Fishy Fridays: Brandied Shrimp

I received a note from our dear Joanne from Frutto della Passione asking for some help...

As many of you know, the Abruzzo region of Italy is sorting through the aftermath of an earthquake that struck. Joanne and her family have a number of friends and family in the area and although they are fine, the region is just devistated. Her family here in Canada is involved in relief efforts, and asking for donations. You can read her post here. No pressures, no worries.

As it's Easter weekend, I'm keeping this post short and sweet (all together now: Just like me). I'm still sorting out what I'll be putting together for Easter dinner--it won't be as foo-foo as previous years, but I feel a little ham and corn pudding are in the works.

So for the final Fishy Friday post, I'm offering a recipe I first tried as part of a cookbook review I did in September. Ingrid Hoffman's brandied shrimp is one I absolutely love. I've had it over pasta, rice and potatoes, but my favourite is with a good bit of bread. It's fast easy and quite yummy.

Have a lovely weekend all!


Brandied Shrimp
adapted from Ingrid Hoffman's Simply Delicioso

30g butter
1 Tbsp olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
500g shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 dspn Worcestershire sauce
chilli sauce, to taste
1 tsp dried oregano
salt
pepper
125 ml tomato ketchup
2 Tbsp brandy
chopped parsley

Heat the fats together. Stir in the garlic. When the air is nice and garlicky, add the shrimp, Worcesterhire, chilli sauce, oregano, salt and pepper. Combine wella and let the shrimp simmer until they are partially cooked and beginning to curl. Add the ketchup and continue simmering until the shrimp are cooked through. Add the brandy and parsley. Give it a good stir and serve.

cheers!
jasmine

Fishy Fridays: Warm tuna and potato salad

Even though my mind still feels winter's chill, my gullet says warm weather is coming.

I'm still grabbing for my wool coat and pashmina every few days but my little plaid trenchcoat is getting more and more wear. I'm still drawn towards roast chicken and beef with loads of gratin potatoes and veggies. The idea of leafy salad meals just hasn't taken hold of my imagination...yet.

But today my tummy decided that perhaps it would only be sated by a salad. Not a leafy salad with frissée this and hand-torn that. It wanted a hearty and warm salad. The kind of salad that doesn't wilt in the heat. The kind of salad that those who pretend to eat won't go near (because those who pretend to eat wouldn't have the combined tensile and compressive strengths necessary to lift a forkful of food). The kind of salad that that make my tummy feel both full and happy.

This salad is based on my love of warm potato salad, akin to the kind put together by Jamie Oliver in his series where he cooked in his garden--hot potatoes slurping up olive oil and lemon juice--along with a not-so-latent and constant desire to be near the Medeterranean Sea. It's relatively quick to put together and quite satsifying on its own or with a piece of bruschetta.


Warm tuna and potato salad

One boiled potato, cubed
olive oil
squeeze of lemon juice
salt
pepper
half a onion, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
two sundried tomatoes, chopped finely
1 tsp capers,
1 roasted pepper, chopped
2-3 Tbsp chopped black olives
.5c canned chickpeas, drained
1 tin chunked tuna, drained

cheers!
jasmine

Fishy Fridays: Calamari with Peppers

I'm sure I've mentioned more than once that my preferred cure for a cold includes copious amounts of chilli peppers. Now that this cold is old enough to write a driver's exam, hot and spicy foods are pretty much a mainstay in my diet.

Then again, when are they not?

And no, this is not going to be the post on how I dimwittedly welcomed back this cold with open arms. Well, not so open arms as I will, at some point, reveal.

Anyway...hot peppers. Love them. Absolutely love them. I prefer the fresh, green heat of bird's eye chillis--especially with eggs and in Pad Thai--but there there's also room in my pantry and gullet for pickled peppers...preferably prodigious pecks of pickled peppers.

Back when I could afford to eat out more than I currently do, my dearest TFE and I would occasionally have dinner at one of those chain roadhouses that overplays a theme. Now, as you know, he wasn't called The Fussy Eater for nothing. On his list of inedible foods was all things that came from or near the water. Yes, it could be frustrating, but really all it meant was I didn't have to share bowls of mussels, platters of crab and lobster dips or platefuls of deep fried calamari. One of my favourite appetiser-for-a-meals was a sizzling plate of calamari with hot banana peppers.

Earlier this week I had a craving for that meal. But quite honestly I didn't feel like trekking out to that restaurant and paying $10 to satisfy my craving...not when I could make it for much, much less.

As it's been a while since I had it, I had to go with taste memory: crispy squid with bell and hot pickled peppers. I'd have this as a meal, but it would easily be appetisers for two or three people.


Calamari and Peppers
50g flour
1 dspn Old Bay Seasoning (I used the lemon and herb kind, but regular would work as well)
1 dspn sweet paprika
salt and pepper
150g calamari rings
peanut oil for frying
half an onion, slivered top to tail
1 bell pepper, slivered
1 garlic clove, minced
pickled banana peppers, to taste
1 tsp pickling vinegar from the peppers
sweet chilli sauce

While heating the peanut oi, mix together the flour, Old Bay, paprika, salt and pepper. Dredge the squid in the spiced flour.

When the oil is hot enough, drop the dredged squid bits, in small batches, into the oil and fry for two-three minutes. Remove from oil and drain on paper towelling. Sprinkle with salt.

Sauté bell peppers and onions. Add garlic and stir for a minute or two, add banana pepper rings. Tip in the calamari, stir and add a squirt or two of chilli sauce and the vinegar. Stir and sprinkle with additional Old Bay and salt.

cheers!
jasmine

Fishy Fridays: Fish cakes

For newsfreaks, this week left some of us wishing for extra sets of eyes, smudge-free newspaper inks and finer controls to our PVRs. We grabbed for our boo bricks and generally debated over pints of Guinness, boxes of Timbits and or plate or two of moussaka (okay, it was mass market cafeteria moussaka, but it was still supposed to be moussaka).

But isn't that what good journalism is supposed to do? By holding up a mirror to the powers that be audiences are enlightened, enraged, encouraged. We want to know more about our political and physical environments. We want to know why a decision made in a not-so-distant past and in a not-so distant place means we're paying only about 25 per cent less for petrol than a year ago while oil prices are roughly half what they were a year ago, how our home values have dropped and the reasons we might want to avoid certain brands of processed meats.

I'm appreciative of good journalism: reporters who research well, find credible sources, legitimately prove what they've discovered seven ways to Sunday and present information in a fair and balanced way. Good journalists can do this and make it look easy. They need to be smart, skeptical, ingenious, trustworthy, determined, fast, patient, fearless, resourceful and value the truth.

News delivery methods don't really concern me (online vs paper vs radio vs TV-- although paper is easier on the eyes than staring in to light beams)...what bothers me is that journalistic skill and experience seem to be pushed aside for cheaper alternatives who quite simply write good or appeal to a certain demographic. Sure some of us think we have the stuff to to keep democracy in check, and have been approached to "contribute" to news outlets...but how many of us could replicate Woodward and Bernstein to the same level of effectiveness?

I think, because it looks so easy and is so nicely packaged, many people take decent reporting for granted, leaving some unable to differentiate between analysed information and glitzy packages. Foodish analogies point towards differences between Julia Child and Sandra Lee or Martin Yan's Chinatowns and Road Tasted.

The issue of journalistic standards came to the forefront not so long ago, as Ian Brown put it, it took a jester to point the finger. Yes, I refer to Jon Stewart's televised vivisection of CNBC's Jim Cramer and that television network's business reporting in general. For those of you who missed it and/or cannot access the videos, essentially Stewart took Cramer and CNBC's money honeys to task about the quality of their reporting before the stock market plunged lower than my neckline.

Yeah...when Stewart's team assembled and aired supporting clips, it was pretty obvious that there was something fishy going on...

Almost as fishy as a recent opinion column that included a line from an expert who "chirped" about the "beneficial effects" of being jobless, what got me was the opening para in which the writer confesses she and her husband paid $235 for a sushi dinner for two before moaning on about the virtues of frugality, practically begging for approval for not spending money at the mall.

Here's a bit of advice: spending $235 for two people (whether last week or two years ago) on a few pieces of fish, some mounds of rice and a bits of seaweed kinda sorta negates the overcoming mall temptations/aren't I a virtuously fiscally responsible person thing...a lot

So...for those of us who are honestly trying to be frugal, but still want fish in our diets, I offer you one of the most cost-effective fish dishes I know of: fish cakes.

Really.

Roughly equal weights of tinned tuna and leftover cooked potatoes, spices and egg. Mix it all together, form a disc and coat it in cornmeal, flour or breadcrumbs before frying. I chose cornmeal because I wanted the cakes to keep their crunch without the risk of getting soggy.

Yes, it may lack a certain je ne sais quoi usually associated three-figure dining, but you can zhuzh it up swanky greens with foofoo dressing, and or serve them with whatever sauce you wish--I chose flavoured mayonnaises--simply add curry powder or chopped jalepenos to mayonnaise, a roasted pepper sauce, or ketchup..purple ketchup, if need be.


Fish cakes
makes six to ten cakes, depending upon your generosity

340g canned tuna
340g cooked potatoes, riced
1 egg, well beaten
a couple pinches, onion powder
2 Tbsp minced parsley
salt and pepper
cornmeal for coating
peanut oil for frying

Mix tuna, potatoes, egg, onion powder, parsley and salt and pepper together.

Make patties by portioning mixture into patties that are two to three tablespoons of filling each. Coat in cornmeal.

Heat oil and fry patties until golden brown, being careful when flipping them over.

Serve hot with curry or jalepeno mayonnaise or tartar sauce (or any other sauce you wish).

cheers!
jasmine

Fishy Fridays: Chilli garlic shrimp

This one I fully credit the palate worm.

I've been craving many things this month. No. I'm not pregnant...at this point such a feat would be indicative of Divine intervention...and although Loki seems to have taken residence at mine, we're just good friends.

This wretched cold of mine (yes, I'm still suffering residual coughs and sneezes...and my sinuses haven't been helped by the wacky weather we've experienced) left me craving foods I was too tired to make myself and to lazy to find someone who'd make it and deliver to my doorstep.

What I wanted was a combination of the salt and pepper squid my favourite dim sum-ery makes and Thai sweet chilli garlic shrimp. A combination of the salty goodness of those crunchy coated squiggly tentacles and the sticky heat of shrimp. Yes, I know the sauciness of the dish would probably negate the crunchiness of deep fat frying, but the palate wants what the palate wants.

It's really easy to put together--basically all the wet ingredients can be measured out with a shotglass. I chose to marinate the shrimp before dredging and frying. I just figured it was the best and easiest way to get as much flavour into the meat, and not have the sweet-saltiness just sit on top. I had them with glass noodles (fast and easy), but I think rice would be a nice pairng as well. To keep the heat bright, I sprinkled the minced chillies just before serving.

Yes, it's fried. You can deep fat fry the shrimp if you wish, but I just shallow fried them. It's not scary. Really. Don't look at me that way.


Chilli Garlic Shrimp

4 Tbsp soy sauce
3 Tbps honey
2 Tbsp oyster sauce
2 Tbsp nam pla
1 Tbsp black vinegar
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 thumb ginger, minced
2 green chillies, minced (or to taste)
500g raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
cornstarch, for dredging
peanut oil, for shallow frying

Mix together soy, honey, oystersauce, nam pla, vinegar, garlic and ginger. Divide mixture between two bowls and let shrimp marinate in one bowl for at least 15 minutes.

Dredge shrimp in cornstarch while you heat the oil in a wok until shimmery.

Fry shrimp in batches until cooked.

Tip out oil and clean out the wok. Tip in the unused marinade and let bubble. Tip in the cooked shrimp and coat well. Let sauce reduce to desired thickness before serving over noodles or rice. Sprinkle with minced chillies.

cheers!
jasmine

Fishy Friday: Pissaladiere

Yes, yes...normally at this time of year I mention Tim Hortons' annual caffeine-fest*, filled with hopes that I'd actually win something...anything. Well...the competition is about two weeks old and I've not won anything...trust me, Timmys are what are keeping me going right now (that and the way-buzzy cold meds I'm on), so I thought I'd won at least twice by now. Meh.

No. I shall not at length about how unfair this marketing ploy is, commenting about how one can get much better coffee at a much lower price by, um, making it oneself, or even flesh out my theory as to where all the winning cups are going. Instead, I'll drone on about a self-imposed dietary tweak.

Yes: it's Lent. Yes: I'm doing fish on Fridays. No, I don't expect any of you to do this.

Even though I enjoy most seafood, I don't eat nearly as much of it as I'd like. Cost is a bit of an issue, probably because I'm not adjacent to an ocean and this essay, hosted by the University of Guelph's website, summarises the state of the Great Lakes fisheries.

I am trying to find cost effective ways of introducing fishy goodness into my regular diet...with a minimal reliance on reconstituted fish flakes covered in unidentifiable gloop. My Dear Little Cardamummy made fish and shrimp wet curries as well as dry spicerubbed fish fries. I'm not saying I'll be able to replicate those, but I'll be looking for non ketchup-dunking fare...and yes, I did stock up on a couple of sales at the mediumscarymegamart, so I've a kilo or two of shrimp in my freezer along with some catfish fillets.

So, what's my Fishy Friday meal this week? Pissaladière.

As its name suggests, it's a rather pizza-like dish found in southern France. Unlike most pizzas found here in North America, it's a white pizza, devoid of a tomatoey sauce. The toppings are few, but combined combined have a lovely balance: sweet caramelised onions, slightly bitter black olives and salty anchovies.

Yes. I said anchovies. No. Don't run away. I know many people seem to be phobic of these wee little fishies...why, I'm not entirely sure. I think they suffer from bad PR--just the mere mention of anchovies will leave CERTAIN people recoiling with disgust. I have been known to add them to dishes and feed them to CERTAIN people...who didn't complain...when they didn't know. Heck one person is now a convert (I think...I'm not forcing the issue).

I happen to like them and will use them for a bit of oomphy depth of flavour in pasta sauces. As a semi-regular pizza maker of semi-regular pizzas, I'll add them to a pie with sausage and hot peppers.

Pissaladière is at once effortless and effortful.

Sure, you can buy a a disc of dough and a jar of caramelised onions and pop the entire thing into an oven and have one in hand within a half-hour. But really...the therapy derrived in the simplest of actions is worth the effort: kneading dough and stirring ever-softening onions proffer greater pyschological benefits than a 55 minute session on a far to shiny leather couch.

My version probably wouldn't count as a "true" version, I admit, as instead of using black olives, I grabbed my jar of tapenade. And I used a whole wheat crust (not sure if the traditional dish uses "regular" flour or not). Like many things in life, it's the spirit that counts...right?

Pissaladière

For the dough
100ml hand-hot water mixed with 0.5 tsp sugar
0.5 Tbsp traditional yeast
175g bread flour
50g whole wheat flour
1tsp salt
1 egg
olive oil

Toppings
1-2 Tbsp black olive tapenade
4-6 Tbsp caramelised onions
anchovy fillets

For the dough
Bloom the yeast in the sugrar water for 15 minutes, or until a frothy head appears. Mix into flours and salt. Add the egg and knead, adding more water or flour as needed. When the dough is nice and soft (like the proverbial baby's tushie), transfer the dough to an oiled bowl, cover with a damp tea towel and let sit an a warm, draft-free space until doubled in size--a couple of hours or so. After rising, punch it down and knead for about five or ten minutes and let rest for a couple of minutes

Preheat the oven to 190C/375F.

Oil a pizza or cookie tray. Stretch out the dough and let rest for a couple of minutes. Slather the top with tapenade and cover with onions. Form Xs with two anchovy fillets, one per slice. Drizzle olive oil over top and bake for about 20-30 minutes, or until done.

* Yes: I know you can drink decaf...but who really wants to?

cheers!
jasmine