I'm Back! Soft Shell Crabs

Why hello there! It's been almost 5 months since my last post... I promised to come back in January, and then I let the blog fall out of my routine. To my readers, I am very sorry for disappearing for so long. Life has seemed to pick up pace in 2013, and what was meant to be days between recipes quickly turned into months. If you'll find it in your food blog reading hearts to forgive me, I'll try to get back into the groove and post more regularly.

Quick Dish - Quick Post: Swordfish on Flavor Filled Corn

A very simple dish which I made this summer was grilled swordfish on a bed of corn peaches and sage.  The brevity of the post reflects the speed of the dish (I made it so fast, we didn't get in any pictures!)

All I did was rub the fish with some salt and pepper, and grill it for about 7 minutes a side until the flesh bounced back to the touch. For the corn salad, I halved and peeled a peach and grilled it alongside the corn, which I had shucked and rubbed with olive oil. Once they were cooked, I cut the kernels off of the cob, chopped up the peach, and finely chopped some sage. I mixed the three with a little salt and pepper and served the fish on top. In total the meal took about 20 minutes to make, and the flavors were bold and unexpected! Highly recommended for a quick dinner that will impress.

Grilled Peaches and Pork

No matter the season, a grill brings out the best flavors in ingredients. Whether meat or vegetable or even fruit, putting food on the grill creates a unique smoky and charred flavor that can't be truly replicated indoors. For this dish, I married sweet, caramelized peaches with rich smoky pork to create a sweet and savory blend of flavors the exemplified why grilling is such a good method of cooking. Along with some grilled corn and a fresh fennel, orange, and arugula salad this meal was a grilled summer classic.

Pretzels, Mustard, and Salmon

Earlier this summer, my roommate was in Alaska, visiting his sister. While he was there, he went salmon fishing and caught 6 salmon! He had the fish filleted and frozen and sent home to NYC. I am fortunate enough that he is very generous and offered up some of the fish for me to use. The salmon was a beautiful red color. Much darker than any fish you would buy in the supermarket.

Martha's Vineyard, Part III: Steamers and Lobstah!

No Vineyard vacation is complete without a steamers and lobster dinner. On our final night, I made a New England feast! We started the night by watching a gorgeous sunset, and then came home to eat a crustacean delight.

Martha's Vineyard, Part II: The Tastes of Summer

On the second night of our time in MV, I wanted to feature some of the great flavors of the summer. To start, I made some fried calamari as an appetizer. I bought some tubes and bellies, sliced the tubes into rings, and coated them with flour, salt, pepper, and sugar. I heated canola oil, and fried the calamari in batches until they were cooked through and crispy. Calamari can get a little rubbery if overcooked, so I was careful to leave them in long enough to start browning, but not too long so they dried out. While they were frying, I made a honey-soy glaze for an Asian feel. I chopped ginger and scallion and sauteed them in olive oil. I then added mirin (rice vinegar), white soy sauce, and honey and let the mixture cook down to a thick glaze. Once the calamari was done, I tossed it in the glaze and served. Delicious!

Impressing My Girlfriend's Friends

I heard from my girlfriend that one of her co-workers was a fan of the blog and wanted to get a meal cooked by Tyler. One of my goals is to create an in-home cooking class company, so I figured this would be a great way to showcase my talent to people who have been impressed by my food. Unfortunately, the meal was taking place in the dead of summer when my kitchen is about 100 degrees, so I wanted to start with a simple, cold cucumber soup. I pureed seedless cucumbers (though could have used normal cukes and just removed the seeds) with water and mint leaves. I then added salt, pepper, honey, and cayenne pepper and let it cool in the fridge. When it came time to serve, I topped it with a dollop of Greek yogurt mixed with honey, some chopped mint, and a cucumber that I cut into a ribbon. The soup was light, crisp, and refreshing in the sweltering kitchen.

Blueberries, Scallops, and Shrimp - Small in Size, Big in Flavor

The summer brings all sorts of culinary treats: vegetables, corn, berries, and seafood. I like to use as much fresh local food as possible, and being that I'm in Cape May for the weekend, I have a great opportunity to get excellent produce and seafood. I wanted to make a delicious meal that didn't take a lot of effort or time to prepare, so I decided on some scallops and shrimp, green beans and eggplant, and corn. To give the meal a little extra color and flavor, I made a blueberry sauce to complement the shellfish (none of this took a lot of effort, I swear).

Smoky Salmon and the Cape May Grill

Few greater cooking techniques exist than grilling in the summer. The smell of charcoal burning, the dimming glow of a warm sun setting on the horizon, the delicious flavor of the way food cooks on the tines, everything about grilling is a wonderful experience. Living in the city, I tend to get grilling withdrawal during the summer when I'm stuck cooking indoors, so when I have a chance to use a grill, I really use it as much as possible.

A visitor, a pregnancy, and halibut

 

 My sister was in NYC for the weekend, so we wanted to have a really good Sunday dinner. She lives in Colorado and is pregnant, so seeing her in the city was cause for celebration. I decided to buy some halibut. It's a really mild white fish that has a nice meatiness that other fish like cod lack. To go with the fish, I wanted to make contrasting sides. I decided on a white bean puree with chorizo for a warm flavor and a corn and zucchini salsa for a bright and sharp flavor.

 

I cut the fish into even pieces for me, my sister, and my girlfriend and rubbed salt and pepper on it. I then removed the hot Italian sausage from the casing and browned it in a saucepan. Once the meat was brown, I removed it from the pan and added some chopped garlic and chopped sage. Once the garlic began to brown, I poured in 2 cans of cannellini beans which I had opened and drained. I let that cook until the beans began to break up and used a hand blender to puree the mixture. Once the beans were smooth, I added the sausage back in and let the puree sit on low.

I then chopped up the zucchini, red pepper, red onion, garlic, jalapeno, and removed the kernels from the corn. I tossed all of this in olive oil, salt, and pepper and sauteed it in my hot cast iron pan until lightly cooked through but still crisp. I put lemon juice and chopped cilantro over the salsa and set aside.





I tossed the veggies in olive oil, salt, and pepper and sauteed it in my hot cast iron pan until lightly cooked through but still crisp. I put lemon juice and chopped cilantro over the salsa and set aside.

 Once the 2 sides were done, I seared the fish skin side first in the cast iron, cooking it for about 6-7 minuted aside until the flesh came apart easily. Once the fish was cooked, I put the bean puree on the plate, the fish on that, and then spooned the salsa on top. I added a little dollop of quark cheese on top with some cilantro and served.

The dish was superb. The warm puree and crisp, bright salsa worked perfectly with the fish, and the quark added a nice tangy flavor. We toasted water and celebrated a really great night in the city together.

*Disclaimer - I was just told by my sister that Halibut is actually a fish with a high mercury content, so it is not recommended for pregnant women. Now I know...

Breaking in the New Camera

After weeks of research, review reading, and polling, I finally purchased a new camera. I bought a Canon Rebel T3 DSLR, with the intention of increasing the quality and volume of pictures I take and most importantly, improving the documentation of dishes for my blog. After spending about an hour at B&H talking to one of the photo representatives, I made my purchase and rushed home to shop for food and get cooking. I wanted to make something that was as visually pleasing as it was delicious. For the protein, I picked salmon. I love the orange hue of salmon, and when contrasted with a crispy brown skin, the salmon is a truly beautiful fish to serve. To accompany the fish, I spent a long time spinning around in the produce section, looking for the most colorful veggies I could find. I picked a red pepper, jalapeno (I was tempted to get a habanero for the color, but my taste buds told me that was not a good idea...), radishes, and mint. The green, red, and white would be a great visual foil to the more earth toned fish. I also wanted something to serve the fish over, so I picked sweet yellow corn. The color is very bright and sunny, but wouldn't take away from the fish and the pepper salsa.

I got home, set the camera up to be ready to capture the meal, and started cooking. I made the salsa first so it could sit and the flavors would have time to expand as the fish and corn wouldn't take long to cook. I cut both peppers and the radishes in a fine julienne (thin slices), chopped some garlic (saving some for my corn), and cut the mint in a chiffonade (literally means ribbon in French). Once the peppers, radishes, garlic and mint were cut, I squeezed a lime over them, added a touch of salt and pepper and a spoonful of sugar for some sweetness and let it sit. Once the salsa was done, I cut up the shallot in a rough chop and heated some butter and olive oil in a small pan over medium heat. Once the oil and butter were hot, I added the garlic and shallot for about 2 minutes, and then added about a cup of frozen sweet yellow corn. I tossed the pan to coat the corn, and let the dish sit to brown a bit, tossing every few minutes. Once some of the corn was nice and browned, I put all of it in a food processor with some salt and pepper and pureed it, adding a little water to thin it out. (Afterwards, I realized I should have added some crushed red pepper to give the corn puree a little bite)

When I started cooking the corn, I put a large pan on medium high to heat for the fish. When I cook salmon, I like to sear the skin first and then flip the fish over to finish it. You can serve the fish skin-side up, and not only is the skin crispy and delicious, it makes for a visually pleasing presentation and adds more texture to the fish when you eat it. In order to do this, you need to get the pan very hot before you cook the fish, otherwise the skin will break off from the flesh and you'll have skin (usually burnt skin) stuck to the bottom of the pan. I also use olive oil and butter to cook it. The butter adds some nice flavor and gets the skin a little crispier than if you only use olive oil. While the pan was heating, I rubbed the fish with salt and pepper, and rubbed some olive oil over the flesh. Once the pan was hot, I cooked the skin for about 4-5 minutes until it was browned around the edges, being careful not to move the fish at all while it cooked so the skin made a clean sear. I flipped the fish to finish it for about 3-4 more minutes, put some corn puree on the plate, laid the fish (skin side up!) over the puree, and spooned some of the pepper salsa on top.

The dish was delicious, though the salsa could have used more heat and a little vinegar to contrast the sweetness of the fish and corn. All in all, the meal was a visual and gustatory success, and I was happy to begin the era of my new camera with an artistic take on a relatively simple menu.