Category: Tasty Recipes

Camarones con Rajas

Camarones con Rajas

Camarones con Rajas

Don’t get me wrong. We thoroughly enjoyed our lunch at Javier’s in Las Vegas, but I simply wanted to serve the dish with more shrimp, and more rajas! So here I re-create a version of that fabulous Camarones con Rajas at home. It’s overloaded with succulent Alaska spot shrimp atop poblano chile strips and onions smothered in a garlic butter cream sauce.

Rajas con crema is a popular Mexican dish consisting of strips or slices (rajas in Spanish) of roasted poblano peppers in a cream sauce.

At Javier’s, we dined on aguachile del rey with bay scallop, shrimp, and octopus; empanadas de camarón; chile verde with braised pork and tomatillo sauce; and the camarones con rajas – all accompanied by their hand-shaken signature margaritas. This stunning upscale Mexican restaurant is located in the Aria Resort right next to the casino floor where hundreds of rope strands form an impressive canopy in the bar area.

Javier's Las Vegas
Javier’s dishes with Camarones con Rajas (top right)

While Javier’s prepares their dish with Mexican white prawns, I am elevating my dish with Alaska spot shrimp.

Alaska Spot Shrimp are sweet and plump. And if cooked correctly, they are luscious and much more tender than the Mexican prawn variety. With their slightly briny hint of the sea, spot shrimp taste like a sweet-buttery cross between lobster and Dungeness crab. They are just heavenly served over the poblano garlic butter cream.

Receta de Camarones Con Rajas

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Chilean Sea Bass a la Veracruzana

Chilean Sea Bass a la Veracruzana

Chilean Sea Bass a la Veracruzana

Decades ago, I prepared Chilean Sea Bass a la Veracruzana at our home for an important business dinner party for 14 colleagues. The meal turned out to be a super success. But not because I was a stellar cook back then, but because rich, melt-in-the-mouth Chilean Sea Bass aka Patagonian Toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides) is simply delicious and almost impossible to overcook due to its flesh high fat content.

The pan sauce was a heavenly combination of olive oil, fish juices, lime juices, chicken stock, garlic, bay and oregano. The tomatoes, olives, capers, and jalapeño complemented the fish with flavors from the Mediterranean along with a Mexican-style pizzazz.

Prior to the 1990s, we had never heard of Chilean Sea Bass. But once it started showing up on restaurant menus, it became a culinary darling. Thanks to that and basically good ol’ luck, I chose Sea Bass Veracruz for my evening’s main course…

Ha! Well, now with many years of cooking under my toque, guess what? My recipe is not much different than the one from a long time ago.

Populations went from sustainable, to overfished, and now back to sustainable again according to the Marine Stewardship Council. And although the fish I am using is called “Chilean” it is actually a product of Australia, fished in the Southern Ocean. It has met the global standard for sustainability where there are enough fish left in the sea to reproduce indefinitely.

So it’s high time to resurrect that Sea Bass Veracruz recipe!

Chilean Sea Bass a la Veracruzana

Sea Bass Veracruz Recipe

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Russian Shuba Salad Verrines

Russian Shuba Salad Verrines

Russian Shuba Salad Verrines
AKA Fur Coat Salad

My Nana (paternal grandmother) was born in Kiev in 1894. She was an excellent cook, but she never served a Shuba Salad…most likely due to the fact that it was invented after the time her family fled to escape the pogroms when she was a young girl.

The story has it that sometime in the early 1900s, a restaurateur in Moscow named Anastas Bogomilov created the dish to calm and satiate his rowdy vodka-drunk customers.

Striking, super-flavorful, layered Shuba Salad is often served for Christmas and New Year’s now, and traditionally made with chopped pickled herring. Although I am a fan of pickled herring, here I substituted an appetizing fish with broader appeal, smoked salmon. Today, January 7th, is Orthodox Christmas – celebrated in Russia, Ukraine, and many central and eastern European countries as well as other parts of the world. It’s time to enjoy some Shuba!

The dish’s intriguing name “Herring Under a Fur Coat” is translated to English from seledka pod shuboi or shuba.  Shuba means fur coat in Russian, here the fish is nestled under a coating of fluffy soft vegetables and dressing.

Nana did wear a fluffy Russian Sable Fur Coat to protect her against Chicago’s harshest winters, but alas, despite my Russian ancestry, there was no Shuba Salad in my youth…but I am more than happy to have discovered it now.

Fur Coat Salad Recipe

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Smoked Sablefish

Smoked Sablefish

Smoked Sablefish & Watermelon Radish
Masia El Altet Olive Oil
Capers, Lemon Zest, Red Onion, Beet Microgreens

Starting the New Year off with a deliciously vibrant and easy brunch! This super-delightful appetizer or brunch course is made with sliced smoked sablefish layered with crisp watermelon radish, dressed with the best olive oil.

It is garnished with capers, lemon zest, red onion, beet microgreens and a bit of fresh ground black pepper to finish. Served with a toasted poppy seed bagel on the side, the silky buttery fish is heavenly paired with the crunchy mildly-peppery radish.

Smoked Sablefish

Smoked Sablefish & Watermelon Radish Recipe

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Chinese Food on Christmas

Chinese Food on Christmas

Chinese Food on Christmas

🕎🎄🕎🎄🕎

The custom apparently started in Manhattan, around the turn of the last century. Immigrant Jewish and Chinese neighbors did not share in the celebration of Christmas with other New Yorkers. So it seems that Jews were grateful to find Chinese restaurants were open on a holiday when all other restaurants were closed…

OK, fast forward to today. Jewish people eating Chinese food on Christmas has become an American tradition. It’s become part of the holiday spirit. And nobody’s kvetching.

Christmas Menu

Soup Dumplings
Roast Duck Two Ways
Sichuan Dan Dan Noodles
Stir-Fry Vegetables
Three Sauces

Chinese Food on ChristmasChinese Food at Home

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