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Go, Fish!
I love to eat fish. I freely admit I’m a bit of a fish snob, in the sense that I’m fussy about fresh fish, and if I can’t have it fresh, I’d just as soon have the stuff that’s flash-frozen on the fishing boats, or I’d rather not have it at all. I’m deeply suspicious of most “fresh” fish in the grocery store and I just won’t buy fish I don’t like the look or smell of (this is most of it). I prefer wild to farm-raised, and if it’s been out of the sea for more than about ten minutes, I’m not sure it’s fit to eat.
It’s easy for me to trace the origin of this prejudice: In my high-school and college years, I spent most summers on Prince Edward Island, stuffed into a 19-foot trailer with the rest of my large and argumentative family and at least one dog, and we caught and ate fresh fish every day. Mackerel, cod, hake, halibut, and the occasional salmon which Lorne Vessey, the one-armed fish peddler would leave for us in a plastic bag with some ice, tied round the doorknob of the trailer for us to find when we returned home at the end of the day. Clams (if I had a nickel for every pound of both steamer and quahog clams I’ve dug in my life, I’d be a millionaire). Lobsters (straight out of the ocean, boiled in seawater, and served hot). Smoked fish. Salt fish (if I had a nickel for every lobster trap I’ve pulled at 4 AM or every pound of fish I’ve salted or smoked … ditto).
Just hand me a narrow-blade carbon-steel knife, a whetstone, and a bucket of fresh fish, and stand back! I have this covered.
So, at this time of the Christian calendar year, I like to think about fish recipes.
One of my favorites is this one:
Almost 40 years after his death, Beecher Court remains a PEI legend. The patriarch of the North Rustico “Court Brothers Deep Sea Fishing” family, the gentleman died in 1980 at the age of 90. He and his wife, Ella had seven children, five boys who followed their father into the fishing business, and two daughters who had the sense to get married and pursue other interests.
The Courts adopted us when they discovered our yen to go a bit native, and I have them to thank for my unrivaled prowess with a filleting knife, my ability to accurately judge the weight of just about any piece of fish or shellfish that ever came out of the sea, and my encyclopedic knowledge of the manifest virtues, and many uses, of Irish Moss. And probably a few other things, too.
Including the King James Bible which Beecher gave our family, loudly proclaiming that it was the only one worth bothering with because it contained “the actual words Christ spoke.” I’ve never looked at any other version since.
But, I digress.
What I’d really like to happen here is that we should exchange fish recipes. Of any sort. Fresh, frozen, canned, bagged. Hot or cold. Freshwater or saltwater.
Please give up your favorites.
Published in General
Herself. She used to have a show on the Food Network. Mrs E called it food porn. The episode where she was wearing a tight, low cut sweater while holding, and waxing poetic on the virtues of, two grapefruits pushed Mrs E over the edge. That initiated the ban. Go figure.
Understood…I recall the couture of the show [ahem]. I guess that means the recipe is G2G, right?
Oh yeah
With almost any fish, best with denser fish: Mix the following of the following (quantities depending on taste, skill and mood):
Wasabi, ginger, lemon juice, soy sauce, white wine (not too dry) and (optional) sesame oil.
Coat the fish with the above mixture. Marinate for no more than 30 mins. Grill on medium flame or broil.
If serving to kids or adult who may be fish-averse, substitute honey for the wine and drop the sesame oil from the marinade above. Put pickling spices in water and bring to boil. Reduce heat to simmer. Place the fish on a rack to steam above the simmering pickling spice mixture until flaky done. The pickling spices have the effect of removing much of the “fishiness” from both the taste and aroma.
It was not merely her appearance but the entirely politically incorrect contents or her recipes that seemed to attract hostility. Fats, rich desserts and much else that offended the food puritans. My wife was never offended by Nigella probably because she is also curvaceous, confident, a brilliant cook and a world-class baker.
Lucky, lucky you. I love Nigella myself, and have all her cookbooks which I enjoy as much for the stories as the recipes (most especially her Grandmother’s Ginger Jam Bread and Butter Pudding. Don’t want to hijack my own thread; however, if you have other favorite recipes, please post them, even if they do not involve fish).
But, then, I always buy whole milk and real butter, don’t bother with the (surely you jest) “low cholesterol” eggs, and recognize as the four basic food groups only sugar, cholesterol, alcohol and caffeine. I’ve made it to my early 60’s under this regime. So far, so good.
Jenny’s Macaroni Tuna Salad
I don’t, as a rule, like macaroni salads. But I do like this one.
8oz elbow macaroni, cooked “al dente.”
1 “family size” package of dolphin-safe tuna, or cans of same, to equal about 11oz, drained
2 stalks celery, chopped up small
1 medium yellow onion, chopped up small
1/4 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
1 teaspoon celery salt
1/2 teaspoon powdered garlic
1/2 cup or so of mayonnaise
(You can mess with, subtract from, or add to, the seasonings as you see fit. Some folks like to add a chopped hard-boiled egg, or some olives.)
Mix all together. Let the flavors blend for an hour or so before putting in the fridge or eating.
Also much beloved in my kitchen are two cookbooks by Jennifer Brennan, who does not at all give off the “Nigella” vibe, but who grew up in India and Southeast Asia, and who also wrote “cookbooks with stories.” I love Curries and Bugles, a book of recipes set in the context of her childhood in India, and The Original Thai Cookbook, from which I offer Hot and Sour Shrimp Soup “Dom Yam Gung.”
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
Shells from shrimp (see below)
8 cups chicken stock
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 stalks lemon grass, cut into 1″ lengths (I cheat, and use lemon balm leaves)
4 citrus leaves (I usually leave these out)
1 teaspoon lime zest
2 green Serrano chillies, slivered
2lbs raw shrimp, about 20 per pound, shelled and deveined (buy them with shells on, and shell them yourself. Keep the shells; you need them for the recipe).
1 tablespoon fish sauce
Juice of 2 limes
1 red Serrano chilli, slivered
2 tablespoons coriander leaves, chopped
3 green onions, including some green, coarsely chopped
Heat oil and fry shrimp shells till they turn pink. Add chicken stock, salt, lemon grass, citrus leaves, lime rind and green chillies. Bring to boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes. Strain, return to saucepan, and bring to boil. Add shrimp and cook for 2-3 minutes. Reduce heat. Add fish sauce and lime juice. Stir and remove from heat. Pour into bowls or a soup tureen, sprinkle with red chillies, coriander leaves and green onions. Serve hot.
This is delicious and puts me in mind of one of my favorites from a delightful little Pittsburgh restaurant, the Spice Island Tea House. (Which reminds me, I haven’t been there for a while . . . )
Just in case anyone’s wondering, I am fairly serious about this whole “cookbook” thing . . .
@She, enjoyed seeing your collection of cookbooks. I’m one of those people who likes reading cookbooks, even if I never make a single recipe. The ones that are more than just pages of recipes are what I’m referring to. My most recent acquisition was A Time to Cook: Dishes from My Southern Sideboard by James T. Farmer III. Every recipe has a comment, then there are longer stories besides. It even has some recipes I might make!
Thanks. I like to read them too, and a good local or regional cookbook is always something I look for, to bring home with me, when I travel. I might take a look at the one you mention, which sounds great!
In Cameroun, a sauce that was made was peelee peelee (I’m giving it phonetic spelling because I have no idea how to actually spell it). It was made in a Johnny Walker bottle after drinking about half of it. Chopped peppers were added until the bottle was full, bottle closed, and then left for several months to ferment. This was then mixed with catchup or tomato sauce. You could add lime juice or chopped mango or pineapple as well to personal taste if you like hot and sweet.
It’s great with shrimp. I would go down to the shrimp boats around 6 o’clock just as the sun was about to set and buy a kilo of shrimp off the boat for each person I was with. I’d take it to a beach club I was a member of and the cook there would prepare it – usually grilled, occasionally sauteed. (A 50-50 split with the cook for preparing it, so he could eat/sell the rest for preparing it.) And then dip with peelee peelee.
That sounds marvelous. Thanks!
How can you not like s recipe that starts with – drink half a bottle of Johnny Walker.
Ok.
Sounds amazing.
I prefer to sous vide my fresh Pacific Salmon: salt, pepper, dill (fronds or from a bottled herb jar), vacuum sealed, immersed in 122F water bath, 30-45 min. Always perfectly done.
This reminds me a bit of Ella Court’s “Peaches in a Jar.”
The entire Court family (see OP) was scrupulously teetotal, and I think would have suffered the torments of Hell rather than have taken a drink of any sort (think they believed that the torments of Hell would await them if they did take a drink of any sort, so, just easier not to).
But, every year, Ella would take a few bushels of fresh peaches, blanch them and peel them, pack them into one-gallon clear jars, pour over them a simple syrup that she’d made herself, slap the lids on, and put them down in the cellar for several months.
After which they were absolutely delicious, either by themselves, or spooned and poured over ice cream.
The ones from the bottles that didn’t explode, that is.
I’ll admit to being intrigued by the sous vide technique. What do you do for browning/crust/char? You have a stand alone sous vide machine or one of the immersion thingys? ( I think you need a sous vide Post )
Nice!!!! I was thinking something similar … but decidedly more alcoholic. My good friend’s uncle is a Russian Orthodox priest whose flock is in way far Northern Canada. Every year at Christmas his parishioners gift him with their own home-brew, and when he visits my friend he brings some along. I have no idea what it is distilled from. I’ve tasted it straight … once. Its somewhere between gasoline and battery acid. But. My friend’s family use it to soak dried cherries in. These jars of cherries and white-lightning marinate for almost a year and get brought out at parties to garnish Manhattans.