Vegetarianism, Fish, Lamb, Scallops and, strangely, Gordon Ramsay

My wife has returned to vegetarianism. This was kind of an unexpected turn. I wanted to explain to her that vegetarianism can be cured by eating meat, but this seemed like a bad idea. Luckily she isn’t expecting me to become a vegetarian as well, although there are a lot of vegetarian dishes that I love and cook on a regular basis, and she will still eat fish occassionally. Initially, I thought this would be a huge drag (especially since I just bought a whole 12 pound NY strip loin that I cut into steaks), but so far it’s working out well. She did tell me that she feels better already (after about ten days) and she said it without sounding smug. (Nothing worse than a born-again vegetarian.)

The unexpected upside is that I’m now allow to eat whatever I want so long as there are enough things to make up an adequate vegetarian meal for her. I’m normally against cooking multiple entrees, particularly on a week night, because it takes more time, dirties more pots, etc. But I’ve done it a few times and am actually excited about the possibilities. As I mentioned, she will eat fish occasionally, but the big issue is that she doesn’t really like fish that much, and tends to prefer the milder sorts of fish. I, on the other hand, love fish. In fact I love all kinds of fish including a lot of the darker and oilier ones that a lot of people find too strong and some of the scary things like skate wing. So now I find myself with an opportunity to cook fish more often and so far I’ve been taking advantage of it. Recently, I made her a mushroom stew, with mushrooms, onions, garlic, and thyme, which I served over polenta. I sautéed a piece of orange roughy for myself, served it on polenta and stole just enough of the mushrooms to use as a topping to the fish. We both had some sautéed yellow and green baby zucchini with basil and garlic on the side. We were both more than pleased with the results. (The baby zucchini were from the farmer’s market and were incredibly good.)

The next night was faux-Chinese. I made tofu in black bean sauce, stir fried Italian kale with red chiles, ginger, and garlic, steamed rice, and steamed fish with scallions, ginger, soy and sesame oil. It’s one of the simplest fish preparations and also one of the best. You get subtle flavoring from the aromatics and the purity of the fish comes through. I hadn’t steamed a fish in ages and it was so incredibly good. Now, I need to track down some oily fish or skate wing.

The other thing that I’ve missed for a long time is lamb. It’s absolutely my favorite red meat. But my wife would never eat it because it was in the “cute animal” food group (along with duck, venison, rabbit and other furry and cuddly things). Tonight, I’m having lamb. At least I think so. I’m not going shopping until later and I don’t know if I’ll find something that’s up to snuff. I’m hoping to get some kind of lamb that I can marinade quickly and grill, but I can get her Portobello mushrooms. (That’s the other interesting thing. I like mushrooms a lot, but she loves mushrooms and is more than happy to eat more of them). So this may really work out after all. The irony is that she’s told me all along that I could cook whatever for me and she’s fine with something else, but I was always the one to refuse. Now it’s opened a whole new door.

I’ve made a whole lot of other great things of late as well, but haven’t written about them. One of them was something that my wife loved and may be requested for her birthday, so she asked me to write about it so I don’t forget it. I was heading home a little late from work and didn’t want to cook anything too involved because I didn’t want to wait. I had some scallops at home (big sea scallops) and stopped to get some white mushrooms but they were out. So I picked up some shitakes instead and a loaf of bread. I cut a carrot and an onion into brunoise (tiny dice for you non-geeks), sweated them in olive, cut the shitakes in half and then sautéed them quickly, deglazing them with a little white wine and the juice form half and orange. I seared the scallops in a pan with a little olive oil, plated the vegetables in the center of two plates, and then put the cooked scallops on top. I had the other half of the orange left, so I deglazed the scallop pan with orange juice, reduced it and then added a dab of butter to mount it. The sauce went over and around the scallops and I served the bread on the side. I don’t know why I decided to use orange instead of lemon, but it made all the difference. It was incredibly simple, but shows what you can do quickly with good ingredients.

I think the scallops were influenced by reading Gordon Ramsay’s A Chef for All Seasons. Many (most?) people know him as the loud, rude chef from Hell’s Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares, but the guy can cook, really cook. His book has a lot of the things you would expect form a top chef: cook things that are in season, buy great ingredients, etc. Nothing new in that. Every celebrity chef gives that same advice (because it’s true). But his food is really well done. It’s clever without being ostentatious and doesn’t get overly complicated (well for the most part). He also cooks a lot of fish. In fact he likely has more recipes for fish than for various meats. It was interesting to see that his food really is as good as his reputation would suggest. He has a talent for creating dishes that look good, are relatively easy to make and make sense. There’s nothing done for flash or show. All the elements of his dish make sense, even when he mixes seemingly unrelated ingredients. I really should look at more of his food.