some days, the inspirado just rushes through me like a Prius doing 80 with somebody’s Grandmother inside, frantically and fruitlessly stomping on the brake pedal. I’m just happy to share the wealth. It’s been raining for days now, which is a good thing, and all the better for not being snow. We’ve had some serious wind, too, but thus far our power has stayed on.…
We went to the city for a night, for a real live date–including dinner at WD-50, which I may write about–made possible by my Brother coming up to hang out with Milo so we could stay at his place. On our way back, we got some fish in the Chelsea Market so we’d have something to eat for dinner. Milo really has a thing for yellowtail sashimi, so I bought a one-pound block of sushi-grade…
The kitchen is almost done. As I write this, I have one more day of serious work before it’s going to be fully operational, wanting only a day or two of cosmetic finish work (molding, trim, and paint). The new stove is like a Lamborghini; everything that used to take meaningful portions of an hour now takes mere minutes, countable on the hand without the spoon. It came in on time, and within acceptable budgetary parameters–meaning that various material/hardware expenses (and I went to the hardware store and/or lumber yard every day) didn’t exceed 5% of the total.
To celebrate, even though the island is still just covered in 3/4″ A/C plywood, we made a feast from some of the bounty acquired at Mitsuwa, where we stopped for lunch and a big shop on our way home from Newark airport. We got lots of Washugyu beef and Berkshire pork for future meals (see tomorrow) and tons of staples in the form of bottled and dried ingredients. And sake.
Last night’s dinner was in three courses, because I was energized by both the sight of the finish line and the quality of the new goodies. To begin, some luscious, artisanal tofu that I would tell you all about but for the fact that every single thing written on the label was in Japanese. Fresh, silken circles of delicate deliciousness, it was. I made a sauce using fresh sea urchin puréed with usukuchi (light soy sauce), rice vinegar, a tiny dab of smooth peanut butter (since I find that uni have a slightly peanutty flavor) and sake with the alcohol burned off. It made for a very pudding-like, seductive dish, especially for those members of the family (everyone but me) who do not love sea urchin. It’s funny, but “slimy orange invertebrate gonads” aren’t that much of a selling point. Go figure.
Fresh on the heels of another fish delivery, and despite being pretty thoroughly covered in grout, I got giddy with the potential in our box of seafood and tried to make it into something befitting its freshness and quality. To begin, a dozen more oysters. I didn’t photograph them, because they disappeared too quickly. John stopped by to pick up his order, and had a couple, and I polished off the rest. Next up, a…
Marmitako (“from the pot”) is a classic Basque stew of tuna and potatoes that evolved on fishing boats. In typical fashion, just about all of the ingredients (apart from the fish) are New World imports; Basques were early and enthusiastic adopters of the potatoes, peppers, and tomatoes (and corn, and beans, and chocolate, and pretty much everything that returned with Columbus) and they quickly became indispensable components of the cuisine. Despite the seeming similarity with…
A recent trip to a nearby market that traffics in decent seafood occasioned a bit of a spree on account of our regular fish guy has been on hiatus for a spell. That drought is over next week, but in the meantime we’ve had to content ourselves with fish of less than exquisite pedigree. We ended up with a bag of mussels and a wild yellowfin steak. Not too shabby, just not of a freshness…
I got a comment recently from a subscriber inquiring about a comment I left on her blog suggesting a possible use for the lavish surplus of salmon that they’re burdened with up in Alaska. I elaborated a little bit, but then the idea was in my head so I needed to make it. It’s different every time, but basically it’s just a salmon curry with lots of lemon rind. Often there are potatoes, and it’s…
What to do when you’re conflicted between broiling and tartare: both. Especially in the case of some gorgeous salmon. I minced it and mixed in sesame oil, yuzu juice, scallions, soy sauce, and pink pepper, then cooked it inside a ring mold on pretty high heat to get a good sear on one side. I made crispy crackers with the skin, and served them all on brown rice and diced garden roots (carrot, rutabaga, daikon)…
There is no greater resource than a well-stocked freezer. (Except maybe a well-stocked freezer working in harmony with an equally well-stocked pantry.) There are still a couple of quarts of frozen fish stock that I made a while back from a halibut skeleton, and the presence of a big bag of snow crab legs just above the stock containers got the wheels turning. There was also a bag of a rice blend- long, short, and…