adaptation

I can get a little intrigued by recipes, and though none come to mind just now some of them that sound bad simply are bad. Some are bad but you see possibilities. Some you just have to try in spite of knowing they can’t be right. Adapt them. Make them right.

I subscribe to a few on-line food blogs, some by friends and some by people such as Ruth Reichl, the former restaurant critic and head of Gourmet Magazine. The New York Times has one called What to cook this week that appears in my inbox a few times a week. Last week they had a technique that they said was for those gawdawful store-bought winter tomatoes (first, of course, they had to give us a lecture on how sick and tired they were of the ‘eat local’ imperative): halve them and put them in a casserole, add some herbs and a Bunch of olive oil – way too much, like 5 or 6 cups (who would do that?) and roast them at 250° for a couple of hours. Well, I would never go out and buy 2 ½ pounds of grocery store tomatoes but I had a 2.5 pound package of end-of-season Pratico tomatoes that hadn’t been perfectly ripe when I froze them, and I got them out and halved them and put them in a clay casserole and sprinkled them with rosemary, bay leaf, and thyme, 6 whole, peeled cloves of garlic, a couple of slices of ginger, then poured over maybe a cup and a half of olive oil. Roasted them for a couple of hours.

The result was about 2 cups of jammy tomatoes, about 1+ cup of tomato-y olive oil, and a couple of cups of tomato broth. A long time ago – in the parlance of credulous seekers of whatever was new— it was called tomato water and it made a big ‘splash’, ha ha, but I will simply call it tomato broth.

A lot of the jammy tomatoes were smeared onto a pizza, along with a drizzle of the tomato-y olive oil, but what was really good were some cod loins that I seared in the tomato olive oil, then plopped into bowls of the tomato broth along with some of the tomatoes and some of the buckwheat noodles called soba. Now that was delicious.

What are cod loins, you ask. This, from Great British Chefs: “As cod can be a large fish, the fillet is often too big for a single portion. It is therefore possible to buy the cod loin, which is cut from the middle section or fattest part of the fillet. Succulent loins are short and fat compared to longer cod fillets and they are considered the prime cut.” Doh!

This circumvents the problem of cooking the skinny end – the mermaid fin – along with the fat breast meat of a regular fillet, the mermaid swisher needing far less time to cook than the brawny chest. The loin, for the privileged few, for a buck more, is a piece of cod about 1 ½ inches square and maybe 4 inches long. It is amazing how good fresh well-treated fish can taste when done right.

You can find these at Green Mountain Fresh on State Street across from the courthouse in Rutland. GMF really is the place to buy your fresh fish nowadays – Boston Harbor one day, on your dinner table the next. They have frozen and farmed fish, too. I usually prefer frozen fish, as they are flash frozen on the ship when caught, but these are so fresh... why take that extra step.  The E-Z Peel shrimp are more delicious than I like to say, and they are farmed in Ecuador. What makes them so delicious? I wonder!

And I’m not saying this because John gave us passes to the Boston Seafood Show in a couple of weeks, either.

Anyway, that little fish stew/soup/broth was really good.

If you have some frozen whole tomatoes or want to buy some at the grocery store or hydroponic ones from somewhere fairly close, try out roasting them with quite a bit of olive oil and garlic and herbs as I outlined above. And use them any way you like. But do try this:

Cod loins in Tomato Broth

(serves 2)

• 3 tablespoons tomato olive oil
• 1 lb cod loins cut in squares
• 3 cups tomato broth (you can flesh what you have out with chicken broth or other veggie broth
• some pinches of the jammy tomatoes
• 6 large green olives, pitted
• 3 scallions cut diagonally including the green tops
• a small bunch of cilantro, chopped finely
• 3 ounces soba (buckwheat) noodles cooked to package directions

Heat the oven to 375°.

Heat the olive oil in a hot sauté pan over medium heat, scatter in the cod loins, let them cook for a minute and turn them. they’ll get slightly brown on all 4 sides. Don’t cook them too much. Take from the heat. Add the broth, the tomatoes and the green olives. Place in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes. Don’t overcook the cod. Make sure they’re still translucent in the center.

Meanwhile, cook the noodles. The usual directions are to add them to a sufficient amount of boiling water (not 7 gallons as the package says, but sufficient) and cook for 5 minutes, drain, refresh in cold water and drain again.

Ready to serve? Divide the noodles into two bowls. Divide the cod and broth into two bowls, scatter with the scallions and cilantro. Eat up.

PS: You may drizzle the hot soup with a little Jeon sauce – equal parts of soy sauce, rice vinegar and sesame oil.

Adaptation – it’s the name of the game!

snimtz@gmail.com

Shrimp with a Snap

Let’s just say that flaccid shrimp are not my cup of seafood!

I found the following instruction in a recipe posted by a popular cooking show: 

"Immediately drop in the shrimp (to a moderately hot pan) and stir for another 1 to 2 minutes, or until the shrimp are turning pink and are barely firm. Turn the shrimp into a serving bowl..."

Did you say UGH as loudly as I did?

A friend told me of his dear friend who habitually brought rather limp shrimp to events, so that one time when he forgot to cook them at all no one noticed. Flaccidity in shrimp is not your friend; as a matter of fact i can't think of an instance when it is a good thing. If you have anything in your home that the word flaccid could apply to it is probably a good idea to get rid of it.

But that wasn't the only thing that was wrong with that recipe. It called for the shrimp to be brined in a mixture made of water, 1/2 cup sea salt, 1/3 cup cane sugar, and 1/3 cup medium-hot chile powder! Soak for twenty minutes and then dump all that chili powder and sea salt out? I don't think so.

Sometimes we glom onto old advice that does not benefit us. For instance it is certainly possible to handle pastry dough too little and it is probably done quite often simply because everyone is paranoid about "handling it too much," advice that benefits only the makers of store-bought pie crust. After all, the stuff has got to hold together. 

Ditto about cooking shrimp and lobster for a short time "so as not to make it tough". Well, I'd rather have it tough than flaccid. But most of all I'd like it firm and with a bit of snap when you bite into it. A juicy snap.

A few weeks ago my daughter was flying out the next day to drive a u-haul back here from North Carolina with her significant other and all their belongings. That night called for a special meal for her to remember and come back to and that's why I picked up her favorite, shrimp, that had been imported from an Ecuadorian shrimp farm by Green Mountain Fresh down on State Street.

I'd been talking to Ingrid Wisell there about the advantages of farmed shrimp versus wild shrimp when owner, John Schramm, walked out and said he'd stack up his farmed E-Z Peel shrimp against wild-caught any old day. So I ordered 1.5 pounds of E-Z Peel. 

It's cheaper than wild-caught –  about $12 a pound that day as against just about $17 for the wild-caught –  and Ingrid had told me that most of its food is swept over it in the wild ocean, and that food is supplemented with appropriate other wild food. "It is definitely not fed chicken feed," she said, rather offended, but dispelling my greatest fear.

To prepare that shrimp I set my oven to 450° and placed a heavy cast iron griddle in it and as it heated I peeled the shrimp. E-Z Peel means the shells have been cut up the back, which makes them perhaps E-Zier, but not really E-Z, to peel. As I peeled them I lined them up on a flat, rimless pan so they would be easier to slide onto the hot griddle when it was time. 

I have an old oven so by the time it had come up to temp I had prepared the shrimp and thin-sliced the last green tomato from the garden and fried it in some lard (rendered by Pine Woods Farm in West Pawlet) in a heavy cast-iron frying pan. 

I removed that flaming hot griddle from the oven ever-so-carefully, drizzled it with just a bit of olive oil to prevent the shrimp from sticking, then slid the shrimp onto it and placed it back into the oven for about 2 minutes. Back out they came to be doused with half a stick of melted butter and 2 or 3 cloves of finely chopped garlic. Back in for another 2 minutes, and when they came out this time I sprinkled them with the juice of half a freshly squeezed lemon, some coarse sea salt, and covered them with a bit of parchment paper and let them sit and sizzle and drink up the flavorings for a few minutes. 

They were served atop polenta made from a bit of masa harina that I'd cooked down for a long time until it was positively gluey, then thinned with Thomas’ heavy cream and grated cheddar. Slices of that wonderful green tomato went on the very top, juices were drizzled and chopped fresh parsley was strewn over everything.

It was exquisite, the shrimp snapped with flavor and texture, and the meal did its job – Daughter showed up safely, right on time a few days later and again lives in Rutland. 

Good shrimp'll do it every time!