Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, May 7, 2008 at 4:30 PM
You’ll definitely have some leftover pesto if you make this whole recipe, but that’s kind of the point. Pesto freezes remarkably well, and can be thawed in moments. Since I had made a large batch a week before, I was able to throw this meal together in approximately 10 minutes. Sure, my fish flaked apart into a hundred pieces when I tried to flip it, creating one of the uglier meals I’ve had in ages (that’s why there is no photo), but it was tasty.
I picked this from Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s Dinners: The Essential Family Cookbook. And it’s not really a recipe as much of a technique. Have pesto? Jamie provides seven other simple meals to throw it on top of. That includes roast chicken, mussels, bruschetta, and grilled vegetables. I was feeling like fish. And the pesto certainly livens up the white fish, giving it an automatic freshness without much work at all.
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Posted by Lucy Baker, May 6, 2008 at 5:00 PM
After preparing the Roasted Cod on Large Garlic Croutons from the June issue of Bon Appétit for this week's magazine recipe review, I've determined that the only way to make always-delicious bruschetta even better is to make it bigger.
The recipe, part of an article on quick summer suppers that can be thrown together in 15 minutes or less, was designed to turn bruschetta—once relegated to party appetizer platters—into a main course. And that it did: the briny tomato-anchovy sauce perfectly complimented the mild cod, and the crusty bread beneath soaked up all the savory juices.
This was one of those simple-yet-sophisticated recipes that leaves you at once completely satisfied and at the same time pondering how you could make it again differently. Entrée-sized bruschetta is such a great idea. Next time I'm going to try it with tuna, or maybe salmon, and I'm definitely going to throw some olives into the sauce.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, May 3, 2008 at 6:00 PM
Each Saturday evening we bring you a Sunday Supper recipe. Why on Saturday? So you have time to shop and prepare for tomorrow.
While the unofficial start to grilling season, Memorial Day, is yet to come, it's May, so what the H. And, to conflate two hallmarks of May, I think I'm going to fire up my own grill for the following recipe; it's adapted from a Rick Bayless recipe I clipped at some point, and I figure it's somewhat appropriate for Cinco de Mayo, which, for the non-Spanish-speaking folks in the audience, is this Monday, May 5. So check your propane tank or stock up on some coal and viva la grilling!
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Posted by Robin Bellinger, May 2, 2008 at 1:30 PM
Since I was raised on wonderfully lardy, cheesy Tex-Mex, it took me a while to come around to the ungloppy goodness that is a fish taco. In the early 1990s fish tacos became something of a craze in Houston, if I remember correctly, but I was not on board. In my wisdom and maturity today, however, I embrace all foods Mexican or Mexican-ish, including tortillas (corn or flour) full of fish (fried or grilled) and slaw (or salsa, or avocados, or whatever feels right).
This is the sort of thing a competent and intuitive cook can put together with no recipe. I have made brilliant fish tacos off the top of my head, but I have also made some less satisfying ones, with poorly cooked fish or unbalanced flavors. When I can get it right every time, I will know that I have arrived as a home cook. Until then, I rely on recipes to reorient me when I get off track. This is my current favorite. It's fast and fairly healthy but always feels somehow celebratory to me.
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Posted by Robin Bellinger, March 18, 2008 at 1:00 PM
I know I’m not the only person frustrated by the breathless announcements of nutrition journalism and by the studies behind it, which are so often contradictory and can always be manipulated to show just about anything (as discussed in last week’s thread about corn syrup). I'd rather forget about it all in favor of Michael Pollan's elegant and manageable, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
But now that I’m pregnant, I find myself drawn again to this report and that study or those recommendations.
Fish interests me most, probably since the information about it is so confusing: it’s vital to human well-being/no, it’s full of mercury and other toxins. In fish’s plus column, one of the omega-3 fatty acids that makes its way up the food chain from seaweed to swimmers, DHA, is said to be crucial for baby’s brain and retina development, especially in the third trimester. (Hey fathead, did you know that the human brain is 60% fat?)
Because wild fish is so expensive, I didn’t eat a lot of fish before; it was a special treat. Now, though, in addition to taking a DHA supplement with my prenatal vitamin I’ve started seeking out the highest-reward, lowest-risk, best-value fish I can find, and you can guess where that leads me: sardines.
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, March 17, 2008 at 3:30 PM
This dish succeeds almost in spite of itself. I mean, look at what the fish is up against; it has to fight against both bacon and mayonnaise for some kind of balance, with only a lemon to help its cause. But what wonders that lemon does—with a combination of zest and juice, it brightens every aspect of the dish making this seem somehow healthy. That doesn't mean it isn’t filling, though. The bacon makes the fish taste luscious and full bodied, almost like a pork chop, but without the grease.
I’ll thank Jamie Oliver and his great new cookbook, Cook with Jamie
, for this one. He just calls for a white fish, and although mahi mahi may be a little firmer than what he intended, it worked. And it couldn’t have really been easier, especially the sauce. The lemon mayonnaise is as simple to prepare as the name suggests. Jamie does recommend a homemade version of the mayonnaise, which would increase the prep time a little bit, but also acknowledges the jar stuff works fine in a pinch. I agree.
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Posted by Blake Royer, March 13, 2008 at 4:30 PM
It's probably some kind of shill to say that one of Mario Batali's own recipes is itself proof that making his Basic Tomato Sauce is worth your time. But the sauce has become a freezer ingredient that I couldn't do without, especially when it comes to quick, simple pastas on weeknights. With little effort, a simple recipe goes from ordinary to superb. Sure, a can of good whole tomatoes will work instead, but a cupful of homemade sauce makes all the difference. It doesn't need to be Batali's—Serious Eaters have their own ideas, too.
This recipe is an exceptional fish pasta, which aren't all that common. The monkfish fillets are an inspired choice—they have a meaty, dense texture that holds up well to cooking. This recipe simmers half-inch chunks of the monkfish in a liquidy, winey broth—almost equal parts wine and tomato sauce. Beforehand, red onion and zucchini are cooked golden brown in olive oil to give it a sweet base. The result is a light yet substantial meal.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, February 28, 2008 at 1:30 PM
This week's Cook the Book is Roast Chicken and Other Stories by Simon Hopkinson. If you haven't heard of Hopkinson, chances are you aren't English; in Britain, this book was voted the most useful cookbook ever by a group of chefs, food writers, and readers.
Win 'Roast Chicken and Other Stories'
To give you a taste of how useful this book is, we're excerpting a dish a day this week. Today's follows, after the jump. If that whets your appetite, you can find Roast Chicken on Amazon or enter to win a copy here on Serious Eats.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, February 22, 2008 at 3:30 PM
This one's a good one for Friday if you're going along with Lent. I doubt you have a whole salmon in the fridge at home, but this one's so easy and quick to make that you could run out and buy one or pick one up on your way home and still have it on the table before anyone gets too grumpy with hunger. The recipe is adapted from Cook with Jamie by Jamie Oliver, who points out that whole salmon is a great fish because of its fat content; even if you flub it up and overcook it, it'll still remain juicy.
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Posted by Zach Brooks, February 20, 2008 at 1:15 PM
Posted to the Serious Sandwiches Flickr Photo Group by Dylan Valliere
Normally, I like to leave the serious sandwich making to the professionals, and typically this column focuses on already prepared sandwiches available in some sort of complete and purchaseable form (i.e. all you have to do is pay and eat). But occasionally I'll enjoy making a sandwich for myself at home, and I'm not ashamed to admit that sometimes those recipes will come from surprisingly un-serious sources. That sandwich looks good, right? Who cares where the recipe came from? And it takes more than 30 minutes to make, so how bad could it be?
Serious is not a word that most use to describe Rachael Ray's food, but I'll be damned if that doesn't look like a delicious tuna sandwich.
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Posted by Ed Levine, February 10, 2008 at 1:00 PM
This week's Cartoon Kitchen features Serious Eats' cartoonist in residence Larry Gonick's spin on a whitefish soufflé. —Ed Levine
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, January 4, 2008 at 4:30 PM
I’ve been flipping through Melanie Dunea’s My Last Supper, since the fiancée got it for me on Christmas. It’s a big, beautiful book with an embarrassment of world-famous chefs detailing their last meal. It’s great reading and has some surprisingly stirring vignettes about family and lots of pictures (including a rather scandalous portrait of Anthony Bourdain with one very large bone covering his, well, little Tony). What’s most surprising about the meals is how simple they are. Faced with death, most people shied away from the grand and went to the basic. And, lucky for me, the fairly simple recipes are the in the back of the book, so I can indulge in a little end-of-times eating on a regular weeknight.
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Posted by The Gurgling Cod, December 8, 2007 at 1:30 PM
Sunday Night Soups, where each week The Gurgling Cod shows up to offer a soup appropriate to the week's Sunday Night Football game on NBC.
This Sunday evening sees the renewal of the Carbetbag bowl, as the Colts, former Charm City NFL franchisees, return home to face the Ravens, who stepped out on the long-suffering fans of Cleveland, where they were known as the Browns, but were required to leave their colors and nickname in Cleveland for the new Browns. Got that?
Brian Billick coaches the Ravens, and could be seen last week blowing kisses to Rodney Harrison after the Patriots safety snared an interception during the Patriots' Monday Night victory and drew the Ravens' coach's attention to the play he had just made. So some sort of lip-smackingly delicious soup seems warranted. Peyton Manning, of New Orleans, will also be participating in this contest and is likely to have an impact on the outcome.
The game is in Baltimore, which is in Maryland. As Thomas Cecil pointed out back in 1630, in Maryland, "The Sea, the Bayes of Chesopeack, and Delaware, and generally all the Rivers, doe abound with Fish of severall sorts; for many of them we have no English names: There are Whales, Sturgeons very large and good, and in great aboundance; Grampuses, Porpuses, Mullets, Ttruts, Soules, Place, Mackerell, Perch, Crabs, Oysters, Cockles, and Mussles."
Billick. Manning. Cecil. The circumstances warrant a crab gumbo. Back in October, we saw a chicken-based no-okra gumbo for Saints-Seahawks. This time, consider a crab and okra gumbo, like this one, adapted from Gourmet.
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, December 5, 2007 at 4:15 PM
It’s back to the cupboards for another recipe from Off the Shelf by Donna Hay. This time I had a nice piece of salmon and not a whole lot of time. I don’t usually like to fuss with seafood, trying to keep things as simple as possible and letting the natural flavor of the fish shine. But this looked like an easy way to add another dimension to what can become a standard—and a tad boring—week-night meal.
This recipe is anything but complex. The ingredient list is tiny, and the marinating time is short. Yet, the flavors caramelize beautifully over the high, high heat, creating a dead-simple recipe that takes less than 30 minutes.
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Posted by Ed Levine, September 1, 2007 at 9:00 AM
I made this swordfish recipe from The Young Man and the Sea last weekend for my wife and some friends, and I was declared a culinary hero—for one evening at least. I'm posting this here this morning so you still have time to follow the recipe this weekend.
The breadcrumbs keep the swordfish moist. The keys to success with this incredibly easy dish are toasting but not burning the breadcrumbs and keeping a close eye on the fish while it's on the grill. The breadcrumbs will burn if you're not careful.
One more thing. Don't tell Dave, but I used store-bought Italian-style breadcrumbs, and the recipe still turned out great. If you use store-bought breadcrumbs, just make sure you add the lemon zest, the chopped fresh parsley, and the garlic (from the Italian-Style Breadcrumb recipe that follows) when you toast them.
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, August 29, 2007 at 4:00 PM
Potato Chip–Crust Salmon: We bet you can't eat just one.
I’m not usually one to go throwing potato chips on my food. I like my chips whole and on a plate. But I was so intrigued by the ingredients of this Dave Lieberman recipe that I kind of forgot. Lime zest and fresh dill were an unexpected pairing for a bag of potato chips. I could almost taste the recipe before it began, with the crumbled chips providing the crunch and the other two tickling my tongue.
Essentially just a nicely dressed shake-and-bake, the recipe is interesting but ultimately a little too greasy. I didn’t get much dill, either. But I did get lime. That hint of acidic brilliance was so captivating that I decided to squeeze a little of the lime juice right on top of the fish, even though it only called for the zest. I liked it. And when it comes to shake-and-bake I don’t think there should be any purists.
Any better crumbled chip recipes out there?
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Posted by Robyn Lee, August 3, 2007 at 1:15 PM
This recipe for Oven-Baked Tuna with Savory Topping caught my eye as I was paging through Nancy Harmon Jenkins's Cucina del Sole. It's a recipe that really seems of a place—southern Italy—with its olives, capers, basil, and cherry tomatoes—instead of just another generic baked tuna dish.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, June 22, 2007 at 4:15 PM
The last of this week's Cook the Book recipes is for a Slow-Roasted Whole Fish with Onion and Fennel Stuffing. It's a bit longer than the previous recipes, which is why it's coming to you on Friday, so you can attempt it over the weekend.
Like all the Cook the Book recipes this week, this one comes from Jasper White's Summer Shack Cookbook.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, June 20, 2007 at 6:43 PM
I have a confession: Until somewhat recently, I did not like the fish. I'd like to blame it on having been raised in Kansas, but the truth is my dad is an avid fisherman and caught plenty of fresh lake fish that he'd then bread and pan-fry—while I ate grilled cheese.
I didn't gain a culinary appreciation for finned or shelled or gilled creatures until I visited Japan and had to eat them out of politeness. Thank heaven for social niceties, because now I eat the seafood with abandon.
I've still never asked my dad for his pan-fried fish recipe, but I'd imagine it's similar to the one that follows, Perfect Pan-Fried Breaded Fish, from Jasper White's Summer Shack Cookbook. It's just a simple technique that lets the fish itself shine. Happy fishin'!
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