Some Seafood For Ya

            I love cooking with my friend Jill. I am sort of teaching her some recipes and I could not ask for a better student. As I have mentioned before Jill does not dig on the meat, so I am forced from my comfort zone of all things pig and cow into the realm of the all swimming, all floating, world of seafood. Now I love seafood but it was never something that I think to cook in my everyday life. In this I am wrong. Most seafood is very easy to prepare even though, according to Jill it can be a little intimidating. The trick that I have found is that it really needs a delicate touch. Seafood can get over cooked very easily so you really have to keep an eye on it. This applies to shellfish in a big way. Anyone who has had overcooked mussels or scallops can tell you that the rubbery end product is ridiculously unappetizing. You are better off leaving your product a little on the rare side rather than letting it go over and trying to chew through something that resembles the texture of a bicycle tire. So here are two recipes that Jill and I took on dealing with two of my favorite forms of seafood: mussels and squid.

            Okay, buying seafood can be a bit of a challenge in that you are presented with a whole lot of things which may be foreign to you. Here are a couple of tips for getting your hands on good, fresh seafood. The place that you buy your fish from should not smell like fish. I know that sounds a little odd but it is true. The place that you buy your fish from should smell like the ocean. Ocean= fresh, fishy smell= not so much. Talk to the person you are buying your fish from, a good fish monger is going to be able to tell you when the product came in where it was fished from and all of the other things you may want to know about what you are buying. A truly great fish person will also throw out little tips about how you should cook what you buy. A little tidbit about mussels, the little buggers are alive when you buy them. That is what you want. A closed shell is good. If the shell is open tap it with your finger or gently with the back side of your knife. If it closes you are good, if it stays open toss it. Now on to the good stuff, a couple of recipes from Jill and I. Enjoy.

Steamed Mussels in White Wine and Coconut Milk to the tune of Sitting, Waiting, Wishing by Jack Johnson

1lb of mussels

 1 cup of white wine

2 tbsp coconut milk

1 shallot finely diced

½  a red bell pepper finely diced

2 cloves of garlic smashed

½ cup of water

-I use a double boiler for this recipe with a steamer. Add the ¾ of the wine and the water to the bottom of the double boiler and bring to a boil.

-While this is going on add your onions and garlic to a small sauté pan and sweat them down.

-Once you have a good rolling boil going add your mussels to the steamer and cover. You want to steam your mussels until they open, this happens fairly quickly so keep an eye on them.

-While your mussels are going add your coconut milk, your peppers, and the rest of your wine to the onions and garlic and heat through.

-You mussels are now done. Throw them into a bowl, pour your sauce over them, and serve with some nice bread. And we are done. In Jill’s words, “That’s it?” Yep and the results are super tasty.

Pan fried Calamari with a Lemon Vinaigrette to the tune of Astair by Matt Costa

The look on Jill’s face when I pulled the squid out of the fridge was priceless: ¾ fear, ¼ curiosity. So here is a quick and easy way to rock some bar food at home. It is killer over a salad of cucumber and goat cheese, which is how we ate it.

½ pound of fresh as you can get squid. Get your fish guy to do all the work of cleaning them for you. I like equal parts rings to tentacles.

4-5 tbsp oil

½ cup cornmeal or Panko breadcrumbs

2 eggs beaten

½ cup flour

Salt and pepper

-In three separate bowls put the flour in one, the egg in another, and the Panko or cornmeal in the third

-We used a three step breading process: basically dip in flour, dip in egg, and then dip in cornmeal or Panko. Then fry until golden in the oil. It really is that easy.  

-For the dressing all you need to do is mix equal parts olive oil to lemon juice. And pour it over the top. There it is, Calamari in the simplest way possible. Rock on my lovelies, try it at home and let me know what you think.