Winter Fish Tacos

Every summer my brother spends a month fishing on Lake Champlain.  His haul is impressive and some of it winds up in my freezer.  I think I just pulled the last bag of his fish from my freezer.  The fish is known by the not-terribly-nice name of “crappie.”

Crappie is in the sunfish family and very popular among sport fishermen because it is delicious, with mild, sweet white flesh.  Other names for crappie are strawberry bass, speckled bass, speckled perch, and calico bass.  In Louisiana, I’ve been told it is called sac-au-lait ("bag of milk").  But around here it is called crappie, so crappie for supper it is.

In the sunny climes of California, fish tacos with grilled fish was invented.  It is typically accompanied by a sour cream and lime sauce, pickled red onions, and cabbage, which I think makes it perfect for whipping up in the middle of winter, as long as you skip the grill.

Winter Fish Tacos
Serves 6
In summer, I would probably add cilantro the fish marinade and sour cream sauce, but the dish is just fine without it.  Fresh corn tortillas are the preferred wrap, but flour wrappers do fine, especially where fresh corn tortillas aren’t available.
  
Pickled Red Onion
1 small red onion, halved lengthwise, cut thinly into slivers
1/2 cup rice vinegar
Juice of 1 lime
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
Dash of hot pepper sauce

Fish and Marinade
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 1/2 pounds fresh mahi mahi or other white fish fillet

Sour Cream Sauce
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 teaspoon (packed) finely grated lime peel
Pinch of salt
Dash of hot sauce

Tortillas and Garnishes
18 small flour or corn tortillas
2 cups shredded green cabbage
Salsa

1. To make the pickled onion, combine all the ingredients in a small nonreactive saucepan and bring to a boil.  Remove from the heat, transfer to a serving bowl, and let cool.
 2.  To prepare the fish, combine the oil and lime juice in a large shallow glass baking dish.  Add the fish and turn to coat in the marinade.  Set aside and let marinate for 15 minutes.
 3.  To prepare the sour cream sauce, combine all the ingredients in a small bowl and stir until well combined. Set aside. 
 4.  Preheat a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Remove the fish from the marinade and place in the hot pan, skin side down. Cook the fish for 4 minutes on the first side and then flip and drizzle with the marinade.  Cook on the second side for 3 to 5 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fish.  Let rest for a few minutes, then flake the fish with a fork.
 5.  To warm the tortillas, stack them between damp paper towels and microwave for about 60 seconds.
 6.  Serve the warm tortillas, fish, cabbage, pickled onions, sour cream sauce, cabbage, and salsa in separate bowls and allow the diners to assemble their own tacos.

From Recipes from the Root Cellar.  ©2010 Andrea Chesman.  All rights reserved.

Music and Noodles

When you live in a DIY world, music can be as much a part of your life as carpentry and dinner from food you raised yourself.

It was around my dinner table—I can’t remember the menu at this point—that a casual conversation about the dearth of venues for singer-songwriters morphed into the idea of starting a once-a-month coffeehouse series.  Eighteen years later, the Ripton Community Coffee House is still going strong.

There’s a dedicated volunteer crew to keep the organization going.  I feed the performers and crew who come early for set-up.  I got that job because I live closest to the venue, and not because I am a cookbook writer.  The musicians expect dinner made by the executive director’s wife.  Expectations are low.

My expectations are high, however, and I like to please.  Still, the menu can be a problem.  Inevitably there is a vegetarian in the group. Vocalists want to eat lightly and never want cheese before they sing.  Male instrumentalists eat hearty, the younger the heartier.

The dishes I choose must be ready by sound check time for the crew, but hold up for the sound man and the performers, who will eat a bit later.  The meal must be portable, because half will be served at the venue and half at my house, where the performers can relax. 

Lately, my go-to meal is Chinese sesame noodles, accompanied by Sweet Spicy Thai Slaw.  Sometimes I’ll roast some tofu to add protein.  The great thing about Sesame Noodles is that it can be adapted to what is in season and what is in the fridge.  In this week’s version, I swapped in a handful of chopped cilantro for the leek.  Scallions can replace leeks; cilantro is always a good addition.  During the gardening season, summer vegetables replace the carrots and daikon radish. 

In a DIY world, musicians should always eat free (see my favorite DIY blog, Cold Antler Farm.com) and recipes should be freely adapted.

Sesame Noodle Salad
Serves 4 to 6

 An arsenal of Chinese condiments combines to make the spicy dressing for these noodles.  Serve as soon as you combine the noodles and dressing.  If you want to make this dish ahead, cook the noodles and toss with sesame oil, assemble the vegetables, and make the dressing.  Refrigerate separately and combine just before serving.

1 pound dried vermicelli
1 leek, very thinly sliced
3 tablespoons Asian sesame oil
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 inch fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
1/4 cup tahini
1/4 cup water
3 tablespoons soy sauce, or more to taste
1 tablespoon rice vinegar, or to taste
1 tablespoon Chinese black vinegar
1 tablespoon rice wine
1 to 2 teaspoons Chinese chili paste with garlic, or more to taste
2 tablespoons sugar, or more to taste
1 carrot, finely julienned
2 turnips or 6-inch piece daikon radish, peeled and finely julienned

 1.  Cook the noodles in plenty of boiling salted water according the package directions until tender but firm to the bite. 
2.  Place the leek in the colander.  Reserve 1 cup of the cooking water. Drain the noodles by pouring into the colander; the hot water will cook the leek.  Rinse with cold water.  Transfer the noodles and leek into a large bowl and toss with 2 tablespoons of the sesame oil.
 3.  In a blender, combine the garlic and ginger and process until finely chopped.  Add the remaining 1 tablespoon sesame oil, tahini, water, soy sauce, rice vinegar, black vinegar, 1 teaspoon chili paste, and sugar.  Blend well.  Dip a noodle into the sauce to taste for seasoning, and add more soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, or chili paste, as needed. 
 4.  Toss the noodles with the carrot and turnips. (If you can’t serve immediately, cover and refrigerate the noodle mixture.  Hold the dressing at room temperature for up to 4 hours. Just before serving, add the dressing to the noodles and toss well.  Taste and adjust the seasoning as needed. Serve immediately. 

Recipe from Recipes from the Root Cellar by Andrea Chesman. ©2010.  All rights reserved

Roasted Spiced Potatoes

      The story goes that at age two, still in the highchair, I declared to my mother that I would never eat potatoes again.  And I didn’t.  Not until I was a teenager and decided to try a French-fry.  Delicious.  Of course.

      My repertoire has expanded somewhat, though I am still not the potato eater the men in my family are.  RR has it in his Irish genes.  My boys are part Irish and part, well, I say that the genes on my side are from Russian potato farmers.  Something has to explain the sturdy looking legs.  In any case, I could serve them potatoes day in and day out to no complaints.

      This was the first year I grew potatoes myself.  I’ve always left it to the professionals before.  But Sam did the digging and planting, so I agreed to do the cooking.  We shared the joy of harvesting.  And it was pure pleasure, rooting around for every last spud.  We had planted a 5-pound sampler of fingerlings from Moose Tubers that included Austrian Crescent, French Fingerling, LaRatte, and Rose Finn Apple.  Although a pain in the neck to scrub, these small potatoes are delicious roasted.

 

      I play around with spices when I roast.  Sometimes I make my own spice mix, sometimes I pull a jar of Ethiopian berbere off the shelf.  It is all delicious.  Just give those babies plenty of room on a baking sheet.  If you want them to brown, don’t crowd them.  Slick them with oil, then spices, then roast in a hot oven, turning them once or twice.  That’s all there is to it.

      Here’s my recipe for Roasted Spiced Potatoes.  It serves four.

     

4 tablespoons canola oil

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon curry powder

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper

2 pounds thin-skinned potatoes, cut into 1-inch cubes

      1.  Preheat the oven to 425° F.  Lightly oil a large shallow roasting pan or half sheet pan.

      2.  In a large bowl, combine the oil with the salt, curry powder, cumin, five-spice powder, ginger, black pepper, and cayenne. Mix well.  Add the potatoes and toss to coat.  Spread the potatoes on the prepared pan in a single layer.

      4.  Roast for 35 to 40 minutes, turning occasionally for even cooking, until the potatoes are tender when pierced with a fork and browned.  Serve hot.

     

From Recipes from the Root Cellar. © Andrea Chesman.  All rights reserved.

Eat More Kale

Eat more kale.  It’s been my words to live by for years, ever since I discovered that this delicious green was for eating, not for decorating salad bars at steakhouses.  This enlightenment happened for me sometime in the 1980s.  When I wrote Recipes from the Root Cellar I included 33 recipes for kale – wilted salads, stir-fries, sautés, braises.  And, of course, crisp oven-baked kale chips.

Indeed, after returning from the Mother Earth News fair this fall where I did some cooking demos, I wrote about cooking—kale!  

I usually phrase my personal mantra as “Can’t Cook Enough Kale” so as not to infringe on a Vermont artist who supports his family with a small business selling t-shirts and bumper stickers saying “Eat More Kale.” But when mega fast-food chain, Chik-fil-A threatened a lawsuit against Bo Muller-Moore for trademark infringement, I had to jump into the fray in defense of kale. 
Chik-fil-A has a marketing slogan of “Eat Mor Chiken,” which appears as hand-written signs held by cows.  The defense, of course, is who ever confused a leaf of kale with an extruded piece of chicken nugget?  And how can you trademark a saying of “eat mor” and have it apply to eating more of everything?

Yesterday I brought Crispy Kale Chips and a Wilted Kale Salad, both recipes from Recipes from the Root Cellar, to the Middlebury Natural Foods Coop and gave out samples.  My display included a hand-written sign that read, “Eat More Kale.” 

 “Aren’t you afraid of being charged with trademark infringement?” someone asked?  “They’ll never take me alive,” I replied.

 Enjoy More Kale.  Plant More Kale. Grow More Kale. Eat More Kale.    

Crispy Kale Chips
Serves 1 to 4

 Potato chips: be gone! Roasted kale is so delicious, you never need to turn to them again for a hit of crisp and salt.  My son introduced me to this delicacy, but he learned to make it in a cast-iron frying pan over a hot wood fire outdoors.  It took me a while to figure out this version, which is faster, more suited to the average lifestyle, and so good it will make kale lovers out of the most picky eaters.  This is more appropriate as a snack or hors d’oeuvre than a side dish because of the high volume of the pieces.    

1 bunch kale (I prefer curly kale), leaves chopped in 1-inch pieces and tough stems discarded
About 2 tablespoons canola or extra virgin olive oil
Coarse sea salt or kosher salt

 1.  Preheat the oven to 425°F.
 2.  Measure the kale and transfer to a large bowl.  For every 4 cups of firmly packed leaves, add 1 tablespoon oil.  Mix well with your hands to make sure the leaves are evenly coated.  Spread out on a large sheet pan into a single layer.  Use two sheet pans, if necessary.
 3.  Roast for about 10 minutes, until the curly tips of the leaves are darkened and the interior of the leaves are a bright green.  If you are using two sheet pans, roast in batches, unless you can use the “convection bake” option.  The leaves should be mostly crunchy and browned, but not blackened.
 4.  Toss with salt and serve.

Adapted from Recipes from the Root Cellar by Andrea Chesman.  ©2010.  All rights reserved.

Chicken Soup for a Grey Day

November 15, 2011

November is the start of cold and flu season.  Since RR works in an elementary school, he brings home colds all the time.  Of course, the only cure for a cold is chicken soup. 

I always have a package of chicken leg quarters in the freezer for the purpose of making soup.  I throw it in the pot, not even bothering to defrost it first.  I can’t trim of the fat, but no matter, it will be skimmed off later.  Next I fill the pot with water, a couple of onions, a couple of garlic cloves, the tops of a bunch of celery, and a bunch of parsley.  The aromatics—the onion, garlic, celery—are standard flavoring items, but the parsley is important, too, I think.  It gives the soup a hint of fresh greenness.  In this I differ from my mother’s chicken soup.  She used parsnips and carrots to give a hint of sweetness.  And she never, ever used fresh garlic.  The daughter of immigrants, she avoided foods that were too “ethnic” in nature. 

 

The soup will simmer on the stove for 3 or 4 hours.  Then I’ll strain it, skim off the fat, and there will be the rich chicken stock I can use as a base for soup.  It can go in many different directions.  Mexican Tortilla Soup, Greek Avgolemono, Pennsylvania Dutch Chicken and Corn Soup, Risi e Bisi, Chinese Noodle Bowl with Bok Choy, with noodles and vegetables.  So many choices.   

But we are talking comfort here.  So matzoh ball soup it is.  Chicken soup with matzoh balls is an all-purpose cure—for a cold, the flu, a broken heart, or a grey day.

 

Here’s a recipe that I worked up for my book, Mom’s Best One-Dish Suppers.  I’ve never really liked the title, but it contains an element of truth: I am a mom and the recipes in the book are family favorites.  Here’s a bowl of comfort on a grey day.  Today I substituted diced celery and carrots for the greens listed below only because the soup was a sort of spur-of-the-moment decision, and I didn’t have greens on hand.

Chicken Soup with Matzoh Balls

Serves 4 to 6

Matzoh balls are soup dumplings, made from matzoh meal. They are also called "“klose,”" "“kneidel,”" “"kleis,”" or “"kneidlach.”" Matzoh balls may seem exotic to those whose mothers never made them, but soup dumplings are so ubiquitous, historians can’t point to any specific cultural origins.

¼ cup canola oil

¼ cup water

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup matzoh meal

6 to 8 cups chicken broth

10 sprigs parsley

3 sprigs fresh dill (optional)

4 cups shredded greens (such as bok choy, chard, Chinese mustard greens, escarole, kale, spinach, alone or in any combination)

2 cups diced cooked chicken

1. Whisk together the oil, water, eggs, and salt in a medium bowl. Stir in the matzo meal. Cover and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low to keep the water gently boiling.

3. Form the chilled matzoh meal batter into 1-inch balls and carefully ease into the water. Cover the pot and boil gently for 30 to 40 minutes. The balls will fluff up and float to the top of the pot as they cook. The only way to tell if the matzoh balls are cooked is to remove one from the water and cut it in half. It should be firm and uniform in color—no wet, dark center. When the matzoh balls are done, remove from the pot with a slotted spoon.

4. Meanwhile, bring the chicken broth to a boil in a soup pot with the dill, if desired. Add the greens and chicken, reduce the heat, and simmer, covered, until the greens are cooked through, 5 to 30 minutes, depending on the green.

5. To serve, place 1 or 2 matzoh balls in each bowl and add the soup.