Garlic Shrimp with White Beans

We don't cook much seafood in o...

Why did I say "We".

I don't cook much seafood in our apartment.  I've mentioned this before, but a lot of seafood recipes require pan sauteeing that, with our lack of ventilation, leaves an unholy and stubborn fishy smell in our apartment for days.  Also, I'm not a fan of reheating seafood for leftovers--the texture and flavor get all funky on me.  But when I see a recipe that calls for roasting or broiling seafood, I perk up because the smell factor is not as much of an issue (still somewhat of an issue but not too bad), and I particularly perk up when the recipe is one where the cooking of the seafood can be quickly done and separately from the rest of the dish. That way, I can cook only the portion of seafood that we will be eating that night--the rest I can cook the next night instead of microwaving already cooked seafood.

I guess it's easier to explain by going through an actual recipe, like this one for garlic shrimp and white beans from Bon Appetit.  You make the full batch of beans, and leftovers can be reheated the next time you eat it.  For the shrimp, I cooked half of it the first night we ate it, and then the other half the second night we ate this dish.

Overall this was a quick, easy recipe that I liked, even if it wasn't uh-mazing.

Ingredients

6 tablespoons olive oil, divided
3 garlic cloves, minced, divided
2 dried chiles de árbol (if you can't find this, you could try adding a 1/4 tsp of cayenne or perhaps 1 tsp of paprika--I'm not sure about those, but I am sure that I had a bitch of a time finding chiles de arbol)
1 bay leaf, preferably fresh (yeah right--I used dried)
1 1/4 cups chopped tomato (about 8 ounces) (since it's winter, I used a drained 14 oz can of diced tomatoes)
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 15-ounce cans white beans (such as cannellini), rinsed, drained
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 pound medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley (I didn't do this)
Grilled bread (optional)

Preheat broiler.  Heat 2 TBS olive oil in ovenproof skillet over medium heat.  Add in 1 minced garlic clove, the chiles, and bay leaf.  Stir constantly for about 1-2 minutes, until garlic is a light golden brown (but be careful because the garlic can burn quickly).

I have burned garlic one too many times, so usually wimp out and only wait till the garlic has gotten past the pure albino stage.

Add in the tomatoes and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes.  Add in the tomato paste and cook, again with the stirring, for about 3 to 4 minutes.

Add in the beans and chicken broth.

Bring to a simmer and let reduce--the recipe said 3 to 4 minutes, mine took more like 10 minutes. Lying bastards.

In a medium bowl, combine the shrimp with remaining olive oil, garlic, paprika, salt and pepper.  Since I was only cooking half the shrimp the first night, I halved the oil, garlic, paprika, and s&p.  The next night, instead of getting my cutting board dirty for one measly garlic clove, I put in a pinch of garlic powder.  Anyway, spread the shrimp over the beans in a single layer.

Place skillet under broiler and cook through--mine took about 5-6  minutes although the recipe said 3-4. Honestly, I don't think they know how to tell time.

Serve with bread.

Ta-da!

Clam Chowder

Chowda Time!

I ate a whole lotta Campbell's soup growing up.  Beef & barley, chicken noodle, cream of mushroom (oh how I love thee), but I think my favorite had to be clam chowder.  Oh was it creamy! Oh was it salty! Oh was it...oh it was everything!

Not everyone felt the same way, like that asshole in kindergarten who said my beloved clam chowder, which I had brought to school in a thermos, looked like throw-up.  Clearly his childhood was not enriched by the wonders and breadth of the canned soup aisle. Asshole.

Trying to revive some of that ol' chowda memories (sans Mr. Asshole), I went to the grocery store and spent one bazillion dollars on littleneck clams.  It ended up being worth it because the flavor was amazing and better than when I had used chopped claims in the past (either canned or frozen), but I certainly do not turn my nose up at chopped clams and highly recommend them if you don't want to use fresh clams.

I remember you, asshole, and lemme tell you this clam chowder is good.

Adapted from Epicurious

• 40 small clams, such as littlenecks (about 2 inches in diameter--my grocery store sold about 45 in a bag that cost, again, about a bazillion dollars)
• If you're using chopped clams (frozen or canned), you'll need about 1 1/2 cups
• 1/2 cup water
• 8 oz bottled clam juice (or you could just use water, for a total of 1 1/2 cups water)
• 3 bacon slices, cut into 1/4" dice (you could do 2 slices, you could do 4--3 seemed about right for the amount of clams I had and how much bacon flavor I wanted)
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 2 russet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1/4" dice
• 1 TBS butter
• 1 cup half and half
• 2 TBS finely chopped parsley

Serves 4 to 6

First, rinse and scrub your clams well to get rid of loose dirt and grit hanging onto the shells.  Discard any clams with broken shells (a little chip here and there is fine, but a few of mine looked like they had been mauled).

Place clams in pot (mine was 4 quarts) with water and clam juice (or all water, if you're not using clam juice).

Turn heat to medium high and cover pot so clams can steam for about 5 to 8 minutes, stirring every once in a while.  Remove clams to a separate bowl as they open--that started happening for me about the 5-minute mark and kept going. It was like a game--you pick out one, and then lo and behold another one opens! This was very fun for me, which should tell you something about my life.

Pickin' out clams--this one was a gaper.

THROW AWAY the ones that don't open--they have spoiled and may cause serious gastrointestinal stress if you eat them.  Lemme tell you about the last time I had a bad clam.  Well maybe I won't.  Okay I'll say this--you know those juice cleanses they talk about? Save some money and just eat a bad clam.

All innocuous-looking but this guy really just wants to invite you to an evening with the toilet.

Turn off the heat.  When clams are cool enough to handle, remove the meat from the shells and build your little pile of oceanic wonder.  Then roughly chop them.

Pre-mutilation

Pour cooking liquid through a fine-meshed sieve lined with a paper towel or cheesecloth into a bowl.  Don't pour all the way--leave the grit behind.  Clean out the pot well--we'll use it again in the final product.

See? Grit, I tell ya.

Prep your bacon, onion and potatoes.  

Hm, my bacon looks more like 1/2" dice. Ne'er you mind.

Melt butter in the cleaned pot over medium heat, and add the bacon.

Cook, stirring, until golden brown, then add the onion and cook (still stirring) until softened.  This whole process will probably take about 8 to 10 minutes.

Put the potatoes in the pot, along with the reserved clam liquid.  If you are using chopped clams, I would start with about 2 cups of clam juice and 1/2 cup of water and go from there.

Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook until the potatoes are tender.  The original recipe said 3 minutes, but I must have created some husky pieces of potato because it took more like 10 minutes.

Stir in clams, half and half, parsley and black pepper.  You will likely not need any salt, although no one's prohibiting you from adding it.

Ladle into bowls and serve.  We ate ours with some toasted sourdough bread.  This isn't super thick like the kind you get out of a can--although you could do a little cornstarch slurry or use a roux to thicken. And that would be more effort. Power to you.

Ta-da!

Crabcakes

Growing up in Maryland, blue crabs were a big thing. My family would go to the Maine Avenue Fish Market in DC (at least, that's what I think it was--dude, I was young, and just along for the ride) and visit the floating barge stalls, and buy at least a bushel of crabs.  I loved those cantankerous critters and their fresh seawater smell.  At home, my mom would boil a massive pot of crabs with plenty of Old Bay seasoning, and cook some corn on the side to boot.  We'd cover every square inch of the kitchen table with newspapers, set garbage bags at almost every seat, set out a roll of paper towels (to act as napkins), and various crab destruction tools (meat mallet, hammer, nutcracker--you name it).  When the crabs were done, they were brought to the table, nooks and crannies filled with that delicious Old Bay.


If you've eaten a blue crab, you know it's not exactly an easy feat. You have to work at it. There are multiple components, things to discard and things to eat, elusive bits of meat to pry at, methods to learn in order to crack the hard legs but not to shatter them.  You will get microscopic cuts on your hands from those pesky shells, into which the chili from the Old Bay will enter, which will make you feel very spicy.  You will work hard to clean out crab and Old Bay from under your fingernails, yet your fingertips will still carry the scent for at least a day.  


It is, for those who love the process, a ritual.  It is, for those not so into it, a pain in the ass.  It is a ritual for me, one that I love, and that I hope to enjoy again much more often now that I am back in the DC metro area.


All that being said, there is an easier, fancier way to enjoy these AWESOMELY DELICIOUS crabs. Crab cakes!  I made these last month, but with all the limbo purgatory nonsense going on in my life, I neglected to blog about them.


These are adapted from Cook's Illustrated.  


1 pound fresh jumbo lump crabmeat, picked over to remove cartilage or shell
1 tablespoon chopped fresh herb, such as cilantro, dill, basil, or parsley, or 2 tsp dried herbs (which is what I used because I didn't have fresh on hand--I understand that fresh would have been better oh would you leave me alone)
1 ½ teaspoons Old Bay seasoning 
2 to 4 tablespoons panko or plain dry bread crumbs 
¼ cup mayonnaise
2 tsp dijon mustard
Salt and ground pepper (use white ground pepper if you have it) 
1 large egg
¼ cup all-purpose flour or cornmeal
¼ cup vegetable oil 


Serves 4 to 8 (crab is pretty rich, so I can't be exact here, not that I ever am)


I used Phillips brand jumbo lump crab meat, pasteurized and sealed.  It was surprisingly delicious (I had strong suspicions beforehand).

Gently combine the the crab meat, herbs, Old Bay, 2 tablespoons bread crumbs, mustard and mayonnaise in a medium bowl.  You want to try and keep the lumps of crab as intact as possible. Season with salt and pepper to taste. 

Beat egg in a separate bowl, then gently fold into crab mixture. Gently, please.

Hehe that's not appetizing.

If the mixture is a bit wet and you can't imagine for the life of you how you'd be able to form it into cakes, then add a bit more bread crumbs or panko.  

Divide the mixture into equal parts and form them into patties about 1 1/2 inches high.  How big the patties are (the diameter) is up to you.  The original recipe called for dividing the mixture into 4 portions. I started down that road and got the feeling that I was making a crabcake the size of a birthday cake, and scaled back significantly.  I made 8 patties from this recipe--I found this led to patties small enough that they were easy to handle.  

Place the cakes on a a baking sheet lined with waxed or parchment paper; cover with plastic wrap and chill at least 30 minutes, and up to 24 hours.  

When you are ready to cook the crabbie cakes, put the flour (or cornmeal) on a plate or other shallow dish.  Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until hot but not smoking--a nonstick skillet would be awesome here. While the oil is heating, lightly dredge the crab cakes in the flour/cornmeal (dredge only as many as can fit in the skillet--you can wait to do the others for the next batch).  

Place the dredged crab cakes in the skillet, and fry until outsides are crisp and golden brown, about 4 to 5 minutes per side.  

Serve with a wedge of lemon and whatever else it is that you decided to toss on the plate that night.

Ta-da!

Linguine with Clams

I don't think I really ever had linguine with clams until I had it at my sister's house. Wanna know why? Two reasons.


Nuuuumbeeerrrr One!
Da clams. From da farmers' market. Which, according to the...clam-monger, were harvested the night before.

They were sweet, flavorful...cannot type...for having gnawed...knuckles...bloody...

Nuuuumbeeerrr Two!

Da pancetta. My sister made it.  Yeah, you heard me. No, she didn't make the pig or anything, but she bought the pork, seasoned and cured it. Herself. Her badass self.

Can you believe she cured this herself? HERSELF? 

The recipe was adapted from Saveur, but honestly, this is all my sister.


Ingredients

• 1 lb. pasta, preferably linguine
• 1⁄3 cup extra-virgin olive oil  
• 4 oz. pancetta (or chorizo), finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced crosswise
• 2 Fresno or Holland chiles, stemmed and thinly sliced crosswise (okay, I don't know what either of those are--go for a jalapeno or serrano)
• 2 1/2 to 3 ls. littleneck clams (about 30), scrubbed clean
• 1⁄3 cup dry white wine or vermouth
• 3 tbsp. roughly chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Heat oil in a 12" skillet over medium heat. Add chopped pancetta and cook, stirring occasionally, until just crisp, about 5 minutes. Transfer lovely crispy pork bits to a paper towel; set aside. 

Return skillet to medium heat and add garlic and half the chiles.

Cook, stirring, until garlic is light golden brown, about 3 minutes. 

Add clams and wine (or vermouth), increase heat to high, and cook, covered, swirling pan occasionally, until clams open and release their juices, 5–10 minutes. 

Can't you hear the clinking and clacking of those lovely clams cascading into the skillet?

Using tongs, transfer clams to a plate, and set aside.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook, stirring occasionally, until just al dente, about 6 minutes. Drain pasta, reserving 1⁄2 cup pasta water, and set aside.

Bring sauce to a boil over high heat, return meat and shallots to pan, and add reserved pasta and 1⁄4 cup cooking liquid. 

Cook, tossing pasta occasionally, until sauce clings to pasta, about 2 minutes. Sprinkle in some more of the pasta cooking water if the pasta seems dry. Add 2 tbsp. parsley, season with salt, and toss to combine.

Transfer pasta to a serving bowl, arrange clams over pasta, and pour any clam juices from the plate over pasta. 

Wait, I think we ran out of parsley. Bad us. Delicious anyway.

Ta-da!

Szechuan Shrimp Stir Fry

I had a major hankering for stir-fry the other week.  It happens. My mouth starts involuntarily salivating thinking about stir-fry and I just want to lap up a bowl of soy sauce. No not really.  Maybe.  

Actually when I was a little kid, my mom had served a big platter of some meat dish that had a lot of soy sauce.  At the end of the meal, when all that was left on the platter was a pool of soy saucey goodness, I literally lifted the platter and tipped it towards my mouth, poised to drink down that delicious salty liquid.  My mom was, needless to say, horrified. 

Maybe only rivaled by that time she caught me with fistfuls of peeled garlic stashed away in my pockets, after I had pilfered the lovely odorific cloves from her when she was making kimchi.

Back to stir-fry.  I didn't want to go beef/chicken/pork because I had had a good bit of that over the holidays, so I decided to use shrimp.  My poor shrimp came all the way from Indonesia.  I'm a planet-killer. I just needed to get that confession off my chest.

This recipe for Szechuan style shrimp stir fry on got uniformly rave reviews from Epicurious readers.  If they all like it, why not me.  I added broccolini to the recipe to round out the meal.

Adapted from Epicurious

For the broccolini:

• 1 pound broccolini (or other green veggie of your choice)
• 2 tsp peanut oil (or other high smoke point oil)
• 2 to 3 TBS water
• 2 tsp soy sauce

For the sauce: 

• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 2 teaspoons chili bean sauce (I used something like garlic black bean sauce or something)
• 2 teaspoons Chinese black vinegar or balsamic (I used balsamic)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil

For the shrimp: 

• 1 1/2 tablespoons peanut oil (or other high smoke point oil)
• 2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh ginger
• 1 tablespoon coarsely chopped garlic
• 2 tablespoon finely chopped scallions
• 1 lb raw shrimp, shelled and deveined

Wash and trim the broccolini, and cut into 1-inch pieces.

Heat 2 tsp vegetable oil (or canola or grapeseed or safflower, basically anything with a high smoke point) in a skillet over medium high heat.  Throw in the broccolini, toss to coat with oil, and add 2 to 3 TBS of water.  Let broccolini simmer for about a minute, then mix in the soy sauce.

Simmer about 3-5 minutes or until broccolini reaches your desired consistency, then remove broccolini to a bowl/plate and set aside.  Remove excess moisture from the skillet with a paper towel.

Moving onto the sauce: mix together all the sauce ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

Moving onto the shrimp.  Prep your scallions, ginger and garlic.

Very good. Heat the oil in your skillet over high heat until shimmering (a wisp of smoke is okay but if it starts to smoke too much, just take the pan off the heat for a minute to cool things down, otherwise you will burn your aromatics).  Add in the scallions, ginger and garlic.

Stir *just for 20 seconds*, then add in the shrimp.  Cook for about 1 minute, continuing to stir and move around.  Add in the sauce and continue to stir fry for about 3 minutes, until shrimp is just cooked.

Lower heat, add in the reserved broccolini and cook until warmed through.

Serve with steamed rice.  Take a picture with bad lighting. Sue me.

That is such a random picture.  Guess I was super hungry.

Ta-da!

Salt and Pepper Lobster

Due to a miscommunication with my mom regarding the Thanksgiving weekend grocery list, we ended up with about twice the amount of lobster that we needed.  The expense of this was emphasized to us several times by a certain someone.  I will let you guess who.

I don't usually cook lobster. And guess what--I didn't this time either.  I documented what my sister did.  Sure I helped here and there, like cleaning and dish and saying ooh and aah, but basically by the time poured myself a glass of wine, the dish was done.  Yes, my sister's pretty amazing. Rub it in, why don't you.

Adapted from this salt and pepper crab recipe

For lobster: 

• 4 lobster tails (thawed if frozen), halved lengthwise
• Can we pause on this for one moment. I had the one measly but crucial task of splitting the lobster tails, and couldn't even do it. That outer shell is one tough sucker.  The best thing to do is flip the tail so that it's laying on its "back", and plunge your knife through the softer "underbelly".  When you get your blade through the soft side and the meat, finish cutting through the tougher shell with kitchen shears. Or at least that's what I'm told. I made my dad do the rest of them after my initial frustration.  And they call me an adult. Why.
• Enough vegetable, canola or peanut oil to fill a deep fat fryer
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 TBS salt
• 3 TBS ground white pepper
  

For dusting/topping:

• few tsp veggie oil 
• 1 TBS each of salt, ground white pepper, and sugar
• a few green chilis and/or scallions, sliced

Heat oil to 360 degrees (350 is the ideal temperature, but it's good to crank it up a little higher to start so that when you put the fryees in, the temp doesn't go too below 350). 

Hi lobster. Place the halved lobster tails on baking sheet lined with paper towels and dab all over with paper towels to remove excess moisture (this drying will allow the lobsters to form a better crust when you fry them).

Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and ground white pepper in a large bowl or resealable plastic bag.  Dredge each lobster tail in the flour mixture, then remove and shake off excess.

Place a few tails in the fryer (don't overcrowd. do you hear me don't overcrowd).

Are you ready for your bath?

Frying away. Bubble bubble toil and trouble.

Remove when lobster tails are lightly golden brown and cooked through--this only took about 2 minutes.  Set on rack to drain.

Mix together the sugar, salt and white pepper for the "topping".  

Heat few tsp oil in large skillet over medium high heat. Place the lobster tails in and sprinkle with sugar mixture.  Flip/move around tails for about 3 minutes, making sure they're all nicely coated with the topping and until a healthy golden brown.

Remove tails to platter. Pretty.

Deep fry your chilis/scallions/what have you for a few seconds, drain, and sprinkle over lobster.

And that's how she did it. I think. I was just standing there.

Ta-da!