Tag Archives: Fish

Thai-Style Fish and Creamy Coconut Rice Packets

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Currently cooking out of Simple Weeknight Favorites from America’s Test Kitchen

Here we go again; another America’s Test Kitchen offering. When I first picked up this book, I was worried that it was just a repeat of their other books, such as The Best Simple Recipes. I’ve heard that other people have found repeat recipes, but I haven’t come across any. And even if I do, I think there are enough new ones to keep me interested and make the purchase of this book worthwhile.

Simple Weeknight Favorites is full of quick, weeknight meals, along with scads of tips and quick side dishes. In fact, those side dishes might be my favorite part of the book; I’m always looking for (easy) ways to make side dishes more interesting and varied. As Bryan has pointed out on occasion, there’s only so many times you can eat microwaved frozen peas before they get boring.

This was the first dish I tried out of the book. I was looking for something a little different, and this caught my eye because of the cooking method: en papillote, or in a pouch. Translated into Trista speak, that really means fewer dishes! In addition, I thought the flavors sounded interesting.

The pouches came together very quickly. You start by mounding quick-cooking or ready rice in the middle of sheets of tinfoil. A fish fillet (the recipe called for cod or halibut but I used tillapia) is placed on top, and a mixture made with rice vinegar, sugar, red pepper flakes, coconut milk, cilantro, fish sauce, garlic and ginger is spooned over it. The  pouches are sealed and then baked for about 20 minutes.

The fish came out tender and flavorful, with no trace of fishiness. The sauce mixture thickened and coated the rice, with the coconut milk making it creamy and muting the heat from the red pepper flakes. I did find the sauce a little sweet, so I’d cut down on the amount of sugar, probably by half. As per usual, I only used about half of the ginger called for and didn’t miss it at all. And the best part? One little, lonely pot to wash.

I can already tell that I’m gonna like this book.

Chipotle Quinoa with Corn, Black Beans and Shrimp

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Currently cooking out of The Food Matters Cookbook by Mark Bittman

After the decadence of November and December (the candy! the desserts! the chocolate!), I was feeling the need to eat simply. I craved vegetables and fruit and grains; pretty much anything but flour and refined sugar, so I started looking around. I’m a regular reader of Mark Bittman’s column in the NYTimes, and I’ve got a couple of his other cookbooks. I find his cooking to be simple, but not boring. Bittman manages to coax maximum flavor from just a few ingredients. His recipes aren’t long and complicated, and most of them use ingredients that I tend to keep on hand.

Not long ago, Bittman wrote a book about changing his diet to a more plant-based, vegan diet (that book is called Food Matters) and using sustainable, whole foods (in other words, buy as local and seasonable as possible, eat mostly vegetarian and stay away from processed foods). I haven’t read that book, but I’d heard enough about it to know that that kind of diet appealed to me. The Food Matters Cookbook is a companion to Food Matters and includes something like 500 recipes. Vegetables, grains and beans are emphasized, with meat showing up in a supporting role, if it shows up at all. Almost all of the recipes include vegan/vegetarian options.

I find this type of cooking challenging. I like meat, and I find I need some sort of protein, especially at lunch and dinner, to keep me feeling full. And a vegan diet is simply too restrictive for me. I’m hoping to find a balance that feels right, grains and vegetables gradually displacing the meat.

So, The Food Matters Cookbook. I’ve started off with a quinoa salad that combines corn and black beans with a bit of shrimp. Unfortunately, when I was making my shopping list, I completely forgot the chipotles. I ended up using some fire-roasted green peppers I had in my pantry. This turned out to be a tasty mistake.

The dish starts of by softening onion and garlic in some oil, then adding in canned chipotle peppers and some of the adobo sauce they come in (or canned green peppers if you are a forgetful dork like me). Next comes the quinoa which is sauteed for a few minutes to toast the grains. Finally, canned black beans, frozen corn and vegetable stock (or water) is added to the pan. The whole thing simmers until the quinoa is done. I followed the variation to add some chopped, peeled shrimp to the pot when the quinoa was almost done. Right before serving, I squeezed half of a lemon over the pot and adjusted the seasonings.

I found this dish to be light but hearty, and I was really glad I added the shrimp. In my mind, this turned the dish from a side salad into a main dish. Chopping the shrimp into small pieces allowed me to make a little shrimp go a long way. And I didn’t miss the chipotles at all. The green chiles were milder than the chipotles would have been. You got flavor with just a bit of heat. Leftovers were fabulous, and we found that we actually preferred the dish cold.

Shrimp Romesco

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Currently cooking from The Best Simple Recipes from America’s Test Kitchen

I think I’ve said it here before, but shrimp is not one of my favorite foods. But when I saw this recipe, I was intrigued enough to try it. Also, I had a big bag of almonds sitting in my cupboard.

Romesco sauce is a classic Spanish sauce of red peppers, thickened with almonds. In the Cooks Illustrated version, the sauce is made with jarred roasted red peppers and garlic, and the almonds are toasted with bread crumbs and sprinkled on the shrimp at the end.

This dish is fantastically simply. The sauce comes together quickly, in the food processor, and the shrimp take only a few minutes of cooking. The end result is a bright, tasty dish that even I liked. We had a lot of sauce left over, so the next night, I broiled some frozen mahi mahi and spooned the sauce over the fish.

Fish with Pesto

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Currently cooking out of Make It Fast, Cook It Slow by Stephanie O’Dea

So, I apparently didn’t take any pictures of this fish dish. But I’m sure you can imagine it. White fish with green stuff smeared across the top.

Once again, I used mahi mahi, but unlike the parmesan fish dish, I defrosted the mahi mahi before cooking it. I ended up with a lot less liquid, and the pesto pretty much stayed on top of the fish. It tasted okay. Honestly, I think using the same concept and roasting or grilling the fish is the way to go.

Here’s the recipe from O’Dea’s blog: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/09/crockpot-fillet-of-sole-with-pesto.html

Parmesan Tilapia

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Currently cooking out of Make It Fast, Cook It Slow by Stephanie O’Dea

No pictures of this dish because, although it was tasty, it was ugly. White fish with white sauce on white rice? Nope, not happening.

O’Dea says that even people who don’t like fish will like this recipe. I believe her. You begin by mixing mayonnaise, shredded parmesan cheese, garlic, lemon juice and salt and pepper together. Then you slather this mixture over tilapia fillets. I used mahi mahi (because that is what I had in the freezer), and I liked the thicker pieces of fish. The fish fillets are then wrapped in tinfoil and cooked on low for three to four hours.

O’Dea doesn’t specify whether or not the fish was to be thawed. I took a chance and used the fish straight out of the freezer, and that was probably a mistake. My fish released a lot of water and really watered down the sauce. It was still good, but it didn’t really stick to the fish. I plan on making this again, but I’ll use thawed fish fillets, not frozen. Also, the sauce was really lemony. That wasn’t a problem for us, but if you like just a little lemon with your fish (as opposed to a little fish with your lemon), I’d cut down on the lemon juice a bit.

Here’s the recipe on O’Dea’s blog: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/02/foil-packet-tilapia-crockpot-recipe.html.

Bacon-Wrapped Shrimp v2

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bacon_shrimpCurrently cooking from Tasty by Roy Finamore

I couldn’t admit that I had gotten smacked down by some shrimp and bacon, so I was determined to give this recipe another go, with a few modifications.

This time around, I used jumbo shrimp so it was easier to wrap the bacon around and secure everything together. I also cut almost all of the fat off the bacon, since it was the bacon fat that caused the 2′ flames last time. And lastly, I grilled these puppies more on indirect heat and without closing the grill lid (and obsessively moving the skewers any time I detected a flare-up).

In the end, the shrimp were just okay. We actually preferred the smaller shrimp to these big ones and I seriously overcooked the shrimp while trying to get the bacon done. I think I’ll leave this dish to the pros.

Bacon-Wrapped Shrimp

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Currently cooking from Tasty by Roy Finamore

Two things I learned while making this dish:

1. Bacon and shrimp are both very slippery and resist staying wrapped together, even when skewered.

2. Bacon is flammable.

Did you notice that there’s no picture accompanying this post? That’s because I was too busy trying to put out the fire to take pictures. Who knew that dripping bacon grease plus grill would equal leaping flames? Okay, in some logical part of my brain, I probably knew that that might happen, but in my eagerness to try this, I ignored those warnings.

This recipe starts out by wrapping a piece of bacon around an extra-large shrimp and skewering them together. The skewers are then brushed with a mixture of ketchup, maple syrup and soy sauce (or fish sauce) and grilled. In Tasty, there is a beautiful shot of perfectly grilled shrimp surrounded by a crispy piece of bacon. I’m going to make myself feel better and believe that they totally doctored that photo.

Bryan and I were able to scavenge a few of the less burnt shrimp. The combination of the salty and sweet was really nice. Look for a repeat of this recipe soon. With pictures, hopefully.

Roasted Broccoli with Shrimp

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Roasted Broccoli with Shrimp

Obviously not from the whole grains book, but if you like broccoli, then MAKE THIS DISH!

I loved vegetables growing up. In fact, all my siblings did, and it wasn’t hard for my parents to get us to eat them (except for my sister who hated peas and would swallow them whole instead of chewing them). Now, I travel for a living and spend weeks at a time living out of hotels and eating at restaurants. Usually within a couple of days of leaving home, I start craving simple meals with lots of vegetables, like this one. In fact, roasted broccoli (and cauliflower) is one of the things I make regularly at home. 

So, when I saw this recipe here, I immediately bookmarked it. It took me a couple of weeks before I got around to trying it, probably because of the shrimp; I don’t really like shrimp. But, I needed shimp for another dish I was trying (that posting is coming up next) and it was easy enough to get some extra shrimp for this dish.

I think both Bryan and I were so-so on the final product. Again, it came down to the shrimp. We both tend more to chicken as our protein of choice, and we started talking about trying this with chicken. So the next night, I substituted chicken chunks for the shrimp.

The key is to cut the chicken into small enough pieces that it cooks in the same amount of time as the broccoli. I served it over bulgar cooked with some onions and it was really good. It’s low in fat and calories and you don’t really need a lot of meat. One chicken breast cut into small pieces was plenty for both Bryan and I, so that makes the meal pretty cheap. In fact, you could easily leave out the meat and just serve it over a whole grain for a vegetarian meal.

Sigh. I’m currently working in Lethbridge, Canada, and would kill to be able to eat this tonight instead of another restaurant meal.