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Fish

Sesame seared Tuna steak

Jun 16th, 2010
by dave.
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It’s been a pretty hectic week so far. Some advice : Unless you’re a morning bird, 7am flights are not fun. Try as I might to get some sleep on the plane, I ended up needing to crash early in the afternoon. Good thing I didn’t have anything to do other than relax when I got to Pittsburgh! I still did do some sightseeing that day…it was sweltering hot (90 degrees and HUMID) and silly me forgot to pack shorts.

Cathedral of Learning

That’s the “Cathedral of Learning” at the University of Pittsburgh. It’s the tallest building in the area and pretty imposing if you ask me. Can you imagine taking an exam in a thunderstorm? I mean, it’d be like Ghostbusters or something, I’d expect to see the Keymaster and Gatekeeper wandering around (And maybe Bill Murray).

I did manage to stop at one of UPitt’s local eateries: Essie’s Original Hot Dog Shop. Sadly, I was too excited to chow down on the all-beef frank and didn’t take any pictures. It’d been quite a while since I had a hot dog and this one was worth it. I asked for one of the slightly more burnt ones (I love burnt hot dogs, don’t quite know why) and I got a smile from the cashier (She said she prefers the burnt ones too but not many other people do!). One other thing of note was the size of the french fry sides. The large really can feed 4 people, it’s easily over a pound of french fries (I was told later that one of my friends put down nearly the entire large fries by himself…it made my stomach turn a little bit)

Alumni Hall
Alumni Hall

Sesame Seared Tuna

I can’t seem to find where this recipe originated. I had it scrawled down on one of my various notepads for quite some time and never got around to trying it. But then I got a nice tuna steak on sale at Whole Foods. I wasn’t going to at first but they looked too good to pass up. The customer behind me also got a couple tuna steaks. He said he was originally going to make chicken but couldn’t pass up the tuna, the chicken would have to wait until the next day. That’s a good man right there =P

Sesame seared Tuna steak

Time: 10 minutes
Serves 2

Ingredients:
– 1 lb Tuna steak (cut into two)
– 2 tbsp light soy sauce
– 1 tsp mirin
– 1/2 tsp honey
– 1 tsp sesame oil
– 1 tsp Chinkiang vinegar
– Dash of sake
– Extra virgin olive oil
– Wasabi
– Sesame seeds

Method:
1. Mix together the soy sauce, mirin, honey, sesame oil, and sake. Separate them into two portions. Mix the Chinkiang vinegar into one of the portions.
2. Coat the steaks with the non-vinegar portion of sauce. Let marinate for a couple minutes.
3. Press some sesame seeds onto each side of the steaks.
4. Add some olive oil to a frying pan or skillet over high heat. Quickly sear the tuna steaks (~1 minute or so on each side, maybe more depending on thickness) and transfer to a plate. Serve with the vinegar sauce and wasabi.

Note: You can cook the tuna longer if you prefer. I like it barely cooked, if it’s fresh.

Sichuan spicy fish fillets

May 26th, 2010
by dave.
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Sichuan Fish Fillets

I had the privilege of feasting on some of “Meat guy’s” (Jason of Bite-the-Bullet BBQ) pulled pork this past week. As I wrote a couple weeks back, I was recently in New Hampshire to pick up a very large order of BBQ (4 3-packs of ribs, 4 packs of pulled pork, sadly all spoken for!). I don’t think I could get tired of this stuff. As I’m typing, I just finished a sandwich and have been picking at some of the extra I heated up for lunch tomorrow. Might have to heat up some more =P

BTB-BBQ Pulled Pork

BBQ is something I used to associate with frozen hamburgers, hotdogs and the like. I’ve made a few strides since then. A few years back, my friends and I made frequent visits to Blue Ribbon BBQ in Arlington. That was the beginning of my BBQ craze. The crowning achievement was finishing the Trio, 3 different meats with two sides and cornbread (typically, brisket, burnt ends, and pulled pork). Sounds like a ton doesn’t it? Well, it was…and I fondly look back on the days when such feats of gluttony were commonplace. I mean they still happen now and then but not as frequently as in the past (I’m getting old, my bones can’t handle it anymore. Maybe I’m over the hill.)

Then, I spent 3 months in Texas on a work rotation. You can probably imagine what I ate, right? SUSHI! And the freshest vegetables you could find at Central Market! I’m kidding of course…I ate tons of BBQ, several times a week. Texas BBQ was slightly different than I imagined though, catering more to the brisket eater (not a bad thing). The other thing I noticed about BBQ places was the incredible quality of the dinner rolls. I mean, a dinner roll really is just a dinner roll. But whatever buttery/oily goodness that comes fresh out of those ovens is truly a magnificent specimen of your average dinner roll. And if you ran out, you always got more! (And as an aside, I have to mention the ridiculously good Vietnamese food in Arlington, TX)

And this is all leading up to…a post about Chinese food. Really.

I needed something to write about and the pulled pork was the first thing that came to mind. But again, I digress.

I always order this dish whenever I go out to one of the local places, Sichuan Gourmet. I’ve been to the Framingham and Billerica locations and they just recently opened in Brookline but I haven’t been there yet but I hear the quality is just as good. I thought this was mostly a stir-fried dish which surprised me because typically I have a hard time keeping the fish from falling apart! However, I think the fish may actually be cooked separately from the sauce and combined right before serving, which makes a ton of sense. In fact, after perusing Fuchsia Dunlop’s Land of Plenty, my suspicions were confirmed. The fish is sliced, marinated, dipped in cornstarch and then BOILED. Then, it’s removed until the sauce is ready.

Recipe adapted from Fuchsia Dunlop’s Land of Plenty

Chili bean sauce link (this is what it looks like): Chili Bean Sauce

Sichuan Fish Fillets in Spicy Chili sauce

Time: 35 minutes
Serves: 4

Ingredients:
– 1 – 1.5 lb white fish, sliced (Used Striped Bass)
– 4 tbsp cornstarch
– 3 tbsp water

Marinade:
– 1 inch ginger, unpeeled
– 1 scallion, chopped
– 1/2 tsp salt
– 2 tsp ShaoHsing rice wine

Base:
– 6 dried chillies, seeds removed
– 1 inch piece of ginger, sliced thin
– 4 cloves garlic, sliced
– 5 scallions, chopped (1/2 to 3/4 inch pieces)
– 3 tbsp canola oil
– 1 tbsp Chili Bean Sauce
– 1/2 tsp ground sichuan peppercorns

Oil:
– 3/4 cup canola oil
– 1.5 tbsp chili bean sauce
– 10-20 dried chillies, seeds removed
– 2 tsp sichuan peppercorns

Method:
1. Mix the fish and marinade, set aside.
2. Add some water to a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the cornstarch and water mix to the fish at this point. Stir carefully to coat the fish with the cornstarch mixture.
3. In a separate pan, add 3 tbsp canola oil over high heat. Add the chili paste, ginger, garlic, scallions, chillies, and sichuan peppercorns (from the base) and stir-fry until fragrant (but be careful about burning!). When finished, pour into the bowl/dish you will serve the fish in.
4. Add the fish to the boiling water and boil untouched until just cooked. Add to the serving bowl/dish.
5. In a frying pan, add 3/4 cup oil, chili bean sauce, chillies, and pepper (from the oil header). Stir fry until fragrant, pour over the fish and serve immediately.

Scallion crusted cod with Mango Salsa

Mar 10th, 2010
by dave.
2 comments

Scallion Cod w/ Mango Salsa

I’m usually more of a fan of a more plain way of preparing fish, just a little salt/pepper/olive oil and that’s usually how I prepare fish at home. But when I’m dining out and want fish, I tend to see more fancier things like different salsas, glazes, and whatnot. So I figured why not give mango salsa a shot…I like mangos, and the recipe I saw in Ming Tsai’s Simply Ming looked really tasty.

One note of caution…the mangos I used weren’t ripe enough, make sure to use ripe mangos! Otherwise, you’ll get a semi-crunchy salsa and wish you waited just a little longer (like me) =P

Recipe originally from Ming Tsai’s Simply Ming.

Scallion crusted cod with Mango Salsa

Time: 30-45 minutes
Serves 4

Mango salsa
- 2 mangos, diced
- 1 red onion, diced
- 1/2 inch piece ginger, minced
- 1 1/2 tbsp Sriracha
- Juice of 4 limes
- Salt/pepper to taste

Scallion cod
- 4 cod fillets (6-8oz each)
- 2 cups bread crumbs (panko)
- 2 stalks scallions, chopped
- 2 eggs, beaten (for dredging)
- Some flour (for dredging)
- Fresh cilantro

Method:
1. Mix together the ingredients for the salsa, set aside (Make sure those mangos are ripe!)
2. Season the cod with salt and pepper. Combine scallions and bread crumbs. Dredge the cod first in the flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs.
3. Heat a frying pan over medium heat. Add some oil and saute the cod until cooked halfway through. Flip once, cook another few minutes (depends on the thickness of the fish fillets).
4. Mix the salsa with fresh cilantro. Serve the cod over top a scoop of the salsa.

Pan-seared Cod with Ginger Soy glaze

Feb 10th, 2010
by dave.
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Ginger Soy Cod

I was out grocery shopping with a friend the other day and while picking out some fish, she tried steering me towards buying a whole Cod. A whole 5+ pound Cod. I mean, I probably could figure out a way to use it all but I wasn’t having any of it at the time. And that also went with the quarter-cow that came up later. I don’t think I need 30 pounds of beef either. Really =P

I did end up getting some nice cod fillets though. And not being content to just add salt/pepper/olive oil and bake, I sallied forth to the vast land known only as the “Internet” hunting for recipes. Most had some fancy glaze or mango salsa, of which I didn’t have any of the ingredients for (I do want to try out the mango salsa sometime, though I wonder if the sweetness would be overwhelming), but eventually I found a pretty nice recipe on Dash of Food, realized it was very similar to something else I’ve done with fish, and was inspired.

I made up some teriyaki sauce and added in a few of the ingredients from the Dash of Food recipe and I was ready to go. I ended up pan-frying the Cod but I think next time I’ll bake it in the oven and glaze the Cod afterwards, makes for less cleaning and I like baked Cod anyway. Also blanched some fresh Yu Choy I picked up from Russo’s and served the cod over some soba noodles. It ended up being one of the healthiest meals I’ve had in weeks, balancing out an incredibly unhealthy meal just 2 days before…

Pan-seared Cod with Ginger Soy glaze

Time : 15 minutes
Serves : 4

Ingredients:
– 24oz Cod fillets, cut into 4 pieces
– 3 tsp soy sauce
– 3 tsp mirin
– 2 tsp sake
– 1 tsp sugar
– 1 tsp ShaoHsing rice wine
– 2 cloves minced garlic
– 1/2 piece ginger, minced
– 1 tsp corn starch
– 1 tsp sesame oil
– 1 tsp sesame seeds, toasted

Method:
1. Mix together the sauces from the soy sauce through the sesame oil. Add to a small saucepan and let simmer to thicken.
2. Lightly oil the cod and pan-fry or bake in the oven. Pan-frying should take 4-5 minutes on each side on medium heat while baking probably will run 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Plate the fish with side dishes of your choice and then spoon the glaze over top.

An easy way to cook fish

Mar 4th, 2009
by dave.
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Arctic Char

So I’ve been on this “quick and easy” cooking spree as of late. By easy I mean dishes that don’t require a ton of prep and probably have less than 10 total ingredients. And by quick…well, I’ll let you guess :)

Part of the reason has been that I’m tired of eating at 9pm and the other part is my own laziness. But mainly, an hour or more of prep and cooking was getting a little tiresome and I needed a little bit of a change. I used to get home, cook, eat, and by the time I was finished (cleaning included), I was ready for bed!

So last week I picked up some Arctic Char from Whole Foods partially because it fits the “quick and easy” bill as well as being pretty healthy (I’ve been trying to eat fish/seafood at least once a week). Fish also has a very tasty flavor all by itself and doesn’t necessarily require too much additional sauce or seasoning. I sprinkled a little bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper on the fish and cooked it in a skillet for about 4-5 minutes on each side. It ended up still being pink on the inside (medium-rare), which was fine with me, I actually enjoy fish better that’s slightly undercooked as opposed to the other way around (In fact, I dread overcooking fish). Throw that together with some pita and metch from Russo’s, and I had a meal in under 15 minutes.

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