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, hocks), others seafood (a whole variety of
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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 smokiness of
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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, but I think this was actually the least exciting of the bunch to me
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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. It was lightly spicy, tangy, salty, and sweet, all in great
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Posted by mike on October 16th, 2008 in Asian, Main course, Sauce, Seafood
As I’d mentioned, I was very fortunate to receive a very generous gift from the kind folks at Kona Blue, so as promised, I thought I’d share with you all the ways I put this delicious fish to good use. Today, I opted for another raw preparation of this sushi-grade, tender, fish that really lets it shine: ceviche.
Also known as “cebiche” and “seviche,” the idea to this dish is simple: high quality, fresh fish, “cooked,” but without heat. Instead, you chemically cook the fish by employing a brief bath of acidic marinade composed of citrus. Each country in Latin America puts their own twist on this, but essentially you have a seafood salad where the fish becomes tender and takes on the flavors of the marinade and the other sharply flavored vegetables you mix into this. Plus, talk about simple to put together–have you ever marinated something? Yea, its really that easy.
My take on this dish (based on what I’ve read–please correct
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Posted by mike on October 13th, 2008 in Main course, Mediterranean, Mexican, Seafood
Food blogging has its perks. Aside from being a member of a surprisingly tightly knit community of really great people, every now and then, you might even chance upon some pretty awesome freebies. In this case, I really hit it lucky, and won a free fish (yay!). This is not just any fish–this is a Kona Kampachi from Kona Blue. I was pretty excited because this is very fresh and sushi-grade to boot, so the first thing that came to mind for me: sushi! (I’m so original! Good thing they don’t call it “ice cream grade”–you’d still stick with me, right, reader?) I’m not sure why, but making sushi is one of those things that always scared the hell out of me, so this was a biggie for me.
First, a bit more about the fish. I’d entirely understand if you’re scratching your head and wondering what Kona Kampachi is as, if you’re like me, you’ve never seen this before when
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Posted by mike on October 7th, 2008 in Asian, Main course, Seafood
