Synchronicity Goes Crunch
In the past few weeks, we've had three different varieties of crusted fish. I hadn't really planned a study in crusting fish. It just sort of happened. I only recognized the threesome as part of a pattern the day after the latest such preparation. Now that I've recognized the pattern, I can either continue experimenting with crusting one thing and another on various types of fish, or I can go back to looking for inspiration day-by-day.
Actually, that's only partly true. Although I am constantly on the lookout for a new preparation or a new take on an old preparation, I don't cook something new every day. Lately, we've been ordering out about five times each fortnight. Of the remaining nine, probably three are more or less original meals. On the other six nights, I fall back on frequent favorites: chicken piccata, Thai crab soup, chicken tacos, chicken or fish en escabeché, spicy pork tenderloin.
Generally, I'm not all that fond of crusted fish filets. Too often the crust hides the flavor or, if the crusting agent is a bit too absorbent, adds a layer of mush instead of something toothsome. Why then are so many crusts popular with so many varieties of fish? Essentially, any crust should provide at least two of three possible attributes: enhanced texture, enhanced flavor, and protection from direct heat. Admirable goals, but all too easy to screw up. A battered coating can provide too much insulation, resulting in overcooked crust and undercooked fish. Flavor enhancements all too often overwhelm the thing they're meant to enhance—doughy breadings making delicate fish taste like bread, spice rubs burning out every other flavor. Textural elements can also go too far. Crusts should add a delicate crunch not a layer of mud.
Curry-Crusted Tuna
The first such crust treatment I tried recently was a lightly dusted seared tuna. I've frequently coated tuna steaks with pepper, sesame seeds, or both. I had in mind something summer-heat-appropriate: a salad with spicy seared tuna. Over all, the salad wasn't a great success. The tomatoes I used, a fairly new orange variety of apricot-sized fruit called mandarines, turned out far less flavorful than I'd hoped. They were bland and not at all sweet. Girltzik said she liked them, but Princess V and I were underwhelmed.
The one element of the salad that I thought truly fine was the seared tuna. Girltzik didn't like it, which surprised me, but the adults enjoyed it. After patting the steaks dry, I coated them with a layer of curry powder and let them stand for half an hour before searing them. The curry powder seared nicely, forming a light but crunchy layer of spice.
Sadly, the mango-tamarind dressing I made for the salad was too thick and a bit starchy. I wanted something chutney-inspired to match with the curry, but I blew it. I'll try a variant on this salad again later this summer while Girltzik is off visiting her bio-dad. If I come up with one that works, I'll post the recipe.
Pecan-Crusted Orange Roughy
One obvious crusted fish example is breaded, fried whole fish or filets. This class of fish can be further divided into deep-fried and pan-fried. Deep fried fish without the breading would be pretty nasty. The outer flesh would be blistered and dried out, and the hot oil would invade the slippery spaces between the flakes. Of course, many varieties of fried fish are pretty nasty even with the breading. I've had fish and chips, for example, in which the fish was perfectly done, the breading light and crispy, and the oil content was surprisingly low. I've also had fish and chips where the filets could pass for biofuels: the breading soaked up the oil or the fish did or both.
When I was a youngster, whenever my father took us fishing, he always ended up cooking the fish the same way: battered, dipped in corn meal, and pan-fried. Trout, bass, bluegill, crappie, catfish all received the same treatment both at home and on camping trips. For years, I thought it was the only way you could cook freshwater fish, and I didn't much care for it. Fried cornmeal already has, I think, an inherently fishy aroma. I always picked off as much breading as I could to get to the sweet fish flesh underneath.
On the positive side, the cornmeal breading did protect the delicate flesh from the heat. More important, it kept the oil out of the fish, so picking off the breading meant I didn't have to taste oil. With either deep-frying or pan frying, the real trick is to cook the fish without creating an oil sponge.
These memories were very much on my mind when I decided to try pecan-crusted filets. I didn't want to reproduce the negative aspects of Dad's pan-fried trout. Pecan crust is almost as tricky as bread crumbs. You don't need a lot of oil in the pan (I found a tablespoon per orange roughy filet is sufficient), but it has to be hot enough to brown the crust before it can saturate the pecan meal. Pecan meal also, however, burns more readily than bread crumbs.
I considered serving the filets with a vinaigrette to cut any oil the pecan crust absorbed, but I wanted a sauce that would enhance the pecan flavor, which is delicate and easily overwhelmed. I decided on a lemon and caper beurre noisette. The beurre noisette made a beautiful bridge between the buttery sweetness of the orange roughy and the nuttiness of the pecan meal crust, and the capers and lemon juice added just enough sparkle.
I served the filets with a dense, crunchy baguette and a fennel kumquat salad dressed with olive oil and a drizzle of reduced balsamic I had left over from the last time I made Niçoise salad. Tart, sweet, and crunchy, the salad made a beautiful counterpoint to the buttery, nutty filets.
Pecan-Crusted Orange Roughy with Lemon Caper Beurre Noisette and Fennel Kumquat Salad
(serves three)
dramatis personae
fish
three orange roughy filets
one half-cup milk
juice of one small lemon
two eggs
one half-cup pecan meal
one teaspoon kosher salt
one half-teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
two tablespoons olive oil
beurre
one half-cup unsalted butter
juice of one small lemon
two tablespoons nonpareil capers
salad
one fennel bulb, cored and sliced thin
one tablespoon fennel fronds, chopped
one dozen kumquats
three ounces roasted ricotta ensalata, sliced thin
two tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
one teaspoon balsamic reduction
salt
balsamic reduction
one cup balsamic vinegar
one tablespoon light brown sugar
quality of ingredients
As with other white-flesh fish, the orange roughy filets should be firm, white, blemish-free. They should have relatively little aroma and no sour fishy smell.
See Purity of Essence for my notes on capers.
Fennel bulbs in the grocery store slowly develop brown translucent parts. The whiter and more opaque bulbs will be the freshest. Fresher bulbs are sweeter and stronger tasting.
You want kumquats ripe but not overripe. Kumquats don't ripen quite as uniformly as oranges. A perfectly ripe kumquat will be firm and mostly orange with a bit of yellow around the stem-end. An overripe kumquat will be completely orange (no yellow) and slightly soft.
If you can't find roasted ricotta ensalata, substitute fresh mozzarella.
One nice side effect of reducing balsamic vinegar with a little brown sugar is that it dramatically improves the flavor. Don't waste expensive, aged balsamic on a reduction. Use the cheap stuff.
preparation notes
In a small sauce pan over a low flame, mix the balsamic vinegar and brown sugar and allow the liquid to reduce until it reaches a consistency like maple syrup. You should be able to finish the meal while the vinegar reduces.
Mix the milk and lemon juice and let it stand for five minutes to curdle. Whip the two eggs into the milk.
Mix the pecan meal with the salt and pepper in an oversized bowl.
Dip each filet in the milk-and-egg mix and allow the majority of the liquid to drip off. Dredge them in pecan meal.
In a non-stick sauté pan, heat one tablespoon olive oil over a medium flame. Once the oil begins to shimmer, gently place one filet in the hot oil. Allow the filet to cook undisturbed for two minutes. Using a fish-turner and one other spatula, gently turn the filet over and allow it to cook, undisturbed for two minutes.
Orange roughy filets are thicker toward the collar. The tail-end will be done after four minutes, but the collar end will nead another two minutes. I've seen cookbooks occasionally recommend cutting the thinnest part of the filet and folding it back towards the head, but I find that slipping the fish turner under the tail end of the fish for the last two minutes will allow the thick portion of the filet to cook without overcooking the thin portion.
In a stainless steel sauce pan over a low flame, melt one stick of butter and allow it to cook, stirring occasionally, until it takes on a light brown (hazelnut) color. Add in the lemon juice and capers and continue cooking the butter for one minute, stirring constantly. This is your beurre noisette.
Drizzle the filets with a bit of the beurre noisette to serve.
For the fennel kumquat salad, you only want the zests of the kumquats. The pith, juice, and seeds are bitter and tart. Halve each kumquat. Cut off the stem end and scoop out the pith, juice, and seeds with a melon baller.
Combine the sliced fennel, ricotta ensalata, and kumquats and toss them with extra-virgin olive oil. After plating, drizzle about a teaspoon of balsamic reduction over each serving.
Jerked Salmon
Tony Bourdain makes a good point about fusion dishes—sometimes they're just silly. The example he gives is a monkfish tagine, and the example is apt on several levels. Tagines are used to slow-braise meats, and monkfish—which will overcook if you just look at it crossly—would gain nothing in a slow braise. Besides, Moroccan cuisine doesn't include any monkfish recipes. In fact, aside from pork, I can't think of a less Morroccan ingredient than monkfish. There is something a little discordant—possibly pretentious—about applying a traditional technique to a non-traditional ingredient just for the sake of saying you've done it.
On the other hand, if applying a treatment to a non-traditional ingredient works, why argue with success? Pork tagine is a good example.
A couple of weeks ago, I picked up some jerk-rubbed chicken breasts at Central Market. I thought jerked-chicken tacos with guacamole would be an interesting change from the jalapeño-lime marinated chicken I usually use in our tacos. The jerked chicken was good, but I kept thinking, This rub would be terrific on salmon. I also thought the idea of jerked salmon sounded kind of silly. I was surprised at the incredible number of jerked salmon recipes online. Then again, the internet hosts a pretty astonishing number of monkfish tagine recipes.
Ah well. For the Jamaican purists out there, yes, I know, you're supposed to jerk pork or goat, possibly chicken. Okay, and some people have started using jerk spice rubs on beef and fish. Yes, I know, salmon is geographically silly choice. Snapper, you could at least argue, is something you can actually expect to find in Jamaica.
It's not my fault. Jerk has become one of those broad cooking terms like curry, salsa, or mojo. The only consistent requirement from one jerk spice mix to the next is Scotch bonnet peppers and allspice. Typically, though, jerk is sweetened with sugar, honey, or molasses. Thyme and an alium or two usually slips in there, too—garlic, shallots, scallions, onion.
Sorry, but salmon flavor really blooms in a sweet and spicy treatment. Jerk spice and salmon—it was simply meant to be.
Jerked Salmon with Mango Ginger Barbecue Sauce
(serves three)
dramatis personae
salmon
three five ounce portions of salmon filet, scaled
two garlic cloves, pressed or finely minced
one Scotch bonnet or habeñero, seeded and finely minced
one tablespoon salt
two teaspoons allspice
one teaspoon cinnamon
one half teaspoon powdered cloves
one half teaspoon powdered coriander
one tablespoon dark brown sugar
barbecue sauce
one small mango, peeled and seeded
one half-cup tomato catsup
one tablespoon grated ginger
salt
quality of ingredients
Yep, sock-eye salmon again. See Flesh for Fantasy for my quality notes on salmon.
Ginger should not look shriveled and dry. Buy only roots that are plump with taut skins. Store ginger in an open sack in the crisper. If you close it in a plastic bag or similar container, it rots rapidly.
preparation notes
My jerk rub is almost a dry rub, but the garlic makes it more paste like. Coat the flesh side of each filet with the rub. Allow the salmon filets to stand for one half-hour before cooking.
Combine the ingredients for the barbecue sauce in a blend and purée it.
In a non-stick pan over a medium-high flame, heat one tablespoon of peanut oil to smoking. Place each filet portion, rubbed side down, in the hot oil and sear it for two minutes. Turn up the flame to high. Using a fish turner and spatula, carefully turn over the filets and cook the skin-side for one minute. Remove the filets from the pan and immediately slice each piece into one to one-and-a-half inch strips. Slicing the fish allow it to begin cooling so that it doesn't continue to cook.
Plate the strips and drizzle each with barbecue sauce.
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