Joys of whole fish

This is my second shoutout to Melissa Clark. She's officially become my new chef/food writer guru. After watcing her vid on whole fish, I gleefully gutted and descaled 3 little fishies my uncle had caught in the Chesapeake. Fish organs are surprisingly recognizable ("oo there's the liver!") and I had a brief moment of delirium as I thought about how I missed being in the operating room. 

Since I have 3 little nemos, I'm going to try 3 different recipes starting with the most superior--Chinese! My plan was to first crisp up the skin on some hot oil and deglaze with soy sauce and water. 

Here are the little fish. I don't know what they are cept that they have these stripes and sharp fins.

The aromatics

Braised (?) in soy sauce

Half eaten

 To be honest, I think my fish was undercooked and slimey. Given my extreme aversion to raw fish, I felt a little sick so didn't eat the rest. 

In the end, the flavors were more or less right but definitely cooking the crap out of my next fish. 

2 pics

Farmer's market loot

Lobster hash (Scion in Dupont Circle)

Shepherd Pie..in a bundt pan

My goal these next few weeks are to make big batches food that will last me for several days, like Rachel Ray's 1 meal 5 days concept. Last week it was lasagna. This week I'm going back to my roots. 
My first memories of Australian (although more accurately British) food was eating shepherd pie in grade school. We could order a little bag of meat pies or shepherd pie for something like $2 and I was particularly fond of the shepherd pie for it's crusted potato topping. Thus, shepherd pie is especially comforting for me (like all foods you remember from childhood) so I love revisiting it as an adult. I added a few twists: parmesan and garlic in the mashed potatoes, a little curry spice in the meat but mostly stuck to the basics. I also highly advise against using ground turkey. It really does not have enough moisture and isn't nearly as flakey as beef. I didn't add any gravy to the meat, it had enough natural juices by itself.
Oh bundt pan is just because I didn't have any other baking equipment that I thought was deep enough. 

Beef and stuff

Topped with mashed potato with fork excoriations (very good for creating little burnt ridges of potato which actually did not work, see next picture)

Finished product!

Top got a little toooooooo crusted under the broiler (got distracted skyping!) but crunchy and good nonetheless...cheeses oozed out

My plate.

Potatoes seep into the meat mixture. 

Shepherd pie=homey goodness

Steamed eggs

Another wonderful, edible egg dish. How versatile the little buggers are!
I'm not exactly sure what the correct translation of this dish is. Literally, it would be "egg pudding". It is also unclear whether it is a family recipe or a Chinese thing but I've yet to hear of anyone other than my mom making this dish.


All you do is scramble three eggs. 

Then add .. I don't know... 1/4 cup of lukewarm water (I got it straight from the kitchen faucet). 
Then stick it in this little steamer and put it in a pot that is bigger than the bowl with about 1 inch of water on the bottom. 

 Boil for about..15-20 minutes. Don't let the water run dry. 

 The end. You need not add anything else, but I dressed it up with a bit of cilantro, a dash of sesame oil and a hefty amount of soy sauce (sodium addict!)

Digging in


I've yet to make it exactly like madre. (But then again, mom's cooking will always taste better!) But I'm suspecting it is that I scrambled too much after adding water which resulted in too many bubbles. Next time, I will slowly drizzle in water and try not to unsettle the scrambled eggs.


Nonetheless, this is what I call comfort food. It is the perfect dish in all of the following situations
1) there is nothing in your fridge except a carton of eggs
2) you had your wisdom teeth removed
3) you have TMJ (my current self-diagnosed ailment)
4) you are cold
5) it is raining
6) your stomach feels weird


and so on.

Essie

New and (unfortunately expensive) habit of collecting Essie nail polish. 

Spring-->Summer-->Fall colors

Have yet to collect my blacks/dark purples for the winter so that I can wear all-black all the time. 

Fiji (finally an opaque pink!), Cute as a Button, Peach Daquiri, Mint Candy Apple (my fave! see below), Glamour Purse, Mochachino

Dream "work bag"

Things I like to carry to and fro work every day

umbrella

cardigan (for my poor thermoregulation)

iPad

lunch bag

coffee thermos

Moleskine

sunglasses + enormous case

pencil case (yes I still have a pencil case)

random scattering of papers/bobby pins/coins

pager that never needs to be paged

phone/iPod

large continental wallet

Occasionally

makeup bag

random books

pair of flip flops/flats

gym bag

Problem: high maintenance.

Solution: high maintenance "it" bag

the Celine Luggage Bag tote

(From Bagsnob.com)

Tofu noodles

This probably barely qualifies as a cooking post. 
But I thought I'd introduce an excellent spaghetti alternative. Tofu noodles. High in protein, low in carb, (also gluten free!) but still long and stringy. 
TADA!
These are five-spice tofu noodles. They also have non-flavored ones. They are made from soy and they're from H-mart (king of Asian grocery stores). Here's what they look like right out of the bag. They're already cooked, I often munch on them while putzing around in the kitchen.

These are all the ingredients I had on hand that particular day.

As you can see all the prep I did was slice up the bell pepper

A hefty dosing of soy sauce later..and voila

These are indeed more or less the same ingredients I used for my peanut noodles post. But as you can see, tis quite interchangeable with spag. 

New foods

I'm all about trying new or newish things and this weekend was particularly productive for that. Unfortunately, except for the clams, the pictures are only representative ones I found on the internets.

New things that I LOVED

Razor clams with oregano, lemon juice + EVOO

(Purple Pig)

Balsamic braised pig tails (Purple Pig)

Fried pig ear, fried egg, banana peppers (Purple Pig)

( dish I hope to recreate as soon as I get my hands on dem ears..!)



New foods that I hated

RAW FISH!

I only had a spicy tuna roll and dry heaved while chewing it.

My general philosophy that people should try new things, however, after this weekend, I'm very content to NOT eat raw fish. Despite enjoying weird animal parts (see above), I just think certain things should be cooked certain ways. To me, eating a rubbery, fleshy piece of fish is like drinking curdled milk. Alas, I will not be a sophisticated sashimi eater.