Mahimahi with Bells and Onions

Sometimes life makes promises that don't pan out.  Take that photo on my masthead.  The mango trees are doing it again - blooming like there's no tomorrow.  Hoping for the best.  But, here in Puna it all depends upon the weather, and mostly we can count on not getting mangoes.  Maybe one or two.  All due to rain at the wrong time.

The Allspice tree is blooming too.  And, that's another story.  A funnier one.  Or sadder. It blooms every year, but never makes any babies.  Do you know why?  You're waiting with bated breath I can tell.  Because it needs a tree of the opposite sex. Duh. Yes, sex is involved here.  The only problem with trees being that they have no external appendages by which one might tell which sex they are.  So, because my poor darling was lonely, I went out and purchased another tree, which could be of the same sex or the opposite.  Who knows?  At least not until it's big enough to make babies.  Enough about things that disappoint.

As far as this meal goes, what can I say?  It is basically a technique, and a favorite go-to of mine for chicken thighs, fish or tenderloin steaks.  I haven't posted about it before because it just seems too simple.  But, aren't the best things in life often simple?  And this one never disappoints.  You put whatever it is on top of some veggies that have been drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with herbs, (in the case of chicken, lots of garlic) salt and pepper.  Cook at 400F and that is it.  The cooking times depend on what you have.  Meal in a pan.

Sometimes I add mushrooms or zucchini.  If it's chicken, I cover with foil the first 20 minutes, remove and do the last 20 minutes without, after a splash of white wine and more olive oil (or butter).  With ahi tuna I put it under the broiler for about 5 minutes on each side.  For this mahimahi, a more delicate and thinner cut, I lightly sauteed the vegetables first in the cast iron pan, added the fish on top, sprinkled with salt, pepper, fennel pollen, and olive oil. Then popped the pan in the oven for about 5 minutes on each side, repeating the sprinklings.

You want the fish barely cooked, before removing to a plate to rest, surrounded by beautifully roasted veggies.  Fabulous, moist and tender, served with roasted potatoes which can be done in the oven at the same time, or as I did with kefir lime and parsley scented rice alongside green beans in a vinaigrette. This will join the dishes over at Hearth 'n Soul Blog Hop, hosted by Swathi.  Check out some tasty recipes.

Potato and Cheese Pierogi and Book Review

Since being asked by Rachel of The Crispy Cook to read and review this fictionalized biography of the author's grandmother, Anna, Heart of a Peasant, by Carol Marie Davis, I've come to think I may have the heart of a peasant as well.  Certainly if cultivating herbs, fruits and the odd vegetable, making wine, sauerkraut, bread, jams, etc. are a criteria.  Peasants rule!

I love reading books like this one, evocative of a life and time so removed from my own, yet which reveal the relatedness of our human experience, across the generations and borders.

Though a trip through Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railway is only a dream, I do have one Russian travel story, with food involved, which this book brought to mind.  Years ago, on one of those dual purpose cargo vessels with passenger accommodation, Bob and I journeyed from Japan to Hong Kong.  The ship was Russian and so were the meals, which I remember as being excellent.  Our table mates were an Italian B grade movie producer and his Japanese girlfriend, but that's another story.  I will say she was not all that thrilled with the food, and he kept asking for more bread, which was actually quite good.  Baked on board.  That being another era, the entertainment consisted of propaganda movies, which we considered moderately interesting.  Ah, memories.

But back to the book; short, but descriptive and well-written, it is the tale of a hard life, adventure, and of a brave and indomitable spirit.  I especially enjoyed the story of Anna's escape from servitude to traveling with gypsies, eventually making her own way to America.   Davis has done her research and is able to clearly evoke the culture and landscape of peasant life in Byelorussia just before and after the turn of the century, as well as immigrant times in depression era New York.  She has also provided us food lovers with some of her grandmother's favorite traditional Russian recipes at the end.

Lasagna Cacciatora for Cook the Books Club

John and Matt Thorne's Outlaw Cook was our Cook the Books Club selection for this month, chosen and hosted by Rachel, The Crispy Cook.  It is a delightful, thought provoking read about food, and continues to be as I poke back and forth among the chapters.  The book is a collection of essays and book reviews, some of which have appeared in magazines or in the authors' own food letter, Simple Cooking, gathered about the general premise that recipes and so-called laws about preparing food are meant to be questioned, tested, played with, broken and re-arranged to suit ourselves.  We can all be outlaw cooks in other words.

There is so much here to inspire, encourage and challenge all of us who love to cook and to eat good food.  I was hard-pressed to narrow down any one thing as my inspired food offering.  Just for example, his chapters on bread, the leavens, the ovens and baking caused me to re-think our failure with an outdoor masonry oven.  Perhaps it was not the fault of the oven's construction??    If he can say:

The bread oven, however, proved to be a teacher out of my worst nightmares.  It made immediate, huge demands on my small understanding.  It not only refused to tolerate mistakes but cruelly punished them with burns and ruined bread.  It expected me to know everything and explained nothing.

Who am I to give up so easily?  Moss is growing in there now.

We will be re-firing that pile of stones, of money, perhaps not wasted, once more.  After all, I have my 200+ year old French sourdough starter, still going after all these years. An appointment needs to be made, since this is a project requiring good weather, dough started the night before, the oven fired properly this time, and so on and on.  Today would have been perfect, however as a storm was predicted, I put the leaven in the fridge, and am now looking out at a beautiful day. 

For days like this, a Bread Cloche has been ordered, which Thorne discusses as an alternative, second-best to baking in a masonry wood-fired oven.  I am looking forward to that.  As we have a wood-fired sauna,  I am familiar with getting fires going.  Not always a piece of cake, but out in an exposed situation with wind, a challenge.. My grandson was in charge of the last oven firing.  I know, but he likes to set fires, and we decided to put that energy to constructive use.

The treatise on Garlic Soup was enticing, something definitely to give a try.  And there was Meatball Metaphysics, (love that title) with recipes. Also encouraging was the chapter, On Not Being a Good Cook,  since I do not consider myself a good cook.  As the experiments I try are often not wholly successful, it was easy to find myself in total agreement with his comment that, "you don't have to be a good cook, or even aspire to be one, to be an interested cook."  And I am, though my culinary range orbits more frequently around making fruit wines, pickles, preserves, cacao processing - finding the best ways to prepare, and discovering the many uses for what is growing around me.   There was so much in the book that I agree with, as: "this is a sharing and not a performance....There's a lot more to cooking than being good at it."  And:

Spicy Carnitas and Black Bean Tamales

I have long harbored a secret desire to make authentic tamales.  Not exactly sure what has stopped me before now, but given an assignment, I was more than happy to rise to the occasion.  Maranda of Jolts & Jollies was our January 2012 Daring Cooks hostess with the mostess!  Maranda challenged us to make traditional Mexican Tamales as our first challenge of the year!

The initial thing is to soak your corn husks covered with water, 3 hours or overnight.  Luckily our Natural Foods Market carries them, so no problems there.  Lard however was another issue.  I'm not into buying pork or pig by-products that come from inhumane animal factories.  Since no decent lard (almost sounds like an oxymoron doesn't it?) was locally available, I decided to use duck plus bacon fat, both of which were on hand, and thinking that a bit of duck flavor wouldn't hurt.  Actually, the only thing I wasn't that totally happy with.  It goes into the tamale dough along with some broth or water and masa harina (or corn flour - which is what I had, and they turned out super).

White Bean and Tuscan Kale Soup with Chestnuts

When I've just stashed batches of newly minted chicken stock, we're ready and running in the soup department.  They're burning holes in my pockets, so to speak.  So, I riffle through a cookbook or two to see what will appeal.  This one had cannellini beans, kale, pancetta and chestnuts, a winter comfort meal if I ever heard one.  Especially since there was a package of roasted peeled chestnuts lurking from Thanksgiving.  Besides, having  read Amateur Gourmet's kale salad recipe, and wanting to try that, kale was on my shopping list.  Two things to do with a largeish bunch of kale.

Simona with macadamia nuts from our tree

Yes folks, even in Hawaii we do have winter, albeit wtih sun, blue skies and a bright orange flowering African Tulip outside.  It can be chilly, especially in the mornings.  Fellow blogger, Simona came to visit and can attest to that.  We don't get many food bloggers stopping by here on The Big Island, so it was lovely to meet her and her husband.

The soup does call for pancetta, but you can certainly use bacon, as I did, or go without and use a mushroom stock to make this totally vegetarian.  It was so yummy, we almost polished off the whole thing at one sitting. And nicely warming on a cool evening.  The Gourmet Today Cookbook was my reference for this, and unusually for me, I pretty much stuck to the recipe.  Aside that is from the bacon switcharoo.  As per Ms. Reichl, the Tuscan kale, or cavolo nero, with its vibrant green ruffled leaves and delicately rich, sweet flavor, does pair beautifully with chestnuts and white beans.

Butternut Ginger Muffins with Macadamia Nuts

        HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Yet another recipe that involves BUTTERNUT SQUASH or PUMPKIN??  Yes, guilty as charged.  But, you can always use a wonderful muffin, right?  These are not only wonderful, but the best.  Seriously.  Plus they use up some of that extra, cooked squash you have in your fridge, and make a super addition to your New Year's Breakfast.

I did post the recipe for the Queen's Surf Banana Muffins a few years ago, and this is a riff off that.  A superior riff, if I do say so.  There were no bananas, but I wanted to use some roasted butternut squash in my muffins, and thought hey, mashed up squash could easily sub in for those bananas, right??  Add some fresh ginger, nutmeg and cardamom, top everything off with chopped mac nuts and crystallized ginger, and you get a winner, lovely tender crumb and quite delicious.

The old Queen's Surf Waikiki nightclub and restaurant burned down years ago, but I managed to get their secret Banana Muffin recipe.  Wrote it down on a 3x5 card and neglected to note who gave it to me.  Sigh.  But, trust me, the chef won't roll in his grave over this variation.

Slow-Roasted Glazed Salmon

The recipe called for "wild king salmon".  I don't know, this was fresh farmed, Atlantic.  However, do you look a gift, 4 lb. lovely salmon fillet in the mouth?  Not that there was a head to peer into.  But I have to tell you, this slow cook, glazed routine was fabulous.  So, melting succulent, tender and delicious, accented by that tangy sauce, no one was complaining Ms. Reichl.  It was her recipe in the Gourmet Today Cookbook that I almost followed to the letter.  I had ventured previously into the slow cook realm with smoked salmon, but this was a much easier slow cook method.  Like in your oven.

We don't actually know who the gift is from.  It was left in the fridge at our office, along with a nice package of "Smoked Salmon Cocktail Slices" in assorted flavors.  No one seemed to have any idea as to the donor.  How could it get there without anyone noticing?  Santa at midnight?? Well, thank you, whoever you are.  A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours!

Passion Fruit (Lillikoi as we say in Hawaii) Jam Recipe

You will not need to add pectin.  I don't usually mess with the stuff myself, and just add fruit with high pectin content if what I'm using (say pineapple) is low.  I like the old fashioned boil it down method.  Since lillikoi are dropping off the vines around our place and this jam is an old favorite, I thought I'd share the secret recipe.

Passion Fruit have a thin tough outer yellow (unless you have the purple variety) shell (which resists fruit flies nicely) and a thicker, fibrous inner white shell with lots of pectin, and then the fruit and seed mixture inside.

You will be using both the juice and inner white shell.  First wash the fruits, then cut each one in half, scoop out the juicy pulpy seedy part and reserve in a jar.

Then take half the shells (I use the nicer looking ones - without fruit fly stings) and set in a large bowl.  Cover with water, top with a plate to keep submerged, and let sit on your counter overnight or 24 hours.  The next day, dump shells and water into a large pot and bring to a boil, turn down heat and simmer for about 45 minutes.  Pour into a colander (saving enough of the water for later) and let the shells cool down enough to handle.

Now you take a spoon and scoop out the softened, thick inner pulp, discarding the brittle outer shell.  You can either chop the pulp finely or put into a food processor.  I like the jam with a bit of texture, rather than blending smooth.

Passion Fruit Jam

Ingredients: (adjust to the amount you have)
36 passion fruits (or 6 cups juice)
half the shells reserved and cooked, pulp chopped finely (see above)
1 1/2 cups water
3-4 cups sugar
3 tablespoons lemon juice

When you are ready, juice the fruit to separate out the seeds.  I use an Acme juicer, which is centrifugal so the seeds don't get crushed into the juice.  Add your chopped pulp to the juice, reserved water, lemon juice and sugar in a medium saucepan.

Bring to a brisk boil, stirring constantly until sugar is dissolved.  You will need to stir frequently to keep the jam from sticking to the bottom and burning, as I have been known to do. Then I tell myself that the hint of caramelized fruit is nice. Ha.  Boil rapidly until set.  Ladle into clean, sterile jars and label if you like.

Now that is a vibrantly flavored, delicious jam for your toast, scones or inside of cookies or tarts.  Going over to Hearth 'n Soul Blog Hop for this week, hosted by Swathi, check it out.

Char Sui Bao, Manapua, Oh Yeah! I can do my own.

Sad to say, this being Hawaii and all,  I really do not know of a good local place to get these yummy Chinese buns, called Manapua here, a type of Dim Sum.  At least not with nicely raised pork inside, which I do realize, eliminates most everyone.   So, I am now happy to do it myself, whenever the Char Sui Bao mood strikes.  Really what being a foodie is supposed to be about, or am I wrong?

Our Daring Cooks’ December 2011 hostess is Sara from Belly Rumbles! Sara chose awesome Char Sui Bao as our challenge, where we made the buns, Char Sui, and filling from scratch – delicious!

As usual, it just being the two of us, well except for the occasional grandchild, I cut the recipe in half, which gave us ten fat dumplings, filled with Char Sui pork, green onions and fragrant seasoning.   I made the oven, rather than BBQ method of Char Sui, the weather being solid rain for the last few weeks.  Not exactly anything you want to go out and grill in.