Fish Tacos, of Sorts

July 29, 2011 //
1

Who doesn’t like a good fish taco?

I remember the first time I even heard of the concept of this dish. I was 14 years old and visiting my Uncle Jim in Los Angeles. He had just moved out there from Yonkers and was into West Coast Mexican food, including things I’d never tasted or heard of, like fish tacos. Back then I thought “fish” and “taco” were two things not meant to be together. He drove us out of the way to what was lauded as the best joint in the city for fish tacos and when we arrived I chickened out, opting for a vegetarian burrito I’m sure. (This was the year I decided to go veg.)

Well you live and you learn.

These days, I’d almost get on a plane to fly 3,000 miles to try the fish tacos at such a joint. Except now it would probably be a food truck that I’d have to track down on Twitter.

I love fish tacos for their simplicity. Fresh corn tortillas, fish with a nice char to it, maybe some salsa verde, avocado, and lime. And that’s it. Of course there are many possible variations, and it’s hard to go wrong, but you can keep it basic and still revel in a delicious meal.

Last night I made one such version of the fish taco. Was it authentic? Not at all. Was it good? If I do say so myself. I used whole wheat tortillas, not hand-pressed corn tortillas. I concocted a kind of salsa with black beans, fresh sweet corn, just-picked cilantro, roasted yellow peppers, garlic, red onion, shredded carrots, olive oil, salt, and black pepper. I sautéed some fillets of flounder with salt, pepper, butter, and lemon (lime would’ve been even better but I didn’t have any). It was satisfying, relatively cheap, and took all of 30 minutes to throw together. Turns out fish + taco go together quite nicely.

Holly’s Fish Tacos

Serves 2

1 tbsp butter
10 oz flounder (or other white, flaky fish, such as mahi mahi)
salt
pepper
cayenne or hot red pepper flakes
fresh lemon or lime juice
1/2 c black beans
2 ears of corn, shucked and the corn kernels cut from the cob, uncooked
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
1 clove of garlic, finely diced
1 carrot, shredded
1/4 c roasted red or yellow pepper, diced
1/2 cup cilantro, roughly chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
Whole Wheat Tortillas (any kind of tortilla or soft taco will do)
1 avocado, sliced

Heat a skillet with 1 tbsp butter. (But if you have access to an outdoor grill, use it instead.) Wash the fish and pat dry, then season with salt, black pepper, and red pepper. When the pan is hot add the fish and brown on both sides for about 5 minutes per side on medium heat. You want the fish to be cooked through, but still flaky and moist. Toward the end of its cooking squeeze some fresh lemon or lime juice onto the fillets.

While that’s cooking, combine the black beans, raw corn kernels, red onion, garlic, carrot, pepper, and cilantro. Dress with the olive oil and some more fresh lemon or lime juice (maybe 1 tbsp or so). If you’d like to mellow out the raw garlic a little you can let it sit in a small amount of olive oil before combining with the other ingredients. I do this for 5-10 minutes to take the edge off.

Heat your tortillas one by one on your stove’s burner over a low flame. You must keep a close eye on them so they don’t burn or catch fire. I heat them for 30 seconds to 1 minute on each side. For a crispier tortilla turn the heat up a little bit, but again, don’t turn your back on these because they’ll char quickly.

When the tortilla is hot, transfer to a plate, and fill with some of the fish, the black bean-corn salsa, and slices of avocado. You can add salsa verde or any kind of salsa if you’d like.


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Categories Avocado, Beans, Fish, Savory, Tacos

July Blues

July 28, 2011 //
1

You might say I’m in my blue period.

After all, it is late July, the season for plump, sweet, sun-ripened blueberries: in yogurt, pancakes, smoothies, popsicles, on their own, in a cobbler, crumble, or pie. Heck there’s a farm-vineyard in Vermont that makes dry blueberry wines.

So what to do with three pounds of just-picked blueberries?

What I usually do when I need kitchen advice: turn to Bittman.

How to Cook Everything has a crowd-pleaser of a cobbler. Bitty credits it to his friend, food writer and former Gourmet and Cooks Illustrated editor John Willoughby, who came across the recipe in the south years ago. It’s the perfect dessert to tuck into with vanilla ice cream after some barbecue, corn-on-the-cob, burgers, or some other summer, picnicky food.

But I wanted to see what another trusted friend in the kitchen had to say about the blues: Joy of Cooking. First printed in 1931, some 60 years before Bittman’s tome, I wondered if Joy might offer different wisdom on the blueberry. Well Joy covers the basics: freezing, canning, how to pick, and jam, muffins, and pie. Nothing fancy. This was after all, a time when fruit was fruit and not yet appearing in cocktails, reductions, or panna cotta gelée.

So my next challenge: the Blueberry Custard Tarts from Joy, made with a pâte sucrée. I’ve got the blues, now all I’ll need are 3-inch tart shells.

Blueberry Cobbler, from How to Cook Everything

4 to 6 c blueberries
1 c sugar, or to taste
8 tbsp (1 stick) cold, unsalted butter, cut into bits, plus more for greasing the pan
1/2 c all-purpouse flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

  1. Preheat the oven to 375F. Toss the fruit with half the sugar, and spread it in a lightly buttered 8-inch square or 9-inch round baking pan.
  2. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and 1/2 c sugar in the container of a food processor and pulse once or twice. Add the butter and process for 10 seconds, until the mixture is well blended. By hand, beat in the egg and vanilla.
  3. Drop the mixture onto the fruit by the spoonful; do not spread it out. Bake until golden yellow and just starting to brown, 35 to 45 minutes. Serve immediately.

Blueberry Custard Tarts, from Joy of Cooking

For the pâte sucrée:

Six 3-inch tart shells
1 c all-purpose flour
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
Work into it as you would for pastry, using a pastry blender or the tips of your fingers:
6 tbsp softened butter
Make a well, and add:
1 egg yolk 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp lemon juice or water

Stir with your fingers until the mixture forms one blended ball and no longer adheres to your hands. Cover it and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Roll to 1/8-inch thickness as for pie dough. Line the tart pans with this dough. Prick and weight down with beans or pebbles. Bake in a 400F oven 7 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Unmold the pastry shells and cool on a rack.

For the filling:

Fill tarts with a mixture of:
1 quart blueberrires
1/2 c sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice
Bake about 10 minutes. Remove from oven. Cook and stir over—not in—boiling water until thickened:
1/2 c cream
3 beaten egg yolks
1/2 c sugar
1/8 tsp salt
Cool the custard and pour it over the slightly cooled tarts. Continue to cool and top with whipped cream.


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Categories Desserts, Summer

Hot Town, Lobster in the City

July 21, 2011 //
0

Few items conjure the pleasures of summer, roadside food, and the seashore the way a lobster roll can. At least not if you’re anywhere even close to New England. I don’t know if this applies to people in California or Colorado, to say nothing of our friends in Japan or France. (Is this purely a New England food fetish?)

The area of New England I spent parts of my childhood in was landlocked (well there’s a lake on one side), yet even I am nostalgic for cold and creamy lobster on a split bun.

Like pesto, corn on the cob, peaches, strawberries, watermelon, and tomatoes, lobster rolls are best when eaten in season, when it’s muggy if possible, and on the hood of your car, at a picnic table, or on a picnic blanket.

Tonight I ate my first of the season, and hopefully not my last. It wasn’t eaten on a car or a blanket, but my tongue didn’t seem to mind. It was New York City, the West Village to be precise, far from the fish shacks of Cape Cod, Maine, or Long Island.

Pearl Oyster Bar opened on Cornelia Street in 1997. Its proprietor, Rebecca Charles, named the place for her Grandma Pearle, with whom she’d summer in Maine throughout her childhood. Chef Charles maintains that before Pearl, there was no lobster roll on the island of Manhattan. I’m willing to believe that.

It’s 2011, however, and lobster rolls abound. You can buy them off food trucks on Varick Street, at a fish monger’s in Chelsea Market, or near a wharf in Red Hook. There’s Luke’s Lobster and Ed’s Lobster and Urban Lobster. Then of course there’s Smorgasburg in Williamsburg and the Brooklyn Flea and I’m sure Tom Colicchio is serving them up on the HighLine somewhere. The city has become lobsterfied. I’m waiting for David Chang to concoct a version of the dish – perhaps it would be made with Japanese mayo and served with pickles on Chinese steamed buns. Hmm, I shouldn’t give away that idea for free.

And why doesn’t Danny Meyer serve these suckers at Shake Shack? My guess is because the lines are already too long.

Yuji and I met for an after-work dinner and found ourselves in front of IFC on 6th Ave. in the Village. It was so bloody hot I proposed just hopping into the theater to see Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams. But we were both so hungry it would’ve required a large tub of popcorn to take the edge off. I mentioned I was craving calamari and Yuji said he also wanted seafood. We remembered Pearl around the corner and poked our heads in to check the damage.

Pearl has a reputation for being not only the best place for lobster rolls in the city (and an excellent place for all sorts of other seafood), but also one of the busiest, even at 7 pm. It has an early evening crush due to the post-work clientele of men in collared shirts with loosened ties and women in heels wishing for flip flops, as well as dads at the bar teaching their kids how to clean steamers, and lone diners relishing in the luxury of well, dining alone at Pearl.

Our bucket of steamers arrived three minutes after we placed the order. There’s a ritual to steamers: pry open the shell, pull what can only be called foreskin from the foot of the clam, bathe in the little bowl of water provided to you, dip in butter, deposit into mouth. I forgot all about the lemon. Who needs lemon when you have buttery clams? Yuji and I devoured 12 in less than that many minutes.

Next came our Caesar salad, cold and crisp and drenched in anchovy dressing and garlic. The tiny croutons were just the crunch the salad needed. I know, who needs salad when you’ve got lobster coming? I happen to love a good Caesar and think the flavors complement a seafood course well. Besides, Caesar is not a feeble salad, it packs a punch, and I think it says a lot about a restaurant.

Then it came. The top-split buttery brioche hot dog roll with chunks of lobster meat dressed in creamy mayo, salt and pepper, and I’ll be damned if there was celery, lettuce, or a sprig of anything green in sight. Traditional. Why mess with a good thing? Therein lies the success of Pearl. I’m glad there’s room for both in this world—a Changian lobster bun as well as the classic. The fries are spaghetti-thin and come with vinegar and ketchup. And the gazpacho, adorned with (more) lobster meat and two cold, poached shrimp, was refreshing and crunchy and right on the money. I could’ve danced all night.

So yes, it was good. It was everything I’d hoped for since I walked in Pearl’s door at 7:03 and couldn’t believe the luck of the man at the bar with a lobster roll and fries in front of him. All to himself. Does it get better than that? I had to brace myself for the possibility we’d never get a table. I didn’t think I could be so lucky on this hottest day of the year, when the temperature hit 98 if not 100 and instead of dipping my toes off a dock somewhere I was dragging them on the pavement. I think I even stepped in melted chewing gum today.

Well New York: you did good. Thank you Pearl Oyster Bar. You make being in this city more bearable on nights like this. Pleasurable, even.

Categories French Fries, Lobster, Summer
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