A Very Fishy Story

I used to call myself a foodie. I don't anymore. a foodie, according to Urban dictionary:

Foodie

A douchebag who likes food.

Douchebag - "I'm a big foodie."
Non-doucher - "Really? I like food too, but I'm not a tool." 

I just really really like food. When I'm celebrating? Food. When I'm showing off? Food. When I've had a tough week? Food. Last week was an exceptionally hard week. With home renovations well underway, everyone's patience wears a bit thin so I did what I normally do; Food. Oh and martinis. Before I started in on martinis I popped down to one of my favorite local shops that amazingly keeps the prairies in fresh seafood. Really. Pacific Fresh Fish is like a food-aholic's Nordstrom, or  Nieman's - you get the drift, although when I go, no one has to hold my purse. This time I came home with not one treat, but three; tuna, oysters and scallops. OK, I was hungry AND deeply agitated by my week!

Tuna, I love tuna. fresh, red and begging to be eaten. I started with tuna.

 

This tuna was fresh and amazing so I simply cut it into a small dice (brunoise) with a very sharp knife. Chop some green olives, capers and roasted red pepper in the processor, mix with the tuna, sprinkle with lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste (be sure to taste since the olives and capers add a good deal of salt. Set aside in the fridge while you make the cornets.

I used Thomas Keller's recipe for these wonderful crispy cornets that you will fill with the tuna mixture. The only thing I did not do in that recipe was to create a stencil, I used a small offset spatula and created my own near circles because I just didn't have anything to make a stencil with.

 

 

They are a little tricky to get right at first but after rolling the first couple around the cone molds, they came out pretty darned close to the originals I had at the French Laundry!

I then stuffed them with the tuna (once completely cooled), topped with a little lumpfish roe and garnished with chives.

 

Next up we had oysters. Oysters on the half shell with a cucumber mignonette.  Fresh lovely and delicious. Not much else to say about them as fresh briny oysters have a voice all their own. These were Malaspina. We'd never had them before but I like them better than the Malpeque.

 

The mignonette was simply rice wine vinegar, a pinch or two of sugar, a hit of fish sauce, finely chopped cucumber and a tiny bit of hot sauce.

As if we hadn't had enough, I next did the scallops. I love big fat fresh sea scallops and these really hit the mark!

This dish was pretty amazing. I had home cured and smoked some side pork bacon recently, using ample maple syrup, crushed coriander seed and black pepper. It's a lovely sweet flavor with back notes of heat and smoke. I sliced it and rendered it slowly in a saute pan until nice and crispy. Them remove the bacon to drain on a paper towel, dump the fat and saute some thin slices of shallot right in the same pan. When the shallots are nearly translucent, heat another pan with a bit of canola oil and butter. I use canola since it allows the taste of the butter to come through but raises the smoke point so you can get a good sear.

Sear the scallops well on both sides when the pan is hot. A good sear is the nicest thing you can do for a fresh sea scallop! Meanwhile, remove the shallots from the pan and throw in a few splashes of marsala, swirling the pan to reduce. You can throw in small knobs of cold butter at this point if desired for a smooth shiny sauce.

Place scallops on the plate, top with slices of shallot and a piece of bacon and drizzle sauce over. Garnish with chives, cause hey, you have to have something green, right?

I hope you enjoy these dishes as much as we did. Of course the cook was having cocktails throughout. I made these snappy little rum-laden pina coladas to keep the cook happy.

 

If I have any suggestions for working with fish dishes; it's freshness counts and keep it simple. Too many flavors mask the lovely freshness of the fish. Except bacon. Bacon ALWAYS gets a waiver.