That fillet of sole looks thick, doesn’t it? That is because the two fillets have been ‘glued’ together with transglutaminase, a natural enzyme sold as Activa RM (USA) or Activa EB (Europe). This way the sole has its original shape … Continue reading Reconstructed Sole à la Meunière
This recipe intrigued me at once when I saw it on Sandra’s Please Pass the Recipe. Firstly because I’ve never cooked Vietnamese before, and secondly because although fish and dill are a well-known combination (especially in Scandinavia), I had never heard of dill being used in Asian cuisine. This is how Sandra described it: “Cha ca la vong, originates from a single restaurant with a huge reputation in Hanoi. Essentially it’s white, firm fleshed fish marinated with turmeric, pan fried, tossed with fresh dill and served with peanuts and nuoc cham, the Vietnamese sauce that makes everything taste good.” I had picked up some fresh turbot fillets and thought it would be nice to prepare them this way. I’m glad that I did, because it was easy to prepare and delicious! Continue reading “Hanoi Turmeric Fish with Dill”
Rose fish is called “Roodbaars” in Dutch, which literally translates to “Red (sea) bass”. I like all seafood so when I checked out the market and the rose fish looked the freshest, that is what I got. From the name and appearance I assumed wrongly it resembled sea bass or snapper, but instead the texture and flavor turned out to be more like cod. I prepared it like I prepare sea bass, by cooking it sous-vide and then crisping up the skin. It turned out okay, but not as nice as actual sea bass and just slightly dry and flaky. Next time I’ll prepare it more like cod, cooked sous-vide at a slightly lower temperature (45ºC/113ºF instead of 48ºC/118ºF). White fish pairs nicely with roasted cauliflower, and so I served the fish with lemon-roasted cauliflower that turned out nicely. Continue reading “Rose Fish Sous-Vide with Lemon-Roasted Cauliflower”
The final dish in the series of Sicilian dishes I cooked for my parents is a seafood cous cous. I’m hesitant to refer to it as “Cous Cous Siciliano”, because I used a few shortcuts. You see, traditional cous cous in Sicily is made from scratch from coarse semolina flour and water, and then steamed in a terra cotta pot with holes in the bottom called a cuscussiera. The cuscussiera is sealed to the pot with simmering water underneath by a simple dough of flour and water. Instead, I used store-bought cous cous (also made from semolina flour) and followed the instruction on the package for cooking it, which says: combine the cous cous with an equal amount of hot water or stock, cover, and wait 7 minutes. That is indeed a whole lot easier, and although I didn’t do a side by side comparison the cous cous didn’t seem any different from what I remember from trying it in Sicily.
In Sicily, cous cous is flavored with bay leaf, cinnamon, almonds, parsley, onion, and garlic, and served with a tomato-fish stock and fish. I made up this recipe using this general guideline and using gurnard (“rode poon” in Dutch) and mussels as the seafood and we loved it. They keys to great cous cous are fresh fish, homemade stock, and not overcooking the fish. When using store-bought cous cous, it’s not that hard. Continue reading “Seafood Cous Cous”
Stovetop smokers are wonderful. You can use them either on the stovetop or outside using burners. They are very easy to use: simply add a few tablespoons of smoking dust and the food item you wish to smoke, close the smoker, heat it for 15-20 minutes, and out comes a beautifully smoked fish or whatever you put in. Especially fatty fish are great this way.
I prepared smoked trout as a quick dinner before we left on the boat trip, and I’m sharing the recipe with you now before writing some more about the food I’m cooking on the boat trip. Continue reading “Hot Smoked Trout”
After trying Richard’s Ancho Chile Rub on tuna, I also wanted to try it on salmon. Combined with some Chinese cabbage prepared with fish sauce, soy sauce, and shichimi togarisahi, this makes for a dish with a small number of ingredients that is simple to prepare, but has a lot of flavor and is healthy. We both loved this. The only thing I will change next time is to add a few wedges of lime, which I didn’t have but I think will add a nice bit of freshness to the earthy flavors. Continue reading “Ancho Chile Salmon with Chinese Cabbage”
Yet another meal and another post inspired by fellow bloggers, two in this case. The idea to try tuna sous-vide came from A Single Serving, who left a comment on my sous-vide page. He mentioned tuna confit, which is not what I tried this time around (but I will). Instead, I cooked the tuna medium rare at 42C/108F. The idea to grill avocado came from Richard of REMCooks, as well as the idea to combine avocado and tuna. I made this for lunch, but it could also be a nice appetizer for two. If you don’t have sous-vide equipment, you could use a ziploc bag and stock pot as a good substitute (that will however require some attention to monitor the temperature) or simply serve the tuna raw.
You may now be thinking that I lost it. Grilling avocado? I had never thought of this, but I trust Richard and he’s right: it’s nice and a great way to eat an avocado that is not yet fully ripe. I was worried the avocado would ‘melt’, but that is not the case at all. The sous-vide tuna turned out very nice, with more flavor than rare tuna. I really liked the combination of flavors and textures, and the chile flakes made a big difference in this dish. Here’s what I did… Continue reading “Grilled Avocado with Tuna Sous-Vide”
Even though I didn’t actually have this dish while I was in Sicily recently, I did see it on menus everywhere and I thought it would be appropriate to include it in the series of Sicilian recipes I’m doing. The swordfish is cooked in a tomato sauce bursting with flavor of onions, garlic, anchovies, capers, olives, and cayenne pepper. This is an easy dish to make, as long as you lower the heat (or even turn it off) when you finish cooking the fish to avoid overcooking it. Continue reading “Swordfish Sicilian Style (Pesce Spada alla Siciliana)”
Swordfish is more meaty than most other fishes. So meaty in fact, that if the swordfish is really fresh and you cut away the ‘blood meat’, you could probably fool someone into thinking he’s eating meat rather than fish. There is one issue with swordfish and that is that it is often overcooked and dry. With swordfish this happens even more often that with other types of fish. By cooking the swordfish sous-vide, it will be very tender and juicy without risk of overcooking. The nice thing about cooking fish sous-vide is that it only takes a short time, so it is possible to cook the fish sous-vide without having a sous-vide water bath. You only need a digital thermometer for this to work. Continue reading “Swordfish Salmoriglio”
On the Adriatic seacoast of Romagna, all kinds of seafood are marinated with parsley, garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice, and then coated with breadcrumbs and grilled or broiled. The marinade gives the seafood a nice flavor, whereas the breadcrumbs help to keep the seafood tender and moist. This recipe is quite similar to ChgoJohn’s recipe for Bacala alla Griglia, which is not surprising since the Marche region where is family comes from is just south of Romagna. Continue reading “Broiled Cod alla Romagnola (Grigliata di Pesce alla Romagnola)”
It is amazing how good the most simple dishes can be. The only thing you need for this is fresh salmon, farmed is fine, and a digital instant-read thermometer with a probe. The salmon is cooked to medium rare in the oven and will be so tender and succulent that you can eat it with a spoon. You can serve the salmon with your preferred sides, fresh herbs, or sauce, but it’s good enough by itself. This is so easy that anyone can do it. Please give this a try, you will be amazed! Ingredients Fresh (not frozen) salmon fillet, … Continue reading Simple Succulent Salmon
Like so many things, homemade fish fingers are so much better than store-bought! They are quite easy to make and you get to control what goes in them. So only the freshest fish, homemade breadcrumbs and an organic egg. For these fish fingers I used fresh Atlantic wolffish (“zeewolf” in Dutch, also known as “seawolf”). Since you will use fresh fish rather than frozen, the fish will be that much more flavorful and succulent. I suppose fish fingers were invented for people who don’t like to recognize that they are in fact eating fish, but I like them anyway since … Continue reading Homemade Fish Fingers
The best way to prepare really fresh sole is to simply fry it in butter. In French this is called Sole Meunière. Of course it is much easier to fry the sole perfectly in clarified butter than in regular butter, so I decided to celebrate my first batch of clarified butter by making sole meunière. This recipe is remarkably simple, but if you have fresh sole it will also be remarkably delicious! Ask your fish monger to make the sole ready for pan-frying. This means removing the head and and cleaning it, as well as removing the skin. Season the … Continue reading Sole Meunière
This is one of my favorite dishes from “Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art” that is surprisingly easy to make and absolutely delicious. As often in Japanese and Italian cooking, the key is in the quality of the ingredients. I used very fresh line-caught sea bass from the North Sea. You just wrap the ingredients in foil and cookt them in a hot oven for a bit, that’s all! It may not look like much in the photo, but you better believe me that the taste is outstanding. I adapted the recipe and made it even more simple, since there is … Continue reading Japanese Mixed Grill
Fellow food blogger Meatballs & Milkshakes is a good source for reliable recipes. And so I was intrigued a while ago when I saw a recipe for Ginger Glazed Salmon that she called her favorite salmon recipe, and is basically salmon teriyaki with the addition of ginger and sake substituted by red (?!) wine. But since I trust M&M I decided to give it a try anyway and I was glad I did, because it was great! Not only is the sauce very good, also the way of cooking the salmon medium rare in a low oven is given sous-vide … Continue reading M&M’s Ginger Glazed Salmon
My parents came over for dinner and my dad’s favorite dish is fish soup filled with different kinds of seafood. There are many varieties of this type of soup, including bouillabaisse from France and zarzuela from Spain. It can’t be a surprise that my version is Italian style and therefore called zuppa di pesce. The quality of this soup depends solely on the freshness of the seafood used, and there are hardly any ingredients besides the seafood itself. It is a very elegant dish that looks great to boot. From sous-vide cooking we’ve learned that the ideal temperature to cook … Continue reading Fish soup (Zuppa di Pesce)
Welcome to Stefan’s Gourmet Blog! If you like what you see here, you can sign up on the sidebar to receive an email whenever I post a new recipe. In Italy I always like swordfish carpaccio as antipasto, but unfortunately fresh swordfish is not available in the Netherlands. I decided to try making it with frozen swordfish, and it was certainly good enough to make it again! I am usually not a big fan of frozen fish since it makes the fish dry, but for this preparation it is OK. As with many antipasti, you just need good olive … Continue reading Swordfish Carpaccio (Carpaccio di pesce spada)
This is another dish we had at the Ligurian coast that I recreated at home: sea bream roasted in the oven with vegetables. It is quite easy to do: you only have to find the freshest sea bream you can find and learn how to take the fish off the bone once it’s cooked. Use an instant-read digital thermometer with a probe to always cook the fish just right: tender and very juicy. Especially if it was very fresh (and not frozen). Fish should never be overcooked as it will be dry, but nobody likes undercooked fish either. Taggiasca olives … Continue reading Sea bream with vegetables (Orata al forno)
Sea bream cooked in a salt crust is a great way to prepare this lovely fish that is used all around the Mediterranean, including Spain, France and Italy. I had tried to make this once many years ago, but it got too salty. A few weeks ago I was telling my Italian friend about this experience while the waiter at the restaurant in Luguria where we were having dinner was filleting the orata al sale. He had overheard our conversation and said that I should try it again because it is very easy if you leave the scales on, dry the fish carefully, … Continue reading Sea bream in salt (Orata al sale)
A classic and delicious dish from Venice is pesce in saôr, which does not mean ‘sour’ fish but ‘flavored’ fish (saôr comes from ‘sapore’). The recipe was invented in Venice as a way to preserve fish, and even though we have refrigerators nowadays we still make it because it is so tasty! In this modern version I’ve made two changes to the classical recipe: I’ve used mackerel rather than the more usual white fish (such as cod or hake) and I’ve cooked the fish sous-vide. When you use white fish, the subtle flavor of the fish will be overpowered by the … Continue reading Venetian marinated Mackerel ‘in saor’ sous-vide
When I started this blog, I wrote that I would “strive to share every single interesting experience with respect to food and wine”. This means sharing both the successes and the failures. Although the result of this experiment was certainly edible and not bad, it was not the “magical” result that I was hoping for. I’m going through “Modernist Cuisine”, the amazing set of books by Nathan Myhrvold et al. On pages 2-24 and 2-25 the “Girardet Method” for broiling fish is described. Fish is simultaneously broiled and poached in white wine. It didn’t look too hard to do and … Continue reading Experiment with the Girardet method for broiling fish
The inspiration for this preparation came from having steamed turbot at a Chinese restaurant. The fish was steamed with fresh ginger, spring onions and chilli pepper and I liked it a lot. I tried to make something similar sous-vide and it came out even better! The texture of sous-vide turbot is amazing, and the Asian seasonings paired well with the fish without overpowering it. Ingredients For two servings Fillets of 1 turbot, skin on (around 900 grams or 2 pounds) 2-3 cm (1 inch) of fresh ginger root green of 2 spring onions 1/2 fresh chilli pepper salt soy sauce … Continue reading Turbot sous-vide Asian style
Sous-vide cooking with liquids can be a hassle because liquids will be sucked out by my vacuum sealer (as I don’t own a chamber sealer). The usual solution is to freeze any liquids before adding them to the pouch. The … Continue reading Salmon Teriyaki sous-vide
I saw reasonably priced very fresh turbot for sale and couldn’t resist. Even though asparagus are out of season and have to come from Peru, I decided to make a dish that I created last May for the Fish & Wine … Continue reading Turbot and white asparagus sous-vide with Hollandaise sauce
I have been trying to make the ‘perfect’ seabass with tender moist flesh and crispy skin for a long time, and now I’ve finally found the way to do it! When cooking the seabass in a hot non-stick frying pan, I ended up either with a crispy skin with flesh that was a bit overcooked and a bit dry (not terrible, but as always I am striving for perfection 🙂 or with tender moist flesh and flabby skin. Please note that the fish should be very fresh (‘sushi grade’) for this recipe. Continue reading “Perfect sous-vide seabass”
Last night after the delicious ravioli with gorgonzola and witlof we had this simple but good dish that went nicely with the same wine (Erbaluce di Caluso). This was my first attempt at sous-vide cod and it turned out perfectly cooked with a great texture. However cod is so flaky that it seems impossible to sear the fish after cooking sous-vide without breaking it apart. Perhaps I’ll try pre-searing next time. Ingredients For 2 servings: 250 grams (1/2 pound) cod fillet 125 ml (1/2 cup) white wine 125 ml (1/2 cup) home-made fish stock 1 fennel bulb 1 shallot 1/2 … Continue reading Sous-vide cod with braised fennel and white wine sauce
Homemade fish stock is an essential ingredient for seafood risotto, soups and sauces. It is easy to make and handy to keep deep-frozen. Ingredients For 1 liter (1 quart) of fish stock: 1 kg (2.2 pounds) of fresh fish bones and heads of white fish (fatty fish such as salmon gives a different flavor) 450 grams (1 pound) of mixed aromatic vegetables such as carrots, leeks, celery stalks, onions, fennel trimmings 1 tomato 1 sprig thyme 1 bay leaf some pepper corns olive oil Preparation Make sure to remove the gills and eyes from the fish heads and soak the … Continue reading How to make fish stock
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