MooMooFoodie

NY Times: Boiled, Sauteed, Roasted, Poached

 

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March 31, 2011

Broiled, Sautéed, Roasted, Poached

By MARK BITTMAN

 If you’re serious about eating sustainable fish, you may have given up on the most fundamental of all: the white fillet. After nearly exhausting cod stocks 20 years ago, we have gone through a dozen or more alternatives, from red snapper to orange roughy to so-called Chilean sea bass, and fished them all practically out of existence.

Now it seems difficult to know which fish are managed well enough to eat without guilt. (As it happens, cod, of all things, isn’t bad right now, as long as it isn’t caught by a trawler.) But if you buy from a reliable store, like Target, Wegmans or Whole Foods, which have adopted seafood-sustainability practices far more effectively than many other major retailers, or consult online sources like the Monterey Bay Aquarium, you can eat white-fleshed fish without guilt.

The next problem is that you may wind up buying a fish with which you’re unfamiliar. Is it cod, catfish, sea bass, halibut, grouper, tilefish, haddock, some form of snapper — or what?

The good news is that it barely makes any difference. You can cook any white fillet the same way you cook any other white fillet: broiled, sautéed, roasted or poached, and teamed with just about any seasoning you can think of, from the obvious, like tomatoes and capers, to the semiexotic, like sugar and fish sauce. (In this recipe chart, I’m assuming you’ll always use salt and pepper.) And this isn’t just me giving you permission or a barely acceptable compromise. It works.

The chart on the following page provides ideas for cooking 1½ pounds of white fillet, whether whole or cut into individual portions. None of these recipes take more than half an hour from start to finish; thicker pieces of fish will cook in 15 minutes or less, thinner pieces in under 10. You can tell that any fillet is done when it’s opaque and a thin-bladed knife meets little resistance when you use it to poke the thickest part of the fish.

Cooking white fish is easy. The hard part — besides figuring out what’s sustainable — is choosing the recipe.

1. BROILED

 

With Tomatoes and Capers 

Set rack 4 inches from heat source. Spread a broiler-safe pan with olive oil. Add fish. Mix 1 pound sliced tomatoes with oil and 2 tablespoons each capers and chopped red onion. Spread over and around fish; broil. Garnish: Chopped parsley and lemon wedges.

Tacos

Skip tomatoes and capers. Rub fish with vegetable oil and a mild chili powder; broil. Meanwhile combine 2 chopped cucumbers, 1/2 cup chopped cilantro, 1 minced hot chili and 2 tablespoons lime juice. Flake fish and serve in warm corn tortillas with cucumber salsa.

Caramelized Fish

Skip tomatoes and capers. Heat a little vegetable oil in pan; dredge fish in a mixture of brown sugar and (lots of) coarse black pepper. Broil carefully; fish will brown quickly. Drizzle with fish sauce. Garnish: Mint (lots), minced chili (optional).

2. SAUTÉED

 

Cornmeal-Crisped

Cut fish into 4 pieces and soak in 1½ cups buttermilk. Combine 1 cup cornmeal with 1 tablespoon chili powder. Put a large skillet over medium heat; add 1 tablespoon each olive oil and butter. Pull half the fish from buttermilk; drain, then dredge in cornmeal; cook until golden, turning once. Wipe skillet clean, then repeat. Garnish: Lemon and parsley or cilantro.

Classic Sautéed

Skip buttermilk, cornmeal and chili powder. Beat 2 eggs with ¼ cup chopped parsley. Dredge the fish lightly in all-purpose flour, then in egg mixture; cook in butter and oil in two batches. Garnish: Chopped parsley, lemon wedges.

Prosciutto-Wrapped

Skip buttermilk, cornmeal and chili powder. Lay 2 slices of prosciutto, slightly overlapping, on work surface; top with basil leaves. Wrap each piece of fish in prosciutto/basil, then repeat. Cook in oil only in two batches. Garnish: More basil.

3. ROASTED

 

With Herbs

Heat oven to 475. Put 4 tablespoons butter in an ovenproof pan and place in oven to melt. Add 4 tablespoons chopped herbs (a combo is best — parsley, dill, basil, tarragon, thyme, etc.), then add fish. Roast, turning once. Garnish: The pan juices.

With Potatoes

Skip butter and herbs. Heat oven to 425. Toss 2 pounds sliced new potatoes with ¼ cup olive oil. Roast, turning occasionally, until brown. Add 1 tablespoon chopped sage and 1 teaspoon (or more) minced garlic. Top with fish and 2 tablespoons oil. Roast until fish is done. Garnish: Pan juices.

With Leeks and Bacon

Skip butter and herbs. Toss 4 sliced leeks and 2 ounces chopped bacon (optional) with ¼ cup olive oil. Roast for 10 minutes, then add 1 tablespoon thyme leaves and ½ cup white wine. Roast 20 minutes, then top with fish and 2 tablespoons oil and roast until fish is done. Garnish: More thyme.

4. POACHED

 

With Ginger and Soy

Put a large, deep skillet over medium heat; add 2 tablespoons vegetable oil and 1 tablespoon minced ginger; cook until sizzling. Add fish, ½ cup soy sauce, 1½ cups water, ½ cup chopped scallions, ½ cup chopped cilantro and a teaspoon rice vinegar. Boil, cover and turn off heat. Fish will be done in about 10 minutes. Garnish: Chopped scallions.

Curried With Zucchini

Sauté 1 chopped onion and 2 chunked zucchini in oil for 5 minutes, then add 1 tablespoon ginger and 1 tablespoon curry powder (or to taste). Cook for a minute, then add fish. Substitute 1 cup coconut milk for soy sauce and use 1 cup water. Skip scallions and vinegar. Garnish: Cilantro.

In Tomato-Fennel Broth

Skip ginger; use olive oil. When oil is hot, add 1 chopped onion and 2 chopped fennel bulbs; cook 5 minutes. Add the fish, a pinch of saffron and 1 tablespoon fennel seeds. Substitute 1 cup diced tomatoes (canned are fine) for soy sauce; use 1 cup water. Skip scallions, cilantro and rice vinegar. Garnish: Chopped fennel fronds.

Marketing Daily: New Seafood Brand Lets You Track Your Snapper

Then my question is how much will the fish cost? Will the cost of tracking be passed on to consumers? Is it worth the premium?

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Story

New Seafood Brand Lets You Track Your Snapper

Sarah Mahoney, Mar 22, 2011 05:08 PM

Get ready to have an up-close and personal relationship with your red snapper supper. In response to last year's massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and growing concerns about ocean sustainability, the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders' Alliance is launching Gulf Wild, a branding effort that will attach a unique tag to the gill of every fish its members catch. Chefs and consumers can then enter the code in a "Find my fish" feature on its Web site, and not only see precisely where the fish was harvested, but even a photo of the fisherman who caught it. The brand, and the promotional efforts that will support it in the coming months, are important for two reasons, David Krebs, president of the group, tells Marketing Daily. "First, we want consumers to know this fish has been specifically tested for safety, beyond what the government does. But it's also a way to let chefs and consumers know that these fish are now being caught in an environmentally sustainable way." Red snapper from the region is currently on the "avoid" list of such environmental watchdogs as the Monterey Bay Aquarium, he says, even though the program to bring the fish's numbers back up ended in 2009. Red snapper has seen an increase of 40% in its allowable catch, the Alliance says, as have red grouper, and more than a dozen other grouper and tile fish species. "We knew we had to have a system in place so that chefs and consumers can say, 'Yes, this fish was caught in a sustainable way.' We've got a very accountable system," he says. A spokesperson for the Alliance says marketing will be heavy on events, including programs at such seafood-famous restaurants as Lulu's in Alabama and Dewey Destin in Destin, Fla. Plans also call for local partnerships, celebrity chef tie-ins, and social media. Fishermen throughout the Gulf region continue to be affected by consumer perceptions of fish safety, as a result of the April 20, 2010 BP disaster, which spewed more than 5 million gallons of oil into the water. A survey from Technomic and Seafood Business, a trade magazine, found that while 72% of people did not change their seafood consumption habits as a result of the spill (possibly because most consumers don't know where their fish comes from), 23% deliberately cut back on all seafood purchases. And of those, 78% said they made a point of specifically avoiding Gulf seafood. A similar study from the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board found that 48.3% of consumers say they are eating less seafood overall. "We'd like to change that," Krebs said. "It would make me super happy if chefs across America were featuring red snapper, confident that it is a sustainable and healthy fish."

NY Times: A Golden Crunch to Carry You Into Spring

Reprints

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March 18, 2011

A Golden Crunch to Carry You Into Spring

By MELISSA CLARK

TO me, crunchy fried food is hearty fare, the kind of thing I crave by the bucket in the frigid cold. But spring is middle ground, when the call for golden crackly fried morsels still rings loud, but so does the siren song of salad.

With the mercury rising past 50 degrees one recent balmy evening, I found myself craving both. So I made a fried calamari salad, bulked out with baby arugula.

And since I didn’t want to wait for the oil to heat up in a deep-fry, I decided to shallow-fry. The rule of thumb with shallow frying is that the oil in the pan should cover a little more than half the morsel of food you lower into it. Once that morsel thoroughly browns on one side, you flip it so it browns nicely on the other side.

Naturally, smaller tidbits like squid are perfectly suited to this method, particularly the tentacles, which turn potato-chip crisp on the ends while the centers stay moist and springy.

To further cut the richness of the fried squid, I added some thin lemon wedges to the oil, allowing the peels to caramelize while the pulp crisped into thin, tart wafers that melted when you bit down.

Frying squid and lemons was the extent of my plan, but once the oil was hot, I found that I didn’t want to stop.

In the refrigerator were some maitake mushrooms I’d intended to roast, but I knew from past flights of frying that maitakes — with all their little nooks and crevices — turn into brittle, crunchy strands. I thought their earthiness would be a nice match with the tanginess of the arugula.

So I cut the them into squiggly slivers and shallow-fried them, too. Then I tossed them with the squid and the lemons, adding the arugula and some grated Parmesan for depth and fresh lemon juice for brightness.

Before the arugula had time to wilt, I gobbled everything up. It was a light meal with a golden crunch, just what the season ordered.

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March 18, 2011

Crispy Calamari, Lemon and Maitake Salad Over Arugula

Time: 45 minutes

 

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon kosher salt, more for seasoning

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper, more for seasoning

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil 

1/2 pound squid, rinsed and patted dry

1 lemon, plus additional wedges for garnish

1/4 cup fine cornmeal

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

Olive oil, for frying

1/4 pound maitake mushrooms, cut into bite-size pieces

8 cups baby arugula

1 ounce Parmesan, shaved.

 

1. To make the dressing, in a small bowl whisk together the lemon juice, 1/2 teaspoon salt and pinch of pepper until the salt dissolves. Whisk in the olive oil.

2. To prepare the squid and lemon, cut the squid tentacles in half and the bodies into 1/4-inch rings. Slice the lemon lengthwise into quarters and then thinly slice each quarter crosswise, discarding any seeds. In a wide shallow bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, flour, the remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Dredge the squid and lemon slices in the cornmeal mixture.

3. Heat 1/2 inch oil to 350 degrees in a large, straight-sided skillet. Frying in batches to avoid crowding, cook the mushrooms until golden, about 1 minute per batch. Using a slotted spoon, transfer them to a paper-towel-lined plate and sprinkle with salt. Repeat with the squid, followed by the lemon slices.

4. In a large bowl, toss the arugula, mushrooms, squid and lemon slices with the dressing. Add the Parmesan and toss gently once more. Serve with lemon wedges.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings.

NY Times: Chasing Stingray All Over Town

 

November 2, 2010

Chasing Stingray All Over Town

By JULIA MOSKIN

KOK FYE SEETOH shot me a warning look.

I was jammed into a restaurant kitchen in Queens with the pre-eminent translator to the English-speaking world of the food of Malaysia and Singapore. I had serious doubts about a sauce.

A sweet sludge punctuated by large pieces of raw shallot, it was presented by the restaurant’s Malaysian owner as “popular with Americans.”

As the owner turned away to put the fish in the fryer, I asked Mr. Seetoh under my breath, “Would you really eat this in Singapore?”

“We’ll talk outside,” he said, tersely.

Mr. Seetoh, a former photojournalist who now publishes exhaustive guides to street foods in Southeast Asia, was my wingman for what may have been America’s first stingray crawl. Its goal: to mine Mr. Seetoh’s expertise by choosing one popular dish from the alluring, often bewildering menus of New York’s Southeast Asian restaurants, and chasing it all over town.

In sunglasses, he strode into kitchens with the imperious confidence of Keith Richards and judged them with the tender harshness of Gordon Ramsay. He rode waves of enthusiasm and dropped into valleys of despair, pleasantly surprised by the juicy fish at one place but tormented by the careless spicing at another.

“They make too many compromises here,” he said flatly as we left, dismissing the offending sauce as not authentic and, worse, just not good. Ikan pari pangang, stingray coated with a spicy sambal and grilled on banana leaves, was the test he chose for local cooks. (Stingray is known on our tables as skate; the French call it raie).

Originally a dish for fishermen and peasants, made with what was considered a “trash fish” but deliciously aromatic from the spice paste and toasted banana leaves, ikan pari pangang is now a classic outdoor dinner and an accompaniment to cold beer. As the moist heat suffuses the fish, it should take on a tangy, dry crust but stay juicy near the central spine. (The flesh slides off easily after cooking.) Served with wedges of lemon and rings of onion, with lots of juicy bits to poke at with chopsticks and swipe through the sauce, it makes a pleasant, indolent meal, like picking at a whole barbecued pork butt.

It is a dish with Malay roots, which sets it apart from the many popular Chinese- and Indian-influenced snacks that the region is famous for, like curry-rich roti canai (pronounced CHEN-nye), Hainanese chicken rice, kangkung belachan (water spinach cooked with shrimp paste) and savory stir-fried Chinese-based noodle dishes like char kway teow, a crunchy, savory tangle of rice noodles, bean sprouts, shrimp, pork and chili paste.

But grasping those flavors, especially from far away, is not easy.

Southeast Asia covers a huge area, in both culinary and geographic terms. Singapore, with a slightly smaller landmass than New York City, is a dot in the huge stretch of islands that swirls off the coast of Vietnam — including Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Singapore’s history as a free port under the British empire, its central location on trade and spice routes and recent decades of high-speed economic growth have made the cuisine there a heady international brew. And Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s ever-expanding capital city across the Strait of Johor, has a food scene almost as intense.

In New York City, “Southeast Asian” restaurants try to cover a range of food from Malaysia and Singapore, often stirring in popular dishes from Thailand and Vietnam; some have hundreds of items on the menu. Most restaurant owners here are ethnically Chinese: noodles, rice, stir-frying and steaming are fundamentals, and even kung pao shrimp may appear on the menu. But dishes with chilies, lemon grass, galangal, coconut, curry spices and funky fermented seafood products like belachan (shrimp paste) are signs that the food isn’t just arriving from China.

I knew that Mr. Seetoh, whose Makansutra guidebooks contain detailed culinary analysis of individual dishes, down to the perfume of the duck broth and the springiness of the fish balls, would be able to answer my lingering questions: What makes one dish Malaysian and not Singaporean? Why are some dishes called by Malay names, and others Cantonese? And most important for a food lover, does this dish taste as good as it is supposed to, or was the flavor lost in translation?

Malaysian food leans more toward tangy flavors, and Singapore food toward the richness of peanut and coconut, Mr. Seetoh said, but other than that, the distinctions are usually traced to individual cooks.

At Coco in Elmhurst in Queens, where David Lim, the chef and an owner, serves a local crowd of Southeast Asians, Koreans, Chinese and Latinos, the stingray was sweeter and less redolent of dried shrimp and shrimp paste. At Sanur in Chinatown in Manhattan, Mr. Seetoh was impressed by Sun Chen Lai’s hack: to adapt the method from an outdoor grill to a basement stovetop, Mr. Lai, the chef and an owner, deep-fries the fish first, then enfolds it in a round lotus leaf and tosses the packet deftly in a hot wok until it is good and charred.

But Mr. Seetoh was not entirely satisfied with anyone’s sambal, the cooked sauce that acts as a cooking medium and a table condiment. “When they gentrify the food, it’s understandable, but it is completely the wrong idea,” he said.

Barriers of language and culture, he said, prevent many immigrant cooks in the United States from presenting their best food to outsiders. “In traditional culture, selling food on the street is one degree above prostitution,” he said. “We need to learn to be proud of what we have.”

It is a given for Mr. Seetoh, a first-generation Singaporean whose parents were born in mainland China, that hawker versions are always an improvement on the original dish: more savory, richer, better balanced.

“I went to Hainan to taste the chicken rice,” Mr. Seetoh said, referring to the island off southern China that was the birthplace of Singapore’s unofficial national dish of steamed chicken, white rice, cucumbers and chili sauce. “It was totally boring,” he said, pointing out that in the Singaporean version, the white rice is gilded with chicken fat and butter, and scented with the sweet, vanilla-like pandan leaf.

Hainan chicken rice is a main dish of the region, making it a subject of frequent squabbles between Malaysia and Singapore. Last year, Malaysia’s tourism minister staked an official claim to the dish for his nation, bringing simmering cross-Straits resentments to a boil.

Singapore is especially reliant on food hawkers, according to food historians, because it was initially populated by young, mostly Chinese men, who could not afford their own households. The thousands of food vendors (in Singapore they are gathered into “hawker centers,” and in Malaysia a food stall is a “warung”) tend to specialize in a single dish or a small family of foods, refining it over the years to try to grab a bigger piece of the market share. Thus, Mr. Seetoh said, the best food always wins.

“Food is the greatest democratic institution in Singapore,” he said. “There is truly no bland food and no bad restaurants.”

Even by New York standards, Singaporeans seem to be obsessed with food. “I have tried to cook Singapore food in Brooklyn, but at the end there was always something missing,” said Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, a writer whose memoir of “food and family” will be published in February. When she left Singapore to attend Northwestern University in Chicago in 1993, she said, she missed the food of home so much that she would trek through snow to the computer center to gaze at Internet photos of her favorite dishes. “A lot of what you love in Singaporean cuisine is the flavor of the hawker center,” she said. “It might be MSG, it might be the heat or the humidity or the sweat, you just don’t know.”

Continuing the crawl solo at Overseas Asian in Chinatown, I found an ikan pari that seemed too wet to my Seetoh-trained palate. (But the best roti canai I’ve had in New York: fluffy, yeasty, lightly sweet.) The last stingray was the best: an excellent, smoky version at Redang Island in Sunset Park in Brooklyn, where the fish is rubbed with spices and steamed before the final cooking.

One of Mr. Seetoh’s primary goals is to preserve such dishes, which he sees as a product of diverse, resourceful and often desperate communities. The hawker food will be lost, he fears, as the population becomes affluent and aspiring cooks can afford Western education — culinary or otherwise. Asian cooks are opening French and Italian restaurants in the cities now, he said, and the traditional hawkers are aging. “They are old, and their sons are old, and their grandsons go to Harvard,” he said.

Just as many hawkers have transcended street life and the day-to-day grind, Mr. Seetoh himself has become more than a food guide. He appeared on “Top Chef” last season and has taught Martha Stewart to make laksa, the iconic meal-in-a-bowl of the region. Now he is a global entrepreneur, working with real estate developers to build self-contained hawker centers, populating them with his favorite cooks and tailoring the food to its neighborhood. “In a business district, you don’t want noodle soup — too messy for office workers, and it takes too long to eat,” he said.

Over all, he said, Southeast Asian food in New York City is about 50 percent as good as at home. To lift that number, he hopes to bring a hawker center here. “Like Eataly, but with hawkers,” he said. “Wouldn’t that be great?”

Some places to taste Southeast Asian food in New York:

CAFE ASEAN 117 West 10th

Street (Sixth Avenue), Greenwich Village; (212) 633-0348 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (212) 633-0348      end_of_the_skype_highlighting, cafeasean.com.

COCO 82-69 Broadway (Elmhurst Avenue), Elmhurst, Queens; (718) 565-2030 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (718) 565-2030      end_of_the_skype_highlighting, cocoasiancuisine.com/elmhurst.html.

OVERSEAS TASTE RESTAURANT 49 Canal Street (Ludlow Street), Chinatown; (212) 925-3233 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (212) 925-3233      end_of_the_skype_highlighting.

REDANG ISLAND 5112 Eighth Avenue (51st Street), Sunset Park, Brooklyn; (718) 686-6680 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (718) 686-6680      end_of_the_skype_highlighting.

SANUR 18 Doyers Street (Pell Street), Chinatown; (212) 267-0088 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (212) 267-0088      end_of_the_skype_highlighting.

TASTE GOOD 82-18 45th Avenue (Broadway), Elmhurst, Queens; (718) 898-8001 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (718) 898-8001      end_of_the_skype_highlighting.

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November 2, 2010

Sambal Stingray in Banana Leaf

Adapted from K. F. Seetoh

Time: 1 hour

 

FOR THE SAMBAL

1 ounce (about 1/2 cup) dried red chilies

2 ounces (about 1/2 cup) dried small shrimp (available in Asian markets)

10 to 12 large garlic cloves

8 to 10 shallots, peeled

3-inch piece ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped

3-inch piece lemon grass, white end, coarsely chopped

1 teaspoon belachan (shrimp paste, available in Asian markets) or 2 teaspoons fish sauce

1 tablespoon tamarind paste or lime juice, more to taste

2 tablespoons light brown sugar, more to taste

1/4 cup raw peanuts

2 tablespoons vegetable oil, plus more for fish

 

For the fish

1 whole, skinless skate wing, 1 1/2 to 2 pounds, or firm fillets like snapper, about 3/4-inch thick

3 banana leaves (available frozen at Asian and Latin markets)

Slices of lemon and white onion, for garnish

Sprigs of cilantro, for garnish.

 

1. Make the sambal: In separate bowls, soak the chilies and the dried shrimp in water to cover for 10 minutes, then drain. Remove and discard stems and seeds from the chilies.

2. In a blender, combine the chilies, shrimp and remaining sambal ingredients, except the oil, with 1/2 cup water. Blend until finely chopped but not smooth. Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat and add the sambal. Cook, stirring often, until it is moist, thick and dark red, adding water 1 tablespoon at a time if needed to prevent scorching.

3. Cook the fish: Rinse and dry the fish and sprinkle it with salt. Heat a grill to high, or place a heavy skillet (with a lid) over medium-high heat. Spread one side of the fish with a thin layer of sambal. Place a banana leaf on grill (or in skillet), drizzle lightly with vegetable oil and place the fish on top, sambal side up. Cover grill or pan and cook about 8 minutes, until the banana leaf is toasted and the sambal is dry and fragrant. Remove the leaf and fish from the heat. Place a new banana leaf on grill or in pan, drizzle it with oil, flip fish onto it and spread more sambal on top. Cover and cook another 6 to 8 minutes, until cooked through.

4. Place another leaf on a platter. Flip the fish onto it, spoon more sambal over the top and garnish with lemon and onion slices and cilantro sprigs. To serve whole skate, slide the fish off the spine with a spoon.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings.

ST: Vending machine serves up live crabs

Asia

Home > Asia > China > Story

Oct 27, 2010

Vending machine serves up live crabs

The vending machine which sells live hairy crabs is located at Xinjiekou subway station in Nanjing. The inside of the machine is kept at 5 deg C to make the crabs hibernate. -- PHOTO: CHINA FOTO PRESS

 

NANJING: The ubiquitous vending machine has been dispensing anything from tickets, chips, and cola to bizarre items like second-hand underwear for years.

But live hairy crabs?

That's a first which a company in Nanjing, capital of China's Jiangsu province, is banking on to raise sales, reports said.

The crustaceans, usually eaten in the cold months, are prized for their roe. The Chinese also believe that the crab meat has a 'cooling' effect on the body.

Twin Lakes Crab, the company behind the novel idea, said that by saving on staff costs, it can make the crabs affordable for more people.

It said its crabs cost 30 per cent less than usual, or between 10 and 50 yuan (S$9.70) each, depending on size.

To keep the crabs fresh, the inside of the vending machine is kept at 5 deg C, cold enough to make the crustaceans go into a state of hibernation.

The vending machine, probably the only one of its kind in the world, is located at Xinjiekou subway station in Nanjing's business and shopping area.

ST: Crab evolution

Lifestyle

Home > Lifestyle > Taste > Story

Oct 10, 2010

Crab evolution

This sambal chilli crab recipe, which has oyster sauce, took 25 years to perfect

By Eunice Quek, Singapore Cooks

Ms Serene Kwok cooked chilli crab when she was 10 as her mother's version of it was too healthy for her. -- ST PHOTOS: MARYANNE TAN

 

Ms Serene Kwok's sambal chilli crab recipe has been marinating for a long time - about 25 years, to be exact.

In all that time, the recipe has undergone many tweaks by Ms Kwok, 35. The regional marketing manager of premium home kitchen appliance company De Dietrich first whipped up the dish when she was 10 years old because she did not like her mother's version of the local favourite.

Says Ms Kwok: 'Her version was too healthy and only mildly spicy. So I decided to do it myself. I killed a live crab in less than a minute. After she tried it, she said I could take over the kitchen.'

Back then, the recipe called for a lot of tomato sauce, but as its creator grew up, it became based on sambal chilli, as well as two unusual ingredients: coconut milk and oyster sauce.

Both are used for thickening the sauce. Ms Kwok says her mother often used oyster sauce to add flavour to her dishes, and that is why she included it in her recipe.

The sauce also has an extra egg-like consistency because her husband, Mr Christoph Yan, 39, is a huge fan of it.

She says: 'He's not really a seafood person, so he will eat the sauce with white rice.'

She prepares a separate dish of butter crab for her daughter, Christel, as the nine-year-old sometimes finds Ms Kwok's dish too spicy.

The student at CHIJ (Kellock) is following in her mother's footsteps. A good cook, she has tried making her own butter crab and instant noodles.

Ms Kwok was never taught how to cook. Instead, she picked up basic skills by observing her mother in the kitchen.

She was given the liberty to prepare her own dishes and received the thumbs-up from her family with her very first dish of black soya sauce chicken, at the age of 10.

She says: 'My mum was not the traditional mum who sewed and cooked. Whatever we wanted, we had to do ourselves.

'She cooked with only my dad in mind. Very healthy food that was always steamed or boiled. We always had to add extra salt or sugar to the dish.'

On Saturdays, her eldest sister, Shirley, cooks up a storm for their weekly family feasts at her house.

Ms Kwok is the youngest of six siblings. Should Shirley take a break from her weekly chef duty, Ms Kwok commandeers the stove and prepares her chilli crab dish, along with other dishes, such as roast duck and bak kut teh.

To jazz up instant noodles, she adds dang gui or angelica root, as well as wolfberries for a more herbal twist.

Since her job requires her to eat out at fine dining restaurants and indulge in French food frequently, she says she appreciates homecooked food. Her only gripe is washing the dishes. Luckily, she says, her husband gamely does it.

The family of three eat out frequently at Tiong Bahru market, but Ms Kwok makes it a point to cook at least twice a week, especially when her daughter requests specific dishes.

She says: 'When it's examination time, she will ask me to make plain porridge with silver bait, scallop and wolfberries. She can eat it for all three meals.'

euniceq@sph.com.sg

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MAKE IT YOURSELF: SAMBAL CHILLI CRAB

INGREDIENTS

2 large live crabs

Oil for stir-frying

1/2 Tbs chopped garlic

1/2 large red onion, sliced into rings

4 Tbs sambal chilli paste

1/2 cup water

1/2 Tbs oyster sauce

1/4 cup coconut milk

2 eggs, beaten

Salt or sugar to taste

Garnishing (optional)

One stalk of spring onion, chopped

Handful of parsley, chopped

1 chilli, sliced

METHOD

1. De-shell and clean the crabs. Divide each crustacean into five parts (shell, two pincers, two body parts, above). Lightly crack the pincers so that the sauce can infuse the meat during cooking.

2. Heat oil in wok over high heat. Add chopped garlic and sliced onions when oil starts to heat. Fry till fragrant.

3. Add sambal chilli paste and fry over medium heat for one minute.

4. Add the crabs and stir-fry for five minutes. Ensure they are evenly covered with the paste.

5. Add 1/2 cup of water and oyster sauce. Continue to stir-fry over medium heat.

6. Add coconut milk (amount may vary depending on how rich you want the sauce to be). Simmer for five minutes.

7. When the crabs turn red, add eggs into the sauce to thicken it. Add salt or sugar to taste.

8. When the sauce thickens, dish on to a plate. Garnish with spring onion, parsley and sliced red chilli.

9. Serve with steaming hot mantou or rice.

Serves two

FT: How to prepare and cook squid

How to prepare and cook squid

By Tom Aikens

Published: August 14 2010 00:45 | Last updated: August 14 2010 00:45

Squid, for some reason, is not all that popular an ingredient to cook with, whether that is because people are put off by the preparation or perhaps because it just looks plain ugly. It’s a shame because squid has a lot to recommend it. It’s relatively inexpensive, very adaptable and can be cooked in a multitude of ways – pan fried, deep fried, braised or grilled. Home cooks are often intimidated by it, but they shouldn’t be, as many methods of cooking it are extremely straightforward. To grill it, for example, simply marinade the squid in a little olive oil, garlic and thyme, then grill lightly on each side for a minute or two and finish with lemon juice.

Even the preparation of the raw squid shouldn’t hold any fears. The easiest way is to discard the thin film of the outer skin and the two flaps on either side of the body (which can also be cooked). Then pull out the head and cut across the tentacles just below the eyes – you will see a beak which you can remove. Then thoroughly clean the inside of the empty tail with cold water. Either cut this into rings or cut it down one side and slice it into strips.

We should use more squid, as stocks are in good supply – it does not have a minimum landing size (the smallest length at which it is legal to keep or sell a fish) or quota, so we can use it often and stay within sustainable fishing boundaries.

Tom Aikens is the chef at Tom’s Kitchen in London (www.tomskitchen.co.uk)

Rowley Leigh is away

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Deep fried paprika squid with lime

Ingredients

(Serves five)

For the aioli mayonnaise:

4g English mustard

4 cloves garlic, chopped finely

2g salt

Pinch of cayenne pepper

0.3g milled black pepper

6g white wine vinegar

2 egg yolks

300ml vegetable oil

Large pinch smoked paprika

2 tsp water

For the beignet batter:

Juice of 2 limes

300g self-raising flour

150g cornflour

75g baking powder

1 pinch paprika

Salt and pepper

For the squid:

1 litre of vegetable oil or groundnut oil

4g paprika

200g flour

Zest and juice of 2 limes

400g prepared medium squid cut into rings approximately 0.5cm in thickness, with the tentacles left whole

6 sliced spring onions

1 red chilli, finely sliced

1 coriander leaf

Method

● Start by preparing the mayonnaise. Whisk the mustard, garlic, salt, pepper, vinegar and egg yolks in a bowl then slowly add the oil, whisking well. Add the paprika. You may need to add a little water as it might get too thick and curdle.

● Next make the batter by mixing the lime juice with the dry ingredients, and adding some iced cold water until it has the consistency of double cream.

● Put the oil into a deep saucepan so that the pan is half full and heat it to 180°C.

● Place the paprika, flour and lime zest into a bowl, add the squid, then drop it into the batter.

● Place the battered squid into the hot oil until it is golden brown, about three minutes. To serve, sprinkle with the lime juice, spring onion slices, chopped chilli and coriander leaf, add a little more paprika and season. Eat straight away, with the mayonnaise.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010.

NY Times: Catch of the Day

July 29, 2010

Catch of the Day

By SAM SIFTON

FOUR FISH

The Future of the Last Wild Food

By Paul Greenberg. 266 pp.

The Penguin Press. $25.95.

In the late fall of 2009, bluefin tuna came inshore along the New Jersey coast and began to crash the surface of the ocean, chasing bait. For days, fast, open fishing boats played run-and-gun with them across the waters near Deal and Asbury Park, not 30 miles from New York City as the gannet flies.

These were not giant bluefin, the 1,000-pound bullet trains so prized by the Japanese that they might sell for $100,000 or more. Those are almost gone now, as Paul Greenberg points out in his important and stimulating new book, “Four Fish,” which takes as its subject the global fisheries market and the relationship humans have with tuna, cod, sea bass and salmon. Giant bluefin tuna have been overharvested here and abroad as they travel north and south, east and west, heedless of international borders or treaties, their population hovering on the brink of total collapse.

These tuna were instead their progeny’s progeny, fish of merely 75 or 150 pounds, the shape of huge, iridescent footballs. They are graceful as ballet dancers, and as strong, some of “the wildest things in the world,” as Greenberg calls them.

A fishing guide I know well was out there and got a client close enough to a small pod of tuna to cast to it. The client got his fish, which is his own story. And a few hours later, my friend, driving north through Brooklyn with five pounds of ruby­-red tuna belly resting on ice in the back of his car, called me to ask if I had any soy sauce.

I was newly installed as the restaurant critic of The New York Times and had spent the previous few months on a surreptitious tour of some of the city’s best restaurants. I had been eating stupendously well. But nothing I had eaten that summer and fall prepared me for the taste of this tuna that late afternoon, for the intense blast of flavor and rich, creamy fattiness delivered by a cut of truly fresh otoro — supreme tuna belly, in the parlance of the sushi bar — not yet four hours old.

Nothing I had ever eaten could have. The bluefin tuna you get at restaurants, even the best ones, has been flash-frozen and thawed, is days — or weeks — old, has traveled thousands and thousands of miles. In a bite of that absolutely fresh tuna from New Jersey, I experienced a taste of truly wild food, a majestic flavor, something incredibly rare.

And as it melted on my tongue and receded into memory, I felt guilt and doubt and fear. Will my children, who demurred in eating the fish that day, ever have a chance to eat bluefin tuna? Will their children? Will anyone? Should they? What are we really to do with these fish?

Greenberg, a journalist who has contributed to The New York Times Magazine, has constructed a book that, even as it lays out the grim and complicated facts of common seas ravaged by separate nations, also manages to sound a few hopeful and exciting notes about the future of fish, and with it, the future of civilizations in thrall to the bounty of the sea.

The point of the book comes down to the push and pull of our desire to eat wild fish, and the promise and fear of consuming the farmed variety. As Greenberg follows his four species, and our pursuit of them, farther and farther out into the ocean, he posits the sense of privilege we should feel in consuming wild fish, along with the necessity of aquaculture.

Along the way, Greenberg raises real-life ethical questions of the sort to haunt a diner’s dreams, the kind of questions that will not be easily answered by looking at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s seafood-watch card. In truth, he shows, there is rarely such a thing as a good wild fish for any of us to eat, at least not if all of us eat it.

Combining on-the-ground and on-the-ocean reporting from the Yukon to Greece, from the waters of Long Island Sound to the Mekong Delta, along with accounts of some stirring fishing trips, Greenberg makes a powerful argument: We must, moving forward, manage our oceans so that the fish we eat can exist both in aquacultural settings and within the ecosystems of wild oceans.

Wild fish were once everywhere, of course, in such numbers as to astound. (And still, Greenberg reports, the current global catch of wild fish measures 170 billion pounds a year, “the equivalent in weight to the entire human population of China.”) Wild fish seemed to be, as Greenberg puts it, “a crop, harvested from the sea, that magically grew itself back every year. A crop that never required planting.”

Once, Greenberg writes, as many as 100 million Atlantic salmon larvae hatched every year in the upper reaches of the Connecticut River and eventually made their way south to Long Island Sound, and north from there to Greenland before returning to the Berkshire foothills to spawn. Dams, overfishing and more dams still have taken their grim toll on their descendants. Today, every piece of Atlantic salmon you’ll find at your local supermarket or fishmonger, smoked into lox, wrapped around mock crabmeat, or lying flat and orange against crushed ice, is farmed. As Greenberg explains clearly and well, the process by which that farming is undertaken threatens the future of what wild salmon remain here and in the Pacific. The amount of wild fish needed to feed farmed salmon, the threat of farmed salmon escaping and crossbreeding with wild salmon stocks, the rise of pollution from the farms themselves — when it comes to the business of domesticating salmon, Greenberg writes, “we should have chosen something else.”

Of course we did choose something else, some of us. That fish is sea bass — branzino, as it’s mostly called on restaurant menus now — a species that once thrived in the wild along the coast of Europe, throughout the Mediterranean Sea and through the Strait of Gibraltar, along the western coasts of Portugal, Spain and France, north to England. No more, though the farmed version is a success story of ample proportions, as anyone who spends more nights than not in white-tablecloth restaurants can tell you.

Greenberg’s accounting of the 2,000-year process of learning to farm sea bass, “one that involved the efforts of ancient Roman fishermen, modern Italian poachers, French and Dutch nutritionists, a Greek marine biologist turned entrepreneur, and an Israeli endocrinologist,” reads in parts like the treatment for a Hollywood film, a toga epic in fishy smell-o-vision.

And cod? As Greenberg writes, it fueled the American economy in its early days, and good parts of the European one, too. A five-foot wooden carving of the fish hangs from the ceiling in the Massachusetts State House, to celebrate its place in the region’s history.

But industrial fishing of these tremendous and once common animals, by fishermen the world over, has led to terribly depleted stocks and closed fishing grounds — and, Greenberg reports, to a turn toward wild Alaskan pollock to fill our desire for firm, white-fleshed fish to make fish sticks and battered-fish sandwiches, and from there toward farmed Vietnamese tra and African tilapia.

These shifts, of course, come with their own nightmares and possibilities, their own showcases of human frailty in the face of commerce, greed and hunger. Greenberg’s reporting lays these out with care.

The story of the bluefin tuna, meanwhile, is one of the great tragedies of the modern age. This magnificent creature, once mostly shunned by the world’s cooks and diners for its bloody flesh unsuitable for human consumption, now teeters almost on the edge of extinction, principally because the world’s nations cannot agree to the one measure that will guarantee its future: a total ban on its commercial harvest, in all waters.

“The passion to save bluefin is as strong as the one to kill them,” Greenberg writes, “and these dual passions are often contained within the body of a single fisherman.” “Four Fish” is a marvelous exploration of that contradiction, one that is reflected in the stance and behavior of all nations that fish. It is a necessary book for anyone truly interested in what we take from the sea to eat, and how, and why.

Sam Sifton is the restaurant critic for The Times.

FT: Pizza with a Gallic twist

Pizza with a Gallic twist

By Rowley Leigh

Published: July 24 2010 00:25 | Last updated: July 24 2010 00:25

We used to like my mother’s pizza. She was conservative with her pizza topping: it consisted of a little tomato sauce, some anchovy fillets and a few black olives. These tasty ingredients sat on top of a layer of dough that absorbed some of the flavours. It was baked on a big rectangular tray and cut into squares that even my father – no great lover of the foreign – ate with relish.

That was what pizza was as far as we were concerned. Later we saw the arrival of Italian-style pizzas and the great stodgy mass of dough and synthetic cheese known as the deep pan pizza. Later still, we all learnt that authentic, Neapolitan pizzas had to be incredibly thin and crisp and cooked in seconds in ovens especially built for the purpose. Call it hopeless nostalgia, call it clinging to Mum’s apron strings, but I prefer my Mum’s version.

Her idea of pizza, of course, derived from French bastardisations of the original Neapolitan pizza. Something similar was to be found in the shape of the pissaladière that used to be commonplace in Nice, which was, of course, once part of Savoy and ruled from Naples. Nowadays a pizza in Nice can be almost anything, round or rectangular, thin or thick and covered with anything from anchovies and ham, to pineapple and courgette. It was not ever thus. Pissaladière used to be a slab of dough covered lavishly with stewed onions and latticed with anchovies and olives, a dish, substituting onions for tomato sauce, not dissimilar to Mum’s pizza.

As was often the fashion in French restaurants, I have hitherto foregone the bread dough and used puff pastry as the base for my pissaladière. It is, of course, lighter or to quote Elizabeth David, does not “lie somewhat heavy on the stomach” but the bread version is just the thing for a party with lots of drinking or just as the centrepiece of a summer lunch. Sometimes one can be a bit too dainty.

Rowley Leigh is the chef at Le Café Anglais

rowley.leigh@ft.com

More columns at www.ft.com/leigh

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Pissaladière with sardines

A rectangular baking dish with shallow sides is ideal for a pissaladière but if improvisation leads you to a tart dish or even a paella pan, so be it. Puff pastry can, of course, be substituted for the dough. Serves six to eight.

Ingredients for the dough

2tsp dry yeast

100ml warm water

300g flour

1tsp salt

Grated zest of a lemon

2 large eggs

150g unsalted butter

Method

● Dissolve the yeast in the water and set it in a warm place while you gather the other ingredients. Combine the flour, salt and lemon zest in a bowl and make a well. Break the egg into the middle, add the softened butter and pour in the yeast mixture, which should be foamy with bubbles. Mix with a wooden spoon to form a soft, smooth dough. Dust it with flour and gather into a ball. Set it in a clean bowl and cover with cling film or a kitchen cloth. Let the dough rise in a warm place until it is doubled in bulk, 45 minutes to an hour.

● Flatten the dough, place it on a 20cm x 30cm lipped oven tray. Press it out to the edges using either your knuckles or the heel of your hand. Add only enough flour to keep the dough from sticking. If the dough shrinks back while you’re shaping it, cover with a towel and let it relax for 20 minutes before you finish pressing it out. It can be covered immediately or refrigerated until needed.

Ingredients for the filling

6 onions

2tbsp olive oil

3 sprigs of thyme

8 fresh sardines, filleted

12 tinned anchovy fillets in oil

2 red chillies (optional)

12 black olives

Method

● Peel the onions, slice them thinly and put them in a large saucepan with the olive oil. Season them well with salt and pepper, add the thyme and stew the onions very slowly for a good half hour. They should become very soft and almost syrupy in consistency. Remove to a bowl and chill.

● Drain the anchovy fillets and split them in half lengthways. Remove the seeds and stalk from the chillies and slice them thinly. Cut the olives in half and reject the stones. Spread the onions evenly across the pastry. Lay the sardine fillets, skin side up, in diagonal lines criss-crossing the pastry (do not put the sardines on top of each other). Repeat this pattern with the anchovy fillets. Sprinkle the chillies over the top and then place the olives, cut side down, in the gaps between the sardines. Season the sardines with sea salt and dribble a little more olive oil over them as well.

● Bake in a hot oven (450°F, 230°C, mark 8) for 20 minutes. Eat either hot or at room temperature.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010.

FT: Get to grips with a pincer movement

Get to grips with a pincer movement

By Rowley Leigh

Published: June 5 2010 01:40 | Last updated: June 5 2010 01:40

There are a lot of ways to cook a lobster. The classical repertoire is extensive, with preparations such as Thermidor, Newburg and à l’Americaine now rarely seen, being a bit elaborate and rather heavy for the modern taste.

The combination of lobster and cheese sauce that is Thermidor should be an abomination but is in fact beguiling, although a small portion might be appropriate.

The recipe for Newburg (invented by a shy chef called Wenburg), however, really goes over the top: it calls for six tablespoons of butter, half a pint of sherry, half a pint of velouté sauce, two-thirds of a pint of cream and another quarter pound of butter to finish it, and perhaps, the diner off, (although, to be fair, the recipe is for two).

Of this trinity, à l’Americaine may be just as rare on modern menus but its influence is more pervasive. The technique of flaming the shells in brandy, stewing them, with or without meat attached, in white wine, tomatoes, herbs and finishing them with cream is the same basic principle as for a lobster bisque and for any sauce that depends on getting its flavour from the lobster shell. If homard à l’Americaine is a bit old hat, sauce Americaine is alive and kicking.

These ruminations are prompted by my promise that during our “shellfish fortnight” at the restaurant we will assess a different lobster dish every day. There are plenty of simpler treatments of lobster that will also fit the bill, of course. It is a while since “les demoiselles de Cherbourg à la mode de Caen” got an airing and I look forward to poaching lobsters in a fragrant Thai broth.

The home cook is very welcome to give some of them a go too but, frankly, it is not strictly necessary. Should you have two, three or four live lobsters – and why shouldn’t you? – the best thing to do is probably fill a very large pot with water and salt, bring it to the boil and drop in the lobsters.

Eat them 10 minutes after they are cooked with a wedge of lemon, a bowl of melted butter, some useful implements for cracking the claws and picking the meat and a napkin tucked into the collar to act as a bib. It may be simple but it is efficacious.

It has another merit that other treatments may not have: there is a second bite of the cherry in the form of a bisque, a dish that combines suave luxury with an admirable sense of economy.

Rowley Leigh is the chef at Le Café Anglais

rowley.leigh@ft.com

More columns at www.ft.com/leigh

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Lobster bisque

Any crustacean shells can go into a bisque: a handful of frozen prawns can also be added to a lobster bisque for additional body. Any left over lobster meat should be diced and put into the bisque at the end. Serves six.

Ingredients

1 onion

1 carrot

2 ribs of celery

½ fennel bulb

2 cloves garlic

1 chilli

The shells from at least two lobsters

1 tbs brandy or whisky

1 glass dry white wine

5 overripe tomatoes, coarsely chopped, or a tin of chopped plum tomatoes

2 bay leaves

500ml fish stock, if available

1 tbs rice

2 tbs double cream

2 egg yolks

Method

● Peel and chop all the vegetables into small dice. Heat a large saucepan with a tablespoon of olive oil and add the vegetables, letting them colour on a lively heat for five minutes. Add the lobster shells, pounding them with a heavy object such as a pestle or the end of a rolling pin.

Stew the shells together with the vegetables for a few minutes until they become too dry and start to stick. At this point, pour in the brandy or whisky and set it alight. When the flames subside, add the white wine, tomatoes, rice, bay leaves and fish stock (use water if you do not have any). Bring gently to the boil and then reduce the heat to a very light simmer and cook for 45 minutes.

● Remove the bay leaves from the soup and put the remainder in the liquidiser or food processor and pulse the mixture. Prolonged action will damage the machine and it is not the intention to actually purée the shells but to break them up. Just as good, pass the soup through the medium mesh of the mouli-legumes. In any case, the soup now has to be passed through a fine sieve: this may seem laborious but is absolutely essential because a bisque must have a smooth, velvety texture. You should now be left with at least a litre of slightly thin but very delicious soup. Put it back in a clean pan and bring it gently to the boil. Taste the soup for seasoning and flavour: it will probably need a pinch of salt, a little pepper or cayenne and perhaps a squeeze of lemon juice to sharpen proceedings.

● Whisk together the cream and egg yolks in a large mixing bowl. Pour the boiling soup gradually into this mixture, whisking constantly. Once half has been added, pour the contents of the bowl back into the pan, return for a minute, literally, to the stove, taking great care not to let it boil and stirring it constantly. Serve immediately.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010.