This is the simplest salmon recipe you will ever read. Your dog could make this recipe. You put a skillet of boiling water on the lowest rack of a preheated oven. A baking dish with oiled and seasoned salmon goes on the rack above it. Everything remains in place for 45 minutes. The most succulent …
Tag Archives: fish
PESCE ALL’ ACQUA PAZZA–MONKFISH IN CRAZY WATER
Back in the culinary Jurassic when fresh cod cod was actually cheap there was even less expensive fish I prized–monkfish. All flavor, meaty texture, and almost no bones. At the time, recently out of college, I was working at an upscale French restaurant that served lotte (as the French call monkfish) in a cream sauce for lunch. Monkfish had not yet gained enough traction to flop atop American mainstream fish counters. I bought my first lotte whole from a fishmonger in Haymarket Square in Boston, a toothy goggle-eyed monster that might have escaped from Beowulf’s cave. I paid $.89/lb for it. The seafood for this week’s Pesce all’ Acqua Pazza–Monkfish in Crazy Water costs way more than 89¢ a pound, but it’s still half the price of cod and much tastier.
Brandade de Morue with Peppers, Olives and Arugula
I like fresh cod, but I LOVE salt cod, especially like this: Brandade de Morue with Olives, Peppers and Arugula. Brandade is what the French, who love adding cream and shallots to everything just to see if anyone’s heart explodes, is what happens when the children of Gaul get their mitts on some morue (salt cod). It has a rich satisfying flavor without being overwhelming, a great texture, and is terrific with uncomplicated red wines. Successful marriages have been based on less. It’s a standard in our house–we eat it by special request (birthdays), on Christmas Eve, and whenever somebody says, Gee, it’s been awhile since we’ve had brandade.
Sardines with Feta and Salmoriglio
Photographing Sardines with Feta and Salmoriglio this past week reminded me of a fancy dinner where Jody and I found ourselves sitting across the table from Stephen Hawking’s literary agent, who told a story about A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME. The original manuscript, we learned, had been an overlong demanding text several times the size of the slender volume that was eventually published. The agent revealed how he convinced Hawking how to pare it down. “I explained to him that every time he used a mathematical formula in his book he was going to lose half his readers.”
Hawking must have taken his advice to heart. There’s nary a single formula in the entire story.
Friends have suggested a similar axion holds for food bloggers. Every time you publish a photo of a fish with its head on you’re going to lose half your readers.
George Washington Ate Here – Shad Roe with Brown Butter, Capers and Ginger
You will never see it on a restaurant menu. The TV Food Network is unlikely to devote an hour to its history and preparation. It is one of the great forgotten foods of American culinary culture. I’m talking about the shad. The sole remnant of its once mighty role in the diet of Americans is …
Simple Whole Roasted Fish – Part Deux
I learned to clean fish when I was nine-years old, taught by my father, practicing on the sunnies, perch and bass my brothers and I caught in rural Michigan. Cleaning fish is a tripartite affair–scraping the scales off while grasping a slippery tail, gutting and removing the viscera, and cutting out the gills and fins, …
The Garum Factory 