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.

January 20th - Vegetarian Indian Food

January 20th – Vegetarian Indian Food

After eating a fair amount of pork the last two days, I decided I wanted something vegetarian. I still had some of the Palak Paneer from earlier in the week. I wasn’t sure if it was enough for an entire meal but decided to make a few other dishes. I had bought a couple of heads of cabbage because I decided to try and make homemade sauerkraut (much to my wife’s terror). I couldn’t get as much into the bucket I was using as I thought I could, so I had some cabbage to work with.

There is a great cooked cabbage salad recipe in Mangoes and Curry Leaves by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid, which consists of cabbage, shallots, curry leaves, turmeric, cumin seeds, green chilis, coconut and lime juice. It’s easy to make and straight forward, and although it’s spiced, doesn’t mask the naturally sweet flavor of the cabbage. It doesn’t require any sautéing. You cut and wash the cabbage and put it in a pot with the other ingredients (minus the coconut and lime juice) and cook it on high for about 2-3 minutes and then turn it down to a simmer for about 10 minutes. The water that clings to the cabbage is enough to cook the whole dish. At the end you add the flaked coconut which absorbs any liquid left ad then squeeze lime juice over it. You can make it start to finish in about 20 minutes and it’s a great side.

The other dish was a cooked carrot dish from Kerala. For this dish, you sauté cumin seeds, black mustard seeds, onion, garlic, green chili, and curry leaves briefly. When they’ve softened but not browned, you add a bunch of grated carrots and toss it all together. Let it cook for about 30 seconds and then turn the heat off and stir in some yogurt. The carrots should be partly cooked, but not completely. As simple as it is, it’s something that never fails to blow me away. It’s another dish that you can throw together in a few minutes, but is substantial and satisfying.

I made some basmati rice and mounded that in the center of the plate and put a portion of the other dishes around the rice. Between the palak paneer, the cabbage and the carrots, we had an incredibly filling meal. The colors were beautiful as well. The carrots were deep orange, the cabbage yellow from the turmeric, and the palak paneer was a deep bright green.

A couple of the dishes were hot and I was ready to try out my newly kegged brown ale with it, but had picked up a bottle of the Deschutes Buzzsaw Brown Ale and wanted to try that. It’s a very nice brown. It’s 30 IBU’s and only 4.8% alcohol. It’s very clean with a decent malt backbone. It’s a terrific session beer but lacks some of the malty sweetness I like in brown ale. Theirs is a different interpretation of brown ale than mine. Mine is sweeter than Newcastle Brown, but theirs is less sweet. When you bit into the chilis, I preferred the sweet malt of mine instead of the Buzzsaw Brown, but the Buzzsaw Brown is a well made and delicious beer (and probably better with a host of other things where you don’t want or need a sweet malt finish). With the recent hype over Deschutes’s Abyss Barrel Aged Imperial Stout on my brew clubs list serve, the Buzzsaw Brown seems to have gone completely unnoticed, which is a shame because it’s a beer of great subtlety and finesse.