Crudo

aka Italian sashimi

I heard on NPR's cooking podcast a few weeks back about crudo, which is raw fish served with (generally) olive oil, lemon or lime juice (or sometimes vinegar), sea salt, and pepper. Their story about it is here, with more details in the audio file. I did some online searching and also found an article from the San Francisco Chronicle about it. It sounded really interesting, so I went to Sake House tonight to get some fish.

I decided to get salmon, tuna, red snapper, and sweet shrimp, and Jenny gave me some spicy tuna as well. I took these home and drizzled them with different flavors, basically following the combinations I found in those articles and a few other places:
tuna + lemon juice, olive oil, sea salt, & black pepper
red snapper + lime juice, olive oil, & salt
sweet shrimp (amaebi) + lemon juice, olive oil, salt, & pepper
salmon + herbed bread-dipping oil, salt, & a few drops of lime juice
spicy tuna + sesame oil, soy sauce, sriracha hot sauce, scallions & I think a little lime juice. The spicy tuna itself already had the hot sauce and scallions, along with fish roe and Japanese mayonnaise.

It was all basic, but really good. I think the main attraction with this dish is the blending of really subtle flavors, for which I have no sensitivity. To me it all tasted delicious, but it was nothing more than my love, raw fish, in a different arena with olive oil and citrus juice. I couldn't really taste the salt and pepper until I really piled it on a piece of tuna, which was good and crunchy. I have a feeling that all those italian chefs fighting for a garlic-less culture of subtle shifts in flavor were rolling over in their graves when I did that. What can I say, I like bold flavor.

We (my parents, Michael, and I) ate this with rolled grape leaves and rather large crostini with different cheese and mediterranean spreads. It was quite a different culture at our table tonight. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Two Asian Noodle Salads

(one tasted, one tested)

lettuce, shredded (the green kind!)
carrots, shredded
noodles (lo mein or something)
tomatoes, diced
celery, chopped
peanuts
green onions, chopped
cilantro
sesame seeds
lime-peanut sauce

Mix, arrange, garnish. I have no idea what's in the lime-peanut sauce at the moment, but I'll figure something out. I ordered this at Grandma's Bar & Grill in Fargo, ND yesterday. I was particularly interested in the sauce, because it sounded so similar to what I make sometimes with peanuts and noodles. This sauce wasn't thick and creamy like I expected, but more watery, like a salad dressing. It was still good, and all the extra veggies and stuff were really nice and refreshing. You could add chicken for $2, but that might have been a bit much.

cucumbers, peeled and sliced
ham, sliced
eggs, sliced
noodles (udon I think)
sesame seeds
peanut butter
sesame oil

The first three ingredients should be sliced into strips as much as possible. Mix the peanut butter and sesame oil and heat until they're mixed nice and creamy. Pile on some noodles, arrange the cucumbers, ham, and eggs on top, sprinkle some sesame seeds, and give it a generous helping of peanut sauce.

When I do this in the dining hall, I just use the microwave, but if you do it over a stove and add some other fun stuff like soy sauce in, anything could happen. I'm pretty sure there's more to this sauce the way Jenny (my boss) makes it, but I don't know what it is. Personally, I like just the peanut butter best, because the sweetness really complements the other ingredients well. I haven't yet figured out how to keep the sauce from thickening up too much when you add it to the cold salad...I don't know if it's just a matter of adding more oil or some other special ingredient...I'll experiment with this over the summer.