Smoked salmon sushi rolls

Posted on December 7, 2020 by Chelsea

This is one of those meals we have all the time but it never occurs to me to post here. It’s just a weeknight meal. It doesn’t feel “impressive” or “blogworthy,” but as I was making it the sixth-or-so time in so many months, I finally asked myself why. Well, because, I answered (what? You don’t have these kind of conversations with yourself?), it’s so… simple. There’s not much to actually cook, it doesn’t take long, the ingredients are (mostly) really easy to find, and… why did I think this wasn’t worth posting again?

We’ve been calling these “sushi burritos” mainly due to size and shape, but they really are just unsliced maki rolls, filled with avocado, cucumber, pickled ginger, and a generous portion of smoked salmon. “No raw fish?” you’re thinking, “so how is that sushi?” Ah, but “sushi” refers not to the fish – though that is probably what many of us call to mind first when we hear the word – but the rice: short grain, combined with (usually) seasoned rice vinegar, and then wrapped, covered, or rolled with other ingredients.

Here I’m using smoked salmon instead of the more traditional uncooked fish. Though I agree it would never stand up against a beautiful slice of raw ahi, the substitution is nice for a few reasons. First, especially if you are limiting your trips to the grocery store right now, you don’t have to worry about using it immediately – convenient if your avocado is less ripe than you’d hoped. Second, it tends to be much less expensive. Third, the texture is not quite the same, but it is comparable – on the tongue this does not feel like cooked fish, and if you can find one that is not particularly smoky, the salmon flavor comes through nicely. You could also use a cured product like gravlax for an even purer salmon-y flavor. And if you aren’t comfortable purchasing or consuming raw fish at all, this is an easy workaround.

Aside from acquiring the ingredients, the most intimidating component of sushi for many people is the rolling: spreading the rice evenly over the nori, trying to keep all those central components together, ending up with a nice, tight roll and good shape. For me, though, it’s the slicing. That’s when things start to come apart: when you disrupt the structural integrity of the nori, now nice and flexible after absorbing some of the moisture and warmth of the rice, by running a usually-not-sharp-enough knife through it. Here I forgo all but one slice, drawing my sharpest knife just once through each long roll, on a diagonal, and calling it a day. We get to the eating part faster that way.

I noted above that the ingredients for this meal are mostly easy to find. If you have an Asian market nearby, they are very easy to locate. If you don’t, your grocery store probably has an “ethnic foods” aisle with most of these ingredients: the rice vinegar, nori sheets, and pickled ginger (the same stuff, often lightly pink, that comes on your plate next to the blob of wasabi at your local sushi joint) will more than likely be there. If you can’t find wasabi mayonnaise, that same aisle will probably have various options for prepared wasabi – I just get a tube of it and add it to regular mayonnaise until the degree of nostril-tingling spice suits my fancy.

I’m also using furikake here (same aisle), a rice seasoning that is basically a mixture of sesame seeds and finely diced nori, seasoned with salt and sugar. My current container also has bonito flakes, and there are spicy varieties too. Bonus: furikake is also a madly delicious seasoning mixture for popcorn.

If you are efficient about all this, you can prep your vegetables and get everything else ready in the time it takes the rice to cook. My rice cooker usually requires about 25 minutes, and I find I can usually have everything else prepped and laid out in that time span. (Yes, I use a rice cooker for this instead of cooking my rice on the stove. I like the insurance that it offers, since it switches to “keep warm” when it’s done instead of, you know, continuing to cook into a blackened mess because I forgot to set a timer and got busy with other tasks…).

The play of flavors here, as you know if you enjoy sushi, is so comforting and so, just, good. The avocado and salmon are rich and fatty, so the watery crunch of cucumber and the pickled ginger punch provide a nice foil. The wasabi mayonnaise is just background spiciness, and the nori, warmed and moistened by the rice, takes on a chewiness I really like against the seasoned rice. You could serve this however you want, though we like two rolls a-piece, each one sliced in half at a steep angle. No need for utensils here – we just pick them up, pinch the uncut ends together a bit to avoid anything escaping, and enjoy the resistance of the chewy nori wrapper with each bite. You could likely also wrap them into cones for a more traditional hand roll shape, though I’ll admit I haven’t tried it that way yet, and thus I’m including instructions only for my method.

Smoked salmon sushi rolls

4 whole rolls (serves 2)

30-40 minutes, depending on how fast your rice cooks (some rice cookers take longer than others, and can differ from the speed at which rice cooks on the stove)

2 cups short grain white rice, cooked on the stove or in a rice cooker

¼ cup seasoned rice vinegar (if yours is unseasoned, stir in 1 teaspoon sugar and 1 teaspoon salt)

optional: 2-3 tablespoons furikake seasoning

about ½ a small cucumber, cut into long planks as thin as possible

4-6 ounces lightly smoked salmon, cut or torn into small pieces

½ ripe avocado, very thinly sliced

1-2 tablespoons pickled ginger (also called sushi ginger)

4 sheets nori

1-2 teaspoons wasabi mayonnaise

First, cook your rice. Use the time as it cooks to prep the other ingredients: thinly slice the cucumber using a knife or y-shaped vegetable peeler. Cut the avocado into very thin slices. Cut or tear the salmon into small pieces (this makes for easier eating). Fish out the appropriate amount of ginger from the container. Get everything laid out for easier construction.
When the rice is done, immediately mix in the vinegar and, if using, the furikake seasoning. It will be extremely tart at first, but the vinegar flavor will mellow as the rice cools. Set it aside until it is cool enough to handle.
To build the rolls, lay a piece of nori on your work surface, rough side (if there is one) facing up, short end toward you (most nori I’ve worked with is slightly rectangular, not exactly square). Spread a small amount of wasabi mayonnaise evenly over the nori, leaving a small border on all sides.
Scoop on about ⅓ cup of rice and use your fingers to spread/sprinkle it somewhat evenly over the nori sheet, leaving a half inch or so border at the far edge. About half an inch in from the edge closest to you, place two slices of cucumber, then about a quarter of the salmon pieces, then a few thin slices of avocado, then a few pieces of ginger. As you can see in my photos above, these should be arranged horizontally from your perspective, and all fairly tightly together.
Begin to roll the nori sheet by folding the short end closest to you up and over the row of fish and vegetables, then continue to roll until you get to the opposite side. The half-inch border you left rice-free will ensure a clean closure of sorts.
I like to slice these just once, on a diagonal, with a very sharp knife. Then we pinch the uncut ends together a bit and eat them out of hand, like a small burrito.

Potato Crusted Salmon with Pea and Arugula Puree

Posted on May 13, 2019 by Chelsea

There’s not much of a story here, only an observation my sister made that it seems like I’m into fancy food lately. I attribute this to spring break, when I made the dishes in my last three posts, because I had some time on my hands and I wanted to play. This recipe, and the deviled eggs crostini from last month, came from a list I keep on my laptop of food ideas, which oddly enough doesn’t often get used – I write down delicious-sounding concepts, and then I forget about them.

Not so with this one anymore. Very loosely imagined after a dish N. had years and years ago on the Oregon coast that just wasn’t as good as it should have been, I decided to top salmon filets with an herby crab salad, then wrap the whole thing in wafer-thin slices of potato and serve it over a velvety smooth puree of peas and arugula. Very spring.

The finished dish was good, and the flavor was delicious. It was not, however, as perfectly beautiful as it could have been, largely because I think to make this dish as gorgeous as it deserves to be, you really need a mandolin or a v-slicer, which is equipment I don’t have (largely because my kitchen storage situation leaves a bit to be desired). I made do with a potato peeler, as can you, in a pinch, but the results were only passable, not stellar.

Notes below about crab and puree options: jumbo lump is, of course, the premium choice, but lately I’ve found a mixture of jumbo or regular lump and claw meat is just fine. As for the puree, as I note below, you can choose your texture to please your palate (and your partner’s); I went with something pesto-like, but processing or blending further would offer a smoother sauce, and passing through a strainer, though somewhat time consuming, would produce a silky bright green sauce. Proceed as desired.

Potato Crusted Salmon with Pea and Arugula Puree

About 45 minutes

Serves 2 (with leftover crab salad)

For the crab salad:

Zest of one lime

Zest of one lemon

3 TB finely minced dill + a few extra sprigs to garnish if desired

1 TB finely minced chives

2 TB finely minced celery and/or radish

10 ounces crab meat, carefully picked through for cartilage pieces

about 3 TB mayonnaise

salt and pepper to taste

For the salmon:

2 6 ounce boneless, skinless salmon filets

3-4 medium Yukon gold potatoes

salt and pepper to taste

1 TB butter

1 TB olive oil

For the pea and arugula puree:

4 ounces defrosted frozen peas

2 TB butter

2 ounces baby arugula

1 TB lemon juice or to taste

salt and pepper to taste

Optional: blanched pencil asparagus

First, make the crab salad: combine all ingredients in a medium bowl. You can use whatever sort of crab you want; I like a mixture of lump, for the sweetness, and regular or crab and claw meat, for the affordability. Start with the recommended 3 TB mayonnaise, but you can add more if desired. You are looking for just enough that the mixture starts to hold together. Set the finished crab salad aside until it is time to assemble.
For the salmon, preheat the oven to 375F. Do a quick but thorough check of the filets to ensure there are no bones. Salt and pepper the fish on both sides, then set aside until the potatoes are ready.
The easiest way to proceed is to make very thin vertical slices of the potatoes on the wider side using a mandolin slicer, so you end up with long, wide strips. If you are using a mandolin, you will probably only need 2 potatoes worth of wide strips. Use the third potato to make round slices, like potato chips, by cutting horizontally across the small ends. If you don’t have a mandolin, you can do a passable job with a y-shaped potato peeler. Again, try for the longest, widest slices you can manage. You’ll probably need all 4 potatoes if you are using a peeler, because at a certain point you won’t be able to carve out clean slices anymore. Use 3 of the potatoes to make the long, wide strips, then use the fourth one to make the round, potato chip shaped slices.
To assemble, on a cutting board, lay out a row of long, wide potato strips, slightly overlapping, about an inch longer on each side than the filet. Add a second row just above it, again overlapping, so you have a kind of carpet of potato slices, as in the photo below.
Set the filet in the center of the potato slices, flesh side up (that is, the side where the skin used to be should rest on the potato layer). Using a spoon, top the filet with a few tablespoons of the crab salad, spreading it evenly across the surface.
Now the hard part: working quickly, begin wrapping the potato slices around the salmon. As you bring the overlapping layers up to the top, shingle on a layer of the round slices to hold the long pieces up and together. Check out the photo below to see what I mean.
Okay, now the other hard part: heat the butter and olive oil together in a medium skillet over medium high heat. When the fat is quite hot, use a spatula and your hand to carefully but quickly add the wrapped filets to the skillet, trying to get the shingled top side into the butter and oil mixture first. Sear without disturbing for 4 minutes, then carefully flip and place the whole skillet into your preheated 375F oven for 10 minutes.
While the fish is in the oven, make the pea and arugula pesto: in a small pot, cook the peas with the 2 TB butter just until they are hot. Add them to a food processor with the arugula, the lemon zest, and a pinch each of salt and pepper. Process until fairly smooth, then taste for seasoning and adjust as needed.
If you want to be fancy, you can strain the puree until a thin, smooth sauce. I decided to leave it more like a pesto texture, though, for ease.
If you are making the asparagus, now is a good time to blanch it and toss it with a tiny bit of butter, lemon, and salt.
To serve, place a scoop of the puree in the center of a plate or a shallow bowl. Use the back of a spoon to spread it into a circle. Alternatively, if you strained the mixture into a sauce, just pour some into the bottom of the vessel you’ve chosen. Place the potato-wrapped fish carefully just to the side of the center, so you can see some of the bright green circle underneath. If you made the pencil asparagus, you can nestle this between the fish and the edge of your plate or bowl, as in the photo earlier in the post.

Chopped Challenge #6: Orzo Puttanesca

Posted on September 3, 2018 by Chelsea

Course: entree

Ingredients: orzo pasta, onion, red wine, anchovies

I’ll admit something to you, friends. I… kind of waited to do this challenge until after we got back from our trip on purpose. I knew the ingredients a few weeks before we left, but I couldn’t turn them into an entrée dish I was happy with.

That’s not really because I couldn’t think of anything. I thought of a number of options. They just didn’t feel very creative to me. I mean, what do you make with pasta besides a big bowl of pasta? I couldn’t get past the expected. It didn’t even occur to me, as Nz. pointed out on the FB mystery basket reveal post, to make a cold option, even though I have an awesome orzo-based pasta salad in one of the dozens of cookbooks weighing down my bookshelves.

Finally I decided I had to just do it, creativity be damned. I put off the challenge for a month, school started, weeknights suddenly became off-limits for lengthy kitchen experiments, and I needed to get this challenge done if I was going to continue the project.

A big bowl of pasta it was, then. And my favorite pasta for anchovies and red wine has to be puttanesca, so that seemed like a doable, if not particularly original, solution. I’ve given you a puttanesca recipe before; this new take adds onions to the typical trifecta of garlic, capers, and olives. It amps up the anchovy quotient, making those amazing little salt-bombs the primary seasoning for the sauce and carriers of the dish in their own right, and at the last minute brightens everything with a palmful of lemon zest.

What resulted was satisfying, though we both noted there’s a reason puttanesca is not typically served with orzo. Classic Italian sauces are traditionally paired with particular pasta shapes for a reason, and puttanesca is heavy enough in both texture and flavor that the orzo gets a bit overwhelmed.

Regardless, we were left with a tasty dish that, crucially at this time of year, provided sufficient leftovers to see us well into the week in take-to-work-lunches.

Orzo puttanesca, then, and after that, as Two Brew from William Goldman’s The Color of Light might say, on to the next!

Orzo Puttanesca

30-45 minutes

Serves 8

2 tablespoons olive oil

½ diced onion

4-6 cloves garlic, smashed, peeled, and minced

6-8 anchovy filets

¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes

¼ cup drained capers

½ cup finely chopped kalamata olives

1 cup red wine

28 ounce can crushed or diced tomatoes

16 ounce package orzo pasta

¼ – ½ cup chopped parsley

¼ cup chopped or chiffonaded fresh basil

zest of one lemon

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic together and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions have softened and become translucent. The objective is not to brown them; if browning starts to occur, turn the heat down.
When the onions have tenderized and the mixture smells fragrant, add the anchovies. Use a flat-sided spatula (I like my wooden one) to smash and crush the filets into bits, which will eventually melt in with the vegetables and oil.
Once the anchovies are broken down, stir in the red pepper flakes, the capers, and the olives, then add the wine and cook on medium high heat for 2-3 minutes, just to start the wine reducing.
Add the canned tomatoes, bring to a simmer, then turn the heat down to medium low and simmer at least 20 minutes, preferably more like 30, stirring occasionally.
While the sauce is simmering, cook the orzo in boiling salted water about 1 minute less than what the package suggests. Just before draining, add about ½ cup of the pasta water to your sauce and stir in.
Drain the pasta and add it to the sauce, mixing well to ensure even incorporation. Just before serving, stir in the parsley, basil, and lemon zest. If desired, you can reserve a little bit of each to sprinkle over the top.

Chopped Challenge #6: Mystery Basket Revealed!

Posted on September 2, 2018 by Chelsea

Course: entree

Ingredients: orzo pasta, onion, red wine, anchovies

What would you make? Give me your ideas in the comments, then come back tomorrow to see how I fit them all together…

(Note: tomorrow’s post will go live in the afternoon, not in the morning as per usual.)

* for an explanation of this year’s challenge concept, take a look at this post.

Tempura Salmon Tacos

Posted on April 2, 2018 by Chelsea

As I mentioned not long ago, I’ve completely caught N’s obsession with tacos and now I want them all the time. In past years I thought the concept of “Taco Tuesday” was a bit silly and boring, but now it seems brilliant, because of course you wouldn’t do the same old ground beef and shredded cheddar every week; you would change it up and have charred vegetable tacos one week, slow cooked carnitas with pickled onions another week, and of course you would need fish tacos in there at least once a month.

Fish tacos tend to come in two camps: grilled and fried. When grilled, the fish is flaky and barely smoky and feels righteously healthy (at least as healthy as a taco can be), especially since it’s usually topped with confetti of cabbage, maybe a minute dice of tomatoes and, if you’re me, some paper thin slices of radish for a little peppery crunch. A spicy creamy drizzle and a generous dollop of guacamole are requirements.

But if I have to choose, I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you that I’m almost always going to go with fried. Encased in batter, sometimes cornmeal, sometimes flour, sometimes with beer, the fish stays molten hot and so juicy, and the batter is (ideally) crisp and crunchy and thus adds perfect texture even to a soft tortilla. Of course, many people’s objection to this format will likely be that it is unnecessarily heavy or fatty, and they are right: the wrong batter can be gloppy and greasy and excessive. Luckily, I have a solution to that: tempura.

Light and crisp and golden and melt-in-your-mouth-barely-there, tempura is, of course, that perfectly crunchy deep-fried coating for seafood and vegetables so common in Japanese restaurants. Its lightness is frequently achieved through the use of seltzer water as the liquid component in the batter, and sometimes rice flour, which fries up lighter and crispier than wheat flour.

The big problem with tempura, though, and what makes it a pain to do at home, is the deep-frying part. For a simple fish taco dinner, heating up a vat of oil is not high on my priority list. So I wondered if you could achieve satisfying tempura results with a shallow fry, not unlike old-fashioned fried chicken in a cast iron skillet. A few experiments later, I can definitively report that, although you have to be a touch more careful with the batter sticking to the pan, shallow-fried tempura is a completely viable option. Less oil means less time, less waste, and less of that fried smell in your kitchen (although it’s worth noting that an open window and a few votive candles lit for an hour or two can clear out most of that). My tempura batter takes the best of both worlds of fried fish, combining rice flour and baking powder not with the traditional seltzer, but with beer for a little extra flavor along with the requisite fizz.

Fish tacos are usually made with white fleshed fish of some kind – cod or halibut or mahi – but I love salmon, and have had some stellar fish and chips platters using this dense, meaty, pink option, so here I’m using it in lieu of more traditional options. You can certainly change out the type of fish you use, but I can’t speak for the cooking time of other fish since I’ve only tested the salmon with this method.

Of course half the fun of a fish taco is adorning it with various toppings, so here I’ve got two on offer for you: a red cabbage slaw bright with lime and cilantro, and a smash of avocado and corn to make up just before serving. We thought they needed nothing more, but if you like that creamy spicy sauce, I suggest whisking a few drops of sriracha into some buttermilk for a tangy kick to drizzle on.

Tempura Salmon Tacos

Serves 4

About ½ hour, if you are quite organized

For red cabbage slaw:

¼ head of red cabbage, grated or shredded or very finely slices (you can use green cabbage here too; I just like the unexpected bright color of the red)

¼-½ cup chopped cilantro, leaves and tender upper stalks

zest of 1 lime

juice of ½ lime

½ teaspoon salt

optional: 1-2 tablespoons mayonnaise or wasabi mayonnaise, if you like your slaw creamy

For tempura salmon:

1 pound salmon, cut into 1×3-4 inch strips (approximately)

⅔ cups rice flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

6-8 ounces beer (go with a pale ale or lighter; this is not a place for a deep roasty stout. Save that for waffles)

2-3 cups vegetable oil

For corn avocado smash:

1 ripe avocado (I like haas)

½ cup fresh or defrosted corn kernels

2 tablespoons thinly sliced green onion tops (dark green parts only)

¼ teaspoon salt or to taste

¼ teaspoon black pepper or to taste

lime juice to taste

To serve:

Tortillas (we like crunchy corn shells for this, but soft or blistered corn, or even flour, would also be tasty)

Optional garnishes: radish slices, crema, buttermilk and sriracha, sour cream, additional cilantro, green onion, or lime

First, make the cabbage slaw. Toss together the cabbage, cilantro, lime zest and juice, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside for at least 10 minutes to let the salt and lime juice permeate. If you like a creamy slaw, toss in 1-2 tablespoons regular or wasabi mayonnaise just before serving.
With the slaw done, turn your attention to the fish. In a cast iron or other large, heavy skillet, heat enough vegetable oil to come about 1 inch up the sides. While the oil heats, prep a warming tray: place a wire cooling rack over a baking sheet and place in the oven. Heat the oven to 300F.
Next, slice the fish into 1×3-4 inch strips or “fingers.” You can alter the size if you prefer, but this size cooks quickly and fits well into a taco shell.
When the oil reaches a temperature between 350-375F, whisk together the rice flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. If you prefer a very light batter, add 8 ounces of beer, whisking constantly as you pour it in. If you prefer a more substantial batter, add only 6 ounces of beer.
Now you are ready to fry. Add 5-6 strips of the fish to the tempura batter, submerge to ensure they are fully coated, then gently add them to the oil one at a time (it will sizzle aggressively), being sure they are separate from one another in the skillet. Cook 1-2 minutes per side, until the batter is lightly golden and the fish is barely cooked through (this doesn’t take long; you’ll be surprised how fast it is). Remove the fish to the warming rack in the oven. Continue to fry the fish in batches until it is all cooked.
Either in between, or just after the last batch of fish goes into the oven to keep warm, make the corn avocado smash. Halve, pit, and cube up the avocado into a small bowl (I like this method) Use a fork or the back of a spoon against the side of the bowl to lightly smash the cubes of avocado to your desired texture. I like it fairly chunky. Add the corn, green onion tops, salt, pepper, and lime juice, and gently stir to combine.
To serve, add a few fish strips to a warmed, grilled, or toasted tortilla, then top with the slaw and the smash in your desired order and quantity. Eat immediately.

Fisherman’s Stew

Posted on January 15, 2018 by Chelsea

All I wanted to do when I got up on Sunday was edit photos (final soup post! Some photos of pelicans N. took!), draft this post, and hide from the suddenly summery weather that has invaded this weekend (sorry, East Coast. I shouldn’t complain, but 80s in January? Come on). What I did NOT want to do was computer shop. And yet, when our stuttering, stumbling, dying desk top (named GLaDOS after the computer in Portal – here’s her final song in the credits if you want some nostalgic joy) wouldn’t load even the admin user profile, we sighed and resigned ourselves to replacing it.

In the meantime, I had to figure out photos. So I’m trying something new here: since I won’t have a new machine for a week or so, I’m testing Google Photos’ editing capabilities. Decent, I think, though I do like my Lightroom better…

That out of the way, and since I realize it’s only grilling-and-salad-and-vodka-tonics weather in a few areas of the country, let’s talk about this last soup. In planning the year’s project, I knew from the beginning what I wanted the December soup to be: a take on the Fisherman’s Stew from a restaurant in Eugene we adored called The Humble Beagle.

The Beagle was honest, slightly more than simple pub fare with Middle Eastern influences. The pizza had dollops of labneh. The hummus was impossibly light, and you could stuff it into a pita with crumbled lamb or fried eggplant, sliced of boiled potatoes, lightly pickled cabbage, and a hard boiled egg. The pub, as the couple who owned it affectionately called it, was only open for dinner, only five nights a week, and we watched their business and family grow as we moved through our PhD program. At one point Anni stopped appearing in the dining room, and what seemed like only a few months later, there was a curly haired, giant-and-wise-eyed moppet on Ari’s back as he took orders and chatted with guests.

At a certain point, both us of exhausted by the demands of the program and not up for the weekly happy hour at a campus bar that had lost a bit of its charm, N. and I started having dinner at the Beagle on Friday nights. We probably could have been thriftier with our meager stipends, but we told ourselves, as we drove there through the sheeting rain that seemed to last all winter, that we deserved the occasional reward for our hard work, and besides, it was better to spend a little more on really good food than fill ourselves with beer and bar fare.

During these Friday dinners, I started ordering a new item from the Beagle’s menu: the Fisherman’s Stew. This was usually among the priciest of their offerings, but again, reward. And once I had eaten it once or twice, I didn’t care. It was a rich but not heavy tomato based stew, laden with seafood – mussels, clams, sometimes tiny bay scallops, chunks of meaty white fish – and topped with a dollop of tart, creamy aioli and a slice of toast that never lasted long enough. It was complex in flavor and comforting on the tongue and in the belly, and I got so stuck on it I dreamed about it after we moved away from Eugene.

Seafood around the Christmas holiday feels right. It’s a time of indulgence, and it’s culinarily supported – I’m thinking about the Italian-American tradition of the feast of the seven fishes (not to mention the line practically out the door at Whole Foods to buy king crab legs!). Thus, it felt right to pay homage to the Beagle with my final soup of the year. In constructing the recipe, I had exactly the opposite experience as last month: I’ve remained friends with Ari on Facebook, and, expecting nothing, I messaged him to request the recipe. Within two days, he responded with the quantities and procedure they used at the restaurant, and it remained only for me to break this down into reasonable household quantities.

This is a convenient soup in that, even though it takes about an hour to put together, each cooked component sweats, or sautés, or simmers long enough that you have the time to get the next component ready. You cook down some aromatic vegetables and herbs, during which time you can chop up potatoes and carrots. While the root veg simmer away in tomato puree and water infused with a pinch of saffron (Trader Joe’s has the best prices I’ve ever seen on the stuff), you have plenty of time to clean and prep the seafood. You could even, as Ari suggested to me, make the soup base (the vegetables and liquid components) ahead of time, and reheat and add the seafood just before serving. This is a soup that ages well over a night or two, the complex flavors melding and deepening as they linger together, so dividing the process makes sense (plus, you can choose to heat up just the amount you need that evening, and freeze the rest).

As for the seafood, it’s much easier than you might think (well, it’s easier than I thought, anyway). I had never cooked my own clams or mussels before, and I had raised an eyebrow at Ari’s direction that the fish you add will be done in the time it takes the shellfish to open. He was, of course, exactly right; in fact, my fish ended up a tiny bit overcooked because I was nervous about doneness. Yours will not, since, of course, you’ll learn from my mistake.

The hardest part about the seafood prep here is ensuring cleanness and safety, but even that isn’t too daunting. The important thing is ensuring your shellfish are alive, and scrubbing off sand and grit – I submerged my clams and mussels in cold water for only about ten minutes (much more than that can kill them, since they are salt water critters) before scooping them out, scrubbing as I rinsed, and pulling off the mussels’ “beards” (toward the hinge only, please). From there, they go straight into the stew to cook briefly until they pop open, and if they don’t pop open, you discard them. That’s it. the kitchn offers the following expansion on this: “Freshly purchased mussels that are prepared properly pose very little food safety risk. Before cooking, look over the mussels carefully. The mussels should be tightly closed. Discard any mussels with cracked shells. If you see a mussel that is open, tap it gently against the counter; in a live mussel, this will trigger a reaction to close its shell. If the mussel doesn’t close, it has died and should be discarded. Also discard any mussels that don’t open after cooking. This might sound a little scary, but trust your instincts. Follow this simple advice: before cooking, shells closed; after cooking, shells open.”

When the shellfish have popped open, the fish is done, and your stew is ready to eat. Ari’s final word on the matter: “That’s it! Maybe add a dollop of aioli and a piece or two of crusty bread.” He’s right. And if you don’t have aioli, you can either doctor up some mayo with grated garlic and maybe a touch of lemon juice, or you can just put a teaspoon or so of straight mayonnaise right in the center of your bowl. I know that sounds indulgent, but trust me – it swirls into the soup to add just the right richness and balance against the acidity of the tomato base.

That’s 2017’s project in the books at last, then. Next week, we embark on a new project: the Chopped Challenge! The recipe post will go up on Monday as usual, but if you want, check in on Sunday when I’ll reveal the ingredients N. has chosen, and tell me in the comments what you would make with this mystery basket.

Fisherman’s Stew

Serves 6-8

Approximately 1 hour

¼ cup olive oil

3 leeks, white and pale green parts only, split vertically, cleaned under running water, and sliced thinly into half moons

2 stalks celery, thinly sliced

1 fennel bulb, stalks and fronds removed (reserve a few fronds for serving), bulb halved and thinly sliced

1 teaspoon herbs de provence

2-3 sprigs fresh thyme

2 bay leaves

3 cloves garlic, papery skins removed, finely minced or smashed

4-5 anchovy fillets (I used a 2 ounce tin, drained of oil)

2 carrots, peeled and cut in small dice

2 large or 3 small Yukon gold potatoes, cut in small dice

32 ounce can crushed tomatoes or tomato puree

4 cups warm water

½ teaspoon saffron threads

2-3 wide strips orange peel (use a potato peeler)

juice of half a lemon or to taste

salt and pepper to taste

1 pound firm white fish like cod or halibut, cut into bite-sized chunks

2 pounds mixed shellfish, like mussels, clams, and small bay scallops (get these already shelled and cleaned, for ease)

To serve: fennel fronds, a few dollops aioli or mayonnaise (see above for mayo doctoring suggestions)

In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium low. Add the prepared leeks, celery and fennel, along with the herbs de provence, thyme, bay leaves, and a sprinkle of salt. Sweat until the leeks have softened but not browned, about 8-10 minutes. Add the garlic and anchovies and cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes until the garlic is fragrant and the anchovy fillets have broken up.
Raise the heat to medium and add the carrots and potatoes. Season with about ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper, and cook for 5 minutes, stirring.
While the carrots and potatoes are cooking, bloom the saffron by sprinkling the ½ teaspoon of red threads to the 4 cups of warm water. Add the tomato puree or crushed tomatoes, the saffron and its water, and the strips of orange zest to the pot. Squeeze in the lemon juice, then let the soup simmer until the vegetable chunks have softened, 20-30 minutes.
While the soup is simmering, it’s time to address the fish component. If you’re using clams and mussels, fill a large bowl with cold water and immerse them for just 10 minutes. They should settle on the bottom and expel a bit of sand. If any float, consider discarding them, as this likely means they are dead inside their shells. After 10 minutes, scoop them out (don’t pour, or the sand and grit that has settled at the bottom will be stirred up again) and scrub them off with a brush or your fingers under running water.
If your mussels have “beards,” as in the above picture, remove them by tugging the exposed seaweed-y bit sharply toward the hinge of the shell. It should pull off, and you can throw it away.
Now you are ready to put everything together. Remove the bay leaves, thyme sprigs, orange peels, and large garlic pieces, if you smashed rather than mincing. Plop in the clams, mussels, fish chunks, and bay scallops and cook just until the shellfish pop open; this will only take a minute or two. If any of them don’t pop open after a few minutes, discard them.
To serve, scoop generous servings into bowls, dollop with aioli or mayonnaise, and, if you like to be fancy, top with a fennel frond or two. Add some crusty or well-toasted bread and eat immediately.