Meals of the month - September 2011

Each month, Shefali and I stumble upon some fantastic meals. Some of them are out around town, and others we make at home by following someone else's recipe. Here are September's highlights:

- Spaghetti and meatballs, family-style. A group of our friends takes turns hosting dinners each month. Our turn came up in September, so I simmered a pot of Christopher Sauce overnight, rolled meatballs the following morning and threw them in the pot to cook all day. The meatball recipe, to my knowledge, has never been written down. Someday I'll take the time to measure the ingredients and post it. 

- Fresh shrimp from Walking Fish. It's going to be hard to cook with frozen bags of shrimp now that I've eaten the real thing. We received three pounds of them, and grilled them all, tossing the first batch in salmorilgio sauce, topping the second in buffalo sauce and eating them in a sandwich with pea shoots and ranch dressing, and throwing the batch in a seafood risotto.

- Crab Cakes and Fava Bean Salad at Vita: I don't often order crab cakes, but Vita was offering it as a special. They were the best I've had since moving to NC. Vita's one of our favorite restaurants right now. The menu isn't extensive, but what they do (fresh pasta, bread, brunch), they do well. Plus, they do it for a student-friendly price, as entrees start at just $9.

- The "Sicilian Cash Cow" - Francois Xavier's blog hasn't been updated in a couple years, but the multilingual Swiss has a passion for Sicilian food. The "cash cow" is his version of a popular Sicilian dish from a favorite Italian restaurant in Geneva. As the weather cools off, baked pasta becomes relevant again. This one makes great use of fall veggies like eggplant and sweet bell peppers.

- The Durham Farmer's Market Chef Challenge. This celebration of okra was phenomenal. read about it here.

Mullets in Style

Our spring subscription to walking fish began this week with a bag full of fresh mullets, also known as kingfish or whiting. My fish were small with firm, white flesh, so I wanted to cook them whole. Having never worked with mullet before, I looked for a Sicilian recipe and immediately found Triglie di Scoglio, or "red mullet in onion sauce."

Triglie di Scoglio

- five small Walking Fish mullets, gutted and whole
- flour
- two eggs, beaten
- vegetable oil
- olive oil
- two yellow onions, sliced thin
- 1/2 cup white wine or sherry vinegar
- 1/4 cup sugar

1. Cover the bottom of a pan with vegetable oil and heat until shimmering.
2. Dredge the fish in flour, then then egg mixture, then back through the flour.
3. Fry each side of the fish until golden brown. If your pan is hot, this will take less than five minutes per side. Make sure the fish is cooked through before removing.
4. Once all the fish have been fried, remove the vegetable oil, add the olive oil and heat until barely smoking.
5. Saute the onions over low heat, turning occasionally, until translucent.
6. Add the vinegar and sugar. Stir until the liquid thickens, then add salt and pepper to taste.
7. Serve the fish with the sauce or pour the sauce over the fish. Serve with lemon.

Although I later learned that the red mullet found in the Mediterranean are quite different from the sea mullet caught off the Carolina coast (the two fish aren't even in the same family), it was a quick, easy and flavorful meal. The tangy onion sauce would work well with other fish or chicken. Researchers at bestofsicily.com write that "traditionalists believe this dish is best served slightly chilled or at room temperature." After eating it at room temperature last night and cold this afternoon, I agree that it works both ways.

We ate it with mashed potatoes and stewed collard greens.

Walking Fish Delivery 3

A day or two before my Walking Fish delivery arrives, I receive an email update that announces the week's fresh catch. That evening, I break out the cookbooks and begin brainstorming the next epic meal.

Last week, I received three fillets of triggerfish, steamer clams and pasta clams. Triggerfish is a flaky white fish with a mild flavor. It has large rib and pin bones, so Shef and I decided it would be best baked.

We laid each fillet on a sheet of aluminum foil, placed a tablespoon of butter and pinches of salt, pepper and parsley on top of each fillet, then wrapped the foil and broiled them for about 20 minutes.

As for the clams, we opted for a pasta with a red sauce, since we ate our last batch of clams in a simple white sauce. Growing up, my dad and brother loved spicy food, but my mom couldn't stand it. She wasn't out of the house during dinnertime very often, but when she was, Dad would make a diavolo sauce. He's also prepared it as part of the feast of the seven fishes.

Having married a woman who loves spicy food, we eat shrimp fra diavolo often. This time, we decided to use clams instead.

Clams fra diavolo

olive oil
6 cloves garlic, diced
3.5 cups Christopher Sauce
1-2 pounds of clams, washed and scrubbed
1/2 cup dry red wine (we use chianti)*
crushed red pepper, to taste ("fra diavolo" means "the devil's brother in Italian, so use lots)
1 tsp dried parsley or 1 tbs fresh, chopped

*Note: during the summer, we sometimes substitute white wine (sauvignon blanc).

Heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a large pan. When hot, add the clams. As the clams heat, they will release a liquid. Shake the pan frequently so the shells do not stick. Remove the clams as soon as they open (our steamer clams opened earlier than the pasta clams). After about 15 minutes, remove the clams that did not open (if they are fresh and of good quality, like the ones we receive from Walking Fish, there should not be many that do not open) and set the open clams aside. In the same pan, add more olive oil and saute the diced garlic until fragrant but not brown. Add the crushed red pepper and let the flavors release for about 30 seconds. Add the Christopher Sauce and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the red wine, stir and simmer for an additional 5-10 minutes, until the alcohol has cooked off. Once the flavors of the garlic, red pepper and wine have incorporated into the sauce (taste it), return the clams to the sauce, add the parsley and simmer for another 5-10 minutes.

This sauce works well with linguine or fettuccine, and the clams were a nice change of pace.