Seafood Stew with Fennel and Saffron

One of the coolest things about cooking is that you can take ingredients that you think might work together, add them up, and create something new and exciting. The more you experiment, the more you learn about different flavors and textures that work together really well.

One such combination that is pretty classic is that of seafood and saffron - the French bouillabaisse, for example, uses a broth flavored with tomatoes and saffron combined with what is classically considered "unsellable" fish (rockfish, angler fish) and various shellfish such as mussels, clams, and whatever else the fishermen in Marseilles could find.

A while back, I decided to try to make my own seafood stew. It uses slightly more common and easier-to-find fish, it's not as soupy as a classic bouillabaisse, and it has potatoes in it, but the flavors are most certainly there. It doesn't hurt that this is a very easy recipe to put together and can be done in half an hour or less! The seafood stock below is great, but you can easily use store bought stock as well. I like the Kitchen Basics brand.

I like to serve this with either fresh bread (with maybe some salted butter or even a slice of good cheese) or toasted bread that you rub a garlic clove over just after taking it out of the oven.

Seafood Stew with Fennel and Saffron

1 yellow onion
2 cloves garlic
1 bulb fennel
3/4 lb small potatoes (new potatoes work well, as do fingerling potatoes)
1 qt seafood stock (recipe below)
1/2 lb firm white fish such as cod or tilapia
1/2 lb salmon filet
1/2 lb shrimps
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 tbsp dry vermouth
1 tbsp Pastis (optional - made with aniseed which has a very similar taste to fennel and will intensify that flavor in the dish)
1 can (14.5 oz) crushed tomatoes
0.2 g (0.007 oz) saffron
olive oil
salt
black pepper

Start by peeling and dicing the onion. Cut the stems off the fennel bulb and slice into very thin strips. Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion, fennel, and half a teaspoon of salt and cook until the onion is translucent. While the onion and fennel are cooking, mince the garlic. Add to the pot together with the saffron and let cook another minute. Slice the potatoes into 1/2-inch thick slices and add to the pot. Cook, stirring frequently, for about two minutes. Add the wine, vermouth, and Pastis (if using) and let cook for about three minutes.

Add the seafood stock and crushed tomatoes and let cook until the potatoes are soft, about 15 minutes. In the meantime, slice the fish into small strips. Peel and devein the shrimps. Once the potatoes are soft, take the pot off the heat and add the seafood. Cover with a lid and let stand for about three minutes or until the fish is cooked through and the shrimps are pink. Add salt and black pepper to taste and serve immediately.

Seafood Stock

4 cups shrimp shells and heads (or crab shells, or lobster shells, or any combination)
1/2 cup white wine
1 yellow onion
1 large carrot
1 stalk celery
2 tbsp tomato paste
2 sprigs of thyme (fresh)
2 bay leaves
10 whole black peppercorns
1 tsp kosher salt
2 quarts filtered water

Turn your oven to 400 degrees F. Roughly chop the onion, carrot, and celery. Place the vegetables and seafood shells in a large roasting pan and cook for 10 minutes. Place the roasted ingredients together with the wine, tomato paste, thyme, bay leaves, peppercorns, and salt in a large stock pot and cover with the water (you may need to use more or less water than listed above, just use enough to cover all the other ingredients). Bring to a simmer over medium heat, but ensure you never let the stock boil. Do not stir the stock at any point. If you do, there's a risk it will turn cloudy, and you want it to be as clear as possible.

Skim off any fat or foam that rises to the surface with a slotted spoon. Let simmer for about 90 minutes, then strain through a sieve, preferably covered with cheese cloth to catch even the smallest pieces. Let cool and either use right away for the stew or store. You can keep the stock in the fridge for up to three days or in the freezer for up to three months.

I'm back!

Well, about to be back. I've decided to start writing again. Stay tuned in the next few days for my triumphant return. I'll try to update weekly going forward.

I'm excited. Are you excited? You should be excited.

Burgers & Fries

When it gets a little bit warmer (Austin today: 95 degrees F), it's pretty inevitable that the grill gets fired up. The other night, I decided to make some awesome burgers. What goes with awesome burgers? Awesome fries, of course. I have a small deep fryer (we're talking toaster-sized here) which is great, but you can easily do these fries in a large pot on a stove. The main issue is temperature control - if the oil gets too hot, it'll burn the fries before they're cooked through. If it's too cold, they'll come out all soggy and oily and disgusting. The ones I made? Not disgusting. Say it with me: awesome.

I made some Thousand Island dressing to go with the burgers and served them with red onion, tomato, and lettuce. I forgot to put some cheese on top (there's cheese in the patty, though), but you can stick a slice of cheddar, jack, or any other firm cheese on there if you want to! The recipe below makes a meal for two.

Mozzarella-stuffed Burgers with French Fries

3/4 lb ground beef (I used 6% fat)
1 oz mozzarella cheese
1 garlic clove
Salt
Black pepper
Cumin
3 firm potatoes
Peanut oil
Mayonnaise
Ketchup
Sweet relish
White wine vinegar
Sugar
Lettuce
Tomato
Red onion
Burger buns

Start by preparing the potatoes for deep frying. Peel (or don't - up to you, just clean them if you decide not to) the potatoes and place in a large bowl filled with cold water. One by one, cut them up into uniform sticks. It's not super important that they're the exact same size but you certainly don't want them to be too different considering you want them to cook uniformly. Place the fries back in the cold water and add a bunch of ice cubes to keep it really chilly (or just stick the bowl in the fridge) for about an hour.

To make the burgers, put the ground beef, mozzarella, garlic, about a tsp of salt, 1/2 tsp of pepper, and 1/2 tsp of cumin in a large bowl. Stir with your hands or a large wooden spoon until completely combined. Divide the mix into two equal parts and form two burgers. Remember that they'll shrink a bit when cooked, so don't worry about making them a little thin. Cover with plastic wrap and keep in the fridge until ready to grill.

To make the Thousand Island dressing, combine 1/2 cup mayo, 2 tbsp ketchup, 1 tbsp vinegar, 2 tsp relish, 1 tsp sugar, and a dash of salt and pepper in a small bowl. Stir to combine. Done! Also, now would be a good time to slice the tomato and onion.

To ensure everything's ready at the same time, I suggest making the fries while the grill is heating up and then keeping them warm in a 200 degrees F oven while cooking the burgers. Fill your fryer with peanut oil to the adequate depth or, if using a pot on the stove, up to about 3-4 inches. Heat the oil to 325 degrees F. Grab a handful of fries from the water and dry thoroughly with paper towels. Cook in the oil for about 3 minutes, until soft and pale. Remove to a bowl and set aside. Repeat with the remaining fries, making sure you never crowd the pot or fryer.

Fire up the grill! If you have a gas grill, set it to medium heat. If it's charcoal, you can't control temperature as well so I guess just light it and wait until the fire has died and the coal is smoldering.

Increase the oil temperature to 375 degrees F and set your oven to 200 degrees F. Fry the french fries in small batches until browned, again making sure you don't crowd the fryer or pot. Remove to a baking sheet and keep warm in the oven. Once the fries are done, toss with some salt and black pepper in a large bowl.

While the fries are cooking, grill the burgers until they're your preferred temperature. I like mine medium, which takes about 3-4 minutes per side.

Slather some Thousand Island dressing on the bottom bun, then add lettuce, the burger, some red onion, and a slice of tomato. Finish with the top half of the bun and enjoy immediately with the fries.

Sourdough Boule

If you're a frequent reader of this blog, you know that I love to bake. After buying Pete Reinhart's Artisan Bread Every Day, I started playing around with a variety of recipes (mostly for ciabatta and pizza dough) and found that it's very easy to make a great-tasting bread. It really is. It gets easier with a stand mixer, a good oven, a baking stone, and lots of patience, but it's NOT difficult.

Sourdough bread, however, had escaped me for the longest time. I tried to create my own, but apparently there isn't enough viable wild yeast floating around my kitchen to really get it going. That, or I simply suck at making sourdough from scratch. No matter - I purchased some wild starter from Breadtopia, and a few days later, I had my own so-called "mother starter" (at least that's what Reinhart calls it). This thing is incredibly resilient and came alive less than 12 hours after its first "feeding" (addition of water and flour), even after spending a week in the mail on the way to Austin. I keep it in the fridge perpetually and will feed it every week or so, or whenever it gets a little low.

The first recipe I decided to try out was a simple sourdough boule. It is incredibly easy to make, provided you have the necessary equipment: a baking stone, a pizza peel, and a banneton. You don't really need the banneton, but it does help in forming a pretty loaf.

Sourdough Boule

10.5 oz (300g) bread flour
7.25 oz (200g) water at 110 degrees F (43 degrees C)
1.75 oz (50g) sourdough starter
1/8 oz (5g) kosher salt

Add the water and starter to a large bowl. Break up the starter. Add the remaining ingredients and mix thoroughly with your hands or a wooden spoon. You can also do this in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment if you prefer. Lightly flour a work surface. Turn the dough onto the work surface and stretch and fold once. Place in a clean, lightly-floured bowl. Cover with plastic wrap or a clean kitchen towel and let rest for one hour at room temperature.

After an hour, turn the dough back out on the work surface and do another stretch and fold. Place back in the floured bowl and let rest, covered, another hour. After an hour, turn the dough out onto the work surface and do one final stretch and fold, forming a ball from the dough. Lightly flour your banneton. If you don't have one, a bowl lined with a clean, lint-free towel will do the trick. Place your dough ball, seam-side up, in the banneton. At this point you need to place the banneton in the fridge overnight, but it needs to be airtight. A large plastic bag will work, or you can put the banneton in a larger bowl and just cover the top of the bowl with plastic wrap. If you're using a bowl with the towel, just fold the towel on top of the dough and cover with the plastic.


The next day, turn your oven to 450 degrees with your baking stone in the middle and a pan that can take a hit of hot water (such as a cast iron pan or an old, crappy metal pan you don't care about anymore) in the bottom of the oven. Turn the dough out onto a floured pizza peel (or the back of a sheet pan covered with parchment paper). Lightly cover with plastic wrap or a clean towel and let rest for two hours.


After two hours, score the top of the loaf lightly with a sharp knife. Slide the bread onto the baking stone (with the parchment paper if not using a pizza peel). Immediately add about a half cup of hot water to the pan at the bottom of the oven. Close the door and wait for three minutes. Next, place an oven-safe bowl over the loaf. Bake another 15 minutes, then remove the bowl and bake the final 20 minutes. The loaf should be a rich brown and sound hollow if thumped on the bottom.

Let cool on a cooling rack for at least 30 minutes before slicing and serving. And try not to eat the whole damn thing in one sitting.

Note: If your sourdough starter isn't super potent, it's fine to add about a teaspoon of instant yeast to the dough to improve its proofing.

Guinness Beef Stew

Hi, trusted readers! I have (perhaps foolishly) decided to start writing again. After having some people tell me things like the definition of a "hiatus" and others hint that I should "start food blogging again, or else" (among other thinly-veiled threats), I guess the time has come.

St. Patrick's Day happened fairly recently and we all know what that means: green beer and plenty of it. I didn't actually have any green beer myself, but I did make a shepherd's pie (with ground lamb, of course) and "Irish car bomb" cupcakes for dessert. I had some leftover Guinness from the cupcake making and decided to make one of my favorite meals: a proper stew with lots and lots of alcohol in it. I serve this one with garlic-rubbed toast and a horseradish sour cream. It freezes extremely well and tastes even better after a day or two in the fridge! Just reheat in the microwave or in a pot over low heat.

Note that the Guinness can be replaced by a bottle of good red wine. Just reduce the sugar to one tablespoon.

Guinness Beef Stew

1/4 cup olive oil
3 tbsp butter
1 cup AP flour
2.5 lb beef chuck

24 fl oz of Guinness or other stout
8 thyme sprigs
6 garlic cloves, smashed or minced

2 1/2 cups beef stock, preferably homemade
10 small potatoes
1/2 lb carrots
1 lb white mushrooms
1/2 lb peas (frozen are just fine)
2 cups pearl onions (frozen are actually preferable - peeling pearl onions takes forever)
1 orange's worth of zest
1/4 tsp ground cloves
2 bay leaves
salt
black pepper
sugar

Start by browning the meat. Put the flour and a pinch of salt in a large Ziplock bag. Unless the meat is pre-cut, cut it into 1-to-2-inch pieces. Add all the meat to the bag, close it, and shake until everything is coated. In a large frying pan or heavy-bottomed pot, heat the olive oil and butter over medium-high heat. Brown the beef in batches. You're looking for a nice brown crust, but it doesn't matter if it's cooked through or not.

Once all the meat is browned, bring out your biggest pot and add the beer, beef stock, thyme sprigs, garlic, orange zest, and bay leaves. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat and continue to simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes.

Add the meat to the pot and turn the heat down to low. Cover and cook for 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, scrub and quarter the potatoes, peel and cut the carrots into "coins," and clean and halve the mushrooms. After the two hours are up, add the potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, pearl onions, and 2-3 tablespoons of sugar (more if it tastes a little bitter, but don't overdo it) to the pot. Turn the heat up to medium and leave uncovered for another 30 minutes.

Remove the thyme sprigs (most leaves will have fallen off) and bay leaves, and add the peas to the pot. Salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately.

Horseradish Sour Cream

1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup prepared horseradish

Stir the two ingredients together. A dollop of this is awesome with the stew.

Garlic Toast

4 slices of bread
2 garlic cloves
olive oil

Turn your oven to 350 degrees F. Put the bread on a baking sheet without overlapping. Drizzle a little olive oil on each piece. Toast in the oven until golden brown. Peel and halve the garlic cloves. Once the bread has cooled slightly, rub the cut end of the garlic on the side of the toast that you drizzled with olive oil. Serve with the stew.

Crème Brûlée

I finally went and bought myself a blow torch. As far as I'm concerned, Crème Brûlée can only be made using a blow torch, not with a broiler or any other heat element. I'm sure it can be done and the results are fine, but there's something truly special about serving this dessert straight from the fridge, very cold, but with a perfectly crisp layer of melted sugar on top. The picture above was taken before I had finished caramelizing all the sugar; it should be darker and cover the whole surface, but the blow torch is tiny and the flame is small, so it took quite some time!

Crème Brûlée

2 cups heavy cream
8 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar plus about 8 teaspoons more for the caramel glaze
1 tsp vanilla extract

Turn the oven to 325 degrees F. Heat the cream to almost a simmer over medium heat. In the meantime, stir the egg yolks and 1/2 cup sugar in a medium bowl until just blended. Slowly, gradually add the cream. Really, do this slowly - you're looking to make a custard, not scrambled eggs. Strain into a second bowl using a fine-mesh sieve. Add the vanilla and divide in 4 larger or 6 smaller ramekins.

Place a few layers of paper towels in a large, oven-proof glass dish. Place the ramekins on top of the paper towels, making sure they do not touch each other or the sides of the dish (or the bottom, but the paper towels should be taking care of that). Place in the oven and immediately pour scalding hot tap water into the dish (but not into the custard, obviously) until it comes about 2/3 up the side of the ramekins. Cook for about 35 minutes, or until quite set but still quivery in the middle. Remove from the oven and extract from the water bath. Let cool on a cooling rack until the custards are at room temperature. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight or up to two days.

Just before serving, remove the ramekins from the fridge. Evenly sprinkle about 2 teaspoons of sugar over each ramekin of custard and apply heat. You're looking for a dark caramel crust that you have to crack open with a spoon in order to properly eat. As mentioned before, a blowtorch would be ideal for this, but in a bind, you can use your broiler set to high. This will probably heat the custard as well, and the end result won't be as tasty, nor will it be prepared traditionally.

Chicken Noodle Soup

All right, I'll be the first to admit that I have had canned soup from time to time. Canned soup is acceptable. At least when you have a bad cold and can't taste what you're eating. Seriously, canned soup is generally pretty horrible (including the "gourmet" kinds), and the effort it takes to make a good homemade soup is small - tiny, even, if you don't make your own stock. In this recipe, store-bought chicken stock is perfectly fine, and I don't even use the low sodium kind. It is still far, far less salty than a canned soup, costs less per serving, and tastes so much better. SO much better.

Chicken Noodle Soup

2 chicken breasts with rib meat
8 oz dried egg noodles
2 ribs of celery
2 medium carrots
1 medium onion
2 cloves garlic
2 quarts chicken stock, preferably homemade
2 bay leaves
3 sprigs of fresh thyme
2 tbsp olive oil
salt
pepper

First of all, cook your chicken. I find that for soup, the easiest way is to simply boil it. It may not sound appetizing, but the end result is perfect for shredding into the soup. Cover the chicken breasts with cold water in a medium saucepan and cook over high heat until cooked through, about 10 minutes. Check with a knife to ensure juices run clear and no pink remains, then rinse with cold water to stop cooking and prevent them from drying out. Shred or cut into bite-sized pieces when cool enough to handle.

While the chicken is cooking, start with the rest of soup. Cut the celery, onion, and carrots into small pieces, and mince the garlic. In a large stock pot or soup pot, heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Add the vegetables, bay leaves, and thyme and cook, stirring frequently, until the vegetables have softened but are not mushy, about 5 minutes. Add the chicken stock, increase the heat to high, and bring to a boil. Add the noodles and cook until al dente, about 5 minutes. At this point, lower the heat to a simmer and add the shredded chicken. Cook until heated through. Salt and pepper to taste. Remove the bay leaves and thyme sprigs (most of the thyme leaves will have fallen off at this point).

Serve with freshly baked bread or some good crackers.

For an extra kick, the soup can be made with a couple of tablespoons of some dry vermouth or even a splash of white wine. Add together with the chicken stock.