Down in Flames
Dinner Wednesday night was not a success.
After wowing the girls and Girltzik's guest over the weekend with a redux of my Sriracha shrimp on fried noodles, accompanied this time by braised leeks and Chinese long-bean, I crashed and burned at midweek. Dinner looked good on paper—seafood sausage and fettuccine with tarragon-almond pesto. What's not to love about choice seafood, fresh herbs, and pasta? Sadly, no ingredient is foolproof. Princess V soldiered through, but clearly did not enjoy the meal. Girltzik managed a couple bites of the seafood and one of the fettuccine. Looking up from her plate with big puppy-dog eyes, she asks, "Can we have buffalo again?" Girltzik's dinner fed the dispose-all.
Seafood sausage still sounds like a good idea, but I have to face it: I blew it. I screwed up. I can think of soooooooooo many ways in which I screwed up Wednesday's dinner that it's hard to pick a starting point.
I should have dried the scallops more thoroughly.
I should have beat the egg whites before adding them to the seafood.
Since I was making the sausage without casings, I should have steamed it instead of poaching.
I should have used more seasoning.
I should have sauced the sausage.
I should, knowing the girls' distaste for minty things, have used less tarragon.
I should have ground the almonds a bit finer.
I have a pretty good palate. More to the point, I have confidence in my palate and in my ability to combine flavors, textures, food elements. That confidence allows me to create some pretty spectacular meals. That same confidence also allows me, now and then, to royally screw up. My hamartia. And so it came to pass, from previous heights of Sriracha shrimp and crispy fried noodles, the sin of hubris threw me down, casting me to the wretched depths of bland sausage and overstrong pesto. O, the catharsis of the learning experience.
Aristotelian hyperbole aside, when you experiment with foods, you're bound to have a few misses. Especially when I'm trying something I haven't done in several years.* All in all, we've been pretty lucky. I think this is only my second big miss this year. So far.
Next time will be better. After a suitable mourning period (or at least after the girls have managed to rinse the bad taste from their memories) I'll try it again. My next seafood sausage will contain a bit of chili and wasabi, will include a second type of fish, will include lobster or crab, will be steamed, will be accompanied with a lemony sauce.
It will be glorious.
* - Technically, I've never made a true seafood sausage. Last night's "sausage" was actually more like a terrine, which I have made in the distant past. For last night's disaster, I used no sausage casings, wrapped the mix in cling wrap to hold it together during cooking, incorporated egg whites to firm it up, and sliced the things for serving.
Out of the Ashes
Clearly I will not be sharing details of the seafood sausage dinner. Here's the recipe and directions for a meal you won't enjoy, seems more than a little silly. When I get the sausage right, I'll write the success story. For now, I guess I need to reach back a few weeks and bring forward an earlier success.
I don't think any fish preparation is really foolproof, but fish filets baked en papillote comes pretty close. As long as you include the right aromatics and don't overcook the fish, filets baked en papillote make for a great presentation and a terrific meal. Wrapping single-serving-sized filets individually allows each diner to open her own, each packet releasing a cloud of steam laced with the aromas of the fish and other flavor elements.
Typically, I like to include one or two stout herbs (thyme, basil, dill, curry leaves) an allium (sautéed shallot or leeks or roasted garlic) and an intense fungus or two (truffle, black trumpet mushroom, morel, Portobello, porcini). Cooking en papillote infuses the fish with all the flavors of the aromatics. As fancy as it looks, the whole process is really pretty simple. It also helps that parchment paper has recently become more readily available at many supermarkets and independent grocery stores.
Salmon with Portobello Mushrooms en Papillote
(serves three)
dramatis personae
two medium Portobello mushroom caps, sliced (quarter-inch slices)
one tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
one shallot, thinly sliced
one teaspoon fresh thyme
one half-cup dry vermouth
salt
black pepper
one dozen large basil leaves
three five ounce salmon filets, scaled
quality of ingredients
Portobello mushrooms were all the rage in the late 80s. Eventually, though, they fell out of favor. The problem is the gills. Most of the intense meaty mushroom flavor of the Portobellos resides in the spores and gills. Unfortunately, when the mushrooms cook, their gills release dusty black spores. This imparts some marvelous flavor but also looks very much like dirt. Many cooks try to correct this situation by removing the gills, but of course, that also removes a good deal of flavor.
Baking en papillote works remarkably well with Portobello mushrooms because it transfers flavor from the mushrooms to the fish without mixing them into a sauce.
Portobellos should be firm, and the caps should be intact.
I love shallots, but they do piss me off. From a gardening perspective, shallots are just another allium. They don't even require mounding, like leeks and scallions. Somehow, though, they command a higher price by weight than any other onion. Locally, they're running four dollars a pound.
Salmon again. I do seem to be cooking a lot of salmon, lately. Here again, my first choice is sockeye. See my quality notes on salmon from Flesh for Fantasy.
preparation notes
Preheat the oven to 400F.
In a dry non-stick sauté pan over a medium high flame, arrange the Portobello mushroom slices in a single layer and salt them lightly. Sweat the mushroom slices without turning until droplets of mushroom liquor appear on all of the slices (about three minutes). Turn the mushroom slices over and brown the other side for an additional three minutes. Remove the mushroom slices from the pan.
Without deglazing the pan or turning down the flame, add a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil into the pan. When the oil begins to shimmer, add in the shallots and a pinch of salt, and sauté them until translucent. Add black pepper, thyme, and the vermouth and simmer the shallots until the liquid is reduced to about two tablespoons.
For each filet, on a work surface, lay out a 15" by 15" sheet of parchment paper. About three inches from the near side of the sheet and centered, place three basil leaves, parallel to one another and overlapping a bit. Place a filet, skin-side down atop the basil leaves. Arrange one third of the mushroom slices atop the filet and spoon one third of the shallots atop the mushrooms. Place a fourth basil leave atop the shallots.
Add a pinch of salt to one egg white and beat the white with a fork to liquefy it.
Paint the outer inch of the parchment with egg white. Fold the far edge of the parchment over the filet to the near edge. Fold in all three edges toward the filet. Seal off the last fold on each side with egg white.
Arrange the filet packets on a cooking sheet in the center of a 400F oven. Bake the filets for seven minutes.
With a pair of scissors, snip open a corner of each packet and let the diners tear it open at the table.
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