Tuna Steaks à la Fino with Kale Crisps

Saturday 28 January

After all our anniversary indulgences, we thought some simple fish and vegetables would let us off light.  But there's no need to go light on flavor, so we went to the Fino cookbook, Modern Spanish Cooking, for a tuna recipe with over-the-top taste.

For it, you need:

1 zucchino, cut into small dice (a good substitute for Fino's cucumber)

salt

4 thin scallions, chopped small

1 tsp. whole grain Dijon mustard

juice of 1 lemon

a small glugg of honey

2 tuna steaks

fresh ground black pepper

olive oil

Spanish olive oil

In a bowl, toss together zucchino, a touch of salt, scallions, mustard, lemon juice, and honey.  That's the side for your tuna.

Dust the steaks with pepper, and sear quickly in a hot oiled pan.  When rare, set out next to a swath of zucchini cubes, and drizzle with good Spanish olive oil.  Ours was Cortijo de Suerte Alta Marqués de Prado, from Baena.

Then there was the kale, which we bought today at Findlay Market.  We learned to love kale crisps back in May.  Here's the recipe, just in case it disappears from elsewhere on the Web.

1 bunch kale (ours was very curly - see below)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon kosher salt

Preheat oven to 350º.  Line a baking tray with parchment paper.

Wash the kale carefully; pull the leaves from the stems into bite-size pieces, and dry them thoroughly with a salad spinner. Drizzle leaves with olive oil, toss with your hands until well oiled, and sprinkle with salt.  Bake until edges are brown, and the leaves are crisp.  They say that flat kale takes 10 to 15 minutes, but curly is more like 20+.

We put the kale in a big bowl on the table, so we could grab a crisp or two while noshing down onto our tuna and zucchini.  As a side or as a snack, it's addictive.

Chicken Curry with Sweet Potato

Friday January 27

We have already celebrated the Chinese version of lunar new year, so tonight we celebrated the Vietnamese version, Tet.  Unfortunately this is a word that is inseparable from "Offensive" by people our age.

The dish, however, is spice-warm, with a deep orange color and sweet flavor from the vegetables.  We used two chicken breasts instead of thighs, and slashed them deeply so they could soak up the curry flavor.   Delicious AND auspicious.

Anniversary Dinner at La Poste

Thursday 26 January

This was our big 21st anniversary, which means that our marriage can now legally drink in the US.  We celebrated by drinking, of course responsibly, along with eating responsibly, i.e. having the five-course tasting menu at our nice local restaurant, La Poste.

We started with a festive glass of sparkle: one glass of Prosecco Il Folio, and one of a sparkling Chardonnay, Pascual Toso Brut from Argentina - the former, oddly, more brut than the latter, which was rather mild.  In the meantime, we amused our gueules with a mix of chopped tomato and orange, served with pita chips.

Our first appetizer was a creamy seared scallop in bacon vinaigrette, set atop a mound of bitter greens on a rye toast, with gorgonzola foam and a sous-vide egg, just barely solidified.  The flavors were vivid, and it actually would have made a wonderful breakfast.

Our second appetizer was also flavorful: wild mushroom ravioli in cream sauce, topped with mushroom slices and parmesan, and crisped sage leaves.  Our nice server said this was the restaurant's most popular dish, and we can see why.

Then we seguéd to our main wine of the evening, a 2008 Domaine de la Bastide Blanche, a Mourvedre blend from Bandol in Provence.  This was almost chocolatey, not very tannic, so it went with the variety of foods that were to come.

Our fish course was the night's special, pintado, a.k.a. Brazilian tigerfish, a novelty for us.  It turns out to be a freshwater catfish with spots not stripes, so why isn't it called jaguarfish?  It was served as succulent tranches with crisp skin, dressed with lemon and anchovy sauce on a bed of teeny tiny yukon gold potato dice and slivers of asparagus.  We loved every little bit of it.

Our meat course was another special, bone-in veal strip steak all of 2" thick, with a strong (maybe too strong) reduction sauce, creamy corn, barley risotto, black trumpet and bluefoot mushrooms.  The veal was excellent, but there was almost too much going on on the plate; you could have dropped either the corn or the barley, and lightened up on the reduction, and it would have been even better.

Finally, we had our choice of desserts, and we chose a shortbread tart with dark chocolate mousse, laid out with a half sphere of pastry filled with white chocolate mousse and a mandarin segment; and a cardamon and orange crème brulée.  A fine finish to an excellent meal.

And the best part was, we walked the two blocks home and had a comfortable snifter of Calvados in bed.  We're so glad that our anniversary is old enough to drink now.

Gourmet Tuna Noodle Casserole

Wednesday 25 January

Barbara wanted to make something soothing for Holt's still-queasy stomach, and as she was home for the afternoon, she took on the surprisingly labor-intensive job of making a tuna noodle casserole that you wouldn't mind eating.  It was prompted by a packet of dried soup (crema di funghi porcini) that some kind soul brought us from the Italian supermarket GS.  So in the unlikely event that you have such a packet, here's a useful thing to do with it.

8 oz. rotini pasta

salt

butter

6 chopped scallions, whites and greens separated

8 0z. sliced fresh mushrooms (cremini would be good)

small handful of chopped parsley

ditto of fresh thyme leaves

packet of dried porcini soup mix (see above; 3 portion size)

1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup (or more) heavy cream

1 can solid white albacore tuna, preferably in oil, drained

1 small fillet cooked salmon (left over from Saturday)

1/4 cup panko

Start some salted water boiling, and cook rotini until just al dente; drain and set aside.  Heat a pat of butter in a large pan and sauté the scallion whites for a minute or two, then the mushrooms until they turn dark.  Turn heat down a bit, add parsley, thyme, and scallion greens, and toss for a couple of minutes.  Sprinkle the soup mix over, mix well, and gradually add the milk, then the cream, stirring to dissolve.  Cook on low; crumble in large chunks of tuna and salmon; add more cream if necessary, until the mixture is sludgy but edible; and correct for seasoning.  Toss in rotini and mix well.

Grease a casserole with abundant butter, and pile the mixture in.  If it looks dry, add a driblet of cream here and there; cover, and cook in a 400º oven for about 15 minutes.

Melt a pat of butter in the microwave, and mix in the panko.  Uncover the casserole and sprinkle its top with the buttered panko, and let brown in the oven about 15 minutes more.

Ends up surprisingly tasty, and though we're unlikely to make the same thing ever again, it will serve as a good guide for improving the bland childhood favorite.

Hot Dogs and Potato Salad

Tuesday 24 January

Barbara had a yen for New York style hot dogs, i.e with a mess o' sauerkraut, so we went to Eckerlin's at Findlay Market and got the closest Cincinnati equivalent (mild Metts and their fresh kraut).  To go with it, Holt whomped up a German potato salad (with bacon, but still without dill pickle) this morning, so it had a day to sit in the cat-protection device (i.e. the microwave) and soak up the flavors. 

When we got home, all we had to do was get out the bowl of potato salad, stick a spoon in it, brown the dogs in a skillet, heap the kraut over them, cover and steam until hot, and serve with horseradish mustard.

It was good, but the giant mound of kraut seems to have upset Holt's delicate stomach.  He'll be more sparing from now on - and Barbara is guaranteed to eat whatever he leaves over.

New Year's Bok Choy and Mushrooms

Monday 23 January

In previous years when we were able to celebrate Chinese New Year together, we always seemed to cook chicken.  Unfortunately, chicken is lucky if it's whole, but unlucky if it's in pieces, as ours usually was. 

This year we decided to try the Chinese tradition of cooking a vegetarian meal to usher in New Year.  The thinking is that it's more virtuous to kill nothing at the start of the year; and though oyster sauce actually does contain some oyster, we are assured that even devout Buddhists don't mind eating oysters, as they mean good luck or good business. 

This recipe is a spin on some internet recipes and a few tips from New Joy, remade so that they don't use chicken broth; and based on the fact that we got a lot of beautiful baby bok choy at Daisy Mae's on Saturday, and a pound of fresh white mushrooms to match them. 

So, take:

a handful dried shiitake mushrooms (meaning longevity), rehydrated 20 mins. with hot water, drained and liquid reserved, stems removed, trimmed into 1/4" slices

1 to 1 1/2 lb. baby bok choy (meaning 100 types of prosperity), washed carefully; leaves separated from stems; both sliced into 1/2" slices; inner baby leaves left whole, and bottoms trimmed

1 lb. white or crimini mushrooms (more longevity), sliced into 1/4" slices

6 scallions (cleverness?), whites chopped fine, separate from greens sliced into 1/2" lengths

3 cloves garlic, minced

3 tablespoons oyster sauce (see above)

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1-2 teaspoons hoisin sauce

1 teaspoon Shao Xing wine

grind of white pepper

1/2 cup rice

1 cup water

canola oil

salt

sesame oil

Get all the vegetables prepped, and stir together oyster sauce, soy, hoisin, Shao Xing, and pepper, to taste. 

Start rice: rub bottom of saucepan with sesame oil, pour in rice, then water, then a touch of salt.  Set on fire until it starts to boil, then cover and lower heat to lowest setting for 19 minutes.  Open and fluff.

Heat wok to high, add oil, then scallion whites and garlic.  Stir fry for a few seconds, add bok choy stems, then whole inner parts, and some salt; finally add leaves, give a few stirs, sprinkle on some reserved shiitake mushroom water, cover and let steam for a few minutes until tender.  Remove from wok, pour off most of liquid into mushroom liquid bowl, and set aside.

Reheat wok to high, add more oil, and stir-fry fresh mushrooms with some salt, then dry mushrooms, then scallion greens, until fresh mushrooms are dark and tender and liquid has boiled away.  Stir in sauce mixture to thicken, then re-add bok choy.  Reheat, adding a little mushroom/bok choy liquid if necessary.  At end, taste for seasoning and add salt if necessary.  Turn off heat, and sprinkle on a touch of sesame oil.  Serve with no reservations.

Dessert: chopped fresh pineapple (meaning wealth and luck in gambling) and biscotti (meaning nothing in particular).

Salmon Fillets with Fennel and Fennel

Sunday 22 January

The second half of our side of salmon was devoted to one of Epicurious' Best Recipes for Salmon; but it turned out we had done it before, and made the same changes that time that we made this time.

Still good, though.