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.

Chilled Cucumber Soup with Smoked Salmon and Dill

1 1/2 tbsp butter
1 cup onions, chopped
4 cucumbers, peeled, halved, seeded, cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices (about 5 cups)
1 8-oz russet potato, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch dice
3 1/2 cups chicken broth
3 large fresh dill sprigs
6 tbsp fresh dill, minced
1 tsp salt to taste
1 cup crème fraîche or sour cream
3 oz smoked salmon, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

Melt butter in heavy large pot over medium heat. Add onions and sauté until slightly softened, about 3 minutes. Add cucumbers and potato; stir 1 minute. Add broth, dill sprigs, and salt. Increase heat and bring to simmer. Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer until cucumbers and potato are tender, stirring occasionally, about 25 minutes. Working in batches, purée soup in food processor until smooth. Return to pot. Cool 15 minutes. Whisk in 1/2 cup sour cream and 4 tbsp minced dill. Cover and chill until cold, about 4 hours. Serve with a dollop of sour cream in center of each bowl; sprinkle with smoked salmon and remaining minced dill.

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Another excellent recipe from epicurious.com that did not taste at all like I expected. Apparently crème fraîche is like fancier, whippable sour cream. Also take note of the pureeing the soup in BATCHES; I have a bad habit of overfilling my food processor and leaking liquid whatever all over the place. The smoked salmon goes really well with the dill and everything, although if you leave the leftovers mixed together in the refrigerator as I did, the soup sucks all the flavor out of the salmon and you get slices of tasteless, very oddly textured orange stuff instead. Not terrible, but it was surprising.

a week's worth

Oi, I haven't updated in almost a week! Somehow my 'not full' schedule still manages to keep me busy. Actually most of last week was leftovers thrown together in creative and not-so-creative ways. I'm trying to use up what's in our fridge and freezer, but that gets hard every time I go shopping and buy more fresh stuff. It's just so much nicer to use vegetables that haven't been frozen. Guess I'm picky.

Especially when I go pull a bag out of the freezer labeled 'really yummy chicken broth' and find out that it also has vegetables in it, most of which are mushy beyond recognition. =p But luckily we do have enough of it to reconstitute a whole chicken, so I threw it all in a pot and added some new vegetables...and eggs...I can't even remember what all I put in it. But hey, throw it all in a tupperware bowl, toss some goldfish on top (plastic wrap in between to prevent soggy expanding goldfish), and it's pretty yummy.

Next day's lunch was slightly more coherent. Salmon teriyaki is a delicious standby when you're out of ideas. I marinated the salmon overnight (using store-bought teriyaki sauce, but it actually wasn't that bad) and wrapped it up alongside snow peas and carrot slices over a bed of Koshihikari (=Kroger brand, more or less) sushi rice. Now, I've read that you need to let the rice cool before putting it in a container to carry around till lunch to keep it from getting soggy. I didn't think of that until after I put it in piping hot (thinking I'd wrap it up and it would stay hot till lunch) but it turned out ok. It wasn't the least bit warm when I finally ate it (not insulated enough I guess), but the rice was beautiful and sticky. Just perfect I think. I knew there was a reason I love short grain rice. This 'bento' got a thumbs up from both parents. I think I'll be doing a lot with salmon this summer.

Finally, for today I made more chicken salad. This batch is colorful! I used red, orange, yellow, and green peppers, red and green apples, celery, and purple grapes. Every color of the rainbow except blue. I toyed with the idea of using blueberries, but maybe I'll save that for a fruitier version. Strawberries, oranges, yellow & green apples, blueberries and grapes? That sounds amazing. Damn, that'd make a sweet fruit salad by itself. With bananas for yellow. But anyway, this week's chix salad is nice and crunchy, and very tasty on dark wheat bread.

I have a few recipes and combo ideas that I'm gonna try later this week. At some point I'll hit Capt. Paul's Seafood when it's actually open and see if I can convince them to sell me fish heads. =D More stories to come!