Daring Cooks' Challenge November '09 - Sushi

The November 2009 Daring Cooks challenge was brought to you by Audax of Audax Artifex and Rose of The Bite Me Kitchen. They chose sushi as the Challenge.
According to their brief, Sushi is much appreciated for its delicate taste and exquisite appearance. Sushi actually means vinegared rice, which is the essential ingredient in every sushi recipe. Sushi is simple and cheap to make at home, needs no special equipment and is an excellent way to use left-overs.
Although sushi in various forms has been around for fourteen centuries, the modern version was invented in Japan where a 'hand-formed' sliced fresh fish and vinegared rice ball was eaten as a snack food. Nowadays, sushi is made with various seafood, meats and vegetables, raw and cooked. The challenge is in four parts

Part 1: Making proper sushi rice you will wash, rinse, drain, soak, cook, dress, and cool short grain rice until each grain is sticky enough to hold toppings or bind ingredients. Then you will use the cooked rice to form three types of sushi:

Part 2: Dragon sushi roll, an avocado covered inside-out rice roll with a tasty surprise filling

Part 3: Decorative spiral sushi, a nori-coated rice roll which reveals a decorative pattern when cut

Part 4: Nigiri sushi, hand-shaped rice rolls with toppings


I don't think I was 100% motivated and focused on this challenge as E was diagnosed with Bell's palsy a few weeks ago (after an eventful weekend spend at the hospital. When it first started, they weren't too sure what it was. So they decided to admit him to hospital to run more tests (in case it was a stroke or something similar).. After a day, they detected that it was centralised to his face (i.e. didn't affect the rest of the left side of his body) so they put him on steroids and told him to be patient, that he would eventually recover movement.

Patient is not a word in E's vocabulary, so as you can imagine it's been a trying few weeks. I've had him kicking around the house for the last few weeks on sick leave, impatient to start moving the muscles in his face and the relief is now he's almost able to close his eye and can now move his cheek a little.

So as you can imagine, the Daring Cook's challenge was the least of my worries (especially as I've been inundated with translation projects recently, meaning that I spend my time in front of the computer all day - adding to E's boredom). When I finally found a free minute to think about sourcing the ingredients, I had a tag-along.. (E just can't understand my preparation before cooking, and the lack thereof this time round caused numerous heated discussions between us).. Anyway, enough about that..

The sushi ->
Part 1. Sushi rice.. meh, easy to make (except when you don't read the labels of the bottles and end up with pre-sweetened sushi seasoning instead of rice vinegar). Ok, so I cheated but I have to say I didn't notice any difference in the rice..
Part 2. Dragon roll with smoked herring (I do know where to get eel here Terres de l'Ebre, but didn't have time to go there) and courgette (no cucumber either) - the only thing I got right was the avocado!


Part 3. Spiral roll with herring, courgette and fresh tuna. I know, there was supposed to be 6 ingredients, but couldn't think of anything else that wouldn't kill the flavour of the fish. As it was, I went overboard with the rice (as usual - it's the second time that I've made sushi and I had the same problem), so they were more sushi balls than sushi rolls.



Part 4. Nigiri with fresh tuna, pan-fried calamar and monkfish. Okay, so these turned out a little better except I discovered that when I returned home with the rest of the ingredients that I hadn't any wasabi paste left.. Improvise.. so we added dijon mustard! It was, well, *interesting*. E liked it but I wasn't convinced.

Anyway, another challenge done and dusted.. I suppose I should be happy with the result (given the circumstances) but being a perfectionist, it's a lot to ask. I've got high standards but in some ways that's a good thing as maybe the next time round it will be even better..

End of the wedding season...

Last weekend we were at the last of the weddings this year down in Tortosa.. The last of five.. Joana & Paco, a cousin of E's dad... (there was 7 brothers and sisters in his granmother's family so there was a big difference between the oldest and the youngest - Joana's my age).

Regrettably, what was looking to be a fun event (was really looking forward to it - the reception was at Les Moles in Ulledecona), turned into One Wedding and a Funeral. E's granny fell into a coma on Friday night (passing away in the early hours of Sunday morning) so we were no more in the humour for going to a wedding the next day..

That being said, it was a wedding to remember - the food lived up to be everything that everyone said it would be..

Catering for large numbers tends to be a recipe for disaster - sorry folks, cooking fillet steak with foie gras for 200 people is just not possible. The steak most probably has been cooked at 9am that morning, so the probability that it will be as tough as boots is extremely high!

Joana & Paco got it 100% right - apart from the appertif hors d'oeuve, which were select and good quality, but pounced upon the moment the waiters loomed into view (it WAS 3pm, so obviously people were hungry), the rest of the meal made up for it..

Simplicity was the key, taking good ingredients and presenting them simply. It was certainly an example of a traditional Spanish wedding fair - the sign of a good wedding is the number of prawns/langoustines etc. that you get presented with! And this one, certainly turned up trumps..

Here you can see the Pumpkin soup, served separately (plated poached egg and langoustine, and then the pumpkin soup poured over the top)..

Dinner was topped off with a visit from Quico el Célio, el Mut i el Noi de Ferreries, a traditional band from the Terres de l'Ebre region, whose speciality is the traditional Jota originating from Tortosa. Joana's mother joined in to give her own ad-lib version dedicated to the couple (one of the features of the Jota is that people make up the lyrics as they go along, adapting them for the occasion).

They even played my favourite De Roquetes Vinc which has a special meaning for E's family, as it's a song that his Alzheimer-inflicted grandmother (Joana's aunt) still sings to this day on her more lucid days..

En fin.. a new beginning for some, a ending for others.. And so the circle of life goes on...

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Here's the full line up:

Aperitif

Star-anise scented crisps

Iberian ham

Marinated anchovy and herring toast

Vegetable and foie gras coca pastry

Red pepper and courgette mousse cone

Langoustine and bacon brochette

Iberian ham croquettes

Griddled prawn brochette

Dinner

Grilled langoustines

Pumpkin soup with langoustines and poached egg

Sea bass with calamar 'eel' and calamar ink 'caviar'

Blood orange and strawberry sorbet

Duck confit with muscatel and cinnamon scented apple purée

Textured rice pudding (with rice crispies!)

Wedding cake - Individual chocolate mousse cakes

Fishy wisdom

We Irish have a special relationship with salmon; it is probably the only fish that is full accepted in the Irish diet (despite being an island). There isn't a house in Ireland that doesn't whip out the smoked salmon and brown bread at Christmas, weddings, funerals and christenings! Maybe it's Fionn's blood in us all.

Here in Spain, there isn't as much furor for salmon, sadly being over looked for other more meaty fish like monkfish and cod. Having been here 6 years now, I'm beginning to understand their liking for cod. In Ireland, I tended to avoid it like the plague, as it was insipid and bland. The cod here is different, probably because it's salted, which is good in some ways as it gives more flavour to an otherwise unappetising fish. The downside is if you don't soak it enough, you'll end up drinking water for the rest of the afternoon, so we've discovered on numerous occasions.. 48h hours is just not enough!

Shopping today I came across some lovely looking whole salmon, at only 5.95€ a kg - not bad. Despite being farmed, which usually means that it's rather fatty, it wasn't the case this time; it turned out a lovely fish. Rather than having the supermarket butcher it (and I mean mutilate it with a knife), I decided to take it home whole and wrestle with ourselves. E wasn't too enamored with the idea, as he says it's a great way of blunting knives, but then again, isn't that what they're for? Personally I always prefer to buy a full fish, having always seen mum and dad filleting fish at the kitchen sink, rather just asking for cuts to be cooked the same day - it's a fish that freezes well and is rather versatile.

The fish came in under 3 Kg, so there was plenty of fish to work with. In the end we took one full side and pan-fried it whole for a recipe I found in Arabesque (Barbecued Salmon and Aubergine Terrine). It starts off by lining a terrine with oven-roasted, ruby-red peppers, then sprinkling some crumbled, salty feta. On top of that, along one side, it layers poached leeks and on the other, some peeled, roasted aubergine. We placed half of the fillet (which had been panfried with a little garlic) in the centre and sprinkled it with some crushed coriander seeds. Then another layer of feta, more aubergine and leeks and the remaining salmon. Finally we topped it off with the rest of the peppers, and a layer of clingfilm. We've put some TetraBrics of stock on top to weight it. E was a bit skeptical about whether it would compact, but so far, the liquid seems to be dripping out. We'll have to wait until tomorrow to see the result.

The trimings along the backbone are going to be used for E's salmon tartare, a real treat where he mixes roughly diced fresh and smoked salmon with minced onion, gherkins, capers, hard-boiled egg and a dash of mustard and oil. A great temptié or a meal in itself (it's rather rich, so best to share - no worries here!).

I cut the other side into smallish darns and popped them in the freezer, to be salvaged another day when I'm homesick. Nothing like some panfried salmon and spuds to reminisce about moist lush Ireland!

Mackerel, just like when I was a kid in Barley Cove

Sunny hot summer days are finally here..

Somehow my appetite has gone haywire. With all the heat, the thoughts of eating anything hot during the day turns my stomach. These days I've been craving refreshingly cold Niçoise salads; Capreses with juicy, meaty tomatoes, drizzled in sunshine gold olive oil; tart, creamy potato salads with lashings of astringent plump capers.. So it goes without saying that at some stage I'd delve into the comfort foods of when I was child.

Today I started thinking about Mackerel.. A seriously under-rated fish in some countries - I don't think many people in Ireland have even tasted mackerel, let alone see a whole one, head and all. As a child I used to sit on the edge of a rock in Barley Cove while I'd watch my uncle Bobby trying his hand in enticing a shoal to his hook. Some days we'd be bathed in lovely afternoon sunshine, but mostly we'd be sitting there in raincoats until we got too cold and gave up.

He never gave up, rain, hail or shine.. Actually he was quite good at it (yet he could never understand my dad's patience to fish in boat in the middle of the lake), so there was many occasion that we would be faced with mackerel for tea, making the caravan smell for the whole weekend after..

Since then, it's kind of evolved for me, mackerel, learning different ways to cook it but I think deep-down i still prefer it the old way - straight off the pan with lashings of butter and black pepper..

E tends to prefer it Catalan style - escabetx or poached slightly/marinated in vinegar and oil. Wasn't too keen on it as first as vinegar was a big no-no for me, but over the years that I've been here (6 already), it's slowly growing on me.

It's rather simple to prepare: 1 part wine vinegar, 2 parts olive oil and some water to cover, a bay leaf and some black peppercorns. Place the gutted and de-headed mackerel in the liquid and bring to the boil. When it starts to boil, remove from the heat and leave to cool in the liquid. Once cold, transfer to a small casserole dish and cover completely with virgen olive oil. Not only does the oil 'soften' the taste of vinegar and mellow the flavour of the fish. E prefers to leave out the oil -just using vinegar and water, but it makes it too vinegary for my liking.

The great thing is it keeps really well in the fridge (or on the countertop if you don't live in hot Spain -it's currently 29º) for a few days. Mmm.. My mouth already starts to water as if it were a bag of salt and vinegar crisps..

What do the Aussies put in their fish?

One of our major "must do" things while we were in Australia is to check out their fish market.

Ever since my Mum visited my aunt and uncle in Sydney, I'll never forget her talking about the fish market - how they'd buy some fish and eat it there in the same place. Will it really live up to our high expectations given that we're used to see great markets like La Boqueria?

The answer was sort of..

The variety was amazing, a lot of varieties of fish that we know back home but different - like New Zealand green-lipped mussels (mmm, go figure that I'd be interested in them!), Sydney bay oysters and a number of different catfish and snapper. However, what shocked us more than anything was the price - how can monkfish be selling at $27 a kilo, that's just €13.50! Our prices start around 27€, so there must be a catch.

We couldn't help but wondering why, if the fish is so cheap, don't the Aussies spend all there time at the fish market (it was empty apart from the usual Japanese tourists)? The place had a run-down feeling and my uncle told us that they weren't quite sure what to do with it, as

it was outdated now, they had problems keeping the fish during their summer with its high temperatures, and it seemed that no one (apart from the Japanese who would go wild over the tuna - every fish stand served ready-to-eat sushi) went there to buy.

There doesn't seem to be much clue about how to cook fish (especially in our Aussies' house - fish is "ew, yuck, it smells so fishy" word). E couldn't understand why anyone would want to serve mussels in coconut cream.

So the challenge for us was to present it so that even my picky cousins would try it. Tough challenge, given the variety of fish, but we reckoned that we had to narrow it down to the more meaty fish - Monkfish, cuttlefish, fresh red tuna, and some of the Sydney bay oysters just for us, as it was unlikely that any one else would try. My uncle was delighted at the thought that someone else would encourage the rest of the family to try new things.

As usual, E donned his chef's hat and started preparing the perfectly cleaned fish (no heads or bones here!) - the plan was simple: grilled tuna with a dash of salt and pepper, deep fried monkfish, beer-battered cuttlefish and oysters au naturel.

I think the fact of seeing someone *cooking* in the kitchen made my cousin take on an adventurous spirit and he even tried an oyster although wasn't too enamoured although the comment was "it's not bad..". First, challenge past with success.

How about the rest of the family? Well, I won't bore you with the details but I think it went down well, even with my extremely picky aunt (it's not surprising that the rest of the family as turned out suspicious of new food!). There's nothing that gives me more satisfaction than when we convince someone to try something new that they've never ventured to try before and find that they actually like it!

Getting back to the fish - we found out why it was so cheap. It's not that it's bad fish, just rather insipid when you compare it to Mediterranean fish (which has a higher salt content). So no wonder everyone dares to spice it up with chilli (chilli squid, chilli fish, chilli mussels - everything gets a health dose of chilli)!