Sea bass two ways: quenelle in fish fumet and roulade with seafood and shrimp bisque reduction



In my previous post I promised you two recipes we prepared during the the course at the cooking school Salotto del Gusto with Chef Maurizio Dall'Omo.

 

As impressive and fancy as they look, they were both quite simple and really let the main ingredient to shine through. They are perfect to serve at a dinner party: I promise your guests will think you slaved away in the kitchen all day.

 

 

It is hard to give you exact quantities as there were so many of us, but I would calculate one average sized Mediterranean sea bass per diner, if you are making both courses.

Sea bass quenelle in fish fumet

As a starter we made a sea bass quenelle in a fish fumet. The fumet was exceptional, so simple and essential, yet full of flavor... the true essence of the sea in a spoonful. The quenelle was extremely delicate in texture and taste and perfectly accentuated by the thyme.

Gambas al ajillo

I have some fun recipes lined up for you, but not today. Today is just deliciousness in a dish without a recipe per se.

I have been cooking and baking and taking pictures but I find my mind goes blank whenever I have a couple of minutes to write. Work has taken up a lot of my time, thoughts and energy recently as you may have noticed from my less frequent posts lately.

I do however feel like hanging out with you and chatting a bit even if I just can't get my act together so humor me, will you? Just for today.

I read this comic strip and this one and this one that cracked me up, so I thought I would share them with all you parents of young ones. Story of my life. Maybe that is why I feel drained in the evenings, hehe.

I remember singing along to How Will I Know? day dreaming about a much older guy (a friend of my sister's - he was 18!) like it was yesterday. Whitney Houston was really a part of my adolescence. It is so sad to see yet another example of extraordinary talent leave us.

I made this dish the other evening and it was finger lickin' good. And I am not just saying that. We actually licked our fingers after eating this. There was almost oil dripping from our elbows we got so into it, talk about crowd pleaser.

Why did it take me so long to make this at home? Why wait to go to Spain to eat this?

Having the right dish, a cazuela de barro, may make it look and feel more authentic, but you can prepare this typical tapa with any heavy-based pan. Make sure your very few ingredients are top quality and you will be on a roll. I overcrowded the pan because I was lazy about making two batches since I only have one clay pot and the family was hungry, but believe me when I say they were delicious anyway.

Ingredients
about 20 large shrimp

2 cloves garlic

good quality extra virgin olive oil

chili to taste

salt to taste

Heat enough olive oil in a pan to cover the shrimp. Peel and cut up a couple of cloves of garlic and let sizzle in the hot olive oil with some chili pepper, making sure the garlic doesn't burn. The garlic and heat factor are completely up to you. Add the shrimp and cook for a couple of minutes, just enough to ensure it is cooked through otherwise they will get tough. Sprinkle with some salt and eat with lots of good bread to soak up the garlic studded oil. Accompany with some cold wine or beer.

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Feliz cumpleanos!

It was F's birthday the other day.
Lucky to be a birthday boy on vacation, on a Mediterranean island.
Lucky to have local connections. Local connections who happen to be close friends and family, cooking up a feast for your birthday.

3kgs of the best gambas.

Just best quality olive oil, chili peppers and a dash of coarse sea salt

Marinated lamb.

An ensaimada makes a perfect birthday cake.

Lucky I am married to the birthday boy and got to partake.

Thai fried coconut & lime shrimp

Yesterday I became a member of yet another food community and had to answer a few questions for my profile. Among these, I was asked what my favorite cookbook was. That is a tough one, I thought to myself, I have many and love them all.

This got me thinking. How do you decide what your favorite cookbook is. Is it the one you cook from the most? Or the one that answers a lot of the questions you have on cooking techniques?  Is it the one that makes you dream about conquering your favorite exotic cuisine? Or iss it that great new one with the lovely pictures that make your mouth water whenever you flip through it?

I love some because they were gifts from people I care about, or because of the stories that go along with the recipes, others for the photography and food styling. Some because they are so comprehensive and some because they are filled with original, exciting and unsual recipes.

I have had a longstanding love for all things food and my first steps in cultivating this passion was buying books about food and cookbooks. I spent many an hour reading them and looking at them, but the truth is that at the time I seldom cooked from them. Despite having cooked basic meals for myself on a daily basis since adulthood, I only started really cooking and experimenting with recipes and pushing my boundaries in the past years. Since then, if I have to be really honest, I have used the Internet and the blogosphere to get inspiration much more than my beloved cookbooks.

 

There was my revelation, that is how I came to realize that you are my favorite cookbook! And that is why, as you may have noticed, so many of my recipes link back to you guys.

Today is no different, I adapted this fabulous recipe from Tiffany, over at Care's Kitchen. It is not the first and will certainly not be the last.

If you have been reading me for a while you will know of my fear of deep frying. Once again I overcame it (I hope once and for all at this point) and fried up these little guys in a handful of minutes. It is a tasty, fresh , summery recipe (I promise, despite the deep frying) that I highly recommend: max result, minimum work (ok, except for cleaning the shrimp. But I did that earlier so actually making the shrimp literally took 10 minutes).

What is your favorite cookbook?

Shrimp coconut curry. Ooooohm...

It is cold. It is grey. It is wet. Very wet.

About ten days ago it felt like spring might be on its way, but a lot of rain has washed away any further hope. I know we need lots of rain but I also need my 6:00am runs to burn off some of the chocolate ganache and chocolate chip cookies that have been accumulating on my hips lately. So, on the 5th consecutive day of rain, I must concentrate on my mantra.

Rain is good, rain is good, rain is good. Oooooohm.

Rain is wet. Rain cleans the polluted air of this city. Rain is depressing. Rain washes all the dog waste (and more, but I will not get into that) off of the sidewalks. Rain = mud. Rain = puddles that my children love to jump in, in their cute little rainboots. Heavy rain means taking the subway to work. Light rain means it is just me and my bike in the pedestrian (and usually overcrowded) part of the center. Rain means soaked clothes, wet dripping strollers and umbrellas all over the apartment. Rain gives life.

Rain is good. Rain is good. Rain is good. Oooooohm.

I don't know about you, but all this oooooohming has carried me to warm, sunny Indian beaches and made me hungry. I hear the waves rhythmically breaking on the strand, the breeze gently relieving my skin from the burning sun. I am drinking the water from a freshly opened coconut and I can smell my lunch being prepared not far from where I lie.

Shrimp coconut curry. Big, plump shrimp, the sweat richness of coconut milk spiced up with coriander, cinnamon and turmeric. The tangyness (does that word even exist? Well, it does now!) of lime juice and lots of aromatic basmati rice. You want to join me?

When I attempted my first curry from scratch, I was intimidated by the huge amount of spices and herbs required. Also, I am known to get excited by new ingredients, to purchase them, use them once and then let them sit in my kitchen for eons. The truth is that making a tasty curry is pretty simple and once you have gone out and spent the money, these multicolored, quite inexpensive and wonderfully aromatic packets will go a long way, so it is a worthwhile investment, a promise of many curries to come.

Recipe found on Food & Wine.