Ground Lamb and Goat Cheese Pizza

This recipe uses ground colorado lamb, local goat cheese, caramelized onions and golden raisins. The secret ingredient is Koefte spice – a wonderful blend of spices from Turkey (which I scored during a trip late last year).

I added the lamb mixture to fresh pizza dough from Denver’s own Sunflower Market, with which I’ve been very impressed. The, lacking a pizza stone or a wood-fired oven, added the dough to a 12-inch cast iron skillet.

I threw the skillet in the oven while it was heating to 400 degrees. I gave it another 5 or ten minutes then threw the pizza into the pan. 10 minutes at 400 and another 2-3 on high broil. Et Voila.

Another great thing to try…if you’re hosting outdoors and don’t want to use the oven. Throw your skillet onto a hot grill, cover and wait until it’s smokin hot, and then add the pizza to the grill. Keeps the heat out of the kitchen, too. Nice, if like us, you’re trying to use less energy.

Be sure to pair this with Raki or Ouzo and enjoy a little break from the tired old pizza on a hot summer day.

Cheers,
Will

A perfect and easy summer dish for all those leftover tomatoes

At a recent afternoon party, I found, much to my dismay, that “meat only” sandwiches are apparently in vogue. Thus, I had a TON of lettuce and leftover beef tomato slices, initially intended for sub sandwiches, with no readily apparent home.

The lettuce was gonzo, but what to do with already-sliced tomatoes that surely wouldn’t last the weekend?

I began looking through my pantry, which was a bit on the skimpy side in terms of creative devices and alas I found a box of always useful gelatin packets and I had my idea.

First, roast tomatoes in a pan. Add crushed garlic, a swig of olive oil, Mr. S and Mrs. P. 1.5 tbls dried basil if you have it. Fresh is even better, and will come in handy later.

Remove from oven after about 30-35 minutes roasting on 400 degrees. Check the tomatoes often. They should not burn against the bottom of the pan. If this begins to happen, turn down the temp.

Add to bowl and let cool for a few minutes and then add to food processor. It won’t take much to break the tomatoes down to a chunky liquid.

Push tomato liquid into a bowl through a sieve or fine colander to remove the larger chunks.

Add the gelatin per the instructions. Once the mixture is ready, add the roasted tomato gelatin mixture to a container of your choice. I used an ice tray, but you might try silpat and a cookie cutter to create a flatter , more artistic dish. No snowmen, please. Tomato snowmen are just weird.

Place in the fridge on a stable surface.

Once the mixture is cool. remove the jelly cubes — probably an hour at least. Cut thin — slightly larger than a Ritz cracker if you can imagine that.

Lay jelly atop a melba toast or thin slice of crunch bread. Mozz would have been good here, but all I had was goat cheese. So, crumble some goat cheese atop the jelly. Then, cut up a bit of fresh basil – tear it if you’re hard core — and then crack some black pepper and drop a pinch of sea salt over the top. Add a quick drizzle of olive oil and you’re all set. You’ll be amazed by the tomato flavor.

Perfect for the end of summer, but it will also work into the fall. If you’re making this in the winter, ditch the mozz and serve atop cooked and cooled Parm crisps.

Do more with your sandwich

Obviously, I’m on a bit of a Meyer Lemon kick these days.

I’ll write this one equally as quickly as it came to me. While thinking of lunch yesterday, and, yes, thinking of what to do with my remaining Meyer Lemons, something occurred to me: perhaps the light citrus and floral notes of Meyer zest would carry well through a subtle goat cheese. This, friends, is how most of my recipes begin – thinking of single experience, matching it against an ingredient, and building outward from there.

So, it all started with Meyer Lemon goat cheese. So then what? I looked in the fridge and knew I had some nice pieces of brined chicken breast that I’d included in my batch from the night before (my “don’t steal my bike!” baked meyer lemon chicken).

I also knew I had a handful of washed and dried spinach from my CSA and one slice of prosciutto remaining from my last trip to Marcayk fine foods here in Denver.

Last but not least, I had one remaining onion roll from Turkish lamb burgers we’d made a week ago.

Add it up: Chicken, Prosciutto, Spinach, Meyer Lemon goat cheese. As Emeril might say….bam.

I first pan seared the chicken breasts, which moments before I’d flattened ever so slightly. I despite biting into a chicken sandwich only to be rewarded by an inch-and-a-half of chicken. In sandwiches, I’m a believer in most ingredients playing equal roles and being of equal proportion.

After searing the chicken breasts for several minute per side (probably about 4-5), I removed and tented with foil. Next – and for no particular reason – I turned to the goat cheese. I plopped two heaping tablespoons of the cheese in a bowl and then, with zester in hand, zested about 1 heaping tablespoon of lemon zest. I added a pinch of pepper and folded all the ingredients together before setting the mixture aside.

Next, I smashed one clove of garlic and set in the chicken saute pan with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. When the garlic started to turn golden, I removed it and added the spinach, wilting it down with a pinch of salt over medium-low heat for about 2-3 minutes before removing to a plat.

Next, I tossed in the oblong slice of prosciutto and toasted it ever so slightly.

Lastly, I toasted the onion bun, spread the goat cheese mixture on the bottom bun and added the remaining ingredients: chicken breast, prosciutto, garlic spinach.

Et voila. A fabulous lunch in 15 minutes. The goat cheese mixture, though, was the real standout. If you like the idea of this, but aren’t in the mood for the sandwich, you might try the mixture tossed with pasta and crumbled pancetta, or spread on a piece of prosciutto and rolled up for an appetizer.

Enjoy.

The chicken, shortly before the nuclear blast that is my camera flash

This afternoon, a man stole a bike from our back yard. It wasn’t our back, and well, it is a shared back yard. But the fact of the matter is that when faced with troubling domestic situations, I feel the need for comfort food. As I spoke with the local police officer, who showed up 45 minutes later, I couldn’t help but think of the brined chicken quarters in my fridge, and the meyer lemons lounging in the kitchen window.

Were Meyer Lemons people, I’m quite sure they would be sunbathing at expensive hotels in the Riviera, sipping on spring water and anxiously awaiting the afternoon spa treatment. They always seem to me, somehow, out of my league. I am mostly careful in their use – pulling together vinaigrette and salsas, or pairing them with fresh herbs, briny olives and white cheese.

But after the bike incident, I wanted to get rough with the Meyers, and so I zested one their brethren and threw the flesh in  blender with garlic, olive oil and fresh parsley and a 1/2 cup of red wine vinegar.

While that heaven-scented remained in the bowl, I turned my attention to the chicken. After washing and drying the quarters, I added them to a smoking hot cast iron skillet and browned them for a few minutes on each side.

Removing the chicken and skillet from the heat, and letting them cool their tempers, I then added a half cup of chicken stock to the bowl and mixed with a wooden spoon.

A minute later I added the mixture to the skillet and let it bubble away off the heat before covering it and shoving it into a 375 oven for 45 minutes.

Remove the cover, and turn the broiler on high for four minutes until the chicken starts to brown and crisp.

Remove and let sit tented with foil. Add some chopped parsley and a last bit of meyer lemon juice, and then….thank your lucky stars for bike locks.

Spicy Crunchy Deliciousness

The Back Story

I first had this dish during a snow storm in a small Japanese restaurant in Burlington, Vermont. I’d been to the establishment before, but on this visit I discovered new ownership and a new philosophy.  The Japanese man who’d bought the restaurant had vowed to move beyond sushi and Teriyaki and serve more traditional, yet lesser known dishes. The first item on the specials list was Broiled Scallops with Japanese Five Spice Mayo. I was hooked. I was slightly concerned about the richness of scallops and mayonnaise, but the addition of the Five Spice, sometimes called Sancho (though this usually refers only to a ground pepper).

I’d had this in my journal ever since, and last night seemed the proper time to break it out. While we’re without snow, it’s cold here in Denver – I wanted something comforting and warming. This dish is both. I presumed it was simple to make without the aid of a recipe. I also envisioned the addition of green onions and Panko to the top of the dish to provide some crunch and acid.

What I used

First, I set about making the mayo. I used:

• 3/4 cup mayo
• 1 heaping tsp of five spice

Mix the mayo thoroughly with the spice, cover and let sit in the fridge.

I used 1 and 1/2 cups of petite scallops. Petites are probably about the diameter of a quarter, and a quarter inch thick — I like them for a few reasons:

1. The cook evenly and quickly

2. Each time you bite into one, you’re consuming an entire scallop.

How I Prepared Them

I gave the scallops a quick rinse under water and then dried them thoroughly. I then heated up a cast-iron skillet and added to medium high and added a small pat of butter. When the pan is hot in the butter is golden brown, toss in the scallops to give them a quick sear on each side – probably about a minute in total depending on the heat of your pan. You don’t want to cook them entirely at this stage.

Remove the scallops and whack the broiler on to HIGH. I arranged the scallops into  two, small Le Creuset oven terrines.

Next, I added the scallops to a bowl and then added the mayo from the fridge. I gave the scallops and mayo a quick toss to coat and then spooned the creamy mixture into the terrines.

Next, I covered the scallop mixture with Panko (Japanese bread crumbs) and chopped green onions.

I added the scallops to the oven and broiled them until the Panko was turning brown and the mayo had started to bubble every so slightly.

Now, I served the dish alongside sushi rice, but I think it would be far better to serve the scallops atop the rice. The combination of the crunchy Panko, spicy sancho, creamy mayo and the ever so slightly briny scallops is amazing. The sticky rice cuts the richness of the dish ever so slightly and the green onions provide a gorgeous bit of vegetale acid on the end.

This is a fun dish, and super easy to make. If anyone out there has any variations, I’d love to hear them.

Enjoy.

Will

There is something uncanny about the call of chicken wings in January. Whether it’s the Pavlovian combination of football, beer, and long bouts of time holed up in the house, or the warming comfort of spicy wings – as well as the effort to eat them – the dog days of Winter is the ideal time to perfect the oft-bastardized art of The Wing.

I’m not typically one for hyperbole, but if you’re a wing fan, and especially if you’re a spicy wing fan, the following recipe is the one to end all recipes. I shouldn’t recount it in detail, here; I should bottle it and sell it  at county fairs.

Why, you might ask, do they deserve this distinction?

I’m a closet fan of wings, but have grown extremely tired of the prevalence of the “buffalo wing” – you know, the rubbery, underdone (often poorly fried) skin and flesh, and that piercing vinegar hot sauce flavor of Tabasco.  I have nothing against Tabasco, but I think wings can be a whole lot more. What makes these wings really stand out is the complex, but far more savory, flavor of the Sambal – the famed Southeast Asian chili garlic sauce available for sale in most Asian markets, and increasingly, in our banal neighborhood stores.

Combine this magic ingredient with the cooking method I used below, and the result is a fall-off-the-bone wing with sticky-crispy flesh, elevated but reasonable mouth heat, and a depth of flavor not often found in your common pub or wing-shack grub.

Full disclosure, the basic idea for these emanated from the wings served at Rick’s Press Room in Meridian, Idaho. Rick made a version of these on the food network show Diners Drive-ins & Dives (what I believe is, quietly, one of the best shows on the food network for Guy’s subtle kitchen play-by-play and focus on real cooks).

I took a few notes during the show, jotted down a few potential modifications, and vowed one day to test them out. Yesterday was that day.

I decided to go against the cooking guidance from Rick and make the entire batch in my 14′ cast iron skillet. This method takes a little longer, but it produced the best wings I’ve ever had. If you’re patient, you’ll receive quite a reward.

I’m going to list the ingredients here as they are called for in the cooking process:

• 20 wing pieces (a good mix of wings and drumettes)
• 1.5 tablespoons salt
• 1 generous pinch of black pepper
• 2 teaspoons onion powder
• 1 teaspoon smoked, hot, Paprika

1. Add wings to a large bowl.

2. Whisk together salt, pepper, onion powder, and paprika.

3. Shake mixed spices over chicken and toss to coat evenly.

4. Add enough oil to the cast iron skillet just to cover the bottom with a thin layer. Heat to medium high.

5. When oil is hot, add wing pieces to the skillet and brown on both sides. The timing here will depend on your stove and your pan, but it should take about 1-2 minutes per side.

6. Remove wings to a large glass or metal bowl, cover lightly with foil and set aside.

7. Pre heat oven to 400 degrees F. NOTE: Cooking time is a touchy subject. Ovens, ranges, stove tops, fire pits – whatever device you may use to cook your food – very greatly from one to the next. The key, here, is to listen to your nose and your eyes. I know, it’s a strange idea. But your eyes will tell if you if something is moving too quickly  – bubbling too aggressively, for instance. Your nose will tell you of something is burning, or is close to burning. Pay attention to these senses and adjust your temps if they just don’t seem right. It’s better to slow your food down then start fresh because the batch you’re working on is burnt to a crisp.

Turn the skillet to low, or, if it’s bordering on smoking hot, remove it to a cool burner. The cast iron will hold quite a lot of heat, so don’t worry about it going cold. Next, I added the following ingredients to large bowl:

• 3/4 cup cider vinegar
• 1/2  cup rice wine vinegar
• 4-5 heaping tablespoons sambal (red chili garlic paste)
• 1/2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 cup minced (macerated in a food processor is better) green onion
• 1 teaspoon turmeric (great for adding color and depth of flavor)

1. Add the ingredients to the bowl and give the ingredients a gentle whisk.

2.Return to the skill to the heat, pour in the ingredients from the bowl and simmer, on med-low, until the sauce starts to bubble and thicken – likely about 5-8 minutes. Depending on the heat, the cooking vinegar is going to give off quite a strong smell. Don’t worry about it. Turn on the fan and think of the joy to come.

3. When the sauce has thickened, pour it into the bowl over the chicken wings. Grab a rubber spatula to pick up all the stubborn bits of sauce and small charred pieces. NOTE: cast iron skillets are heavy and typically very hot after being on the stove or in the oven. Be sure to use pot holders to handle your skillet when pouring its contents into the bowl. If your skillet is too heavy for you, have a friend scrape out the sauce into the bowl while you provide a secure grip on the handle and the opposite side of the pan.

4. After a quick toss in the bowl, making sure to cover all the pieces thoroughly with sauce, return entirety of ingredients to the skillet.

5. Arrange the wings around the pan so that there is little overlap.

6. Cover the skillet in foil and add to the hot oven.

7. Set a timer for 45 minutes.

While I’m a believer that wings should stand on their own, I do think a great dipping sauce can vastly improve the wing-eating experience. This is especially true when consuming spicy wings, where some sort of cooling sauce can make the difference between bliss and, well, serious pain.

At this point, I focused on my sauce.

• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 3 tablespoons minced yellow onion
• 1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
• 1 heaping tablespoon mayonnaise
• 2-3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce, depending on taste
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1-2 teaspoons black pepper

1. Mix above ingredients and adjust to taste. You may find you want more cheese, more Worcestershire, more pepper – or even more sour cream to offset any extremes in in the previous ingredient list.

2. Once you’ve mixed this thoroughly, cover with plastic film and add to the fridge.

When the timer goes off, pull the skillet out, lift the foil (careful, there will be steam) and take a look at your little babies. The sauce should be bubbling calmly and the wings should be glistening, and breaking down. Gently turn the wings with thongs, careful not to tear any of the tender flesh away from the bone.

Turn the oven down to 225 degrees and cook uncovered 10 minutes longer.

Once the second timer goes off,  turn on your broiler to high. Broil the wings, uncovered, for 4 minutes, checking frequently to make sure they do not burn. The last-step broil will ensure the sauce thickens and the wings receive one last crisping before serving.

Remove the skillet from the oven, and let cool, lightly tented with foil, for 3-5 minutes. While the skillet will be very hot, serving the wings within it at the table on a solid trivet, and with tongs for removing the wings, makes for a nice touch.

Serve with cold tecate beer (in the can, and with lime) and the blue cheese dipping sauce.

Please let me know how it turned out and of course if you found any ingredient or recipe modifications that worked for you.

Enjoy.

Serve

As with most recipes on this site, this dish started with a single ingredient and a dream. In this case, the ingredient in question was  Kaffir Lime Leaves. I bought them at my favorite spice store in the country – Savory Spice here in Colorado. Kaffir lime leaves, for those of you who aren’t familiar, provide a faint floral-herbal sweetness that acts as an incredible base for sauces. I’d bought a few recently (with no other intention in mind then having them on hand) and, after my move to Denver, opened the cupboard to see them staring back at me on a cold winter day. A mere two shelves up sat a can of coconut milk. I had my start. Coconut milk and kaffir lime sauce. I wanted some heat as well, though, so I looked to my growing chili collection and found Korean red chili threads, which I’ve found provide a subtle and balanced heat without much chili flavor. Perfect.

I now had the foundation of my sauce, but a sauce for what!? I began, as I always do, to turn circles in my kitchen – the confused pirouette of over abundant options.

I next spied my new crock pot, which actually wasn’t all that new. I’d received it as a Christmas gift a year prior. As I had no room in my then tiny galley kitchen, I gave it a place of honor at the top of my giant box collection within my storage closet. There it remained until my move to Denver, and a new plethora of cupboard space allowed me to work it in to my routine.

Crock pots as you all well know are intended for slow, often absentee cooking. I knew I wanted a protein, and so I ran through my options – what protein could I add to the crock pot for a day without having to worry about it? Pork, of course. And more specifically, pork shoulder. Pork shoulder is a versatile and affordable cut of meat. It contains a significant amount of marbling, which means that the meat remains most after long cooking times, and, because of this, it’s quite difficult to screw up. I recommend experimenting with it.

On to the two-day process, which, I promise, is less arduous then it sound as most of the time is spent waiting.

Day 1

I went to my local whole foods butcher about bought a three-pound bone in pork shoulder for $7.80.

When I arrived home, I whipped up a quick brine (recipe below) and added the pork shoulder (trimmed of some, but not all fat) to it for an overnight bath. At the same time, I began on my sauce. I wanted it to sit overnight to allow the subtler flavors of chili and the kaffir lime leave to come together and soften in the coconut milk.

I started off by rendering out the chili threads in a small bit of oil. The compound in chilis that make them hot is called capsaicin and its fat soluble, meaning one can conjure chili’s unique “chili-ness”  by cooking them in hot fat. I used a small amount of light vegetable oil so that I could crank the heat and not impart any one particular oil flavor into the mix. After about 30-45 seconds, I added two cloves of crushed (not minced) garlic to the fat and cooked for another 30-45 seconds until the garlic was just golden (at this point, remove the garlic. I added crushed cloves because they are much easier to remove and discard).

I then removed the pan from the heat and added in one can of coconut milk, 8 kaffir lime leaves, a teaspoon of ginger and two tablespoons of thai fish sauce (a must have for any kitchen – I’d put it in cereal if I could, and well, I may). I added this mixture back to the heat on a robust simmer for about five minutes and then removed again from the heat and let it come to room temperature. I poured this mixture into a bowl, covered with plastic wrap and let sit in the fridge overnight.

Day 2

The next morning, I removed the pork from the brine and patted dry with paper towel. I let the shoulder come up to room temperature and then added to the crock pot – fat side up- on medium cook and set the timer to seven hours. Yep, seven hours. This gave me plenty of time to do important things, like break down moving boxes in the snow-covered alley outside my new house.

Now, when cooking a pork shoulder that long, you’ll be amazed at how volume shrinks. Most of the fat will render to the bottom of the pot and the top will begin to take on nice browned color. Once the timer goes off, remove the shoulder from the pot, tent with foil on a cutting board, and let sit.

Turn your attention to the sauce. I removed it from the fridge, brought it up to a warm temperature in a sauce pan. Once it is warm, not hot, I removed and ran the mixture through a sieve, which ridded the sauce of the leaves, the chili threads, ginger and other matter. I was left with a silky smooth sauce, redolent of lime leaf, ginger and garlic, with light, nutty sweetness of coconut milk. I added this back to the sauce pan on simmer to await it’s date with the pork shoulder.

At this point, the pork shoulder was rested adequately. I removed the foil, grabbed a fork and began to pull gently on the meat, in essence shredding it. Add the shredded pork to a plate and set aside.

Heat vegetable oil in a pan until it’s quite hot and then, in batches, add the shredded pork. The hot fat in the pan, mixed with the natural fat of the pork shoulder will brown and crisp the meat almost instantly. You don’t want to burn it, so watch it closely and work quickly to move through all the shredded meat.

This, to me, is the beauty of pork shoulder. In it’s first life as a slow cooked protein, it was tender and quite juicy, with a full-fat mouth feel. This would be perfect with any starchy, fall vegetables, and indeed it is (try it with roasted sweet potatoes).

However, simply shredding the pork and adding it to the pan provides an entirely new dish. A great deal of the fat is cooked off in the crisping, and the browned shreds take on a smokier flavor.

To finish off the dish, I added cooked white jasmine rice to a ramekin and upended it. I topped the rice with the shredded pork, the Kaffir Chili Milk Sauce, roasted red and yellow peppers and leafy cilantro. Now, for those of you who like more significant heat in your food, you may want to experiment with a different pepper. Korean chili threads are warm, not hot – and warm was exactly the level I was looking for here. You might try a thai green or red chili to bring this up to sweat-on-your-brow heat, but be sure not to let the vegetale or smoky chili flavors to overwhelm the kaffir lime or ginger, which provide incredible balance across the palate.

Lastly, and yet another beautiful aspect of this dish, it would work quite well as a sandwhich. Remove the rice and add these same ingredients to a soft BAP roll, top up your cilantro and voila, you’ve got a fabulous lunch.

Enjoy

Brine Recipe

• 10 cups of water
• 1 cup of kosher salt
• 1 1/4 cup of brown sugar
• 1 whole head of garlic, mash the cloves with the flat side of a knife
• 4 crushed bay leaves
• 1 tablespoon of whole black peppercorns

Combine ingredients in a large pot and bring to a low boil. Remove from heat, let cool to room temperature (I sometimes use ice cubes. Don’t, however, be tempted to put a hot brine in the fridge or freezer, it will adversely affect the temperature of those respective spaces, which can damage your food).
Kaffir Lime Chili Milk Sauce

• 1 can of coconut milk
• 8 kaffir lime leaves
• 2 heaping tablespoons of korean chili threads
• 2 cloves garlic, smashed but in tact
• 1 teaspoon ginger
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce

A simple and savory bread

Wow. It’s been a long time since I’ve added a post. Lot’s of excuses regarding travel and enormous projects, but, dear reader, trust that in my time off I’ve armed myself with a host of new influences, ingredients and recipes.

As my first post back from the long break, I’d like to introduce one of the simplest and most flavorful discoveries I encountered abroad: Zaatar Manakish.

This is a simple bread covered in a mixture of thyme, oregano, salt, savory, mint and sesame seeds – though the variations are endless.

I bought this dry mixture in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, but you can make it at home in a snap. Once you have the dry mixture you like, add a glug of olive oil to make a paste. Set aside a few minutes and then spread over your Manakish.

Manakish is a super simple bread, almost like a pizza dough. I’ll add the recipe here tomorrow.
Once the dough is ready, form it into a rough circle, almost like a pizza, and then spread the zaatar mixture over the bread. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 5-7 minutes and voila, you have an amazing starter, side dish, breakfast pastry.

I typically enjoyed mine with fruit, yogurt and arabic coffee – the recipe for which will also appear on this site in the coming days.

But, as an appetizer, try serving the Zaatar Manikish straight from the oven along with a white cheese and fresh melon.

Enjoy.

The bitterness of the grilled cabbage balances the briny sweetness of the Pollock

A famous joke in Boston goes a little something like this:

A man goes on a business trip to Beantown and for three days all he hears from colleagues is that, before he leaves, he has to try Scrod – a whitefish known in the area. Day and and day out, scrod, scrod, scrod – yet none of the lunch or dinner joints serve it.

So, on his last day in town he finds he has some time to spare before his flight. He jumps in a cab and tells the cabby, “listen pal, I really need to get Scrod before I leave Boston.”

The cabby tips his cap and says “Mr., I’ve been driving a cab in this town for 20 years, but that’s the first time I’ve ever heard anyone ask for that in the plu-perfect subjunctive.”

I considered this joke carefully as I stood at the seafood counter in Boston last week looking at a healthy looking collection of Scrod next to an equally healthy, and strikingly-similar looking, collection of Pollock, the fish, not the artist.

The Scrod – 12.99/pound
The Pollock – 6.99/pound

When I asked the fish monger the difference, she shrugged, leaned over the counter and whispered, conspiratorially, “They taste the exact same to me.” Not exactly the breakdown I was looking for, but at least she was trying to save me money. Furthermore, Pollock was in the “Best Choices” category within my handy wallet-sized Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Guide (I’m not quite I-phone equipped just yet.)

Both Scrod and Pollock are white fish, and most of the research I conducted upon arriving home with my discounted dinner suggested that Scrod can be a young cod, or, on occasion, can be mislabeled as Pollock. Both fish have a light-pinkish/white hue with silvery sheen on the flesh. It’s actually a gorgeous looking fish. It has a strong, but not unwelcome, smell and a slightly strong flavor.

But what to do with it? Well, after having read about his brines (a great seafood brining overview) and then interviewed D.C. local chef Barton Seaver – sustainable seafood expert and soon-to-be chef of D.C.’s new Blue Ridge Restaurant – I was anxious to apply brines to fish. Barton is a big fan, and rightfully so.

I’m amazed I’d never read about this or tried it before. So simple, brining something that comes from the sea. I don’t think I’ll ever cook  fish on the grill again without applying a simple brine to it (well, some fish certainly aren’t amenable to it, there texture or flavors being too delicate, but hey, doesn’t hurt to experiment). Better yet, you only need to brine most fish for about 25 minutes, as opposed to 8 hours-to-overnight with pork and chicken. The fish stays moist and flavorful on the grill, and it also removes, ever so slightly, any of that “fishy” taste that people don’t always love (I’m not among them – I LOVE it.)

So, brined pollock. Done.

It was a gorgeous spring day in Boston and I wanted to hit up the grill. So, I decided to go the fish taco route. Good fish, great veg and a simple sauce, rolled up in corn tortillas. Everyone wins.

My little sister had just opened a gargantuan bottle of sweet lemon iced tea and as soon as I saw it I knew that would be my liquid. I used the simple brining guidance of 2 cups liquid-2 tablespoons Sugar-1 Tablespoon salt, though I cut the sugar back to one tablespoon due to the use of the sweet tea.

I placed the pollock flesh side up in a dish and poured the brine over the top of it – covering it and then adding it to the fridge for about 40 minutes.

While the brine settled, I worked on the “slaw.” I cut up a gorgeous purple cabbage laying about into finger sized slices, then cut up a red and yellow bell pepper, and finally, cut a handful of green onions the lengthwise. I tossed the veg together with some light oil and fired up the grill. When it was smoking hot, I placed the veg on a vegetable grill pan (a fabulous addition for any grilling aficionados out there.)

After the veg had been on the grill about 12 minutes, and all the pieces had a nice char on them, I removed the fish from the fridge and the brine and gave it a quick pat dry with paper towel. I rubbed a bit of olive oil on it and placed it on the grill at medium heat. Now, Pollock is not an oily fish so it’s not THE best choice for grilling, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try it, just that you must pay attention to the heat and the timing, because if you’re distracted it could dry out quickly. I gave it a nice char on either side and left it on the grill for about 6-8 minutes.

At this point, I brought the fish and the veg inside and covered the fish with foil. I then poured all the veg onto a cutting board and gave it a rough chop with a chefs knife. Then, I tossed it back in the bowl and added a bit of salt and pepper, red wine vinegar and just a touch of olive oil. Give it a toss and cover it.

Wrap up your corn tortillas in foil and throw them in a warm oven for about 5 minutes. While they are warming, make your sauce.

I like homemade tartar sauces, and I’m pretty liberal with what I use. For this version I used Mayonaise – 3 tablespoons or so – a heaping teaspoon of catchup – 2 teaspoons of sweet pickle relish – a teaspoon of the juice from a bottle of capers, and about a teaspoon of mashed capers. What came out was a creamy-sweet-briny sauce that I knew would go well as the topper for the fish and slaw.

The next step is the best. Pull apart your grilled fish and place on a platter next to your bowl of slaw. Grab the tortillas from the oven and create your own little assembly line. Super casual, super easy, super-summery deliciousness. And, as you’re using Pollock, you’re neither Scrodding the ocean or getting Scrod at the cash register. Not that you shouldn’t try it next time you’re in Boston…

Fish tacos go well with cold beer, black beans and cold beer. Enjoy.

Kicking off Grilling Season. Photo courtesy of Christina Dugan

Grilling season is back. Despite the spring rain, and the near-constant threat of afternoon storms, the smell of smoke and the char of seasoned steel grates is just too strong to deny.

I love to grill. So much that each season, when winter truly sets in, I go through a little of what I call OSGD, or off-season grilling depression. It’s like seasonal affective disorder, but you’re also hungry for foods you can’t have.

To show you how much I hate NOT grilling, I’ve taken the liberty of altering, ever so slightly, the great B.B. King song, The Thrill is Gone. B.B., plucking away at his guitar as though they were my heartstrings, couldn’t have said it better. Unless, of course, he was singing about Grilling.

The GRILL is gone
The GRILL is gone away
The GRILL is gone baby
The GRILLis gone away
You know you done me wrong baby
And you’ll be sorry someday

The GRILL is gone
It’s gone away from me
The GRILL is gone baby
The GRILL is gone away from me
Although I’ll still live on
But so lonely I’ll be

The GRILL is gone
It’s gone away for good
Oh, the GRILL is gone baby
Baby its gone away for good
Someday I know I’ll be over it all baby
Just like I know a man should

You know I’m free, free now baby
I’m free from your spell (Okay, not true)
I’m free, free now (ditto)
I’m free from your spell (double ditto)
And now that it’s over
All I can do is wish you well

Thankfully, the grill is NOW BACK. And last weekend, to kick of the grilling season, I went with perhaps my favorite grilled chicken dish of all time: Brined Chicken Thighs with Chimichurri.

Although I added in a few breasts for people who don’t like chicken bones (yes, they exist), I LOVE cooking with thighs for a few reasons:

1. They hold up well. The bone inside the chicken acts as a natural conductor of heat, but also helps to keep the flesh moist. So, if you’re distracted, or playing badminton, or whatever, you don’t have to be quite as watchful of the grill in worrying that you’ll make chicken beef jerky.

2. They are CHEAP. I bought what amounted to 34 pieces of chicken thigh for 11 bucks. These were all natural, hormone free birds, too. Not these roid freak water beasts you so often find at grocery stores. So, when you’re cooking for a lot of people, thighs go a long, long way.

3. They are kind of like the mullet of chicken – business in the front, party in the back. In other words, they are like a wing, in that you can serve them and eat them as finger foods (great for a cookout), but those that want to sit down and use a fork and knife will also find enjoyment in the meal.

So, next time you’re grilling, pay special attention to the great grill equalizer that is the chicken thigh.

On to brining.

Brining is something everyone should learn, and a basic brine is a beautiful thing. And, once you’ve found a basic recipe that you like it’s easy to expand on it using different spices. For instance, using Lapsang Souchong, I developed what I believe is the best smoked brine on the planet. Have I tasted all the brines on the planet? No. Which is why I think mine is the best. You can find the recipe, as well as the basic brine recipe for chicken (minus the tea) in my Lapsang Souchong Brine post.

Using the brine recipe, or one that you prefer, brine the chicken for at least 8-10 hours in a large container or cooler surrounded with ice, or in your fridge. A full day is preferable to allow the salt-sugar solution to permeate the chicken meat.

When the chicken is ready, fire up your grill. I add a little veg. oil to the grill when it’s hot and then take the chicken directly out of the brine and place it on the grill. I actually don’t like to rinse the brine from the chicken. But, you should at least pat the pieces dry before placing them on the heat so that you’ll get a nice char on the flesh and won’t cool the surface heat of the grill too much.

I’m always a bit hesitant to provide cooking times, especially for grilling. I can’t possibly know if you’re the slow and steady, indirect charcoal kind of person, or the “I make bullets over my 40,000 BTU gas grill on off days” type. So, I’ll go with a basic recommendation that for bone in thighs, cook the chicken about 15 minutes per side, moving often to avoid flare ups from skin fat dripping into the fire.

On to the Chimichurri. This is a sauce of Argentinean origin, which gauchos favor for use on the country’s beautiful grass fed beef. It’s also quite amenable to sausage – namely chorizo – and chicken.

My favorite thing about this sauce is that you don’t really need a recipe. Below are the base elements, but you should experiment with cumin, curries, red onion, fresh oregano (gorgeous) and other spices. As I know you’ll need at least some place to start, below are the approximations I used to pull it together.

• 2 cups fresh Italian parsley (remove stems)
• 1 cup fresh cilantro (stems removed)
• 1.5 cups extra virgin olive oil
• 1 whole head of garlic (I like a LOT of garlic)
• 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Just throw all this into a food processor and blend up to a level of your own comfort. I like mine just a little chunky, but also love the fully emulsified sauce.

For this dish, I used the Chimichurri as my grilling sauce, but it’s often reserved for the table, where you spoon it directly onto finished meats. As I use quite a lot of garlic, I like to apply just a bit of heat to it as the chicken nears its final turns on the grill. I find this tempers the heat of the garlic without burning, too much, the parsley and cilantro. I brush the Chimichurri sauce onto the chicken with about 5-8 minutes remaining per side, and, when using a gas grill, turn off one whole side to place the brushed pieces upon so that they don’t burn.

Lastly, I place the finished pieces on a cookie sheet, cover with foil and place into a 350 degree oven. This gives the bone-in pieces a little more time to loosen up and also allows me to move on to more time sensitive dishes for the grill such as vegetables.

Serve with cold beer, grilled asparagus and grilled zucchini.

Enjoy.