Archive for the ‘Fish’ Category

Lobster Rolls Obsession

Sunday, August 7th, 2011

More high resolution photos at DesiGrub’s Facebook album

One hour (or more) long line for a lobster roll! I refuse to stay such a long line to get my lunch on a work day – who has time? At the same time, I was somewhat intrigued by the lobster rolls that made people to stay out in muggy DC weather for an hour to eat $15-18 lunch.

Before these reviews of lobster rolls, I have to disclaim that I am not an expert on lobsters or grew up eating them on a weekly basis. I know good food and believe that ocean already made lobsters so tasty – all we need to do is heat it to perfection without too much of bells and whistles.

Why lobsters are sustainable and expensive?
Lobsters are trapped live in a cage that allows it to enter but makes it difficult to exit. This inefficient way of fishing lobster has inadvertently resulted it in being overfished. Additionally lobster sustainability in the United States has increased because lobstermen are required to measure lobster size and release small young and big fully grown lobster back to the sea to insure healthy future breeding stock.

Lobster recommendations in DC (in no particular order);

Red Hook Lobster Truck [4.5 oz lobster meat]
You can get lobster roll in Maine style (mayonnaise, lime) or in Connecticut style (melted butter) made from Maine lobsters. Both of them are served on white bread toast with big chunk of lobster meat and paprika seasonings. The bun sort of gets soggy with the drizzled melted butter in Connecticut style lobster roll. I would definitely recommend it if the truck is in your neighborhood and if there is no big line. I don’t think this (or any food) is worth hour-long line.

Red Hook’s Connecticut Style Lobster Roll
Red Hook’s Maine Lobster Roll

BGR – The Burger Joint [5 oz lobster meat]
Surprisingly this burger joint serves amazing lobster rolls made from lump claw and knuckle meat from Maine lobsters. I liked the fact that there was no sauce in the lobster roll. Big chucks of lobster were served on a lettuce leaf placed over three conjoined slider buns with sweet cole-slaw dressing sauce. The bread base for the roll can be improved but simply the lobster and sauce makes this lobster roll worth the try. These are seasonal items and served from June to September depending on the quality of the lobsters.

Bgr Joint’s Lobster Roll

Luke’s Lobster [4 oz lobster meat]
Lobster roll lobster from father Jeff’s sustainable Maine seafood company making it a true sea floor to your plate choice. Chunks of lobster meat are made to order and served with mayo and their secret seasoning on toasted/buttered white bread bun. The butter, mayo and seasoning are all optional if you don’t like them.

Luke’s Lobster Roll

PS. Checkout this stop-motion animation of Luke’s Lobster Roll.

All above three lobster rolls are equally good it their own right. Now, here are some other lobster rolls that I would be hesitant to recommend.

Kinkead’s
For comparison sake, I tried a high end Kinkead’s lobster roll. The lobster roll was not better than any other fast food place. Kinkead’s Maine lobster roll is served with side of coleslaw and homemade French fries. Lobster had bit more mayo than I preferred but loved the fresh aromatic herbs on the lobster. The sides were excellent and lobsters were decent but I would not recommend paying twice for a similar quality lobster roll.

Kinkeads Lobster Roll Platter
Kinkead’s Lobster Roll

Au bon pain  [4 oz lobster meat]
Lobster salad croissant sandwich is made from over a quarter pound of lobster mixed with light mayonnaise. I found this lobster had fewer chunkier pieces and way too much mayo (see photo). I ate it is twice so it’s not that bad but I would choose Red Hook, BGR or Luke’s lobster any day.

 

Au Bon Pain’s Lobster Croissant

Quiznos
Quiznos’ limited time lobster & seafood salad sub looked pretty on the promo but was nothing special than any other fast food sub they serve. These lobster rolls are seasonal and like Au bon pain’s choose them only as the last lobster resort.

Quiznos Lobster Sub

When Quiznos introduced the lobster and seafood salad sub, they promoted with this eco-video which shows setting four protagonist lobsters free into the wild. Choose

The narrator ends the video by saying, “We couldn’t help but wonder if what we’d done was just a big contradiction. It’s not their fault, they taste so good.” Indeed!

Posted in American Food, Fish, Ingredient, Lunch, Meat | 2 Comments »

Cilantrofic fish tacos

Monday, September 13th, 2010

I usually don’t make recipes that I see on the TV. After watching Alton Brown making fish taco (recipe here) in Good Eats, I jumped right in to construct similar fish tacos made from pan grilled fish doused in cilantro. I love cilantro and usually don’t like authentic fried fish in fish tacos. Alton used a classic flavors by adding garlic and lime to cilantro marinade, while adding a optional shot of tequila to intensify the flavors.

The cilantrofic fish tacos

The fish

Tilapia, a neutral fish with a bland flavors is perfect for cilantrofic fish taco. Also, it was the only fish left in my freezer.For one pound of tilapia fillets, I added marinade made from following ingredients.
1 bunch cilantro leaf (yes I add stems too!)
couple of cloves of garlic
zest and juice of 1 lime
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon ground dried cayenne pepper
1 shot of tequila
salt to taste

Blend all the ingredients to paste. Marinade tilapia in it for few minutes to hours. Feel free to change the amount ingredients slightly based on what you want from that meal.

Heat a pan (cast iron pan here). Add some oil and cook fish for just a couple of minutes on each side. The fish surface will change to golden brown color with slight charring. You will know fish is done when you see translucent fish just changes to an opaque color and gets flaky texture. One of the important things to remember is fish cooks very fast and overcooked fish is chewy and not at all appetizing.

Tilapia fillets in cilantro lime marinade and the cooked fillets

The grilled fish was flavorful enough to eat by itself. I may use it sometime as entrée. All I need to make sure is that I don’t invite the cilantro haters for dinner. The hate or love of cilantro is linked to our genes. In 1930s, scientists in DuPont lab discovered that some of the scientists found infused dust of chemical, phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) bitter tasting while others didn’t notice the bitterness. Now phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) is used as a gold standard in testing genetic variation in taste (more here). Scientists have identified a potential chemical for the pleasant cilantro aroma, 2-dodecenal but yet have to show the chemical behind the soapy smell. (more here)

Flour tortillas
I opted to make my own tortillas. In this version of soft flour corn tortillas, instead of adding lard, I added oil because my guests didn’t eat pork. I flavored tortilla dough by adding pinch of salt, ground coriander seeds and ground dried cayenne pepper. Even though coriander seeds come from cilantro plant, it has entirely different flavor. Well, I donno if I can still technically claim that my dish is more cilantorfic by adding coriander.

Seasoned dough for tortillas

Contrary to what I expected, I found making tortillas was the most difficult task in this entrée. I added flour and water in 2 to 1 ratio with 2 tablespoon fat per cup of flour. I also realized that it’s difficult to roll out perfectly circular tortillas, rolled tortillas stick to surface even being dusted with flour, and it’s cooked on a high heat within 30 second, each side. Sorry Alton, your recommendation of 4 minutes per side resulted in crispy tortilla/pita chips for my hummus. It’s amazing how seemingly simple things like making a perfect tortilla can be most challenging – well – a good topic for a separate future post.

Making flour tortillas

The crema

I made fresh Mexican fresh cream, known as crema, or white sauce for fish taco by making yogurt out of cream in a yogurt maker (see my saffron yogurt post). I seasoned it by adding a pinch (or few) of cumin/coriander, cayenne pepper and salt. If you don’t have a yogurt maker, add a teaspoon of yogurt in a cup of cream, mix and store in warm place for 1 hour. If you really don’t feel like making cream yogurt, get a cup of Greek yogurt and add the seasonings. Also, chipotle chili in adobo sauce like the ones I used for making chipotle chile verde would go well with the sauce. Sadly, I didn’t have it when I was making fish tacos.

Seasoned cream (except salt) for the white yogurt sauce

The guacamole

I love guacamole in my tacos. I used avocadoes, lime, onion, and tomatoes. Instead of the regular salt, I used Himalayan pink salt (also known as black salt) because of its tangy pungent flavor. Honestly, I am not sure if the pink salt added any flavors, but it didn’t ruin the guacamole an we all guest loved its taste.

Some ingredients for guacamole

Guacamole is easy to make and best when made fresh. If you are expecting guests, you could do time consuming steps, such as chopping onions, tomatoes cilantro and garlic etc, ahead of time. Wait and add (and mash) avocados, lime juice and salt just before eating.

Making fresh guacamole

The crunchy cabbage

I find crunch from vegetables like cabbage an integral part of fish taco experience. A silky texture of soft tortilla, flaky fish texture, and creaminess of sauce/guacamole is balanced with a perfect crunch. I immersed shredded cabbage in lukewarm water, and added a pinch of salt, few pinches of lime zest and freckles of black pepper. After immersing in water for a few minutes, throw out the water. I found adding these simple steps and ingredients made it more flavorful and brought out its bright color.

Crunchy lightly seasoned cabbage

The Fish Taco assembly

Get flour tortillas (1), add white sauce (2), scoop of guacamole (3), grilled fish (4), shredded cabbage (5), more white sauce (6), fold and eat (7).

Assembly of a fish taco

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Posted in American Food, Fish, Mexican Food | 16 Comments »

The Burmese restaurant

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

I first went to Myanmar Restaurant in Falls Church VA few years back. I was not immensely impressed. The food was decent but not great enough to go again due to its location. Basically, it didn’t live up to my friend’s stellar review. For me, Burmese cuisine uses many of pan-Indian spices with components of Thai cuisines. Some Nepali expats find similarities between some of the Burmese dishes with their own cuisine.

This time, on insistence from another friend, who might have heard from the same group of friends, I went to the restaurant again. I already had sushi before going to Myanmar Restaurant, so I was not hungry. My plan was to either get a drink and/or share an appetizer.

I passed up the drink. Everyone chose Singha beer. If you have never had this Thai beer, it is a lager style beer with somewhat light sweet aftertaste like Jamaican Red Stripe.

Singha Beer from Thailand

We started with “crispy chicken” appetizer, which is boneless chickens in thick spongy coat of batter served with a broth-like sauce. The chicken appetizer came with 6 pieces. Since we went in a group of 7 people, one of a friend N’chal asked if it is possibility to get an extra piece. The waitress gave a polite smile but didn’t say yes. But our crispy chicken did come with the extra piece.

Burmese inspired crispy chicken with sauce

“Mango salad” was thinly sliced pieces of tart mango, onion and cabbage. It had crushed peanuts and cilantro. I am sure it was coated with roasted ground chickpea flour because giving it the nutty flavor. This is perhaps the most uniquely Burmese dish. I highly recommend any of Burmese style salad unless you are allergic to chickpeas.

My share of Burmese mango salad

I was supposed to share the “fillet fish curry” with M’deep. The fish curry came in a tomato broth and we had option of choosing salmon, catfish, or tilapia. I believe we chose catfish. The fish curry was good enough that Mr. M’deep, who was slightly hesitant about spiciness of the dish, decided to finish majority of it even though it was spicy hot.

Burmese fish with tomato based broth

Most of us went there for their “mutton curry” (goat) which is made of curry and onion based sauce. The dish lived up to its expectation. It was hot but spices were balanced well and meat was cooked perfectly tender. Unfortunately, they ran out of the mutton dish and had only one serving. We shared and tried another dish called “chili chicken”, which is a hot spicy chicken dish with onion and chilies. Cucumber served in side did help to cool off the extra heat from the spices. This dish is recommended with reservation to those who can stomach the heat.

Burmese mutton curry
Spicy hot Burmese chili chicken

A few other dishes we got such as sautéed beef kabob was average. Everything else seemed reasonably well prepared and priced in this mom and pop establishment. I haven’t tried any other Burmese restaurants in the DC area (Burma Restaurant‎ in DC and Mandalay Restaurant & Café in Silver Spring, MD), so can’t give my opinion based on comparison. Nevertheless, I would definitely go to Myanmar Restaurant again. If you want to go there I recommend their fish, mutton, and out of all, for their unique salads.

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Posted in Appetizers, Fish, Restaurants, Salad, Vegetarian | 1 Comment »

My take on Bengali fish curry

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

Bengali food, for me, always evokes images of fragrant fish curry with spicy sauce served over hot bed of basmati rice. Bengali food encompasses the food of historical Bengal, now divided into country Bangladesh and state of West Bengal in India.

Bengal is full of rivers and consequently most of Bengali fish are fresh water fish. Until recently, marine fish were considered somewhat inferior. Floodplains of Bengal have been growing rice for more than four millennia. According to a decade old World Bank estimate, an average Bangladeshi gets 70% of calories from rice. Indeed there’s a saying that goes as “machhe bhate bengali”, which roughly translates into “a Bengali is made of fish and rice”.

Bengali fish jhol

There is no standard way of cooking Bengali fish. There are thousands of ways to cook a fish in Bengal and millions of families have their own unwritten family recipes.  One of the famous ways to cook method is called “jhol”, which translates to liquid, and conceptually a curried stew with vegetable. Fish is simmered slowly with herbs and vegetables so that flavor permeates – something like French bouillabaisse.

My take on a simple Bengali fish curry included a neutral flavor fish, such as tilapia cooked with Panch Phoron spice in onion and tomato stew – a tribute to Bengali machhe (fish) jhol.

I understand that most people don’t have Panch Phoron in their cabinets. Even most Indian cooks might not have it. Few years ago, I saw my friends Sr’na and Pr’nta cooking with it. They were shocked that, being a self-proclaimed Indian food connoisseur, I didn’t know about Panch Phoron. My ego was hurt but balanced was restored when some of good Indian cooks also didn’t know about it. Then, I realized it’s a regional spice. Panch Phoran is a spice blend made from five (panch) whole spices; fenugreek, nigella seeds, mustard seeds, fennel seeds, and celery seeds or cumin seeds. It’s easily found in any of your local Indian grocery store. Even if you don’t have it, for purpose of this Bengali jhol dish, you can make your own with three, instead of five, main ingredients; fennel seeds, cumin seeds, and mustard seeds. Remember the keyword here, use “whole seed” not “ground spice”.

My Bengali fish recipe is so simple that it can be written in just one sentence. Heat oil on medium heat, fry spices for few seconds, sauté sliced onion till golden brown, and add chopped tomatoes, add salt, bring stew to boil, add cut fish (tilapia), turn off heat after a minute, and serve after few minutes of simmering. Try to add at least same amount (not more than twice) of veggies (including onion and tomatoes) as the fish. To get started, limit ½ tablespoon of spice mix per realistic serving of the dish. Remember that you can always add spices later but it’s impossible to remove it. Optionally, you can also sauté a few cloves of garlic and shreds of ginger with onion. One other thing you must remember is not to overcook the fish.

Bengali fish and rice platter with lentils and spinach

This is not a typical highly spicy creamy heavy dish served in Indian restaurants. The aromatic sweet flavors of fennel seeds, curry flavor of cumin seeds and mild spicy/hot flavor of mustard seeds go well naturally with tilapia and onion/tomatoes to make a very pleasant and light dish.

Panch Phoron’s image is from food-india.com.

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Posted in Bengali Food, Fish, Indian food | No Comments »