Prospecting the Pantry: Lemon-Tarragon Marmalade on Roasted Salmon and Spinach

People ask me how we manage to use the hundreds of jars of jelly, jam and marmalade I preserve each year. Can there be that much breakfast toast in the world? Probably, perhaps in the homes of family and friends, since I give away so much of the production in four-ounce jars, enough for a few days or a week. At our house, however, they become ingredients or condiments to provide a certain spark to our food.

The piquant marmalade that I make from Meyer lemons and tarragon is a surprisingly versatile ingredient. The abundance of peel offsets any tendency toward being sugary. Quite the opposite: it’s almost bitter. Stirred into steamed potatoes, or parboiled winter kale, or a root vegetable soup, it transforms ordinary ingredients into an extraordinary combination of flavors. Here I added the marmalade to pan-grilled salmon sitting atop seasonal spinach and “fried” leftover spaghetti. The combination of textures and flavors was terrific.

The time for making this marmalade, for me, is late March to early May, when seasonal organic Meyer lemons are still available, but waning, and French tarragon bursts forth in my pot garden, a seeming miracle after a winter of dormancy.  The recipe for Meyer Lemon Marmalade with Tarragon can be found here.

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Cook the Books: The Mile End Cookbook

A cooking challenge organized by Meg of Grow and Resist and Briggs of Oh Briggsy in which we explore a featured cookbook each month. This month’s selection is The Mile End Cookbook by Noah and Rae Bernamoff.

It was about the pickles, or so he said. Handing me a Christmas present, he proclaimed that this book was “up my alley” since everything was made from scratch. He frequents the Mile End restaurant in Brooklyn, and I said that I would cook for him from the book if he would promise a trip. “To Montreal?” he asked, knowing that we’d been there many times, and that a childhood friend, now a writer, chronicles Jewish life in that community. No, I meant to New York, to the original restaurant in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn or to the new ‘branch’ in NoHo. I was hoping to take the field trip this month, but work and school and obligatory events have interfered, so all I have is the book. For now.  I was pleased that Meg and Briggs chose this volume for our monthly cook-along, since I finally stopped procrastinating. Most of the dishes I wanted to try are real productions, taking place over days, and sometimes weeks. I followed three paths through the book: the pantry, invented traditions and nostalgia.

THE PANTRY. My exploration of the book back in December started with a riddle. Question: When is a teaspoon not a teaspoon? Answer: When it is Kosher salt. Besides thinking that the dishes in the book are too salty to start with, I was quite aware of the pitfalls of Kosher salt. It’s not all processed the same way, so crystals vary in size, weight and sodium content. Consider this: ¼ teaspoon of Morton’s Kosher Salt weighs 1.2 grams and contains 480 mg of sodium, and the same ¼ tsp of David’s Kosher Salt weighs 1.5 grams and contains 590 mg of sodium. Per ¼ teaspoon, the salt that Mile End recommends, Diamond Crystal, weighs 0.7 grams and contains 280 mg of sodium. That’s roughly half of the other two! Wow, that could blow your recipe (or your blood pressure).  I have no way to prove this, but I believe that Diamond Crystal used to have larger granules and therefore was even less salty than it is now. (The restaurant might even be using a coarser grind. I will sleuth it out when I go.)

I made a batch of Vegetable Pickling Brine (page 64) in December and used it for Pickled Beets (page 72).  Although I didn’t remark on the saltiness at the time, I later realized I should cut it in half. When the summer vegetables that the Bernamoffs pickled become available, I’ll try this section of the book again, but with reduced sodium.    

INVENTED TRADITIONS. I like the way the restaurant and cookbook invent new traditions. For example, in honor of their origins in Montreal, the Bernamoffs created a brunch dish they call the Mont Royal (page 101), which combines the simplicity of lox with potato latkes, regrettably often reserved for Hanukkah and now revived for everyday.  The combination was superb, especially the contrast between the sleek fish and the crispy edges and creamy centers of the latkes topped with crème fraiche and chopped chives.

Over five days, I cured a fatty piece of sustainably farmed salmon in salt, sugar, peppercorns and dill. The fish mixture was drained and restarted every day until the last, when it air-dried in the refrigerator. The fat’s the key since it transports the salt mixture to the core of the fish, producing delectable Lox (page 56). I scrimped a little on the salt with no ill effect. The Potato Latkes (page 168), made much smaller than the generous Mont Royal, were just right, and better than the potato pancakes I’ve been making. Must be the matzo meal and the abundance of chopped chives in the batter.  This is a keeper.

NOSTALGIA. Among the premises of Mile End – the restaurant and the book – are to re-create for today traditional Jewish food of the past, to demystify made-from-scratch ingredients or dishes, and simply to produce at home the comfort food of a damn good deli.  While the gift of the book was inspired by pickles, my own excitement focused on Beef on Weck (page 128). This sandwich epitomizes the comfort food of my youth in Western New York. It’s my Proustian madeleine, the trigger to memories of picnics and parties and family gatherings. There’s something special about the way the Kummelweck Roll (pages 182-83), a kaiser roll showered with caraway (kummel) seeds and coarse salt, interacts with minimally flavored Roast Beef (page 41) and pungent Pickled Horseradish (pages 86-87). It’s the combination that works, since the crunchy-topped roll, lightly toasted, soaks up Beef Jus (pages 92-93) in the soft center. The combination of ingredients creates a memorable explosion of taste and texture.

My family was in shock. How could something this simple taste so complex? As the person preparing it over a couple weeks’ time, I was thinking the opposite. How many steps and preps did it take me to get to simple sandwich bliss?  A bunch. The beef stock that was turned into jus took one full day and an overnight, but produced the most delicious beef stock I’ve ever made. Since I make beef stock only once a year, the investment was worth it since I had several quarts to add to the freezer. New favorite.

The rolls too needed a sleepover in the fridge and some patient periods to rise, but they were an awesome sight as they emerged from the oven. Mile End twists the dough into a pretzel-like Kaiser shape, but my memory recalls kummelweck rolls with quartered creases. I therefore made a couple where I sunk a dowel (handle of a wooden spoon) into the dough until it hit bottom, repeated it turned at 90 degrees, and scrunched the dough back together. Definitely, that’s the one. Like challah bread, Mile End’s version of the kaiser roll included egg, which gave the bread a good crumb, but I doubt that the weck rolls of my past had an egg in them. No matter. These were amazing.I just happened to be in Western New York last week on a business trip and saw beef on weck on a sandwich menu, served on some version of ciabatta that was sprinkled with caraway seeds and salt. I was tempted for one second to order it, but I resisted, knowing that I would be going home to make my own, more authentic version in the best deli tradition of Mile End.

There will be more kitchen experiments forthcoming from this volume. Even so, I’m holding out for smoked meat when I finally get my trip to the restaurant …this spring?

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Cook the Books: Good Fish (Part 3)

A cooking challenge organized by Meg of Grow and Resist and Briggs of Oh Briggsy in which we explore a featured cookbook each month.  The selection for March is Becky Selengut’s Good Fish, Sustainable Seafood Recipes from the Pacific Coast.  This is my third post on the topic. The first one is here and the second one here.

With Easter approaching and spring around the corner, we’re about to start a season of get-togethers with family and friends who love nothing better than sitting around a table sharing food. Most of these events will be informal, calling for finger food, whereas others will have us sharing a big messy dish such as fondue or bagna cauda or maybe now, a bowlful of mussels. This crowd likes classics that bring back memories but also appreciates surprises, something new to savor and discuss. Since we’ve been cooking from Becky Selengut’s Good Fish all month, I dipped back in for ideas. And there were plenty.

Though they were the most recent recipes I tried, Quinoa Cakes with Smoked Trout and Chive Sour Cream (page 157) and Smoked Trout Mousse with Radish and Cucumber Quick Pickle (153) will be immediate repeats for Easter weekend. Actually, the quinoa cakes – crispy and delicious – will become a permanent fixture in my repertoire since they offer lots of room for experimentation and can easily be made gluten-free. The same goes for radish pickle (I used gorgeous watermelon radishes that I’m definitely going to grow this year). I used the radishes like crackers, smearing the trout mousse on top. Yum. My only regret was not smoking the trout myself. Time to dust off the outdoor grill. My rickety and poorly ventilated kitchen would not survive the stovetop version.

The other two experiments were equally successful. I liked the Squid with Chickpeas, Potatoes, and Piquillo Peppers (p. 214). I’ve been thinking about Spanish tapas and had a big pot of just-cooked chickpeas on hand. It made a tasty light supper served it in a terra cotta pan that pretends to be a cazuela. I can imagine serving it in tiny glazed terra cotta plates for a tasting menu. You know, the kind they sell to keep potted plants from leaking on your table.

The final one I am going to report is one of the first that I identified as a must-do: Mussels with Apple Cider and Thyme Glaze (Page 23).  We’d spent the morning in the falling snow listening to an apple farmer explain how to prune apple and pear trees, and came home half-frozen but toting a quart of fine local apple cider. Becky describes this as a “different camp” from the usual combination of mussels with either tomatoes and white wine or curry and coconut milk.  You bet. So’s the version with Guinness Cream on the facing page, which looks really promising. The reduction of the cider sauce — a combination of hard cider, regular apple cider, cider vinegar and grainy mustard – was a brilliant move, and made the dish deeper and richer in flavor than it otherwise have been. (BTW, I left out the clam juice since my mussels yielded plentiful liquid and I’m not a fan of bottled clam juice anyway.)

I already have a bunch of stickies marking recipes I want to try this season, and there will be so many more as the seasons change. Thanks again to Meg and Briggs for adding such a great resource to my library. You Seattle residents are so lucky to have Becky Selengut as a local treasure telling you about local fish, but I’m happy to know that she cut her teeth on fish right here in New Jersey (what exit was that again, Becky?).

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Cook the Books: Good Fish (Part 2)

A cooking challenge organized by Meg of Grow and Resist and Briggs of Oh Briggsy in which we explore a featured cookbook each month. The selection for March is Becky Selengut’s Good Fish, Sustainable Seafood Recipes from the Pacific Coast.  This is my second post on the topic. The first one is here.

The recipes in Good Fish by Becky Selengut are exceptional. This book’s going to be in the center of my shelf for a long time. I’m already looking forward to summer.

After my first two experiments using cod, I moved on to salmon. Salmon is even more problematic than cod since there’s so much available from environmentally questionable sources, and there are four main types to choose from, sockeye and coho being the two most often identified. The farmed varieties are pretty suspicious, especially when they’re labeled “color enhanced.” Dyed orange? Really?

Becky’s strong recommendation (she repeated it three times) is wild salmon from Alaska. We do get Alaskan salmon here on the East Coast. There’s a distributor – Otolith – in nearby Philadelphia, which has a relationship with fishermen in Alaska who supply frozen salmon (and black cod) in season. Otolith will ship fish overnight to your house in addition to selling it at a few Philadelphia-area markets. It’s a well-regarded source that I intend to investigate. In the meanwhile, the better fish purveyors around here sell Alaskan salmon, though they won’t stock black cod because of the high price and low demand. For Cook the Books, I made Becky’s excellent Jerk-spiced Salmon with Coconut Pot Liquor and Sweet Potato Fries (p. 109). The fish and fries were served atop kale and beans flavored with coconut milk.

The combination of greens and beans is part of our weekly repertoire at this time of year, as are sweet potatoes, so this was a good test of the book. I loved the spice mix, a combination of cinnamon, allspice, cumin, red pepper and salt, which was sprinkled on the salmon and the sweet potatoes. I would have characterized the seasoning as the Middle Eastern “baharat,” which boasts the same ingredients and, like Becky’s mixture, isn’t as peppery as Caribbean jerk. I also loved the fact that the three components of the meal were perfectly timed to come together at once. I loved the photo demonstration of flaking fish to test for doneness. However, I thought there was something odd about the proportions, maybe a problem with the recipe writing. To make it work, I doubled the kale. Since the kale was sautéed, it didn’t produce “pot liquor,” which was dependent entirely on the coconut milk. I halved the coconut milk and thought that the adjusted proportions made the dish work. My beans were Rancho Gordo scarlet runner beans. Since Becky used canned beans, I adjusted the salt accordingly.  I will definitely make this again and will use the seasoning combination in other dishes.

Since I was intrigued with Becky’s twists on the familiar, I made Olive-oil-poached Albacore Steaks with Caper Blood Orange Sauce (page 167).  We are able to get excellent albacore tuna from nearby waters, and it has become a favorite in our household. Milder and leaner (therefore drier) than bluefin tuna, it benefits from flavorful companion ingredients like peppers, onions and tomatoes with capers, or here, a spunky orange, caper and green olive salsa. Becky’s tuna recipe was one of the first I selected to try, in part because blood oranges are in season, whereas I’ll have to wait a few months for the accompaniment to the other albacore recipes. They all sound good.

I’ve previously cooked tuna in olive oil to preserve it, using a long slow method recommended by Rick Moonen and Roy Finamore in Fish without a Doubt, a good how-to compendium of ideas for buying seafood responsibly and cooking it well. Becky’s version uses high temperature oil and a short cooking time. It was successful in the sense that the tuna wasn’t overcooked, but I actually prefer a really hot oven or pan to get it to a similar result. I guess the point was that the outside wasn’t browned, although it became seared by the hot oil. The sauce was good, but too acidic, so I added a teaspoon of honey to smooth it out. Also, unlike the perfect timing of the steps in the salmon recipe, this one needed to be executed in reverse order or the fish could become overcooked after removing it from the heat unless it’s sliced immediately.

One thing I like about this book is that Becky explores a bunch of techniques, all of which are intended to cook fish simply and well, and then embellishes the individual preparations with amazing accompaniments with techniques of their own. I like that. It will keep me cooking from this book.

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Cook the Books: Good Fish

A cooking challenge organized by Meg of  Grow and Resist and Briggs of Oh Briggsy in which we explore a featured cookbook each month.  The selection for March is Becky Selengut’s Good Fish, Sustainable Seafood Recipes from the Pacific Coast.

I’ve always lived near bodies of water that were fishing grounds. Although I grew up near Lake Erie, the memorable fish of my childhood came from adventurous places where my father would go with his buddies or my brothers. They’d drive or fly to some remote lake or river up in Canada and come back with fresh-water fish like muskellunge or arctic char, or even river salmon during special seasons.

When I went off to school in New England, I became acquainted with the finfish and shellfish of the sea: setting lobster traps, having clambakes, eating “scrod,” and enjoying the perceived endless bounty of the Atlantic Ocean.  Meanwhile, my father moved the family to the Eastern Shore of Maryland along Chesapeake Bay and spent a couple of “gap years” between other things as a dayboat fisher of oysters and crabs. The family would gather at Christmas to feast on a bushel of oysters from his friends on Tilghman Island, and in the summer, we’d sit around picking a bushel of crabs.

Around that time, I moved to New York and New Jersey, where you seemingly can get whatever food you crave, from wherever in the world you can imagine, whenever you want.  I eventually realized that, while fun, it’s not a good idea. As I instinctively knew from my father, who was a consummate fisher, hunter and farmer, natural food is seasonal and regional, and fish are no exception, whether they migrate or not. As a world of citizens, we are depleting our oceans and ravaging our land with just plain bad fishing and farming practices. It’s like the pollution of Lake Erie and the Love Canal on a global scale. I’m devoted to responsible farming, with a preference for organic methods, so why shouldn’t I apply that same logic to fish? Especially since we eat more fish at home than poultry or meat.

That’s why I whooped hooray when Meg and Briggs put Becky Selengut’s Good Fish on the list.  Even though the book is based on Pacific Ocean fish, the word “recipes” in the subtitle conveys that the book is about ways of cooking fish, which are probably transferable to East Coast fish.  And the book proves that true. It also offers useful advice about what fish to buy, when, where and why.  And then how to cook it respectfully and effectively.

Off I went to our local fishmonger who stocks high quality and typically sustainable fish, albeit expensive. Rather than driving “down the shore” for a local catch, we have the luxury of walking down the street for excellent local and regional seafood as well as sustainable selections from faraway places. The staff can generally answer my questions about where the fish came from and how it was caught, which only sometimes occurs at the fish counters of our grocery stores. (Wouldn’t you have fun shopping with me?) While I thought I’d just scout what’s available, I left the store with a tremendous carcass of line-caught codfish from New England that even the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch would approve, along with a large filet from the beast.  It was dubbed “scrod,” which is not a type of fish but a descriptor for young cod or haddock. (So before I got on to cooking from Good Fish, I was distracted by two kinds of chowder, fish cakes and a freezer full of fish stock.)

Cod poses a dilemma these days since it’s been over-fished.  Individual Atlantic fishermen are clamoring for restrictions on commercial fishing for cod. That’s a far cry from the “fish that changed the world” that Mark Kurlansky writes about in the book, Cod. His book was seminal telling a historical tale of politics, economics, the environment and gastronomy, a multi-faceted overview that led a genre of anthropological writing (think of books named Potato, Salt, or Tulip). Recently, Paul Greenberg’s Four Fish (bass, cod, tuna and salmon) addresses the sad future of our “last wild food.”  I carry this around on my iPad and read it when stuck in airports or on trains. It’s no surprise that it’s among the books in Becky Selengut’s bibliography. So is the highly recommended Fish Without a Doubt by Rick Moonen and Roy Finamore.

Now, after that long-winded introduction, what did I cook?  Selengut features black cod (sablefish) and Pacific halibut, so I looked at recipes in those sections for what might work for my cod, a thick filet that could be sliced into steak-like pieces. Based on what else was in my refrigerator, I made a version of Roasted Black Cod with Bok Choy and Soy Caramel Sauce (page 137). Once Selengut stated, “This dish is all about the sauce,” and “The soy caramel upstages them all,” I was in. Since Atlantic cod is milder and leaner than Pacific black cod, I knew that this would be successful because of the sauce. Made like a beurre blanc from a base of soy sauce, sake and mirin, the soy caramel was amazing and unified what might otherwise have been an odd combination (fish, red cabbage, bok choy and tomatoes, really!). I’d make this sauce again, fish or no.

Then, since I had a big bunch of cilantro from my chowder adventure, I decided to make Halibut Coconut Curry with Charred Chiles and Lime (page 123). Because of its texture, cod substituted well for the halibut, and the green curry sauce was terrific. I wimped on the amount of jalapeno (don’t) and lessened the amount of coconut milk (do). As with the soy caramel, I’d make this sauce again, fish or no.

That’s my fish story of the day. I can see myself cooking my way through a good deal of this book, so thanks to Meg and Briggsy for bringing it to our attention.

P.S. Since I wrote this, I’ve experimented with more recipes from the book, which I’ll post later.

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Portuguese-style Fish Chowder

This chowder epitomizes the concept of “savory.”  It is well seasoned and flavorful, and a longtime favorite at our house. Spicy, garlicky chorizo sausage counterbalances the inherent sweetness of the white fish, and the grassy green pepper and cilantro leaves and stems complement the neutral base of onions and potatoes. A pinch of allspice subtly transforms the tomatoes. But underlying all of this is homemade fish stock that adds body and a certain depth of flavor.

The recipes for both the stock and the chowder come from Jasper White’s cookbook, 50 Chowders, which I’ve raved about many times. He calls the dish “South Coast Portuguese Chowder” in honor of the large Portuguese population of the south coast of Massachusetts and east coast of Rhode Island.  The key ingredient is the chorizo, removed from its casing and chopped. It’s a lesson in how adding even a little of something so piquant can transform an entire dish. White suggests using canned tomatoes because of their robust flavor. He adds them after the potatoes have cooked and released their starch. I’m a fan of the combination of potatoes and tomatoes but the acidity in the tomatoes inhibits the release of potato starch if they’re cooked together. I used Yukon gold potatoes since I wanted them to maintain their integrity and not become mushy. I followed White’s recipe pretty accurately but cut the vegetables into smaller pieces of different shape (dice versus slice). 

Served with crunchy bread and a little salad, this fish chowder stacks up well alongside classics such as bouillabaise and cioppino.

Portuguese-style Fish Chowder adapted from Jasper White’s 50 Chowders

1 tbsp olive oil

1 dried bay leaf

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 medium onion, cut into ½-inch pieces

½ green pepper, cut into ½-inch pieces

1/8 tsp ground allspice

2 c strong fish stock

1 lb Yukon gold or firm white potatoes, cut into ¾-inch cubes

1 c whole canned tomatoes measured with their juice, cut into ½-inch pieces

3 oz spicy dried chorizo sausage, casing removed and cut into ¼-inch pieces.

Sea salt (or Kosher salt) and freshly ground black pepper

1 lb whole filets of white fish such as cod, hake or haddock, pinbones removed

5 sprigs of cilantro, leaves and tender stems chopped (2 tbsp)

Heat a large pot over medium heat and add the olive oil and bay leaf. As soon as the bay leaf starts to brown, add the garlic and stir. Just before the garlic browns, add the onion, green pepper and allspice and, cook, stirring until the onions are softened but not browned. Add the stock and potatoes and bring the mixture to a boil over high heat. (Add more stock or water if necessary to cover the potatoes completely.) Cover the pot and turn the heat down a little, allowing the potatoes to cook vigorously until just tender, 8-10 minutes.

Reduce the heat to medium and add the tomatoes and sausage. Simmer for 5 minutes. Adjust the seasonings. Be liberal with the salt and pepper.

Add the fish and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat, and sit in the cilantro. Cover the pot and let the chowder sit for 10 minutes. The fish will continue to cook.

Serves 4 amply.

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Fish Cakes

I’m not called the queen of the leftovers for nothing. After I simmered a giant fish carcass to make stock, I was able to salvage a couple of cups of fish meat, some in chunks, some flaky. My method of cooking the stock is very gentle so the leftover fish had decent texture, though not tremendous flavor. It was codfish so didn’t have a strong flavor to start with. 

I decided to make fish cakes using Ina Garten’s approach to crab cakes from her first cookbook, The Barefoot Contessa. The base for the cakes includes plenty of vegetables that are stewed with capers, parsley, Old Bay seasoning, Worcestershire sauce and hot pepper sauce. No problem with flavor. Held together with mayonnaise, mustard and a beaten egg, these whipped up into moist and flavorful patties. Even though this was completely improvised, I’d make this again with either leftover fish or raw fish. And of course crab during the summer. 

Fish Cakes, inspired by Ina Garten’s crab cakes in The Barefoot Contessa

2 c cooked fish chunks (or an equal amount of raw white fish)

2 tsp each butter and olive oil

¼ c minced red onions

¼ c minced celery stalks

¼ c finely diced red or orange pepper

¼ c minced parsley

1 tbsp capers

1 tsp Old Bay seasoning

½ tsp Worcestershire sauce

¼ tsp red pepper sauce

2-4 tbsp mayonnaise

½ tsp Dijon mustard

1 egg

¼ c panko or dried bread crumbs (optional)

Additional panko or bread crumbs for the crust (optional)

Butter and olive oil

Flake the cooked fish or mince the raw fish. In a large sauté pan over medium heat, melt the butter in the olive oil and add the onions, celery, pepper, parsley, capers, Old Bay seasoning, Worcestershire sauce, and red pepper sauce and cook slowly until the vegetables are well cooked, about 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and cool.

Combine the vegetables and fish flakes.

With a fork, combine mayonnaise, mustard and egg and fold the mixture into the fish and vegetables. Add more mayonnaise and/or bread crumbs so that the mixture is not watery. (More will seem necessary for uncooked fish.) Refrigerate the mixture for 20-30 minutes and form into patties. If you want a crust, coat the patties with bread crumbs.

Warm a large flat pan over medium high heat and add a little butter and vegetable oil. Cook the fish patties in a single layer with space between them over medium heat, flipping them once. You may have to cook them in batches. Raw fish will take only a little more than the pre-cooked fish since the egg is the governing ingredient.

Makes about 6 three-inch patties.

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Waste Not, Want Not: White Fish Stock and Chowder

One of my favorite things to do is to walk away with an armload of “garbage” and turn it into gold. Fish stock is a great luxury and a classic lesson in “waste not, want not,” especially when our local fishmonger is generous with his trimmings. I can walk into his tiny store just about any afternoon and walk out with a bag of fish heads and frames to use as a base for soup and chowder. Like shopping for anything seasonal and regional, you need to be flexible. An ideal fish for a versatile stock will be a white-fleshed fish like haddock or cod. However, one day I received salmon and another, bluefish. The resulting chowders were highly specific to the characteristics and flavors of those fish.

Last weekend, I scored big on white fish. There was a sparkle in the eye of the store’s fishmonger-of-the-day when I asked for fish trimmings and he was in the midst of carving a sizeable cod hand-caught somewhere between the Bay of Maine and Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Even the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the be-all-end-all of fish watchdogs, would approve. A wink and a nod later, I walked out of the store past a line of customers with their jaws dropped over the enormity (and maybe appearance) of what I was carrying in a clear plastic bag.  I think the fishmongers like to dish out daunting tasks, but know that I am intrepid. The great thing about this catch is that there’s usually enough flesh on the bones to make a fulfilling soup or chowder. However, given the generosity of the store and its place in our community, I always purchase some of the fish whose bones I got for free. It’s just fair. 

That afternoon, I spent an hour or so cleaning the fish and preparing a strong fish stock. Cleaning is important, since you want to rid your fish of all traces of blood, and if you have a fish head, you need to remove the gills. In addition, for this fish, I also used a thin flexible-bladed boning knife to extract meat for my chowder. 

I make fish stock two ways. The first is analogous to making chicken stock: place the fish bones in water (preferably with a little white wine), and bring to a boil, skimming off the foam. Reduce the heat to simmer the liquid and add aromatics, such as onions, celery, carrots and parsley, plus whole peppercorns and a little salt. This cooks to perfection in 20 minutes.

The other method produces what Jasper White calls “Strong Fish Stock.”  Jasper White, if you don’t know him, is a seafood genius from New England. Having spent a good part of my life in Massachusetts, I appreciate what he has to say in books like 50 Chowders. I think I’ve cooked about 25 so far, most of which are variations on a method.  So-called strong fish stock is made in several gentle stages:  sweat (slowly cook) onions, celery, carrots, herbs in a large pot for 8 minutes; add white wine, stack the fish heads and frames on top and sweat them until the bones turn white, 10-15 minutes; cover with water and simmer for 10 minutes; turn off the heat and let the mixture sit for 10 minutes; carefully decant. That’s it.  Other than cleaning any residual meat from the bones. 

My big cod yielded not only enough raw meat for chowder but also enough cooked meat for fish cakes. Two full four-person meals from the trash, and 3 quarts of fish stock for the freezer. Not to mention that fish bones can be pretty good for composting, but don’t get me started.

This particular chowder is a variation on classic New England chowder, made with abundant celery and celery leaves, and generally follows Jasper White’s method. 

Strong Fish Stock, adapted from Jasper White, 50 Chowders

1 tbsp unsalted butter

2 medium onions, very thinly sliced

4 stalks celery, very thinly sliced

2 medium carrots, very thinly sliced

2 bay leaves

¼ c roughly chopped parsley stems and leaves

6 large sprigs thyme

2 tbsp black peppercorns

1 large (6”) or 2 small fish heads (cod or haddock), cleaned of blood and gills removed

2-3 lbs fish frames (bones), cut into 4-inch pieces and cleaned of blood

½ c white wine

About 2 qts very hot or boiling water

Salt

Melt the butter in a large saucepan or stockpot over medium heat. Add the onions, celery, carrots, bay leaves, parsley and thyme and cook slowly, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is soft, about 8 minutes.

Place the fish head and then the bones on top of the vegetables. Add the wine to the pot, cover it and let the fish bones sweat until they turn white, about 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring water to a boil in a quantity sufficient to cover the fish mixture. Add enough barely to cover the bones and bring the mixture to a simmer. Cook for about 10 minutes, skimming off any foam that rises to the surface. (Hint: push a shallow ladle or skimmer in a circular motion to the edges of the pot.)

Remove the pot from the heat, cover it, and let the mixture steep for 10 minutes.

Gently remove the fish and vegetables from the liquid and strain it. Cool thoroughly before refrigerating or freezing. This lasts for about 3 days in the refrigerator and a couple of months in the freezer.

New England-Style Fish Chowder with Celery inspired by Jasper White

2 tbsp chopped meaty salt pork

Vegetable oil or butter

1 medium onion, cut into ½-inch pieces

1-2 stalks celery, cut into ¼-inch slices, leaves reserved

1½ tsp fresh thyme leaves (or use summer savory)

1 lb Yukon gold or other white potatoes, peeled and cut in ½-inch dice

2-3 c fish stock

¾-1 lb white fish such as cod or haddock

½- ¾c half and half (or use heavy cream)

Salt and pepper

2-3 tbsp chopped celery leaves

1 tbsp chopped parsley leaves (optional)

In a large pot over low heat, sauté the salt pork until it renders its fat. Increase the heat slightly and cook the salt pork until brown. Remove the salt pork to a towel to crisp, leaving the fat in the pot.  (Pour off excess.)

Add the oil or butter to the pot and stir in the onions, celery and thyme or savory, cooking over medium heat until the vegetables are soft.

Add the potatoes and enough stock to cover them completely. You can add water if you do not have enough stock. Bring the liquid to a boil, lower the heat to medium-high and cover the pot. Cook the potatoes vigorously until just tender, about 8-10 minutes. Smash a few potatoes against the side of the pot to release the starches and slightly thicken the chowder (this cuts down on the temptation to add a lot of cream!).

Add the fish, salt and pepper,  and most of the celery leaves and cook over low heat for 5 minutes.  Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the half-and-half or cream. Let it sit, covered, for 10 minutes, covered. (The fish will continue to cook.)

When ready to serve, heat the chowder over low heat, stir in the reserved salt pork, additional celery leaves, and parsley if using.

Serves 4.

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Seared Sesame Tuna on Mustard Greens

I am not a fan of mixed bouquets of flowers unless I gather them myself. Left without a choice, I buy more than one bunch and separate the flowers into types, displaying them in multiple vases. That’s what I thought about this collection of mustard greens dubbed “spicy mix” that I brought home from our CSA. Green tatsoi, tiny red Osaka, tiny leaves of green curly mustard, tender blousy leaves of pale green mustard, frisée-like red mustard. I selected the latter in abundance from the bin since I thought it would be good as salad greens. The other mustards were more worthy of a stir-fry. This combination of greens is sometimes called “braising mix,” a preparation that would be overkill for such a fresh bunch of greens.

I had a nice hunk of locally fished albacore tuna, which I coated with black sesame seeds (I normally use a combination of black and white but black is all I had on hand). Placed in a pan with vegetable oil over high heat, the steak was cooked on one side and then the other until well browned but still raw in the middle. Fish continues to cook after being removed from the stove, so after letting it sit for 1 minute, I sliced it and set it aside while I assembled the rest of the meal.

I made a “dressing” of 2 tablespoons each of Asian fish sauce and soy sauce, combined with 1 tbsp brown sugar, which I used throughout the dish. I quickly – and I mean instantaneously – stir-fried the mustard greens just to wilt them and sprinkled on the dressing. I combined a small bit of dressing with rice, and piled the cooked greens and then the tuna on top, and surrounded it with the frizzy mustard, sprinkled with a little more dressing. The dressing held the dish together while allowing the flavors and textures of the other ingredients to have their own voice. The black sesame seeds and the dark spidery mustard seemed a little spooky but why not play with your food at Halloween?  

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Moroccan Feast: Baked Fish with Chermoula, Peppers and Potatoes

Chermoula is the magic sauce of Morocco. With its combination of herbs and spices, it offers robust flavor and an alluring complexity to dishes featuring chicken or fish or, on the vegetable side, potatoes, peppers and eggplants. Like Indian mint-cilantro chutney, Italian basil pesto and gremolata, and Argentine chimichurri, among numerous international examples, it’s a mash-up of herbs and other ingredients.

The chermoula that I made for this feast uses only cilantro, but I’ve made it with a combination of cilantro and parsley. It also contains smoked paprika, cayenne pepper, toasted cumin seed, garlic, and ginger, all ground to a paste and thinned with lemon juice, champagne vinegar and olive oil.  A jar of this will keep for a long time in the refrigerator but it’s so good that it’s typically used up quickly.

The other significant ingredient in Moroccan food is preserved lemon, which is made by marinating lemon quarters in salt and lemon juice for a couple of weeks. Drat, I recently discarded what was left of my last batch and hadn’t started a new one. However, I remembered that Mark Bittman of the New York Times had devised a quick pickle that could substitute, so I tried it, with great success. He combined diced lemon peel and flesh with salt and sugar and let them marinate for several hours. The result wasn’t as pungent as the real thing, but the crunchy lemon peel added the same twang.

As for the meal, I’ve wanted to make this since March when I read Gail Monaghan’s Wall Street Journal column during a business trip. While the Wall Street Journal is not normally considered a bastion of culinary advice, Monaghan is a good cook and a good writer and her column is consistently informative. She recounts many visits to Morocco, and in the highlights of one, a baked fish made by her host’s splendid cook. 

It’s a bit of a project, but not complicated or difficult. It took me a half hour in the morning and a little over an hour in the evening, including baking time.  In the morning (or the day before), make the chermoula and slather it all over the fish, letting the fish marinate for at least 4 hours or overnight. (Note that if you marinate the fish for more than four hours, you should pull it out of the refrigerator an hour before cooking to bring it close to room temperature.)  Also, make the lemon pickle if you don’t have preserved lemons on hand.

A few weeks ago, I made a homey potato dish layered with zucchini and peppers and remarked that I sometimes bake fish on top. This dish uses a similar method, but rather than cook everything together, sliced potatoes are baked in 450 degrees until crisp before the rest of the ingredients are added. Topped with the fish and then sautéed peppers, onions and garlic seasoned with preserved lemons, salted capers and olives, the dish is baked until the fish is cooked. 

I had a whole sea bass weighing 1½ pounds, but you could use a much larger fish if you’re feeding a crowd. You could also use fish steaks or filets.  In my case, I gauged the pan and the amount of potatoes on the dimensions of the fish, so this made a lot more vegetables than necessary. No worry since the leftovers are delicious. They make a satisfying meal crisped in a pan and topped with a poached egg and a drizzle of chermoula. 

In fact, this could easily be a vegetarian dish if you leave out the fish. Ha.

Baked Fish with Chermoula, Peppers and Potatoes adapted from Gail Monaghan, WSJ

1 fish (1-2 lb whole gutted and cleaned sea bass, branzino, red snapper, or steaks or filets of the same)

1/2 c chermoula (see below)

1½ – 2 lb potatoes, peeled and sliced 3/8 inch thick (Yukon gold and/or white)

1 medium-large sweet onion, halved vertically and sliced into ¼-inch half-moons

1 green pepper, cored and sliced into ¼ inch strips

1 red or orange pepper, cored and sliced into ¼ inch strips

6 tbsp olive oil, divided

2 small dried hot red peppers or 1 tsp red pepper flakes

6-8 ripe plum tomatoes or 1½ c canned whole tomatoes, chopped, juice drained

½ c pitted green olives, cut in 2-3 pieces

¼ c salted capers, rinsed

1 preserved lemon, chopped or 3 tbsp quick lemon pickle (see below)

Cilantro leaves

At least four hours (up to a day) before you want to serve the dish, place the fish in a glass pan large enough to hold it in one layer. Coat the fish thoroughly with chermoula, including the inside if using a whole fish. Cover and refrigerate, turning it once during the marinating process. Remove the fish from the refrigerator and let it return to room temperature, about an hour before you’re going to prepare it if it has been marinating for longer than four hours.

Heat the oven to 450 degrees. Toss the sliced potatoes in 3 tbsp of the olive oil and place them in a heavy roasting pan large enough to hold the fish in one layer. (I used an enameled cast iron roasting pan.)  Cook the potatoes, turning once, until crisp and lightly browned, about 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a large sauté pan, heat the remaining 3 tbsp of olive oil and add the onions and fresh peppers. Saute over medium-high heat to wilt them, about 10 minutes. Add the hot peppers and tomatoes and cook them until soft and well combined with the onion-pepper mixture. Add the olives, capers, and preserved lemon or lemon pickle, stirring and cooking for about 2-3 minutes. Remove from the heat.

Place the fish, with the chermoula that clings to it, on top of the crisped tomatoes. Top with the pepper-onion-tomato mixture and pour on any chermoula remaining in the marinating pan.

Bake until the fish is tender, about 25 minutes for a 1½-2 lb fish, and longer for a larger fish. Let the dish cool for 10 minutes or so before serving. It is best served warm rather than hot.

Disassemble the dish, and relayer it onto a serving platter, sprinkling the top with fresh cilantro. If serving a whole fish that has not been boned, slice it carefully along the spine, head to tail to release the filet on one side of the fish. The backbone should be taken out in one piece, but if stubborn, turn the fish over and over and slit the other side of the bone.

Serves 4.

Chermoula adapted from Gail Monaghan, WSJ

This makes chermoula that has the consistency of salad dressing. If you want it to be more paste-like, omit the water.

2 c packed cilantro leaves, rinsed and dried if sandy

5 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped

1 ¼-inc piece fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped

2 tbsp smoked paprika

1 tbsp sweet paprika

½ – ¾ tsp cayenne pepper

2 tbsp whole cumin seed, dry toasted in a pan over low heat and cooled

1/3 c white wine or Champagne vinegar

1/3 c fresh lemon juice

1/3 c olive oil

1/3 c water

Salt to taste

Process all ingredients except the salt in a food processor until smooth. Adjust for salt. Makes about 1½ c. This can be stored in the refrigerator for several weeks.

Quick Lemon Pickle, adapted from Mark Bittman, NYT

1 organic lemon, preferably unwaxed

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

If the lemon is waxed, plunge it into boiling water for 20 seconds. Remove and scrub the skin to diminish the wax. Make sure it’s thoroughly dry before proceeding. Chop the lemon, peel and flesh, into 3/8 – ½-inch pieces and combine with the sugar and salt. Let sit at room temperature to cure for 3-4 hours before using. It improves as it sits and is even better the next day.

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