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May 29, 2007
One Fish, Two Fish, But No Red Fish
And damned straight there's no Blue Fish, either. Blech, I can't stand that stinky greasy fish. I really never ate seafood until after I was married; it's been sort of a life project of my Bride's to get me to branch out a bit. Needless to say it's rare when seafood is cooked here at Netherfield, but for Mother's Day I thought I'd give my Bride a treat. Well, two treats, really: first, I'd cook her a yummy (hopefully) dinner on Saturday night, and then, secondly, I'd leave town on Sunday afternoon for a few days. Win-win for her all around.
Obviously one of the major concerns one has when planning a meal is what to drink. My Bride has always been rather partial to Gavis, and this is a luverly one
Araldica Gavi La Luciana 2005. For $10 you get a smooth, medium bodied wine with some very nice lemon and mineral undertones. A very nice summer wine for fish and, heck, just everyday sipping.
But now on to the grub...
I thought I would fry some fish and serve it with risotto and asparagus. After flipping through Marcella Hazan I found a few recipes that seemed tasty and tweakable. As an aside, do buy her book; it is loaded with great stuff. Anyhow, first things first was to get the rice for the risotto cooking. Pretty standard stuff, I got a bag of Arborio rice and got that a going using the tried and true 2 parts water to one part rice ratio. Once simmering you can forget it for 20 minutes and concentrate on the wine other parts of the meal.
Starting the risotto is the second easiest part of this. The easiest is cooking the asparagus: simply trim off the ends of the asparagus and place it in a shallow vegetable dish with about a half inch of water. Cover this with plastic wrap, poke a hole or two in the wrap and put it in the microwave. Approximately three minutes (more or less depending on your micro) is all it takes to cook it perfectly. Trust me on this.
So I minced up half a medium onion and got that sizzlin in a few tablespoons of olive oil
added about the same amount of minced celery
let that cook for a few minutes than add two heaping tablespoons of capers
What I want to know is who decreed that capers must come in these stupid narrow jars that no spoon known to non-coke users will fit into? I had to use a knife blade to carefully ladle the darn things out. A big pain.
Anyhow, once that has melded nicely you can remove that pan from the heat and set it aside. This dish originally calls for one type of fish, but I thought it would be fun to cook both swordfish
and tuna
so I got nice sized steaks of each (dang near a pound per). In a separate pan that's big enough to hold both steaks get some (say 1/2 inch deep) rapeseed canola oil warming over medium heat (it doesn't need to be nu-kyu-ler). Carefully dredge the steaks in flour
Notice I said "carefully." As you can see the steak slipped off the fork as I was putting it on the plate and the counter (and especially the floor) got flour bombed, which elicited a f-bomb of a different nature from me...
Now play Viking and fling your victims into the boiling oil!
Give 'em 3-4 minutes per side, depending on thickness and how well you like your fish done. The nice thing about using tuna and swordfish is that when you are done frying the fish your house doesn't smell like you've been frying fish.
Meanwhile the rice should be just about ready
Blend into the rice a couple ounces (the more the cheesier) of buffalo mozzarella, a few tablespoons of good grated parmigiano-reggiano and several fresh basil leaves that you've ripped into medium sized pieces and set this aside for a few minutes, covered, so the flavors can melt and meld.
Warm up the pan with the onion mixture in it, and transfer the steaks to it.
Turn on the microwave for three minutes to cook the asparagus.
Add a couple of tablespoons of white wine vinegar to the pan with the steaks and cook over medium heat for a few minutes, flipping the steaks to coat them on both sides and letting some of the liquid cook off
Remove the fish to a warmed platter
And serve immediately, half a steak of each type per plate with all leftover juices spooned on top, with the risotto and asparagus.
And more wine.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at May 29, 2007 09:34 AM
Comments
Oh Man! I feel dizzy from hunger. And it's only 10:40 a.m. Ohhhhh!
Posted by: mockinbird at May 29, 2007 10:35 AM
Hmmm.
Nice!
Me I generally prefer "America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook Revised Edition" but that's a really nice dish.
Frankly I like it when a dish relies on the value of the ingredients rather than the complexity of the recipe.
Posted by: memomachine at May 29, 2007 10:38 AM
I tend to stick to Halibut, Sea Bass and Ling Cod, myself. With an occasional side-foray into shrimps/prawns.
I can eats me some shrimps, yesiree bob...
Posted by: mojo at May 29, 2007 10:52 AM
You FLOURED a TUNA STEAK?!
Posted by: tree hugging sister at May 29, 2007 10:58 AM
Looks great. I really need to learn how to drink wine....it always looks so good in the bottle and then in the glass, but...yuck! I say, if it looks like Kool-Aid it had better taste like it.
Now a bottle of chilled Boones Farm...yummy.
Posted by: WunderKraut at May 29, 2007 11:45 AM
Why wouldn't you flour it if you are frying it? Grilling, of course not.
Posted by: Mr. Bingley at May 29, 2007 01:41 PM
"You FLOURED a TUNA STEAK?!"
You COOKED a perfectly good piece of TUNA?
Yabanjin.
And what do you have against Bluefish? I agree they are not for frying, but grilled they lose the grease and acquire a wonderful aroma. Not to mention they fight like hell, so they're a great sport fish.
Posted by: John at May 29, 2007 01:49 PM
And what do you have against Bluefish?
Ancient family trauma. And don't even MENTION salmon.
Posted by: Mr. Bingley at May 29, 2007 01:55 PM
Hmmm.
"... it always looks so good in the bottle and then in the glass ..."
If you're opening the bottle and pouring a glass immediately, then that might be the problem. You need to air the wine a bit. White wines not so much but the heartier and heavier red wines definitely need some air.
Just breathe: don't immediately serve guests wine; let it sit and get some air - On Wine
It's a similar situation with fine scotch or whiskey. If you drink it neat, no ice or water, you might be missing out on an even better flavor. I like Talisker single malt scotch and I find the flavor very much improves if I add 1/2 teaspoon of distilled water to two shots of scotch and mix by swirling the glass in the palm of my hand to warm up both the scotch and the water.
As always, YMMV and you'll need to experiment.
Posted by: memomachine at May 29, 2007 02:15 PM
Hmmmm.
You know that's a really great way to cook the asparagus. For some odd reason I find it unusually difficult to cook asparagus correctly. Usually either it's overcooked and stringy or undercooked and a danger to my teeth.
What's even nicer is that Alton Brown, "Good Eats" on Food Network, had an episode where he showed how to microwave frozen king crab legs by breaking a leg, along the joint, so it'll fit in the microwave. Wrap in two sheets of dampened paper towel and then seal in plastic wrap. Microwave for a couple minutes, depending on power of the microwave, and you're done.
Hmmm. Maybe I'll bring a lunch of king crab, fresh asparagus and a nice olive tapenade sometime this week. Heh. A real microwave dinner.
Posted by: memomachine at May 29, 2007 02:25 PM
Hmmm.
Whoops! That should read:
"Maybe I'll bring a lunch" to my office.
Sorry folks. :)
Posted by: memomachine at May 29, 2007 02:33 PM
It really works well, memo. The only way we eat asparagus these days is either nuked or grilled.
Posted by: Mr. Bingley at May 29, 2007 02:46 PM
That looks great....except for the asparagus, I mean. ;-P
I prefer salmon and halibut myself. Grilled, but fried halibut is good as well. I tried "seared tuna" once.....and only once. Yuk! Maybe if I was starving.
But your tuna preparation looks excellent....including the flour!
Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at May 29, 2007 02:59 PM
But your tuna preparation looks excellent....including the flour!
Your good taste and high level of culture shows through yet again, Jeff.
Posted by: Mr. Bingley at May 29, 2007 03:03 PM
He's a frickin' suck-up.
Posted by: tree hugging sister at May 29, 2007 03:51 PM
Sis, me, a suck up!?!?!?!!!? Au contraire! Please note that I excluded that awful asparagus from looking great. And for good reason.
Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at May 29, 2007 05:17 PM
FLOURED TUNA looking 'excellent'?
I rest my case.
Shameless SUCK UP.
Posted by: tree hugging sister at May 29, 2007 05:42 PM
Tasted great, too.
Even my Bride said so.
Posted by: Mr. Bingley at May 29, 2007 06:02 PM
I'll bet it tasted good, Mr. Bingley. I'll have to try that sometime. Sans asparagus, of course.
PS: I'll bet Sis is jealous because you didn't invite her up for dinner.
Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at May 29, 2007 08:04 PM
After you plied her with copious amounts of alcohol.
::sniff::
I think not.
Posted by: tree hugging sister at May 29, 2007 10:21 PM