I’ve never been to New Orleans, but have always been smitten with its cuisine. Ingredient-wise, it seems simple and unassuming, but the opinions and passion about the right way to do it–well that’s another story. Whatever the case, its all delicious to me. I’ve only come close to doing a Cajun/Creole dish before, borrowing some of the style/flavor, but not going all out. I felt long overdue to actually try a real dish, so I opted for one of the well known stars: jambalaya.
Jambalaya has its roots in paella. The core idea: its a rice dish with a very strongly flavored stock, a hearty mix of proteins (e.g. in my case, chicken, shrimp, and andouille sausage), and a very zesty blend of herbs, spice, and of course, the Holy Trinity (pepper, onion, celery). It sounds deceptively simple–almost kind of plain, but then you smell it and taste it, and its another story entirely.
This was… click to read more…
Posted by mike on August 1st, 2009 in Chicken, Main course, Mediterranean, Pork, Seafood
Since my wife first discovered she was pregnant, we hadn’t had a whole lot of fish, and since Ramya was born, I’ve been vowing to fix that and get fish back into our regular line-up. I’ve had Asian sorts of flavors on my mind lately and armed with an ample supply of lemongrass, thought this was the perfect opportunity for a good, simple sauce that would go perfectly with a simply prepared white fish, in this case, Chilean Sea Bass.
The sauce was excellent–not a lot of it, but intensely flavored. The lemongrass-ginger-lemon combo was a great foil to the anisey flavor of the tarragon and the highly reduced wine and coconut syrup gave the sauce a great, full flavored back-bone. This, of course, is all a complement to the star: the fish. Since that is so simply prepared (sautéed in butter), you’ll want high quality fish or this will fall flat on its… click to read more…
Posted by mike on July 16th, 2009 in Asian, Main course, Sauce, Seafood
Creole cooking is a wonderful thing–you’ve got traditional Mediterranean influences (e.g. French, Spanish, Italian) strong, zesty southern elements (e.g. Carribean, American), and even African flavors. Its one of those styles of cooking that brings a whole lot of great stuff together to make something truly amazing. I wanted to take a classic Creole dish (gumbo) and see if I could spin it in a way that would fit my Thanksgiving menu by adding a bit of autumn to the mix (via butternut squash) as I thought it would be fun change from butternut squash soup.
Now for those of you haven’t had gumbo before, the first thing you need to do is correct this immediately. Seriously! Gumbo is almost stew like–thick, hearty, smoky, spicy, and full of a wide variety of things that’ll warm your bones. Some like to load their gumbo up with poultry (duck, chicken), others beef (veal, brisket), some pork (andouille sausage,… click to read more…
Posted by mike on December 21st, 2008 in Main course, Mediterranean, Pork, Seafood, Soup & Stew
Somehow, I’ve gotten a bit behind on some of my posts, so despite the fact that the leaves have already changed colors, let’s take a moment to pretend its still summer. What do you say? This soup is so delightfully simple, you could make it in a hurry any day of the week. If you love avocados, you’ll love this–creamy and served cold, the toughest decision is what you’ll want to serve along with this Creamy Avocado Soup.
As you can see, the brilliant plating I had in mind looked a little silly when all put together, but ah well, you win some, you lose some. Flavor-wise though, I was delighted–I cooked some bacon, crumbled it on top, and then sautéed some fresh, local shrimp in the bacon fat (shelled, deveined, and cooked for 3-4 minutes) to go along with this soup and make it more of a self-contained meal. Plus, both the sweet flavor of the shrimp the… click to read more…
Posted by mike on November 12th, 2008 in Fruit, Main course, Mexican, Seafood, Side dish, Soup & Stew
Since my wife has no appetite for fish at the moment, I was alone in tackling that whole Kona Kampachi that Kona Blue had so generously sent my way. I had actually been eating fish for four days straight until I had finished it (I couldn’t dare put that wonderful fish in the freezer), but I thought I’d give you, readers a break from fish for a while, hence the gap from the other Kona Kampachi dishes I’d prepared. So here we are, the very last of my fish. This is a simple and straightforward preparation, the Kona Kampachi is sautéed in butter and topped with a cognac cream sauce.
Since I’d tried this fish cooked in many forms (raw, marinated/”chemically” cooked, and broiled), I thought I should see what its like in a good old butter sauté. Sure enough, every approach let the fish shine in surprisingly distinct ways,… click to read more…
Posted by mike on November 3rd, 2008 in Main course, Mediterranean, Sauce, Seafood
Having enjoyed two different raw preparations of my Kona Kampachi recently, I thought it was time to explore how this fish cooks. Being a Hawaiian fish, my first inclination was to aim for something Polynesian in nature, but then I drifted towards Asian flavors. I also wanted to give this fish a good sear, but not cook much beyond medium-rare. Combining these two ideas, I decided on a sweet, spicy, light sauce to glaze the fish during its brief vacation under the broiler.
I was inspired by one of my favorite Asian food bloggers take on this fish, so I thought I’d try to take that idea in another direction. This glaze had distinct Asian flavors (to speak in such broad strokes. I have such a strong culinary lexicon!)–think of the sharpness of things like five spice, the heat of ginger and cayenne peppers, and the sweetness of honey and mirin.… click to read more…
Posted by mike on October 16th, 2008 in Asian, Main course, Sauce, Seafood
