Fish – Page 4 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Baked Red Snapper with Salmoriglio

From the New York Times last week, I learned what salmoriglio is: an acidic and velvety sauce of Sicilian origin that’s perfect for fish. I always use it; I just never knew it had an actual name!

After running an errand for my friend Judy, I stopped by the Westside Market on Broadway and bought a whole red snapper to prepare for dinner. I’ve been watching the Bahamian fish competition on Discovery Channel and I’ve been craving grilled whole fish for days. But with snow on the ground and without a grill, I had to settle for baked fish safely cooked in the confines of the Dr.’s apartment.

Ingredients:
1 whole red snapper, scaled, cleaned, pat dry with paper towels
2 sprigs rosemary
1 lemon, sliced
1 red onion, sliced
6 bay leaves
4 garlic cloves, peeled, minced
oil, salt, pepper

For the salmoriglio:
leaves from 2 sprigs of thyme, stems reserved for fish
2 sprigs of parsley, chopped
1 tsp oregano powder
1 garlic cloves, minced
zest and juice from 1 lemon
oil, salt, pepper

1. In a bowl, mix the salmoriglio herbs and spices together. Drizzle some oil and add the lemon juice by whisking with a fork. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
2. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 450º. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and brush with olive oil.
3. Scatter the half of the lemon slices and half of the onion on the baking sheet and top with the thyme stems, rosemary sprigs and bay leaves. Season the fish with salt and pepper and stuff with garlic cloves and place on top of the herbs. Drizzle the fish with olive oil. Place the remaining lemon and onion slices on top of the fish. Cover with foil and bake until the fish is cooked through, about 20 minutes. Serve the fish whole, with salmoriglio sauce on the side.

Salmon Tamarind Glaze with Corn Salad

Here’s one thing I rarely cook or eat: salmon. Now, salmon is a perfectly good fish but I think I’ve been traumatized with the way they prepare it at weddings. Salmon is like shrimp: a few minutes too much and it’s overcooked, dry and devoid of taste. But I haven’t given up on it. I know that just like any other fish, it will taste good if cooked properly. Besides, after devouring a lot of smoked salmon while I was in Vancouver, I knew I had to play with it some more in the kitchen.

It’s July 4th and corn should be on everyone’s grills this weekend, but they’re more expensive this year because of flooding in the Midwest and drought in the South. According to the Des Moines Register, the corn will come eventually, but maybe not for a few weeks. For now, we all have to eat corn from Georgia and Florida.

This recipe requires a tamarind concentrate you can buy from your Asian market. If you have access to fresh and ripe tamarinds, all you have to do is soak them in hot water to soften them. Put the pulp through a sieve to extract the juice, discarding skins, seeds and fibers.

Ingredients:
4 salmon fillets, patted dry with a paper towel
4 ears of fresh corn, skin and silk peeled off
a handful of cilantro, finely chopped
half a red bell pepper, finely chopped
1 small red onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup of tamarind concentrate
2 tbsps brown sugar
2 tbsps soy sauce
2 tbsps fish sauce
a splash of sherry vinegar
1 red chile, seeded, chopped
juice of half a lime
oil, salt, pepper

1. Make the tamarind glaze. In a small bowl, mix the tamarind concentrate (or extracted juice if using real tamarinds) with the brown sugar, soy sauce, fish sauce, chile, and lime juice, stirring until sugar is dissolved.
2. Rub the flesh side of the salmon with salt and pepper the brush the glaze over them. Store in the fridge until ready to cook.
3. In the meantime, assemble the corn salad. Using a sharp knife, cut off the corn kernels from the cob and into a salad bowl. Toss with the cilantro, red bell pepper, red onion, lime juice and sherry vinegar. Feel free to adjust the liquids according to your taste.
4. Cook the fish. Heat a nonstick skillet with some oil over medium-high fire. When oil is smoking just a tad bit, gently place the salmon skin side down. Let them cook for 5 minutes without moving them to get a crispy skin. Using a heat-resistant spatula, turn the salmon over and cook the flesh side with tamarind glaze for an extra 3 minutes. Brush the skin side with leftover glaze. Carefully remove to a plate and serve with some of the corn salad.

Fish Braised in Sundried Tomatoes

Anna sent me a pack of sundried tomatoes from her recent trip to Argentina so I went searching for recipes using them as the main ingredient. There were a lot of proven recipes for spreads and pastes, so I stuck with one of them and just used it on fish I bought for my weekly omakase bento at work. The heavy cream was rather random but I needed to dilute the tomatoes’ saltiness without losing the consistency of the braising sauce. It was also the only thing I had handy in the fridge. Toss with some basil chiffonade and serve with an unsalted orzo and you should be all set.

Any white fish will do here. Cod will be excellent, but a lower-priced Swai is good, too. And you know what? I spread the sundried tomato paste on a portobello mushroom and grilled that for the vegetarian in the group, and he liked it, too.

Ingredients:
4 fish fillets
a splash of heavy cream
a handful of sundried tomatoes, soaked in hot water for at least 15 minutes, patted dry with a paper towel
a handful of basil leaves
3 cloves of garlic
a splash of sherry vinegar
oil, salt, pepper

1. Make sundried tomato paste. Using a food processor, pulse tomatoes, garlic and basil, adding some oil until you reach the consistency of paste. Season with pepper. Transfer to a container.
2. Lightly salt the fish. (The tomatoes will add more saltiness.) Sprinkle some pepper, too. Using a spatula, spread some of the paste onto the fish.
3. Heat some oil in a large skillet. Add the tomato-covered fish and cook for about 3 minutes per side, uncovered. Lower the heat and add the heavy cream. Gently scrape off the bits and pieces under the fish, cover and steam for an extra 5 minutes. Uncover and transfer the fish to a plate.

Rellenong Bangus, Stuffed Milkfish

Relleno in Spanish food generally means stuffing, usually a meat mixture that’s been breaded and then fried. It’s applied in Filipino food using the same concept but in this recipe, the meat of my country’s national fish, milkfish or bangus, is removed from the cavity, tossed and stir-fried with other ingredients, stuffed back in the fish and then sealed before roasting to a golden brown color.

I grew up eating this stuffed fish at family birthday parties. The kids always enjoyed the fried red hot dogs and marshmallows in skewers while the adults ate the “real” food like rellenong bangus. Milkfish is extremely bony and one needs a lot of patience to remove the very fine threads of bones but I’ve always thought the reward was much greater than the work. I gently pounded the fish using the smooth end of a tenderizer mallet to loosen the meat from its skin and then I sliced off the meat from its skin using a very sharp boning knife. A little maneuvering near the tail helped break off the larger bone in the middle. I knew that knife had its purpose!

The entire process took 45 minutes–not bad for an amateur. I left the sewing of the fish shut to my mother who is lighter handed with a giant needle and butcher’s twine than I am. The result, a cleanly sutured stuffed milkfish.

Ingredients:
1 milkfish, thawed if previously frozen, scaled, cleaned, sliced open along the stomach
3 tbsps ground pork
1 small carrot, finely chopped
a handful of raisins
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1 stalk scallion, finely chopped
3 stalks of parsley, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
oil, salt, pepper

1. Using the smooth end of a meat tenderizer mallet, gently pound the milkfish on a chopping block. Be careful not to pierce the skin. With a sharp boning knife, begin to separate the meat from the fish’s skin. Remove fish bones as you see them.
2. In a large skillet, heat some oil. Sauté garlic and scallions until scallions are soft. Add ground pork and fry. Add carrots and parsley and continue to toss until the ground pork is brown.
3. Add the fish meat with the raisins and toss to continue cooking. Mix in the bread crumbs. Season with salt and pepper. Remove to a bowl and let cool to room temperature.
4. Stuff the milkfish by spreading the meat and fish mixture evenly inside the fish cavity. Hold the seams together and sew close using butcher’s twine and needle. Brush the outside of the fish with some oil and put on a roasting pan.
5. Roast one side of the fish for about 10 minutes. Carefully turn the fish and roast the other side for another 7. Remove from the oven and let the fish slightly cool before slicing to reveal the stuffing inside.

Sardines and Celery Salad

When did sardine get a bad rep? When I mentioned that sardines were in the lunch menu, I got a mixed reception. From the wrinkle-of-the-nose kind of expression to the straight forward Ewww, I wondered what it was about sardines that turned some people off. It was different for me growing up. Sardines were affordable in the Philippines and if they weren’t bought fresh from the market and then fried, they came in a can with spicy tomato sauce, eaten straight up or sautéed with onions.

Fresh Portuguese sardines are pricey here in New York so to stay under budget and still cook for fifteen people at work, I stayed with Trader Joe’s canned sardines in spring water. There was no salt added so the dressing here was quite perfect. Whatever seasoning the two mustards added, the celery’s bite balanced off. This will remind you of a simple tuna salad, only a tad more sophisticated especially if served with rye crackers or warm flat bread.

Ingredients:
2 cans of sardines in spring water, preferably unsalted, drained
1 bunch of celery hearts, finely chopped
a handful of parsley leaves, finely chopped
1 tbsp grainy mustard
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 small red onion, finely chopped
juice from half a lemon, plus some of its zest
oil, salt, pepper

1. In a large salad bowl, mix the parsley with the olive oil, the grainy and Dijon mustards, red onion, lemon juice and zest. Add in the sardines, crushing a bit, and toss in the celery. Season with salt and pepper, adding a little bit more oil as necessary.