Skirting the name issue

What's in a name?

Silly question, Will. As a writer, surely you know that names, like all words, are things of power. The words we use set the expectations of our audience. I mean, really, roses renamed Gomer's smegma might still smell as sweet, but who'd want to get close enough to find out? Likewise, if your surname were Tugger, would you ever name your son Peter or Dick? What's in a name? Please. If you were eating at a restaurant, would you order a dish called Squishy Pustules? or Sir John Falstaff's Navel Lint Pie? or even...okay, I better stop before I say something that makes Princess V ill (doesn't pay to upset one's editor).

Names carry associations. In My "Little Brown Jug" I took my favorite local restaurant to task for disappointing me by applying a misleading name to a dish. How would you feel if you ordered a spaghetti dish and got something that contained no pasta? Even if the dish is exquisite, your foiled expectations would ill flavor the meal.

Living in Texas, in the heart of TexMex country, I am acutely aware of the naming problem. TexMex has created a number of naming problems for anyone interested in the history of Mexican cuisine. Some of these naming problems can become problems for restaurateurs and other cooks. Take the burrito, for example. Efforts to determine the origin of the burrito place it variously in the Sonora region of Mexico and various parts of southern and central Texas? You wouldn't think this much of an issue, but if you're trying to document the influence of Mexican foods on American cuisines and vice versa, it all gets pretty confusing.

Certainly the idea of putting food in tortillas originated in Mexico—likewise the idea of rolling or folding food into a tortilla. Or so you might think. In truth, members of a number of Native American tribes had similar practices. Navajo and Hopi flatbread were topped or filled with meats and herbs in much the same manner as in Mexican tacos and tostadas.

Generally, here's what I've been able to determine with any certainty:

Tacos

Tacos fall into three basic categories: Mexican, TexMex, and American Fast Food.

The Mexican taco consists of a soft corn tortilla folded over or rolled around ground meat and some kind of salsa (salsa fresca, pico de gallo, or both). Some areas traditionally add guacamole. In some regions a wheat flour tortilla is used in lieu of corn. One interesting variation that you rarely see in the US (but I'm seeing more and more Taco stands in Austin offering this, lately) is the taco al pastor. The taco al pastor consists of thin slices from a spiced, rotisserie cooked pork loaf (similar to the spitted meat used in gyros). The traditional garnish for a taco al pastor is slightly different from the taco norm: onion, cilantro, pineapple, and a bit of hot salsa.

TexMex tacos tend to mimic Mexican tacos but with a couple of distinctly non-Mexican additions: cheese and sour cream. I don't know who added these or why. Mexican food purists typically claim the dairy products were added by gringo wimps to mitigate the heat of the chilis used in the salsas. Increasingly, however, cheese has crept into the condiments in Mexican towns catering to Americans. In TexMex food, Monterey Jack is the most commonly used cheese, but you'll occasionally see various types of cheddar or some of that plasticky, blond crap the supermarkets sell as American cheese. In Mexico tourist towns, you're more likely to see queso fresca or queso cotija.

Fast food tacos use crisp taco shells. I guess this is because they're easier to load, assembly-line fashion. The fast food guys also add lettuce. I think this is to make it look like the taco contains more food than is actually present.

Burritos

So, starting with that beef filled taco, fold in the ends and roll up the tortilla so that the filling is completely hidden. Voila: burrito. Mexican or TexMex? Hard to decide. Though available in both countries, burritos appear to have originated in either northern Mexico or southern Texas. These days, you find burritoid food items in southern Mexico and throughout Central America, but they are more frequently called tacos de harinas (wheat flour tacos) where folks apparently don't see fully enclosing the contents in tortilla as a distinguishing characteristic. I've met folks from Quintana Roo who openly scoff at the term burrito, "A little burro? Who wants to eat a little burro?"

Chimichangas

I have always believed that chimichangas originated in Texas. I mean, a deep fried burrito? How Elvis can you get? My research, however, suggests otherwise. These crunchy little cholesterol bombs were apparently invented in Mexico.

Fajitas

When you mention Y2K, most people remember all the hype about the millennium bug. Computer systems were expected to implode in the visionary vacuum of their own numerological constraints.

What I usually remember about Y2K is the millenium irritation argument. To most people in the world, the first day of the year 2000 was the first day of the new millenium. To anyone who had done the math (or otherwise been impressed by someone who had done the math), January 1 2000 would not end the millenium. It would mark the beginning of the 2000th year, A.D. instead of the end. For this minority, the new millennium would not begin and therefore could not be properly celebrated until January 1, 2001. This latter idea did not catch on too broadly, but did become a source of endless annoyance at academic and techie parties. Everyone seemed to fall into one of two cliques: those who wanted to save the 1/1/2000 celebrants from their ignorance and those who wanted to save the 1/1/2001 adherants from their pedantry.

Fajitas are the Y2K of the Tex-Mex world. If you want to make a Tex-Mex pedant sneer, just start talking about chicken or shrimp fajitas.

Originally, the term fajita was coined by someone at Ninfa's restaurant in Houston. The coinage may have been accidental. Street vendors in Mexico City at the time were selling what they called tacos rajitas, rajitas being thin slices (in Spanish, raja = slice) of barbecued or grilled beef. The Ninfas fajitas were made from the beef skirt, called the faja in Mexican carnicerias (faja = girdle), so the name seemed reasonable.

Logically, lexically, fajitas can only be made from strips of beef skirt. Shrimp and chickens don't have a faja. Beef fajitas are usually made with grilled or seared, marinated skirt steak (skirt is tough as canvas and absolutely must be marinated over night in lime juice and salt). The beef is served with flour tortillas, pico de gallo, guacamole, and grilled or sautéed onions and chilis.

In practice and popular association, fajitas are the combination of a grilled meat item with the appropriate Tex-Mex condiments. Chicken, shrimp, and even portabello mushroom fajitas are common in Tex-Mex restaurants. Lexically, all of these non-beef items should probably be called rajitas, or tacos, or something asado.

Shrimp and crab tacos (fajitas?)

This is a meal for three. The following recipes are for pico de gallo, guacamole, and the shrimp and crab filling. The crab matches remarkably well with the quacamole, especially if served with warm, fresh corn tortillas.

dramatis personae

three firm cluster tomatoes, diced
two serrano chilis, seeded and minced
one small sweet onion, diced
one small garlic clove, minced
one large hass avocado
juice of two limes
one bunch of cilantro
sea salt to taste
one tablespoon peanut oil
one half pound 10-15 count shrimp tails
one quarter pound lump crab meat
one tablespoon minced epazote
two tablespoons mulatto chili purée*

* This is the chili purée I described in My Latest Beef. The recipe is simple, quick, and makes more than you need, even for the albacore steaks. It will keep in the refrigerator for a few weeks.

quality of ingredients

The chilis are difficult. Serranos are quite variable in their heat. I usually try to use one green serrano and one red or mostly red serrano (the redder they are, typically, the hotter they are). You can substitute jalapeños or green fingerhots, but those are also quite variable.

Garlic is not a standard addition to pico de gallo or guacamole, but I like a little in each. Garlic bulbs should have a bit of heft to them. The really light ones are dried out. Don't use garlic that is showing green. Green in garlic will make your guacamole bitter.

You want Hass or Fuerte avocados for guacamole. Florida or green skin avocados are too watery and too sweet. In all honesty, though, the dark skinned avocados are a pain in the ass to pick out at the supermarket. If they're soft enough for guacamole, they're frequently overripe and mottled with nasty-looking brown spots. I learned a long time ago that an avocado that feels like the flesh has separated from the skin is definitely overripe. Beyond that, I still can't figure out how you're supposed to know, before you get them home, whether these damned things will have spots or not.

As I've noted previously, I use peanut oil because it has a high smoke point and does not flavor the food. You can also use high quality olive oil (not extra-virgin). I know that many cooks prefer canola oil. I think canola oil lends a plasticky taste.

Several grocers in the Austin area sell good quality cooked crab, and live crabs are usually more expensive. I have tried lump crab, snow crab clusters, stone crab claws, and Dungeness crab clusters. The stone crab claws were the best. The meat is flavorful and shatters in the cooking and coats the shrimp. The stone crab claws have two drawbacks: they are hard to open and two pounds of claws yields only a quarter-pound of meat. The lump crab meat was the second best (flavorful, pleasantly toothsome) and required the least work (just a little sifting for stray bits of cartilage and shell). Shelling the snow crab and Dungeness clusters was a lot of work, but they yielded about twice as much meat as the stone crab claws. I love snow crab, but it is a bit too mild for this dish, and the Dungeness (despite rinsing) was too salty. I'll have to try the Dungeness again and remember to taste it before I cook it to be sure it's adequately rinsed.

Epazote—either you can find it in your area or you can't. If you can't, just forget it. There is no substitute. Cilantro, thyme, or Mexican oregano might be just fine with this dish, but it won't be anything like the epazote.

preparation notes

I recommend the following game plan:

1. Mise en scene—dice, mince, seed, and juice all the vegetable matter except the cilantro and the avocado. The avocado should not be opened until you are ready to mix the guacamole. Cilantro should never be minced until just before it's to be added (it takes on a soapy flavor).
2. Purée the chilis (if you don't have some puree on hand already).
3. Mix the pico de gallo.
4. Mix the guacamole.
5. Shell the crab (or just sift it if you're using lump crab).
6. Peel and devein the shrimp tails.
7. Roll the masa balls (if you're making fresh tortillas)
8. Fry the tortillas and sauté the shrimp and crab simultaneously.

This program gets everything out at the right temperatures.

Step one is pretty straightforward.

Step two I covered in My Latest Beef.

Step three is also pretty straightforward: in a non-reactive bowl combine the tomato, onion, serranos, and half of the garlic. Mix in the juice of one lime and sea salt to taste. Mince enough cilantro to make about a tablespoon and mix that into the pico. For the purists: garlic is a non-standard addition, but it adds a nice kick. Incidentally, the pico de gallo will stay fresh in the refrigerator for a few days, so you can prepare this well in advance, if you prefer. Refrigerate this until everything is ready to serve.

Step four: guacamole. Traditional guacamole in Mexico is whipped to the consistency of thick oatmeal. The girls and I prefer chunks (roughly half-inch cubes). After cubing the avocado, immediately mix in the juice of one lime. This will keep the guacamole from browning right away. Note: the guacamole will still brown after about an hour, so don't make it too far in advance. An interesting side effect of the lime is that it softens the avocado. Mix in the other half of the garlic. Mince enough cilantro to make about a tablespoon and mix that into the guac. Sprinkle in sea salt to taste. Refrigerate this until everything is ready to serve.

Steps five and six are fairly straightforward. If the shrimp is not as fresh as you'd like (if it has a fishy or sulphurous aroma), drop the tails into a bowl of cheap white wine to saok until you are ready to toss them into the sauté pan.

Step seven: the masa for tortillas. You have to have a tortilla press for this. I'll go into this in more detail later. I really need to get some photos to describe this process. One thing I will say: if you can get the premixed masa (it contains lard), you'll get much better results than with masa and water.

Step eight: the tortillas and the seafood. For the tortillas (which I am not going to talk about, mind) you will need a seasoned comal or cast iron skillet. Wipe the skillet with a dab of peanut oil on a paper towel. For the crab and shrimp, preheat a tablespoon of peanut oil in a non-stick skillet until the oil shimmers. Add the shrimp (pour off the wine first) and sauté until the shrimp tails are nearly opaque. Mix in the chili purée and the crab meat and toss until the seafood is throughly coated and the shrimp are done.

The Secret Language of Fish, Volume 5

The Fishest Fish

As I mentioned in My Inner PETA, I just can't eat grouper...groupers. Aw, hell, I even have trouble thinking of them as grouper. They're individuals, not a substance. In fact, I can't understand how any diver can eat them. Groupers frequently follow us around the reef, and they appear genuinely inquisitive. Eating their flesh would be like barbecuing the cardinals who frequent the feeder outside my bedroom window.

Eating snapper, on the other hand, doesn't bother me. Snapper are a bit more skittish than groupers, less inquisitive, less intelligent, less expressive. Any curiosity from a snapper ends at the realization that I don't have any food for it. Not, mind you, that I've seen too many red snappers during dives. Red snappers prefer to stay in the 100 to 200 foot depth range, and they prefer to stay out of sight of humans. I've seen more than my share of cubera snappers, grey snappers, and dog snappers. They show up frequently on night dives, and they usually hang around hoping I'll point a light at something they can eat.

Since they don't pass my sapience test, I consider red snapper fair game. That and they're delicious. Red snapper is my number one generic food fish choice. When I think of fish for dinner, my usual thought process begins with red snapper. Though rarely falling prey to the pungent nastiness we call fishiness, snapper is the fishest fish I know: the quintessential non-fishy-tasting fish taste. Since I live in Texas, I usually think of red snapper, which I can usually get fresh. If I lived in Hawaii, my first choice would be ruby snapper, which is similar to red snapper but slightly more flavorful.

Like mahimahi, snapper is frequently and erroneously classed as a "white-fleshed fish." Anyone who's ever had red snapper sushi or sashimi knows that raw snapper is a glassy translucent pink. Snapper are active feeders. They may not spend their lives swimming through miles of pelagic currents like tuna and mackerel, but neither are they as sedentary as flatfish, cod, or other truly white-fleshed fish. Snapper decidedly does cook white, but so do sardines and anchovies.

Many cooks, I've noticed, complain that snapper is over-rated, that it's bland, that the meat tastes muddy, or that snapper cooked in any way outside of the oven is a waste of fish. Trust me; they're wrong.

To be more specific:

If you try to use snapper in a recipe that works well with salmon, tuna, mahimahi, or a strong fishy fish, you'll overwhelm the delicate flavor of the snapper. In that case, snapper will seem overrated.

If you overcook it or simply do nothing to enhance the inherent crustacean-like sweetness of snapper, the flesh will seem bland.

If the meat tastes muddy, you got one that was caught too close to shore. This seems to be a problem frequent to Florida and the east coast (which apparently gets most of its snapper from Florida). Restaurants in Florida prefer yellow-tailed snapper to red snapper, which always sounded screwy to me. Yellow-tailed snapper are garbage disposals. They feed near the surface like Bermuda chubs, and they'll eat just about anything that hits the water. In much of the Caribbean, anywhere a dive boat docks, the yellow-tailed snappers show up looking for handouts. If you get seasick, these are the fish who'll likely be doing the cleanup. As we've all been told since childhood: you are what you eat.

Red snappers, on the other hand, subsist primarily on live crustaceans and small fish. Apparently, this is not entirely true of the snapper population close to shore, where the red snappers have learned to eat scraps off the bottom. You can usually tell just by examining the fish with your eyes and nostrils. If the flesh is mostly a uniform translucent, pale pink and has no odor or smells faintly of shrimp, you can be fairly certain the fish was not eating garbage. If the flesh has a brownish tinge to it, is mottled, or smells faintly of bowel, don't buy it.

As for baked snapper, hey, baked whole snapper is a marvelous dish. I know several good recipes for taking advantage of all the various textures of the snapper carcass. I don't recommend this treatment, though, unless you're feeding a large party. Personally, I prefer sautéed red snapper filets to the baked whole fish.

For sautéing snapper I have just a few rules of thumb:

1. Scale the fish but always leave the skin on. It tastes great. In some treatments, it looks great. Even if you don't eat the skin, the savory gelatin from the skin will help flavor the fish.
2. Finish the fish in a poaching or braising (same thing, different depths) liquid. If I've browned the non-skin side, I braise rather than poach so that I can keep the browned portion dry.
3. Avoid vinaigrettes and escabeches. Vinegar overwhelms the delicate flavor of the snapper. Note, I said avoid. If you do use a vinaigrette or escabeche make sure it's a mild one.

I previously shared one of my favorite traditional recipes, Huachinango Veracruzano, in My Little Brown Jug. The following are a couple of my more recent red snapper successes.

Curried red snapper with Thai spice crab chowder

dramatis personae

These proportions will feed two.

chowder components:
one tablespoon peanut oil
one half medium onion
two cloves garlic
one tablespoon ginger, minced or grated
one thai pepper, minced
one medium russet potato, peeled and diced
one cup water
one can coconut milk
four snow crab claws
two or three keffir lime leaves, finely minced
cilantro leaves for garnish

haricots verts, snow peas, or snap peas (handful)

one red snapper filet
Madras curry powder

quality of ingredients

Again I tackle the topic of oil. I think all the chefs out there using canola oil are deluding themselves. Canola oil does not cook without imparting flavor. Canola oil tastes like plastic. If I want to minimize the flavor imparted to a dish, I prefer peanut oil. It's not flavorless, but it is mild and pleasant tasting. As for transfat and cis-fat concerns, I've yet to see any evidence that the relatively small quantities of cis-fats and transfats produced from cooking with peanut oil threaten my health. Besides, they've been using it in much of Asia for decades with no discernible increase in health problems.

To recap on the matter of snapper selection: the filets should be intact (no splits or gaps in the flesh), should appear uniformly translucent pale pink, and should have either no odor or a faint aroma of shrimp. For this dish, since the skin is an important element of presentation, the skin should be brightly colored, intact, and unblemished.

I know: haricots verts sounds just too too pretentious, but the green beans sold in the US under this label (which translates, ironically, "green beans") are thinner, sweeter, and less stringy than the ones sold as "snap beans." If you can't find haricot verts, either select the thinnest snap beans you can find, or substitute fresh snow peas or snap peas.

Yes, it has to be a russet potato. Well, okay, not really, but it has to be a high starch, low moisture potato. Why waste anything more complex (a white rose or Yukon gold, for example) when you just want something that will cook down to a starchy pulp as and provide a good chowder base? Besides, russets are cheap.

On a similar note, this treatment has you cooking the onion down to a soft component of a chowder, so sweet onions are wasted here. There's nothing wrong with a sweet onion in this recipe, but you'll usually pay more for it. Use the sweet onions if they're what you already have on hand. Otherwise, for the sake of your shopping list, get a basic white or yellow onion.

"Madras curry powder" is a phrase that will cause many foodies to turn up their noses in disgust. If you're making a curry, I agree that designing your own spice blend can be a rich, rewarding experience. Besides, different types of flesh require a different balance of flavors. In the case of seared fish or curried broils (rubbed meats), where the "curry" is just a small flavor element, I use curry powder. To be precise, I use Sun Brand Madras Curry Powder. I find most other curry powders too high in cumin, too high in chili, or too bland. Pick a curry powder you like. If you want to grind your own, knock yourself out.

Don't use prepared ginger or garlic. The preminced mashed stuff in the jars tastes nasty, and the dried stuff tastes altogether wrong. I also don't recommend pressing the garlic. For this dish, you want the garlic to mellow and soften like the onions. Crushing it will make your chowder taste too garlicky.

I use canned coconut milk. I've done the fresh coconut milk thing, and it really doesn't seem to make much difference. If you want to use fresh, you have to remove the flesh from the coconut (remove the liquid and put the segments on a cookie sheet in a 400 F oven for ten minutes or until the shells pull away from the meat), pulverize it in a food processor, and blend it with the fluid from the coconut. If you use fresh coconut milk, depending on the richness of the resultant milk, this recipe will require one to two cups. (If you're not sure how your coconut milk stacks up against the canned stuff, when the recipe calls for the milk, add one cup and then taste the chowder. Add as much more as you think it needs.)

I used snow crab claws, but Jonah, stone, or dungeness crab claws should work, if that's what you have.

In this particular recipe, the keffir lime leaves are not a requirement, but they add a bright finish. If you can't find the leaves, add a little lime juice just before serving. (Thai basil might also be a nice touch, but I haven't tried this yet.)

notes on preparation

Remove the pin bones and scales from the filet. Leave the skin on. Cut the filet into two serving-sized pieces, and sprinkle the flesh side of each with a fine dusting of curry powder. Set the filets aside while you prepare the chowder and beans.

In a stock pot, heat a teaspoon of the peanut oil to shimmering and add the onion, garlic, thai pepper, and ginger. Stirring frequently to avoid browning, cook the mixture until the onions begin to clarify. Add the potatoes and a half cup of water (the water is just to keep the vegetables from browning). Continue to cook the mixture, adding water as necessary to keep everything moist, until the potatoes are soft enough to mash (about fifteen minutes).

Once the potatoes are soft, add the coconut milk and blend the mixture thoroughly. I had intended to do this with a stick blender, but my stick blender seems to have wandered off. Pouring the concoction into the blender worked fine (be careful to cover the lid with a dish towel or something similar to keep the hot chowder from gushing out the top and scalding you).

Return the chowder to the burner over a low flame and add the crab claws (shells and all). Let the chowder simmer for twenty minutes, stirring occasionally.

While the chowder is simmering, blanch the beans (or peas) for two minutes in boiling water. Drain the beans in a strainer or colander; then, sauté them in a teaspoon of peanut oil over a medium high flame for another two minutes. Remove the beans from the pan and set them aside.

Heat the remaining teaspoon of peanut oil in a non-stick sauté pan over a high flame until the oil begins to smoke lightly. Place the filet portions in the sauté pan flesh side down. Leave them alone for two full minutes. Turn the flame down to medium and—being careful to keep them intact (this may take two turners)—flip the filets and let the skin side cook for three full minutes. Again taking care to keep the portions intact, remove the filets from the sauté pan to a plate to cool.

Once the chowder has simmered for twenty minutes, remove the crab claws and to allow them to cool (don't rinse them). Stir the keffir lime leaves into the chowder. Once the claws are cool enough to handle, remove the crab meat. Discard the shells and stir the crab meat into the chowder.

to serve

In two individual pasta bowls or similar flat-bottomed bowls, arrange a web or nest of beans (or peas). I put down five or six beans in parallel and top them with a layer of five or six beans perpendicular to the first set. Place a filet upon each nest, skin side up. Pour chowder all around the filet at least up to the level of the fish but not enough to reach the skin. Garnish the chowder with cilantro.

Red snapper and sea scallops in salsa verde

This started out as a scallop dish. I knew that tomatillos do a nice job of bringing out the inherent sweetness of scallops. I only threw in the snapper because I knew girlchild wouldn't eat the scallops. She has a remarkably broad palate, but she just doesn't seem to have the scallop-lover's gene. To my surprise, she has requested this dish again on more than one occasion.

dramatis personae

These proportions will feed three.

one pound tomatillos
one tablespoon olive oil
three green poblano peppers
one teaspoon lime juice
pinch of sea salt
one red snapper filet (about a pound)
three epazote leaves, minced

quality of ingredients

Tomatillos look a little like green tomatoes. Although they are in the same family as tomatoes, tomatillos are actually more closely related to ground cherries and cape gooseberries. Like those two odd fruits, tomatillos grow in papery husks. If you've never used them, you're in for quite a surprise. Tomatillos should be green (they ripen yellow, but ripe tomatillos have little flavor), firm, and free of blemishes. I'm sure this drives the produce guys nuts, but I always tear the husks (they're just going to be discarded anyway) to check the quality of the fruit. When you remove the husks at home, you'll find that the fruit is sticky with sap. That's normal. The sap rinses off readily.

Poblanos are somewhat variable. One will have no heat whatsoever and the next will have a burn like a jalapeño. As a result, the odds are you'll get a slight amount of chilli burn in this dish, but even with the hottest poblanos, it won't be much. If you want a hotter version of this dish, you're in the wrong set of recipes. Snapper, remember, has a delicate flavor. The poblanos should be dark green, smooth, and shiny. Check the base of the stem to be sure no mold has snuck into the chilli.

If you live anywhere outside of Mexico, Texas, California, and the American Southwest, you may not be able to find epazote. I've seen a number of recipes purporting to create a substitute for epazote. None of them work. Epazote has a unique flavor that includes minty notes, sasparilla notes, and something that smells faintly like a petroleum product. Epazote has an ellusive electric quality that will make your lips and tongue tingle. If you can't find epazote, a little cilantro will add a fresh something extra.

notes on preparation

This recipe is consists of six steps:

1. Roast, peel, and seed the poblanos.
2. Sauté the tomatillos and roasted poblanos.
3. Process the tomatillo/poblano salsa.
4. Sauté the scallops.
5. Sauté the snapper filets.
6. Braise the scallops and snapper filets briefly in the salsa.

Roasting the poblanos

I've tried several techniques for roasting chillis: barbecue, comal, broiler, butane torch, and stovetop. None worked nearly as well as cooking the chillis directly on the stovetop. If you have an electric stove, you'll have to try one of the other methods. Before you start roasting the chillis, whatever method you use, cut off the tip of the pepper to avoid exploding chillis. I roast the poblanos one at a time over a high flame, directly on the burner. Once one side is black, using a pair of dinner forks, turn the poblano over to blacken another side. Keep turning the chilli until all of the skin is black. Remove the chilli from the flame and immediately wrap it in a damp paper towel. Leave that chilli to cool while you roast the next one. When all the chillis are done roasting, the first should be ready to peel.

Roasted chillis peel easily. Just wipe all the black skin off with a damp paper towel. Pull out the stem and core of the poblano. Tear or cut the poblano open, and remove and discard the pith and seeds.

Sautéing the tomatillos and poblanos

Hull and quarter the tomatillos. In a sauté pan over a medium-high flame, heat a half-tablespoon of olive oil (I use a non-stick skillet. For a stainless steel skillet, you'll need two tablespoons of olive oil) to shimmering. Add the tomatillos, roasted poblanos, and a pinch of sea salt and sauté until the tomatillos begin to soften. Once the tomatillos are about half cooked through (you'll be able to tell by the color, which becomes pale as they cook), remove them from the flame and add the lime juice.

Processing the salsa

Pour the tomatillo/poblano mixture into a food processor and pulse it a few times to eliminate the large chunks (nothing in the salsa should be larger than a pea). You want salsa, not a puree.

Sauté the scallops

Rinse the scallops and (if your fishmonger hasn't done this already) remove the tough bit of muscle from the side. In a sauté pan over a high flame, heat a half tablespoon (again, I'm using a non-stick pan; two tablespoons of oil for stainless steel) of olive oil just to the point of smoking. Place the scallops in the oil, reduce the flame to medium high, and leave the scallops alone for two full minutes. After two minutes, turn the scallops. They should be golden brown on the cooked side. Again leave them alone for two minutes. Remove the scallops from the pan, but don't turn off the flame.

Sauté the snapper filets

Divide the filet into three portions. In the hot, scallop-flavored oil, place the filet portions flesh side down and leave them alone for two full minutes. We want these guys browned, too. Turn the flame down to medium. Being careful to keep them intact, turn the filets over and cook the skin side for two minutes. Remove the filets to a holding plate.

Braising the seafood

With a spatula, scrape the sauté pan to loosen any remaining bits of scallop and snapper fond. Pour the salsa into the pan and stir it to incorporate the fond into the salsa. Place the filets in the salsa skin-side down. You want to keep the browned portion mostly out of the salsa. Similarly, place the scallops in the salsa, keeping the best looking side of each scallop up. Allow the seafood to simmer in the salsa for three minutes.

Being careful to keep the salsa off the top side of each, remove the scallops and filets from the salsa. Stir the epazote into the salsa and turn off the flame.

to serve

Pour the salsa into a large serving platter arrange the scallops and fillet portions atop the salsa. This dish goes well with saffron rice, achiote rice, or fresh corn tortillas.

The Secret Language of Fish, Volume 4

Death of the Gilded Warrior

Back before the Internet and personal computers—hell, before my parents even acquiesced to putting a television in our home (black-and-white, UHF, ostensibly 13 channels but at least eight were unused), my primary source of infotainment was the Colliers and Americana Encyclopedias my father had bought with the U.S. savings bonds that were supposed to have been my college money. I particularly enjoyed the Colliers volumes that contained extensive sets of color plates. Volumes A (amphibians), B (birds), M (mammals), and R (reptiles), for example, were like comic books for a junior trivia geek like me. The real treasure trove, however, was the F volume: flags, flowers, and fish.

It was in the Colliers F that I first saw what the encyclopedia then called a dolphin (I later learned that ichthyologists call them dolphinfish to avoid confusion with Flipper and company). What a bizarre character. The blunted-tomahawk face of the dolphinfish looks completely at odds with the fish's acute sternward body taper, its Mohawk dorsal fin, and its scissor tail. The effect is something like putting a Rolls Royce grill on a Lotus Europa. As if the shape alone weren't enough to make them look like something out of a Ken Kesey/Hunter S. Thompson collaboration, dolphinfish sport glam rock scales of electric blues and neon greens awash with what looks like gold dust.

A few years after my first discovery of the dolphinfish, furor over the trapping of dolphins, porpoises, and small whales prompted a demand in the U.S. and Europe for dophin-free tuna. Restaurateurs and fishmongers deemed it prudent to avoid the terms dolphin and dolphinfish in reference to anything they were hoping to sell for human consumption. The Hawaiian and Latin American names mahimahi and dorado were quickly taken up.

Mahimahi, I'm sorry to report, is the name that stuck. Mahimahi translates as "strong strong," a verbal construction that sounds a bit goofy to anyone accustomed to a language with either a bit of variety or even a few decent intensifiers. The English equivalent would be something like very strong or powerful or potent or kick-ass. Understanding the source of the word has not helped me learn to like it, nor has it made buying the fish any easier. I still feel like a dork asking my fishmonger for a mahimahi filet. It sounds like I'm stuttering.

The term dorado literally means "golden one," a name that was given to the legendary South American warriors who supposedly dusted themselves with gold dust after bathing. I like this name. It's fanciful, and it describes a striking aspect of the fish. It doesn't sound silly.

Sadly, the term dorado is being swallowed up by the encroaching mahimahi. Even the restaurants in Cozumel sell it as mahimahi. I'm not sure why mahimahi managed to outpace dorado, but I think it has something to do with a popular recipe. Search for mahimahi recipes online and you'll find quite a few versions of Macadamia-crusted mahimahi in coconut milk. Frankly, this is an unimpressive combination. I love fish poached in coconut milk, and I like Macadamia nuts, but the combination is bland. If you want to coat fish with nutmeats, hazelnuts or almonds provide a good deal more flavor and character, but I wouldn't use even those coatings in coconut milk. The result would be, as Princess V is fond of saying, much of a muchness. I think the Macadamia-coconut treatment is popular simply because of its exotic-sounding combination of Hawaiian ingredients.

The Non-White White

I know that I said at the outset of the Secret Language of Fish that I was going to talk about white-fleshed fish, and I know that a lot of cookbooks claim that mahimahi is a white-fleshed fish. In truth, mahimahi is not a white-fleshed fish—not exactly. The raw flesh is generally pink with dark red along the lateral line. This fish is a powerful pelagic, after all. These guys spend their lives on the go, and they depend upon their speed for survival—think of the dolphinfish as something like a billfish after an overzealous rhinoplasty. Like all his fully shnozzed billfish cousins, the flesh of the dolphinfish has a dense, meaty texture. Mahimahi cooks up slightly firmer than tuna but not quite as firm as swordfish.

The majority of mahimahi flesh does cook white. Whitish. Perhaps we should call it off-white. The red strips turn dark brown but taste pretty much the same as the white portions. Many diners find the dark strip unappetizing, and since the stripe in forward portions of the filet contains sharp little bones, I usually trim off this lateral line strip.

Like tuna, mahimahi stands up well to grilling, broiling, and searing. Many diners seem to be put off by the pink-within-white look of seared mahimahi. I suppose it looks a bit like undercooked chicken. This is unfortunate; rare mahimahi is delicious and has a firm texture.

Grilled mahimahi, like grilled tuna or swordfish, can be served like a steak with little or no sauce. One of my favorite treatments is grilled mahimahi with mango salsa served over chimichurri rice. I'm sure you'll find this treatment colorful, complex in flavor, and obscenely simple to prepare. The following recipe feeds three.

Half-grilled mahimahi with mango salsa

dramatis personae

one mango, diced
juice of one small lime
one half of a small sweet onion, diced
one red serrano chilli, seeded and minced
a few drops of sesame oil
a pinch of sea salt
a tablespoon of chopped cilantro leaves

one pound mahimahi filet
one teaspoon peanut oil
one half cup basmati rice

two tablespoons chimichurri or tomatillo salsa

quality of ingredients

Mahimahi filets should be pink with red stripes. If they're tan with brown stripes, they've been out too long. Also, the flesh should smell sweet, with no hint of ammonia. Mahimahi skin is a flat, steely grey. Sadly, the fish lose their brilliant colors within minutes of dying.

The mango should be yielding but not mushy or bruised.

If you can't find red serrano chillis, substitute red jalapeños, red fresnos, or red fingerhots.

Chimichurri is available at some grocery stores; tomatillo salsa is even more readily available. I use the prepared stuff because I only want two tablespoons for the rice. If you want to make your own chimichurri, it's not too complicated: fresh parsley, oregano, garlic, jalapeño, salt, peanut oil, and a little lemon juice.

preparation notes

Make the salsa first. Combine the ingredients (mango, lime juice, onion, serrano, sesame oil,
salt, and cilantro) and put the salsa in the refrigerator while you prepare everything else. After half an hour, much of the mango will have softened or dissolved in the lime juice.

Prepare the rice as you normally would. Once the rice is done but before it cools, stir in the chimichurri (or green salsa).

Remove the red flesh and any bones from the mahimahi, but leave the skin on.

You can grill, barbecue, or sauté the filet. I prefer cooking the mahimahi in two steps. First, in a non-stick sauté pan with a teaspoon of peanut oil, cook the filets skin-side down over a medium-high flame, just enough to cook them halfway through (about three to five minutes, depending on the thickness of the filet). Then finish the other side of the filets on a grill or grill pan.

Serve the filets skin-side down on a bed of chimichurri rice with a generous topping of mango salsa.

Piña Colada Mahimahi

This is my own kitschy, faux-Hawaiian answer to the Macadamia/coconut dish.

Most white-fleshed fish goes well with coconut milk, but it takes the sturdiness of mahimahi, swordfish, or albacore to stand up to pineapple enzymes. Despite the name, this mahimahi dish contains no rum. White wine, yes, but no rum. The miso serves to thicken the sauce and also harmonizes well with pineapple.

I've tried this recipe only once. The flavors meshed nicely, but I created waaaaaaaay too much sauce. In other words, I'm just guessing on these quantities.

dramatis personae

one cup of diced pineapple
one half can (7 ounces) unsweetened coconut milk
two tablespoons white miso
one minced red fingerhot chilli
three keffir lime leaves
two tablespoons peanut oil
one pound mahimahi
one quarter cup pinot grigio

quality of ingredients

I used fresh pineapple. The canned stuff always tastes too sweet to me. Because this recipe requires only a cup of pineapple, you'll have fresh pineapple around for other uses for the next few days.

Fresh coconut milk would be great, but (1) it's a pain in the tuchus and (2) the canned stuff is just fine. Be sure you're using unsweetened coconut milk and not sweetened coconut cream.

If you can't get keffir lime leaves, I don't know what to tell you. Keffir lime zest is almost as good, but if you can get the limes, you can usually get the leaves. A little lime juice will give the sauce a bit of zing, but it can't compete with the complex aromatic tartness of keffir lime leaves.

If you can't find red fingerhot chillis, substitute red jalapeños, or red fresnos. If you want something with a serious burn, use a cayenne chilli instead of a fingerhot.

preparation notes

This dish is prepared in three parts: sauce, topping, and filets.

For the sauce combine the coconut milk, the miso, and half of the pineapple chunks in a blender. Blend this concoction to a smooth, creamy consistency.

For the topping: (1) Mince the keffir lime leaves very fine. (2) In half of the peanut oil, sauté the remaining pineapple and the chilli. The pineapple chunks will get a wee bit darker and slightly more translucent, and the chilli will brighten. (3) Stir in the keffir lime and remove the topping from the heat.

For the filets:
Heat a teaspoon of peanut oil in a non-stick skillet over a high flame until the oil begins to shimmer. Spread the oil over the bottom of the pan (it doesn't have to cover completely), and place the mahimahi filets in the pan, skin side up. Leave them alone for two full minutes. Turn the filets over. The cooked side should be golden brown. Taking care not to pour any wine onto the filets, pour the white wine into the pan (the steam from the wine will help finish the filets more evenly). Cover and allow the filets to cook for another three minutes on medium-high heat.

Serve the filets individually plated on rice, skin side down. Top each filet with a portion of the topping and pour on enough sauce to cover the filets.

Hot orange mahimahi teriyaki

I was tempted to call this an American teriyaki, just to avoid nettling the purists. You see, authentic teriyaki—Japanese teriyaki—is made with four ingredients: sake, mirin, sugar, and soy sauce. American and European teriyaki's are typically made with garlic, which is rare in Japanese dishes, and ginger, which is more common in Chinese and Korean cooking. In fact, some argue that most American teriyaki sauces are closer to bulgogi sauce (Korean barbecue).

But why quibble? The name teriyaki translates as "shiny grilled thing," which provides no guidance as to ingredients. I and my audience expect teriyaki to have sweet, sour, soy-salty, garlicky, and gingery notes. With that in mind, I try to find the right balance of ingredients for whatever dish I'm preparing. In my years of experimentation, I've concocted teriyakis for steak, spare ribs, chicken, duck, eel, mackerel, bluefish, shrimp, salmon, scallops, and mahimahi. I don't know how many of those I can say I've perfected (okay, the scallops were ghastly and the bluefish was so-so) but this mahimahi recipe is easily my most successful to date.

dramatis personae

(these proportions will feed three)

1 lb mahimahi
1/2 cup tamari
1/3 cup sake
1/3 cup cider vinegar
zest and juice (1/3 cup) of 1 medium navel orange
1 tbl grated ginger
1 tbl minced garlic
2 tbls honey
1 Thai chilli, seeded and finely diced
peanut oil

quality of ingredients

I don't usually talk about the process of creating something like this, so I guess I'm overdue. Part of what makes dishes like fun for me is the chance to experiment, tweaking a flavor here, a flavor there, while maintaining the overall balance of elements.

For teriyaki sauces, I generally try to match what I expect of the flavor of the base ingredient against the following balance of sauce component types:

• soy
• rice wine or some other light wine
• something sweet
• something tart
• some ginger
• some garlic
• some additional spice for character

Garlic and ginger are relatively stable elements, but most of these items offers a surprisingly wide range of possibilities.

Over the years, I've gone through a number of different soy sauces. I now use just two: Chinese dark soy and Japanese tamari. Tamari, a soy sauce made from pure soya, tends to be much lighter and more subtle than the Chinese dark soys. The Chinese dark soy is made with wheat and soya and thickened with sugar, making it viscous, rich, and toasty. I prefer tamari with fish (except salmon and fishy-tasting fish like mackerel) and shrimp. For most applications I find that I will use three times as much tamari as I would dark soy sauce.

I don't fully understand the traditional use of sake, mirin, and sugar. Mirin is sweet rice wine. Adding sugar makes it sweeter. Adding sake makes it drier. Using all three just seems silly to me. Because it's difficult to find good mirin for a reasonable price (and without going to a specialty wine shop) and because the "cooking" mirin sold in US grocery stores is corn-syrup-fortified crap, I typically forego this. I tend to substitute michiu (Chinese rice wine) for the sake because the results are about the same, and michiu is far cheaper. If you can't find sake or michiu, any cheap, dry white wine will do.

For the something sweet, the traditional Japanese solution is a combination of mirin and sugar. Many American and European recipes substitute sherry for the mirin, but I don't recommend it. I can always tell when a recipe uses sherry. I find the distinctive sherry aftertaste out of place in teriyaki—reminds me of moules à la marinière. Don't get me wrong. I like moules à la marinière, but I don't want my teriyaki to taste like them. But, hey, whatever floats your boat. If you like sherry in your teriyaki, use it. Of course, as I said already, I prefer not using mirin or sherry. I prefer teriyaki sweetened with honey, brown sugar, or fruit juice. I am particularly partial to orange or tangerine juice with fish teriyaki. Brown sugar adds a molasses-y depth to your sauce, and honey adds a similar rich something extra.

For the something tart, I typically use apple cider vinegar. Be sure to check that the label doesn't say "apple cider flavored," which means you've been sold some artificially flavored white vinegar. Nasty stuff. Feel free to experiment with other vinegars (sweetened rice wine vinegar is not bad). Be aware, though, that balsamic and sherry vinegars will add a strong fruity note that you might not want in your teriyaki. Chinese black vinegar is good in sparerib teriyaki.

In this mahimahi teriyaki, I've added orange zest (to augment the citrus flavor imparted by the juice) and a Thai chilli to add a little zing. A few items I've tried that worked well with some treatments include star anise, white pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, and coriander seed. Your mileage may vary.

preparation notes

As with most teriyaki, the first step is to mix the sauce. Combine the tamari, sake, cider vinegar, orange juice, garlic, ginger, honey, and minced chilli in a glass or ceramic bowl large enough to hold the sauce plus the filets. Do not add the zest at this point.

Remove the skin and red flesh (which may have turned brown by the time you get it home) from the filets. Assuming you have started with a single one-pound portion of filet, you should now have two skinless slices of fish, one about twice the size of the other. Divide each of these into thirds. Immerse the six pieces of mahimahi in the sauce and allow them to marinate for at least fifteen but not more than thirty minutes. If this marinates too long you'll have teriyaki ceviche. I use this time to rinse my rice and prep whatever vegetables I am serving as a side dish.

Remove the mahimahi from the sauce and set the pieces aside on a plate to dry.

Pour the sauce into a small sauce pan and, over a low flame, reduce it by half. This should take about twenty minutes (making this an ideal time to cook the rice).

When the sauce is nearly reduced (after about fifteen minutes), preheat the peanut oil in your grill pan over a medium-high flame. When the oil begins to shimmer, spread it over the grill with a pastry brush or paper towel.

Once the sauce is reduced, pour it through a strainer or sieve to remove the solids. Return the sauce to the sauce pan over the lowest flame your stove will maintain. Stir in the orange zest.

Grill the mahimahi pieces on one side for two minutes. Turn the pieces over and grill them for an additional two minutes.

Remove the mahimahi from the grill and pour a teaspoon of the teriyaki sauce over each piece of fish.

I serve teriyaki with accompanying bowls of white rice and smaller bowls of the warm teriyaki sauce. The fish might not need any more sauce, but the girls and I like to add a bit of the sauce to our rice.

The Secret Language of Fish, Volume 3

"Good Enough for Jehovah"

The line is from a Monty Python movie. If you recognize the reference, you already know that this entry is about halibut. The halibut in that particular Python joke was essential to the story line only in that it has a funny name and, in first-century A.D. Judea, was something of an anachronism.

If you're confused, consider that it could be worse: I could have titled this "Just for—" but let's not go there.

Halibut is the largest and sturdiest of the flat fishes. You probably don't care about the shape unless you are a fishmonger or you plan to go fishing off the coast of Canada. For most cooks, halibut is comes in two forms: thick filets (roughly 1 to 2.5 inches) and steaks. Both are usually sold with the skin on (dark grey if it's a topside fillet, white if it's from the bottom). The steaks contain stout bones.

Because it lives in more northerly climes than flounder, turbot, and sole, halibut contains a bit more fat than the others. Though the difference in fat might seem negligible (0.8 grams of fat per ounce of halibut vice 0.4 grams per ounce for flounder), it is enough to allow you to grill the halibut. That trick never works for flounder, sole, or turbot, which just sort of plate out on the hot metal.

Halibut is generally described as mild, flaky, sweet, and delicate. Some cooks claim it has little or no flavor of its own. Both of these claims are about half right. Halibut, like turkey and peanuts, is high in tryptophan. Pure L-tryptophan tastes something like quinine; pure D-tryptophan tastes sweet and a tiny bit like bananas. This balance of bitter and sweet is probably why halibut matches so well with mild sweet flavors. A tiny bit of fruity sweetness heightens the sweetness of D-tryptophan and masks the bitterness of the L-tryptophan.

As sashimi, sushi, or a tartare, I find the sweetness is best heightened with a bit of citrus. The Japanese apparently agree and traditionally match hirame sashami with yuzu-based sauces. I attempted a halibut tartare flavored with orange zest, but the zest proved too bitter. A second attempt sweetened with a splash of tangerine juice worked much better.

I prefer berries and pome fruits with cooked halibut, though. I have had some luck, for example, combining seared halibut with a blackberry-wasabi sauce and steamed halibut with strawberry butter.

A few nights ago, inspired by a local restaurant's offering that I thought I could "fix," I tried a savory halibut preparation. I made a bouillabaise-inspired sauce, fortified with roughly chopped rock shrimp, and I dusted the broiled fish with a hazelnut/green-peppercorn topping. I was not satisfied with the results. I was hoping the sweetness of the hazelnuts and of the rock shrimp would enhance that of the halibut. The components all came out fine, but they did not play well together. The hazelnuts worked well, but in every bite of halibut that contained a bite of rock shrimp, the flavor of the halibut disappeared. Also, the slightly piney taste of the green peppercorns proved a bit too assertive in places.

Fortunately, my fragile ego was saved by last night's efforts. I'd been thinking about combining a different set of sweet and fruity flavors in support of halibut, and it all came out exactly as I'd hoped it would. It even looked right. I'll have to do it again soon, just to get a photo of it.

Seared halibut poached in perry served over lemon-pepper rice

These quantities serve two.

dramatis personae

24 ounces (two bottles) perry
one pound halibut fillet, skin on
one teaspoon peanut oil
two tablespoons tarragon chiffonade
two tablespoons butter
one tablespoon dijon mustard
one hosui or other asian pear

one half cup basmati rice
one cup water or chicken broth
a splash of sesame oil
zest of one medium lemon
a pinch of course ground black pepper
a pinch of sea salt

selection of ingredients

I've previously harped on the importance of fresh seafood, and I'm still right. Frozen fish sucks. You may as well use cotton batting as some of that crap they sell at the fish counters in most supermarkets. If you don't have a decent fishmonger in your area, do yourself a favor: have chicken for dinner tonight. The halibut should be solid, moist, and shiny. The flesh begins to gap and lose its sheen as it dries out. The skin (regardless whether it's grey or white) should be free of blemishes. If it smells fishy, you don't want it.

Perry is a cider-like fermentation of pear juice traditionally made with pears that are too bitter and sharp tasting to eat. Generally, dessert pears are said to result in an insipid perry. Although still produced by several commercial brewers in the UK, you won't find perry in most grocery or liquor stores in the US. I bought mine in an upscale grocery store (Central Market in Austin, Texas). You might find perry in stores specializing in fine beer and wine imports. I also know a few home brewers who make perry.

If you can't find perry, hard apple cider should work. In either case, you want the driest perry or cider you can find. My market had two perries; one with 18 grams of sugar per twelve-ounce bottle and one with 9 grams of sugar per twelve-ounce bottle. I chose the less sweet. You can always add fruit juice or sugar if you decide the cider is too bitter. If the stuff starts out too sugary, you're screwed (and not in a good way).

Use fresh tarragon. The dried stuff tastes like tobacco soaked in anisette—bleah.

I chose basmati rice in this case because its firm texture and a nutty flavor play well with fish.

preparation notes

In a small sauce pan over medium-high heat, reduce the perry by half. This takes about fifteen or twenty minutes.

The rice is pretty easy. Combine the rice, broth (or water), and sesame oil and prepare the rice however you normally prepare rice (stovetop, rice cooker, microwave). Blend the lemon zest, salt, and pepper using a mortar and pestle to crush them into a fairly uniform lemon-pepper paste. Once the rice is done, stir in the lemon-pepper.

Slice the fillet in half.

Once the perry is nearly reduced, heat the teaspoon of peanut oil in a non-stick skillet over a high flame until the oil begins to shimmer. Spread the oil over the bottom of the pan (it doesn't have to cover completely), and place the halibut fillets in the pan skin side up. Leave them alone for two full minutes.

Gently turn the fillets over. The cooked side should be golden brown. Allow the fillets to cook for another two minutes on high heat (this breaks down and frees up some of the gelatin in the skins, which you want for the sauce you're going to make).

Pour the hot perry over the fillets. Cover the fillets, and reduce the flame to medium high. Let the fillets poach for five minutes (or until done—remember, these instructions are for two-inch-thick fillets). When the fillets are done (if you're not certain, use a paring knife to separate the flakes at the center of one fillet; they should be opaque but not dried out) carefully remove them from the liquid to a covered dish. Gently. The seared surface will help keep them whole, but the fillets are fragile.

Continue to simmer the poaching liquid, stirring frequently, until it is nearly gone. Stir in the mustard to thicken the liquid. Reduce the heat to low and mount the sauce with the butter. Stir in the tarragon and remove the sauce from the heat.

Serve each fillet over a mound of lemon-pepper rice with just enough of the sauce to cover the fillet. Garnish with a few thin slices of asian pear. We enjoyed our halibut with a side of haricot verts sautéed in extra-virgin olive oil with cremini mushrooms, but any savory green vegetable should work.

My latest beef

(I'm taking a timeout from the Secret Language of Fish because I had another recipe or two—not related to the four white-flesh fishes—that I wanted to share. I'm still working out recipes for halibut, mahimahi, and snapper. This entry is fish-related, though.)

Cats, cavemen, and BSE

I vaguely remember ridiculing a cat food commercial (I know, easy target) in which the announcer touted the flavors of this particular variety of chow providing "...the flavors your cat naturally craves." I heard that and thought, "My cat naturally craves beef?" Somewhere in little Snowball's DNA is the genetic recollection of her ancestors stalking the steppes for wild bovines? Those little bastards must've had wicked claws.

Of course it was balderdash. Felis domesticus naturally craves things like rodents, songbirds, fat crickets, and small lizards. I'm guessing that the chow companies don't make the flavors cats truly crave simply because labels like Savory Sparrow, Rat Paté, and Crunchy Cricket would not play well with the target market's purchasing agents (people). Similarly, don't expect to find Rancid Antelope Haunch in the dog food section any time soon (although most canned dogfood certainly smells like something a wild dog would roll in).

Pet food flavors like "Marinated Beef Feast In Savory Juice" were designed with human buyers in mind. Why?

Because humans naturally crave beef. Our ancestors actually did stalk the steppes in search of wild bovines. They killed them. They ate them. They gorged themselves on bloody red meat and rejoiced. When they recovered from this orgy of ingestion, they sharpened their sticks and went looking for more.

(NB - If you're a vegetarian or a vegan, don't bother writing to tell me I'm wrong about craving beef or about genetic sense memories. You're the ones deluding yourselves into believing that soy burgers and eggplant satisfy your cravings.)

The USDA and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association want us to keep eating beef. After reading Richard Rhodes's Deadly Feasts, though, I'm having a hard time convincing myself that any beef sold in the US is truly safe. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy is some scary shit. It turns you into a drooling idiot and then kills you. It strikes without warning. No one has the foggiest notion how to treat it. What's more, no test has been developed to find BSE in muscle tissue.

The people who want us to eat beef keep saying things like, "such and such cow was tested and showed no signs of BSE" and "we quarantined and then destroyed the affected animals" and "the American beef supply is completely safe" and my favorite, "I'm a family man. Do you think I'd deliberately feed toxic meat to my kids? And I feed them beef three times a day."

The USDA admits, "On December 23, 2003, FSIS issued a Class II recall of approximately 10,410 pounds of raw beef that may have been exposed to tissues containing the infectious agent that causes BSE." They go on, however, to explain that this is not a high-priority recall. "According to scientific evidence, the tissues of highest infectivity are the brain, spinal cord, and distal ileum portion of the small intestine. All were removed from the rest of the carcass at slaughter. Therefore, the meat produced were cuts that would not be expected to be infected or have an adverse public health impact."

"Highest infectivity" is doublespeak. Scientific evidence suggests it only takes one prion—a crystalline structure sub-cellular structure—to cause BSE. Our immune systems take no notice of these infectious bodies and may even be culpable in their spread. There are no mild cases of BSE. You get it—you babble and drool—you die.

Every once in a while, I work up the nerve to prepare a beef dish. Genetic and sense memories are unwitting accomplices of the cattleman's association. Yes, the author naturally craves the beef.

Generally, though, I have been trying to avoid beef. One of my favorite substitutes for beef are what I like to think of as "beefy" fish: tuna, albacore, and billfish. All of these have a flavor and texture somewhat reminiscent of beef in some treatments. Here are a couple.

Grilled albacore steaks with thick enchilada sauce

These are steaks but they might not look the part to anyone used to buying salmon or halibut steaks. Here's why this is confusing: the term steak, when applied to fish means a slice perpendicular to the spine. Fillets of tuna, albacore, and billfish are too large to be sold intact and are typically sliced into steaks.

dramatis personnae

3/4" to 1" thick albacore steaks
four mulatto peppers
one half cup water
juice of one medium lime
one small can tomato paste
pinch of sea salt

preparation notes

Grill the steaks (grill pan, grill, barbecue). The steaks should be cooked through (rare albacore has a mushy texture, which I find unpleasant). This takes just two minutes on a side if you're using a grill pan.

I suppose you could use yellowfin, bluefin, or big eye tuna for this preparation; you could also use swordfish steaks.

The mulatto chilli purée is a variant on the one I described in My Little Brown Jug with the addition of tomato paste (after straining the purée) for a flavor reminiscent of enchilada sauce. After you've strained the purée, added the tomato paste, and salted the sauce, mix a little more water to thin the sauce just enough to pour (about the consistency of a thick pasta sauce).

To serve, on each plate pour a circle of sauce as wide as a single steak. Place the steak on the sauce. Serve with fresh corn tortillas and a green vegetable or salad.

Tuna carpaccio

I love carpaccio, and I use almost the same recipe for tuna that I use for beef. Three exceptions:

1. I do not include gruyere curls with tuna. The two tastes clash.
2. I use a different green complement (fresh mustard greens with beef; wilted watercress with tuna).
3. I do not pound or roll tuna carpaccio. The slices are strictly knife work.

dramatis personnae

one pound bluefin or yellowfin tuna
juice of two lemons
one quarter cup extra-virgin olive oil
a pinch of sea salt
cracked black pepper
one bunch watercress
one half teaspoon sesame oil
a splash of dark soy sauce
one half teaspoon sesame seeds
croutons

preparation notes

Yes, believe it or not, it is actually possible to enjoy raw tuna without the support of wasabi or the green horseradish that passes for wasabi in most American sushi bars.

You really have to have a good knife for this. I recommend a santoku or sashimi knife. Put the tuna in the freezer for about a half hour before slicing to firm it up.

You can drizzle the olive oil and lemon juice over the tuna separately (looks very artsy) or whisk them together first. In either case, do not dress the tuna until you are ready to serve it; the acid will begin pickling the fish immediately. (I like ceviche, too, but this is supposed to be a carpaccio.)

Remove most of the stems from the watercress. If you prefer, snow pea leaves and tendrils make a pleasant substitute for watercress. In either case, to blanch the greens bring a pot of water to a boil and drop in the greens. Immediately remove the pot from the flame and pour the greens into a colander or strainer. Rinse the greens in cold water to prevent any further cooking. Toss the greens with the sesame oil and soy. Sprinkle sesame seeds over the greens for serving.

For croutons, I slice a baguette into coins and toast them on one side in the broiler. These toast in just over a minute, so pay attention or you'll have charcoal.

The Secret Language of Fish, Volume 2

He was a bold man what first et a monkfish

Also called anglerfish by marine biologists and goosefish by some truly confused people and lotte by French chefs, this critter is so ugly you just know they breed in the dark. The name anglerfish makes the most sense from a morphological point of view, but fishmongers in the US usually sell it as monkfish. The creature is little more than a big toothy grin over which dangles a small fleshy lure. Picture a two-foot-wide gash of a mouth with dental work designed by H. P. Lovecraft. Add just enough skull to hold the mouth and a pair of bb's for eyes. Stick a narrow tail onto this critter, just slightly longer than the mouth is wide; clothe it in loose-fitting brown vinyl (not sharpei-loose, but loose enough to look like the fish hasn't had enough to eat). Now, at the very top center of the fish's head, attach a rubbery spine that droops down over the mouth, ending in a knob the size of a WD-40 oil droplet (this is the fish's lure). Give the fish the ability to twitch said rubbery spine. Just for kicks, make it slimy. This is a monkfish.

The monkfish spends its life lying on murky sea bottoms waiting for smaller fish to be attracted to his lure. When something tugs on the lure, the monkfish surges forward and snaps the little critter up. Then he settles back in the mud to wait for the next patsy.

Can you imagine the first fisherman who pulled one of these things up and thought, "I wonder if any of this is good to eat?" He must have been damned hungry.

Fishmongers the world over strip and discard the leathery skin. Even in Japan, where various types of fish skin are delicacies, no one has figured out a way to make this stuff palatable. In fact, most of the fish is discarded. In Europe and the United states, the only portion generally used are the two strips of bone-free flesh that run parallel to the monkfish spine. In Japan, gourmet chefs are as likely to throw out the flesh along with the bones. As far as they're concerned, the only important part of the monkfish is the liver, which they sometimes call the foie gras of the sea (I've also heard this claimed of stingray liver). I've only tasted monkfish liver once, and I found it extremely bitter, metallic and, well, liverish (in my lexicon that means nasty).

In all fairness, I should admit that I had cooked the liver before I tasted it. The preferred preparation in Japan is as sashimi (called ankimo), which I have not tried and probably never will. If you like that sort of thing, you'll have to either move to Japan or specifically request it from your fish monger because--in the US and Europe--they usually throw it out with the bones. Personally, I can't see the logic in eating the toxic waste filter of a bottom-dweller, especially raw.

Though lotte has been consumed in France for centuries, monkfish only became popular in the US back in the 1980s when stylish seafood establishments began touting it as "poorman's lobster." Monkfish tastes nothing like lobster ( I think the flavor is vaguely reminiscent of cashews), but the flesh does have a similar texture when it's cooked. Raw monkfish is somewhat gummy (not at all similar to lobster), making it unpleasant as sashimi or carpaccio.

I haven't done the necessary chemical analyses to verify this, but I would guess that monkfish is fairly high in gluconate and nearly devoid of TAME. I base these guesses on two aspects of the flesh: (1) a distinctly MSG-like taste and (2) no fishy smell (TMA from the breakdown of TMAO--see The Secret Language of Fish, Volume One). Whatever the cause of the flavor, monkfish flesh is delightfully rich and flavorful even though it is extremely low in fat. Despite these positive characteristics, I have found monkfish somewhat less forgiving than I expected in preparation.

A few points worth noting about monkfish preparation:

1. Ignore the references that tell you you can use monkfish as a substitute for lobster or scallops. No matter what you do, it will remain monkfish, and monkfish is not as sweet as lobster or scallops.
2. Remove the grey membrane from the fillets before you cook it. Remove all of the membrane. It not only shrinks like the silverskin on a pork tenderloin, it tastes foul
3. The thin layer of purplish-pink flesh surrounding the white fillet meat (and the thick red parallel vein therein) tastes pretty much the same as the white flesh when it cooks, but it turns grey and remains a bit gummy. Removing it will improve your presentation and will not significantly reduce the quantity of flesh.
4. Don't barbecue or grill this fish. Its low fat content guarantees it will stick to the grill.
5. Whether steaming, broiling, sautéing, poaching, or roasting, cook the fillets whole. If you want medallions, slice the fish after you cook it. If you slice the fillets into smaller pieces, they lose a lot of flavor with the juices.

I've already listed the range of cooking methods and noted that monkfish is crappy raw, but I haven't listed my favorite treatment: pickling. Monkfish makes a remarkable ceviche. About a year ago, while trying to convince a couple of coworkers to be a bit more courageous in their food choices, I brought some samples of ceviche mixto to work and passed out samples in ramekins. The ceviche included only three types of seafood: gulf shrimp, bay scallops, and monkfish. Everyone had their favorites. Princess V prefers the shrimp. A few others preferred the scallops. The majority, to my surprise, preferred the monkfish.

Ceviche Mixto With Monkfish

dramatis personae


one half pound 24-count shrimp, shelled and deveined
one half pound bay scallops
one three-quarter-pound monkfish fillet
a glass or ceramic bowl
one quart cold water
one quarter cup salt
juice from six large limes (or ten small or sixteen key limes)
zest of one lemon
one medium white onion
two roma tomatoes, 1/2 inch dice
one serrano pepper (two if you like it hot), seeded and minced
one garlic clove, minced
a handful of cilantro, torn
sea salt to taste

preparation notes

Yes, damnit, it has to be a glass or ceramic bowl. Metal bowls will make the ceviche taste like metal. Wood and plastics will be permanently flavored by the ceviche.

The shrimp, scallops, and fillet have to be as fresh as possible. Previously frozen bay scallops will taste bitter. The fillet is easy: it should look glossy and wet and should have no odor. If it looks the least bit dry, you don't want it. The shrimp present the greatest difficulty and the best chance to alienate your fish monger. The shrimp tails should be firm, the shells should feel solid, and the legs should be intact and solid--anything else is not fresh. Stale shrimp, like stale or previously frozen scallops, will taste bitter. They also have a muddy texture.

If you can't find decent bay scallops, good sea scallops are terrific (they're just more expensive and have to be cut up). In either case, remove the tough bit of foot from each scallop and discard it.

Remove the grey membrane and the purplish flesh from the fillet and cut it into half-inch cubes. Combine the fish, scallops, and shrimp in the glass bowl with the water and salt. Let the seafood brine for at least ten minutes while you do the rest of the prep.

Remove the lemon zest in toothpick-sized strips. Remove any pulp from the zest.

Peel the onion and slice it in half; then, slice two thin (2 or 3 millimeters) slices from each half. Four thin, round disks of onion. Set these aside. Dice the rest of the onion (1/4" dice).

Once everything is appropriately diced and minced and the brining is finished, pour the seafood into a strainer or colander and rinse it lightly. Rinse out the bowl.

Add the seafood, lime juice, zest, and vegetables (except for the onion slices) to the bowl and mix it thoroughly. Cover as much of the surface of the ceviche as possible with the four onion slices. Press down gently on the surface of the ceviche to be certain everything is soaking in the lime juice. Cover the bowl with cellophane and refrigerate for at least an hour and a half (overnight is better).

When you're ready to serve the ceviche, taste it to determine whether it needs any salt (the seafood may have absorbed enough in the brining). Pour off the majority of the juice before serving the ceviche.

I serve this with either cold flour tortillas, fresh corn tortillas, or slices of baguette. Guacamole is also an excellent complement.

Twice-Cooked Monkfish with Basil-Lime Hollandaise

I just tried this one out on Princess V the other night. We stuffed ourselves to groaning, polishing off the sauce. I considered this something of a no-brainer because Hollandaise/Bearnaise-type butter-and-egg-yolk sauces match well with monkfish, as do citrus and anise-like mints (basil, tarragon, fennel).

The quantities here should feed four.

dramatis personae

two one pound monkfish fillets
one teaspoon olive oil
one stick (8 tablespoons) butter
four egg yolks
juice of one large lime
dash sea salt
dash white pepper
one tablespoon fresh basil chiffonade

preparation notes

The twice-cooking in this case consists of sautéing the fillets to a medium rare point and broiling one side for three minutes to finish the fillets and give them a bit of crispy finish.

To double boil or not to double boil. This is a tough question for any would-be Hollandaise sauce maker, but I guess it depends on your level of control and the number of distractions in your kitchen. I use a double boiler. It's just too easy to burn the sauce otherwise. Be aware, however, that a double boiler will not prevent your sauce from overcooking or breaking. So, when you use a double boiler, have a dish towel on a nearby counter so that you can have a place to remove the upper pot to as it becomes necessary.

Here's my process; it produces a consistently velvety Hollandaise:

1. Put the lime juice, salt, and pepper in a ramekin in the double-boiler. Heat the double-boiler just to the boiling point and then turn down the heat slightly.
2. Remove the ramekin from the double-boiler. Whisk the egg yokes into the double-boiler.
3. Pour in the juice from the ramekin, and continue to whisk the yolks until they just begin to thicken (they should be slightly thicker than maple syrup). If you're used to making traditional Hollandaise (with lemon) or Bearnaise, don't be surprised if this sauce froths quite a bit; the lime juice is more acidic than most lemon juice or vinegars.
4. Remove the yolks from the heat (put the upper pot on the towel), continuing to whisk the yolks while you pour in one third of the butter.
5. Return the pot to the heat, whisking vigorously (from here on, anytime the sauce is over the heat, whisk vigorously).
6. Once the butter is completely incorporated, remove the sauce from the heat and whisk in another third of the butter.
7. Repeat step 5.
8. Repeat step 6 for the last of the butter.
9. Repeat step 5 again.
10. Once the butter is completely incorporated, remove the sauce from the heat. Whisk the sauce for a last vigorous minute or so while the pot cools a little.

Slice the fillets into medallions and arrange them however you like. Drizzle the sauce over the top. Serve this dish with rice, potatoes, or a crusty bread.

The Secret Language of Fish, Volume 1

Okay, so, I lied. As a diver and long-time dedicated fish nerd, I can assure you that fish--except in Dave Barry rants and Disney cartoons--do not have a secret language. They swim, eat, poop, and make more fish. They do not converse. What I'm really after here is the secret language of fish mongers and poissoniers, but that makes a less interesting title. So sue me.

I used to think I would be struck dumb if ever I saw a lucid explanation of how the flavors of various white fish meats compare. James Peterson, in the otherwise brilliant "Fish & Shellfish" describes most white-flesh fish as having a "delicate" flavor. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Am I supposed to think that red snapper, orange roughy, scrod, haddock, pacific halibut, and patagonian toughfish all taste exactly alike? Other, "fishier" tasting fish he describes as strong or moderately strong, which seems to reinforce this idea that all fish taste like degrees of the same thing.

Harold McGee's description (On Food and Cooking) of various fish flesh seems to bear this out. He describes the differences between freshwater and saltwater fish, the differences between dark and light fish meat, and the differences in a few special cases. That's about it. Generally, all white fish meats from the sea contain approximately the same set of chemical compounds. Some have a teeny bit more glutamine, making them richer. Some have more of an oceanic taste.

Is it not possible to differentiate these fish flavors beyond the simple question of how much fishiness they exude? Okay, in fairness to Peterson et al, there actually is a similarity in the flavor of many white-fleshed fish. Differentiating--on a verbal level--between perch, halibut, Patagonian toothfish, flounder, sole, cod, hake, and many others of those that Peterson labels "delicate" is a real bitch. The difference between flounder and cod, for example, is a distinction more of texture than of flavor.

I look back over that last sentence and think, "Well, that's a load of crap." Let's face it: you really can't segregate the chemical element of flavor from the tangible--not entirely. Texture is part of flavor. To that end, I can say that the cod and flounder differ in that the the flakes of cod are larger and have slightly more tooth than flounder. Many descriptions of the difference between various white-fleshed fish provide more detail on distinctions of texture and firmness than chemical differences in taste. This it true in part because the textural differences are easier to see and describe but also because they play a role in picking the proper fish for a particular preparation method. You would not, for example, grill dover sole. The sole would stick to the grill and disintegrate. Cod, on the other hand, can be cooked just about any way you like. Cod has a high enough fat content that you can do little to damage it. Cod, like most fish, dries as it cooks, and the flakes then tend to come apart more readily.

Considerations of delicacy and texture aside, though, is there any difference between various white fish of similar textures and sturdiness? Does it matter whether I use dover sole, lemon sole, gulf flounder, or turbot? They look approximately the same--the all have approximately the same chemical make-up. Don't they taste approximately the same?

And ,what the hell is fishiness, anyway? Anyone who has cooked even a few different types of fish has dealt at some point with this generally unpleasant and exasperatingly inconsistent feature. It's a nasty smell and taste that can have an ammonia component in muscular pelagic fish (tuna, mackerel, mahi-mahi) or elasmobranchs (sharks and rays).

Guarantees of fishiness: poor handling (dirt, water, hand oils), refreezing, too much time out of the freezer, slow freezing. Cooling can be a cause, too. I have found on various occasions that with salmon, mahi-mahi, halibut, and trout, leaving the dish to cool too long after cooking can result in the curse of fishiness. The same thing happens with squid.

The essential culprits in fishiness are amines. Ocean-going fish rely on amines to keep the salt out of their bodies. One of the predominant amines, glutamine, is responsible for the richer savory flavor of saltwater fish over freshwater fish. Snapper is rich in glutamine; walleye pike contains none. Unfortunately, the next most prominent amine, odorless trimethylamine oxide (TMAO) breaks down readily into the nasty, skunky trimethylamine (TMA) that causes the smell most people call fishy. Some fish, like mackerel and sardines, have enough enzymes in their tissue that the TMAO to TMA process begins as soon as air hits the flesh. Others like snapper and monkfish have far less enzymes in their flesh and tend to produce TMA far more slowly.

Sharks, rays, and a few random others like swordfish and mahi mahi rely on urea to control their salt content. Bacteria break down urea into ammonia almost as readily as TMAO becomes TMA.

Okay, but I'm heading off on a tangent. I didn't want to talk about fishy fish at the moment. I wanted to talk about white-meat fish that doesn't suffer much from the fishiness curse. I wanted to discuss four of my favorite fish: red snapper, monkfish, halibut, and mahi mahi. Of the four, halibut is the only truly white-flesh fish. Monkfish flesh has some pink streaks. Fresh red snapper flesh is actually a pale, crystalline pink. Mahi mahi flesh is off-white tending toward a dark rusty color. All four of these cook up (mostly) white. I have occasionally caught a whiff of fishiness from halibut, but generally these are forgiving meats in that you don't have to go out of your way to fight the fishiness (which you have to do in the case of, say, pompano, bonito, mackerel, sardines, and so on).

Me and my nearly invisible glasses

Posted by Hello

My "Little Brown Jug"

Invoking tradition

I don't want to sound like Tevye, here, but I think most of us have some sense of tradition. Even the iconoclasts tend to be Different Just Like Everyone Else. Goths, for instance, dye their hair shoe-polish black and wear gruesome tattoos and pierce body parts in ways that most of us consider shocking, painful, or just plain odd. Most importantly (to my point, that is), they all do these shocking things in a pretty standard, traditional way. If Goth kids wanted to be truly original in their outré fashion statements, they'd wear pale pink chenille, dye their hair strawberry blonde, eschew piercings and kohl, and get tattoos of Care Bears and fluffy bunnies. Of course, then no one would recognize them for the edgy rebels they believe themselves to be.

This same adherence to tradition seems to apply to cooks (including chefs) as well. Even the innovators and rebels tend to rebel within boundaries and with a concern for tradition in mind. Professional culinary curmudgeon Anthony Bourdain, in A Cook's Tour, expresses a certain reasonable disdain for such innovations as monkfish tagine--tagine, after all, is desert fare. Who ever heard of monkfish night at the oasis? On the other hand, Bourdain has nothing but praise for Thomas Keller's French Laundry creations like lobster navarin and the salmon chop. Seems those creations should be just as liable to ridicule; lobsters have nothing much in common with lamb, and salmon don't really have chops.

I don't mean to pick on Tony. I think most people have what appear contradictory reactions to such breaks with tradition. Besides, he seems to be right. Monkfish tagine would get nothing but sneers from connoisseurs of authentic Arab cuisine, but Keller's dishes are generally just considered playful and clever. (Caveat: somewhere, someone hates Thomas Keller for creating so many dishes that play on comfort food themes. No matter the subject of revision or how well it's executed, look hard enough and you'll find a curmudgeon who just can't stomach the revision in question.)

Besides, I know that I also tend to be of two minds about culinary traditions. I have been known to insist, for example, that Eggs Benedict consists of Hollandaise over a poached egg on Canadian bacon on an English muffin. Period. I know that many restaurants have created delightful variations on this theme--smoked salmon or dried chorizo in place of the Canadian bacon, crumpets or tortillas in place of the English muffin, Habañero or lime instead of lemon in the Hollandaise. Those creations are not Eggs Benedict. They may be delicious, fascinating, clever, and even nutritious, but they are not Eggs Benedict.

Sure, most restaurants offering such variations at least tell you in their menus that what you're ordering is a variation. Chez Zee in Austin offers several of these variations in their weekend brunch menu, and I have no objection to their offering a Smoked Salmon Eggs Benedict. The name tells me that I'm not getting the traditional dish. On the other hand, it thoroughly irks me (and my wife even more so) that they label the traditional Eggs Benedict "Canadian" to keep the servers from confusing the orders. If there actually is such a thing as a Canadian Eggs Benedict, it probably contains maple syrup or some other ingredient that differentiates it from a traditional Eggs Benedict.

Oft repeated interchange at Chez Zee:

Mrs: "I'll have the Eggs Benedict."
Server: "Which Eggs Benedict?"
Mrs: "The original Eggs Benedict."
Server: "Would that be the Canadian Eggs Benedict?"
Mrs (sharply annunciating): "Eggs Benedict!"

On a similar note, one of my favorite Austin restaurants, the Castle Hill Café, recently gave me cause for irritation by misapplying a traditional name. Generally, five aspects of Castle Hill appeal to me:

1. the chef is a genius who does a remarkable job of balancing simple flavors (sweet, salty, spicy, tart, bitter), complex flavors (fruity, smoky, citrusy, piney, beefy), and textures f(crunchy, smooth--oh, you get the idea)
2. the menu fuses Mexican, European, Arabic, and Asian cuisines in exciting and innovative creations
3. except for a few standards in the appetizer and dessert offerings, the menu changes every two to four weeks
4. the service is outstanding
5. the prices are reasonable

On my last visit there--that second reason notwithstanding--I found myself leaving with a strangely dissatisfied feeling. The food was delicious, but it had thwarted my expectations. The item I ordered was listed thus:

Seared Gulf Red Snapper Filet with Sauce Veracruzano, Chipotle Puree,
Olive-Caper Relish, and Corn Pudding Tamale $21.95
A seared Gulf red snapper filet served in a sauce made from roasted tomatillos, charred poblanos, white wine, pepitas, garlic, and cilantro. With a chipotle puree, olive-caper relish, and corn pudding tamale.

I read the description, so I knew that the dish included a tomatillo sauce, a chipotle chilli purée, and a relish of olives and capers, but I was still surprised by the dish. The two things that really bugged me were something extra and something missing.

The something extra was that the relish contained sweet corn. Bad choice. Somebody at Castle Hill must have been watching Bobby Flay. News flash, Flayites: sweet corn does not make everything taste either more Mexican or more Southwestern. Sweet corn makes everything taste like sweet corn. Sweet corn was a poor choice for this particular relish because the sweetness overwhelmed the salty tartness of the olives and capers.

The something missing was a primary sauce component. Although the two sauces were tasty, they did not a traditional Veracruzano make. The missing item--the item I had subconsciously assumed would be there when I read "Sauce Veracruzano"--was tomatoes. (And, no, tomatillos are not tomatoes. They're a variety of gooseberry. Delicious in their own right but not tomatoes.) It would be easy to dismiss my objection as a misreading on my part--the menu did not, after all, claim that the dish included tomatoes. Au contraire, mes amis, the menu said Veracruzano.

Overall, then, the snapper dish was tasty, but because it was not what I expected, I did not enjoy the experience. When you label a dish, whether you are making a traditional dish or some wild, exotic variation, you have to consider the ramifications of the name. Sure, you can make curried beef, curried tuna, curried yams, curried rutabagas; but anything labeled "curry" had better contain enough of the spices generally associated with a curry to give it a curry-like flavor. Similarly, anything labeled sushi should probably contain vinegared rice (although you might be able to get away with some other starchy element as long as you also used raw fish and nori). Likewise, if you are willing to stand up to the scorn of the aficianados and want to try monkfish tagine, you'd better damned well be slow-cooking the monkfish in a covered pot with a proponderance of Moroccan ingredients. Anything else leaves your audience feeling cheated.

So, damnit, if you call it Veracruzano, it has to contain capers and tomatoes. Anything else is a just wrong.

I came home from Castle Hill that night and made up my shopping list for the next night's dinner, which you can bet included the makings for

Huachinango Veracruzano (Red Snapper, Veracruz-style)

dramatis personae

two tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
two red snapper filets (about a pound each)
one half cup chicken stock
one half cup white wine
four Roma tomatoes--cored, seeded, and diced
one chilli arbol--seeded and minced
two tablespoons non-pareil capers

preparation notes

Huachinango Veracruzano is obscenely simple to prepare, expecially if you let your fish monger do all the work for you. Be sure the snapper fillets are fresh and thoroughly scaled. When you get them home, run your hand over the skin from tail to head to be sure the monger has not left any scales (if you find any, you should be able to pluck these out with your fingers). Next, each fillet skin-side down and run your fingers down along the seam that runs from head to tail between the back and belly meat. If you find any bones, hold down the filet with one hand and pluck the bones with a pair of needle-nosed pliers. This is probably the hardest work you'll do for this dish.

When you are seeding the arbol, you might want to wear rubber gloves.

In a non-stick sauté pan over a medium flame, heat the olive oil to the point of shimmering, and put in the fillets, skin-side down. Allow the fillets to cook until they are opaque about halfway through (this time varies quite a bit with thickness--four minutes or more). Pour in the white wine and cook until most of the liquid is gone. Pour in the stock and continue to braise the fillets until they are done (the meat is opaque, and at the thickest point, shows no pink between flakes when separated with the tip of a knife).

Taking care not to damage the skin, gently remove the fillets from the cooking liquid to a serving platter. Add the tomatoes and dried pepper to the cooking liquid still in the pan and wilt the tomatoes (about a minute). Sprinkle capers over the fillets and pour the tomatoes and cooking liquid over all.

Rice (especially saffroned rice, Mexican fried rice, or rice with a little achiote) makes a good accompaniment.

What jug?

So, if you noticed the title of this article, you're probably wondering what the hell Huachinango Veracruzano has to do with a "Little Brown Jug." Nothing, really, but it does have a great deal to do with messing with traditions. In my particular case, it has a lot to do with Texas chili.

Lemme 'splain:

Big Band leader Glenn Miller supposedly hated the 19th century minstrel song "Little Brown Jug." Can't say I blame him. This odd little number, written in 1869 by J. E. Winner, often taught as a children's song, and revitalized in the thirties, is a peppy ditty that deals with the ruinous effects of alcoholism. What seems to have bugged Miller, however, was not the incongruity of didactic lyrics accompanying an upbeat number so much as the 1930s popularity of this melodically simple tune. He considered the tune purest musical pablum. So why did he arrange, perform, and record a song he hated? One theory says that it was a favorite of his wife's. No one knows, really. Miller left no written record explaining his reason for turning this insipid little song into a blaring, brassy, Big Band standard.

I think I know the truth, though. I think he did it precisely because he despised the song. In reworking the tune, Miller effectively killed the original. Go searching for a copy of Little Brown Jug today, sixty years after Miller's death, and you'll probably find a hundred variations on Miller's arrangement for every pre-Miller version. Miller remade "Little Brown Jug" into something he could stomach.

I understand the impulse. I have similar feelings about many songs, stories, movies, and culinary creations. If I had the time and the skill, I would re-make all of my pet annoyances in forms I find more palatable (think Return of the Jedi with no Ewoks).

That's what I had in mind a few weeks back when I decided to take on Texas chili. It's a sad thing for a Texan to have to admit, but I really never cared much for chili. I can stomach some of them, but--well, frankly, I'd rather not. Setting aside as irrelevant the execrable idea of adding beans to chili, and ignoring the ravings of some truly fanatical Texas chili purists who insist that no tomatoes be used, much about Texas chili just doesn't work for me. After pondering this matter for some time, I decided that the following aspects of this traditional Texas food were the primary offenders:

1. Too much cumin. I find cumin acceptable in minute quantities or when appropriately moderated by other spices (as in Garam Masala). Alone and in too large a quantity, it overwhelms every other note in the chili.
2. The crock pot thing--part one. Overcooked, stewed dishes always strike me as bland. All the flavor gets cooked out of both the meat and the vegetables. The meat tastes like yarn and the onions typically wind up with a texture like slimy old Jello.
3. The crock pot thing--part two. Prolonged cooking of all the elements together doesn't blend them so much as obliterate them. I might taste some onion, but I rarely taste any garlic. Individual chilli peppers lose all distinction, which is tragic.
4. Crappy meat. Okay, so tenderloin or prime rib would be silly in such a heavily spiced blend. On the other end of the spectrum, chuck and round are pretty nasty in this form.
5. One-note chillis and one-note tomatoes--also a tragic loss. I wanted the best qualities of both fresh and stewed tomatoes, and I wanted the best qualities of both fresh and dried chillis.

So, I knew right off that I would be doing a few things differently. When I began addressing these elements one-by-one, I came up with the meal event that I call Deconstructed Chili. I wanted a technique that would present the best elements of the chili--all of those elements--in their best possible light. When I served this dish the first time, I thought my friends and family might object. I figured I would at least get some pursed lips and quizzical eyebrow action. I was pleasantly surprised at how well this went over. Instead of suspicion, I got raves.

Deconstructed chili

The following fed three adults and two tween-aged children.

dramatis personae

two one-pound, one-and-a-half-inch-thick top sirloin steaks--trimmed
one bottle dark hoppy beer
juice of four medium limes
two teaspoons sea salt
two teaspoons achiote paste
one fresh poblano pepper--seeded and diced
four garlic cloves--peeled and sliced
one sweet onion
ten premium chipotle peppers
four mulatto peppers
peanut oil
one pound cherry tomatoes
one half cup beef stock
one teaspoon Mexican oregano (fresh or dried)
one half teaspoon fresh thyme
one half pound Monterey Jack cheese, sliced in wedges
two cups masa harina (dry or prepared)
water

blender
wire mesh strainer or sieve
grill, grill pan, or broiler
iron skillet or comal
tortilla press

preparation notes

This is more a meal than just a dish, so I have to note first off that this meal requires a good chunk of time, primarily because the steak needs to marinate overnight.

A few of the ingredients may be difficult to find, so let's talk about substitutes.

Chipotle and mulatto peppers are somewhat different from most dried chilli peppers. Most dried chillis (arbol, pasilla, guajillo, New Mexico, cascabel) are just that: dried. Those chillis all start out as fairly thin-skinned fresh fruit. Chipotles start as jalapenos. Mulattos start out as ripe poblanos (as opposed to anchos, which start as green poblanos). Jalapeno and poblano peppers are too fleshy to just dry in the sun (or in a drying kiln). They rot instead of drying. So to get a dried chilli from these fleshy fruits, the jalapenos and poblanos are smoked. The result is a richer, more complex flavor.

I consider the smoked chillis a key ingredient in Deconstructed Chili.

I start with dry chipotle chillis for my chipotle purée, but if you can't find them, I suppose you can use the canned ones (they're not as smoky tasting). On the bright side, if you use the canned chipotles, you won't need to soak and cook them prior to puréeing them.

I don't know of any reasonable substitute for the mulatto chillis. If you can't find mulattos, anchos are the closest and are more widely available. If you can't find anchos or mulattos, use the darkest, richest dry chillis you can find.

The achiote paste might also be difficult to find outside of Texas and Mexico. If you have to use a substitute, I would recommend a savory chilli-based steak rub (okay, I'm guessing).

I also ought to say something about the tortillas. I know my wife and daughter consider the homemade corn tortillas a key element in this presentation. Corn tortillas are not too difficult once you get the hang of them, but they're a pain in the tuchus the first few times. One important suggestion: use prepared masa harina. The prepared stuff contains a small quantity of lard and has thoroughly absorbed the necessary amounts of moisture and oil. I was surprised to find that most of the directions available on the Internet call for masa and water with no lard.

The easiest way to explain this meal is to start with an understanding of the final product. Deconstructed Chili on the table consists of the following components:

1. broiled, marinated, chilli-rubbed, thin sliced rare sirloin
2. onion, garlic, poblano sauté
3. tomatoes wilted in tomato-beef sauce
4. chipotle chilli purée
5. mulatto chilli purée
6. Monterey Jack wedges
7. fresh corn tortillas

Note for the heat-intolerant: the chipotle chilli purée is hot. Poblanos are variable, so the sauté might have a tiny bit of a bite. The rest should be fairly mild.

Timing all of these things to come out together is rough. I recommend the following order of preparation:

1. Marinate the steaks.
2. Prepare the chilli purées. You can do this up to a week in advance. This stuff keeps remarkably well in the refrigerator.
3. Rub the steaks and set them aside.
4. Make the onion sauté and set it aside in a covered bowl.
5. Make the tomato-beef sauce and seed the tomatoes (don't wilt them yet) and set them aside.
6. If you're making the tortillas, roll the masa balls and preheat your skillet (or comal if you're a purist).
7. Preheat your broiler, grill, or grilling pan for the steaks.
8. Cook the first half of the tortillas.
9. Start the steaks.
10. Cook the second half of the tortillas while the steaks are cooking.
11. Set the steak aside to cool for a minute, and wilt the tomatoes.
12. Slice the steaks.
13. Serve everything.

detailed construction instructions

1. Marinate the steaks:

Place the steaks in a wide bowl with three of the garlic cloves, the diced poblano, one half-teaspoon of the achiote paste and a teaspoon of the sea salt. Pour in the beer (I use Negro Modelo) and the juice from two of the limes. Cover this concoction and leave it in the fridge overnight.

2. Prepare the chilli purées:

The two chilli purées differ only in that I add a tablespoon of lime juice to the mulatto and a garlic clove to the chipotle. Be sure you keep the chillis and their resulting purées separate. Otherwise the steps are identical:

1. Remove the stems and seeds. Yes, I know, the seeds are a source of heat. Great. They're also bitter. The chipotles have plenty of heat in the ribs. Trust me on this: throw out the seeds.
2. Place the chillis in a small sauce pan with just enough water to cover them. Heat the chillis until they change color (the chipotles will go from brown to dark burnt orange; the mulattos will go from black to a tobaccoey reddish brown). Remove the chillis from the water but DON'T THROW OUT THE LIQUID.
3. Drop the chillis into a blender and add the lime juice (if you're puréeing the mulattos) or one sliced garlic clove (if you're puréeing the chipotles) and a pinch of sea salt (probably no more than a quarter teaspoon).
4. Blend the chillis, adding the reserved liquid from the sauce pan as necessary. Once the purée achieves a uniform consistency (a little thicker than prepared mustard), pour it into a mesh strainer (or onto a sieve) and strain the purée. This leaves behind the papery outer skin.

Cover the purées and refrigerate them until the other elements of the chili are ready to serve. The mulatto purée should be dark-brown-to-black, smoky, and a bit tart. The chipotle purée should be reddish-brown, smoky, and hot.

3. Rub the steaks

Not much to say about this. Remove the steaks from the marinade and leave them alone for a few minutes to dry them off. Rub the steaks with one teaspoon of achiote paste. Leave the last half teaspoon of achiote for the tomatoes. Brush the steaks with a tiny bit of peanut oil and set them aside for now.

4. Make the onion sauté

Hey, this is a snap. Preheat a little peanut oil in a sauté pan over a medium-high flame. Strain the onions, garlic, and poblanos from the marinade (reserve a half cup of the liquid and throw out the rest) and sauté them in the peanut oil until the onions begin to clarify. Add the reserved half cup of marinade and the Mexican oregano. Cook down the liquid. Pour the sauté into a bowl, cover it, and set it aside.

5. The first half of the tomato stuff

Seed the tomatoes. I found that the quickest wat to do this is to cut them in half perpendicular to the core and scoop out the innards. It goes pretty fast. Set aside half of the seeded tomatoes. Combine the other half with the beef stock and cook it over a medium heat until the tomatoes are thoroughly wilted. Strain this concoction through a wire mesh strainer or sieve to remove the skins and any stray bits of remaining fiber. Return the liquid to the sauce pan and add the thyme. Over a low flame, reduce the tomato-beef broth by half. Remove this from the flame until you are ready to wilt the remaining tomatoes (just before serving).

6. If you're making the tortillas, roll the masa balls and preheat your skillet (or comal if you're a purist). If you're not making tortillas, the rest of this is a snap.

7. Preheat your broiler, grill, or grilling pan for the steaks.

Hey, to each his own. I'm sure a back yard barbecue would turn out a fine version of this dish. I prefer a grill pan.

8. Cook the first half of the tortillas.

Here's the routine that works for me, using a dry skillet over a medium high flame:

1. thirty seconds on one side
2. thirty seconds on the other side
3. thirty seconds again on the first side, this time pressing down a bit with the spatula. When the tortilla puffs, I know it's going to turn out right.
4. Once more on the second side for thirty seconds.

9. Start the steaks.

Four minutes on each side produced some beautiful medium rare steaks.

10. Cook the second half of the tortillas while the steaks are cooking.

Second verse, same as the first.

11. Set the steaks aside to cool for a minute, and wilt the tomatoes.

You don't want the steaks to cool too much, so this should go pretty fast. Heat the tomato-beef sauce to bubbling. Add the remaining tomatoes. Stir them a couple times and remove them from the flame after thirty seconds. Pour them into a serving bowl. The residual heat will be sufficient to wilt the tomatoes.

12. Slice the steaks.

Thin. No more than a quarter inch thick.

13. Serve everything.

You can probably come up with a number of ways to do this. I fanned the steaks over a bed of the onion sauté and ran thin parallel stripes of the purées down the steak. The tomatoes, cheese, tortillas, and remaining purées, I served on the side. Guacamolé makes an excellent addition.

I didn't include instructions for making tortillas. The process is fairly simple in concept, but it takes practice. I also didn't say when to make the guacamolé or slice the cheese, but I'm sure you can work that out.