Broiled Trout

So I went to Ranch Market in Gardena and purchased a 1.5 pound farm-raised trout for under $7.00. Not $7 per pound, but $7 total. Under $7. Had it scaled and gutted and brought it home. Placed it on an oiled broiler pan, sprinkled it liberally with salt, and then popped it in the broiler.


Maybe 10 minutes later, it was toasty on both sides (I flipped it halfway through.) It was so large I had to keep moving the broiler pan around to get it cooked on all sides.


To go with it, I made sauteed spinach--melt 2 Tbsp. butter in a frying pan, add a couple of smashed cloves of garlic and let the butter and garlic get brown and toasty but not blackened, then add a package of baby spinach (dry! from a bag.) and stir it around till it wilts. Crazy good.


I removed the head and tail and then cut along the back bone to create two fillets, and removed the rib bones (yes, there were still a few bones left. When you are eating with chopsticks, bones don't seem like such a big deal.) I poured some melted butter over the fish and a couple of drops of lemon juice. The flesh was silky and delicious. Fantastic dinner!

This meal was inspired by a similar meal I had last week at Fork in Chicago. But cheaper, and with a larger fish.

Buta No Kakuni

For years now, we have been ordering Buta No Kakuni (braised pork belly) at Azuma in Gardena (CA), and it is crazy good. Recently, after acquiring a slow cooker, and hearing of my daughter's success at making this herself, I decided to have a go at it.


Recipe:

2 pieces (3/4 lb. each) pork belly (the skin was already removed from this, but the layer of fat is intact, as it should be. This is what bacon is cut from) (Each piece cost approx. $6. They shrunk in the cooking)
a few coins of ginger
1/2 cup sake
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup mirin
water
a few slices of daikon (optional)

Combine the sauce ingredients in a saucepan and heat. I added 1 cup of water, but 1 and a half cups would probably work better. Put pork, fat side down. (not fried or anything else) in the slow cooker (3 qt. size) and pour the sauce over. Cook on low for a long time.

How long a time? Well, I cooked mine overnight, for 12 hours, and then I let it sit at room temperature during the day, and then reheated it on low for another hour. My thought was "The longer the better." This may not be true. The fat was succulent and melty, as it should be, but the lean meat was a bit dry, so maybe I overcooked it. Next time, I will stop after 8 hours and see how that works.

And there will be a next time!

I served this with mustard paste, as in the restaurant, but I did the spinach separately, oshitashu style, and served it in a separate bowl.

All in all, it was delicious. but Azuma's is still the best, perfection on earth.

Broccoli Quiche

Crustless Quiche, to be exact.

1/2 a 1 lb.package of frozen chopped broccoli, cooked and well-drained (or fresh)
4 eggs
1 cup whole milk
1-2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese (or other cheese--I had some Mexican mix that I added)
4 oz. ham, chopped
half a package of mushrooms, sliced
1/2 an onion, chopped
sprinkling of shredded parmesan

Spray a pie plate with Pam or olive oil spray. Spread cooked broccoli in the plate. Spread the ham in the plate. Cook mushroom and onion in a bit of butter till softened and add to the pie plate. Sprinkle cheddar cheese over ingredients. Beat eggs and stir in milk. Pour egg/milk mixture over everything and stir to distribute everything. Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes. Just before it is done, (set up but not totally browned) sprinkle Paremsan over the top and cook for 5 minutes more.

Mmmm chicken soup

I want to write down how I made this soup, because it was good!

So I had 5 chicken thighs in the freezer. I defrosted them and removed the skin and excess fat.

I cut up 3 stalks of celery, 2 carrots, and 1 onion and lightly sauted them in oil in the Dutch oven pot. Then I put the skinless (bone-in) thighs in the oil and cooked them till both sides were lightly colored. I added 6 cups of water and simmered it all for about an hour, I think. I removed the chicken and let it cool, and meanwhile, I added a cup and a half of German noodles.

I removed the meat from the bones when it was cool and shredded it by hand into large pieces, then returned it to the pot. I added salt to taste. That's it! I liked the large slices of carrots.

A Couple of Recipes

Ginger Syrup

3 c. water
2 c. sugar
6 oz. fresh ginger, chopped, unpeeled

Combine and bring to a boil. Simmer 20-30 minutes, till reduced by half. Cool, then strain and refrigerate.

1-2 tsp. in hot tea.
1 Tbsp. + seltzer water = ginger ale.

Mexican Hot Chocolate
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/2 c. sugar
1 Tbsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. chili

To use, combine 2 Tbsp. with 1/4 cup milk. 3/4 cup water, and optionally, stir in some chocolate syrup.

Kristen's Enchiladas

Prep time: 10 min. Cook time: 25 min. Total: 35 min.

INGREDIENTS
1 lb.	lean ground beef
1 can	refried beans
1 large can	enchilada sauce
10pk	8" flour tortillas
1 packet	taco seasoning
1.5 cups	shredded cheese
.5 bunch	green onions

Use Trader Joe’s Enchilada sauce.

STEP 1: Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Brown the ground beef in a large skillet over medium heat until no pink meat remains. Stir the meat well while it is cooking to break up large chunks and make sure all of it is cooked through.

STEP 2: Add the taco seasoning and approx. 2/3 cup water (as directed on seasoning packet). Stir well and let simmer until the liquid evaporates and the mixture is thick and saucy.

STEP 3: Add the refried beans to the meat mixture and stir until it is well combined and heated all the way through. This mixture can get thick and sticky so stir well!

STEP 4: Using spray oil, coat the inside of a large casserole dish. If you skip this step the enchiladas will stick and you'll just have one big mess when you try to dish them out. Warm your stack of tortillas in the microwave for about 30 seconds to make them more flexible.

STEP 5: Take approximately 1/3 cup of the bean and meat mixture and put it inside of a tortilla. Wrap the beans up in the tortilla burrito-style (how to roll a burrito). Place the rolled enchilada in the casserole dish, seam side down. Do the same for the remaining 9 enchiladas and pack them tightly into the casserole dish.

STEP 6: Once all of the rolled enchiladas are in the dish, evenly pour the entire can of enchilada sauce over top. Sprinkle the shredded cheese over the whole dish. Place the dish in the preheated oven (350) and bake for approximately 20 min. or until its all bubbly around the edges.

STEP 7: Sprinkle the chopped green onions all over the top and enjoy!

Spinach Olympia

Cook frozen spinach per package directions, drain. Saute with olive oil and garlic. Sprinkle with lemon juice. Serve, topped with crumbled feta and sliced kalamata olives.

Kristen's Pizza

Top 3 frozen Garlic nans from Trader Joe's with marinara sauce. Sprinkle with mozzarella and/or other cheese. Bake on cookie sheet for 10 minutes, till cooked and crispy.

Cream Soup and Spinach dish

I was looking through a book called Vintage Notions, which had images and projects from the 1920s, and among them were two recipes for cream soups. When I went for lunch with Karen in Skowhegan, they had cream of spinach and cream of tomato soup on the menu, and the whole idea just struck me as something good. So last night I adapted the recips a bit and made home-made cream of spinach soup that was quite yummy:

Cream of Spinach Soup

2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp. flour
2 Tbsp (+/-) finely minced onion
2 cups whole milk
1 cup spinach puree (see details below)
1 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
additional half-and-half cream to taste, or enrich the 2 cups milk by substituting some cream
goat cheese for garnish (or sour cream, or feta, or maybe Parmesan)

The original recipe did not have onion or cheese, but I felt that taste in the 1920s was a bit more bland than today's taste, so I added them.

Melt butter in 2 qt. pan, add onion and saute till just translucent. Sprinkle with flour and cook together. Add milk gradually, stirring the whole time. Stir in spinach and stir well to distribute. Season and garnish.

For the spinach puree, here's what I did. I looked for spinach baby food, but there wasn't any at Albertson's (don't know if there is any anywhere in the world.) The original instructions said to force cooked spinach through a sieve, but that sounded like a mess and maybe a broken strainer. I don't have one of those cone-shaped sieves with a pusher thing. I contemplated the spinach issue for a while and finally did this: Cook a half bag (or whole box) of chopped spinach. Allow to cool, drain out any excess water, but don't squeeze. Place spinach in blender and puree. Yeah, it's a bit of a mess to clean up the blender, but the puree had a lovely texture. About a cup in all.

I had chevre goat cheese in the fridge, so I topped the soup with that.

The same book had another recipe that I want to try:

Cream of Tomato Soup
3 Tbsp. butter
3 Tbsp. flour
2 cups whole milk
1 cup canned crushed tomatoes

make the white sauce as above. Add the tomato slowly to avoid curdling.

And also while I was in Maine, I had something called Haddock Olympia at The Last Unicorn, and the accompanying spinach was delicious and would make a lovely side dish on its own with fish or chicken or lamb.

Saute a pound of fresh clean spinach in olive oil and garlic. Add some lemon juice. Top with chopped kalamata olives and crumbled feta cheese.

I also want to try to make a seafood chowder like the one at the Red Barn. But I won't have a lobster claw, sadly. (Unless I cook a lobster....unlikely.) Maybe crab claw? It had sea scallops, white fish, and lobster, in what seemed to be simply milk, cream and butter.

Fonduta

In Chicago, we went to Quartino, where we had a lovely meal that included Fonduta, the Italian version of Fondue. I wanted to try it at home, and found the following recipe online:

8 oz. Fontina cheese
2 cups whole milk
pinch of salt
4 egg yolks
8 oz. butter

I bought a piece of Fontina at Trader Joe's, and I also bought a bag of shredded mixed Italian cheese at Marukai. The mixed cheeses included parmesan, mozzarella, smoked provolone, asiago, romano and fontina. The shredded cheese smelled a lot sharper than the whole fontina, and I was a little torn as to which to use. In the end, I used mostly the mix, with an addition of some cubes of the Fontina.

I set up a small pan over a saucepan as a double boiler to melt the cheese and one cup of the milk. In another pan, I warmed a cup of milk, the butter (yeah, that's a lot of butter!) and the egg yolks. I was a little concerned that the egg would scramble, and there were no details about how to avoid that, and in fact, it did happen somewhat. Next time, I will maybe temper the eggs and add them at the end.



In any case, the finished sauce was not as smooth as it should have been, but the taste was very good. I jerry-rigged a serving mechanism that consisted of a small candle and a rack (from an old toaster over) supported on 4 small cups, to keep the sauce warm. It may not even be necessary, but it added a nice touch. This would be a nice meal on a cold winter night, but it tasted very good out on the patio tonight as well.

We used Spoon House bread cut into 1" cubes and a sliced Fuji apple. In the winter, I might add potatoes, but Papa really wanted to focus on the bread, which was very tasty.

It would be easy to cut this recipe in half, and this amount made too much for 2 people to eat as a dinner. I will see how the leftover sauce keeps and re-heats.