Machli ka Salan and much more!

Last week, we were hankering for a desi cookout - well, that's pretty normal except this time we decided to try out a fish recipe.

Being relatively new to eating fish, I often end up going for simple flavors that easily showcase the fish - marinades followed by grilling or broiling. But this time, we wanted obvious desi flavors, so we attempted this salan recipe from Art of Indian Cuisine by Rocky Mohan. BTW, I'm digging this book more by the recipe - it distinctly lacks cooking times, but makes up for it by showcasing really flavorful and often different dishes.

Once we picked our fish recipe, the next step was finding the right sides - after a little deliberation, we decided to skip rice and went with Aloo Kurma and collard green rotis - another greens fix :)

Madison Market has become a pretty good destination for reliable fish - the folks behind the counter totally know what they're talking about and are pretty amiable about picking the right size of fillets - especially since I'm not a fan of thick slabs of fish that don't cook through easily. The recipe just called for white fish, we we went with true cod. And we ended up skipping the mint that the recipe asked for and just used dry spices along with ginger and garlic for the marinade.

Machli ka Salan
Fish Fillet Treats

Servings: 3

1 lb true cod fillets

Marinade:
1 T red chilli powder
4-5 garlic cloves
1" ginger
1 t turmeric powder
1 T coriander powder (freshly roasted and ground works best)

1 T butter
1 large white onion - finely chopped
salt to taste

Rub the fish fillets with the marinade and set aside for 45-50 minutes.
Heat the clarified butter in a large frying pan and add the chopped onions.
Sauté until light brown in colour.
Add the marinated fish fillets.
Reduce the heat and add 1/2 a cup of warm water and salt.
Simmer, stirring carefully, taking care the fish pieces do not break.
Cook until the fish is tender and the gravy is thick.

What did we think?
Perfect. Seriously. One of the best fish dishes we've ever made.

Alu Kurma
Yay! Potatoes!

Serves: 3-4

1 lb fingerling potatoes - sliced into chunks
1 cup of thick yogurt

Masala:
Dry roast and grind to a paste with a little water

2 T almond - blanched, peeled and sliced
1 T grated coconut
1 T poppy seeds
1 T coriander seeds
1 T red chilli powder

1 T olive oil
1/3 cup finely chopped onions
1 t grated ginger
3 cloves garlic - smashed
Salt to taste

Whisk the yogurt with the roasted spice paste and set aside.

Heat the oil in a wok, saute the onions+ginger+garlic till golden brown.
Add the potatoes and saute for 3-4 minutes.
Add 2-3 T of water, stir and cook covered for 4-6 minutes.
Add the yogurt mixture and salt and stir.
Cook for 5 minutes and add 3/4 cup of warm water.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat and cook the potatoes are tender and the gravy is thick.

At this point, we ended up tossing the potatoes+gravy into a baking pan and baking it covered for about 15 minutes at 300 F.

What did we think?
Daria thought it tasted perfect, but we think the poppy seeds was a bit much - we'll probably scale back on that next time, but otherwise, the potatoes were perfectly cooked and absorbed the masala flavours really well.

Collard Greens Rotis
Go Grrreeeennnnnn :)

Servings: many many rotis

3 cups of whole wheat flour
6-7 leaves of collard greens - cleaned and shredded into small pieces
1 t salt
1 T cayenne powder
1 t cumin seeds
1/2 cup warm milk
warm water for kneading
1 T sesame oil

Cook the collard greens in about 1 cup of water till softened - this took about 5 minutes.
Knead the dough with the greens, salt, spices and milk, adding water as needed.
Once well mixed, add the oil and knead for another 5-7 minutes.
Cover the dough with a wet towel for about 20 minutes before rolling out rotis.

These were *good*! Think we'll make parathas with them next time around and maybe just stuff them with a spiced collard mix, that sounds a lot more exciting :)

Wine Pairings:
All french - a Chateauneuf du Pape (which was fabulous, thanks Daria!), a Gigondas that was quite yummy and one more that I've forgotten the name of!



The meal was fabulous, but the pictures were subpar. Oh well!

Care for some snapper?

We did! And we're glad we did! :)

This is a long overdue post from a couple of weeks ago - with Navarathri and travelling and all, things have been really hectic and I'm woefully behind with my food postings. But things are back to being relatively normal, so the postings shall flow again! :)

A couple of weeks ago, the guy at City Fish convinced me to buy some of what he called "super fresh" snapper - so much better than the cod, he said! Well, that sold me - anything better than fresh cod must be good, real good! And this worked really well for dinner a couple of nights later since Megan got all excited in anticipation of a seafood meal :)

We poked around several recipes online before finally settling on a version of blackened snapper that sounded pretty happy. Simple seasoning, delicate fish, "herbalicious" sauce topping - all goodness!

Blackened snapper with tomato-dill sauce

Servings: 3

3 fillets skinned snapper - 8 oz each
2 T olive oil
a handful of chopped parsley

Seasoning
----------------
1 T cayenne
1 t kosher salt
1 T garlic salt
1.5 T onion powder
1 t ground black pepper
1 T fresh thyme

Sauce
----------
3 roma tomatoes - peeled and chopped
1/2 red onion - finely chopped
3 cloves garlic - smashed
1 T coriander powder
1 t cayenne
2 T chopped dill
kosher salt
1 t olive oil
1 t turmeric

Heat the oil in a saucepan and add the onions+garlic. Once browned, throw in the tomatoes and spices and cook for about 12-14 minutes till the tomatoes are cooked and blended. Mash the tomatoes with a wooden ladle and let the sauce simmer for a few more minutes. Finally toss in the chopped dill. (I *love* the explosive smell when the dill is thrown into the sauce - so overpowering!)

Fishy fishy
----------------
Mix the seasoning ingredients till well blended.
Brush the fillets with olive oil and rub all over with the seasoning. Place the fish in a large greased skillet and cook over low for about 4-5 minutes. Drizzle a few more drops of olive oil as the fish cooks. Flip the fish over and cook for another 4-5 minutes.
Place a fillet on a plate and spoon the sauce over it. Let it sit for a couple of minutes before serving - the fish was delicate enough to immediately start absorbing the flavors of the sauce!
Top with the chopped parsley.

Our first side was pretty simple - oven roasted fingerling potatoes dusted with salt, pepper and some thyme - yum! The other side was even happier - hierloom tomatoes sauteed in their own juices along with some balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Delicious! :)

Our camera was not super happy that day, we only have one substandard picture as testament to a yummy meal!

Wait ... there is more! Megan brought some yummy desserts from Whole Foods - we decided the flan was too rich, but the raspberry tart was tasty and the chocolate mousse was simply decadent!

Halibut meets grape leaves

This was one of those perfect seafood meals. It was also one of those "Damn! The camera is on the fritz!" meals! :)

While poking around for interesting fish recipes, I came across JenBlossom's post about halibut with lemon butter. Soon, I was trolling the Food&Wine recipe collection looking for other halibut recipes. This one about halibut roasted in grape leaves caught my eye. We haven't had grape leaves in a long while, and this recipe sounded really simple and quick. In one of those rare instances, we pretty much followed the recipe, except for using halibut fillets with the skin on - not a problem since it peeled off real easily once they were baked.

We really wanted to get all pieces of our meal ready at the same time, it truly sucks when an entree sits around getting cold while the sides are still being worked on! After a little juggling, we figured out how to create a packet of grape leaves, drizzle it with olive oil and chopped thyme and seasoning and wrap the halibut in it. Soon, 4 pretty pouches went into the oven :) In the meantime, we chopped up some yukon gold potatoes and sauteed those with vidalia onions - seasoning was a dash of cayenne, some cumin powder and rock salt. And this time, we seasoned it with a bunch of italian parsley instead of the usual cilantro. It worked really well!

The other side was an old favorite - fresh green beans sauteed in a soy sauce+rice vinegar+grapeseed oil+sesame seeds reduction. Tasty, like always!

Once the fish was out, we unwrapped the grape leaves and drizzled the lemon-mustard dressing over the halibut - it was so yummy, can't wait to try it on some veggies next time!

It was a fabulous meal, but the camera was out to lunch, so all we have is this one sad picture!


End result: Autumn was happy! Very happy! :)

Broiled Salmon in Citrus-Cilantro Pesto

We stumbled across an old edition of Cook's Illustrated that had a pretty interesting article about broiling salmon in a variety of sauces. Having never broiled salmon before, we jumped on this article and proceeded to dissect it :) We quickly discovered that this "How to Broil Salmon" article was incredibly confusing - every sauce recipe (there were 5 of them) refers to a part of one of the other recipes! *grr*

We finally figured it out and went with the cilantro pesto sauce - a very refreshing flavor for a hot summer evening. But we soon ran into bigger problems - the broiler didn't quite seem to be working! So, we had to stick with using the oven instead - the flavors were great, but we didn't quite get the crispy crust we wanted. I think we're going to try the crushed potato chips + bread crumbs for the crust the next time around.

We seasoned the salmon fillets (about 1 lb) with some olive oil, kosher salt and pepper and let it sit under the broiler for about 7-9 minutes. In the meantime, we made up the sauce by blending these:

1 bunch cilantro
5-6 cloves of garlic
1 bunch scallions
1 jalapeno
juice of 1 lemon

We went back and forth on whether we wanted shallots or onions or scallions. And the scallions were perfect - not overwhelming, just a little pungent, quite yummy!

Hmm ... broiler disaster! So, we upped the oven temperature to about 475, let the salmon bake for a couple more minutes and then coated it with the pesto, rolled it in panko and stuck it back in the oven for another 7-9 minutes. Hmm ... still not browned! Another 7 minutes? That helped some, but this crispy crust needs some work!

Well, the sauce perfectly complemented the salmon, so no complaints there! And our sides were perfect - roast potatoes with onions, cumin and a dash of cayenne and green beans cooked in a soy-rice vinegar reduction with sesame seeds. The green beans side was the star of the night, I'll need to cook that again soon!

The picture I took was way too lame to post, I'll just have to cook this again for a good picture :)