Selective Palate

Summer is in full swing and it is HOT out there! Who wants to spend hours in the kitchen? I actually don’t mind cooking in the summer. I love the change of seasons and continually having new inspiration for food. I love fish in the summer. It’s light and flakey and there are 100’s of ways to cook it or not cook it! In the summer brings our fish truck! I know I have mentioned this before but I just love it. Every Wednesday they drive down here with some of the freshest fish imaginable. For us being land locked in Vermont it is truly a wonderful thing. And their prices! Oh so reasonable; sashimi grade Tuna for $7 lb! Anyway I am running off on a tangent but I do so love the fish truck….

So a Wednesday not too far off in the distant past I meandered my way up to the fish truck to see what they had. With their usual tuna, scallops, lobster they had on sale some very nice scrod. I was feeding company and scrod is such a light, mild fish it would be a perfect summer dinner. Wednesday just also happens to be a farmers market day so I had already picked up some fresh produce; long scallions (like 18” or more!) and some lovely baby bok choy among other wonderful things. As soon as I got home I began planning dinner.

It was a very hot day so I really didn’t want anything heavy like fried so I settled on steaming. Scrod is a perfect fish for steaming; it is a nice firm white fish that is very forgiving; it is really hard to overcook. I began looking for ideas and found this recipe on Epicurious that was my inspiration. Steaming on plates is in my opinion is kind of a pain so I chose to steam in foil packets instead. Plus I put them together a little ahead of time so I could relax with my guests enjoy a glass of wine.

Ingredients:

Any white fish, scrod, cod, sole all work beautifully about 1/2lb per person
1 bunch scallions, greens only julienned in 2 inch long strips
1 inch knob ginger julienned in long thin strips
equal parts soy sauce and rice wine or sake (depending on how much fish you have)
a good pinch of five spice powder (use to taste, it can be a strong flavor I used about 1/4-1/2 teas. for 4 cuts of fish)
1-2 T. sugar (1 tablespoon per cup of liquid)
drizzle of toasted sesame oil
sprinkle of sesame seeds

(I know my measurements are well, nonexistent but trust me it is really hard to screw up!)

Recipe:

Place julienned scallions in an ice water bath and put aside. Then mix together the rice wine, soy sauce and sugar in a sauce pan on medium heat (or you can do this in the microwave) heat until the sugar has dissolved and set aside to cool completely! Once cooled add the five spice powder and whisk to combined. Arrange your fish on individual aluminum foil pieces about 1’x1’ (give or take). Fold up the side and drizzle a couple tablespoons of the liquid over the fish (making sure to reserve enough for plating) and top with a generous portion of ginger. Seal up the packets and place in the refrigerator until ready. You can do this up to 30 minutes prior. I would not go too much further than that due to the acid in the wine. Once ready to cook place in a 350⁰ pre-heated oven in the middle rack and steam for 5-10 minutes. When ready to serve, plate atop stir fried bok choy with a mound of the scallions on top. Drizzle remaining liquid around the plate and a few drops of sesame oil. Top with a scattering of sesame seeds. You can also serve with some steamed rice on the side.

For the bok choy I just stir fried it very quickly in an extremely hot pan with a small amount of oil. I flipped it several times just to show off! You can add a liquid if you liquid if you like to help the cooking process with a little bit of steam.

That’s it! A quick, easy summer dish that is pretty enough and impressive enough for company. In the future, when making this again, and I will be making this again, I think I will add some chili pepper to spice it up. Though, it really was extremely flavorful as is.

Last Friday was M and I’s 7th anniversary. We have a tradition that dates back to our first anniversary of a feast of chinese take-out. Back then we had just moved into our very first apartment and we had next to nothing plus new nothing of the area. To celebrate we made a picnic on the floor (no furniture either!) and ate chinese take out. I think back then it cost a total of $18 and for us that was about as far as our new budget could stretch. Ever since it has been the tradition to do that every year. This year for some reason was special to me. 7 years is a long time, at least for me and the whole 7 year itch people always talk about. So I decided at trying my hand at making a Chinese feast myself.

I made our appetizers just like we would order, pan-fried dumplings or pot-stickers, scallion pancakes, and a napa and cilantro salad we had tried at A Single Pebble and loved.

I have made dumplings before but M really likes gyozas and I had gyoza wrappers on hand. So I made a traditional pork dumpling mixture and filled the wrappers. I had never folded in this style before so I You Tubed a video on the technique of folding gyozas. Very helpful! Over all for my first try I think I did well. M even jumped in and folded a couple. He was actually better right of the gate then I was. I jump right in and pick it up as I go and am speedy, M on the other hand studies it then meticulously proceeds; its the perfectionist in him!

Here is the quick recipe of the filling:

1/2 lb ground pork
1/2 cup scallions
1/2 tsp. minced ginger
1 T. soy sauce
1 T. rice wine

Mix everything well and refridgerate for 30 minutes. Then fill dumplings. You don’t have to do anything special, you can pleat them if you like or make little beggers purses, or even just a good seal will work fine. I followed this video for a tutorial and It was very good. I made a simple dressing out of Chinese balck vinegar and soy sauce with a tad of minced ginger. It was nice combination. To cook I fried them in very little oil then added a spoonful of water to the very hot pan and quickly covered. You can do that or steam entirely, deep fry or even boil.

For the pancakes I had never made them before at all and I took a little help for a fellow blogger. What is weird is that I had planned this out, googled and ended up on a site I have been to many times. Then later while surfing Tastespotting this exact post from Appetite for China was featured, how serendipitous! I took her exact recipe but I tried to short cut the pancakes by using a method I had read on a Ming Tsai recipe. Next time I will follow her instructions exactly! They came out good but in trying to make it easier I ended up making it harder I think.

The napa salad was an after thought but a good one. We have had this a few times out and I thought with all the heavy food a nice light salad would be a good idea. It is simply sliced napa cabbage and torn cilantro in a dressing consisting of 1/2 cup rice wine vinegar, 1 T. sugar, 1 T. light oil (I used coconut), a pinch of salt and about 5 drops of sesame oil. I nuke it for 30 seconds to dissolve the sugar/salt and when cool and ready to eat I dress the salad. Its that easy and very tasty; I can eats bowls of this stuff!

We took a brief intermission from eating to clean up, relax and prepare for the next course, Chinese Red Cooked Beef (Chinese Braised Beef) with noodles. Basically its Chinese pot roast. It takes all day to braise and makes the house smell wonderful! It’s a perfect fall dish.

Recipe:

1 1/2 lbs chuck roast or any cheap cut of meat, cut in to bite size chunks
1 cup sliced shitake mushrooms - I used a combination of dried and fresh, the dried I soaked in hot water for 30 minutes and squeezed out the excess water (save the liquid!)
2 carrots sliced on the diagonal
2-3 cloves garlic minced
1 inch (or so) nob of fresh ginger, minced
1 onion chopped
2-3 cups stock, I used a cup of the mushroom water and 1 1/2 cups of beef stock
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice wine or dry sherry if you can’t find rice wine
2 T. brown sugar
2-4 red chilies
2-3 whole star anise
2 cinnamon sticks broken in 1/2
1 T. 5 spice
salt and pepper (minimal)
oil for browning, I used coconut

Start out by prepping all your vege and set aside. Now prep your meat by cutting into chunks and seasoning with salt, pepper, and 5 spice. Set aside. In a large dutch oven heat the oil and stir fry the garlic and ginger for a few seconds until you can smell it. In batches add your meat. You want the meat evenally on 1 layer without crowding the pan. This should take about 2- 3 batches once done remove all meat. In the same pan add more oil if needed, but you shouldn’t, you should have more than enough fat from the beef. To the pan add your onions and mushrooms and saute until you see some color, about a minute or 2. Now add the beef and the remaining ingredients. Make sure the liquid just covers everything. Turn the heat to medium low and bring to a boil then turn the heat all the way low and cook uncovered for about 3 hours or until the liquid has almost completely reduced and the meat is tender. When almost done, about 30 minutes out, add your carrots. What I did here was since I knew I was going to serve it later, when it was done I turned off the heat and added the carrots gave it a good stir then covered until ready to serve. This cooked the carrots just perfectly.

You can serve this over steamed rice but really it is a noodle type of meal. Traditionally you would serve it with thick wonton noodles which are chinese egg noodles. Living in the mountains of Vermont I could not find them so I used fresh parpadelle which worked perfect! I also served this with seared bok choy seasoned with garlic, ginger, and soy sauce and to top everything off a seasonal hard cider that is produced for fall and had a hint of cinnamon in it; it was Woodchuck Draft Fall Cider. It was a perfect pairing.

It was a very nice dinner and definitely a step up from take out, though I did kind of miss it in a nostalgic kind of way.