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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Pilaf with Mussels and Leeks

I like to play with my food. There’s nothing like a good presentation to whet our visual and gustatory appetites. Sure, you could serve rice simply topped with mussels and leeks, and it would taste very good.  But coating a ramekin with rice, spooning mussels into the middle and inverting it on a plate surrounded with sauce takes virtually no more time and produces a dish that is as attractive as it is tasty.

I got the idea of molding the dish from an old recipe of Jacque Pepin’s, although I treated the mussels, sauce and even the pilaf differently.

Pilaf with Mussels and Leeks, with a nod to Jacques Pepin

2 lb fresh mussels, beards removed and scrubbed

¼ c finely chopped onion – divided in half

½ white wine

2 tsp butter or olive oil

¾ c white rice

About 1½ c water

1/3 c finely chopped celery stalks (reserve the leaves)

1 large leek, white and light green parts only, cleaned and finely chopped

2 tbsp pale celery leaves, chopped

2 tbsp parsley, chopped

1 tsp soft butter

1 tsp flour

Pepper

¾-cup ramekins or small bowls or cups

Clean and scrub the mussels under cold water. Place half the onion and cleaned mussels in a large saucepan with a tight lid and heat it over high heat. Add the wine and cover the pot, shaking it slightly. Cook until the mussels open. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Meanwhile, heat the butter or oil in a small saucepan and add the remaining chopped onion, cooking it slowly until translucent. Add the rice and stir to coat the grains. Add the water, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook, covered until the rice is done but not dry, about 15 minutes.  Set aside.

While the rice is cooking, remove the mussels from their shells and set aside, keeping them warm. Strain the liquid through cheesecloth to remove any grit and return it to a wiped out pan. Add all but 2 tbsp of the chopped celery and leeks and simmer until tender, about 3 minutes.

When the rice is fully cooked, stir in 1 tbsp of the reserved chopped celery and leeks and a tsp each of celery leaves and parsley. Line the bottom and sides of a ¾-cup mold or ramekin with the rice mixture, pressing into the sides to compress the rice. Place 6-8 mussels in the center and finish with another coating of rice. Ad a little mussel liquid if the mixture seems too dry, but don’t soak it or the rice will fall apart.

Mix together the flour and butter and gradually whisk it into the mussel liquid. Add all but a tsp or so of chopped celery leaves and parsley and season with freshly ground black pepper.

Spoon some of the mussel liquid onto a plate, invert the rice mold, and garnish with chopped celery leaves and parsley.

Serves 2-3

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Curried Mussel Chowder

Spices create warm depth of flavor and comfort that are welcome in winter. With plentiful potatoes, sweet potatoes and onions in the cellar, and homemade bacon, I was ready to make chowder this weekend when I came across great mussels in the market and rescued an organic, though not local, red pepper from the 69-cents-per-pound soup bin. Curry spices and ginger seemed like the right wrap-around flavor for this combination of ingredients.  And it definitely can qualify as chowder. 

I am a great fan of Jasper White’s 50 Chowders cookbook. I haven’t cooked my way through all 50 but I have availed myself of many techniques. This is my go-to book when I have fish frames to turn into stock. He includes a recipe entitled “Lightly Curried Mussel Chowder” that was my jumping-off point for this meal. His chowder had way too much cream for my taste (he used up to 2 cups of heavy cream and I used ½ cup light cream but could have used half-n-half or whole milk satisfactorily). He also had a greater proportion of mussels to vegetables than mine. This was a great, flavorful, slightly spicy and fairly hearty Sunday supper, accompanied by a little salad and some crunchy bread.

Curried Mussel Chowder adapted from Jasper White

2 lbs PEI mussels

Water

1 oz salt pork (I used homemade un-smoked bacon)

1 tsp butter or vegetable oil

1 small onion, chopped into ½-inch pieces

½ small red pepper, chopped into ½-inch pieces

1 tsp finely chopped ginger

1 large clove garlic, finely chopped (about 2 tsp)

2 tsp curry powder

¼ tsp cayenne pepper

1 medium-large yellow potato, peeled and cut into ½-inch cubes

1 medium sweet potato, peeled and cut into ½-inch cubes

1/3-½ c light cream, half-and-half, or whole milk

Salt and pepper

Optional garnish: additional chopped red and green peppers, sliced scallions, cilantro leaves

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Mussels in Curried Coconut Sauce

Mussels are simply delicious and adaptable to a variety of preparations – simply steamed with white wine, onions and herbs, combined with tomatoes in the manner of Provence, and here, sauced with a southeast Asian flair. Served over aromatic basmati (or even regular white) rice, and garnished with fresh cilantro, this is a satisfying meal that cooks up in the time that it takes to cook the rice.

Mussels in Curried Coconut Sauce (Serves 2 with rice)

2 lb mussels

1 medium onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tsp vegetable oil

2 tsp or more curry powder

1 c coconut milk (half a 14 oz can)

Juice of 2 limes

A squirt of two of Sriracha (red rooster) sauce or some red pepper flakes

2 tbsp cilantro leaves, torn

Basmati rice, cooked and kept warm

Clean the mussels and remove the beards. Set aside.

Saute the onions and garlic in vegetable oil until translucent. Add the coconut milk and lime and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for a few minutes. Add the mussels and cover the pot, allowing the mussels to steam until open, about 4-5 minutes. Discard any that do not open.

Remove the mussels to a bowl. Add the hot sauce or hot pepper flakes, going slowly, until the seasonings seem okay. Add more lime juice if desired and the cilantro.

Sauce the rice and serve some mussels on top, with more to the side.

Note: I find that the liquid produced from the mussels, combined with the coconut milk, produces enough liquid. If you prefer a brothier mix, you can add a little chicken broth to the coconut milk.

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Shrimp Jambalaya

I’ve been wanting to make Jambayala since Mardi Gras and finally got around to it, partly because I had some frozen shrimp and shrimp stock in my refrigerator, some red and yellow peppers, a partial can of tomatoes and a little bit of ham. The idea just jumped out of the fridge at me. I’m sure the real Nola folk would laugh at my version but it came from the New York Times (double laugh?).

Jambalaya is like a pilaf or a risotto in that the rice is sautéed in a pan in which you’ve already sautéed vegetables (and in this case ham) in butter and/or oil. Wine and stock are added, along with seasonings. I made the stock from the shells of the shrimp I was adding to the jambalaya supplemented by stock from my freezer. The shrimp is added just at the end. This is the kind of dish my mother called “more-ish.”

Shrimp Jambalaya based on a 2008 recipe from The New York Times

2 tbsp olive oil

1 medium onion, diced (about 1 c)

½ medium red bell pepper, diced (about ½ c)

½ medium yellow bell pepper, diced (about ½ c)

Optional: ¼ c chopped flavorful aged ham

1 c long grain white rice (or long grain brown rice that has been parboiled for a few minutes to start the cooking process (or you can buy par-boiled rice, not my taste)

1 clove garlic, minced

¼ tsp cayenne

¼ tsp paprika

½ tsp dried thyme

¼ c dry white wine

¾- 1 c chopped canned (or fresh) tomatoes

3 c (more or less) shrimp stock (see recipe below)

1 lb shrimp, peeled and cleaned, and cut into small pieces if large

¼ chopped parsley

Optional: 1 tbsp chopped chives or scallions

Salt and pepper to taste

Saute the onions, bell pepper and ham (if using) in the warmed olive oil over medium heat for about 8 minutes, until the vegetables start to brown slightly.

Add the rice, garlic, peppers and thyme and stir to coat the rice in the oil.

Add the tomatoes and stir to combine. Add 2 c of the stock, bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer, partially covered for about 20 minutes, checking that it doesn’t dry out and adding stock (or water) if it does.

Add the shrimp and cook for about 3 minutes until it turns pink.  Stir and set aside for the liquid to absorb fully, about 5 minutes. Adjust the seasonings. (I don’t add salt but if you do, add it at the end.) Garnish with parley and scallions or chives as you wish.

Serves at least 4.

Shrimp Stock

Shrimp shells, rinsed

Oil

Onions, garlic, other ingredients optional

White wine

Water

Peel the shells from the shrimp, rinse and pat dry. Saute the vegetables, if you’re using them, in a little olive oil to soften. Add the shrimp shells and turn up the heat, stirring the shells until they turn pink. Add a splash of white wine and let it evaporate. Add enough water barely to cover the shrimp shells and cook slowly, partially covered, for about 20 minutes. Drain, pressing down on the shells to capture the trapped flavor but not so much as to render the stock cloudy.  Can be frozen.

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New England Clam Chowder, My Way

I’m not claiming this chowder is authentic but it uses classic ingredients, leans heavily on vegetables, goes lightly on the salt pork or bacon if using it at all, and much more lightly on cream. I wanted the chowder to be white but not rich or gummy. I get irked when I suspect that clam chowder been thickened with flour (as the ones in the grocery store takeout sometimes seem to be). The flavor of the clams and other ingredients shines when presented in a light broth rather than being buried in béchamel. Make your own. It’s easy and fast.

Obviously, fresh summer steamers or other varieties in their shells make great chowder but I have no objection to the shucked fresh claims in broth coming from reputable nearby purveyors.  A new source for clams from Cape Cod showed up in our market recently so I decided to try them. The trick to chowder, as with most soups, is to cook it gently. I also used waxy potatoes since the floury ones could make the broth murky. After sautéing onions in rendered bacon/salt pork fat (butter or butter and oil if you’re not using pork), add the onions, celery and herbs and cook gently. Then add broth and potatoes and cook gently until tender. Finally, add the cream and bring nearly to a boil. Then add the clams, turn off the heat and let the clams cook in the liquid, covered, for a few minutes. If you cook them over high heat, they turn into pencil erasers.

Generally, it is preferable to use fresh clam broth for the liquid. The distributor of the clams I bought also sells fresh broth. You can use bottled clam broth but honestly, if you don’t have fresh clam juice, a light homemade chicken stock is the best alternative.  Water’s okay too but you’ll end up fortifying the chowder with other ingredients (more salt, for example) to make up for the feeble taste. Like the old stone soup story.

New England Clam Chowder, My Way

1 lb chopped clams in their liquid

1 slice thick bacon, diced in 1/3 inch pieces

A few drops of vegetable oil (or a combination of butter and oil if not using bacon)

1 onion, diced in 1/3 to ½ inch pieces

2 stalks celery, diced in 1/3 inch pieces

1 bay leaf

½ tsp dried thyme or more to taste

3-4 peppercorns

1 medium–large waxy potato

1 ½-2 c broth (I used a combination of fresh clam juice and light homemade chicken broth)

1/3 – ½ c heavy cream

Chopped parsley (or other seasonal herbs like chives, chervil, young lovage)

Drain the clams, reserving the liquid.

Render the bacon in a little vegetable oil over medium-low heat until crisp, and remove to a paper towel to drain and crisp.

Saute the onion and celery slowly in the bacon fat (or use butter or a combination of butter and oil) until the onion is translucent. Add the bay leaf thyme and peppercorns and stir.

Add the potatoes to the pot and pour in broth to cover. Cook slowly over medium heat, covered, until the potatoes are nearly tender.

Add the cream and increase the heat, bringing the mixture nearly to a boil. Add the clams, turn off the heat and let the chowder stand for about 5 minutes until the clams are lightly cooked.

Warm again, stir in the reserved bacon or salt pork, and serve garnished with parsley or other herbs. Crackers are a traditional accompaniment but make croutons if you have none.

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Oyster Chowder for the New Year

Fondly recalling tonging oysters in Chesapeake Bay with my father or witnessing him effortlessly shuck a bushel of those craggy creatures received from his friends on Tilghman Island, I associate eating oysters with the New Year. I was inspired by a jarful of just-shucked Chincoteague oysters in the fish section of our local farmer’s market and just had to indulge. These oysters were small, so I probably got 18-24 in a 12 oz jar. Rather than making traditional oyster stew from nothing more than butter, milk, cream and oysters (possibly a little minced onion), I made a version that was chowder-like, using onions, scallions, celery, tiny cubes of yellow potatoes, a little thin crispy bacon, parsley, milk and cream – all local except the celery– topped with crispy cubes of bread.

Oyster Chowder

12 oz shucked oysters with their liquid

Butter

1 small onion, finely diced

2 tender stalks celery, trimmed and finely diced

1 medium yellow potato, cut into 1/3-inch cubes

Optional: 1 scallion, minced, including all of the white and a little of the green parts

2 c milk (I used low-fat)

¼ c heavy cream

Salt and pepper

Optional: 1 or 2 very thin slices of bacon, cooked and drained

A sprig or 2 of parsley leaves, chopped

Bread croutons

Drain the liquid from the oysters and set both aside. Melt a small amount of butter in a saucepan and add the onion and celery, cooking gently until translucent. Add the potatoes and scallions and stir to coat them with the butter. Add the milk, cream and the oyster liquid, bring to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are crisp-tender (about 6-8 minutes). Add the reserved oysters and simmer gently until the oysters start to curl. Season with salt and pepper to taste, stir in the parsley and bacon, if using, and serve hot, topped with a couple of bread croutons.

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Orange-roasted Lobster Salad for Paper Chef 51

I love how, in Paper Chef and other challenges, the random selection of ingredients, sometimes complementary, sometimes incongruous, evokes an emotional response. I have a few memorable gustatory experiences with lobster and a few favorite ways of cooking shellfish, all with citrus, typically orange. So the combination of lobster, orange, apricot and ginger was a good one for me.

 

There was a time in my life, in my early 30s, when I found myself single, between marriages, and when I cooked for myself or invited friends over or invited myself over with a food offering or volunteered to cook for a crowd or entertained clients or sampled restaurants or attended cooking demonstrations or planted a garden full of whatever I fancied. With no one specific to please and lots of takers for my cooking, I had a blast. There are notes all over my cookbooks about what I cooked and for whom, with comments, mostly about the food. And I was pretty skinny given all of the food that I must have made, but then again I was dating.

For a birthday during that period, I was given a ticket to a single cooking class by Roger Vergé, a chef from the south of France, who made a delicious poached lobster with an orange beurre blanc sauce.  I later made the dish for a client dinner.  So I thought about resurrecting that for Paper Chef. On a rare evening this week, when I was home alone for supper, and thinking of that time, I was leafing through the Vergé cookbook that was part of the gift, and came across an annotation next to a crayfish entrée, “by myself, October 23.” Chuckling at the coincidence, I bagged the beurre blanc and experimented with a combination orange-ginger marinade and salad dressing and tried it out on shrimp for myself, knowing that I could tune it when I would make a similar lobster dish for my family on the weekend.

There were lobster tails at half price in the supermarket (yay), so grilling or roasting them seemed the best way to go. I made an orange-ginger base with fish sauce, reserved some for the dressing (I was planning of serving the lobster on some kind of greens), then added some of the apricot jam that I canned last summer, making a marinade. The apricot jam not only added another, complementary flavor but also helped the marinade “stick” to the lobster meat. I got the idea of adding fish sauce from a Rick Moonen recipe, but you wouldn’t have to. I found an online video from Wegman’s grocery store, which showed how to split the tails lengthwise. With the tail facing you, plunge a large sharp chef’s knife into the shell a little over midway up the length, then pivot the knife down and through the shell and tail. Turn the lobster around, insert the knife in the same spot and pivot it down to slice through the large end.

 

This turned out to be a good do-ahead dish as well as something that could be served right away.  I served the lobster meat over a frisée salad tossed with the reserved dressing, slices of dried apricot, and snipped chives and mint leaves fresh from my garden. Very refreshing on a warm spring day.

Orange-roasted Lobster Salad

3-4 lobster tails, split in half lengthwise

¾-1 cup of freshly squeezed orange juice

1 tbsp grated orange zest

2 tbsp fish sauce (nam pla)

l shallot, minced

1-2 tsp grated fresh ginger

Pepper (optional)

2 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tbsp apricot jam

Frisee or other salad greens

Mint leaves, torn into small pieces

Chives

Dried apricots, thinly sliced

Combine the orange juice, zest, fish sauce, shallot, ginger and oil, adjusting the proportions so that it would make a good salad dressing. Set some aside for the dressing, then add the apricot jam for the marinade (you may need to warm it up to liquefy it). Add black pepper if desired. (Salt is not necessary because of the fish sauce.) Place the marinade in a shallow glass plan and add the split lobster tails, cut side down, spooning marinade over any exposed meat. Marinate for several hours.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees, Remove the lobster from the marinade and place it on the baking sheet cut side down. Roast for about 10 minutes. The lobster meat should be cooked to 145 degrees, but it will continue to cook after removal from the oven, so I undershot it a little so as not to toughen the flesh. (I roasted shrimp cooked in a similar way for less than 2 minutes, flipping and finishing in a minute.) Let the lobster sit for a minute and remove the meat from the shells if serving over salad. (Otherwise, serve hot in the shells.)

I served this warm over frisée, coated with the reserved dressing and tossed with sliced dried apricots, chopped chives and torn mint leaves.

 

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Paper Chef 49: Seafood Pot Pie with Fennel and Peppers

Prawns, fennel, sweet pepper and passion. Hmm. Lots of possibilities for this Paper Chef challenge. Luckily I shopped for the seafood before a giant winter storm shut us in. One of my passions is to seek and use the freshest, most local, and hopefully organic ingredients. With nothing called a prawn in our markets, I was lucky to find first-of-the-season tiny Maine pink shrimp that were never frozen. While Maine’s not exactly around the corner, it’s a lot closer than Vietnam, which is where some of the other shrimp were harvested. I was also lucky to find fresh scallops from Barnegat Light on the Jersey shore, some 40 miles away.  I already had a sweet bell pepper and a large bulb of fennel, both organic but not too local I’m sure. So I was set to cook when the snow hit.

Another passion, or maybe just an obsession, is to utilize all ingredients to their fullest, cutting down waste. I just can’t imagine shelling shrimp and tossing the shells, or cutting off the woody fennel stalks and discarding them. I sometimes stockpile shrimp shells in the freezer until I have enough for a stock. Same with vegetable trimmings in the refrigerator, though you have to be careful not to create a cool heap of compost in the process. Because the shrimp were so tiny, I had a high volume of shells, which made a flavorful stock. Since I was using fennel in the final dish, I added the stems to the pot along with the usual aromatics.

I braised the fennel separately because I wanted to infuse it with lemon juice, but you could just add it in with the onions and peppers, treating it like celery in a chicken pot pie. BTW, this is a great way to cook fennel in general.

 

Finally, what I care about most when I cook for family and friends, is to make something that they’ll enjoy. For my family, chicken pot pie is a favorite meal, so I thought that, while I might have made a shrimp and fennel chowder, or a thinly sliced fennel and pepper salad with prawns in a passion fruit dressing (sounds good, eh), a comforting pot pie on a blustery day is just the dish to hit the spot.

Seafood Pot Pie with Fennel and Peppers (one 8” pie)

2 tbsp butter

1 onion, cut in small dice

1 yellow bell pepper cut into ½” pieces

¼-1/3 cup flour

¼ cup white wine

1+ cup shrimp stock (see below, or bottled clam juice)

½ fennel bulb, optionally braised in lemon juice and stock (see below)

½ lb tiny shrimp or larger shrimp cut up

3-6 scallops, cut into ½-inch cubes

2 tbsp heavy cream (optional)

1 tbsp or more chopped fennel fronds

Salt and pepper

Flaky pie dough (or frozen puff pastry sheet)

Melt the butter in a shallow pan over low heat and sauté the onions and peppers for about 5 minutes. Add flour, stirring to incorporate it and let it cook slowly for about 5 minutes to eliminate the taste of raw flour. Add the white wine, turning up the heat a little and whisk or stir vigorously to avoid lumps in the flour. Start incorporating the stock, continuing to stir to avoid lumps. Cook slowly for about 10 minutes. The mixture should seem really thick since the pepper and fennel juices will water it down when the pie is baking.

Turn off heat, add the pre-made fennel and the scallops and shrimp. Pour into the pie plate that you will use for baking and when cool, adjust seasonings and add the chopped fennel fronds. Top with a piecrust, slit in a few places so that the steam escapes. Bake 45-60 minutes in the middle of the oven, with a baking sheet below in case it overflows. Let sit for at least 15 minutes before serving.

Shrimp stock (1 scant quart, used 1/3-1/2 of this in the pot pie)

Shells from 1 lb shrimp, or more, rinsed

Olive oil, very small amount

1 carrot, diced

1 medium yellow onion, diced

1 stalk celery, diced

5-6 peppercorns

3-4 stalks fennel, diced (optional)

A few fennel seeds (optional)

Approximately 2 quarts water

Salt

Sauté the shrimp shells in a little oil until they are opaque (other types will turn pink; the ones I used started out pink). Add the vegetables and stir to coat. Add peppercorns and fennel see, if using. Add water just to cover and simmer, partially covered for about 45 minutes. If the mixture seems watery, cook it for another 15 minutes. If you are not using the stock right away, cool it quickly and refrigerate.

Lemony Braised Fennel (used half of this in the pot pie)

I bulb fennel

Olive oil

Juice of one lemon

Chicken stock or water

Salt to taste

Trim the bulb, cut it in half vertically, core it and make thin vertical slices. Reserve the fronds and the stalks for another use (or if the stalks are not too woody, slice them and include them with the slices). Heat a little olive oil in a deep pot, add the fennel slices and sauté for 5-6 minutes, allowing the slices to brown a little. Add the lemon juice, reduce the heat and let the fennel stew for a few minutes, until the lemon is absorbed or cooked down. Add the stock or water, barely covering the fennel and braise, partially covered until cooked to the consistency you like. (Note, because I was mixing it with the potpie filling, I didn’t cook it fully.) This took about 10 minutes to cook.

 

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Super Seafood Chili Bowl

The weekend before Superbowl Sunday, our local Whole Foods store hosts a chili contest among its employees. Ten departments each prepare chili and the customers are treated to tasting portions, voting for their favorite. Not only do you get lunch but also the recipes. This year, the choice was easy: the “shellfish and chorizo chili” from the Seafood Department was really good. I tinkered with the recipe, but the gist is there. I used tomatoes that I’d canned and beans from my freezer but list the store-bought quantities, which are just fine. I pumped up the seasonings. I also used less chorizo and added it later than the chef did (he sautéed it at the start), and cut the amount of shellfish, using pre-cooked mussels since I couldn’t get good ones in the shells.

This makes 2 ½ quarts, or enough for 6 generous servings. If I were serving this for a party, I would make the base the day before and reheat it, adding the seafood and garnish right before serving. As it was, we ate it for supper a couple of days later and, typical of chili, it had improved in both flavor and texture.

Seafood Chili

1large yellow onion, diced

Olive oil

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 yellow bell pepper, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 pinch saffron threads, dissolved in a little hot water (optional, not the chef’s way, but I liked it)

1 ½ tsp ground cumin

1 ½ tsp sweet paprika

¼ tsp cayenne (more or less, adjust based on chorizo)

3-4 oz chorizo, cut in small dice

1 28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes, buzzed in food processor or crushed by hand

1 14.5 oz can small white beans, drained and rinsed (or 1.5 cup pre-cooked)

1 14.5 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed (or 1.5 cup pre-cooked)

Juice of 1 lemon

¾ lb shrimp, shelled and cleaned, or equivalent rock shrimp

½ lb bay scallops (or use larger ones cut into pieces)

½ lb cooked, shelled mussels or 1.5 lb in shell, cleaned and de-bearded

Chopped parsley

Chopped green onion, both white and green sections

Salt and pepper to taste

Sauté the onion in olive oil over low heat until translucent, add the garlic, stirring until you catch its aroma, and mix in the peppers. Cook, covered, over low heat for about 10 minutes. Add the saffron, cumin, paprika, cayenne (go easy) and chorizo, and cook slowly, covered for 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and beans and cook for another 15 minutes, covered.

Separately cook the shrimp and scallops in a small amount of olive oil and a dab of butter over low heat, leaving them slightly undercooked. I added chopped garlic to the shrimp. Cut both into ½-inch pieces and set aside. Add the lemon juice, scallops, shrimp and mussels to the chili base and heat through over low heat for about 5-8 minutes, making sure that the mussel shells all open if you are using them that way. Season to taste (mine needed no extra salt or pepper). Garnish with parsley and chopped green onion.

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