pan-steamed pickerel with cremini, leeks and ginger

Using epicurious’ ROASTED MONKFISH WITH CHANTERELLES, LEEKS AND GINGER recipe as inspiration, this pickerel dish turned out well.

Ingredients:

1 inch piece of ginger. Mince half the ginger, and cut remaining half into slivers

1 lb cremini mushrooms, thinly sliced

3 leeks, washed and sliced

4 medium potatoes, peeled and diced

1 large clove of garlic. Mince half, and cut remaining half into slivers

3 or 4 tbsp butter

1 lb of pickerel

Ground  black pepper

1 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp sherry

Method:

Preheat oven to 475 degrees F.  Place potatoes in roasting pan, along with 1 tbsp of butter. Roast for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add leeks, mushrooms and minced ginger and another tablespoon of butter, and a few grinds of black pepper, and roast another 15 minutes, or until crispy.

While the vegetable mixture is roasting, heat remaining butter in a skillet over moderate heat. Pierce fish in several places, and place slivers of garlic and ginger into the fish.  Add fish to pan and begin to fry. Add soy sauce and sherry after a few minutes, and cover the pan partially. After maybe 5 minutes, turn the fish fillets, and continue to cook the other side.  When the fish flakes, or is cooked to your liking, remove from heat. 

Spoon sauce from the pan over the fish, and serve with roasted vegetables.

dirt candy….

dirt candy in nyc

roast turkey numero uno

My first roast turkey! Ever!

Using an 11 lb fresh turkey, I prepared a variation of this recipe: Epicurious’ Roast Turkey with Herb Rub and Shiitake Mushroom Gravy, substituting cremini mushrooms for the shiitake, and buttermilk for the cream in the gravy, and adjusting the time accordingly. Result- a juicy bird.

Since I was running short on time, the rest of my dishes were eyeballed, with free pours and heaping spoonfuls, but they turned out quite well.

Here are the other dishes served alongside the turkey:

Cauliflower cheese- made with a local Ontario cauliflower, a sauteed onion, Welsh cheddar, sweet Hungarian paprika, butter, flour and skim milk.

Roasted sweet potatoes with butter and maple syrup.

Stuffing made of Italian bread, sauteed onions, turkey liver and giblets, thompson raisins, apples, pecans, butter, water, sage, thyme and home-grown parsley.

Cranberry sauce- just cranberries, sugar and water.

Apple crisp made with flour, butter, cinnamon and  Stephano’s granola.

All in all, a success.

tangelo panna cotta

Ingredients

1 tbsp gelatin

1 1/4 cups tangelo juice

1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

2 cups of heavy cream

1 cup of buttermilk

1/2 cup of white sugar

Method:

Sprinkle gelatin over 1/4 cup of strained tangelo juice. Let stand for 1o minutes. 

Combine cream, buttermilk, vanilla bean, sugar and remaining cup of tangelo juice  in a large saucepan, and bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring frequently.  As soon as the mixture has come to a simmer, remove saucepan from heat, and whisk in gelatin/tangelo mixture.

Pour into 8 ramekins, and chill uncovered in the refrigerator for 3 hours or more. 

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accidental sopa de chile verde de pollo y calabicitas

Made a variation of  Bon Appetit’s chicken chile verde last night, using my fresh-picked super hot cherry peppers, shepherd’s peppers and grape-sized tomatillos from the garden.

I decided to use  some Better than Bouillon instead of broth, and stirred a heaping tablespoon of BTB into my chile,  thinking this would be the equivalent of 2 cups of broth. Then I noticed the writing on the lid….1 tsp = 1 can of broth. To counteract the amount of bouillon in my chile, I tripled the amount of water, bringing the amount of liquid closer to 2 litres, and added one large sliced zucchini to the simmering chile.

Result: flavourful soup, but not chile verde!

Note: not sure why the recipe calls for 2 tbsp of chili powder, in addition to the significant amounts of cumin, oregano, ancho chili and garlic, which are the components of chili powder apart from salt. Might try increasing the chili, cumin, oregano and garlic in the future, and omit the chili powder.

Will attempt this recipe again, sometime soon.