Category Archives: Seafood

Lobster Mac and Cheese featuring Castello Aged Havarti Cheese

Tuna Salad

I’m not a tuna fan. Opening a can of tuna is one of my least favorite things to do in the kitchen. My husband, however, is a huge fan. HUGE. We have very different tastes, to put it mildly. One day he came home with tuna salad from the Whole Foods deli. He remarked about how amazing it was and how I should try it. I did. For tuna salad, it was pretty good. Then I saw the price.

$10,99 a pound. Seriously!?!? Are there gold flakes in it? I pay less for steak! That’s right, you can go to the meat counter and get a nice steak for less money. And I’m paying more for tinned tuna? Consider the gauntlet thrown. Can I make this cheaper? Yes, I can! Even using dolphin safe, pole caught, made in America tuna. Although, this recipe would be much, much cheaper using less expensive tuna. Not that I would. I’m all for made in America.

First, I had to deconstruct the Whole Foods salad. Corporate espionage, if you will. The tuna was definitely higher end, and the salad was studded with olives. Where go olives, there are usually capers. The usual suspects of onion and celery were there in the salad as well. Seriously, this was no big deal. And, I got to customize it. My husband likes a wet salad, so I added lemon. I also added garlic powder. I’m not a fan of biting into raw garlic. Finish the whole thing off with some mayo, salt and pepper, and….. mission accomplished!

These measurements are relative. It’s not like you can really mess this salad up. If you like more onion or celery, by all means you more!

Tuna Salad
Makes about 2-3 Servings

2 5 ounce tins of tuna, drained
1/2 stalk celery, chopped fine
1/4 onion, chopped fine
1/4 cup olives, medium chop
1 tablespoon capers, drained
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/3-1/2 cup of mayonnaise (to taste)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Combine the tuna, celery, onion, olives, capers and garlic powder in a bowl. Break up the chunks of tuna if they are too large. Add mayonnaise until you reach your preferred consistency. Sample the salad and salt and pepper to taste.

Sardines

1 Reply

This post was a really hard one to do. Look at those pictures. Sardines are not really “photogenic”. However, they are incredibly delicious. And SOOO simple to make. I was walking through my local Whole Foods and came across fresh sardines. $5.99 a pound. For wild caught, fresh fish. So, I bought a half a pound and figured why not? They are incredibly heart healthy, they’ll cook quick for a weeknight appetizer splurge, and it’s about $3.00. I’ll take a chance for $3.

Marinated them in olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper and thyme. Threw them on a screaming hot grill pan. At 20 degrees outside, I thought it was a touch cold. After the thick smoke abated from my “open concept kitchen/dining room/living room”, I decided next time they would cook on the grill. A scant few minutes later, we had an amazing appetizer. They were gone in seconds. To say that tasted amazing would be an understatement. Again, didn’t look like much, but tasted great.

I was inspired by this recipe and the author’s incredible photos. While I should have probably left the fish whole for picture purposes, I’m pretty sure the kids wouldn’t have eaten them with the “guts”.

As this is a fish recipe, please be careful to avoid eating the bones. Sardines have bones, and lots of them. Bones can pose a choking hazard.

Grilled Fresh Sardines
Prep Time: 1 hour (marinating)
Cook Time: about 6 minutes

¼ cup olive oil
½ teaspoon fresh thyme
2 cloves of garlic, minced
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
½ pound sardines, cleaned, tails and heads intact.
finishing salt
lemon wedges to serve

Place the first 5 ingredients in a container and mix together well. Place sardines in container and marinate in the refrigerator for an hour.

Heat grill or grill pan moderately hot. If using grill, these fish are small, use a basket or some other device that won’t allow the fish to go through the grates. Place fish on grill, cooking on each side for about 3 minutes, until done. Remove from grill, sprinkle with a bit of finishing salt (large crystal salt) and serve with a lemon wedge. Best eaten with hands, picking the fish from the bones. As with any fish, be careful with the bones!

New England Clam Chowder

Lobster Newburg

2 Replies

We have a small football pool in our house. We pick for winners only. The winner of the weekly pool gets to pick either a special dinner or a special dessert. My kids, being rather awesome. They “saved” their wins and pooled them so they got a special dinner and dessert on the same night.

Now, my kids don’t eat the same, at all. I never thought in a million years they would agree on anything dinner-wise. So, imagine my surprise when they did. Want to guess what they picked? Lobster. Yup. One’s never had it, but wanted to try it. The other one has had it once.

Lobster.

At the same time, I haven’t really done a historical recipe for a while. So, the first one that came to mind was Lobster Newburg (or Newberg). What’s not to love? Lobster, cream, sherry, some kind of wonderful bread. Sheer Nirvana. I could eat a sherry cream sauce everyday. Love it.

But, the kids didn’t want a “recipe”, they wanted plain lobster with butter. So, two of the lobsters were steamed “plain” and two were turned into Newburg. For dessert, they requested a banana split. Odd pairing, but given it’s ease to make, I’ll take it!!

Lobster Newburg has a fascinating story, depending on which one you believe, if any of them. The dish originated in the late 1800s in America, believe it or not! All renditions of the origin story are tied to Delmonico’s, a very famous restaurant in New York City at the time. One version has a French chef departing Delmonico’s to open an inn in Pennsylvania. He wanted to serve very continental cuisine and came up with Lobster Newberg to serve at the Hotel Fauchere in Millford, Pennsylvania.

The traditional story is a bit more colorful. Ben Wenburg was an avid traveler, successful businessman, and reliably regular customer at Delmonico’s. To boot, he was a favorite diner of Delmonico’s owner, Charles Delmonico. One version has Ben swooping in and, with great showmanship, making his new favorite dish over a chafing dish in the middle of the dining room and serving it to Delmonico. Delmonico loved the dish and added it to the menu, naming it Lobster Wenburg. Delmonico and Wenburg subsequently had a falling out and the item was removed from the menu. However, as it’s delicious, there was a great cry to bring it back. So, the Delmonico transposed the W and the N and renaming Lobster “Newburg”. Other versions have the Delmonico naming the dish in honor of Wenburg, and Wenburg politely declining to have his name on the menu. Wenburg then suggests the N and W swap to disguise his name.

No matter what the story, the dish was an amazing success. When you see how simple this is, you will be amazed. It is an awesome romantic dinner. You know, when the kids are eating their steamed lobsters next to you and everything. Ah, romance.

Lobster Newburg
Serves 2-3

1 sheet of Puff Pastry, divided
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
3 egg yolks, beaten well
3 Cups Cooked Lobster Meat*
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon sherry

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Place pastry on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone baking sheet. Bake for 15-20 minutes until the pastry has risen and is golden.

While the pastry is cooking, turn your attention to the sauce. Ok, you may want to use a double boiler if you are skittish about heating a high fat milk product, but if you promise to use a heavy bottomed pan and cook the cream over medium low heat, you may be fine. I was. I hate using a double boiler, too many pans! Slowly heat the cream in a larger sauce pan, stirring frequently, but don’t let it boil. When it is moderately hot (like hot chocolate hot), temper the egg yolks (add a tiny bit of the hot cream to the yolks incrementally until the yolks are rather warm), and add the yolks back to the cream. Return the pan to the heat and allow to simmer gently, again with frequent stirring. Add the lobster to the pan and continue to cook until the lobster is warmed through, about 5 minutes. Add the butter and sherry and stir until the butter is melted, about 1 minute. Serve over puff pastry (can also use rice or toast made from great French bread).

Wasn’t that easy?

*You can have your market steam your lobster. You can boil the lobster yourself in a deep kettle of boiling water for 5 minutes for the first pound, and 3 minutes for each additional pound until the lobsters are done. You can steam the lobsters until they are a bright red. However you cook your lobsters, you just need to shell them afterwards. As a Marylander and a voracious crab eater, picking lobsters is a walk in the park compared to crabs. This step should not be a deterrent!!

Smørrebrød- Shrimp

3 Replies

I have more than a few close friends that don’t eat chicken, beef, pork, etc. They confine their meat sources to seafood, for health and ethical reasons. On the other hand, husband is an unabashed carnivore. So, this blog won’t veer too far from animal meat sources. However, every once in a while, I will come across an awesome sounding recipe and make a seafood dish as tribute to my wonderful seafood eating friends. When research items for my smørrebrød post, I came across this pretty amazing version of the Danish open faced sandwich and couldn’t resist giving it a go.

If you are looking for an easy appetizer, or luncheon dish, this is it. It’s pretty much just assembly. No real work of any consequence, yet you end up with a very high impact dish. This is a fairly minimal, clean dish and the flavors work very well together. While the look is amazing, the taste is not overly complicated. Some of my taste testers preferred a pinch of salt added to the sandwich, so you may want to consider that as a finishing touch.

This recipe is inspired by a recipe I found on Epicurious.

Shrimp Smørrebrød
Makes 8 Sandwiches

1/4 cup chilled heavy cream
1/4 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons drained bottled horseradish
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
8 slices rye bread
2 firm-ripe California avocados
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
8 leaves Boston lettuce, rinsed and dried
1 pound large-jumbo shrimp (16), steamed, peeled, chilled and deveined
Cut Chives
1 1/2 tablespoons drained bottled capers

In a mixing bowl, whip heavy cream to soft peaks. Add sour cream and horseradish and whip until stiff. Set aside.

Cut the crust off of the rye bread and make uniform squares or rectangles. Generously butter bread. Set aside on serving plate.

Peel and slice avocados, place in a bowl and toss with lemon juice until thoroughly covered. Set aside.

Place a lettuce leaf on each piece of buttered bread. Layer avocado, shrimp, cream, chives and capers on each sandwich. Serve.

Hot Crab Dip

2 Replies

I live in Maryland. We love our blue crab here. When our beloved Ravens were in the Superbowl hunt, crab was scarce because everyone was making hot crab dip for the big game.

Seriously.

You think I’m exaggerating? During the playoffs, I ventured to 4 different stores to find lump crab meat on game day, and STILL came up empty. I totally learned my lesson and bought some earlier in the week for the next game. Hot crab dip is like buffalo wings here.

Everyone has their own recipe they make at home, but one thing you’ll find is that generally, people are unhappy with restaurant dip. It’s mostly “filler”, with too much cheese or mayonnaise. Nary a “jumbo lump” to be found. Disappointing. I realize crab can be expensive. Around here, crab goes for $16 to an eye popping $44 a pound. But, when you are paying $14 for a very shallow bowl of dip, you should be able to identify a few chunks of crab!

My recipe is a bit different from others. I don’t like green or red peppers in my dip. Peppers, to me, are overwhelming, especially to the sweet and delicate crab meat. I also don’t like cheddar cheese. You can sub the Monterey Jack cheese I use in the recipe below if you prefer cheddar, but the reason I don’t use cheddar is that it’s not a smooth melting cheese and tends to clump together. Especially as the dip cools. When you dip a cracker in a hot dip that uses cheddar, you sometimes get an unsightly mass of cheddar cheese. Not ideal. Also, and this is a pearl-clutching statement for a Marylander, so brace yourself: I don’t like Old Bay. It’s just too much. To me, it ruins everything it touches. Old Bay is a bold and aggressive seasoning that lacks sophistication, especially for a very subtle dish like crab dip. I realize what I’ve uttered is heresy in these parts. I’m ok with it.

I also used pasteurized crab meat in this dish. I know, gasp! Look, I could spend 1/2 an hour picking through meat looking for shells. Or, not. Pasteurized meat tends to not have shell in it (you still need to be careful with it, as you do get a few), but some think it has a slightly off flavor. There’s so much spice and flavor in this dish, the pasteurized crab won’t make a difference. Now, were this a no filler type crab cake or a cold crab dish, I probably wouldn’t use it. I don’t really taste much of a difference between pasteurized and fresh crab meat, honestly. Let me clarify that I mean pasteurized crab. It’s usually right next to the fresh crab. Not canned crab. I’ve never used that, so I can’t comment on it.

My perfect crab dip is creamy, loaded with crab, with a touch of spice hitting at the end. A completely ultra lux experience. So, in my dip I have mayonnaise and, optionally, cream cheese. I made two versions of this. One was slightly runny, but excellent. The other was thick and creamy and also excellent. I went with thick. The only difference is the addition of the cream cheese. If you don’t want an extra thick dip (or don’t have cream cheese handy), leave it out.

Hot Crab Dip
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 40 minutes
Serves a large crowd

3/4 cup mayonnaise
1 cup Monterey Jack cheese
2 tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup shallots, diced fine (may substitute onions)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon hot sauce (more if you like it spicy!)
4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature (optional)
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1 pound jumbo lump crab meat, picked for shells
Crackers or toast points

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.

Combine all the ingredients in a baking dish except the crab and crackers. After the mayonnaise mixture is thoroughly combined, gently fold the crab meat into the mixture. This preserves the “jumbo lump” you paid for. Bake until bubbly, about 40 minutes. Serve with crackers or toast points.

Chicken Marengo

3 Replies

Want to get your kids to eat something they wouldn’t normally eat? Have a cool backstory. Seriously. My kids were not really interested in eating this dish until I told the backstory, then they couldn’t get enough. So, what’s the back story?

We need to go back in time to the Napoleonic Wars. In 1800, First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte had just barely eeked out a victory over the Austrians at Marengo in Italy. This victory helped to solidify the new French government’s position in France after the Revolution. Legend has it, Napoleon asked his chef, Dinand, to make a meal to celebrate the victory. According to the lore, the Austrians had captured the food supplies of Napoleon’s army, so there was precious little in the way of food available to cook for such a meal. Not even butter!! Quelle horreur!! So, Dinand dispatch people into the Italian countryside to find something, anything, to put together a dinner for Napoleon. They came back with a chicken, olive oil, a few mushrooms, tomatoes, eggs and crawfish fished from a local river. Dinand added some bread rations, some staples he had handly (garlic, onions) and a bit of cognac from Napoleon’s flask, and voila! Chicken Marengo is born, June 14, 1800! Upon returning to Paris, legend has it Dinand attempted to “correct” the recipe by using white wine instead of cognac and omitting the crawfish. Napoleon sent it back instructing the Chef that the dish is to be made the original way. No deviation. Napoleon was very superstitious and considered this dish his victory dish.

Now, who wouldn’t want to eat, or at least try a dish with such a storied history?!? Eating the dish Napoleon ate? There are very few things in history you can recreate and have the same experience. What I love is that food is one of them. Some things might change a bit, like the breed of the chicken, but it’s still pretty close. You get a window into the times and how people (mainly the well to do) lived.

Chicken Marengo over the years has been “modernized”. One cookbook from the late 1800s called for making the dish with half a pound of truffles!! Well, that wasn’t happening on my blog budget. So, I tried to stick to the original. I actually had most of the ingredients, save the crawfish. I substituted shrimp. I added juniper berries (you can substitute a bay leaf) because I thought it might be a staple hanging around and it would work well with the tomatoes. And, while the dish looks completely wild, it actually kind of works. The chicken holds it own against the tomatoes and olives. The cognac gives the tomatoes and olives a subtle depth of flavor. White wine would bring a brighter flavor, but this is more round. Shrimp is pretty much always good, and the eggs on fried bread is just amazing. You can imagine this dish is a victory dish. Chicken Marengo is extravagant in every possible way.

I used chicken thighs and legs, not a whole chicken, because that’s what was on sale. But you could try cutting up a whole bird, just be aware of the cooking time differentials between the pieces.

Chicken Marengo
Serves 4-6
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 40 minutes

olive oil
4 chicken leg quarters, separated into thighs and legs
salt
pepper
3 tablespoons cognac (or enough to deglaze pan, plus a tablespoon)
1 onion, diced
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 pound shrimp
8 ounces mushrooms, sliced
1/2 cup kalamata olives, rough chop
26 ounces crushed tomatoes (I used a box of tomatoes, you can use the large can too)
4 juniper berries (may substitute 1 bay leaf)
french bread, sliced
eggs

Cover bottom of a 3 quart of larger saute pan with olive oil. Slowly heat the oil over medium to medium high heat.

Generously salt and pepper the chicken pieces and place in the pan. Cook until chicken is cooked through, about 25 minutes. I used a thermometer to make sure the pieces were cooked to 165 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove chicken from pan and set aside. Deglaze pan with cognac. Add the onions and garlic. Cook until the onions are translucent. Add the shrimp and cook until pink and curled, about 7-10 minutes. Remove shrimp from pan, set aside. Add another tablespoon of cognac to neutralize the shrimp. Add the mushrooms and olives. Cook for a minute or so. Add the tomatoes, juniper berries and a bit more salt and pepper. Simmer. Briefly return chicken to pan to warm through

Meanwhile, cover the bottom of a small fry pan with olive oil and heat over medium high heat. Add the bread and “fry”. When golden on both sides, remove from the pan. Add more oil (or switch to a non-stick pan) and fry an egg for each person.

Assembly was alleged to be: chicken, covered with tomato sauce, topped with shrimp (crawfish). On the side, fried bread topped with a fried egg.

	Zane Dyer on Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes
	dawn of food on Breakfast Sausage
	Susan on Breakfast Sausage
	Dorothy's New Vintag… on Quiche
	Buttermilk Pie \| daw… on Pie or Pastry Crust

dawn of food

Dedicated to encouraging people to cook simple foods with real ingredients, and any other fun topics.

Category Archives: Seafood

Lobster Mac and Cheese featuring Castello Aged Havarti Cheese

Tuna Salad

Sardines

New England Clam Chowder

Lobster Newburg

Smørrebrød- Shrimp

Hot Crab Dip

Chicken Marengo

Salmon, two ways

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: