Fish is easily overcooked, which makes it a strong candidate for slow cooking and an easy night's work for the cook--unless of course you complicate matters by throwing something tricky into the mix. I love a culinary dare. Rich fish like salmon and mackerel are delicious served with beans, but the two cook at such different rates, they typically can't be cooked together. By using red lentils, which are the softest of dried beans, and a forgiving fatty fish, like farm-raised salmon, I found I could trim the difference to about 10 minutes. A brief simmering of the lentils on their own does it; then the salmon is added and everything slow-bakes together in a low oven.
Ingredients
There is nothing fancy about a lobster roll. They were invented on the side of the road. I see a lot of overly dressed-up lobster rolls in restaurants with garnishes and beds of lettuce, too much mayo, and way too many odd green bits mixed in with the lobster. I hate lettuce and celery in my lobster roll! Lobster rolls should taste like lobster, not celery! Just use a good sweet hot-dog bun, big chunks of lobster, a little mayo, and some butter and you will have perfection. I think my secret is steaming the lobster in a salty bath . . . and never tossing out the lobster liquids that are in the shells. Save every last drop. That liquid is like lobster extract . . . or lobster flavor on steroids. It's why some people refer to my roll as a Dr. Klaw Crack Roll. Trust Dr. Klaw on this one!
Often called shrimp al pip-pil, this northern favorite can be either spicy in the sense of piquant, with plenty of cayenne pepper, or spicy in the sense of heavily seasoned, with garlic, cumin, sweet paprika, and a pinch of cayenne pepper, plus plenty of fresh cilantro and parsley. This recipe is the latter, though you can add firepower as desired. The shrimp can also be prepared in individual terra-cotta dishes and served as an appetizer.
This fish, with its haunting edge of smoke, is a showcase recipe for a beautiful piece of salmon, or other oil-rich fish.
Ingredients
This recipe was inspired by our local Belgian beer place, which has several different versions of moules frites on the menu: an enamel pot of mussels comes with a cone filled with crispy French fries and a mayonnaise dipping sauce alongside. My favorite is the Malaysian style, which is a riff on laksa, a coconut curry soup with Chinese-Malay elements. At home, mussels take literally minutes to prepare and need only a crispy baguette to sop up all the delicious juices.
Shrimp are such little flavor sponges; just a short plunge in this Caribbean-feeling marinade, and they become vivid, spicy, and bright. I love toothsome Israeli couscous, and toasting the little pearls takes these beads of pasta to a whole new level. Pairing it with mango and zucchini, which I cut in big slices and grill before dicing, brings juicy sweetness to the party.
Moist chunks of smoked fish, nubs of tender asparagus and handfuls of fresh herbs come together in this pasta that sings of spring.