We consider ourselves extremely fortunate to have found a local seafood market that delivers during this unprecedented time of isolation. https://www.haskellsseafood.com/ We’ve taken this opportunity to amplify our cooking creativity and come up with some new and easy ideas that tantalize the palate. I present to you my curried fresh sea scallops! And remember, unlike many of my husband’s baking recipes which must be precisely executed, there is wiggle room with mine as I tend to cook intuitively, so personalize away!

Ingredients (3-4 servings)

• 1 Tbs Peanut oil
• 1 Tbs butter (I used vegan)
• 2 limes: one juiced and zested, the other quartered for serving
• 1 small chopped onion or shallots
• 2 Tbs green curry paste
• 1-2 Kaffir lime leaves (optional)
• 1 can coconut milk
• 1 package Udon Japanese thick noodles (or your favorite fettuccine)
• 1+ cup fish, vegetable, or chicken stock
• 1+ Tbsp grated ginger
• 2 Tbs fish sauce
• 1 pound sea scallops
• 4 Tbs chopped cilantro
• Salt & Pepper

Directions:

Cook the noodles until just al dente, drain and rinse under cold water and set aside. Pat dry the scallops with paper towels and season all over with salt and pepper. Prepare a pan for sautéing the scallops.

In a pot large enough to also contain the noodles later, heat the peanut oil and lightly sauté the onion/shallot and the ginger for 2-3 minutes.  Add the stock, fish sauce, curry paste, coconut milk, kaffir leaves, lime juice, and stir well.  Simmer over low heat and stir often to incorporate all the ingredients while reducing and thickening the sauce. 

Meanwhile, heat the butter and sauté the scallops 2-3 minutes per side, depending on thickness.  Once an exterior light golden-brown crust is formed and the scallops are opaque in the center, turn off the heat. 

Toss the reserved noodles in the pot with the curry sauce, add the lime zest, most of the chopped cilantro, and mix well.  Divide the curried noodles into bowls and top each mound with several scallops. Spoon any remaining curry sauce from the pot onto the scallops and noodles. Add a final dusting of cilantro, a lime wedge, and enjoy! 

RSA

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This colorful Salad Niçoise tastes as good as it looks.   Fresh, raw vegetables like the multi-color sweet peppers strips and cherry tomatoes are flanked by sliced radishes and cucumbers.  The blanched haricot verts and asparagus are still crunchy, while the varicolored baby potatoes add a splash of blue.  De rigueur are the Niçoise olives and a few slices of boiled eggs for garnish.  All this deliciousness sits atop a bed of butter lettuce leaves and is crowned with ahi tuna coated with sesame and black pepper, pan-seared to perfection (crusty outer layer and rare center).  Homemade honey-mustard-herbs vinaigrette brings it all together perfectly.  A feast for the eyes and palate, and sure to please everyone.

RSA

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How to extend summer, although Autumn has just arrived:

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Boneless kidney lamb chop with celeriac puree and aerated Hollandaise sauce

As time goes by, and as more and more meals come out of the 2 GM kitchen, I find that sous vide has become the number one go to method of cooking protein and vegetables. Case in point is the deboned kidney lamb chop over celeriac puree veiled with aerated Hollandaise sauce from a whipper/siphon. And what’s great is that the hollandaise sauce was also sous vide prior to being poured into the whip.

So, here’s what’s going on. Although I’m not a huge fan of Hollandaise sauce anymore just because of all the butter, I made aerated Hollandaise sauce for some asparagus a couple of days ago. And yes, it had butter in it, but the aeration by the whip, made it light and extremely good. I had a lot leftover in the whip which went into the refrigerator until I was ready to use it again. I simply warmed up the metal canister which had the chilled Hollandaise in it (and it was still under pressure), and used it on my boneless lamb chops yesterday. Easy, right?

Crunchy asparagus with aerated Hollandaise sauce

Aerated Hollandaise Sauce:

Ingredients:

1/3 cup good quality chicken stock
2 T rice vinegar
1 small finely chopped shallot
3 large egg yolks
8 T good quality unsalted butter melted
1/4-1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp Meyer lemon juice

Method:

Put the stock, vinegar and shallots in a small sauce pan, and reduce over medium heat until there’s 3 tablespoons of liquid. Off heat, and strain, reserving the reduced stock.

Using an immersion blender (or rigorous manual whisk action) blend the egg yolk and the reduced stock, then place it in a quart size plastic food storage bag. Use the water method of removing the air (put the plastic bag in a large bowl of water and work the air out), and seal the bag. Place the sealed bag in a sous vide bath at 149 degree F for 30 minutes.

When done, remove the the mixture from the bag, place in a bowl, and thoroughly blend the melted butter with the immersion blender (or whisk), add salt to taste and the lemon juice.

Pour the mixture into the whip, screw on the top, and charge with two NO2 cartridges, and you’re good to go. Keep the hollandaise warm by putting the whip back in the sous vide bath.

Celeriac bulb. How can something that looks like that taste so good?

Celeriac Puree:

1 medium size celeriac
1/2 cup heavy cream.
salt and pepper to taste
pinch of nutmeg

Peel the celeriac, and chop into course pieces. Pace them into a vacuum bag with the cream, seal, and sous vide for 1 hour at 185 degrees F. When finished, pour the celeriac and cream into a Vitamix, and puree until smooth (use more cream if necessary). Add seasoning to taste. Keep the puree in the Vitamix until ready to serve. (Right before serving, run the Vitamix at high speeds for a minute or so, and it will heat up the puree.)

Boneless Kidney Lamb Chops:

Ingredients:

6-10 kidney Lamb chops on the bone

Marinade:

1/2 cup red wine
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 T stone ground mustard
1 chopped shallot
4 chopped cloves of garlic
2 bay leaves

3 T Olive Oil
2 large sprigs of rosemary
salt and pepper

1 cup of good quality chicken stock
3 T unsalted butter

Method:

Put all the marinate ingredients in a gallon size plastic food bag along with lamb chops. Squeeze out as much air as possible, and refrigerate for 6 hours. Then remove from the refrigerator, discard the marinate, pat dry the chops and season them generously with salt and pepper, and place them in a vacuum bag with the olive oil and rosemary. Vacuum and seal, and place in a sous vide water bath for 2 hours at 139 degrees F.

Assemble:

Heat the chicken stock over medium heat, reduce to almost a glaze, and beat in the butter.

Remove the lamb chops from the vacuum bag, and debone them. Place them in a hot cast iron pan with a drizzle of oil, and sear both sides of the lamb chops. While that’s cooking, warm plates, fire up the Vitamix to warm the puree.

Place a small ladle of the puree on the plate surrounded by a table spoon of the chicken stock reduction/glaze.  Dust the celeriac puree with a pinch of nutmeg.  Take two boneless lamb chops, slice each in half, and position them on top of the puree. Using the whip with Hollandaise sauce, squirt a small amount to one side of the lamb chops.  Serve immediately.

RMA

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How to turn early Autumn’s succulent figs into a scrumptious appetizer in just a few minutes?  First, choose the best looking medium-firm ripe figs, wash them, remove the stems and cut them in half from top to bottom.  Arrange them on a platter and top each one with a dollop of creamy goat cheese.

In a non-stick skillet, warm up as many pecans as necessary, and toast them over low-medium flame.  Add several tablespoons of your favorite raw honey and a heavy dusting of cayenne pepper.  Stir to blend well.  As the honey begins to melt, squeeze some balsamic glaze on the pecans and continue to stir (I used a berries-flavored glaze).  The mixture will quickly become gooey and fragrant; that’s when it’s ready to be poured or spooned over the figs.

Squirt some of the balsamic glaze on the platter and over the figs for decoration, and top with a handful of coarsely chopped fresh mint leaves.  Serve warm as an appetizer, although this could easily double as a dessert.

RSA

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Ingredients:

6 or more beef short ribs (have the butcher leave the ribs uncut if possible)

For the marinade:

1 cup of red wine (more if you’re preparing more than 6 ribs)
1/2 cup soy sauce
3 Tbsp coarse ground mustard
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
4 large cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
1/4 cup olive oil
large sprig each of thyme and tarragon
2-3 bay leaves

For the Sous Vide short ribs:

3 Tbsp olive oil
1 large sprig each of thyme and tarragon
salt and pepper

Method:

Place all the marinade ingredients in a bowl, and whisk well. Put all the beef ribs in a gallon resealable plastic bag, then pour in the marinade. Squeeze the air out and seal the bag, and refrigerate for 12 hours. Flip the bag over occasionally to make sure all the ribs marinate evenly.

Warm up the water in the sous-vide oven to 139 degree Fahrenheit. Remove the ribs from the marinade, and wipe off any excess liquid. Salt and pepper to taste. Then put the ribs in a vacuum bag, add the 3 Tbsp olive oil and herbs, and vacuum seal the bag – or bags, depending on quantity of ribs. Place the bag(s) in the sous vide oven for 72 hours. If using a SousVide Supreme, make sure the water is circulating around all the ribs, or you might want to periodically rearrange the bag(s) in the water oven.

After 72 hours remove the bagged ribs from the sous vide oven. Let them cool and refrigerate if you’re not going to serve them within several hours, or proceed to finishing them. Whether to de-bone the ribs or not is a personal choice. I usually de-bone mine. Either way, finish the ribs in a hot cast iron pan with a couple of tablespoons of oil, or quickly sear them on a hot grill. When they’re ready, plate immediately. I served mine over slices of sauteed giant Shitake mushrooms. Trust me, they’re the best beef short ribs you’ve ever tasted.

RMA 

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BRRRRR…… It’s Siberian cold here; it has been that way for the past couple weeks ever since we got 2+ feet of snow. What better mid winter warm-me-up dinner than mussels steamed in kimchi and topped with braised pork belly?

Serves 4 as an entre:

Ingredients:

5 lbs mussels
2 cups Kimchi (preferably home made)
3-4 T flour
1/4 cup white wine
braised pork belly

 Method:

The day before serving the mussels, place them in a large bowl filled with water that has 3-4 T of flour mixed in. This not only purges the mussels but feeds them. After 24 hours, drain and rinse them well.

Put 1  1/2  cups of Kimchi in a large stock pot with the white wine, and bring to a boil. Then add the mussels, cover and cook until the mussels shells open up (less than five minutes). In the meantime, slice the braised, deboned pork belly into narrow strips or slices. Warm them up in a saute pan with a T of olive oil for a couple of minutes, or micro wave them for 45 seconds.

When the mussel shells have opened, drain them in a colander with a bowl underneath to catch the broth. Divide the mussels among the bowls, ladle the reserved kimchi broth into each bowl, and top with the warmed pork belly slices. Slice the remaining 1/2 cup (or more) of kimchi into strips and garnish each bowl. Serve immediately with big pieces of fresh rustic bread.

RMA

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Searching for Giant Sea Urchin that cost a Fortune:  

Last Saturday night, the 2GMs enjoyed dinner at Bouley in NYC. We opted for the 3 course prix fixe, but the couple next to us chose the chef’s 6 course taster. Their meal started off with a brace of the largest sea urchins I’ve seen east of the Mississippi, billed as Malibu Sea Urchins. I momentarily regretted not going with the chef’s taster. But later, I consoled myself with one of the best desserts I’ve ever had, a chocolate souffle (the other GM had a Mandarin Clementine tart that was truly unbelievable.)

But back to sea urchins. The following morning we stopped by Chelsea Market on the lower west side of Manhattan to purvey at the green grocer, Buon Italia, and the Lobster Place. Amazingly, while at The Lobster Place, we found endless quantities of whole giant California sea urchins, just like the ones I spied the night before at Bouley’s. They were larger than softballs, with a price tag to match. The 2GMs picked out a couple, and once home, back on Eastern Long Island, Rosaria snipped off their tops and plated them. The thing about uni is that no matter how many you have, or how large they are (each of the five lobes of uni roe inside the shell was as big as a person’s tongue!), you just never seem to have enough of that creamy, briny, sweet gold of the sea. After we inhaled them and washed them down with a well chilled muscadet, in addition to not having more sea urchins, I lamented not having another couple of the Mandarin Clementine tarts from the night before to enjoy after our uni.

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RSA

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Back in the day, especially when I lived in coastal Massachusetts, I made Lobster a l’Americaine regularly.  It was probably the first complicated Julia Child recipe that I mastered.  Now, living on the Eastern End of Long Island, I still have excellent access to great, fresh lobster.  For the past decade or so, I’ve prepared lobster in myriad ways; but my go-to method has been lobster either butter poached or sous vide in butter. Hungry for lobster the other day, I proposed to the other gourmaniac that we go old school and that I’d make Lobster Americaine. Dishes prepared à l’américaine consist of a luscious tomato-wine sauce.

I pretty much relied upon Julia Child here: although, instead of her suggestion for an accompaniment of risotto, I made fresh linguine .

Ingredients (Serves 4 people):

3  1-½ to 2 lb lobsters (hard shell, not shedders that are found during the late summer)
4-5 Tbsp canola oil
1 medium carrot, peeled and finely diced
1 medium stalk of celery, peeled and finely diced
1 medium white onion, finely sliced
4 Tbsp finely minced shallots
4 cloves of finely minced garlic
1/3 cup of cognac
5 medium fresh tomatoes on the vine, peeled, seeded and coarsely chopped
1 cup fish stock (preferably home-made)
1-½ cup white wine
2 Tbsp tomato paste
4 Tbsp chopped parsley
4 Tbsp chopped fresh tarragon
6 Tbsp soften unsalted butter
Basil florets for garnish
The reserved coral (the red and / or green stuff  inside the lobsters)
Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Kill the lobsters. Separate the claws and knuckles, and the tails from the lobster bodies, reserve the coral and/or the green stuff inside the lobster bodies. With a heavy a kitchen knife or poultry shears, cut the tails into three pieces, detached the claws from the knuckles and crack each claw.

Coat a large Dutch oven (or casserole) with the canola oil and place on high heat on the stove top. When it’s hot, but not smoking, throw in the lobster pieces. Move them around with a wooden spatula, turning them. Cover with a lid and continue to heat, checking on the lobster pieces until the shells are red. (The lobster meat inside the shells shoul not be cooked by this point.) Transfer the lobster from the Dutch oven to a bowl. Immediately place the carrot, celery and onion in the Dutch oven, lower the heat and cook until tender, about five minutes.

When the aromatics are cooked, season the lobster pieces with salt and pepper, then return them to the Dutch oven, and increase the heat to high. Add the garlic and shallots and cover to build up the heat: don’t let the aromatics or the garlic and shallots burn. After a minute or so, remove the lid, pour in the cognac, and ignite with a long neck igniter. (Careful here!)

After the flames subside, pour in the wine and fish stock, and incorporate the tomato paste. Add the chopped tarragon. Reduce the heat and cook on the stovetop for several minutes until everything is simmering. (The aroma is intoxicating.)  Remove from the stovetop; cover the Dutch oven with a lid and place in the 350 degree oven for about 18-20 minutes.

In the meantime, bring a simmering stockpot of salted water to a boil, and just as the lobster comes out of the oven, cook the linguine or fettuccine until al dente.

In a small bowl, blend the coral/green lobster stuff with the softened butter. It will look like a paste. Remove the lobster pieces from the Dutch oven and transfer to a bowl. Take ½ cup of the cooking liquid from the casserole, and add it to the bowl of the butter-coral mixture, whisk quickly, and immediately return to the Dutch oven. Whisk until combined; you’ll notice the cooking liquid begin to thicken. Add the lobster back in and coat with the thickened sauce.

Drain the pasta, plate with the lobster pieces on top of the linguine. Ladle some of the scrumptious sauce into each dish, and garnish with chopped parsley and basil florets.

RMA

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