Sardine Mousse & Argula Manchego Salad

YOU: Sardine mousse? Really? Really?


ME: Really!

I have been wanting to experiment with sardines for awhile now, because, according to
several reliable sources, they're magic in a can! Plus, there's something so rustic and decidedly low-rent about eating fish from a little tin. I feel like I should also be sporting a handlebar moustache and smoking from a pipe while wearing my tattered argyle sweater vest.


I conceived the idea for sardine mousse...well, I don't remember when, exactly. But having semi-recently had chicken liver mousse at a restaurant and really liking it, and having been experimenting with my food processor, I thought I'd try my hand at a fancy classic. And it was good!

It tasted, actually, a lot like tuna salad. And who doesn't like the occasional tuna salad? It was definitely a bit "fishier" tasting, but not in the creepy maybe-this-is-too-old-to-eat way. It was pleasant. And I got to fantasize that I was wearing a gauzy white tunic, standing on a rocky cliff overlooking a hidden little fishing village somewhere near...this place:

Or this one:


Maybe even this one:


You get the idea. On crisp grilled toast, with a nice fresh salad and a fancy pants clementine soda, the sardine mousse was a perfect lunch. And my nutrient-fortified body agrees!



INGREDIENTS

1 tin sardines packed in olive oil
1/3 stick butter, room temperature
spoonful of mayonnaise
1 clove garlic
salt
pepper
red pepper flakes
3 slices French bread, sliced about 1/2" thin on a deep bias
a little olive oil for brushing
fresh chopped parsley for garnish

handful baby arugula
a few slices manchego cheese
1 roasted red pepper, chopped
small drizzle olive oil
small drizzle balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper

STEP 1:
Add all the mousse ingredients to the food processor and process until smooth, scraping down sides of the processor as needed. Meanwhile, heat a grill pan over medium-high heat. Rub a little olive oil onto the bread slices. When the pan's hot, grill them, using something heavy (like a cast-iron pot) to weigh them down so they get pronounced grill marks (this is not required, but it speeds up the process). When the bread has nice grill marks, spread some mousse on each piece and top with parsley.

STEP 2:
Make the salad: in a bowl, toss the arugula with the olive oil, salt and pepper, and balsamic. Scatter the manchego and red peppers on top. Serve with the sardine mousse and enjoy!

Lemony Rockfish, Jeweled Couscous & Wilted Spinach

Somebody has a case of Summertime Fevaaahh, baby!


Oh yeah. That would be me. How can I stay inside on the internetz, blogging away, when I could be outside playing volleyball (terribly), paddleboarding (dangerously), visiting the Chicago Greenmarket (hungrily), or patio drinking (heavily)?


So I apologize for my less-frequent posts (or, for those of you who hate seeing it pop up in your newsfeeds coughjerkscoughcough, you're welcome). But the sun has been out! The bikini has been on! And the fun just hasn't stopped!


Yes, I've been cooking. But I've also been wolfing down whatever I've made in attempt to return to the glorious agenda of summertime activities as quickly as possible. Until I get my blogging act together and give the people more posts, please enjoy this light, healthy, summery and delicious fish dish! (Warning: this makes a boatload of couscous - which bodes well for all your BBQ and potluck picnic needs.)

INGREDIENTS

2 rockfish (or other white fish) fillets
flour for dredging
olive oil and butter (don't be a wimp about it)
a couple cloves of garlic, minced
juice of one lemon
salt and pepper
parsley for garnish

1 cup whole wheat couscous
1 large shallot, minced
olive oil
salt and pepper
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
roasted red peppers, drained and cut into small pieces
kalamata olives (no pits)
capers
cucumber, small dice
fresh chopped parsley

lots of spinach (I used a 10-oz bag)
olive oil
squeeze of lemon juice
salt and pepper

STEP 1:

Heat a skillet. Add some olive oil and butter. Add the garlic and cook for about a minute. Meanwhile, pat the fish very dry. Dredge it lightly in the flour and tap off the excess. When the oil and pan are very hot, cook the fish until it's brown and crisp on one side. Flip it and cook until the fish flakes easily with a fork. Remove from pan and set aside. Deglaze the pan with the lemon juice, then pour the pan sauce over the fish.

STEP 2:

Meanwhile, heat a little olive oil in a pot with tight fitting lid. Cook the couscous according to package directions. When it has absorbed the water, stir in the cucumbers, peppers, capers, and all the rest of the ingredients. Season with salt and pepper.

STEP 3:

In another pot, heat a little more olive oil. Put the spinach in and cover it. Wilt it down to your desired level of wiltiness. Season with salt and pepper and lemon juice. Serve the fish with couscous and the spinach. Enjoy!

A Lesson in Simplicity. And Cleanliness.

Have you ever heard the term "cooking clean"? I'm not sure exactly what it means, but I assume it means cooking with whole, pure, healthful ingredients. And it might even mean wiping the counter down when tomato sauce gets an attitude and splatters your white cooktop.


While I like to "cook clean," in at least one sense of the phrase, no one has every accused me of being a clean freak when it comes to, say, my apartment. I consider myself more of a binge cleaner; I throw things on the floor between Monday and Friday (the pile of clothes and towels that accumulates Ross and I have lovingly dubbed the "Traveling Tumbleweed of Textiles," due to our habit of shifting it from the bed to the couch and back to the bed, depending on where we're parked at the time).


Normally, this works out just fine. I wake up on Saturday mornings, grab a coffee and some bagels, and commence the 2-hour cleaning spree that leaves our tiny abode sparkling and pleasant - for a couple of days. When it doesn't work out, however, is when our maintenance man makes an unannounced drop-in. I came home from work today to find my trash can, cat litter box, and granny grocery cart moved to my "dining room" from their usual place in the useless nook blocking the door to the creepy back staircase that we never use (you following?). That nook is also where the previous tenant stored her unused window screens, which I had never bothered to put back in the windows (I know, I know, I'm ridiculously lazy). The screen had been moved from the nook to the window. Alrighty then.


What I didn't notice until a random stop into the bathroom is that the maintenance guy (apparently) had come by not to replace our screens, but to deliver a shiny new bathroom sink console! Behold:


I was really excited to have a little something new for this old house, until I took a look around the place (now with fresh eyes) and realized that it was totally trashed. I could just see it: Tony the Maintenance Guy comes in the back, moves the stinky garbage and cat litter out of the way, and is greeted by the sight of dishes and bits of parsley in the kitchen, half-drunk bottles of wine in the dining room, and - the horror - underwear on the bathroom floor. Needless to say, I was mortified. I'm tempted to invent a leaky pipe or faulty lock just so I can bring Tony back and show him what the place looks like when it's nice and tidy!


Anyway that was a very, very long way of introducing a sauce so simple, so pure, and so delicious that - I can't believe I'm about to say this - you just have to taste to believe. I could not make myself believe that a sauce with only three ingredients could be so delicious. I'm having an existential crisis about everything else I've ever cooked! Have I been over-ingredient-ing this whole time?!?


Without any more chatter, I'll let you in on The Sauce That Set The Blogosphere Ablaze. I urge you to set aside your doubts and commence making this sauce as soon as humanly possible. It's truly marvelous.


INGREDIENTS:

SAUCE
1 28-oz. can diced tomatoes (you could also use whole) and all juices
1 medium yellow onion
5 T. butter (I used salted butter)
you can add salt to taste, but mine didn't need any
whole wheat spaghetti (or any pasta you like)

FISH
1 tilapia filet, fresh
juice of one lemon
1 T. olive oil
salt
red pepper flakes
capers
fresh chopped parsley

SALAD
fresh chopped Romaine lettuce
1/4 of the onion you stewed in the tomato sauce, sliced
some cooking juice and capers from the cooked fish
grated parmesan cheese
a little more olive oil


STEP ONE:

Place the tomatoes, onion, and butter in a pot and simmer for about 45 minutes, until the tomatoes have broken down. At this point, strain out the onion. (I left a little of the onion in, then pureed it all with an immersion blender - you can skip this, but it made it super creamy and smooth.)

STEP TWO:

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350. Put the raw fish in a baking dish. Top it with the lemon juice, oil, salt, red pepper flakes, and capers. Bake for about 10-12 minutes, until opaque and flaky. Boil some pasta until al dente. Drain and set aside.


STEP THREE:

Place the lettuce in a bowl. When you fish out the onion from the sauce, chop a little bit of it into pieces and put it on the salad. When the fish is done, spoon a little of the lemon/oil/caper cooking juices from the pan on top of the salad. Top with a little drizzle of olive oil and some fresh parmesan cheese. Serve the sauce and pasta by the fish and enjoy with the salad!

Salade Nicoise a la Green City Market

It absolutely kills me to disagree with Julia. But when it comes to using canned tuna versus fresh, I simply cannot abide her near-holy directives.


After all, Julia cooked during wartime, when canned tuna was all a gal could come by. I live in a world where fresh fish is abundant - and in the case of my one little $4 tuna steak at Jewel - inexpensive.

Julia's Salade Nicoise calls for canned tuna - that's just how it's traditionally made. Not only did I use a fresh tuna steak, I didn't use Nicoise olives, ostensibly rendering this salad not a Nicoise salad at all! My friend and host Emily, into whose apartment I'll be moving in 12 days (she's moving out), had never had tuna that wasn't from a can, and isn't much of a fish lover at all. I wanted to take this opportunity to school her (pun intended) about the glories of tuna steaks, which in my opinion are a lot more like steak than tuna.


I got really excited to make this salad when I realized that almost everything in it is in season (aaah...late summer!) - the green beans from the market were exquisite, the salad greens were fresh, and even the little thin-skinned new potatoes had an uncharacteristically sweet, creamy taste.

When combined with the eggs I had, and the black olives Emily had, I knew that bringing the salad together would be a snap.

SALADE NICOISE A LA GREEN CITY MARKET

INGREDIENTS

2 big handfuls mixed salad greens
2 hard-boiled eggs, halved
big handful fresh green beans, cut into pieces and blanched
~12 black (or nicoise) olives
1/2 c. halved grape tomatoes, any variety (we used orange ones)
4 small thin-skinned baby potatoes, boiled until tender, then sliced
1 medium tuna steak, fresh
a few spoonfuls capers
1/3 c. cucumbers, sliced into half-moons
1 T. olive oil
salt and pepper

Dressing:

1 T. mayo
1 T. grainy brown mustard
juice of one Meyer lemon
1 T. honey
1 small shallot, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste



STEP ONE:

Heat the olive oil in a grill pan or a nonstick skillet until hot. Cook the tuna on one side, seasoning the side facing up, until it's nice and browned. Flip and cook the other side until it matches, or until the tuna is cooked to your liking. Slice and set aside.

STEP TWO:

Arrange all the elements of the salad in little side-by-side piles and place the tuna on top.

STEP THREE:

Whisk together the dressing ingredients and drizzle over the salad. Serve and enjoy!

Emily also relished learning how to make a quick dressing out of just a few staple ingredients - this is truly the only salad dressing I ever eat anymore.

The salad came out great, and I think Emily may be inching closer and closer to becoming a fish-eater - here's what she had to say:

"Considering I don't like fish and had never had tuna not from a can, I thought it was really good. I couldn't finish all my tuna though - baby steps. It was really good - a lovely mix of flavors in my mouth."

Not too shabby! We spent the rest of the evening sipping wine and using her measuring tape to figure out how in the world I'm going to fit all my worldly possessions into the new place - check back in a couple weeks for pics of the new kitchen and dining area!



Thanks for reading! And thanks to my lovely host Em - more soon...

Meyer-Lemon Poached Halibut with Tuscan Bean Salad & Chard

I'm on a little bit of a chard kick right now. It's in season, and it's just divine everywhere I go looking for it. The bunches at the farmer's market yesterday were so lusciously green and leafy, I bought two different varieties. In this dish, I chose to use the classic Swiss variety.


My good friend Colleen, who "doesn't eat quadripeds," challenged me to make a meal with fish. Since I've really been dialing back the bipedal and quadripedal animals myself lately, I was all too excited to make it work. I decided on halibut, which is a notoriously not-overly-fishy fish. Only after I bought a gorgeous filet did Colleen tell me that apparently, halibut is also one of the most difficult fishes to cook.

Undaunted, I decided that cooking the halibut in a sauce on low heat would keep it moist and prevent it from overcooking. My instincts were correct, and we found ourselves with a couple of delicious, quadriped-free dinners.


MEYER-LEMON POACHED HALBUT WITH TUSCAN BEAN SALAD & CHARD

INGREDIENTS

Tuscan Bean Salad:

~1 c. cooked chickpeas (canned is fine)
~1/2 c. cooked cannellini beans (canned is fine)
~ 1 c. cooked wheatberries
glug of good olive oil
zest and juice of 1 Meyer lemon
chopped fresh rosemary
chopped fresh oregano
chopped fresh dill (or you could use parsley)
salt and pepper
red pepper flakes

Chard:

1 large bunch fresh Swiss chard, tough stems removed, chopped into pieces
a little olive oil
salt and pepper

Halibut and sauce:

1 shallot, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 T. olive oil
3 T. butter
Two fresh halibut filets
1/2 c. dry white wine
Juice of 1 Meyer lemon
Juice of 3 on-the-vine tomatoes (use a sieve to prevent any seeds from getting through)

STEP ONE:

In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients for the Tuscan Bean Salad. Toss to combine. Allow to sit in the refrigerator for a few hours, covered. Bring to room temperature before serving.


STEP TWO:

Blanch the chard (dunk for about a minute into boiling water, then drain and rinse with cold water). Set aside.

STEP TWO:

Heat the olive oil and butter and in large, semi-deep skillet that has a tight-fitting lid. Cook the shallots until translucent. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant.

STEP THREE:

Add the white wine, lemon juice, and tomato juice and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to medium-low. Season the broth with a little salt and pepper and add the fish fillets to the broth. Cover and cook until halibut is just cooked through, about 5-6 minutes. Do not overcook. Remove halibut and set aside. Cook the sauce on high heat for another few minutes until it reduces a bit.


STEP FOUR:

While the fish is cooking, in another skillet, heat a little olive oil for the chard. Saute the chard quickly until it is hot and just a tad more tender than it was from blanching. Season with salt and pepper.

STEP FIVE:

On two plates, spoon some Tuscan Bean Salad. Place some sauteed chard on top of the salad. Top off each with a halibut filet, then pour the poaching liquid over everything. Serve and enjoy!


If you wanted to make this salad more quickly, using canned beans would be fine. I really liked the texture of the beans I cooked myself, although I came perilously close to oversalting the bean salad - I just dialed back the salt elsewhere and the overall dish came out fine...whew!

The bitterness of the chard was a nice astringent complement to the creaminess of the beans and the succulent, tender fish. I thought the sauce was pretty strongly lemony, but being a lover of all things lemon, it certainly wasn't too lemony for me!

Overall, I thought the meal felt really indulgent when it was actually really light and healthy. Here's what Colleen thought:

"Basically this is my ideal summer meal - light lemony fish, a bed of greens, and magic chickpea melangé. I'm still not quite sure what makes Meyer lemons so amazing, but I swear I could taste a difference in the sauce. Next time I would not brine the beans (though I enjoyed the salt a great deal) - I think it's easy to just add seasoning later on. Maybe we (you) could try an iteration of this dish again for the wintertime and create a more hearty, brothy sauce and winter greens? Mmmm, broth."

Not too shabby! (And I totally agree about brining the beans - a very salty oops. I had no idea the beans would soak up the salt from the water the way they did.)

It was a successful, laid back dinner at home followed by a tour de Ukie-village bars - deliciousness followed by friends and chatter! Saturday night, perfected.

Thanks for reading! More soon...

Fish Tacos, Cheating at Dessert & Inexplicably, Cheese Grits

How great are fish tacos?!


Pretty great. This was my first attempt at fish tacos (obviously, since that's what this whole blog is about), and I think overall they came out all right! In retrospect, I would've liked more heat - either by pumping up the cayenne in the breadcrumbs or just by throwing some hot sauce on top of the whole thing!

I kept these pretty traditional, with shredded cabbage and sour cream, but you could of course add any taco topping you like - or leave out anything you don't like. This is an easy, quick meal that - despite the frying - I'm convinced is still fairly healthy. Obviously you could grill the fish and they would still be delish.

FISH TACOS

INGREDIENTS

3 fresh tilapia filets
3 large flour tortillas (or 6 small ones)
flour
2 eggs, beaten
juice of two limes
various spices: salt, pepper, coriander, chili powder, cayenne powder, etc. (just experiment)
peanut oil for frying
Ian's bread crumbs, regular (not Italian-seasoned)
the salsa of your choosing
fresh shredded cabbage
shredded cheddar or Mexican-blend cheese
1/2 c. sour cream
handful cilantro leaves, chopped

STEP ONE:

Make the fish-frying assembly line: place the flour on one plate, the eggs (mixed with the juice of one lime), and the breadcrumbs (seasoned with a generous smattering of spices, including salt) onto another plate. Have a fourth plate, covered in a few paper towels, ready for when the fish come out of the pan. Heat the peanut oil in a semi-deep pan over pretty high heat (we put ours on an 8 out of 10 setting).

STEP TWO:

While the oil is heating, bread the fish: dredge in flour, then lime-egg, then breadcrumbs. Shake off excess. When the oil splatters a bit when you drop a few water droplets in it, it's ready. Fry the fish until the first side is golden-brown. Flip and fry the other side. Remove from the oil and drain on the paper towels. When all the fish is fried, cut it into slices.

STEP THREE:

Mix the sour cream with the juice of one lime and the chopped cilantro. Assemble the tacos in the tortillas: the fish and any toppings of your choosing! (Shredded cabbage is traditional, but you could use lettuce.) Enjoy!

Here's what Taylor had to say about the fish tacos:

"When Elizabeth said she wanted to make fish tacos for dinner I was psyched because I knew they'd taste great. And the meal didn't disappoint. I couldn't help but notice how evenly the fish was fried despite our not having a deep fryer. When I pan fry things they usually end up either undercooked or with little black areas here and there. Not so with this panko breaded tilapia.

Also included in the taco were cabbage, something I would never have thought to add but provided a nice crunchy texture, and a dill cream sauce that went nicely with salsa to add flavor. I reduced it to a few scraps of tortilla in what seemed like 30 seconds.

After that came the pound cake with strawberries and whipped cream that Eliz just whipped up on the spot. I think that pretty much speaks for itself. Best meal of the week for me. Thanks!"

(Not too shabby!)


When the LeCroys and I cook together, we hardly ever plan for dessert, but inevitably we sit around watching Top Chef and end up wanting more food! This time I came prepared with a little sweet treat in tow. This is the easiest dessert in the world - and probably one of my favorite sweets of all time! Since strawberry season is in full swing - and is sadly all too short - I wanted to make use of them while I could.

The one "homemade" aspect of this dessert is the whipped cream, which - once I found out heavy cream can be whipped in a matter of minutes - I never intend to buy again. Why get the creepy aerosol can when you can just make your own so simply?

NOT-REALLY-HOMEMADE DESSERT

INGREDIENTS

1 store-bought angel food cake (or you could use pound cake)
1 small container heavy whipping cream
1 container strawberries (or berries of your choice)
a few pinches sugar



STEP ONE:

Slice the berries and sprinkle with a little sugar, tossing to coat. Allow to sit for a little while in the sugar.

STEP TWO:

Slice the cake.

STEP THREE:

Using an electric hand mixer in a deep bowl, add a little sugar (about 1 T.) to the cream, and whip it until it becomes...whipped cream (a few minutes). Top each slice of cake with the berries and cream. Enjoy!

This last recipe I included simply because one of my goals in life, should I ever achieve my dreams of becoming a culinary superstar, is to convince the world above the Mason-Dixon line that cheese grits are the food of the gods! Everyone I know who's tried grits says the same thing: "They just seemed so bland." Um...DUH! That's why you put butter and cheese in them, people! I grew up eating cheese grits almost every weekend for breakfast, and they are still one of my favorite ways to start a Saturday morning. I hope if you ever get the chance to try real, homemade cheese grits, you'll begin to love them as much as I do. With a couple of quick-fried eggs (and some bacon or sausage, if you're feeling ambitious), they're hot, filling, and deserving of way more credit than they get!

SIMPLE SOUTHERN BREAKFAST

INGREDIENTS

1 c. water
3 tablespoon dry grits
1 hunk cheddar cheese (about 3 ounces?), cut into small pieces
chunk of butter
salt and pepper
2 eggs
a little more butter
a little more salt and pepper for the eggs



STEP ONE:

Bring the water to a boil. Stir in the grits and reduce to a simmer. Cook until the grits begin to thicken. Stir in the cheese and butter, and stir until the cheese is completely melted. Season with salt and pepper. Pour out onto a plate.

STEP TWO:

Meanwhile, cook the eggs in a small pat of butter, seasoning with salt and pepper (I did mine with the whites cooked and the yolks runny, but you could scramble or poach them, whatever you like). Serve atop the grits. Enjoy!

LeCroys, thanks for hosting and allowing me to watch your glorious television!

Thanks for reading! More soon...