Seafood dinner

A couple pounds of fresh sardines from Portugal that I was lucky enough to take home from work

Tonight I was inspired by the seafood that I was given at work. When I got off yesterday afternoon, my boss sent me home with a package of fresh sardines from Portugal, and I also was able to take home about a pound and a half of Nantucket Bay scallops. My recently acquired job is paying off more than I could have imagined. The seafood I took home yesterday alone would have racked up a bill of $50-60 for the average customer.

With the sardines, I played it safe. I drizzled them with olive oil, put on some salt and fresh cracked pepper, then threw them on the grill for a couple minutes on each side. I juiced half a lemon on top when I took them off the grilled and drizzled a bitmore olive oil. These were some fine looking sardines, so this simple preparation paid off. A couple of the fish even had roe sacks that I found when we started eating this “appetizer.” These little pockets were even more flavorful than the rest of this fish. They had a slightly more oceany taste that I appreciated finding as an unexpected surprise.

Another reason for the simple preparation was the plan I had for the scallops. I went out on a limb, looking to make scallop dumplings. This would be my first shot at making seafood dumplings, or any dumpling for that matter. I hadn’t looked at any recipes, but believed that I would have fun experimenting with this. I had actually never done anything like it, so I also thought the chances of failure would be a little higher than usual… I started with some dried morels, blending them to a fine powder. I then added a few tablespoons of grated parmigiano reggiano and the bay scallops to a food processor with the morel powder, a clove of minced garlic, and a touch of salt. When this was completely smooth, I took it out and added a couple tablespoons of corn starch, mixing it in thoroughly. While doing this, I also whipped up three egg whites to a fairly stiff peak. I folded the egg whites into the wet scallop mixture, which lightened the whole thing significantly.

The finished scallop mixture before cooking

Before I started with the food processor, I poured some ponzu sauce, soy sauce, white wine, sake, and water into a small pot with some red pepper flakes and two bay leaves. When the batter was ready, this liquid was at a simmer, and I was ready to make the dumplings. I found a spoon that I believed to be the right size, then dolloped a spoonful of the mixture into the pot. I was happy to see that the wet batter stayed together, bobbing slightly up and down while floating atop the simmering liquid. After a minute or two, I flipped them over. The underside had picked up a light brown hue from the ponzu and soy.

Dumplings during the cooking process

I allowed the dumplings to cook for another couple minutes on this side, then removed them from the pot.

Removing the cooked dumplings

So I finished, moved the first three completed dumplings to a plate, and tasted them. The texture was beyond what I thought I would be able to achieve with this being my first attempt at the dish. They were, as Tyler Florence might say, “light as a cloud,” little pillows with the sweet flavor of the scallops, the earthiness of the morels, and the saltiness of the grated cheese and soy sauce. They were actually a little saltier than I was aiming for, and this was easily fixed. I added some more water to the pot, and let it come back up to a simmer.

A few dumplings pre-plating

Overall, my two friends and I finished all of the dumplings, just about 20 of them, the last 17 with the perfect balance of an oceanic sweetness, earthiness, and salt. High quality scallops led to great flavor, but the texture was the biggest surprise of all. Imagine something as light as a marshmallow, but less chewy.

Mid-meal my roommate actually called up a friend who was on his way home for the night to come help us out, as he knew he hadn’t had dinner and might appreciate a home cooked meal. The three of us sat haphazardly around the island in the middle of my kitchen. There was a pile of dirty dishes in the sink, but we did not notice. Good company and good food were the only things on our minds. I was still riding the high of cooking something new and different. It was a night that I appreciated very much, and I now have a new cooking technique to use and refine in the future.

Pasture Raised Pig and Lamb on the Menu at Bluebird

This fall I began work in the meat department at a local co-op in Burlington. I am learning a lot, and it has been fun. Weekly deliveries include whole pig, veal, lamb, venison, and sides of beef. I was surprised at how comfortable I was in the walk-in, ducking around hanging carcasses and removing innards with my bare hands. In my first days, I had brief moments when I would be reaching for a box of assorted beef cuts, and I would look to my right, only then noticing what I had pushed out of my way. Had I really not noticed that it was an entire half of a pig that I so rudely pushed aside?

Needless to say, in the development of my culinary interest over the past few years, using all parts of an animal is something that doesn’t leave me with an uneasy feeling. It excites me. This is not uncommon among my coworkers, and I had heard the word Bluebird thrown around a few times. From what I gathered, they had been there for dinner, it was something a little different for Burlington, VT, and they had very good things to say about it. They spoke mostly of the interesting menu and how they had made their way through nearly the entire thing. They were not talking about multiple visits. They were talking about the night before. I was going to have to go soon. I needed to experience this, or at least have my own experience of what they had to offer.

So I went with a roommate, my mom, and my step-dad. I have spent the last couple months living with one of my best friends, and he is experiencing many foods that he never would have thought. He was extremely reluctant at first but has become more adventurous each week we wake up across the hall from each other. My mom, I am still working on.

We had a reservation for 7 o’clock on a Wednesday, and we were seated when we arrived at a nice table in the corner. The restaurant, as its name would suggest, has a tavern feel. It is dimly lit with earth tones surrounding all diners. Shortly after we were seated, the server took our order. We ordered a couple of  “snacks” including  a salad of marinated and raw  vegetables. As it is fall, there was an assortment of root vegetables with a few greens, well dressed as to complement and not mask the flavor of the vegetables. My roommate and I had the warm uni with a warm mustard vinaigrette. The sea urchin roe had a nice, creamy texture and the aroma and taste immediately transported you to the ocean. The mustard vinaigrette was very mild, and I found that it neither added or took anything away from the dish. My mom seemed pleased with the deviled farm egg, and the entire table was impressed by the chicken liver toast. The liver was cooked well and was not too grainy or mineraly. It came with charred pieces of toast and a simple and sweet cipollini onion jam.

In addition to the appetizers, the chef also sent out a couple of complimentary bites. One was a little ball of liver terrine dusted in crushed pistachios. It looked nice, but I could not try it, as I have a mild nut allergy. The other was a little cube of deep fried head cheese. It was fairly good, but the fried breading was the prominent flavor rather than the terrine of pork.

For the main courses here, most are recommended to go along with another dish, or in our case, two or three. Mr friend and I shared a few dishes. We ordered the oysters and a fluke crudo that our server brought out first. The oysters were very good. They were fresh and served raw on the halfshell. They were served with a lemon vinegar that was excellent. It was very tart, and the lemon paired well with the briny oyster. The fluke crudo was not outstanding, and it was a very small portion. The raw strips of white fish were fresh, but fluke is a mild white fish, and serving it with breakfast radish and small shavings of cracklin (pork rind) did not add much to the dish. Along with these, I ordered a rare vos, a Belgian style amber ale. It came with a good head on and was enjoyed with the rest of the meal.

The tapas sized dishes did not stop here, which was a good thing for my hunger, but it did help keep the bill down. Our next four dishes came out along with what my mom and step-dad ordered for their main course. They shared the double burger and a celery root soup that was served with baby scallops floating somewhere in the middle of it. The soup was flavored with ham hock, but I found that it was surprisingly sweet and lacked a real celery root flavor. Oh yeah, I tried their two dishes as well. The burger was fairly good, but nothing too special. The meat was well cooked, but was served with a boucher blue that I am surprised to say was nowhere near overpowering. That is generally what I worry about when a burger is served with blue cheese, but with at least the bite I took, the cheese may as well have not been there.

The four dishes my friend and I were sharing included a veal heart dish, razor clams, a squid spaghetti, and a flatbread with falafel. I started with the razor clams which came with a couple of fingerling potatoes. The potatoes were not bad, but the razor clams were excellent, very tender with a good flavor reminiscent of the ocean. The squid spaghetti and the flatbread were probably my least favorite plates to come to the table. The squid ink pasta was well cooked, but the squid ink added nothing but color. The squid in the dish was a little bit tough, and I found that the saffron vinaigrette was a little heavy and lacked any hint of saffron. Then there was the flatbread. The bread itself had a decent flavor and chararound the ouside, but was soggy through probably 75 percent of it from some sort of vinaigrette. The falafel was okay, fairly light, but were a little sparse and seemed to be mostly made up of the fried outside. There was not much of the light, fluffy interior that I enjoy in a falafel. Lastly, the arugula was something that I did not enjoy at all. There was a fair amount of it, and I think that the dish would have been much better served removing whatever the bread was sopping up and using it to dress the arugula.

I didn’t save this dish  for last, but it was far and away the one I enjoyed the most. The veal heart was served with braised escarole, house made guanciale (an unsmoked salted and cured meat, usually made from pig’s jowls or cheeks), and a soft egg. Everything here made sense to me. The escarole was well cooked, the soft egg oozed a bright yellow yolk when you broke through it, and the guanciale provided a salty contrast (although it was diced small and could easily go unnoticed). The veal was fantastic. It was cooked perfectly, on the rare side of medium rare in order to maintain it’s tenderness. It certainly did that. The five slices of heart were a meaty pinkish-red in the center and were well seasoned to bring out the flavor of the meat. I would certainly go back  and have this dish again, recommending it to anyone who makes it there while it is still on the menu.

Overall, I had a good time. It was fun to go experience this with family and a good friend. I very much appreciate what they are trying to do here as well. Their menu changes often according to what they have, and producing consistent dishes with a changing menu is much more difficult to do than dishing out the same dished night after night. The chef here clearly is looking to work creatively, and that is part of what makes eating at a place like this exciting, even if not every dish comes out perfectly.

10/28/2009

Back to NYC. Back for More Greek food at Kefi

Another excellent meal at Kefi. I went for an early dinner on Sunday, and it was exactly what I needed. The first time I went, I wanted to try the sweetbreads, but I was sharing with a friend who wasn’t so sure about it. This time, they were all out. I was disappointed, but the feeling vanished completely once I started eating the octopus with bean salad. The octopus  had an excellent sauce, and was extremely tender. I had an octopus appetizer at another Greek place the last time I was in New York, and this was leagues above it. It was as tender as any piece of fish you might eat. I am no longer disappointed that they did not have the sweetbreads… although I will try again with it. For the main course, I had the pulled rabbit pasta. The pasta was cooked well, although some of the noodles were a little stuck together. The tomato-based sauce was extremely flavorful and enjoyable, even if a touch salty, with crispy shallots and some very small, tender onions. The rabbit was extraordinarily tender, it was pulled apart and could not have been better. Overall, a very successful dish that I would love to have again, and I probably will (although have also been craving the pork souvlaki I had here the last time I went).

10/24/2009

Pio Pio in New York, Upper West Side

So I went here the other night with a couple of friends (including a certain someone who may or may not also write on this blog). It’s a Peruvian place. I had heard a little bit about it, and one of the friends I was going with is a fan. We had a reservation for 8 o’clock on a Saturday night. When we arrived, they told us they would not be able to sit us until 8:30… So we walked up the block and came back a little less than ten minutes before they told us, and they had seated someone in our place already. Then, they told us that we were next on the list. This was about 4 minutes before they sat another group of four (it wasn’t us) at a table.

So this was not a good way to start, but I went to the bar and ordered an appetizer because my friend told me I should. I ordered a purple corn tamale. We were sat by the time I got it, so we shared it right before we ordered. The tamale was not that great. It was a little salty and lacked good flavor. It was a tamale with chicken too and there were two little bits of shredded chicken in it, so it was a little lacking in that regard as well.

When we ordered at the table, we got the chicken pio, a whole chicken marinated and roasted. It is a pretty good roast chicken. It was tender, not the most tender I have had, but pretty good. We also ordered the Camarones Cuzco, which was a shrimp dish with garlic and white wine and a creamy sauce served with yellow rice.  The shrimp was decent. The sauce was not too memorable, but was well seasoned and complemented the shrimp fairly well. My favorite dish of the night was the Arroz con Mariscos. This was a seafood dish with scallops, octopus, mussels, shrimp, and squid. It is served with a red sauce over rice. The seasfood was all cooked well, especially the scallops. Thery were very tender. The sauce went with the dish while allowing the seafood to shine. The rice was cooked  and seasoned well. We also had the sangria. It was pretty good, although may have been a little sweet formy taste. Overall, the food was pretty good. Nothing was outstanding, but nothing flopped (I wouldn’t call the tamale a flop, but I would not order it again). By far the most upsetting thing about the meal were the birthday celebrations. When someone has a birthday here, they have a recording that they blast in the dining room at an almost deafening volume. It is impossible to ignore. I noticed others in the dining room with their fingers in their ears. There were four birthdays…!

09/29/2009

Dan adds: Don’t forget we ordered a big pitcher of sangria for the table, and we all liked it very much. Also, in my humble amateur opinion, I thought all of the food was fabulous. You seem to have been more lukewarm about it, though. I’d go back.

L’Amante Ristorante in Burlington, VT

Excellent upscale Italian food in Burlington. This, in my opinion, is one of the top restaurants in Burlington. For the experience, I do not find the price to be at all unreasonable. I spent some time working in the kitchen here, but mostly I have come as a customer. Things here are done right. The owners are great and the service staff is very professional, trained in all of the little things that make a meal feel special. The dining room is simply and elegantly decorated.

As for the food, it is excellent. They take quality ingredients and simply prepare them. One thing that they pride themselves in is the consistency. My parents eat here all the time and consistency is something that is extremely important to them.They are comforted by the fact that when they go out to eat here, they know what they are going to get. I went to eat dinner here this week, and I ended up having the grilled calamari and grilled sardines to start, then a shrimp risotto, and a seared halibut special main course. I am a big fan of their grilled calamari. It is served with balsamic marinated and grilled radicchio, finished with balsamic and extra virgin olive oil. The flavor is great. The calamari is tender. It is an excellent way to start the meal. The grilled sardines were quickly grilled and flaky, served with an eggplant caponata. The chef sent it out, and needless to say, I was glad he did. The roasted garlic risotto with shrimp and asparagus  I was served was excellent. Very creamy in texture, the rice still had some chew to it. It was well seasoned and very enjoyable. The halibut was also seasoned very well and had a good sear on it. Unfortunately, two members of our party had asked for their halibut cooked through or well-done. There were four orders of the special at our table, and it seemed like after this request, all of the fish were cooked a little longer. My fish was just a touch dry, but still enjoyable.

So many things about our dinner, and all of the experiences I have had here, were done right. There is excellent food and a great atmosphere. If one is looking for a nice dinner in Burlington, L’Amante will not disappoint.

08/31/2009

Stepping it up with more seafood tacos

So with the recent Mexican food feasting that I have been doing, mostly in my dreams due to the lack of some place better, I have been craving some good homemade tortillas. Sure, the ones down from down the road work in a pinch. But they could not be described as authentic, and why can’t I make my own. So I started to do a little research. First step: pork fat, and my local butcher pulls through easily with that one. I return home, dice it up into cubes, throw it in the oven at a low temperature, and leave it for a couple hours. Then I strained it into jars and let it cool in the fridge. Later that day, I had lard. After that, I played around with different ratios of flour to water to lard, a bit of salt, and soon came up with what I thought was a pretty good dough.

With the time that went into tortilla research, I went with the simpler taco filling. While at the store, I came across some good looking shrimp and scallops. I still had plenty of achiote paste, picked up a couple of limes, red onion, and cilantro, and the filling was taken care of. I mixed the achiote with lime juice and salt, brushed it on the skewered seafood, and threw it on the grill. I diced up the onions and some tomatoes from the garden, and i chopped the cilantro.

Meanwhile, the tortilla dough had rested for about 40 minutes, and I had formed 12 little balls. I put a cast iron skillet over medium heat rolled out each little ball. One by one, each six inch, round piece of dough was placed in the skillet, maybe 90 seconds a side, until a few slightly brown blisters formed.

While doing this, I asked a friend of mine to help me out and grab the shrimp and scallops off the grill, and when he returned, the tacos were ready to be assembled. My friend and I sat down with my parents and enjoyed some very good tacos. The produce and seafood was fresh. There was no slowly simmered tongue sitting in the middle of the table, but what these tacos lacked in tongue, they made up in freshly made tortillas with lard. The flavor of the lard was there, they were soft and chewy, and the freshness of a homemade product is always obvious. These tortillas were not very complicated to make, but made a huge difference to the quality of the tacos. It adds a new dimension to tacos made at home. Store-bought tacos may never be an option again…

07/23/2009

The Storm Cafe in Middlebury, VT

When in Middlebury, if you have a chance to make it here, Storm Cafe definitely gets my recommendation. It is your best chance at fine dining in Middlebury, although there is a more relaxed atmosphere. Also, you will pay Middlebury fine dining prices as opposed to fine dining you might find in a large city. With entrees right around twenty dollars, you get your money’s worth. The food is well thought out and well prepared.

Last time I went for dinner, I split an order of spicy mussells as an appetizer. The mussels were good quality and came in an excellent, aromatic, and slightly spicy broth. I think the broth could have been a little more spicy, but the flavors of the white wine, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, and ginger all contributed to a complex and flavorful broth. For an entree I ordered a quinoa risotto with chicken. The quinoa was tender but still had a good bite, it had good flavor, and the chicken was cooked well. I have actually ordered it before, and would eat it again, but I am excited to try other options on their seasonal menu.

07/22/2009

I didn’t know it was ever that time of year in Vermont…

Soft Shell Crabs. I found some at the local co-op. I have been developing a great relationship with the butcher there, and he recently got some fresh soft shell crabs. They were sitting in the cooler, alive and well. He began trying to convince me to take a couple home, but it took no convincing. Fresh soft shell crab in Vermont is hard to come by.

I was home alone all week, so I only took two home. It was noon during the middle of the week, and my plans to eat them for dinner quickly changed. They were not going to make it that far into the day. So that was it. They were going to be lunch. I cleaned them up, and mixed together a very simple, quick marinade of mint, cumin, lemon juice, and olive oil. I let them sit while I lightly toasted some farmer’s white bread from the Great Harvest Bread Company in Burlington, took out a little bit of mayonnaise, and lit the grill. Just a few minutes later, the crabs were on the grill, ready to be turned over.

The whole thing came together very quickly, and I was piling the crab onto the white bread and slathering on the mayonnaise before I knew it. What a surprise. A couple of hours before, I had no idea what I was going to be eating for lunch. One of my last guesses might have been soft shell crab. The farmer’s white bread was sturdy, holding together very well while not getting in the way of the crab flavor. The light touch of mayo provided something creamy that just barely softened the inside of the bread. The crab was fantastic. There was an  extremely satisfying crunch that opened up the door to the sweet flesh of the crab. I think it is safe to say that fresh, I enjoy good crab more than any lobster I have eaten.

I am so happy that it is soft shell crab season, but I hate how far removed I feel from it being in Vermont. I have to head back to my butcher very soon to thank him and see when he will be getting more.

07/20/2009

Murphy’s in Hanover, NH

I think that Murphy’s, since it has redone its image and more importantly its menu, is one of the better dinners you can get in the Hanover area. The new chef has added a lot, and reading the menu, things appear appetizing. I went recently and had the mussels for an appetizer. The broth was nicely flavored with the mussell juice, onion, celery, carrot, thyme and white wine. I then ordered the salmon because it looked very good (and the person I was there with said it was), but soon realized that I was in the mood for a burger. I told the waiter, who was very nice and helpful, and he changed my order. I asked for the buffalo burger. The burger was very good. A good bun and a very juicy burger (not always accomplished with buffalo) served medium rare. I did not get dessert that night but heard the desserts were pretty good. I plan on going back, and it may be the place I now go to when I go out for dinner or drinks in Hanover.

07/11/2009