Toothless Sunshine loves dragon fruit

Posted on February 9, 2013 by Ann Allchin

Our house is all about dragons right now.

The dragon connection started in an odd way. My jeans fell apart, because I’m cheap, and I don’t enjoy buying expensive jeans, but I enjoy wearing them (see frugal article here). So while my jeans had become unwearable due to air conditioning in the nether regions, I wasn’t able to let them go. So I made a pocket purse for my daughter.

In the name of fairness, I offered my son a homemade gift of his choice. His confident request – “A dragon.” I did myself some googling, and found this pattern for a dragon. I was disappointed that the creators of the pattern hadn’t managed to find the perfect dragon fabric that I did – green velour with green sequins – so I smugly walked away from Fabricland and made the very first object of my son’s affection, Toothless Sunshine.

Let me just take a time out to say that I’m a giant feminist, and that I proudly own my love for cooking, sewing, and parenting as a personal choice afforded to a liberated woman. Let’s move on.

Anyway, as we were in the spirit of dragons, I picked up this fruit

at our beloved No Frills grocery store and told my son it was a dragon fruit (pitaya). He begged to try it.

I searched for dragon fruit recipes in an attempt to make something interesting, but didn’t find much beyond sexy fruit plates. I was glad I hadn’t chosen those, because it turns out dragon fruit is quite bland. It looks very cool – fuschia with seedy pulp – but it’s less sweet and tart than a kiwi, which it’s often compared to due to its consistency, even though the dragon fruit is actually the fruit of a cactus.

I finally found a recipe for dragon fruit salsa over scallops, which I won’t even credit because their creation had so few ingredients it was basically dragon fruit and lemon juice (and we’ve already established that dragon fruit has a super boring flavour). I used their scallop/salsa idea, though, and created this:

Seared Scallops and Dragon Fruit Salsa (serves 2)

6 large scallops
A few Tbsp olive oil
1 ripe dragon fruit (gives slightly to touch, like a ripe mango or avocado), diced
1 small handful of fresh cilantro, chopped
2 green onions, chopped
1 small handful dried cranberries
Juice of 1 lime
One chopped chili if desired

Directions: Heat oil over med high heat, approx. 2 mins. Add scallops and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Cook 2-3mins per side, until white and firm on the exterior (scored and slightly darkened if barbequing, but it’s winter and I was cold, so I chose the pan). Meanwhile, combine salsa ingredients. Serve scallops topped with salsa.

Results: Nice! My husband said, “Let’s keep this in mind for when we’re entertaining.” (Or something like that, I wasn’t totally listening). I included the dried cranberries to add a touch of sweetness where the dragon fruit was lacking, and the onions and cilantro answered that salsa freshness expectation. The dragon fruit made the whole thing pretty, and added a cool, crisp texture. Exotic, fresh, and tasty. Rating: 3 Yums

Toothless Sunshine will serve this recipe to his fire breathing friends for sure.

Wine Pairing: Winealign.com suggests that scallops pair well with pinot gris, so I’ll suggest Bestheim Réserve Pinot Gris 2011, Alsace, selling for $15.95 in Ontario.

Pretty Pakoras

Posted on December 22, 2012 by Ann Allchin

I feel slightly embarrassed by the “new” ingredient I’ve chosen to showcase with this post. I always experiment with foods I’ve never prepared here, hoping that others will read about my concoctions and also become more experimental (or will at the very least laugh at my adventures). But last night I cooked with something new to me, but that might make the rest of the world turn away accusing me of being a lame loser of a chef. I used gram flour, which is made from chickpeas. I know what you’re thinking – before you know it I’ll be introducing you a new ingredient some people call “wheat.”

I had been sifting through recipes online to find an appetizer to bring to a Christmas party at my friend Jackie’s. At first I told her I would bring a veggie tray because she had been describing what last minute tedious tasks she still had to accomplish, and picking up veggies was one of them. But when she said, “Sure you can bring veg, but you’re capable of so much more,” I knew I had to live up to my culinary potential of weirdness. I have a reputation of oddity to live up to, after all.

So I was swiping my way through my iPhone drooling at food porn when I happened upon a potato latke topped with crème fraiche and caviar. Bingo. Except that despite being plugged into the rare food community I had no idea where to find crème fraiche in my neighborhood, and I thought that a latke might be kind of bland. So I switched it to a spicy pakora with sour cream, and bang – cool creation.

Funny how I wasn’t even going to write about this appetizer because I thought it was too boring, even though it includes both gram flour and caviar, neither of which I had ever used. I think camel meatballs and fish heads have made my standards of weirdness kind of high lately.

But back to the flour, which is also called garbanzo flour or besan. It’s high in carbohydrates, but also in protein, which is a bonus. It’s also gluten free. As I mentioned, most cultures other than mine eat it – it’s a staple in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, but it’s also eaten in France, Spain, and Italy. I was shocked to have bought 3 cups worth and paid about $1. Loving it.

I also hadn’t considered the caviar very interesting, because everyone has heard of caviar. Especially after the movie Big.

But how much did I really know about the types of caviar? Nothing, truth be told. And I’m not so sure I would care about the difference in taste or price, since I even enjoy those crackly roe they put on top of sushi at the mall. I picked up this “caviar,”

from our local fishmonger for the bargain price of $10. And then I read this article about real caviar, now from farmed sturgeon rather than wild, ranging (in the article) between $75 and $275 for 30g. The wild stuff is rare because it was overfarmed and so is heavily regulated. It goes for $750. Mine came from smoked herring and mullet in Spain and I’m totally good with that.

Looked like the guests were good with that too, because the appys didn’t last long! They were a pakora-rific pleasure. Here’s the recipe – the straightforward pakora directions stolen from here:

Pakora with caviar (makes about 20 small pakoras)

2C Besan (chickpea flour, gram flour)
1Tbsp crushed red pepper
3/4tsp salt
1/2tsp baking powder
2 small red chiles, chopped (or other hot peppers. This amount gave low-medium heat)
1/2C cilantro leaves, chopped (plus more for garnishing)
1 onion, sliced thinly into half-moons
1C luke warm water
1/2C sour cream
30g container of caviar (only about three-quarters will be used)
Oil for frying (canola or other light-tasting oil)

Directions: Fill skillet half-way with oil. Heat to 360-375 degrees (med-high heat for about 6 minutes, will sizzle when dough is dropped in). In a large bowl, mix together the flour, chili flakes, salt, baking powder, chili pepper, cilantro and sliced onion. Slowly add in the water, mixing well. The batter should be thick but still mobile (would drip from a spoon) with air bubbles throughout. When oil has heated, carefully drop tablespoons of batter into the hot oil. Allow them to brown, flipping once (about one minute per side). Drain on a cooling rack or paper towels. Repeat with remainder of batter.

Top each with sour cream, a few cilantro sprigs, and a dollop of caviar. This can be done after pakoras have cooled. Enjoy!

Results: Delicious, with a tidy, pretty presentation. Four yums for this one. I’ll make them again!

Wine Pairing: Sparkling wine. A budget knock-off caviar deserves a budget knock-off Champagne! Winealign.com says the Kiwi Walk Sparkling Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand is a good one priced at $17.95 in Ontario.

Swimming with the fishes

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Ann Allchin

Ever walk past a tank of swimming fish in a grocery store’s seafood department and think to yourself, “Who the heck actually buys one of those?” Well, this week, for the benefit of my gazillions of weird food fans, the answer was, “I do!”

There’s something about asking for live food that seems both indulgent and disgusting. As I pointed at the ugly grey fish making sweet little kissy faces and ordered the poor grocery guy to chase him with the big net, I felt a pang of guilt that I would be responsible for taking him/her from a swimming state to a dinner plate, but I had to tell those sucky inner voices of mine to shut up. I am a meat-eater after all, at almost every single meal, and it’s hypocritical if I get turned off just because I have to watch the inevitable dirty work go down in person. I just saw someone’s Twitter description say, “If slaughterhouses had clear walls everyone would be vegetarian,” and although I’m sure this wasn’t intended to encourage me to watch my food getting killed, it did make me try to own the fact that I eat meat. If I continue to do it. Maybe the conclusion to this blog will be that I eventually become veggie. But not just yet.

Because I am a food journalist, I’ll describe one more disturbing experience that I had in eating a live fish. If you’re vegetarian, please turn away and wait for my next post. Grocery guy took out my flopping fish…

…and put it on the back counter beside a big rubber mallet. I was horrified, worried that I was about to see the fish get a violent whack on the head, but then I didn’t see it. Grocery guy lopped off all the fins and gutted and scaled the fish with robot-like efficiency, handing it to me after only about fifteen seconds in a plastic bag with the head on and the rest of the body intact. So I’m still left wondering – did I just miss the death blow, or did it not happen? Closer and closer to veganism every day. But why does meat have to taste so good?

And my day just got better and better. Now I had to prepare a whole fish for dinner that day (to take advantage of the “fresh meat”) and I was having friends over in the afternoon followed by piano lessons for my daughter which meant I wouldn’t be able to prep everything until after seven. Let me tell you, I wouldn’t recommend lopping off a fish’s head…

…while entertaining three moms and their kids, and I didn’t – I hacked it off with a dull knife feeling like an axe murderer before they arrived, wrapping the rest in foil, stuffing it with garlic, and baking it incognito while we all sipped coffee (aka wine).

I chose a recipe from Jamie Oliver’s Meals in Minutes because I was so pressed for time. Despite my adoration of Jamie Oliver, this cookbook kind of bugs me because the instructions are jumbled together to help home chefs with efficiency, popping out an entire meal at the end – I find this makes recipes difficult to modify and track at a glance. In this case, though, I needed Jamie’s help to throw a dinner together as quickly as possible, and I loved how it worked out. I’ll copy the entire recipe below so that you can see how the book works, and then I’ll describe how I modified it to prep as much as possible ahead, throwing the rest together post-piano. He includes a dessert and drink too, but I didn’t make those so I’ve omitted them.

Branzino (Recently Live Tilapia, for me) & Crispy Pancetta, Mashed Sweet Potatoes and Asian Greens

Mashed Sweet Potatoes

1 ½ pounds sweet potatoes
2 limes
A small bunch of cilantro
2Tbsp mango chutney
Soy sauce

Greens

1 fresh red chile
1 clove garlic
Soy sauce
1 lime
Sesame oil
1 bunch asparagus
1 head of broccoli

Branzino

8 slices pancetta
4 x 6-ounce branzino fillets, skin on, scaled and pin-boned (for me this was one tilapia fish plus a few supplemental fillets of whitefish)
1Tsp fennel seeds
1 lemon

Seasonings

Olive oil
Extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt & black pepper

To Start Get all your ingredients and equipment ready. Fill and boil the kettle. Put a large saucepan with a lid and a large frying pan on a medium heat.

Potatoes Wash the sweet potatoes, trim off any gnarly bits, then stab them a few times with a knife. Put in a large microwave-safe bowl, halve oneo f the limes and add to the bowl, then cover with a double layer of plastic wrap and microwave on full power for 12 minutes, or until cooked through.

Greens Seed and finely chop the chile, adding half to a large serving bowl and add 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and ¼ to 1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil. Squeeze in the juice of 1 lime and add a splash of sesame oil. Mix, taste, and adjust the soy sauce if needed. Trim the asparagus stalks. Quarter the head of the broccoli lengthways from the head to the base of the stalk.

Branzino Put the pancetta into the frying pan with a drizzle of olive oil. Keep an eye on it, turning when crispy. [When the pancetta has become golden] remove it to a plate, leaving the fat in the pan. Add the fish to the pan, skin side down. Shake the pan and use a spatula to press the fillets flat for a few seconds. Pound 1 teaspoon of fennel seeds in a pestle & mortar and scatter over the fish from a height with a pinch of salt & pepper. Finely grate over the zest of 1 lemon, then cut the lemon into quarters and set aside.

Potatoes Finely chop the cilantro on a large wooden cutting board, setting a few leaves aside for the garnish. Add the mango chutney, a good splash of soy sauce, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, the juice from ½ lime, and the reserved chopped chile. Chop and mix everything together on the board.

Greens Fill the large saucepan with boiling water and add a large pinch of salt. Add the broccoli and asparagus, making sure they are completely submerged. Put the lid on and turn the heat to high.

Branzino Check the fish – once the skin is golden and crispy, turn the heat down to low – but have confidence to let the skin become good and crispy before reducing the heat.

Potatoes Get the sweet potatoes out of the microwave and check they are cooked through, then use tongs to squeeze over the juice from the hot lime halves and discard them. Carefully tip the sweet potatoes on top of the mango chutney mixture and use a knife or masher to chop and mash everything together, including the skins. Season to taste, adding more fresh lime juice if needed.

Branzino Take the pan of fish off the heat and flip the fillets over so they gently finish cooking on the flesh side. Return the pancetta to the pan to warm through, then serve the fish and pancetta on top of the board of mashed potatoes. Pop the lemon sedges on the side for squeezing and sprinkle over the reserved cilantro. Take to the table.

Greens Drain the broccoli and asparagus in a colander, then tip into the serving bowl with the dressing, quickly toss, and take to the table.

Results: These were the best sweet potatoes I’ve had in my life! They were spicy, though, so if you don’t like spice maybe substitute a sweet red pepper – I can never find red and green chiles, so I substituted a scotch bonnet pepper, and my hands were still burning through the night. Also, I don’t like cooking in the microwave, especially with plastic wrap, so if you have enough time, be sure to boil or steam your potatoes instead. But I’m definitely going to make a version of these sweet potatoes for Christmas dinner. Delish.

But this post was about the fish. So what I did differently from Jamie… I wrapped my whole fish (bloody and slimy, drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with salt, stuffed with sliced garlic) in foil and baked it on a baking sheet at 400 for 35 minutes. Doing this made it easy to pick apart for meat, which I added to the pancetta fat in the pan…

…sprinkling with crushed fennel seeds and lemon zest as Jamie suggests. And this got me about 4 bites of meat! I think if you buy tilapia fillets they probably come from monsters, not grocery store fish like mine. I learned from this experience that swimming fish are mostly there for decoration. Sorry fishy. Anyway, I fried my pre-baked meat to crisp it up a little and followed the rest of the recipe, frying the pancetta and washing and cutting veg before my friends came, re-warming the pancetta and cooking everything else post-piano.

Phil loved it. Jamie Oliver never disappoints. But I can’t even tell you if there was a difference in taste due to fishy freshness because I had to mix it with more meat. I won’t ask for a live fish again, but it was definitely “an experience” to cook one. Rating: 5 Yums for Jamie’s recipe and cookbook, 2 Gags for cooking a live grocery store fish.

Wine Pairing

In honour of the NHL strike, I’ll choose one of winealign.com’s top chardonnay suggestions (which the site says pairs well with pan fried whitefish), Wayne Gretzky’s 2008 unoaked chardonnay, selling for $13.95 in Ontario.

Lemony 3-Layer Sardine Pate

Posted on September 20, 2012 by Ann Allchin

You’d think you could learn everything about life from cartoons, but you’d be wrong. To my great disappointment, my cat has no interest in lasagna, pineapples aren’t homes for sponges wearing pants under the sea (not good homes, anyway), and sardines aren’t always pretty little fish that come lying next to one another jammed into a can.

Thanks “Wise Colin” per your blog as written by a fish

My aspirations of getting in trouble from my husband for dangling a dripping sardine over the camera lens as though it were a mouth were dashed when I opened the can and found this:

At least they had removed the heads, so I wouldn’t be forcing people to eat those. Again. (In case you missed it…). I picked out all the undelicious looking backbones and got going.

I decided that I would experiment on my “slummy mummy” group once again. You may remember that I often get together with a few neighborhood moms to let the kids gain experience in babysitting one another while we drink wine and look at pictures of Jon Hamm in tight pants (that was how it worked yesterday, anyway). Tempted to include a link to the pictures there, but my mom reads this blog and she would be mortified, so you’ll just have to Google it yourself.

Anyway, I had never tried sardines before, even though I know that my grandfather used to eat a whole can of them as a light snack. I had heard talk that they were healthy, and so I hoped I would love them as I do almost anything else that comes from the sea. Turns out that the health rumours were true – although they’re high in cholesterol and sodium, they eat mostly plankton, so they’re low in mercury while still being high in Omega 3s, Vitamin D, Vitamin B12, and Selenium. Didn’t exactly love them, though.

I found this recipe for sardine pate and decided to try it rather than daring the mummies to eat whole fish as though we were doing some weird goldfish swallowing contest. I prepared it as written, although I substituted lemon pepper for Aleppo pepper because I didn’t know what the latter was and when I found out it was too late to buy it. Here are the very quick and easy directions:

Lemony Sardine Pate (makes 1 Cup)

2 cans sardines in oil
4 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
2 Tsp fresh lemon juice
2 Tsp lemon pepper
2 Tsp lemon zest
2 Tsp fresh thyme leaves
Pepper to taste

Directions: Put all ingredients including the sardines and their oil in a food processor. Blend until smooth.

Results:

I’ve said it before about other recipes and I’ll say it again. Meh. The slummies were polite about it, and one said she really liked it because she’s a big fan of savory, but I thought it needed something more. It just tasted like lemony pureed tuna fish to me, and I’m not even a big fan of canned tuna. I also had to put it in the fridge after a few minutes because it smelled too fishy. One mom who is a great cook suggested I could take it to another level by taming it into a layered dip, so I saved the leftovers and kicked it up a notch today by roasting a red pepper on the barbeque and adding some cream cheese.

Revised results:

Much better. That Jackie knows what she’s doing for sure. The cream cheese gave the pate a richer flavour and the peppers made it more interesting, not to mention that it was a whole lot prettier. Rating: 1 gag for the lemony sardine pate on its own, revised to 1 yum as a layered dip. Still not fantastic to me, but if you already know you like sardines you may just love this easy recipe.

Wine Pairing: A wine pairing is especially relevant for this recipe, considering the fact that we were sampling some as we were eating it. We were drinking this…

…which is very respectably rated on winealign.com (and tasty and reasonable at only $10.95 in Ontario).

Bonus weird food item: Found this while Googling for sardine photos. I was excited thinking there may be someone out there who likes strange foods as much as I do, but was disappointed when one of the blog comments tipped me off to what was going on. Still love it, though. Thanks, “Cupcakes take the cake.”

Fish heads eat them up yum

Posted on August 15, 2012 by Ann Allchin

There’s a mysterious freezer section of my No Frills discount grocery store that I always rubber-neck. It’s the section that often has chicken feet, and usually has a generous assortment of animal guts. One time I saw beef face in there, but I haven’t seen it since, which might mean that it’s seasonal (smiles for spring?). Something that’s in there every time I visit though, are fish heads.

For some reason, since the day I first saw them, fish heads have always struck me as intriguing. Sometimes I stare at them for a while, wondering if I should bring them home and figure them out, but I can’t help but be suspicious of their arrow-shaped bony nature. My argument with myself goes a little like this, mouth moving silently through the words as my kids beg to keep rolling past the weirdness:

First me: There couldn’t be anything edible in there, right? And how do you get past the brains and the eyes?

The other me: But people obviously buy them for some reason. Their brains can’t be that big, they’re just fish. They could actually be good.

Maybe fish heads have always kept me mesmerized because of this awesome song. Please persevere through the insanely long preamble. I wish I was web-savvy enough to figure out how to play the song the entire time you’re reading this entry, but so it goes.

Fish heads song

Well, for some reason, today was the day. I even phoned ahead to my local fishmonger, asking if they had any before I showed up asking strange questions. They said they did – Grouper, which I soon learned is a huge fish. I took two, each one about the size and weight of a cabbage, which they gave me for free (is that a bad sign?). They were gigantic, big lipped, and googly-eyed.

The monger was thoroughly entertained. I was silently grateful that my husband was away (when I told him what I had done over the phone afterward, his predictable response was EWWWW).

When we got home I made my 5-year-old daughter hold one up with her skinny little arms covered in grocery bags while she whined about the smell for the express purpose of trying to capture this photo and caption. Grouper heads will serve as an example of my mothering skills for her therapist one day for sure, so be proud that you’re witnessing that moment in my daughter’s history.

Peek-a-boo

I let her off the fish holding hook and made her hold the beer while I made a long arm to get this shot, which did make it kind of blurry, sorry.

I procrastinated cooking the fishy noggins for the rest of the day (and tried to explain their presence in the sink to the afternoon babysitter nonchalantly) before I finally steeled myself by drinking that beer you saw before and threw them into a pot of boiling water according to these instructions. I tried to clip off the fins and gills as they suggest before I did this, but they were too strong even for my best kitchen snips, so I left them on, not being too worried because some people said they used the fins for stock.

I boiled them for about an hour, worrying the whole time that I might have to hack at the intact cooked heads with a melon baller or something to dig the meat out. It turned out that when they’re cooked, the heads fall apart and then you just have to pick through sorting bone from meat. Example: “Toothy jaw mandible – nope.”

I did have to avoid touching the eyes, but otherwise the sorting process was surprisingly guts-free. It reminded me of picking over a can of salmon to get rid of bones and dark meat bits, which brought me to the realization that fish heads is probably where a lot of that meat actually comes from.

I wasn’t into saving the boiling water for fish stock, because it smelled hugely fishy and..just ugh, so instead I just used the surprisingly large bowl of meat I had just collected…

…to make these (even had to double the recipe). Cooking trick – give a recipe a French name and it magically begins to look appetizing.

Fish (Head) Croquettes (makes 6-8 patties) with roasted garlic aioli

Based on this recipe

Aioli:

1 head garlic
1Tbsp olive oil
6Tbsp prepared mayonnaise

Croquettes:

1.5 cups fish, shredded with your fingers
2 green onions, chopped
1/2C red pepper, finely chopped
1/4C red onion, finely chopped
1Tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped, more reserved for garnish
2 eggs, beaten
2tsp mustard
1tsp lemon juice
3/4C bread crumbs, divided
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

Mixed greens

Directions: Aioli: Preheat oven to 400, covering garlic head with tin foil and olive oil. Roast garlic for 1 hour, and then after it has cooled, squeeze garlic into small dish. Combine 1Tbsp of it with mayo and set aside. Croquettes: Combine all in a bowl with wooden spoon, adding only 1/4C of the bread crumbs to the mix. Make patties and place on tray covered in parchment. Let stand 10 minutes. Heat generous glug of olive oil in pan until shimmering. Put remaining bread crumbs on a plate and coat each patty. Cook patties in oil 2-3 minutes per side until brown.

Serve patties over mixed greens with aioli and cilantro garnish.

Results: This was the first time in my life that I have felt like a true magician in the kitchen. I transformed two big ugly fish heads into a delicious meal that no one would ever be able to tell had come from such base beginnings, and now I’m pretty darn proud of myself for having done it. I wouldn’t say that fish heads will become part of my repertoire, though – too weird and smelly. But I do feel that I’ve acquired a valuable skill in case of a future food foraging Armageddon-type situation. Time well spent. And I’d make the croquettes again using fish filets without hesitation.

Rating: 3 gags for the fish heads, although I feel bad for judging them based solely on their gross appearance, because they tasted just fine and they were free, so what more do you want, really. 2 yums for the croquettes.

Red currantly gorgeous

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Ann Allchin

There are times in my life when I have to take a step back and say, “Wow, what did it take to make something that pretty happen through a random DNA combo?” Whether you’re the type of person who respects the coincidence that evolved those attractive little molecules together or whether you believe that a higher power had to be behind it (or a little of both) doesn’t matter that much to me – the bottom line is that it’s cool when it happens.

I was left with no choice but to respect nature this week when I came across these little beauties at a fruit stand at the end of my street:

You may be thinking that my photography is getting better, and yes, I did just buy myself a great book about food photography, but having hot subject matter sure does help.

Work it, currants, work it.

We had just gorged on meat at the cottage for a week which left me with a hankering for fish. When I googled “currants,” and “fish,” I found this website, which is what I based my recipe on, although I thought that a balsamic reduction would make things more interesting, so I combined the two and came up with this. I’ll describe what I did, but if you’re going to make it please keep reading for my recommendations at the end.

Red currant balsamic reduction over tilapia (makes enough sauce to serve 4)

1C+1 small handful red currants, picked from their little grape-like stems
1/2C water
1/2C honey
1/2C balsamic vinegar
2 filets tilapia
2Tbsp olive oil
Salt & pepper
2 green onions, chopped

Directions: Preheat oven to 400. Prepare a baking sheet with foil. Brush both sides of the tilapia with olive oil and add salt & pepper. Roast for about 20 minutes, until fish is just opaque. Meanwhile combine 1C currants (reserving small handful), water and honey in medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, 10 minutes. Add vinegar and simmer a further 10 minutes over low heat. Strain through a cheesecloth. Add green onions and cook briefly. Pour over fish, sprinkle with reserved currants, and serve.

Results:

This recipe tasted delicious. The currant flavour was tart, almost like pomegranate, and it worked perfectly with the fish (I also poured it over a crab cake accompaniment that I bought from our new fish market). It was important to strain the seeds out because each little currant nugget contained a bunch and I think it might have soured the sauce if too many were added. The problem with this recipe was that my sauce was too runny. If making it again I would switch the honey for a few heaping tablespoons of brown sugar and reduce the water. I also might add fresh chopped rosemary when I added the green onions.

Rating: 3 Yums, with potential for 4 if you can thicken the sauce. Let me know if you succeed!

By the way, after I made this recipe I noticed that there were currants in my favourite art piece which hangs near our family room. Told you they were pretty! And now for a relationship tip: always buy art when your partner isn’t with you because then they’ll have no opportunity to disagree with your taste.

One-eyed purple pasta eater

Posted on June 17, 2012 by Ann Allchin

I recently visited one of my new favourite places to shop. I had been meaning to go for some time, because I had heard of this Asian superstore and knew that it would offer many creative foods I had never tried to cook before, but I hadn’t made it all the way down to the Lakeshore to go (my closest location in Toronto). Needless to say, I will be adding T&T to the places I need to visit often, maybe even every week.

I had procrastinated visiting, maybe because I was nervous that I might feel like a carp out of water. It can be hard to navigate the mysteries of Chinatown when you don’t speak the language(s), and I expected the same of T&T. For example, the last time I went to Chinatown I picked up these little brown fruits that were still attached to a branch that weren’t labelled in English. I showed them to a worker who was stacking other fruits, and said, “Lychees, right?” He laughed at me and said, “pft.” I didn’t speak his language, but we did speak the same body language – I know he basically said, “Who doesn’t know a lychee when they see one, you gringo assclown?” I quietly paid for my mystery fruit, which my well-traveled father-in-law later told me were “dragon eyes.”

Anyway, it turned out to be a pleasure shopping at T&T. Everything is clearly labelled in English, and the staff were helpful and friendly. I had expected that they catered mostly to the Chinese community, but there were also many delicacies I recognized from other cultures (I happily snapped up some pre-made kimchee and a selection of fresh sushi for dinner that night, just as two examples). As I walked the aisles and saw food after food that had originally been enjoyed somewhere else, I even began to feel patriotic. It can be hard to pinpoint things that all Canadians have in common, but the fact that we all enjoy and appreciate everything from everywhere else is actually one of those things!

But enough of a commercial for T&T and back to cooking. I picked up a packet of fresh purple pasta, mostly just because it was purple.

Initially, I thought it would be cool to cook them in a Japanese inspired way, in a recipe kind of like this, with sesame and fresh green things, and thinking about a recipe like that still makes me drool, but then when the day actually came to prepare dinner I had some shrimps in the freezer that were calling my name and I was feeling decadent. So instead, I hijacked a rich fettuccine alfredo recipe from epicurious.com and threw in my shrimps and some green onions.

Purple Shrimp Alfredo

Frozen or fresh uncooked shrimp, thawed and peeled (I’ve been using smaller ones lately to save money. If they’re thrown into a dish with many other ingredients they add nice texture and are more plentiful!)
Fresh sweet potato noodles
1Tbsp butter
1 clove garlic, peeled and diced
1/2C heavy cream (I tried to get away with 10% and it worked fine)
½ stick butter, cut into pieces
1/3C grated parmesan

Directions: Bring large pot of water to boil. Meanwhile, melt butter in frying pan and sautee garlic, 2 minutes. Add shrimp and cook until just pink and set aside. Cook pasta (fresh pasta should only take about 5-6 minutes), reserving 1/2C cooking water. Meanwhile, bring cream and butter to simmer over med-low heat in heavy 12 inch skillet, adding 1/4tsp salt and 1/2tsp pepper, stirring very regularly. Remove from heat. Add pasta, water, cheese, shrimp, and green onions. Toss. Add more water if necessary.

Results

Excellent! This was a rich, delicious pasta dish. I’m not sure that I would be able to taste the sweet potato in the pasta in a blind taste test with regular spaghetti, but hopefully it snuck a few extra vitamins into my system without my notice (Noodlegacy, who makes them, advertises them as having antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties). It certainly did this for my kids – although I had to serve them noodles without sauce because they’re picky, they were overjoyed to eat purple pasta and they both cleaned their plates. I’m going to have to pick up some more to entertain them with in future for sure.

Rating: 3 Yums. If you’re going to make pasta, why not purple? Noodlegacy also makes red (cactus pear), green (green tea), and yellow (pumpkin) which are all fresh, natural whole wheat noodles.

Bonus hot purple pasta photo. Looking forward to getting a new camera!!

Cooking Dangerously

For home chefs who live on the edge

Category Archives: Gifts of the sea