where the image is meant to titillate and inspire the cook
It’s a riot of colors, textures, and flavors! Silky-smoky-salty salmon, crunchy shredded cabbage, nutty-buttery avocado, peppery-crisp radish, bright-green-vegetal jalapeño, screaming-hot habanero, zesty-sour lime, herby-citrusy cilantro, sweet-tangy pickled red onion all happily combined atop crispy-charred corn tortillas. And all dressed with Baja White Sauce, that classic sauce served on top of those crave-worthy fish tacos in Baja, California.
Albacore au Poivre is special but not complicated. A sushi-grade piece of fish, four ingredients, plus FIRE are all it takes to prepare this exceptional dish. And it comes together in about 15 minutes. Hard to believe…
Peppercorns, butter, and brandy combine in a quick showy presentation. Rich cream is swirled in at the end. Et voilà!
Continue reading “Seared Albacore, Peppercorn Brandy Cream Flambé”
Spring is just around the corner but…No need to wait another month to serve this super-easy, spring-inspired soup! It is made with frozen peas and just a handful of ingredients.
Frozen peas are simply delicious, inexpensive, and convenient. They are picked and flash-frozen at the peak of freshness so they are always sweet and tender. Turn a bag of plain ol’ peas into something extraordinary, a soup that is quite pretty and awfully tasty.
And if fresh edible flowers are not readily available, you can serve the soup with a (still fabulous) goat cheese crouton topped with fresh herbs like mint or dill.
Continue reading “Cream of Pea Soup, Goat Cheese Flower Crouton”
For Game Day Food, be it Super Bowl Sunday or any other sporting event of the year, it’s hard to beat Chicago’s beloved Polish Sausage sandwich – a delicious favorite for over 80 years…
“After debuting their new brand of all-beef sausage at Chicago’s 1893 Columbian Exposition, Austria-Hungarian immigrants Samuel Ladany and Emil Reichel opened a shop at 1215 S. Halsted: the Vienna Sausage Manufacturing Co., in the Maxwell Street neighborhood.
They provided the local vendors in the Maxwell Street Market with their product and distinctive signs. Jimmy Stefanovic, an industrious man from Yugoslavia who had escaped from Russia with his parents and family during the Bolshevic Revolution, is said to be the first to put the “Polish sausage” on a bun and sell it as a sandwich.
He arrived in Chicago in 1939, bought his aunt’s street stand to sell hot dogs and sausage sandwiches, and took over a building occupied by a deli on the northwest corner of Maxwell and Halsted.” (from the Maxwell St Foundation )
Our monthly seafood subscription from Alaska arrives in a smart environmentally responsible box. Shipped to us in Las Vegas, the fillets have always been rock-hard and frozen-solid due to the great packaging using -110°F dry ice.
When the box arrives, it always has a few small slabs of dry ice still intact. It was fun to use the remaining dry ice to present a piece of the fabulous Alaska sockeye salmon served sashimi style.
Sockeye Salmon SashimiSince dry ice must be used soon after delivery, defrost a beautiful piece of sockeye using the “quick-thaw” method.
Remove skin and pin bones from the salmon and slice sashimi style. Arrange on a piece of slate chosen to fit over the dry ice display. Serve with chili crunch, edamame, and tamari in small bowls on the side. Also place lemon wedges and smoked Maldon sea salt flakes for serving, on the platter.
Finally, when ready to display, drizzle olive oil down the middle of the salmon and top with thinly sliced shallot and minced garlic. Orchids make a nice presentation too, while edible, they are here mainly for show.