Seafood Test Kitchen

As the title suggests, tonight was a night of just pure seafood Chinese style.

Round 1: Jalapeno Salt and Pepper Shrimp




Slightly salty with a little kick. A good way to get things started.

Round 2: Fried Pomfret and Yellowtail with Ginger Scallion Soy Sizzle

Here's the fish before being cook (top is Yellowtail; bottom is Pomfret)


Here's the Pomfret dish




Now here's the Yellowtail dish





Round 3: Lobster with Black Bean Sauce

This is my first attempt at this, but not my first attempt at cooking a lobster of this size.

Here it is. A bit over 6 pounds of lobster chopped up and ready to be cooked:


Here's the final outcome of the lobster:









For the amount of struggling I did to take this live lobster apart, I'd have to say the taste was worth the effort. Now I'm sore... my stomach that is.

Revisiting and New Ideas

I decided to re-visit some old dishes and make some new ones. So here goes.

Thai Italian Avocado Shrimp Salad Revisited:





Roasted Garlic Crusted Orange Roughy Revisited:

The fish is resting on top of ponzu marinated bell peppers. The sauces are buerre blanc, balsamic reduction, and scallion oil.











Shredded Chicken Chile Relleno:

On top of the pepper is cilantro sour cream, and micro pico de gallo. The sauce is chipotle tomato sauce.





Salmon Poke Rice Salad Korean Style:

The contents are rice with sizzling soy, fine shredded romaine, cabbage, and sesame leaf, spun daikon, carrot, and cucumber, salmon poke, masago, tomato caviar, and kaiware. The sauce is a korean sweet red pepper paste.

Minimal Usage

Today was all about using minimal ingredients or better yet, whatever I had in the fridge. So this is it:

Dish 1: Thai Italian Shrimp Avocado Salad



I started with something clean and crisp. Thought this would be a good idea.



Dish 2: Chinese Five Spice Chicken Egg Drop Soup

I just craved this for a while. Thought it'd be a good idea since I had some extra chicken broth.



Dish 3: Chicken with Apple Bread Stuffing Roulade

A little something rustic, light, and clean.




Dish 4: Roasted Garlic Crusted Orange Roughy with Pesto and Balsamic Reduction

I used some ponzu poached bell peppers as a side.

A Little Blue

No, I'm not feeling blue. I just enjoyed a little frozen blueberries. From there, a little pen and a piece of paper led to this:



So this is the translation of the scribble...

Course 1:
Shrimp Scallop Potsticker with Sizzling Soy and Masago



Cajun Spiced Shrimp Sticks with Wasabi Cocktail Ketchup



Course 2:
Blueberry Glazed Pan Seared Diver Scallop with Blueberry Vinaigrette Salad



Course 3:
Mint Lime Sorbet



Course 4:
Surf & Turf: Soy Marinated New York Strip & Cod Parmigiana with Garlic Parmesan Mashed Potatoes and Italian Style Eggplant Sticks with homemade Marinara and Buerre Blanc with Balsamic Reduction


This would be the eggplant sticks.



That is it. All from some frozen blueberries. Who knew?

Seafood Scene

So I made a few dishes today based around seafood. No real reason behind it aside from the fact that I was at a fish market today to relax. I know I know; who relaxes by going to the fish market? Well, I do. So I ended up buying some manilla clams, wild organic coho salmon (2 types), and mahi mahi. This is what I made:

Manhattan style Clam Chowder with Softshell Crab





I put the chowder in a small sourdough bread bowl.

Cajun Spiced Mahi Mahi with jambalaya and chili



Duo of Coho Salmon Chinese Sizzling Soy Style



The salmon on the left was $16/pound where as the one on the right was about $4/pound. Obviously the one on the left is more soft, juicier, and lighter than the one on the right. But for the money, the one on the right is worth it.

Blast from 1 Week Ago

I cooked a few dishes in the last week and I thought all the pictures were useless because they were out of focus. But nonetheless, I salvaged these pictures.

These pictures were from one of the nights I came back home from work early and decided to have a little tapas cocktail before sleep. So this what I made for my tapas platter:





From left to right: Petite four cheese chicken cordon bleu, Trio of steamed pork, chicken, and tofu, Quesadilla with fresh avocado and pico de gallo, Shrimp chili, and Old fashion grilled cheese sandwich.

The drinks to accompany:



From bottom left to top left: Lime Margarita, Sparkling Peach Gin Martini, Hawaiian Martini, and Bloody Mary.

Here's what the pairing was supposed to be:
Lime Margarita - Quesadilla
Bloody Mary - Grilled Cheese Sandwich
Hawaiian Martini - Shrimp Chili and Trio of steamed pork, chicken, and tofu
Sparkling Peach Gin Martini - Petite chicken cordon bleu

Good Ol' Fashion BBQ

So today I wanted to BBQ some tri-tip, and that was all I was focused on. Everything else was just to accompany the beef. So here goes:

Tri-Tip Au Poivre

I crusted the tri-tip in kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper. Let it sit for 15 minutes then smoked it in mesquite, oregano, and thyme for about 2 hours. I then roasted it over the grill and there it is!



Rice Cooker Jambalaya

Who said that good food can't be made in a rice cooker. So here it is. Italian turkey sausage, bells, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, tomato, chipotle, paprika, salt, and pepper. All in the rice cooker with rice and water. 30 minutes and this is what I got:



BBQ Shrimp Scampi

Just a quick simple appetizer. Nothing fancy or anything. Skewered a bunch of shrimp, then grilled it while brushing on a garlic shrimp essence butter sauce over (aka scampi sauce) it. The end result was delicious.



And that my friends was my simple small dinner.