Holidays 2013 - A Fishy Feast and Other Treats

We've had relaxing and tasty holiday season thus far. We kicked things off Monday evening with happy hour at California Kebab. We'd had their current batch of Pig Nose Pale at the recent Bikes, Boards and Brews festival here in Pacific Beach and were happy to find it on tap at the brewery. Pig Nose is probably my current favorite low(ish) ABV west-coast-style IPA.

And the view never gets old:



Christmas Eve we had our annual "Feast of the Seven Fishes" dinner. This year we did a Korean meal.

We started out with Shrimp and Kimchi Jeon:



For banchan, we had Odeng Bokkeum (fried fishcake), along with cucumber pickles, and kimchi:



The main event was a Seafood Jjigae. We've been making Jjigae at home for a while, now, but we've been cheating by using soup mix packets. This was our first time making stock from scratch - a mixture of dried anchovy, kombu, onion, garlic, shiitake and a few dried shrimp:



After straining you end up with a nicely savory stock:



For the Jjigae, we heated minced garlic, onion, and Korean chile powder in our individual Jjigae bowls:



We added a cup of the stock along with a bit of soft tofu, our fish and seafood (white sea bass, squid, bay scallops and asari clams), and some kale for color.



It turned out really well. Spicy, savory and rich with seafood flavor.

For Christmas dinner, we roasted a pork shoulder in the oven at low heat for 5 hours. The house smelled amazing, and the pork came out perfectly moist and sticky.



Last night we used leftover seafood and anchovy stock to make Chawanmushi:



We also have a few ongoing food projects. We brewed up a batch of our Imperial Stout earlier in the week and it has been happily bubbling away.

We also couldn't resist picking up a 10lb pork picnic shoulder roast to transform into a ham. It is currently brining in our beer fridge, and will later get smoked. It is our first time doing a ham, and we are really looking forward to the result!



Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!

Food Photo Round-Up #2 - Part 2

We've been on a bit of a Korean food kick lately. Case in point above, Samgyeopsal - slices of grilled pork belly, painted with Korean chili paste and eaten wrapped in a lettuce leaf with some sliced garlic.

And below, our take on Daeji Bulgogi - Korean spicy bbq pork:



We haven't been neglecting Mexican food, though. We recently did up a big batch of tamales:



When we make tamales, we do a variety of fillings. Sherry wraps them in different shapes so that we can tell which is which.

Keeping with the masa theme, here is our first go at making gorditas:



The key to a gordita is that the masa is thicker than a tortilla. When you fry it, it gets crispy on the outside, but still has a soft texture in the middle. These ones were filled with chorizo and cheese.

Rounding out the Mexican fare is a breakfast of Huevos Cubanos - eggs in saucy black beans with fried plantains and bacon:



We had this dish when we were in Veracruz, and finally got around to making it ourselves.

Not a picture of food, but the dining room at Misión 19 in Tijuana:



We went down for dinner with a group of like-minded folks and had a really great meal.

Turning to inspiration from across the pond, we recently made fondant potatoes for the first time:



A popular side dish in the UK that you rarely see on menus here, fondant potatoes get browned in olive oil and then get finished in the oven with the addition of stock and butter. The result is golden on the outside and tender on the inside.

Sherry was craving crêpes the other day, so she got out Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and found this Gâteau de Crêpes à la Florentine:



Rich and decadent. I love the way it feels to take a bite as your fork cuts through the many layers of crêpes.

And finally over to Spain for some gazpacho:



We had a record tomato harvest this year, and gazpacho is a great way to use them when they are ripe. We used to make gazpacho in the blender, but we've migrated to a more rustic, chunky version that we like a lot better.

Feast of the Seven Fishes 2011

Each Christmas Eve, we go a bit mad and cook up a multi-course "Feast of the Seven Fishes" - just for the two of us. It is fun, and gives us the inspiration to try out some new recipes.

This year our dishes ranged throughout the globe - from Italy and Spain to Vietnam, Korea and the Middle East.

Bay Scallop and Tomato Gratin


Our feast started out with a bay scallop and tomato gratin - a simple recipe from Daniel Boulud's Café Boulud Cookbook. The tomato and the breadcrumb topping added great flavor, but still let the sweet scallops shine through.

Egg, Shrimp and Scallion Pancakes


This dish, from Andrea Nguyen's Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, has become a favorite of ours. Shrimp and egg go so well together. Dipped into some salty fish sauce, these pancakes are pure heaven.

Sculpin Jun


We paired the shrimp pancakes with a similar dish, but from another country. Jun (or Jeon) are Korean egg pancakes. We had our first Fish Jun last month at a little Korean joint in Honolulu, and we immediately fell in love. The way the texture of the fish and the texture of the egg compliment each other is fantastic. We served the Jun with a vinegary garlic-soy dipping sauce.

Gary's Smoked Alaskan Red Salmon Dip


Sherry's sister lives in Alaska, and she and her fiance sent us the makings of this dish (the key ingredient being smoked sockeye salmon they caught themselves). The salmon gets mixed with jalepeños and cream cheese (we used homemade cream cheese, of course!).



To eat it, you put some on a fork, dip it in Worcestershire sauce and put it on a Ritz cracker. It is a pretty crazy combination of flavors, but it works.

Quilcene and Malpeque Oysters


Roughly midway through our feast, we paused for a palate cleanser of oysters - Quilcene and Malpeque - from The Fishery. In past years, we've done a variety of mignonettes, but this year we had them simply plain.

We slurped as we shucked, but I managed to snap a quick picture before they were all gone. Both varieties of oysters were good, but I preferred the Quilcene - they were sweeter and less briny.

Swordfish with Romanesco and Romesco


For me, swordfish has historically been uninspiring - I picture boring, dry steaks coming off the grill. The swordfish we get from Catalina Offshore Products is a different story altogether - consistently beautiful pieces of fish that cook up nicely moist and full of flavor.

For this dish, we paired it with Romanesco cauliflower from our garden, and a Romesco sauce. It was our first time making Romesco. A blend of almonds and roasted red pepper, it is interesting stuff - very rich and intense. A little bit goes a long way.

Fish Stew with Onions and Saffron


This dish is from Claudia Roden's The New Book of Middle Eastern Food, a cookbook that is getting increasingly used in our kitchen lately. The fish is Mahi Mahi from Catalina Offshore. The caramelized onions and saffron gave the broth a lovely burnished color.

And that was our Feast of the Seven Fishes for 2011. Our numbers came out right on the nose this year - seven dishes, seven fishes.